Hi Reader,

Yesterday I recorded my first podcast. I spent an hour on Boroughs & Burbs with two brokers, John Engel in Connecticut and Roberto Cabrera in Manhattan, and the whole episode was about one thing. How to stay in touch with your database without becoming the person they mute.

We wrapped at one o'clock.

At 1:11, my phone lit up. I even took a screenshot because the serendipity was just too good.

I don't know Ken. No last name, no brokerage, no company. Just Ken, and my home address.

What I can't get past is "circling back."

Circling back to what? We have never spoken. That's the phrase you use with someone you've already got something going with, and he used it because it makes you stop and try to place him. He's borrowing a relationship he never had.

Here's what makes it worse. There's an industry that sends this exact message and gets away with it.

The service department at a car dealership. The one part of a dealership nobody hates. They text you a few months before your lease is up, and the ask is identical to Ken's. Do you still have the thing? Are you ready to part with it?

Nobody blocks that number.

Ken's text was missing three things that the dealership gets right.

1. Proof you were there. They sold you the car. Your first line has to do that same work, and “circling back” is what people write when they have nothing. The detail that lands is the one proving you were paying attention during the transaction. “You said you wanted a yard for the dog” proves you were in the car with them. “Happy birthday” proves you own software.
2. One number. Not a question about their intentions. A figure about their property. What the house down the street closed at, what theirs is worth now, the one listing that actually matches. One per message. Three makes it a flyer.
3. A date that’s already theirs. The lease ends in March whether the dealership texts or not. Find your version. We spent real time on this yesterday and landed on the closing anniversary, for one reason: you are the only person in their life who has that date. Their birthday is on file at the gym and every store they’ve ever bought from. The day they got the keys is yours alone.

Ken had none of the three, so he faked the first one.

Go into your CRM and pull the closing dates for all of your transactions in the past year - three years. Create a reminder for those dates.

When that reminder comes up, refresh your memory on the transaction and reach out with a personal note. It can be as simple or specific, but it HAS to be personal.

That’s it. Automate the trigger so you can personalize the interaction.

Two strangers wanted something from me this fall.

One bought my address. The other read something I wrote, hit reply, and that's the entire reason I was on a podcast at all. You can watch the episode on YouTube or listen on your favorite podcast app.

Same cold start. No relationship either way. Only one of them is Ken.

So tell me yours. What's the worst one you've ever gotten? Screenshot it and reply. I'll run the best of them in a future issue with the names off.

Alice

The Heist · Marketing playbooks for real estate agents, stolen from every industry except this one.

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