How to Grow Your Sphere of Influence (SOI) for Real Estate

What the heck do I do with my Sphere of Influence?

Last week we talked about getting your Sphere of Influence (SOI) organized. Whether you are a brand new agent putting your list together for the first time, or if you have been in the business for 12+ years like us, updating and maintaining your sphere can be a pain! For tips on cleaning up your sphere, check out our post from last week.

But once you have an updated list, what the heck do you do with it?

How am I communicating with this list?

The folks in your SOI are people you already have a relationship with. So the question is: how are you deepening and strengthening those relationships? AND, how does that bring you more business?

What kind of relationship should you have with people that you consider part of your Sphere of Influence? Well, these are folks who will take your calls, and the ones who will pause to chit chat with you when you run into each other at the grocery store.

So, you’ll want to be following up with all of these individuals regularly and with meaning. You want to bring value to each of your conversations and exchanges with these folks. And you want to make sure that you are effectively managing your entire list.

Does list size matter?

In order to hit and exceed your goals and to continue to grow your business, you have to continue to build and grow your list! But what’s a reasonable size SOI? What’s too big and what’s too small?

Local and national experts seem to agree that about 150 people is a really good sized sphere – if you are engaging with them frequently and meaningfully, this should equate to about 30 transactions per year!

When your Sphere of Influence is too large, you are going to struggle to keep up with every person on the list in a meaningful way… which will actually hurt your Return on Relationships! First, get really good at engaging meaningfully with 50-100 people, and then you can progressively add more people to your list! It’s all about balance.

In Closing

Having a clean list is a great start – but you really need to be using your list effectively. When is the last time you spoke with each person on your SOI? Make sure you are calling, texting, and engaging with them face-to-face regularly in order to build those relationships on a deeper and stronger level. If you are focused on great relationships with everyone on your list, you are going to see a bigger return on that investment when you do send them information about real estate! This list will receive your drip campaigns, newsletters, mailings, and more – but the personal relationship you have with them is what will build your business.

Learn More from Kevin & Fred:

Check out a special episode we did all about maintaining and growing your SOI – including Fred’s categorization system which will help you structure your follow up!

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