On today’s 268th episode of my Monday Morning Pep Talk, I'll be revisiting a topic that is crucial to an efficient and streamlined CRM. When building a marketing, gifting, or follow-up strategy, success comes down to one simple principle: delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. On the flip side, sending the wrong message to the wrong person at the wrong time isn’t just ineffective - it can actually harm your brand.
Before I jump into today’s call, I want to remind you of my professional purpose: to help you, the full-service, full-fee Advisor, optimize your productivity and become the best version of yourself. Why? Because “Happy Advisors Sell More Real Estate.” I do that by teaching you how to handle the challenges and opportunities you face every day. When you can effectively manage the situations that arise daily in your business, you’ll be more productive and live a life that reflects the best version of yourself. My ask is that you listen as if you’re in a one-on-one coaching session with me, either in my office or on a call.
The First Step: Building Your CRM Segments
Last week in MMPT Episode #267, I covered the foundation of an effective CRM strategy: organizing your contacts into five key lists. These segments help you prioritize outreach and ensure you’re connecting with the right people in a meaningful way:
- Top 100 – Your most valued clients and contacts.
- Hot List – Prospects ready to make a move soon.
- Warm List – Future clients who need nurturing.
- Top 100 Referral Partners – Key partners, both local and national.
- Collaborative Brokers – Trusted brokers in your local market.
The Next Level: Adding Tags
To truly refine your messaging, there’s one more critical step - tagging. Tags add another layer of filtering within your CRM, making it easy to match the right message to the right person at the right time. To implement tags in your CRM, start by identifying key attributes that define your contacts - such as interests, transaction history, location, or referral source - and create a standardized list of tags that align with your business strategy. Then, systematically update your existing database by assigning relevant tags to each contact, and moving forward, ensure every new entry is tagged appropriately to enable precise and effective communication.
With the right hashtags in place, your marketing, gifting, and follow-up strategies become significantly more effective. You’ll be able to:
- Reach out to people with common interests (dog lovers, cat lovers, sports fans, travel, cooking, music, outdoor activities).
- Build out a holiday card list quickly and efficiently.
- Target outreach based on location, neighborhood, price point, or property association.
- Send market data and research to the right audience.
- Market a property or buyer need to an incredibly specific group.
- Improve conversation rates, email open rates, and overall marketing ROI.
- Build stronger trust with your clients and contacts.
By leveraging a CRM like ReChat or Cloze, you can send personalized, merged emails to groups based on shared interests, ensuring each message resonates with its recipient. Tagging will be a crucial tool in maintaining quality relationships over the lifetime of your business.
The Importance of Taking Notes
Commit to taking detailed notes and memorializing every conversation you have with a client or prospect - it’s one of the most powerful habits you can develop. Each interaction holds valuable insights about their goals, preferences, and life changes, and if you don’t document them, those details fade over time. By consistently logging key takeaways in your CRM, you create a living record that allows you to personalize follow-ups, anticipate needs, and demonstrate that you truly listen and care. This practice not only strengthens relationships but also gives you a competitive edge, ensuring that no opportunity or important detail ever slips through the cracks.
The Challenge
I challenge you to make a commitment - starting today - that every time you connect with a client, you update their CRM profile with relevant details from your conversation. Whether it’s a life event, a new interest, or a shift in their real estate needs, these small updates compound over time, turning your CRM into a powerful, intelligent asset rather than just a database of names and numbers. The more you refine and enrich your contacts with tags and notes, the more valuable your CRM becomes, allowing you to deliver hyper-personalized outreach, deepen relationships, and ultimately increase your effectiveness as a trusted advisor. Don’t just collect data - use it to strengthen your business with every interaction.
Your CRM is more than just a contact list - it’s the foundation of a high-performance, relationship-driven business. By segmenting your database, implementing strategic tags, and consistently updating notes after every interaction, you transform your CRM into a powerful tool that helps you deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. Thoughtful, intentional follow-up isn’t just good business; it’s what sets top advisors apart. Commit to this process, and over time, you’ll see stronger connections, higher engagement, and a business that thrives on trust and authenticity. The work you put into your CRM today will pay dividends for years to come.
