By: Sharran Srivatsaa

1. Coffee meeting
2. CMA 2 times per year
3. Interview your list
4. Social love
5. Reconnect with an Amazon book and a request for a coffee meeting

We know that referrals can be the lifeblood and often times the lifeline of a business. If you’re like most agents, from time to time you get stuck on how to stay in front of them. We can only call so many times and outright ask for referrals.

What is the worst line we can hear from our sphere of influence? “Yes yes yes, I know. If I know anyone thinking of buying or selling I will call you first.” At this point, the writing is on the wall. You’re way out of rapport and your friend/past client thinks all you are calling for is to receive, not offer.

None of us want to be in this position, so how do we still maintain a top of mind status with our SOI without being too salesy?

After growing a brokerage 10x before it was acquired by Douglas Elliman, selling hundreds of homes, and conducting over 7,000 coaching calls with the nation’s top performing agents, Sharran Srivatsaa and Steve Olson will uncover 5 things you can do right now to activate your sphere of influence.

1. Schedule as many coffee meetings as you can.

You only have one goal. Sit down and simply connect. Focus on their life, their interests, how their job is going. If you have enough rapport, they will ask how yours is. Don’t mistake this as an invitation to ask for a referral. They are just reciprocating your ask. If the meeting goes well, you will naturally end up with the referral talk at the end.

Sample Script via text message or email:

“Hi John, it has been a while since I have seen you! I would love to catch up over a cup of coffee… I am happy to come to a Starbucks near you.”

Tip: Through the law of reciprocity, if you ask how you can bring them business or value to their career, they will ask the same.

2. Two CMAs Per year

This is a very simple exercise, but there is a hook. Start with creating an in-depth CMA for each person in your SOI. Make sure you print it out, in color on high-quality paper. You can mail or personally drop this off. We would NOT recommend emailing it. Remember, our goal is to stand out and stay top of mind, not to simply remind them that we are a REALTOR. Here is where the hook comes in. Include a cover letter on different paper. Linen always works well. Let them know your thoughts on the CMA and include this script:

If I could show you how our marketing strategies will help get you a better number than the enclosed value, would you be open to discussing what selling your home would look like?

3. Your SOI list could be your best media source.

Go through your entire SOI list and pick out the vendors you could potentially use in real estate. Who are the marketers, the entrepreneurs, the sales professionals? Reach out to each one of them and schedule an interview that they can use for personal branding and that you can use to send to your SOI list. You could even brand this as a series.

Here are some of the things we would focus on:

• What do they do?
• What is their best marketing/growth strategy?
• What books are they reading?
• What are their biggest challenges?
• What did they learn from these challenges and how could they help others?
• How do they get referred?
• What do they need from the business community?
• Their morning routine

4. Give Social Love

This one is the easiest. We are all on social media (sometimes more than we would like). What easier way to stay top of mind than to listen? Notice we didn’t say post and wait. For everyone on your SOI list that you are connected with on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, make sure you are commenting, praising, liking (or hearting) posts in a thoughtful way every day. Give compliments.

The best way to do this is to actually scroll through your feed for 5-10 minutes a day, stop when you see a post from your sphere or past client and go in and write a comment that is thoughtful and has multiple sentences. When there are 20 comments in a thread, we always “optically” go read and remember the longest comment to be the “longest” comment in a string of likes and hearts.

Tip: Do you really want to go over the edge? When someone asks for something, deliver it. “I really wish I had a pizza right now” Call up dominos and have one delivered to their office.

5. Send your favorite books on Amazon to your list and follow up with a coffee meeting.

Do you read? Maybe you listen on Audible? Think of the last book you consumed and why it had such an impact on you. Don't think so much about fiction books. What growth books are you into? Why are you into them? Pick your top 10 most referring or referable people in your SOI and send them a copy of the book through Amazon with a note on it.

“This was one of my top reads in 2019 - I thought of you when I read it. I hope you’ll enjoy this as much as I did.”

The note doesn’t have to be long, but it needs to be clear.

After they have had the book for two weeks, follow up with them again and ask for a coffee meeting. Notice the loop back to the most important part of our business, which is being belly to belly… and the non-threatening coffee meeting is your answer because more appointments are the single greatest indicator of more contracts.

Remember in most cases the agent who wins is the one who is top of mind. You can't sell to people who don't know you. These strategies, when implemented with care and consistency, have gotten some of our client's amazing results.

Sharran Srivatsaa is the CEO of Kingston Lane, the world’s first push-button execution platform for real estate.