What to Say to Past Clients When You Have No News

You open the CRM and look at your list. You know it’s important to stay in touch, but you have no idea what to say.

Which is weird, because you’d literally hug most of them if you bumped into each other at Costco.

Why is it so hard to figure out what to say?

List hygiene has a lot to do with it.

Let’s face it, we don’t treat everyone the same, at least in our messaging practices, and we shouldn’t either.

To a lead, you’re just another person with a real estate license. But to your past client, you’re the hero who helped them overcome 65 different ways buying or selling a home tried to kill them. You can’t afford to treat them the same.

Your past clients are experts in what a wonderful agent you are, so do a great job for everyone, okay? They’re the best positioned people you know to send you referrals. Unless, of course, you treat them like leads.

Leads have no idea who you are. They don’t know what a great job you can do. They need to be taught what your past clients already know about you.

Which means there are two ways to get this catastrophically wrong. Teaching a past client that you’re an expert in real estate, when they already know, because they watched you do it. And writing to a lead as though you already have a relationship you haven’t earned yet.

That’s why most agents have writer’s block

The blank you hit isn’t a discipline problem. It’s what happens when you try to write one message to two completely different relationships at once.

There is nothing that’s both true and interesting to a stranger and to someone who has seen you at your best. So your brain, quite sensibly, returns nothing.

Split them, then pick one name off the past-client side. The sentence shows up on its own.

Why everybody ends up sending birthday messages

Watch what fills the gap when the blank wins. Birthdays. Closing anniversaries. Holidays.

There’s a reason those are the survivors, and it isn’t that they work best. They’re the only messages that come with a reason already attached, so you never have to decide whether today is a good day to write. The calendar decides for you.

Keep sending them. Just be honest about what they prove to the person on the other end. A birthday message proves you have a database. It doesn’t prove you were thinking about them, because they know the database knew.

What it looks like when you get it right

Here are three, all to past clients. None of them mentions real estate.

To someone whose basement was half finished when you closed

“Hey Marcus, did you ever finish the basement, or is it still where the holiday decorations go to die?”

To someone whose daughter was looking at colleges

“Hi Ann, I’ve been wondering how the college search turned out. Where did she land?”

To someone you’ve genuinely lost track of

“Hi Tom, random question. Best thing you’ve eaten in the last month? I’m in a dinner rut and taking suggestions.”

Nine seconds to answer. Nothing asked for. And none of them would work on anybody else in your database, which is the entire point.

Notice what none of them do. None of them teach these people anything about real estate. They already know.

A truth about your closest contacts

“Just say hi, how are you, and reference something interesting that they will appreciate receiving and will put a smile on their face. The email you send doesn’t even have to reference your industry, it is actually preferable if it doesn’t.”

Dan Stewart, Happy Grasshopper blog, November 2011

I wrote that 15 years ago, and today, it’s more timely than ever. Why? Because the relentless onslaught of automated messaging we’re all getting too much of creates the perfect backdrop against which the human touch stands out.

Five rules for messaging that works

Know which list they’re on. Past client or lead. Everything else follows from that, and getting it wrong is the catastrophic version.
Write to one person, not to the list. If the message would work on anybody else, go back. The part that lands is the part only they would recognize.
Ask something they can answer in a sentence. If an honest answer takes a paragraph, they’ll decide to reply properly later. Later doesn’t come.
Attach nothing. No listing, no market report, no calendar link, no line about knowing anyone thinking of making a move. The message has to be able to just end.
Don’t explain the gap. Apologizing for how long it’s been makes the silence the subject. Write what you’d have written if no time had passed.

And how often should this happen

Often enough that it isn’t an event. That’s a separate question with a real answer, and it gets its own page, because how often you reach out and what you say when you do are two different problems that agents almost always describe in the same breath.

How many deals are hiding in your database?

Most agents are sitting on more than they think. Answer five quick questions and we’ll estimate how many are sitting untouched in yours.

Find out how many deals are hiding in your database →

Or come to a live session. Dan runs What to Say Now every Thursday and works through exactly this kind of message. Join him live.

Questions agents ask about this

What do you say to a past client when nothing is happening?

Pick one person and ask them something only they can answer, in a sentence, with nothing attached. Don’t teach them anything about real estate. They watched you do it, which is why they’re the ones who refer you.

Why do I go blank when I open my database?

Usually because the list mixes past clients and leads, and there’s no message that’s true and interesting for both. Split them first, then pick one name.

Should I send the same thing to leads and past clients?

No. A lead doesn’t know what you can do and has to be taught. A past client already knows, because they lived it. Teaching a past client what they already know is the fastest way to sound like a stranger.

Are birthday and anniversary messages enough?

They keep you visible and they’re easy to sustain, so keep sending them. They prove you have a database rather than that you were thinking about someone.

Is it weird to reach out with no reason?

Only if you say so. Announcing that you have no reason turns an ordinary note into an awkward one. Lead with the question.