FIND PROSPECTS BY TARGETING SMART LISTS
If you run an intentional real estate business, you need to be taking clear action steps to go get contact information for new leads. There are many choices! Is social media marketing the place to start? It can be if your strategy is to target smart lists. Your marketing strategy might encompass your sphere of influence (immediate acquaintances, past clients, etc.), community and real estate agents (if you're marketing to agents). That makes up three "smart" lists to target your marketing strategies to. Clean up your lists before taking them to social media to create lookalike audiences or other lists.
MATCH YOUR MESSAGE
You don't have the same messaging for everyone if the context is a little different. You have a professional approach to real estate that makes you unique. You have to give away your best "What To Do" guidance to the people you're targeting. "Here I am, I have a plan and I want to give it away to you." Target your smart lists with something that empowers them.
CHOOSE THE MEDIUM
Ask the question, "Is this the ideal medium upon which I can reach my ideal client or my avatar?" Your underlying message has to be about giving a plan away, but then you really have to consider the medium. Observe, for example, how you would use YouTube. If you want market properties there, is it easy to consume, is it interesting, does it work best on that medium? Messaging is different on Facebook, Instagram, iTunes and other platforms where you may be marketing. What about direct mail? Choose the medium wisely so you don't have to spend crazy amounts of money.
MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM TO TAKE ACTION
If someone is on Instagram and wants to find out more about you, at least put a link in your bio! No matter what medium you choose for marketing to those smart lists, make it as easy as possible for the viewers or listeners to take the next step -- whether that's clicking a link, sending you an email, or picking up the phone and calling you.
GREAT, YOU HAVE A PROSPECT - NOW WHAT?
You're out at an event of some sort and you meet someone new. Lo and behold, you start talking about real estate. You started to get lost in the conversation but did manage to ask the big question, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how motivated are you to sell?" and they said, "10!" Congratulations! You have a prospect! Now what? How do you give that person the white-glove treatment that they deserve? After all, the prospect is the lifeblood of your future business. A list of prospects in your exclusive database is the one thing that provides consistency and stability in this business. So, what do you do with a prospect?
THE MLS CLUB IS STILL VALUABLE
What about the MLS? You pay for backdoor access to the MLS club -- the realtors' private club where we have access to all of the listings. We pay for that. And because of the way technologies have evolved, MLS's now have the ability to automatically send properties to people. Even though the MLS is now available to the public via the web, we are still the insiders of the MLS club. If a prospect comes along, put that information in their hands with the MLS access that comes with your membership.
UPGRADE YOUR PROSPECT TO ACCESS WITH INSIGHT
Tell your prospect you can give them access to the properties they want to know about. Your prospects' club is very much related to your MLS club. When you create a prospect, you're actually telling them that you'll upgrade their access. You can put more data in there that is in alignment with what the prospect wants -- whether they're a buyer or a seller. If they decide to go with you as the realtor, not only do they get the MLS access, but they get it with your insight.
FOLLOW UP IN AN INDIVIDUALIZED WAY
Knowing a prospect's timeline and their motivation to sell allows you to strategically follow up with them. Here's where your "7 Steps to Sell" or "6 Steps to Buying" information becomes important again as you move them from the prospect club to the client club.
“Always push to determine truly whether or not a contact should be consider a prospect worthy of follow up by asking the right question."
WHAT IS A PROSPECT?
We spend a lot of time in our mastermind class figuring how all the aspects of the real estate business work. A few years ago, everyone was excited because consumers were all going online -- so going online worked effectively to drive business. That worked for a while, but then the market was all over the place as the biggest companies were building apps, the market was flooded with new technologies and so forth. Now we need something else. So, as we explore the question of prospecting, we have to ask, "What is a prospect?" A prospect is a contact who is going to buy or sell property in the next 12 months or so.
THERE IS A CRITICAL MOMENT WHEN PROSPECTING
Real estate scripts are a huge aspect of this business. When you're going through your script (or flying by the seat of your pants, whichever method you use), the goal is to figure out whether they can become a prospect of yours. That critical moment when prospecting is when you say to a lead, "I'm so-and-so from this company and I'm calling because..." That "because" is critical. It tells the lead that there is something in this for them.
THE ULTIMATE PROSPECTING QUESTION
If they get past the "because" and start talking, the conversation can really wander off into the poppy fields, figuratively. There needs to be an ultimate, cut to the chase question so that we will know whether or not there's an opportunity. We can't tell you where to fit the question into the conversation, but you must ask them, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to sell or buy in the next year?" If you don't know the answer to that question, you don't whether the person is even a prospect. An 8 to 10 is worth following up with.
3 LAYERS OF PROSPECT TO FOLLOW UP
The three layers to follow-up: 1) Upgrade them using MLS access. 2) Give them what they need -- your strategies. 3) And lastly, call or visit a prospect based on a rate of frequency that makes sense.
THE THREE AVATARS
If you could have Henry Ford in your mastermind group and you could ask him how to build your business, he'd probably recommend an assembly line. There are three assembly lines in the real estate business. Sellers are the first and most important assembly line, because they control the inventory in this business. Buyers and agents are the other two. (Hint: Your "assembly line" is really a marketing module.)
NEW PROSPECTS VERSUS YOUR CURRENT AUDIENCES
Once you get used to sharing your information products ("7 Steps to Selling Your Home" or whatever your product is) with your current audiences -- people you know -- you can start thinking about where to obtain new prospects. Not just referrals, but NEW new prospects. What would go after the most prospects with the least amount of resources available? Most would agree that getting on the phone and calling folks, or to put it another way, the most immediate direct contact method. The answer is not to jump on the internet first. Speed to their face! Get to them as fast as possible as you build your funnel system.
FOCUS ON FEWER DISPOSITIONS
Reduce the number of dispositions that you're dealing with in order to hone your funnel. Don't try to be a master of everything. Just do a couple of things and do them well. You know there is business there, so choose the most direct contact method for one or two dispositions. The shotgun approach or "jack of all trades" approach -- whatever you want to call it -- will only reduce the effectiveness of your real estate funnel.
CHOOSE THE MOST DIRECT CONTACT METHODS FIRST
Door knocking and open houses should be your first methods of getting directly to customers. If you bristle at the thought of that, go to the next shortest method which can allow you to contact a lot more people in a short amount of time: Call people! Tell them you have some information to share -- for free -- if they decide to buy or sell. Teach them the steps to buying or selling to round out your funnel.