By Ray Wood
Somewhere in your neighbourhood this morning, a property owner woke up and decided to list their home for sale. If you didn’t get that call, it can only be because they don’t know you. I believe the reason that so few agents are successful is because only five per cent are actively attracting new contacts by engaging them.
Think about it: Another Just Listed/Just Sold card or Free Evaluation certificate in your letterbox is hardly going to stand out. Take a look around at what agents are doing to promote themselves and win more business. Do you see any dynamic and compelling fresh ideas out there?
That’s because most agents fail what I call the RED test. RED stands for Relationship, Engage and Difference. In real estate, we sell the service of helping a seller sell. We don’t sell an instant consumable like a computer, a phone, a camera or a car. This means we need to build relationships.
Studies have determined it’s almost a year from the time a seller initially makes contact with an agent to when they formally list their home for sale. That means we need to give serious thought to how we actually manage the relationship once initial contact is made.
Real estate’s best invest a fair chunk of their personal marketing budget into finding future sellers and then keeping in touch with them so when the time comes that they want to sell, there is a great relationship in place and the chance of being appointed is much higher.
Most agents don’t actually get this. They figure that if they’re going to spend anything, they want instant results. They need “now money” as I call it.
They don’t or can’t actually see any benefit in building a pipeline of future sellers.
These agents all suffer good month/bad month syndrome. Their careers are a yo-yo of rewarding highs but devastating lows that eat the income they just made from their last good month.
The E in RED is for Engage. When we’re engaged by something, we buy into it. We care about it. We’ll defend it and even champion it. It means something to us.
Engaging is looking at what’s in it for the potential seller instead of what’s in it for you because by nature, people care more about themselves than anything else. Seriously, nobody cares that so and so is the No. 1 agent or that their logo is big and red. It doesn’t engage and it takes away from the message.
The reason there are so few rich real estate agents is because so few can actually engage their market. Good marketing may interest your potential target. Great marketing engages.
The D in RED is for Difference. Unless you can offer something different to potential sellers in your market, you’ll find it way harder to break through because sellers see you as just the same as every other agent.
What do you stand for? What’s your compelling and dynamic point of difference that’s going to help the seller get a better result? Joe Public sees most agents as all the same.
Another way to look at real estate pipeline success is to imagine that your business is a funnel.
The most important “currency” to any top performing agent is listings. In fact, listings are the lifeblood of real estate success.
Your listings come out the bottom of your funnel. If you want more listings, all you need to do is get more contacts into the top of your funnel. Then you need to manage your contacts as they filter down (and let’s remember they take an average of 12 months) to the bottom. Can you see how a RED funnel will be way more productive?
Social media has given us a whole new way to engage our market and harvest contacts, but we need to be careful.
Imagine you walked into a party and ran up to the first person you saw and told them you’re an agent and would they, by any chance, be selling soon or know someone who is?
Social media is just the same but most agents fail to engage their Facebook business page fans. They boast about their recent sales and plaster their listings wherever the can. You know what? Folks just don’t care. In fact, they find it a turn off.
So… you’re back at the party. You meet someone, introduce yourself and start to “engage” them with social stuff like a book or movie you enjoyed or a great new restaurant.
They start reacting positively to you. You learn more about them. You have some stuff in common and on it goes. That’s how good social media works. Not by forcing yourself on someone who isn’t interested but by non-threatening and interesting discussion that gives them the opportunity to “buy in” to the discussion.
With the Internet and social media we now have more tools than ever before to build relationships, engage our future sellers and communicate our point of difference.
So take a look at your business. Do you think you pass the RED test? Could a little innovative thinking win you extra contacts and extra business?
Ray Wood is the author of the best-selling lead generating book How to Sell Your Home for More. Ray’s recent ebook is a study of what real estate’s best are doing to stay on top. You can download a free copy at www.RichAgentsSecrets.com
