2022 is nearly over! I think I am not alone in feeling like this year has been challenging and that I will be glad to have it behind me!
However, no one knows what 2023 will bring. Will it bring more of the same or will it bring new challenges? Who knows?
What I do know is that if you are a real estate agent you will need to be adding to to your database and will also need to be nurturing those people already in your database.
Take control of your prospecting efforts and you will build a profitable business.
Let’s face it. If you don’t have a stream of people that want to buy or sell a home, you are not going to be able to stay in the real estate business! That’s a simple fact of life and there is no way around it. The fact is that you are going to have to do something to create that steam or to keep it full if you have already created it. Nothing new here…you already knew that!
What I see as a problem for many agents is coming up with something that they like to do (Critically important because if you don’t like doing it you’ll find excuses to stop doing it), and that is effective, and that you’ll do every day that you work.
By effective I mean that it produces leads that turn into contacts, and contacts that turn into clients. And then clients that turn into buyers and or sellers.
What about doing this every day? Do you REALLY have to work at lead generation every day? If your stream isn’t full, then yes. Every day that you work HAS to have some time set aside for lead generation.
Every day, you must set aside one or two hours for activities such as cold calling, warm calling, emailing, texting, social media posting/liking and nurturing existing leads.
So here are some activities to consider:
- Blog (You can also post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc if you don’t want to do a blog) about your neighborhood and the local housing market
- Talk to other parents at your child’s school if you’ve got school age kids
- Nurture leads already existing in your CRM (This is probably the best use of your time)
- Try cold calling leads
- Join house flipping and real estate investor groups in your area
- Write at least five handwritten notes every day
- Write five comments on social media posts notes every day
- Send five text messages notes every day
- Make five phone calls notes every day
Ask for business – We make the mistake of thinking that everyone already knows that we are in the real estate business. This couldn’t be farther from the truth! Ask if you can be of service to them with referrals to contractors, yard services etc. Maybe they need to get a valuation of their home. Ask!
Drive Around! – What is going on in your market area? Any garage sales, contractor trucks in front of houses, any other signs that someone might be moving? Go look around!
If you aren’t sure what to say, you can always start off by asking people how they are coping with the economy. Or ask them the F.O.R.D. questions. (Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams)
Once you have the conversation started, ask them if they need referrals to home repair people. Ask them if they have found their current home to be too small or too large.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to people by phone, but don’t forget that you can also email and text message people too.
The trick here is to actually take action and do something consistently to build up that pipe line of people that will eventually need to do a real estate transaction … with you!
Here is the challenge… Say that you work 6 days a week and that you are willing to contact 5 new (or 5 from your database) people a day for each of those 6 days that you work.
That’s 30 people a week. Say that you take two weeks vacation each year, that will give you 1500 contacts in one year’s time. Lets also say that you find out that 10% of those people are considering doing a transaction. Now we are down to 150 people. And if 10% of those folks actually closed a transaction with you, you are looking at closing at least 15 transactions a year!
Multiply that 15 by the average commission that you earn (for that sake of argument let’s assume that you make $20,000 on each closing) and post that number above your work station (assuming 15 closings with average take home of $20,000, that would be $300,000!!!).
If that doesn’t motivate you to pick up the phone and make a call, or write that email or text message or social media post, then there really isn’t much hope for success for you is there?
