Don’t be the kind of agent who puts people into the most expensive house they can qualify for. Instead, take the time to find an equally good house that fulfills your client’s criteria, but is priced below their maximum. Doing this can cement your professional relationship and provide you with a lifetime client and a source for referrals for years to come.
Advertising is probably the most expensive way you can attain name recognition. Besides being expensive, advertising has another downfall. When people see you in an ad, they do not feel the personal connection to you they need to feel in order to want to do business with you. Consider if you would be willing to trust your largest financial transaction to a name or face in the newspaper. Wouldn’t you rather want to work with someone you have a more personal connection to?
Ask yourself, “What can you do to help your clients?” If you are like most agents, you will have clients with financial and credit history challenges to overcome. Many people do not know how to help themselves so your advise in this area would not only help your clients get their lives in order, you would be gaining a paycheck when they qualify to buy a home. Potential clients in this situation are used to be treated poorly and will be loyal to the agent that helps them so be different and earn a client for life.
The people who hire you to help them buy or sell their house are not looking for, and do not need, just another friend. What they really need is a professional who will advise them on the many choices they will be forced to make. Buyers will need someone who can help them find the right combination of house and price. Sellers will need you to find a buyer who is willing and able to pay a fair price for their property in as little time as possible. Having an agent that is also a friend is great but not as important as having an agent that is able to provide the professional service their clients are looking for.
Everyone has heard the importance of setting and working towards long-term goals, but are you aware that the practice of setting and attaining daily goals may be more important in the long run? All of these little goals add up to big accomplishments and because you are making many small decisions over a period of time, you are able to guide the course of your career most effectively.
Do you track the effectiveness of every mailing you send out and every ad you run? If not, how will you know what is working and what is not? By keeping a record of every one of your marketing efforts, you can really tell what the best use of your marketing dollars is. Don’t just depend on what you think might be working, you may be surprised to learn what you thought was working is not.
Have you given any thought to what publications are read by your target market? If you are spending money advertising in your local newspaper, you better be sure the people you are trying to attract will see it. If you are like most agents, you only have a limited amount of money to spend on marketing; so don’t waste it on things that have no chance of working.
Try passing out personalized key chains to everyone you meet. You can purchase these from any of the many promotional product companies locally or on the Internet. Many people are reluctant to throw these away and frequently end up actually using them. You might want to put your name and website on one side and then something like a small calendar on the other.
A good source of new listings can be out-of-town owners. You can make up a database of these owners by compiling the names and addresses from your local property tax records where the tax bill is mailed to an out-of-town address. Often these owners would really like to sell but are unsure of how to do it from a distance. Market yourself as the local expert with the knowledge and unique understanding of what will be involved for this type of owner and you will win many new clients from this, often, untapped source of new business.
Thinking of yourself as a brand instead of just another agent could be just what you have been looking for to boost your career. Thinking this way forces you to focus all your marketing in the same direction. Whenever someone thinks about real estate, you want him or her to think about you. To do this, you need to find a way to stand apart from your competitors and make sure everything you do is designed to give people a reason to work with you. By giving more than what people expect, you will soon create a brand that is distinctly your own and that people will come to know.
Do you give a clear instruction to the reader in every one of your mailings? If you want the recipient of your mailing to give you a call to discuss how much they could sell their house for, tell them exactly that. Don’t just tell them to call, they will not know why they should and, consequently, will just ignore your request.
Get out a pad of paper and a pen and start making a list of all the ways you can contact prospective clients. Don’t worry if it is something you cannot do, afford to do, or even would do, just keep writing. Try to list as many as you can think of. Once you have your list, decide on the five best ideas you came up with and then devise a marketing plan around those ideas. Keep your list and add to it whenever you hear about or think about a new way to reach out to people. If used properly, this could be a resource that you can consistently mine for new ideas.
Have you given any thought to how you would handle a sudden increase in business? You may be in a position where you think you hardly have to consider this, but give it some thought anyway. If you are marketing yourself in a variety of ways, as you should, you will eventually reach a point where you are servicing multiple buyers and sellers at the same time. You will need to learn how to be the same great agent for many clients just the same as you would if you only had one. The really successful agents have learned how to do this and you will need to as well if you expect to achieve the same.
If you are passionate about your profession and the help it provides people, then your clients will feel that passion as well. Everyone wants to believe they are making the best decision they can. This is especially true when it comes to money matters and even more so when it comes to buying and selling a home. It is common knowledge a home is the largest purchase that most people will make and your passion about your profession can go a long way in convincing them you are the agent to help them.
Can you talk persuasively about why you are worth the money you make? If not, you need to learn how. This is the one question that almost everyone who considers hiring you will have on his or her mind so you better be ready with an answer. If you stammer through your reply it will sound like you are making it up as you go along so practice this just like you would practice any of your scripts.
One of the most important marketing tools you have is your business card. You hand them out to everyone you meet (you do, don’t you?) and many people will hold on to them until they need them. With all the ways you can profit from your business cards, why would you not get the very best looking cards you can? Don’t waste time and money at a printer that doesn’t specialize in these. Instead go to the printer that can offer hundreds of different kinds of stock, inks, embossed, special cuts, folds, etc. Be creative, be professional, but never be cheap. A single transaction should pay for your cards for many years to come.
Check to make sure that every single page of your website is functioning the way it should. Never allow a link to take someone to a page that is “under construction.” People see this as a sign to go elsewhere since there are countless other sites they can go for the information they seek.
Offer a free real estate seminar to increase your exposure to your local community. The public library is a great place for this, or perhaps a community or senior center would be willing to let you speak. Prepare informational handouts and make the topic of your seminar something the local people are interested in. You might talk about how your local market is doing better than the national or regional averages, or some strategies people can use if they are facing foreclosure. The closer you get to the problems and needs of your likely audience, the greater the turnout will be.
Think about the real estate problems the people in your market are facing. Many people today are looking at the possible loss of their home because they are unable to afford it. How can you help them? What if you could find them a less expensive home they could afford? Perhaps you could put them into contact with a banker that would help them out of their current house and into another. Many people facing foreclosure feel trapped and would welcome a solution to their problem and, if you think about it, solving problems are what your business is all about.
One area many people feel uncomfortable with is dealing with their own weaknesses. The obvious problem with this attitude is that instead of recognizing them and then improving them, they allow them to limit what they can accomplish and forever hold them back. You must face up to the things you are weak in or be stuck at your current level, or perhaps, fall further behind your competition.
