The Realtor’s Guide to Working Your Sphere of Influence in 2021

Your sphere of influence (SOI) is the key to your success and potential in the real estate industry.

What is my real estate sphere of influence?

It’s quite simply the set of all of the people you know. This includes the people you’ve known all your life, but also your loose connections and acquaintances.

How does this help me?

Sphere of Influence marketing is like playing the real estate edition of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Think about everyone who wants to buy or sell a house right now in your market. Once you start looking at the people you know and who they know, you’ll find that you’re directly or fairly closely connected to quite a few of these individuals.

So when you’re facing the question of “how do I start my career as a real estate agent”, or “how do I get better real estate leads”, the answer lies with the people you know. Even if the people you know aren’t buying or selling right now, they will:

• Help you reach home buyers and sellers in your market that you wouldn’t otherwise know about or be able to reach, and

• Provide warm leads and act as your quality assurance, so you’re well on your way to winning those leads’ business.

Especially when you’re first getting started as a real estate agent and don’t have testimonials from past clients, testimonials of your character from the people you know will fill this gap and earn you business.

Why does it work?

Familiarity leads to trust.

This phenomenon is called the mere-exposure effect, and there have been a number of studies that show how repeated exposure translates to purchases. (Like this, this, and this.) That’s why you’ll see popular real estate coaches like Tom Ferry, Brian Buffini, and Larry Kendall of Ninja Selling talking about your sphere of influence.

So to build your real estate business, you need to start with the people who already trust you. By letting them know what you're doing and how you can help them, you will earn their business. Even better, when the people in their sphere of influence hear about you, this 'second-hand trust' because of your mutual connections will earn you their business as well.

It’s not enough to just tell your friends and family what you're up to these days. There can be a reluctance to actually engage transactionally with you at first. This means that your job is to meaningfully engage with the people you know repeatedly over time to overcome that ambivalence and earn their referrals.

By working your SOI in this manner, you'll get current listings and deals and while also setting yourself up for future ones.

How to get started?

1. Make a list

Write down everyone you know. This includes:

• Family

• Friends

• Neighbors

• Neighborhood organizations

• Volunteer organizations

• Other Community Organizations

• Former Classmates

  • College/University

  • High School

  • Elementary School

• Place of Worship

• Sports/Recreation team

• Local businesses you frequent/ Service providers you use, such as:

  • Hairdresser

  • Masseur

  • Nail/eyelash technician

  • Car Mechanic

  • Farmer’s market vendors

  • Plumber

  • Electrician

  • Doctor

  • Dentist

  • Café

• Past vendors used (ex. at your wedding or other major event):

  • Florist

  • Photographer

  • Caterer

  • Venue owner

  • DJ/Band

  • Officiant

• Online Networks and Hobby Communities

2. Outreach

While you might have come up with quite a long list of individuals, avoid taking shortcuts at this step. The most common trap here is to send out something generic. While your closer connections will likely respond to you regardless, you’re not going to get as far with everyone else. The outreach must be personalized, and ideally your first contact is over the phone. While you do have sales targets to hit, don’t let that rush you into making mistakes. Focus on the quality of your chat over calling as many people as you can as quickly as you can.

Now, we’ve come across some pretty awful sphere of influence sales scripts that centered the Realtor instead of the person they were talking to. The point with sphere of influence marketing is to:

• Deepen your connections,

• Build more trust, leading to

• Better referrals and increased sales because the people you know are confident in your ability to navigate this large financial and personal decision.

Your initial touch point needs to focus on that first step – building and deepening your connection with real estate clients.

When you call people up and ask them how they’re doing, half-listening because you’re trying to rush to the sales pitch portion of your call will come across loud and clear to the person on the other line. Don’t do this.

Do this instead

• Remind them how they know you if it’s someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time. 

• Show genuine interest in them: be present, engage, listen, and respond. Eliminate any potential distractions before you pick up the phone.

• Provide them with something of value Identify any opportunities to help them out. When they tell you how they’re doing, is there any opportunity in there for you to do them a favor, make an introduction, or otherwise add value to their life such as by conducting a Current Market Analysis? Take note and do it.

• Let the person you’re speaking to know about what you’re up to lately, specifically about your career and what you can help people with.

• Have an ask, such as passing your contact info to anyone they may know that’s in the real estate market right now. If they’re uncomfortable with this or say they don’t currently know anyone in the market, you can still leverage their network by asking them to like and share a social media post. Make sure this social media post has a call to action.

• Set the table for follow-ups. Express your desire to stay in touch, and specify when and how you’ll be reaching out to them next. Schedule this so you don’t forget.

• Send a hand-written note thanking them for their time in speaking to you and catching up, mention something specific from the call, and include your contact details. You can address this by hand, or use the mailing label generator.

(By the way - if you’re a new agent or are wanting to improve your meeting game, we have more actionable tips on conducting real estate meetings and talking to clients.)

3. Consistency is key

We know, we know: this is something drilled into your head by your broker or real estate coach. But seriously, keep track of your correspondence and schedule regular follow-ups. Staying top-of-mind is going to take effort on your part, but it will set you up for a massively productive book of business.

If your current system of setting up and tracking follow-ups isn’t working for you, take a step back to evaluate what your needs are and try another real estate CRM based on that.

4. Vary the medium you use

After that initial call, don’t just stick people on an e-mail drip campaign and forget about them. Instead, meet them where they are – whether that be via the phone, e-mail, video chat, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Change it up periodically so your messages or posts don’t get caught in the noise and ignored.

5. Expand your real estate sphere 

The list of people you may be able to help expands with every person you meet, which means there are a lot of opportunities to seek out new clients this way. Ideas to expand your sphere include:

• Become more active by volunteering your time in your neighborhood, children’s school, or place of worship.

• Like, comment, review, talk about and otherwise support your local businesses.

• Like, comment, review, talk about and otherwise support the hobbies and personal projects of the people in your network.

6. Rinse and repeat

Do this every quarter or semi-annually. Review your notes from your previous call or e-mail to continue the conversation. Start from step 1 to make sure you don’t leave out anyone you might have met since the last time you reached out to your network.

Final Thoughts 

Your personal network represents so much possibility. Staying in touch with and providing value to them will not only make you a force to be reckoned with in your local market – it’s also what makes a career in real estate so rewarding! By consistently and systematically doing outreach to your SOI, you’re building a resilient referral machine that will meet and exceed your sales targets in a very actionable way.

Between marketing your business, juggling showings, and staying on top of your leads, you need a system to manage your workload in a stress-free and intuitive way. RealOffice360 is an unbelievably simple CRM, business tracker, and daily planner for real estate agents and Realtors®. Rather being just a data dump for client information, RealOffice360 helps you visually build your business plan, cultivate your real estate database towards your goals, and ultimately keeps you focused on what matters most: your clients and your deals. Get started for free - no credit card required!