Clean Up Your Sphere List Before You Reach Out

Most agents have thousands of people in their CRM tagged as sphere, and most of them are overdue for follow-up. When the list is that big, it's easy to feel buried and call nobody. In one of our recent Tuesday trainings, Kyle Draper of the Serene Team with LPT Realty in Los Angeles walked through how he cleans his list before he ever reaches out. It's step one of his sphere reconnection campaign, and it's worth doing whether you use his campaign or not. Watch the full session on YouTube.

Start with 20 a day

Kyle aims to work through about 20 contacts a day. On busy days it slips to the next day, and that's fine. It takes him around 30 to 60 minutes because he's doing real homework on each person, not just scrolling. Twenty a day doesn't sound like much, but over a few weeks it turns an overgrown list into one you can actually use. Put it on your calendar like an appointment. The agents who get this done are the ones who treat it as part of the job, not something to do when they have a spare hour.

Do your homework on each person

For each contact, Kyle looks them up on social media and, if needed, LinkedIn. He's looking for a few things:

• Their birthday, so his CRM can send birthday messages and gifts automatically. That automation only works if you have the date.
• Life updates: are they married, where do they work, did they have kids?
• Where they live now, and whether they're still in your market.

Kyle also runs the phone number he already has through a data service to see what property the person owns and whether they're still local. Whatever tools you use, make sure you're using them the way they're meant to be used and within the rules for your market.

Be willing to delete people

This is the part most agents skip. Kyle doesn't want a huge, diluted list. If the relationship was weak to begin with and the person now lives across the country, he deletes them. The goal isn't the biggest list. It's a list of people you genuinely want to reconnect with.

The people who make the cut get a tag. That tagged list becomes the group you, an assistant or an ISA work through to schedule catch-up calls. Some people end up somewhere in between. If you're not sure, keep them for now and see whether they respond when you reach out. That response, or the lack of one, usually makes the decision for you.

Why a smaller list is better

A clean, focused list is much easier to stay in touch with. Kyle's goal is a sphere small enough that he and his team can realistically reach everyone on about a 90-day rhythm. You can't do that with thousands of names you barely remember.

There's a business reason, too. Plenty of buyers say they'd happily use the same agent again, yet most end up with someone else, usually because their agent stopped staying in touch. A smaller list you actually work beats a giant one you ignore.

Where AI can help

During the session, I asked Kyle whether he'd tried using AI tools to do the prep work. He hadn't yet, but he liked the idea. An AI assistant can't know your history with someone, so you still have to make the keep-or-delete call yourself. But it could pull together where someone lives now, what they do and their birthday, put it in your CRM, and hand you a short summary to review. That could save a lot of time.

I've been using AI tools for exactly this kind of repeatable work, and it's a process that can be partly automated, with you stepping in for the judgment calls. One caution from another agent Kyle mentioned: if you ever use AI to help write texts, don't send the identical message every time. Phone carriers can flag repeated messages, so vary the wording and approve every version before it goes out.

Prep makes the call better

Mike Pillow, who works Central Ohio for our team, does the same kind of homework before his calls and postcards. When you already know someone got married or changed jobs, the conversation comes easier, and it shows you care enough to pay attention. Sphere calls should be natural and fun, and preparation is what makes that possible.

A simple plan for this week

• Block 30 to 60 minutes a day for list cleanup.
• Work through 20 contacts: look them up, add birthdays and updates, decide keep or delete.
• Tag the keepers for outreach.
• Start scheduling catch-up calls with your tagged list.

Want to connect with Kyle? Follow him on Instagram at @thekyledraper and his team at @thesereneteam.

If you'd like help building a database and sphere plan you'll actually use, and want to hear how the Mike Team and LPT Realty support agents, schedule a time with me at 21mike.com.

Mike Ferrante
The Mike Team at LPT Realty
www.21mike.com
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