If what you have planned this week does not include prospecting and marketing for new leads, then you should rework your plan. Nothing you do during your business week is more important than adding new names to your contact management system. The ways to generate real estate buyer and seller leads have not changed very much over time. Floor duty, open houses, just listed and just sold cards and letters, calling expired listings, calling FSBO, calling family and friends, advertising in the newspaper are several of the tried and true ways to increase your business. Today savvy agents are also taking advantage of the internet through blogging, personal website and lead generating companies to increase their business.

Make this week less about the non important stuff and more about lead generation and you will reap the benefits!

The simple answer is that buyers can be found everywhere.

Potential home buyers can be found all along your daily schedule. The clerk at the local convenience gasoline store could be a buyer or know of a potential home buyer. The person busy making you your morning bagel may be thinking of buying a home. The teller at your local bank taking your deposit or cashing your check may have thought about purchasing a house. How about the waiter or waitress at lunch? It is possible that they are now ready to buy. As you pull back into your drive way at the end of the work day, the neighbor you wave to as you enter your home might have a name of a relative looking to purchase a home.

Home buyers are scattered all through your busy day. The question you should be asking yourself instead of where can I find buyers, is do the buyers I encounter daily know I can sell them a home?

Did you hand your card to any of those potential buyers mentioned above? Did you invite them to check out you business Facebook page? Do they receive your monthly email newsletter?

My answer to new agents is that they already know hundreds of buyers; they just need to know you.

•  How about spending the morning uploading your most recent contacts to your contact management system and then create a new drip email campaign or newsletter? 
• The early hours are a perfect time to add something new and interesting to your Facebook business page. 
• Blogging in the a.m. is a perfect time to let people starting their day know how the market is or where the best coffee can be found in town. 
• Thank you cards can be written while the sun is rising, just remember to ask for the referral. 
• Visit Twitter or local community forums and see if there are area specific questions from the night before left unanswered. 
• Finish up your neighborhood newsletter while eating your bagel.

Any of these task could result in a new buyer or seller for you and can be accomplished at the crack of dawn.  It is a great way to get a head start on  your competition and will set the course for a productive day!

What are some of your suggestions for prospecting at the crack of dawn?

What is working, what has not produced any results and what have you been meaning to try?  Those are thoughts that should be a part of your Monday.  Will you spend the week calling your center of influence?  Will you be spending the majority of your time this week prospecting for new buyers, new sellers or outgoing referrals?

My suggestion for this Monday is to plan on spending time each day this week contacting 5 new people.  Start a spread sheet that lists the 5 people you talked to, their phone number, email address, and a brief description of the contact made.  Follow up by adding these 5 people to your contact management solution and send them a personal hand written card.  

It’s Monday, you do know where your customers and clients are, go contact them!

Safe is for sissies.

The Florida Bar Association has a program that allows you to request attorneys to speak at group meetings.  I took a look at the different topics available and noticed that there were attorneys available to discuss intellectual property rights and laws. To me, that was a perfect topic that would go hand in hand with my goal of getting more of my agent’s marketing and prospecting online.  It could also seriously backfire and I could end up having agents falling asleep and out of their chairs or worse, boycott any future meetings on principal.

I was pleasantly surprised.

Stephen Luther, a Patent Attorney with Allen, Dyer, Doppelt, Milbrath & Gilchrist, P.A. in Orlando was our presenter recently and he did an amazing job!  His presentation lasted a little over an hour.  He kept it easy enough for the agents to understand, encouraged them to ask questions and did a good job relating the material back to what we experience in our day to day real estate business.  Some of the key points for me were:

• As independent contractors, agents own the pictures they take of their listings.
• Agents need to carefully choosing slogans they want to trademark making sure they are not too general.  For instance the “best real estate agent” would not hold up well as a trademark.
• The usefulness of a DNCA takedown letter when someone has posted your real estate pictures or content without permission.
• The difference between a ® (federally registered)  and a ™​  (no registration required)

I would encourage Brokers to have similar speakers at their meetings especially as more agents venture online.  Having a basic understanding of what can and cannot be done as it relates to copyright and trademark laws could prevent bigger problems down the road.

I encourage the agent to select a house from one of our many office listings or to use their personal house as the subject property. By doing this “homework” ahead of time, the new agent will become familiar with the contracts and related addendums. This will serve to their advantage when meeting buyers and sellers during the beginning of their career.

Some of the best ways to draw attention to a listing are;

• Hold an open house and invite everyone in the neighborhood and surrounding apartment complexes.

• Send information flyers to agents that have sold houses in that neighborhood over the past 12 months.

• Take full advantage of Realtor com. Upload the maximum number of pictures allowed and provide a detailed description of the house.

• Advertise the house on Craigslist Orlando

• Place information flyers in the mailboxes of your office agents.

• Talk with the seller about weekly price adjustment or enhancements.

Pricing is a huge part of why homes sell today. Take a look at sales and new listings within the past month to confirm your price and then make corrections as needed.

He received these responses from the agents in attendance.

1. Call everyone you know and let them know how excited you are to be in the business and inform them of your initial success.

2. Hold an open house everyday that you don’t have anything else to do.

3. Take a top producer to lunch or shadow them.

4. Spend time with your Broker, getting familiar with contracts.

5. Show up at the office and good things will happen, perhaps an agent will have a referral they are too busy to handle or someone will need help on floor.

6. Work on a direct mail campaign to your farm area.

7. Avoid “stinkin’ thinkin’”

All are very good suggestions that do work when applied. I think the best thing learned from this morning is that there is a wealth of knowledge and experience in the real estate office and sometimes when you don’t know what to do, the answer or many answers can be found by asking the agent in the office or cubicle next to yours.

• Personal

• Family

• Education

• Business

• Financial

• Investment

• Computer & Technology

Goal Setting

1. Your goals should be specific

2. They must be in writing. If you write them down, your chances of achieving them are increased tremendously.

3. They must be attainable

Take the time to review the past quarter, make adjustments where needed and finish strong this year.

The relocation referral.

Referring a customer to a real estate agent outside of your market area is an easy way to increase your bottom line. Here are 3 tips that will help you get more outgoing referrals.

1. Ask your listings; where are you going?
2. Ask FSBO’s where they are going?
3. Call your cousin.

Part of your listing presentation needs to include detailed information about you and your company’s referral network. Being part of an international relocation network increases your value to the customer, with the potential for buyers outside of their area finding out about their house. This portion of your presentation is a perfect opportunity to ask your seller; “Where are you moving too?”

Not every FSBO will need a real estate agent to help them sell their homes but most buyers will use a real estate agent to buy their home. Why not include as part of your calls to for sale by owners, asking them where they are going? They might appreciate receiving relocation and area information from the State or area they are moving too and you will appreciate the referral check that comes with placing the referral.

I think we do a good job letting our parents and brothers and sisters know are looking for both incoming and outgoing referrals. Where we may leave stones unturned are when reaching out to our extended families. Our cousins and in-laws or outlaws that might be moving throughout the country often do so without our knowledge. Wouldn’t they appreciate you taking a personal role in making sure they have the very best agent representation?

Increase your income with relocation referral checks by making good use of the 3 tips listed above.  It is a fast and easy way to earn more money during your real estate sales career.