Let’s Get Prospecting!
For the last month most of us have been focused on organizing our offices and finalizing our business plans for 2020. By now you should be have a clear vision for where you want your business to go in 2020, how much you need to invest in new initiatives, and how much income you need to earn to achieve your goals.
We’ve now done enough house cleaning and it’s time to pivot and get serious about finding new opportunities and writing business.
No matter where you are in your career, the most important thing you need to do every day is prospect. Nobody likes to prospect, but to be successful in real estate, prospecting every day is critical. I always laugh when I see ads to “take my course and you’ll never have to prospect again.” I think “what a load of rubbish!” That’s like saying “lose weight without ever having to diet” or “get in great shape without ever having to exercise”. You and I both know that doesn’t make any sense. I’ll tell you what works. Work works. And the core of our business is uncovering new opportunities.
There are really two ways to generate opportunities: the paid method and the organic method. Agents are always attracted to the paid method because it seems easier (e.g. paying a company to generate online leads for you). You may not have to go through the proactive activity of reaching out and calling someone, but you still have to be able to convert those leads when they come in. You must be prepared to jump on the lead right away (if you don’t respond in less than 5 minutes your chance of conversion drops dramatically) and you need exceptional communication skills to convert the lead into an appointment. You still need to understand the psychology of sales to be able to convince someone to meet with you and you still need to be a closer. At the end of the day if you are paying for leads and you can’t convert those leads into appointments then you are wasting your money.
The second method of generating opportunities is organic. This could be door knocking, open houses, FSBOs, expireds, sphere of influence calls, etc. Most agents avoid this type of proactive prospecting because they prefer the low-hanging fruit. What they really like is to buy online ads and have their phone ring. The reality is…it’s not that easy. There is no way around it, you need to develop your communication skills, learn the talk tracks and scripts. Don’t think you can avoid the difficult prospecting conversations just because you pay for leads.
I always say, if you have money and no time then you should pay to generate leads. If you have time but no money, then you must resort to good old-fashioned organic prospecting to generate leads. There’s no easy button.
Chris Leader
President
Leader’s Edge Training