Every agent I know says the word “database” the way mechanics say “transmission.” Everything depends on it, it’s expensive when it goes wrong, and nobody will tell you exactly what it is. This is part two for new agents, after the post about setting up the boring stuff. This is the one piece of boring stuff that pays you back.
I’m not an agent, yet. I’m the IT guy married to one. I also spent years administering NetSuite, which is a database with a sales team attached, so I have opinions about what goes in a record. And since I’m working on my own license, I have a database of my own. It currently consists of my wife, two pugs and a mechanic. One of those is a realistic referral source.
What a database is, in one paragraph
Your database is the list of every person who knows your name, with a way to reach them and a note on how you know them, kept in one place that you can get back out. That’s it. It is not your leads. Leads are strangers who clicked something. It is not your phone’s contacts, either. Your phone has 900 entries, half of them say things like “Mike plumber?” and none of them say when you last talked. A database has three things a contact list doesn’t: how you know each person, when you last reached them, and an export button.
In my old job a database was a pile of tables with rules about what goes in them. In real estate it’s the same idea with fewer tables and more birthdays. Everyone goes in once. Every record has the same fields. There is no second copy somewhere that disagrees with the first.
Why it matters more than the leads
NAR’s 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers covers people who bought or sold between July 2024 and June 2025. Of the buyers, 43% found their agent through a referral from a friend, neighbor or relative, and 15% went back to an agent they’d used before. For sellers it was 37% and 29%. So more than half of buyers and two thirds of sellers hired someone who was already in a database. The number I keep thinking about: 80% of sellers contacted only one agent before deciding. There was no interview. Whoever they thought of first got the listing.
NAR’s own release says 91% of buyers would use their agent again or recommend them. People like their agent. People also forget their agent, because the one they liked four years ago is not on their mind the week they decide to sell. The database is how you stay on their mind.
What goes in a record
Every CRM has fifty fields. You need seven, and the seventh is the one everybody skips.
- Name, spelled the way they spell it.
- Cell number.
- Email.
- Home address. This is the field that turns a contact into a client later, and it’s the one most people leave blank. In February, KW’s head of industry and learning, Jason Abrams, said agents had 104 million contacts in Command and only 13% of them had all three of a phone, an email and a property address. That isn’t a KW problem. That’s everybody.
- How you know them. “Gym.” “Church.” “Neighbor, two doors down.” “Bought from me in 2019.” Two or three words. Without this, a name is just a name.
- A group. Three is plenty: people who’d refer you tomorrow, people who’d take your call, and people you’ve met once. Your brokerage has its own names for these. Use theirs.
- When you last talked to them. The CRM fills this in if you log your calls in it. It can’t if you don’t.
Birthdays, home anniversaries, kids’ names, the dog’s name: all good, all optional, all notes. The seven above are the record. Everything else is color.
Where the names come from
Your phone, your email, your social media friends list, your holiday card list, your old job, your church, your kids’ school, the gym, and every vendor you pay. The test is simple: if they’d recognize your voice on the phone, they go in. You don’t need to have sold them anything. You need them to know what you do now.
Getting them out of your phone is two clicks. On an iPhone, go to icloud.com/contacts, choose Select All Contacts, then Export vCard. On Android, open Google Contacts on a computer, select everything, click Export, and pick Google CSV. Then open the file and delete the pizza places. That part takes an evening. Do it on the couch. Nobody enjoys it at a desk.
Where to keep it
In the CRM your brokerage already gave you. I said this in part one and it’s truer here: it’s paid for, your broker’s rules are built in, and the training at the office assumes you’re using it.
Hilary is at Keller Williams Signature here in Knoxville, so the one I know is Command. Contacts is on the left toolbar. It imports from a CSV template you download from the Import button. The only fields it insists on are first and last name, but it’s picky about column order, so paste your phone export into KW’s template rather than uploading the raw file; KW has a help page on exactly that. Once the people are in, tags let you filter them, and SmartPlans handle the follow-up. KW’s magazine describes a Quarterly Call plan that reminds you every 90 days to call someone, and a monthly neighborhood plan that sends local information. Command is included in a KW agent’s technology fee. The same magazine quotes a team called the Stacey Sauls Group saying almost 90% of its business comes from its database. No relation. Good name, though.
Not at KW? Your brokerage has a CRM. Use it, even if it’s clunky. A clunky CRM you open every day beats a beautiful one you bought in month one and opened in month three. If your brokerage truly has nothing, a spreadsheet with the seven columns above is a real database, and it has one advantage over every CRM ever sold: you already know how to export it.
The one rule: you have to be able to get it back out
This month I’m pulling Hilary’s database out of a CRM she’s leaving, before the account closes. Every vendor makes importing easy and exporting an afterthought, and you find out which is which on the day you’ve already decided to leave. So test it in week one, while the stakes are a dozen names. Find the export button. Run it. Open the file. Check that the notes and the tags came with it, not just names and numbers.
In Command, select the contacts, pick Export Contacts from the bulk-action menu, and the file shows up in your notifications. Whichever CRM you use, run the export every quarter and park the file in your own cloud drive. A database you can’t export isn’t yours. It’s a subscription with your friends in it.
Then use it, a little, forever
A database you don’t touch is a phone book. Gary Keller’s book The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, which is where Keller Williams agents learn this, prescribes 33 touches a year to the people who know you: calls, notes, mail, email. The exact number matters less than having one. A call every 90 days to your top group and a quarterly email to everyone else is a plan a new agent can keep. Put it in the CRM so it nags you. That’s what the CRM is for.
The fine print
The database is for staying in touch, not mass marketing, but the day you send one email to all of it, two federal laws apply. Marketing email has to carry your physical mailing address and a working unsubscribe, honored within ten business days; the FTC’s guide puts the penalty at up to $53,088 per email. Marketing texts sent by an automated system to cell phones need prior express written consent, and a reply of “stop” revokes it, which the FCC’s rules give you ten business days to honor. Your brokerage’s CRM handles the mechanics. Your job is to not put people on a drip they didn’t ask for. A text to a friend is a text. Five hundred at once is a campaign.
None of this is glamorous. It’s a list of people and a reminder to call them. It’s also the only asset in this business that’s actually yours, which is why I’d build it before the headshot. Mine is four names long. Two of them are dogs.
Quick answers
What is a real estate agent’s database?
The list of every person who knows your name, with a way to reach them, a note on how you know them, and the date you last talked, kept in one place you can export. It’s not your leads, who are strangers who clicked something, and it’s not your phone’s contacts, which don’t say how you know anyone or when you last spoke.
Where should a new real estate agent keep their database?
In the CRM your brokerage already provides, because it’s paid for and the office training assumes you use it. At Keller Williams that’s Command, which is included in the technology fee. If your brokerage has no CRM, a spreadsheet with the same columns is a real database. Whichever you use, export a copy every quarter.
What should be in each contact record?
Seven things: name, cell number, email, home address, how you know them, which group they’re in, and when you last talked to them. Birthdays, home anniversaries and family details are useful notes, not required fields.
Can you export contacts from KW Command?
Yes. Select the contacts in the Contacts list, choose Export Contacts from the bulk-action menu, and download the file from your notifications. Do it every quarter and keep the file in your own cloud drive.
Sources: Keller Williams documentation, Import Contacts, Transfer Contacts from an Exported Spreadsheet into the Command Contact Import Template, Export Multiple Contacts and SmartPlans; KW Outfront Magazine, KW Command: how an all-in-one platform can transform your real estate business, July 2025; Real Estate News, Keller Williams opens Command as investor ties deepen, February 23, 2026; NAR, First-time home buyer share falls to historic low of 21%, November 4, 2025; the full 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers is for NAR members, so the referral and repeat-client figures are as reported by Virginia REALTORS®, December 2025, and BAM; Gary Keller with Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, McGraw Hill, 2004, with the 33 Touch described by the Chicago Association of REALTORS®; FTC, CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business; 47 CFR 64.1200, eCFR; Apple, Import, export, or print contacts on iCloud.com; Google, Export, back up, or restore contacts; all checked October 21, 2026.
