Any business owner's anxiety is being able to keep their business flowing. In the real estate agency business, we may have great deals in the pipeline but there's always something in the back of our minds - where will the next deals come from?
First, you have to market yourself to your sphere of influence. A lot of coaches will tell you that you have to out and tell all your friends and family members that you are now a realtor or a real estate agent. In that case, that's great! but, you also don't want to be the agitating folk who shoves it to your friends and relatives.
However, it is not enough to market yourself to your friends and family. If you want to get the business sustainable over time, you need to do business with people you don't know as well. It's not as easy as marketing your self to your sphere of influence, so you have to be strategic. You have to define your market niche - who they are and where are they? Narrow down the marketplace.
After defining your market niche, you may ask what will make you unique in the market that you're trying to target? You have a strategic plan. Get to our Free Sales Training Call every Friday at 1:00 PM EDT and hear me going thru the 7-Step Plan for Sellers and 6-Point Plan for Buyers.
Then based on what you can afford to do, choose what medium can you deliver your message. You may do social media, door to door, whatever you may think applicable! Be extremely frugal and strategic at the same time - it's about being resourceful! One great opportunity to create conversation is by doing an open house. In today's digital age, you might be surprised but a lot of buyers are still running around on their own looking at properties to figure out what they like. If you're the one that's there to introduce them to the property, then that's great. However, you can also pitch your plan in case the property doesn't fit their liking.
The last point is to build a follow-up plan to convert all of your leads. You can give them the feed from MLS or if it's a seller, give them a list of properties relevant to them. It's a very powerful concierge-style approach that constantly gives information to your leads.
To summarize the key point: "Conversations with people that you know and don't know will give you a steady flow"
As we dig deeper into understanding how the real estate agency business really works, we'll break down how to find real money in your marketplace.
First, you have to know where do you want to compete. As others would say, it's about narrowing down your niche until it becomes painful. In looking for a place to compete, look for where there's probably at least 600 sales in that geography. That's the bare minimum area within which you'll market your services. It doesn't mean you won't go outside of it but this is trying to be strategic about marketing your brand inside a viable market area that produces enough sales where you can expect to get a reasonable portion of that business.
The next step is to go to MLS or Multiple Listing Service and pull a list of all the production done by all of the individual agents. This will give you a great overview of your area and the averages. Focus on the average sale price because that's going to be the cornerstone when you move away from average production into a top producing production mindset.
You also need to pay attention to the true top producers - the people who have the balance between the number of transactions and are also hitting massive numbers when it comes to the production and gross GCI. This is where the money is!
You also have to know how much these top producers are really selling in your marketplace. If you're on a broker, ask them to provide this because this is integral to your business plan. You have to have a clear goal on what is average in your marketplace and what is top producing rather than just making up numbers. However, you have to still be realistic about who they are, what they are, and how much they are selling. Then you can begin to study them.
Lastly, pay attention to the fact that you're after an average or above sale price and figure out what are the techniques that the top producers are using you know in a good way. It's okay to study success. That's what people do all the time - find someone who already got to the top and start to mimic a lot of their actions. Then as you learn more, you begin to innovate and put in your own spin of their actions.
As a guy who started in this business with only 2000 business cards and a work ethic, it agitates me hearing people complain a lot about what wasn't working for them. I never stopped taking 100% responsibility for what happens or doesn't happen to me in my business.
Let's break down why people don't take 100% responsibility beyond work ethic and how to get rid of it.
First, if oftentimes starts with intellectual insecurity. When we don't have what we want in our real estate agency business and we have these expectations but don't know what to do, all of a sudden we don't know how smart we are. We throw away our resourcefulness and panic when we're under pressure or faced with something not going our way. Stop blaming someone or something because of a setback. It is your job figure out how it works.
To get rid of intellectual insecurity, we should define the best opportunity. For me, the best opportunity in the real estate agency business despite the trend of the digital age where people are all over social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, is still face to face conversation with someone who is thinking of buying or selling a real estate. The digital world is just a part of the grand scheme of things in this business but nothing beats being in a room with somebody and having a conversation. Do whatever you define as your best opportunity to have a conversation that leads them into a meeting.
Next is knowing what to say. It's very clear to anyone in my Elite Mastermind that we follow simple plans. For example, in our Buy Side Plan, it's so simple - there are only 6 points. Be prepared, take 100% responsibility and state the obvious: educate them about how the buying or selling process works and why you can do the best job organizing it for them. That's it.
Lastly, you have to do all of these yourself because nobody's coming for you. The market will never magically fill you with sales and high GCIs. The reason why I'm here to help you by giving you free information is that in this business, you need a plan and you have to get out there.
When I'm coaching agents, I always ask them what do they need help with. When setting a goal, I noticed that people are stating overly round numbers. During a call, somebody said $400,000. Yes, it's doable, but I want to know where the agent is at now and where did that number come from.
The thing is, I worry when people give me those targets because round numbers tend to be general statements. When you are setting a goal that's too general, you're not programming the subconscious mind to be very specific. It sounds sexy and interesting to put a very big number on the board and say "that's my big, hairy, audacious goal!" but don't just make up numbers for the sake of having one. So be very specific and do some little math. You can look at the average sales in the area, see what the average agent does, and set your goals from there. Be at least get beyond the average and shoot to become a top producer but be realistic about it.
Another thing that I noticed that a lot of people are setting goals in a negative lens. That lens, according to Dr. Maxwell Maltz of The New Psycho-Cybernetics is your self-image. I ask a lot of new agents where they want to be and they were in a very enthusiastic. But, the next thing that comes out from them is negative talk. How would you ever get off if that's your mindset?
That's why we should clean our self-image lens and stick to the simple plan. I suggest you follow our plans here at The Realty Classroom: 7 Steps to Listing Success, 6 Steps to helping a buyer, and you're well on your way.