Build your business for consistency.
Fast Value: The secret to being a huge success in real estate is building up repeat and referral business. Why? Because it’s easy. But it takes time (and lots of work) to get there. Start now, your future self will thank you.
When I first got into the business I interviewed all the top agents in my office and asked them one question.
“Where do all your deals come from?”
Now this was an older demographic office… and I got exactly two answers.
Repeat and referral business… and farming.
Neither are things that I could do as a brand-new agent.
Repeat and referral requires clients.
Farming takes money and 2 years.
I had none of that. So what are we supposed to do when building our business?
I’ve made a ton of content on different ways to generate deals so I won’t talk about it here, and that’s not the point of this message… This is more of a call for strategy.
If this goal is to get to repeat and referral business, you should start with that mindset from day one (or at least from today).
I only see two ways to effectively do this.
- Content to your database.
- Sales into relationships.
I’ll touch on content in a minute because I don’t think I’m talking about what you’re thinking…
Sales into relationships means that you have to first convert leads into clients. Then you can convert those clients into relationships. Those relationships will be the fuel to your future business.
To be able to earn those relationships, you have to do an amazing job with your clients. When I say clients, I’m not only talking about the ones you do deals with.
As we know, most of the people you talk to are never going to do a deal with you. How you treat those people is just as important as the clients you do deals with.
You are building your reputation…
Your Brand.
As I mentioned, this is the harder way, but it is required if you want to build a solid repeat and referral business.
The second way is much easier. It also requires you to be more consistent.
When we hear content, we think Instagram, TikTok, etc, but that’s not all I’m talking about.
Think of content as all the different ways you can reach your audience without making a 1-1 contact.
Content = 1 to many
Sales = 1 to 1
You might simply gather the addresses of your clients when they sign up to work with you. You might put them on a monthly (or quarterly for cheaper expenses) mailing list.
How about throwing a quarterly event only for your VIP clients? It doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg; just doing it will work.
The easiest thing in the world is to send an email newsletter. Send a monthly market update and a ‘value’ email all the other weeks of the year. Share a story of how you helped another client overcome their problem that week. Share what you feel is the most important thing going on right then.
The goal is to become the obvious choice for your real estate niche.
Here is something more tactical for you… If I got back into sales and wanted to do $1m in GCI in the next 12 months, here is what I would do.
- Send a weekly email newsletter (including monthly market updates)
- Put every client + addresses in my database on a monthly mailer (value + proof piece)
- Make long-form videos based on the email newsletters (make your life easy)
- Throw a client appreciation party (gather 5-star reviews + video testimonials)
- Call / text / email everyone in my database (this should go without saying… plus, I have 30k leads, so I would probably make a few hundred thousand before I got through the list once)
My goal for the conversations would be…
- a) Find the (very) few who are looking to make a move right now (fast cash, fast value)
- b) Create a real estate game plan with everyone I talked to and set next steps
- c) Ask every single person I talked to for a referral
If this sounds simple, it’s because it is. Why don’t most people do it? For the same reason, I didn’t do it when I was selling.
I was “too busy”
Make time for it. Your future self will thank you.
Before I end, I wanted to share a bonus framework that I use to decide if I’m going to do something or not.
Bonus Decision Framework:
Step One: 5 years from now, will I be glad I started this now?
If no, don’t do it.
If yes, go to the next step
Step Two: What would it take to do it? How much time/effort/resources?
Step Three: Am I willing to do that for the next 12 months consistently without seeing results?
If no, move on. The opportunity isn’t worth it.
If yes, make time in your calendar and do it.