4 Tips For Real Estate Agents To Spin Your Straw Into Gold
Today I would like to talk about a common mistake made by many new and existing real estate agents. I’ve been in the property industry for 20 years, with a large portion of that time spent mentoring real estate salespeople and team builders, and the common thread I’ve noticed is that many real estate agents spend a lot of time, effort, and money searching for new customers, but they forget about the Pot of Gold they already have.
Most real estate agents admit that finding new leads can be extremely stressful and time-consuming. Having been-there-done-that myself, I completely understand these issues, and how financially draining it can be delivering flyers to house owners, employing telemarketers to make cold calls, and even personally going door-to-door looking for business.
Many real estate agents pay for expensive courses to learn lead-generation funnelling techniques and social media marketing.
Indeed, all the above prospecting methods can be extremely useful if you’re new to the property business, or you don’t have a wide network of contacts. However, if you have more than three years’ experience, or 100 transactions under your belt, this information below is specifically for you. You are sitting on top of a Pot of Gold!
Let me explain. If you’ve spent time building relationships with your Circle of Influence, which might include friends, relatives, neighbours, ex-school mates, ex-colleagues, and existing or past clients, you should have no difficulty in increasing sales year after year.
It’s much easier to get business from these people because they already know and trust you. Getting repeat business from old clients and referrals from people you have good relationships with is the Pot of Gold I’m referring to.
Your Network is Your Net Worth
All too often I see real estate agents investing money in their business, but not investing enough time in nurturing relationships. Connecting with people that share your values and interests is an extremely important part of the property business.
Unless you want to spend unnecessary time and money every year getting new customers, you need to start working on expanding your network, and you need to start right now! Do it well, and you’ll achieve enough sales and referrals to develop a thriving real estate business for many years to come.
Technology Has Accelerated Connecting
Thanks to the huge advances in technology, networking has become so much easier. It has made it easy for us to communicate with many people within a short time. Here are my best tips on how you can expand your network –
1) Reconnect With Your Old Network
All of us have at least 30 people we know. Whether they be friends, relatives, old school mates, ex-colleagues, neighbours, old or new clients, it’s vitally important that you invest time into weaving and spinning these contacts into gold. I suggest you focus on building rapport and trust with at least two of these contacts every day, which means that you will communicate with each one of your contacts twice a month.
As you get to know more people, replace those who are not responsive to your outreach with new ones. As your contact list gets longer, start a broadcasting list, sending them real estate related information once a month, all the while continuing to nurture the 30 contacts on your VIP list.
Important Tip: It’s not possible to focus your attention on everyone you know, so choose carefully who to spend time with. Your VIP list should include people with a good network, high income, and those who are open to your influence.
2) Leveraging the Power of Social Media
In 2010 I was in the United States to receive my Top Division (Singapore) Award and to attend a training conference. It was at that time I decided to open my Facebook account.
I spent a minimum of one hour every day scrolling through my newsfeed and adding potential ‘prospects’ to my friends list. Within one year I hit the maximum number of friends (5,000) allowed by Facebook. I then started cleaning up the list, removing inactive contacts to make space for new ones. By the year 2017, this simple measure had helped me grow my team to more than 1,200 agents.
Important Tip: Don’t rush into adding or accepting friends because you don’t want to hit your limit too soon. Make sure the people you’re connecting with will be of value to your business or personal life. If you’re just starting your social media adventure, or wish to benefit more from your Facebook experience, search and add friends from groups where you share common interests. It’s much easier and more advantageous to you to make friends on Facebook when your interests are the same, or similar.
3) Attend Social Events
Another great way to increase your network is to attend charity and networking events, and to join a gym, yoga class, or any sports group. Check out Business Networking International (BNI) and MeetUp: this are two great platforms for you to meet people that could be extremely helpful to your business.
At first, you may feel uncomfortable opening yourself up to strangers but, as the saying goes, “You can only grow when you are uncomfortable”.
Important Tip: Don’t be in a hurry to talk business to someone you’ve just met, Instead, focus on gaining trust and building rapport. They’ll be more likely to be influenced by you once they like and trust you.
4) Invest in Social Media Advertising
If you’re a new real estate salesperson and you don’t currently have a good network of contacts, my advice is that this is the fastest way to increase your network in a short period of time. Invest your time and money into getting leads from social media marketing and nurturing these leads into your VIP and broadcast list.
When done correctly, a marketing campaign can lead to hundreds of leads. To attract the right people you need to target your audience according to your marketing objectives.
Important Tip: There are many free and low-cost training videos on the Internet, perfect for you to learn at your own pace. At the time of writing this post I am in the process of launching my first YouTube advertising campaign – all by self-learning. If you’re too busy, or don’t have the know-how or time to spend learning how to do this yourself, there are many vendors online that are happy to do this for you for a fee.
Everything to Gain
There are obviously no overnight success in our business; however, if you have the discipline to follow the above four steps over the next 6 to 12 months, I believe your business will grow exponentially.
Real estate sales is a business where success depends a lot on prospecting. The more people you can influence, the better your business will become. People buy people first, products second. Spend time building relationships with people that can help your business grow. Learn the art of making people like and trust you and you will enjoy great success for many years to come.
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If you would like to look for a proven mentor to shorten your learning curve, you can Whatsapp me. Otherwise you can schedule a 45 min consultation with me too.
To Your Success
Gary Chua
Gary Chua is the co-founder of Navis Living Group
—A 1300 agents-strong division with Huttons real estate agency, and the fastest growing group in this competitive industry. Gary is also a mentor to many real estate agents and team builders, for two decades and counting.
Before devoting his work full-time to grooming realtors, Gary was himself a distinguished real estate salesperson. He first stepped into the industry at age 30 in Year 2000 and having been Top 50 Achievers in his 5 years of sales, he understands the hurdles and challenges facing both new and experienced agents, and is thus equipped with a wealth of knowledge to aid and teach the property agents whom he takes under his wings.
In 2005, Gary realised that his true calling was to groom and coach the next generation of real estate agents. It was also the year that he consciously diverted almost all of his time and effort into recruitment activities, putting his personal sales aside and taking a hit in his bottom line.
Through sheer grit and determination, Gary's vision took hold as his team expanded, eventually growing to become the largest division in its agency, and also one of the largest in Singapore. It cultivated numerous top producers and achievers throughout the decade—some of whom have clocked in more than S$1,000,000 in commission in a single year, broken many sales records, won many local and international awards, and helped many real estate agents achieve outstanding results and realise their financial freedom.
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