As a Realtor© what's your goal? More buyer leads, more listing appointments, better brand recognition and market share? No matter which of these you've set your sights on, there's one sure-fire way to help with each of these: listings.
In addition to generating new real estate buyer and seller leads, listings also offer the opportunity to showcase your brand and expertise with valuable, relevant content. So if you believe More Listings = More Leads and you want more of both, you're in the right place. Read on for 10 strategies to generate listings from your past clients, sphere of influence, cold leads, and more.
1. Call your past clients and sphere to share some good news. Let’s start with a big one: this tip can help you with every single person in your database (and ones who aren’t even in there yet). Bring value to the table right away with an interesting stat about the housing market. Here’s a great one to start, with a great angle built into it: The value of the North American Housing Market increased by $1.9 trillion in 2018. That's a 6.2% increase! Want to know how much your house’s value went up as part of it? You know your market better than we do, so if you’ve got a more interesting or relevant stat about your area, lead with that. Regardless, find an appropriate angle to pair with your stat and you’ll start having better conversations that lead to more listings.
2. Send this email. Here’s another stat for you to share with your past clients, sphere, and seller leads, and it’s a doozy. It’s been a huge hit and has generated a ton of interested replies and appointments. For the subject line: Zillow was WAY off! Here’s the message we wrote: Did you know the CEO of Zillow sold his home for 40% less than the "Zestimate"? They actually have a disclaimer on their website where you can see exactly how INACCURATE they are. They just make it hard to find. With that in mind, if you are considering the sale of your home, (or the address of a home you want to buy), reply to this email right now with your home's address and I would be happy to send you a "Zactimate."
3. Post A Social Media Poll. This might be the easiest tip to act on - you can open your phone and do it right now. Add to your story: “Are you planning to move this year?” Obviously you’ll get more “No”s than “Yes”es but any Yes or more in-depth answer provides an easy opportunity to follow up via DM.
4. Start Each day prospecting for sellers. Use the 5-5-4 routine and it’s easy to duplicate. Every day, you should have: 5 conversations with people you don’t know, new potential prospects 5 conversations with your hottest prospects 4 conversations with your sphere of influence. What do you say on the phone with your sphere? Try “Have you had any thoughts of selling?” and “Do you know anybody that’s had thoughts of selling?” Tim’s sphere is so used to answering that now they start thinking about who might be selling any time Tim pauses in the conversation.
5. Refresh your listing presentation. It’s a valuable lesson in what sales really boils down to: human communication. Have you ever bought or sold a home with a realtor before? How long do you think it will take to sell your house? What do you think the difference will be between the asking price and the initial offer?
6. Sell your services. If you ask the average real estate agent what’s more important between buyers and sellers, they’ll typically say sellers. But when you look at their websites, the first thing highlighted is a home search. Stop sending the wrong signal, start selling your services. Every real estate website should have a page that sells its services to potential home sellers. Selling your home is a daunting process, so give your prospective clients the peace of mind that you have a tried and true plan to list, market, and sell their home.
7. Establish a Seller Success Series. When you’ve used all the tips on this list, you’re going to have a lot of happy sellers. You can turn those into even more listings, by turning the corner on a common business practice and making something truly compelling. He’s leveled up his reviews by turning his wildly positive customer experiences into evergreen content that sells every new person who comes to his website. The stories are interesting, unique and are an authentic representation of his brand. The best part? People help support what they create. Feature your clients in a positive light and turn them into your brand ambassadors! We believe that if you tell more stories, you’ll sell more homes. Create a landing page to display on like www.wadesoldit.com
8. Update your referral network. This is actually a two-step tip: first up, it’s time to update your list of approved and recommended vendors. Finding reputable people that you trust is the hard part, so take this question to your email database and your followers on Facebook. “We’re updating our list of approved vendors. Who do you love and recommend?” Be sure to let them know you’ll be publishing your list publicly.
9. Re-earn their business. One of the biggest mistakes we see people make is mistaking delivering a great experience for earning a customer’s business for life. For some, sure, a job well done means you’ll go back to the same agent the next time you have a real estate need. But some consumers treat transactions like exactly that: You do a service for them, they pay you for that service, end of transaction. That’s why it’s important to stay on your past clients’ minds, but not be intrusive or obnoxious about it. We’ve crafted an email for you to send that can help achieve both. Subject Line: What’s your plan? Here’s the message we wrote: Hi [name], It’s sometimes hard to imagine a day when you’re going to want to sel l your home, but that day eventually comes. 1 year, 3 years, 5 years? It’s hard to say because life has a way about being unpredictable. I wanted to make sure you knew I was here for you when that moment came. My job is to help develop a plan: There are things we can be doing now and in the future to help maximize your profit when you sell. This includes your mortgage payment schedule, what home improvements to make or avoid, and, of course, timing. All of these factors (and many more) have a dramatic impact on what you should do between now and when the time comes to sell.
10. Speak to their pain points. People have a hard time believing you can solve their problems if you haven’t made it clear you understand what those problems are. Many avoid writing, discussing the potential pitfalls, not wanting to appear to be a fearmonger. But there’s a lot of space between “everything is awesome” and being a Negative Nelly - space that real people occupy and need guidance through. So don’t be afraid to acknowledge those pain points in your ads and emails. Speak to issues like not knowing whether it’s the right time to list, whether they’ll be able to afford a new home, the complications of the home selling process, and more. Then point them to the Seller Services page we recommended you build.
I trust you were able to find a nugget or two that will rev up your listing inventory for the fall and help finish the year on a high. Please share in the comments with our readers some of your sure fire listing ideas, we would love to hear from you. To your success.
Strength and courage,
Wade
