Business cards > Rolodex > Outlook > Facebook
Contact management is the killer app of a real estate agent's business. Basically, it's nothing more than huge databases of potential clients... targeted with some sort of drip marketing campaign amid the hopes that one of them will think of calling up when they decide to buy or sell a home.
Here's the latest on contact management... and a few tidbits on business obsolescence:
BUSINESS CARDS are disposable
I threw out every business card I stockpiled in a drawer last month. Here's how I now manage my contacts:
- All my most relevant and current contact data today are contained in a database at HighriseHQ, an online contact management system. Any other online system will likely do.
- Most of my contacts in the two social networks I participate in - Linked In or Facebook
- are bloggers and others who have simply embraced social networking. I
barely maintain these networks, just adding in the relationships for
now.
- All of my past contacts are backed up in Outlook. Note that I now use Outlook as a backup data source
because most of the social networks and online address books have made
porting into it easy. Highrise allows me to upload vcards into Outlook
once I've ascertained that a new contact becomes relevant.
- I backed up all my
contacts between 2000-2005 into a Yahoo address book. I was in the tech
industry during most of these years and the networks were quite
different, yet I want a record of the people I knew. I don't use Yahoo
address book any more because I want to keep this data as if it were in
a time capsule. I think I'll do another address book backup of all my
Outlook data from 2004 to present with another Yahoo account that I use
to receive junk mail.
It's a headache to add people's contact info into any database, or scan business cards... frankly, I try not to hand out business cards and politely ask people to send me an email which will generally have their contact info. I don't like Plaxo or other comprehensive contact systems because I don't want to keep updated with the 1,000's of people I met during the first dot-com era eight years ago.
I don't see the need to use more than one contact management application like Salesforce, Plaxo or ACT. For the same reason, I believe that only a very few, if not just one social network will eventually be the repository for everybody's contact information, similar to how telephone books were the main repository 30 years ago. That main social network seems to be Facebook.
Is FACEBOOK really the next gen phone book?
"Pushing myself to the edge to try to keep up with the Facebook insanity made me realize something: why exactly am I using these social networks?" says Jason Calacanis - one of the most networked people on the internet. He's so in, there's a Facebook group called People who can't help but like Jason Calacanis.
And he decided to commit Facebook bankruptcy (aka "to hell with it")... as a busy person, I might have the same reaction to the mindless administrative tasks of accepting friend invitations. However, for most normal people, the social networking sites play the roles of contact management, network management and communication platform all in one.
Scoble replied best: "Facebook is the modern day rolodex. It is the replacement for the business card."
But it's more than a Rolodex...
- It's easy to network with others when you know a lot about others, even their birthdays for the astrologically inclined.
- It's easy to cold
call others when you have a connection, even if it's a virtual one,
i.e. someone you've never physically met. In fact, it's easy to cold
call without the connection.
- It's easy to
initiate dialogue in this highly democratized atmosphere that social
networks create. Jason Calacanis, or the CEOs of our RE 2.0 companies
are easy to approach.
- But in the end, whether a dialogue takes off or not... that still requires business sense.
Finally, keep moving...
Kids say email is, like, soooo dead
New Forms of Online Communication Spell End of Email Era in Korea
And kids and Korea (one of the most internet savvy countries in the world) know what the future is... email is used to correspond with "elders". If I were an older, veteran real estate agent, I would learn how to communicate on social networks and develop Web 2.0 presence with a blog because younger people will value the experience and knowledge of a veteran, particularly if they see that the veteran understands how to "work the internet".
Technorati Tags: outlook, rolodex, facebook, contact management, social networking, plaxo, salesforce, highrisehq, real estate marketing
I'm tossing up between going heavily into Facebook or Top Producer.
Any thoughts?
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I didn't Top Producer had a social network... I stated at Inman - social networks... go with the biggest ones and those are Facebook and Linked IN
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I am just starting to research the blogging industry and trying to educate myself as to this being a viable resource for building my business in sales in real estate. Deals are made from blogging and using Facebook and Linkedin?
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