Successful Real Estate Business Growth – The Negative and Positive
Running a Real Estate business is like trying to run a three-ring circus. It can become difficult to manage as it grows in all 3 arenas: past clients, current clients, and future prospects. It’s easier when you just have a few past clients, you’re only working with 2 or 3 current buyers, and you’re able to prospect your neighborhood of 100 homes or so… but is your growth and success actually the beginning of your real estate business demise? Does growing your business create some new challenges? YES!
What about after you’ve been in the business for 10 or more years? Now you have hundreds of past clients, you’re working with multiple buyers and sellers, and now you have farms and marketing strategies all over the place including the Internet where you’re prospecting 1000’s of new leads? At this point your time is being totally consumed and you’re working your arse off! You’re spending more money, providing less value to past and current clients and unable to prospect because of it all.
Your original real estate business plan is now unsustainable. It’s a dead end.
This Is The 3-Ring Circus Dilemma and Challenge
How can agents better manage their growing SOI (past clients) provide stellar services for their existing clients who they obviously want to do a great job for in order to build a strong referral business in the future, (who by the way are the one’s consuming them) and still continue to prospect for future business?
Adding to this challenge is the fact that many agent’s also want to have a family, personal relationships, some financial security, and a life with other dreams and goals? There’s no easy answer I know, but this is a dilemma and the challenge that every agent faces or will face at some point in their career.
Real Estate Agents – Are You A Hunter or a Farmer
Looking for new business is part of the hunt, but going back and working past clients successfully is the key to getting referral business and winning the game. Isn’t referral business the goal of every agent? What is a sustainable business plan?
Automation, Technology, Online Tools, A Good CRM and a Team
Running into a dead-end or hitting a brick wall is never the intention of any real estate agent. The fact is, you won’t plateau if you aren’t doing the volume of business that can be considered “making a living” in real estate. 20% of the agents in the U.S do 80% of the real estate business. In 2013, NAR reported that 72% of all NAR real estate members sold 1 home or less! This is NOT a living.
THE ANSWER – Contacts, Appointments and Closings
This is the obvious “must have” to be successful in real estate. No contacts means no appointments which means no trip to the bank this week. Everything else in real estate is just a tool, a means to an end or a distraction and a time suck! Lead cultivation creates lead and contact capture which is the ONLY way to lead conversion… period. You must have a goal focused on a financial income in order to determine how many contacts, appointments and closings you’ll need to exceed.
Marketing, Advertising, Farming and Prospecting
No matter who you are, and where you’re at in your real estate business, you will have to continue prospecting. Outbound marketing like sending letters, email, social networking, door knocking, cold calling and using your phone etc. will always be a necessity.
In-bound marketing like IDX feeds, listing portals, websites, blogs and referral business are also the staple for agents wanting more contacts and leads to generate appointments that convert into clients over time. These generate incoming calls and inquiries. Agents must invest 20% or more of their back into business using out-bound and in-bound marketing if they want to grow a successful business.
Newspaper ads, bus bench banners, shopping cart branding and billboards are just a few examples of advertising that is considered both outbound advertising and In-bound marketing. These are costly, difficult to track results and often times a challenge to maintain.
10 Success Factors Found in All Top Agents
- Invest in Yourself
- Set Realistic Goals
- Keep Body/Mind Healthy
- Work REALLY Hard
- Learn To Delegate
- Build a Strong Team
- Sustainable Plan/Strategy
- Remove Time Sucks
- Invest in Your Business
- Track, Analyze & Adjust Daily
The KEY to Your Successful Real Estate Strategy
It will require focus, a strategy, systems and tools, technology, automation and incorporating the proper use of Mobile. Setting realistic financial goals and creating a sustainable business plan is the only way a real estate agent will succeed. Ultimately agents need to build a team to minimize stress and maximize time. Social media sites and tools can and will also play a big role if agents know how to use and work them. Only YOU can Master putting this all together to have your business run seamlessly like a fine Swiss watch.
At the end of the day, it takes more than just YOU
To run an effective and successful real estate business if you’re truly trying to make millions of dollars over a shorter period of time, requires a team. It demands letting go and delegating. It mandates that you re-evaluate your business model, strategies, and plan of action daily. Just like a 3-ring circus, it takes multiple people and coordinated efforts to make it run smoothly and ensure no one gets hurt!
Stay Focused, Flexible & Accountable
There truly is no one size fits all. You MUST differentiate yourself from the competition and DARE to be different. Find what defines YOU and exploit it. Deliver excellence to yourself first and others expectation’s will be exceeded. Sign your work with the quality that you want it to represent. Always shoot for the stars to reach the moon because remember… the man on TOP of the mountain didn’t fall there.
winslet