Real Estate Business Coaching

I was lurking around LinkedIn this morning, answering a few questions in the sales category when it occurred to me that real estate agents, like many salespeople, often don’t realize that there are different kinds of sales conversations depending on the situation you’re in. I took a stab at listing some of them here:

1. Networking conversations. These are about building a relationship, seeing if people are interested and interesting, discovering ways you can follow up with them and exploring who you can refer to them.
2. Listing/Buyer-Broker Presentations. In these, you’re presenting for the purpose of getting a commitment to hiring you.
3. Appointment conversations. This is where you are converting a lead to an appointment, either for the purpose of having a presentation conversation or for the purpose of furthering the relationship, taking the next step, showing houses, etc.
4. Lead generation conversations. These vary depending on the kind of prospecting you’re doing. They can include referral-asking, door-knocking, cold-calling, FSBO’s, etc. They are usually scripted in advance–but only to a point. I like to joke that “My prospects are always going off script!”
5. Negotiation conversations. There’s a lot to learn about negotiation, including understanding power, negotiating zones, and special techniques you can use to change power positions, or to counter other people’s power plays on you.

If you’ve been avoiding learning how to sell, ask yourself if you know exactly what to do and say in each of these five situations. Which one is your weakest link? How does that affect your income?
Cheers!
Linda S.

Marketing can be a moving target in the quest for real estate agent success! I see a lot of confusion about the differences between Public Relations, Marketing, and Prospecting. It’s enormously useful to think about these separately, as they have different levels of cost and value to your real estate agent success story.

Public relations (P.R.)

P.R. means getting third party endorsements. Examples include holding contests and inviting radio stations to cover the event or running a benefits program. P.R. can be costly and time-consuming, but with creative thinking, you can find easier, less expensive ways to get P.R. For example, one Realtor created a community Facebook Page for her geographic farm and attracted key influencers to comment and participate in discussions. They have passed her page along to their fan base, creating an implied third-party endorsement. It’s not easy to measure the payoff to P.R., but we know it can be worth a lot when it’s the right kind. The question to ask yourself is, do you think the cost and time of your effort will result in a big enough third party endorsement to create attention? One fairly easy thing you can do is submit press releases every chance you get. Just by virtue of appearing in major media, you can sometimes get a blip on some radars.

Marketing

Marketing means putting the word out about yourself, and inviting people to contact you or receive free information from you. Common real estate marketing ideas include dropping flyers and notepads on doorsteps, advertising, direct response mail, website promotion, or buying ad space on search portals. At a minimum, agents should wear their nametags, put magnetic signs on their car, and get signs up in neighborhoods where they want to work. Real estate agent success often comes down to sustained guerrilla marketing tactics, like ‘bandit signs,’ and (like one of my clients is doing) passing out colorful doggie poop panniers at the dog park, emblazoned with your info.

In both marketing and P.R., the game is to get — and sustain — attention before someone is ready to act, sometimes years before. It’s enormously helpful to collect their phone number or email early-on. To do that, you need some sort of “ethical bribe,” which is a free offer or free information of high perceived value. It can be anything, including a free ebook on short sales, a free CMA, or a value-packed newsletter.

Prospecting

The third part of a core real estate lead generation plan is prospecting. It means actively recruiting business, usually in person. It’s the fastest and cheapest way to become a real estate agent success story. Following is a list of 8 typical (and most successful) direct real estate prospecting approaches:

1. Knocking on cold doors (primarily listings)
2. Making cold calls (primarily listings)
3. Contacting FSBO’s (primarily listings)
4. Contacting expireds (primarily listings)
5. Networking and generating referrals (listings and buyers)
6. Workshops, including first time buyer, seller, investor, etc. (primarily buyers)
7. Open houses (primarily buyers)

Geographic or Demographic Farming

Of all real estate lead generation approaches, I think geographic farming has led to more real estate agent success than any other single approach. It’s the one strategy that can incorporate P.R., marketing, and all prospecting types.If you haven’t hit on a consistent strategy yet, consider farming as a core lead generation approach. You can bolster it with specialty marketing later.

Don’t forget to include follow-up in your lead gen strategies, or it’s all for nothing!

Cheers!
Linda Schneider