You have a million things you HAVE to do TODAY. You need to finish your paperwork, call some clients, send a newsletter, read an article, do some more paperwork, call that icky client, start your taxes, arggg!

I can tell you that there are probably only two or three things that you HAVE to do today to grow your business, sell something or get a new prospect. Those are the only things you HAVE to do today! (If you owe money to the IRS you may HAVE to talk to them today – you have my permission!)

So if you only have a few things you HAVE to do, you must WANT to do all that other busy work you have set up for yourself, right? We humans are funny creatures, we like to keep busy, to feel needed, to do important work. If we have lots to do we can justify to ourselves not getting some vital things done.

That ends today people! Today you need to figure out the top 3 things that you need to do for your business and EVERY day, before you do anything else, those things have to be done!

For my business, my top three things are:

1. Lead generating – writing blog posts, attending mastermind sessions, writing articles, emailing prospects
2. Strategic planning – getting the systems in place so that when opportunity knocks I am ready
3. Writing Ebooks or speaking in person – this is my actual physical work!

If you are a realtor, yours may look like this:

• Lead generating – holding open houses, blogging about a neighborhood, sending out emails to your database, sending a newsletter, calling your prospects or clients and asking for referrals, attending network events
• Strategic planning – organizing your calendar, targeting neighborhoods or niches, working on your database, setting up automatic emails to your prospects
• Actual Realtor Work – taking listings, signing buyer broker agreements, showing houses, servicing your listings, writing contracts, negotiating contracts, and attending closings

Doing anything other than those things is a waste of your valuable time! You need to make sure that something from those lists is on your calendar every day!

Write these things out and hang them on the wall. Anytime something comes in that seems urgent, hold it up to your list and see if it something you HAVE to do…you may be surprised how much you have been doing that is unnecessary busywork that you just have a habit of doing.

Related posts:

1. Entrepreneur Marketing Focus and Motivation
2. Where should you spend your time?
3. Website and Blog Design – The Wrong Things

So now that you know what a database is (your database a how-to), let’s talk about how to talk to your database! I was going to do all of the contact ways in one post BUT then email part started getting pretty long so I will split it up into a multi-part post!

General Thoughts

Having a database and just using it as a mailing list is just not right! If you are only using it to print out mailing labels, you can make a change that will really have an impact on your business. A great database, excel spreadsheet or solid Outlook program can mean more money in your pocket!!!

If you have categories for your contacts, make sure to send the right emails to the right people. I send general small business information to my whole database, but when I have something real estate related I send it to ONLY the realtors NOT everyone!

Emails

You should have a list of email addresses for your clients. I am NOT a spammer and only believe in sending information that is helpful to my clients. Some recent emails I have sent:

• Information about an upcoming webinar on Listingbook, inviting them to sign up for the class (sent to people who have attended my Listingbook classes)
• Thank you for attending my class email, WITH a followup email campaign that attendees can use to contact their clients
• Thank you’s to people who attended my booth at a recent networking event
• Emails through my blog when I post a new message (I use feedburner.com for this since it is automatic)
• Email sent to all prospects when we changed the model of our 33 Touch Program for realtors 

All of these things benefited the recipient of my email. None of them was a blatant advertisement for my product or service. In this day and age, no one has time to study an advertisement that tells them what my product offers, makes them figure out how it will benefit them and then ask them to do something that they weren’t already inclined to do!

I think that the “rules” of email have changed! Sending a long and informative email WILL WORK – IF you are sending something worthwhile to the reader. Sending an email on Saturday will work (I sent out the Listingbook followup email on Saturday night and got 7 responses almost immediately) – you don’t have to time your emails as much as you used to have to IF you provide an item of value when you send it!

To make even more of your emails, make sure to add a little something to your signature line! I have a link to this blog on every email that I send out. I get A LOT of click throughs from mail programs from this. I also will sometimes add a links to a recent blog post if it is something really exciting! It should look like this:

– 
Tara Jacobsen
727.415.9165
Marketing Consultant, Speaker & Trainer
Marketing Artfully / Listingbook / Keller Williams Realty

Visit my blog www.MarketingArtfully.com for great marketing tips!
__

Doing just these few things can make a huge difference in how well your emails are received! To review: send interesting or valuable information, don’t be a spammer, send out targeted emails to the correct people and lastly, SEND MORE EMAILS! They are free and can be fun!!!

Related posts:

1. Your Database – A How-To!
2. What is database marketing? Solving small business marketing problems!
3. Your Favorite Medium

Okay, so this week two people in one day sent me an email and said, “All you teach is great BUT how do I get a database and work it?” So here goes….small business database help!

What is a database?

A database is a collection of you clients, prospects and business partners. It can be a full blown database like Act, Goldmine, Access, The Wise Agent, or Top Producer. It can also be an Excel spreadsheet or even a Word document with a list of the people you want to be in contact with.

The reason it is nice to have a database database is that you can attach notes, schedule appointments and followup calls and generally organize all your information together. The reason NOT to have a database database to start is that you spend SO much time working ON it that you don’t have anyone to put IN it!

How To Use Your Database

So you have a database, what next. You need to set it up so that you can easily find people in it! The MOST important thing is to put people in catagories. You might have a number of different ones – here are a few to consider:

• Lead – Current or “A Lead” – These are the most important people to your business since they are potential business and income for you. Make sure you have a designation so you can find these people easily to write, call or email.
• Advocate – These are the people who are the next most important to your business. They are the ones that think that you and your company are great AND tell everyone they know to use you! They are the ones to take to lunch or send flowers on their birthday!
• Past Client – They have proved that they will work with you and purchase your services. It is SO much easier to sell to these people than to try and find new people in the marketplace.
• Lead – Prospect – They are not ready to buy right now but they are willing to hear your pitch and you want to make sure not to lose them before they make a buying decision.
• Lead – Suspect – They have answered an ad or come in off your website. They say they want to do business with you but they are not ready or able to make a commitment at this point to use you. Spend the LEAST amount of time and money on these people!

DO NOT think that you cannot have people in more than one catagory! A lead that hasn’t even bought from you yet could refer a ton of business to you as an advocate.

How To Work Your Database

To start, you need to set up some system to prompt you talk to your Leads and your Advocates. If you are using a database, schedule an appointment to talk to EVERYONE in you database once at least on the phone. After that you can schedule periodic calls and augment that with emails and mailings.

You could also put important dates in your database, giving you the opportunity to contact your clients periodically throughout the year. This could be birthday, anniversary, date that they adopted their pet or bought their house.

I will talk soon about ways to manage the contact part of the process. For right now, get a database, get it set up the way you would like and start calling your people. Make sure that their name, email, address and phone numbers are all correct!

More Help!

Your Database – How To Use It For Emails

Related posts:

1. What is database marketing? Solving small business marketing problems!
2. Your Database – How Use It For Emails!