Real estate agents sometimes forget that they are running a business. But let’s agree today that you need to do one thing to call it a business. Your business is in your…
Last week I spoke with a real estate agent that has been in the real estate business for 9 years. We had a coaching session and talked about the reasons his business hasn’t reached its potential yet.
After 30 min, I asked the real estate agent a question, “How many people have you met over the past 9 years in your business?”
The agent looked at me and replied, “I have no idea, probably thousands.”
My next question was, “So where are these people now?”
The agent looked at me with a confusing face and answered, “I don’t know, I guess I lost track of them.”
So, my last question, “How many of these thousands of people would have needed real estate over the past 9 years, but you lost track of them, so they went with another agent?”
The agent looked at me and knotted his head, “Yes probably a lot, but how can I keep track of all these people?”
Ladies and gentlemen, your business is in your database!
Sorry, I’m not shouting, but you need to start centralizing your contacts in a database. Because if your potential clients (leads) don’t need real estate now, doesn’t mean they don’t need real estate in the future.
You have the obligation, responsibility and opportunity to keep reminding your database that you are ready for their real estate needs.
Some agent already do this, but ask me, “What do I share with these people in my database?”
Let me give you content strategies every real estate agent should be creating:
Becoming the “knowledge real estate agent” in your market or area doesn’t just happen overnight.
It takes work & time.
No matter how experienced you are, no matter how successful you’ve been, people aren’t going to automatically consider you as their resource for real estate information…
…unless you make that happen.
The way to make that happen is by consistently and frequently give and deliver valuable market-relevant information to potential sellers in your area.
You can do this in many ways. A few examples are videos, emails, blog articles, direct mail pieces, social engagement, property reports, postcards etc.
But your content requires variety or it will quickly grow stale. Consistency and frequency is the key. It has to become part of your business.
What 4 content strategies are good to share with your database:
CONTENT STRATEGY 1: EDUCATE YOUR MARKET
You’re around real estate all day. Real estate is your lifestyle and in time becomes parallel with your values and believes.
But it’s not to the general public. People might only buy and sell a house a handful of times throughout their lifetime.
That’s why there’s always a need for educational information for homeowners and potential buyers in any market.
Share your experiences, stories and advice.
Create strategies that solves problems for people in specific situations: “5 Tips for Maximizing Your Home Value” or “3 Ways Home Buyers Start An Search For A Perfect Property,” etc.
Better yet, tailor your educational information to your market by giving additional local market’s trends and statistics.
Create topics, think back through recent people you’ve helped buy or sell a home. What challenges did they face? What aspect raised the most questions? What step of the process gives confusion to most people?
When you put yourself in your clients’ shoes, the topics should be easy to come up with.
Make sure you create valuable content that can answer those question, that will make you an expert in your area.
CONTENT STRATEGY 2: LATEST MARKET DATA
While there’s always a need for Educational information, it’s also essential to provide homeowners with timely and local real estate market information.
This might include:
“Just Sold” announcements to update homeowners of recent sales prices.
Market update statistics to provide a snapshot of recent market activity.
Competitive market analysis to people in your database.
Newsletters with recent trends or any real estate news to your market.
The more regularly you deliver this information to area home sellers, the more you’ll be perceived as the area/ neighborhood expert. That’s how you become the “knowledge real estate agent” in your area.
CONTENT STRATEGY 3: PERSONAL BRANDING
The general public assumes real estate agents are basically all the same, but you and I know this is not true.
That’s why it’s critical that you differentiate yourself from all the other agents out there.
You do this by a promoting your personal brand. This all about you, your face, your behavior. People must be able to recognize you.
Are your marketing materials instantly recognizable as your own? Or do they look just like any number of other agents?
Don’t be afraid to open up and be yourself. Remember, people buy emotionally, not rationally. Real Estate is not a property business, it’s a people business. People want to work with you of the like you.
If you don’t give them any reason to like you, relate to you or remember you, you don’t have much chance of being selected to assist them with one of life’s largest investments.
CONTENT STRATEGY 4: SHARE CONTENT
As mentioned earlier, building your database is critical to the overall growth of your business.
When you find that a piece of content is especially popular, a “need to show your clients’ piece of content”, then don’t be afraid to reproduce that content. You can use it to motivate people into giving you their contact info, or at the minimum, their email address.
But it all starts first with building that Database. A good start would just be with an excel sheet. But feel free to online and invest in a good CRM or Database software. Trust me, it worth the investment.
But if you still believe in Excel sheers, start making 4 tabs and add in all your contacts in 4 categories:
- General public
- Target group (people you want to meet)
- Have met already (Follow up frequently)
- Inner circle (ready to move, be close to them)
If you start building your database today, you will thank me in a year from now. Good luck!
