Last week I wrote about how you can get back on your feet after taking a hard-earned break over the Christmas period or having worked through and sold through all your stock.
I talked about working your databases, calling OFI books, past appraisal and leveraging your listings for sale. If you missed it and want to catch up, you can check in out here.
If you’ve built up your stock list and have a full pipeline, it’s now time to focus on building trust within your marketplace and focussing on the long term.
Where do we start?
Build in structures and systems to provide your buyers and sellers with exceptional and Rockstar service in every interaction with your business.
Personal and Rockstar service is a major key to being a successful agent and key to your clients seeing you as their ‘Agent for life’.
It breeds trust. Buyers and sellers can then build a meaningful, long-term relationship with an agent who will be there for them in this and the next transaction, in 20 years’ time, and also for their family and friends.
Sellers are no longer forced to use a singular agent. Less and less are we seeing one agent control a marketplace. Sellers now have options due to the way in which buyers use digital platforms to purchase property. This shapes how we prospect as agents.
The marketplace has turned away from agents with a burn and churn approach.
Why would a seller want to be treated as another transaction and work with an agent who is only in it for the money?
Prospecting has diversified massively in the past 10 years alone.
And with the added element of our collective COVID experience in 2020, prospecting looked very different, state to state, region to region and even suburb to suburb.
A successful agent in 2021 needs to be flexible to pivot and diversify their way of prospecting.
Some might be able to do their best prospecting at their children’s school or at sporting clubs, networking events or around the local neighbourhood. It could be the nail salon, barbershop, the popular café where everyone stops for morning coffee, or on the local walkways and exercise paths.
Others will build a digital profile, using social media as real-world networking but online. Connect online with those you meet in real life to stay top of mind and relevant.
The best networkers, both real-world and online, are those who show their personality and genuine care while interacting with others.
If done well, these connections will pay dividends now, but you’ll start to see the real benefits within six to 12 months. These people know other people who know other people, and in a short period you could be calling yourself an ‘attraction agent’. This means fewer hours need to be spent knocking on doors and working the phones.
It's important to note that to reap all the benefits of social media there is a right way to do it. Your social media platforms are not just another place to list all your listings and shout out about your solds. While they should form part of your social media, part is the keyword here.
Showcase your market knowledge, product knowledge and your success. This will build a new audience of buyers and sellers. Think of social media as your secondary database.
Offer your followers real value for following you. Launch properties online before they hit the market, share the stories of how a property sold and for how much, and create your own tribe based on your personality, your real estate career and how you like to conduct transactions.
Show your marketplace that you are one of the few agents embracing digital strategies. Sellers love this as it is a cost-effective method of sale and buyers love it as they are hearing about properties before they are officially launched.
Combine the above strategies in with working your own primary database and CRM. Invite everyone you meet from open homes, networking, phone leads and internet enquiries to follow you on social media.
Send out regular and consistent newsletters.
Again, in order to gain traction, add some real value. Potential content that you can use might be; changes to legislation, real-time advice on what you are seeing in the market today, recent auction clearance rates and market trends. Work the properties before they hit the market by including a ‘coming soon’ section. Give.
Leverage your listing in the media.
Call the editors of your local newspapers, magazines and internet sites. Make sure your sales reps for REA and Domain are receiving your properties and ideas for stories and passing them through to their editors. Get the message out about you, your properties and your results.
Not only will you sell your listings, but you will build a larger profile for yourself, which in turn assists with becoming an attraction agent. I encourage you to work smarter, not harder!
Implement these strategies into your business and they will POWER UP your real estate career!
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