September 15, 2006
One of our companies, GetMyHomesValue.com, provides leads (people who wish to buy or sell a home in the near future) to real estate agents. When I was in the real estate business, I would contact many of these leads, create a relationship with them, and typically, they would choose to utilize me when they decided to buy or sell their home.
It’s amazing to me that many of our clients don’t even call the leads when we provide them to them. Or, even worse, someone on our team will contact the agent and tell them that we have a lead on the line for them to talk to (with whom we can immediately connect them with) and the agent will actually tell us to let the lead know that they’ll call them back! If this doesn’t shock you and you’re a practicing realtor, get out of the business now! You’ll never be a successful agent.
I remember having a conversation with an agent once who told me that all of the leads they received from another lead generation service were all 'junk'. My response of course was, “Did you call them?”
“Of course”, the realtor told me.
“Did you stop by their house and say hello?” I asked.
“No, why would I do that? I’m a professional”, He said almost like he thought I was kidding. I wasn’t kidding in the least.
“How many times have you called them since the first time?” I inquired some more.
“Well, I really haven’t. They all seemed upset that I called in the first place. I didn’t want to offend them,” He explained to me acting like what he was saying made perfect sense.
“Did you send them thank you cards or a restaurant gift certificate or anything?”
“No,” I think he was getting my point.
If he would have sent them all thank you cards with $10.00 gift certificates to a local grocery store, stopped by their homes with a market analysis telling them what their home was worth, called to remind them who he was a few times, sent them a newsletter every month, and updated them with how much homes were selling for in their area every time one sold – who do you think they would call when they decided to move?
Okay. Attention all real estate agents!
YOU ARE IN SALES!
You can be incredibly honest, non-pushy, sympathetic to a client’s situation, and likable… but STILL be aggressive, persistent, and make a ton of money in the real estate business.
Realtors, it is your job to make sure that everyone you know and run into always knows that you are in the real estate business. More than that though, it is your job to make sure that those people think of you first when they decided to move.
I guess there’s a reason why there are 1,200,000 realtors in the country and only 36,000 of them make more than $50,000 per year.
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