A short vblog by Andrew Lam (Lam Team, ReMaxGold) advising new real estate agents to build their CRM by starting with their sphere of influence. He recommends listing 50–100 people across categories—past jobs, school, shared hobbies, and home-service providers—and regularly asking a simple referral question ("Who do you know who's looking to buy or sell a home right now?"). He also advises adding these contacts to a CRM and staying in touch to become the trusted local real-estate resource.
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Hey, it's Andrew Lam here with the Lam team at ReMaxGold. Today we're going to be talking about building out your CRM with your sphere of influence. Hey, thanks for joining us again. This is Andrew lam with the Lam team at ReMax. And today we're talking about building out your CRM with your sphere of influence. A lot of times new agents come to us and they ask, you know, how do I get started? What do I need to do? And I always say, start with your sphere of influence. You need to first of all figure out the 50 to 100 people you know or who know you that you can likely reach out to and say, hey, do you know anyone who happens to be looking to buy or sell a home? So really, starting there is the best place to start because it's a lot easier to convince your friends, family, and, you know, people who know, like, and trust you to work with you as opposed to strangers or Internet leads or people you have to convince that you are the right person to help them buy or sell a home. So you always. And it's way cheaper to start out with your sphere of influence. So what we tend to do is tell them to play a little game called who do I Know? Basically, it's asking on a couple of different categories. Who do I know in these places? So, number one, who do I know from my past job, whether it was sales or maybe you were a cashier or in some type of customer service, who do you know that was a co worker, someone who was a supervisor, boss, who you can reach out to and say, hey, this is what I'm doing now and I'd really love it if you could help me build my business and help start my career off while I'm young, hungry, and ready to get it done. So, you know, I tend to joke around and say, you know, before I become a lazy real estate agent, how about you reach out to me and while I'm hungry and ready to get your home sold or ready to find you, to that perfect place. So it's a little joke because most people think real estate agents are lazy, but it really gets a lot of laughter and really builds some endearment and some rapport with those people that you're already close to. Secondly, you can ask, who do I know from school or from an education program that I went to? So whether it was college or your real estate classes, if you took them in person or even if you did something previously like you went to WyoTech, who is it that you had that shared Experience with who you can reach out to now and say, once again, who do you know who's happened to be looking to buy or sell a home? Who do you know that's looking to buy or sell a home right now? That's the one question we always ask to everyone in our sphere of influence. So it's who do you know who happens to be looking to buy or sell a home right now that you can, that you can refer me to? Or another great way to ask it is who do you know that I should know? Because people understand that the reason you're asking is because you want referrals. Another great category is you know, who do you know who has a shared hobby or interest, whether it's going to the gym, playing city league basketball, hiking, going, you know, for runs around Lagoon Valley, Anyone who has a shared interest, a common interest typically is someone who does know, like and trust you and someone who you can either become that. Go to resource for, for real estate, let's say they need someone who is an electrician or a handyman. They can ask you and you can be that source of information for them, or you can simply ask them, you know, who do they happen to know who's buying or selling? That brings us to another point. Who do you know because you own a home? So that brings up the handyman, the electrician, the plumber, the painter, the roof guy, all those people who actually benefit from a real estate transaction and who probably know other folks who are getting ready to buy or sell a home right now. So it's great to keep in touch with all those people. They don't have to be personal friends. They could just be acquaintances. They could even be people you run into at the grocery store. You can always ask your cashier, hey, who do you know who happens to be looking to buy or sell a home right now? It's a question I never stop asking. And, and because of that, we get a lot of sphere of influence business. So those are just some quick tips on how you can build your sphere of influence. And of course put all of them into a CRM, some kind of contact relationship management system that allows you to email these people and contact them on a regular basis to let them know that you're not just in real estate, but you're busy, you're being productive, and that you are that go to source for anything real estate related. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. Thank you again for joining us on our video blog. Have a great day. Sam.
