As I write this, Labor Day is about two weeks away!

Traditionally, in our business, this marked the end of the summer slow down and the beginning of the last busy market of the year.  One could count on new listings coming on the market and new buyers searching for those listings…up until Thanksgiving that is!

In years past the Thanksgiving holiday often marked the end of the buy/sell frenzy that often occurred after Labor Day.

This year?  Who knows?  It’s anybody’s guess what will happen as the market did not slow that much (If it slowed at all) over the summer.

So, what would a prudent agent do over the next two weeks to get ready for the fall selling season?

I’ve got a couple of suggestions for you!  

I believe that if you have listings, buyers will come to you.  After all, you will have the product that they are looking to buy.  So it makes sense to concentrate on obtaining listings.   But, if you want to just work with buyers, read on as these ideas will also work to help you find buyers!

First of all, get back in touch with your sphere of influence!  Get on the phone as it is more personal than email, texts, social media or snail mail.  People do want to hear from you if you are calling out of genuine concern for them.  You could start off by saying “I was thinking about you recently and wanted to check in with you”.  You could then go on to ask about their  Family, Occupation, Recreation and Dreams.  You may know this as the F.O.R.D. conversation.  And, you probably already do it with your friends.  Just expand it to your sphere. When you have covered all of this, you may want to ask them if they know anyone in their neighborhood that looks like they may be contemplating a move.  If the answer is yes, ask if they could arrange an introduction!

Depending on the size of your sphere and your ability to engage people in conversation, this method could easily turn up a listing or two or more!

I like the phone best of all the prospecting methods because it is fast.  You can easily make 50 phone calls a day if you buckled down.  Two weeks should be enough time to get most if not all of your sphere to hear from you!

The next thing that I would suggest that you do is to hold open houses both Saturday and Sunday on each of the weekends that are left.  And what about the actual Labor Day holiday itself?  Anybody out looking at houses on Labor Day is very likely to be a serious buyer or seller!

Open houses can be a pain to schedule, set up and do, but you in addition to looky-loos you will see serious buyers and potential sellers looking to gauge the market.  The in person contact that you gain from open houses is invaluable.  Both you and the prospect have a chance to establish a relationship or to decide that you don’t want to work with each other!

For my last tip, I am going to suggest that you consider pop-bys!  If you are fan of Brian Buffini, then you already know how these work.  For the rest of you, just call your sphere and let them know that you will be in the neighborhood on a date and time and ask if you can drop by with a small gift.  Or, don’t call and just show up!  

Buffini suggests that it’s more effective to let them know that you are coming, but even if you don’t call, a clever gift can still have impact.

Here is an article that I found that has some great and largely inexpensive pop by gift ideas: https://fitsmallbusiness.com/pop-by-ideas/

So, there you have it.  Three ideas that will help you find the sellers and buyers that you need to finish 2021 strong.  Even if you don’t turn up a ton of leads for 2021 transactions, you are still building awareness of your services that will help you launch 2022.  January 1st is only about 120 days away!