This April, one of Inman’s most popular recurring theme months returns: Back to Basics. All month, real estate professionals from across the country share what’s working for them, how they’ve evolved their systems and tools, and where they’re investing personally and professionally to drive growth in 2022. It’s always smart to go Back to Basics with Inman.
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In an environment with rising interest rates, limited inventory, and possibly fewer transactions than last year, it is safe to say the real estate market is shifting.
No matter what the market does, there are always agents who have growing businesses. The following are seven steps you can take in this shifting market to ensure that you thrive.
Re-engage your past clients
The foundation of any successful real estate sales business is referrals. Real estate referrals can come from friends and family, but the easiest place to generate referrals is from your past clients.
Maybe your business has been so good that you haven’t taken the time to stay in touch with your past clients. Now is the time to re-engage those relationships. You have good news to share with them: their home’s value is up!
I would encourage you to make a list of all your past clients. Begin a program to speak to five of your past clients per day until you’ve spoken to all of them. These conversations should be relationship-driven. Ask questions about their family, their work, and at some point, simply ask if they still love their house. The deeper the relationships, the more potential you will have for referrals.
If you truly believe your business is built on relationships, make building and deepening relationships your business.
Review your expenses
When times are good, we tend to spend more money and become lax on our evaluation of how effective that spending is for our businesses. Now is the time to make a list of the monthly expenses for your business. Evaluate whether they are effective, efficient and worthy of your investment.
Some expenses can be eliminated, while others may need to be decreased or increased based on their efficiency. The reviewing of your expenses should not only lead to the elimination of expenses but the deployment of funds from one place to more efficient strategies.
When you inspect your expenses, you can expect them to serve your business better.
Refocus on the fundamentals
What was it that led to your early or past successes? What were the specific activities you did that led to your business’s growth? What worked for you in the past will likely still work for you today.
When you first began to find momentum in your business, were you time-blocking your schedule to make prospecting calls? Did you host an open house every week? Were you buying online leads or farming a neighborhood?
By refocusing on the fundamentals, you can see your business expand while other agents are seeing contraction. This leads to a compounding effect on the amount of market share you are taking.
Go back to the basics of your business, and continued growth will follow.
Respect exiting agents
The real estate business has a natural flow of agents coming into the business, and as markets shift, we naturally have agents exiting the business. One way to continue to add new clients to your business is to become the referral partner for the few agents who are leaving the business.
Many of these exiting agents have built relationships with people who will be buying or selling in the coming months or years. Most of these exiting agents will share on social media a new job they took or a different direction they are taking.
Become the resource and agent of choice for exiting agents to find additional deals and new relationships for your business.
Refresh your online presence
Has it been a while since you have refreshed your social media accounts? This is a great time to make sure your real estate marketing program includes fully updated and refreshed social media profiles.
Updating your real estate social media? Here are a few ideas to consider:
- Get a new headshot, and make sure it is the updated photo on all of your social media platforms.
- Check all links to your website to make sure they are linked correctly.
- Create an updated profile bio for all platforms that makes it clear that you are an agent and clarifies the markets you serve
Once you have your social media platforms set up properly, focus on optimizing your Google My Business page. Google is the No. 1 search engine in the world and Google My Business provides a free way for you to control the first thing potential clients see when they Google you.
If you do not have your page set up yet, here’s how to set up your Google My Business…
Read More: 7 Ways To Thrive (Not Just Survive) In A Shifting Market