If I was starting over again | RealtyTechBytes.com by Jerry Kidd

Periodically I get asked what would I do if was just starting out as a new real estate agent?And the companion question is “what do you recommend that I do to get business as a new agent?”

These are legitimate questions and they point to a real concern that most people have when it comes to this business: “how am I going to make money?”

In a larger sense, we are all starting over because of the way that Covid-19 has changed how we find clients and assist them with their transactions.

For example, holding a house open, in the traditional way is no longer possible.You can no longer go and sit in someone’s home for 4 hours on a weekend day in hopes that you will meet someone who wants to buy or sell a home. You can’t put out open home signs all over the neighborhood directing passer’s by to your open house.

Sidebar: Recently several agents (with different companies) started putting out open home signs at busy intersections with a request that people send a text message requesting an appointment to see the house. Good idea? Yes? No?

Actually the answer is no. The local Board sent an email to their membership recently stating that since the house isn’t actually open that doing this was a violation of Article 12 of the Code of Ethics and that since our Health Officer has prohibited Open Houses, issuing signs that state “open house” did not present a “true picture”. Clearly these agents were to be commended for thinking outside of the box, but they forgot to strictly observe the Code of Ethics!

That’s just one example. Another example is along the same lines in that Broker Open Houses are also prohibited. You can no longer have houses “on tour” as it crosses two lines…one you cannot have an open house and two, you cannot have more than two people and an agent in the house at any one time.

A careful reading of your local Health Officer’s Orders is needed to learn what is permissible in your locality.

So since we have lost a tried and true method of finding clients what else can we do if we are just starting out (or rebuilding)?

First Things First

I think that in order to know what to do, you need to know the why? Why are you starting a real estate business? Make no mistake, you are NOT starting a job, you are starting a business. You don’t have an employer in the traditional sense. You are associated with a broker and you accrue some benefits from that association, but if you don’t produce transactions on a regular basis you will soon be looking for something else to do!

You need to know why, but you also need to know who. Who you want to serve is also important because without the who, it becomes very difficult to find them. I hear agents say to me “That’s a dumb question! I want to work with anyone who wants to buy or sell a house.” I’ll submit to you that it is NOT a dumb question. If you want to work with anyone who comes through the office door you’ll be spending a long time building a business.

Here are some examples. You could decide to work with first time buyers, or move up buyers, or luxury buyers, or relocating buyers, or investor buyers.

Maybe you want to work with sellers. What sellers? Sellers in a certain neighborhood? Probate sellers? Divorcing sellers? Relocating sellers? Foreclosure sellers?

If you can’t narrow down your client base how will you ever know how to find them so that you can present your services?

So having answered the Why and Who questions, we can now move on to the question of how to actually find people to work with you.

Some of the old school methods that we have used for decades (I started 34 years ago and things that I did then still work today), so let me detail them first.

You absolutely need to have a list of everyone that you know, that if you were to run into them on the street, they would know you. This list need to have their phone number, street address and email address. And if you know their social media “address” that need to be included too.

Don’t be held up by the fact that you don’t have all of the contact info for everyone. Go with what you DO have. The important thing is that you identify them and have them in a spreadsheet, notepad or CRM. Don’t be overly concerned with form here, just get that list together in any way that you can.

Next go through the list and classify the names as close friends, relatives, business associates from past and current jobs, past clients, service providers and so on. The point is to give you a frame of reference as to how you know them.

This list of people will be added to and pruned as time goes by, but this is your staring point.

EVERYONE on this list needs to hear from you periodically. Listen to me when I tell you that they do NOT wake up everyday thinking about you and what you do for a living. They are far too busy living their lives. Periodic “touches” from you will increase the odds that when hear of some that they know who is thinking about real estate that they will think of you and make a referral.

I’ll get into how to “touch” them a bit later on.

Next you need to add to the list. You need to add people to this list everyday. If you don’t have a list of at least several hundred people, it’s imperative that you get busy on adding people. If you don’t do that, you will soon be doing some other work.

On to how to add to your list

We have already established that you no longer have open houses as an option. But, there are other ways to meet people. Here are some old school ways (that still work):

Find Expired Listings (Go back a year or so and see if anyone who’s listing expired 12 months ago, and hasn’t since sold, might still want to sell.
Locate any For Sale By Owners and contact them
Create a “farm” of people who match your “who” and reach out to them
Get a database of people who have live in the same house for 25 years or more. They might be ready to downsize.
Contact Estate, Probate and Divorce attorney’s. You can get those names by a Google search or by contacting the Bar Association.
Advertise in the vehicles that your desired “who” is likely to be using

There are more, but these methods worked decades ago and still work today.

Notice that with the exception of a few, all of these methods will require a financial investment on your part. It’s always been true that if you want play you have to pay, but in these days I think it’s more important to realize that you will have to advertise in some method.

The method you choose is dictated by “why and how” that you identified above. (You DID do that part, right?)

On to some new methods

There are any number of “gurus” around that can help you do the following things or you can waste time muddling through it yourself. Your choice, but my advice is to pay someone to set these up and get them running for you.

If your “who” identified people that use Facebook and Instagram, then you NEED to be posting on those sites and also advertising there as well.

If your “who” uses LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and any other social media sites, then you need to have a presence there too.

The key point is that you need to “be” where you target audience is so that they can “see” you.

You need to be producing videos and have a YouTube channel.

You need a web presence of your own and you need a professional email address. No gmail, yahoo, hotmail and especially not an AOL email account.

You may want to look into a service like Adwerx that will place your ads on websites that your “who” may visit.

You can see that there is some work involved in getting all of this set up and running, which is why I recommend that you hire it out if your broker doesn’t already provide this.

One more thing

You need to be adding to your list everyday. This means that everyday that you choose to work that you perform some activity that will increase your chances of actually meeting someone new. This is called PROSPECTING and you will ALWAYS have to do this if you want a long term career in real estate sales. There is no getting around this one. Either you do it yourself or you hire it out. But, it does have to get done.

Finally, here is my step by step plan if I was starting over