Think outside the box
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I’ve spent over 15 years in the real estate industry and the question of how to get more real estate clients never seems to go away.
Why is that?
Real estate is one of the very few industries where we cannot just phone a supplier when stock is running low and put in an order for 10 or 20 listings. Wouldn’t it be great if we could? Image that. The boss says that you’re running low on stock and you just pick up the phone and put your order in. No more listing stress 😊
But when selling property our clients effectively offer us their home on consignment. We tell them our expectation on price then once it’s sold, we take our pre agreed fee. Very similar to selling a vehicle on consignment at a car yard.
And just like other methods of selling on consignment our real estate clients will generally shop around for the highest price and the lowest fee.
Do you have a shortage of leads?
Most agents try one of the following when looking for real estate leads. If you’re a new agent your Principal will probably have you out knocking on doors within your first few days.
Doing a mass letterbox drop – many agents when short of listings do a blanket mail drop, or DL drop in their real estate patch, or farm area. This is pretty much a ‘hope’ strategy as there is no guaranteed return on your investment of time and money.
Increase your door knocking – there are only so many hours in the day so you will be limited with what you can achieve here.
Door knocking can be time consuming for little reward. Yes, it gets you out into your community. There are better ways to impact the people who are interested in your message.
Just Listed & Just Sold Prospecting
Other ways to generate leads include phone prospecting and door knocking around Just Listed and Just Sold properties. Again, time-consuming but this is a method that I believe is far more successful than the other methods. It will often provide you with at least one of the following:
- * ideally, a soon to be seller – this is the ultimate in door-knocking,
- * a local who is interested in finding out more about the market,
- * the neighbourhood gossip – these people will want to share everything about what is going on in their street.
The local gossip can be a great source of referrals for you. A more polite term for these people is connectors as they can often make you some very valuable introductions with neighbor’s and property owners. Be careful that they aren’t just looking for company though as they can take up a lot of your time.
Again this method is time consuming. Statistically you will find only 50% of people home or prepared to answer their door, and that was pre-Covid19.
I’ve found this to be the best return on any of the prospecting methods mentioned. The quality of lead is usually stronger however the time investment for this type of prospecting isn’t sustainable long term. Especially for busy agents who are carrying a solid bank of listings.
Agent Marketing in More Recent Times
In recent years there have been a few real estate lead generation services to hit the market. These sites effectively provide you with a lead name, address and contact details. You follow up, if you list and sell you pay a referral fee to the lead generation company.
The trouble with buying leads, whether it be through sites like Open Agent or Local Agent Finder is that most of them require a 20% referral fee.
If you are going in cold, you’ll usually write a lower fee than if you’ve had some form of relationship with the person prior. Sad but true in most cases. Often, the potential seller will have already made their decision about which agent they are going with, they just want another opinion on price.
The last 3 or so years have seen a rise in the popularity of Bus Shelters and Billboards, Yes, it keeps your eyes in front of the locals, but I doubt how effective it really is to generate an actual lead.
In real estate the only way to get more clients is to increase your prospecting. There is no magic bullet. Most agents are only familiar with the methods mentioned above.
But there is another way and not many in the industry are using it or have even considered it. To be honest I don’t know of too many agents are even aware of this relatively new method of real estate lead generation or prospecting.
Why Traditional Real Estate Prospecting Methods Don't Work
Old-style methods of prospecting are focused on reaching people at the exact moment that they are thinking of selling. Most forms of traditional prospecting have us living in a state of hope. Hope that we will manage to jag a seller by knocking on their door, at the opportune time when they are just ready to sell.
The disadvantage here is that you are only meeting cold prospects. You will usually be competing with other agents. So you’ll often be screwed down on fee as there is no prior relationship there. The know, like and trust factor is not in place.
The Powerful Alternative | How to Get More Real Estate Clients
Contrast above with the following scenario:
You receive a call one day from someone who you have never met, perhaps never spoken to. They call you to invite you to come and list their home. They are ready to sell.
When you arrive, it feels like they have met you before. They are almost hanging off your every word and you can sense that you don’t need to do much to sign this one up. They are ready to go, and they trust you.
They don’t haggle over fee. They follow your advice regarding sale method and your suggested marketing campaign with few questions if any.
Once the deal is over, they are more than willing to provide you with a video testimonial!
This scenario can become the norm for you and not the exception.
Sound too good to be true? It’s not. I promise you.
How Do You Stand Out Against Your Competitors?
By doing something that less than 5% of agents are doing
Start a real estate marketing blog.
Yep, you heard me right. It’s not as hard as you think. In fact, I have a free FREE e-book that will take you through the steps so that you can launch your own blog, or vlog today!
You will make a real impact on your community and have your name top of mind as their go to agent when they are ready to sell.
You might think that you don’t know anything about blogging. That’s ok. I cover it all in my FREE e-book.
This detailed booklet covers:
- * What blogging and content marketing is,
- * Blog verse website,
- * Why blog,
- * Getting found on-line, and
- * Your step-by-step guide to setting up your own real estate marketing blog.
It’s not that hard when you know how, and I outline it all in the booklet. So if you are even the slightest bit interested download it now. And if you have any questions or run into any difficulties feel free to get in touch.
Why Traditional Real Estate Lead Generation Doesn't Work
The trouble with conventional methods is that they are not scalable. Yes, you can increase the amount of door knocking, phone prospecting and letter box dropping that you do. But at some point, you will reach capacity.
The only option then is to hire an assistant, extremely costly, or hire someone to drop your DL’s for you. Also, costly but with the added issue of their reliability. Will your carefully designed flyers end up in the bin somewhere?
Why Don't Agents Take Their Own Advice?
Most of us have sat opposite the kitchen table at a potential vendors home and rabbited on about the importance of making their property stand out in a crowded market. We talk to them about investing in marketing to position themselves above the competition.
We do this because we understand the value in positioning and in giving our clients every advantage of attracting buyers.
So why don’t we take our own advice? Why as agents do we continue to do what all of our competitors are doing? It’s either because we don’t know any other way, or because we don’t want to step outside of our comfort zone.
Where to From Here?
If you’re an agent who is interested in their local community, passionate about real estate and who loves to help their clients and those in their community you cannot go past a blog as the best way to generate high quality leads, on an on-going basis.
Don’t continue to go with the pack, make a difference and stand out against your competitors.
Related Articles:
Why you should start a marketing blog in 2020
9 ways to get clients as a real estate agent
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