How do you reconnect with past clients?
To answer that question, let me tell you a quick story. A week before the recording of this video, one of my team’s agents reached out to me and told me she had great news. A client she wanted to reach out to for many months called her saying they wanted a CMA because they might be getting a new job. If the client got that new job, they wanted my agent to list their home. My first thought was that this agent was really lucky. Then I asked her: If you were thinking about this client for many months, why didn’t you just reach out to them? She told me she felt bad she hadn’t talked to him in about a year and didn’t know what to say.
We all want to stay in great connection with our past clients and have those clients refer us new business, but the reality is that life happens. You might get stuck in a rut, have a major life change, and lose focus. Maybe you get so busy that you forget to stay in touch with certain people. For those reasons, a lot of agents struggle to stay in touch with their past clients.
The good news is, I have three steps you can follow to reconnect with past clients:
1. Prepare for the call. Most agents are high on the ‘I’ spectrum of the DISC personality assessment. In other words, they like to stay in touch with people. When a conversation starts rolling and good feelings start flowing, these agents want to continue the connection. However, if you’re very busy or at a stage in your life where you don’t have space for another connection, don’t make commitments you can’t fulfill. When I say “prepare for the call,” I mean prepare for what you’ll do as you reconnect. If you’re not in a position to meet for drinks or have dinner together, end the call by saying something like, “It was great reconnecting with you—I’ll be talking to you soon.”
2. Make the call. The script can be as simple as this (let’s assume the client’s name is Fred): “Hey Fred, you know I’ve been thinking about you. How’s it going? What’s up?” When I shared this script with the agent from the story above, she assumed she’d then have to apologize to the client for not reaching out all those months. First of all, we’re not the center of our clients’ world. Most of them won’t be mad at us for not reaching out unless they called us about a specific problem and we didn’t respond. They might forget about us, but they’re not mad. If, however, you do have a client who decides to give you a hard time for not staying in touch, you’ll find the solution in the next step…
3. Be grateful for the reconnection. When you speak to them, just acknowledge that you’ve been busy and haven’t stayed in touch, and tell them you’re grateful for the reconnection. After that, celebrate moving forward!
The only action you have to take is to look at your past transactions, identify who you haven’t stayed in touch with, and reconnect. This is vitally important because it takes more energy, time, and money to generate new trust and referrals than it ever will to service your past clients—those who already trust you. I know we get excited about the opportunity for growth because growth is new, but growth can also mean a deeper connection with the past. Connecting with the past is also usually a better and more efficient use of resources. You can be an agent who has more referrals than you know what to do with, but you have to use some of these tools.
As always, if you have questions about this or any real estate topic, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to speak with you.
