Welcome New Client Danny Burks

John: Danny, since you were a client before, what motivated you to give us a call back? 

Danny: I would just say that we know the quality of your work and, really, the thing we have committed to this year is doing a better job at reengaging with our database, reengaging with our sphere of influence. We just felt like you guys were probably one of the best ones to help us with that. We do a lot of things really, really well - staying engaged with our database and managing it well is probably not one of them, which is changing now because we actually created a position who is more into handling that. You were in the mix along with other things to help us.

John: Why don’t you summarize where you are with your business right now and what are your goals moving forward? 

Danny: Well, we're growing quite a bit. We’re currently the number two RE/MAX team in Texas, and number nine in the States.

John: Wow, congrats! 

Danny: We sold 440 homes last year. Our goal this year is 534, I believe. We continue to enlist talent, top talent, and we plan to recruit, train, and expand from there. We do have a small expansion office in a neighboring market that we've started. Our goal is to continue to grow - we believe that we’ll do 1,000 transactions within the next three years.

John: Awesome. That is great. I know you guys are working on consolidating databases, but do you know how many people you have in the three different databases that you are currently keeping?

Danny: We have over 5,200 and in the other one we have about 2,500. In our sphere/former-client database we probably have close to 3,000. Right now, we probably have in the neighborhood of around 10,000-12,000, but that continues to grow. I know a lot of those will filter out as trash and archive. We added over 1,200 prospects in January, and we’re not through the month yet. I would not be surprised if the number was at 18,000-20,000 by the end of the year.

John: Awesome! How many of those people do you, or does someone on your team, personally know?

Danny: We would probably have in the sphere, and I’m including in the sphere our former clients, and our referral database, I would say it's approaching 3,000.

John: Are you guys currently doing anything to consistently market to anybody in the database right now? 

Danny: I mean, that’s what I’m saying, we have not. We're ramping that up. Essentially, I don’t know how we do as well as we do, but last year, out of 440 transactions, about 40% of that was from sphere, referral, and former clients coming back to us. Essentially, all we've done is two mail outs per year. That’s all we’re doing. We think with all the stuff we’re planning we're going to take that up to 50 or 60 percent.

We essentially have been doing almost nothing. That’s what were committed to now. We just have not been following up.

John: In the time you have taken off from using our service, which is about a year and a half, have you ever thought about trying to do our system on your own?

Danny: No. I’d be clueless where to begin.

John: What results are you expecting? What does success look like to you working with us?

Danny: One is helping us hone in on our database because we know that once we start regularly contacting people - like you say, we probably have a lot of bad data in there - and consolidating the core of what that database is and to have tools to see response rates, such as what kind of return we’re getting, what kind of open rate we’re getting, and working with our team to follow up with those people that seem to be most engaged.

John: Anybody we need to thank specifically for your business coming back?

Danny: Probably, Frank. He never has left me alone since the first time we met. He’s a very good salesman. I had you guys, I mean frankly from when we used you the first time. You guys didn't do anything wrong, we did. I knew we would probably get to the point where we would come back to you guys because it’s not that we weren't satisfied with your service, we just did not do a good job on our end.