The following material originally appeared in the April '08 edition of
Real Estate Marketing, a magazine for the Canadian Real Estate industry
Real Estate Marketing, a magazine for the Canadian Real Estate industry
How Agents Succeed In Real Estate
I believe that if you want to know what makes people successful, the best way to find out is to ask them.
So when a broker asked what makes real estate agents successful, I suggested that we ask them.
This comment led to my interviewing 74 high producing real estate agents in the Toronto area to identify their best marketing practices.
In turn, this led to How Agents Succeed in Real Estate, my report on the interviews.
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Marketing Strategies, Not Sales Tactics
Before outlining the results, it’s important to clarify what the survey addressed. First, it focused on marketing strategies, not sales tactics.Marketing strategies are marketing-related activities, such as door-knocking, networking and advertising, undertaken to achieve overall business goals.
On the other hand, selling, which is a component of marketing, is all about closing a deal.
Sales tactics, activities like identifying specific clients needs and facilitating closing, are things that lead to the successful completion of a transaction.
And second, the survey looked at what high producing agents currently do to attract new business.
It did not address what helped them launch their careers in real estate.
Thus, the survey results provide standards to which all agents can aspire, not a blueprint for starting a real estate career.
Long story short, the four strategies that high producing agents use most commonly to generate new business are referrals, advertising listed properties, open houses and networking.
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Competence and Trustworthiness
When selecting a real estate agent, among the characteristics that prospective clients seek are competence and trustworthiness.They ask themselves, ‘Can this person do what she says she can?’ and ‘Is he really trustworthy?’
It has been estimated that in North America, referrals and word-of-mouth recommendations generate 85% of new business.
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Referrals
In effect, a referral or recommendation, is third party confirmation that the business,--i.e. the agent--is competent and trustworthy.Thus the challenge for agents is to increase the number of people who believe that they are sufficiently competent and trustworthy to recommend them to other people.
This reputation for competence and trustworthiness doesn’t just happen--it has to be earned.
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Advertising
Advertising properties listed for sale represent implied endorsements of agents’ competence and trustworthiness.After all, the owners of the properties advertised for sale must have believed the agents to be competent and trustworthy; otherwise they would not have hired them to help sell their properties.
Open Houses
Open houses allow real estate agents to showcase their technical expertise and personal characteristics.By interacting with agents at open houses, prospective clients can assess individual agents’ competence and trustworthiness and by extension, how the agent can help them. For prospective clients, it’s like test driving a new car.
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Networking
Networking is the most multi-faceted, versatile and effective marketing tool available to real estate agents.Among other things, it allows them to exchange information and showcase their trustworthiness.
Above all, it also makes it possible to interact with other people, who ideally will like and trust an individual agent well enough to do business with, and refer others to him or her.
In practice, the four key marketing strategies comprise a major source of energy that drives the client pipeline, ensuring a continuous flow of new business.
Certainly these strategies can, and will, help experienced agents attract new business.
Also, connecting and reconnecting with past clients and network contacts can be very energizing, helping them feel good about themselves and their work.
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For Newer Agents
For newer and less experienced agents, developing and maintaining a continuous flow of new business is a viable marketing goal.To achieve this goal, effectively applying the key marketing strategies is critical. However, a base of clients and network contacts is a prerequisite to applying the strategies.
The best way to develop this base is by well focused prospecting.
As well as generating new leads to be converted into clients, prospecting is an essential marketing strategy.
It provides the inflow of new clients, who will ultimately become part of the pipeline by contributing repeat and referral business.
In effect, newer agents will want to position themselves to generate most of their new business from referrals, advertising listed properties, open houses and networking.
The desire to achieve the same marketing position as high producing agents, can be the motivation needed to continue prospecting.
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For All Agents
All real estate agents can benefit from applying the best marketing practices of high producing agents.In practice, this means individual agents should use the key marketing strategies to demonstrate their own competence and trustworthiness.
The survey results demonstrate that words alone simply don’t work.
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