Real Estate Prospecting Ideas from Patrick Ferry
I was almost convinced by the real estate community that the neighbors of your listings have no value to you and they are not interested in your listing and the price. Agents for the most part literally ignore the neighbors and the community of their listed homes. They just list a property and move on! YIKES!!! Early in my career as a prospecting trainer I was convinced by real estate agents there was no value in prospecting neighbors of your listings and it would take 100s of contacts to find a new listing. Thankfully after thoroughly investigating it, I discovered the truth. The simple script my Father Mike Ferry created, “when one home sells usually two more sell right away” and the strategy of talking to the neighbors and looking for the next one, works! The truth is, neighbors do want to know what’s going on, and you should be able to get another listing in that community if you do a good job after you sell the house.
It’s probably one of the most over looked easy opportunities to build a reputation in a community quickly, get multiple listings, and build your database of homeowners who know you.
Besides the misunderstood opportunity the neighbors present, the other reason why agents justify not talking to neighbors or doing anything for the community is most agents grossly underestimate the importance of what the home listed and sold for. It’s very strange. Now I’m not blaming you, I’m really blaming our industry for passing down this mindset. And this mindset has come at a very big cost. Think about it, guess who has provided the service real estate agents have mostly neglected to provide, have you heard of this website called Zillow? Last month if I remember the number correctly it $54 million people visited Zillow.com LAST MONTH! Why? Because homeowners want to know what’s going on with values in their community. To add a little bit more oomph behind that slap in the face, guess who is now selling real estate agents the leads of the people that are interested in the values and what’s happening in your communities? OUCH! The reality is the online game is over, Zillow.com has won and they did it first and have won over “the top mind” position for values in the country, as the resource for finding out what’s going on with values and prices. It’s comical that agents scream, “but their values are way off!” I simply reply, but at least they provide something! But more importantly, why don’t you step it up and let the neighbors know they can count on you? Zillow may have won the game online, but agents need to be the face-to-face local expert that provides the most up to date and accurate information about what’s going on with values and prices in the neighborhood.
I’m sorry, a post card isn’t going to do much for your business, even though it’s good marketing practice.
The most powerful and effective way to communicate with the neighbors is either, door knock, phone calls (MOJO’s Neighborhood Search ROCKS), an open house, and marketing pieces. As a coach/trainer I would recommend all, the goal is to max out your opportunity to first provide great service to the neighborhood, second to build your reputation with the neighbors, and third to get the next listing in the community! I can just hear the excuses flying right out of a lot of agent’s mouth right now! This advice isn’t for the agent who is looking for excuses, this advice is for the agent who wants the next listing and gets excited about providing great service to the families in the communities they serve.
For those who are ready to take action and give this a shot, let me give you one very simple bit of advice, FOCUS ON SERVICE FIRST.
The goal is to create conversations with the neighbors about values and prices, don’t just look for the next homeowner who wants to sell! The #1 reason, time and time again, agents couldn’t generate business from this type of prospecting, was because they had “commission breathe.” Commission breath is when you are just looking for business and you are not trying to provide any service or actually give the neighborhood an update. This goes back to the original point, agents lost sight of the value of the service we should be providing. Give neighbors updates about values and prices in the neighborhood! When and agent is just looking for more business they actually become very repelling (a lot of agents were repelled by themselves too), and this lead sources got a reputation as being very weak and not worth it. Once I was able to get the agents’ mindset focused on service first, it leads to amazing results including: great conversations, grateful people, interested neighbors and in the end, another listing!
Your goal should be to provide a great service to the community, sell the house and get the next listing and repeat it over and over again!
‘Patrick Ferry has been in the coaching and training industry for over 10 years. He has trained over 5000 agents from all over North America how to generate new business with their prospecting and marketing strategies and is now our guest Real Estate Prospecting Ideas blogger.’ Mojo Selling Solutions is the company behind the Mojo Dialer and Mojo Lead Store and Data Service. For more information on the Mojo Dialer and what Mojo has to offer, please contact us at 877-859-6656 or visit out website at www.mojosells.com for demonstration videos and other informative blog posts.
