Here's ten things that will help you become a top producing real estate agent in your first year! What I want you to think about is that most agents are top producers by default they're top producers, because they've been top producers for a long time. So what I want you to start thinking about is think about yourself, like a marketer. Think about your business through a different lens.
I want you to start thinking about your business, like a marketer and not just a real estate agent. I don't want you to be thinking the way every other agent does. And in fact, most cases what's happening with agents, whether you're a new agent or an experienced agent, is you're being told to do things like open houses and cold call and door knock, and just work your sphere.
But here's the deal. You're being told that by people who do not know the right way to actually generate needs, okay. To generate clients and customers. Yes, those things do work, but let's face it. You got into real estate because you wanted to have more financial freedom in time just to find yourself working every single weekend and every single night, like I remember getting into the business and literally being so consumed by it that every single vacation I went on, I was on the phone the entire time I would sneak into the lobby to downstairs and be on the phone. Has that ever happened to you?
It's the worst or how many times has your spouse or your husband or wife or your kids told you, Hey, you're not paying attention to me. Are you there? Listen to me, I'm asking you a question. You're not paying attention, mom. You're not paying attention, honey.
I remember my husband almost threw my phone in the Delta. One time we were on the boat, I was working in the entire time. He literally picked my up and he is like, I'm throwing it in Delta. And I was like, no, no. Right? Because they're frustrated because we're not really present. And the reason we got into real estate was because we wanted to have more time. We wanted to have more freedom. We wanted to have more financial, you know, less stress just to find the opposite.
1. How To Market Yourself To Be A Top Producing Real Estate Agent
So what I want you to think about is think about yourself, not as a top producer, but think about yourself as a master marketer. If you market properly to people. And I wanna think about this marketing is attraction. Okay? If you can market appropriately, people are raising their hand and they're saying, Hey, I'd like to work with you.
And once you can start to change the identity shift from being an agent to being a master marketer, what's gonna happen is you're gonna start to see your business transforming. You're not gonna have to work every single weekend and every single night, because you're gonna start attracting business because people are actually actually know who you are.
When you call people, they're gonna be like, are you that the real agent, because when you market to people appropriately and you offer value, then all of a sudden everything changes in your business. I want the about something. How many times do you go to a new area? Or you see a billboard, you open up the paper, whatever it might be. And you see 15 people saying that they're the number one agent in the area. And guess what? Nobody cares. You know, what people care about? They care about how you can help them, how you can solve their problems, how you can offer more value and how you can stop doing things, just like everyone else.
Let's face it. We are a commodity as real estate agents. It's the easiest profession to get into. Although we can make more money in real estate than most doctors, attorneys, or lawyers, and my best year in real estate. I think I did my around 1.8 million this year during a worldwide pandemic, we did over 54 million in selling real estate. Right? That's a lot, I mean, imagine the commissions on that.
The cool thing is I never had to talk to one buyer or one seller because my marketing, my strategies, my systems do it for me. And it can be that way for you too. So don't listen to the lies that you have to do things like open houses and cold calling and door knocking and just work your sphere. That is the old school approach to selling real estate. Also, don't listen to the lie that now you really have to get start marketing online. You should have been marketing yourself online forever.
So think of yourself as a marketer in order to be a top producing real estate agent. Marketing is attraction. If you market appropriately, you will stop chasing business and business will become easier for you. Also, conversions are gonna be much easier for you because you've developed a relationship with your community because your marketing is correct.
2. How To Create Your Client Avatar
Number two, get really clear on who you want to work with. We call this a client. Now this is similar to niching. Okay. Many people are so afraid that if they niche or they just work with one specific client that they're gonna lose business. I'll give you a really good example of this.
There's an agent in my area. Her name is Laurie. Laurie a really specializes in rural properties and doing ranches and properties with horse properties. I will tell you, Lori is one of the top producing agents in our area. And anytime you see a horse property or a rural property, nine times out of 10 Lori's name is on that property.
Now it doesn't mean that she doesn't still sell regular property. She still sells regular types of homes. It just means that when people are specifically thinking about real estate, that Lori typically wins. So I really want you to get super, super clear on who your ideal client avatar is, and really get to know them and their interests.
Where do they shop? So when you focus on exactly who your client avatar is, then you're gonna be able to take your content. And you're gonna be able to create, inform that speaks directly to somebody, right? Research shows that the more your content speaks directly to somebody, the more likely they will convert and what's happening is while you're speaking to these clients and you're giving them information, you're giving them value.
You're solving their problems, answering their pain points, really making their life better, moving them away from pain and closer towards pleasure. What's happening is you are positioning yourself as the expert. They are developing. What's called a parasocial one sided relationship with you. They're, you're starting to break down their barriers. They're positioning you as the expert. And here's the thing. You can do this as a brand new agent. That's never sold a house before, right?
But you're thinking “I don't know what their pain points are”. All you have to do is go interview your broker, ask your broker questions, interview that top producing agent interview agents that are doing visits and talk to them about things like…
- Who do you typically work with?
- What problems do they have?
- What issues come up?
- What are their most common questions?
And you start creating content around that also by knowing who your client amateur is, you're going able to segment your audiences that are super targeted, but you're gonna be able to utilize your client. Avatars wishes, dreams, problems, things they like to do. And you're gonna be able to create audiences on social media platforms, where you directly target people based upon their interests, their likes, their dislikes, their problem, et cetera. Does that make sense? So now your marketing dollar is actually going to go further.
Think about this. Why this is important. If I was to say right now, let's just say I do a market update. And I say, it's a great time to sell your house because inventory is low. Well, what if I'm a seller? And I know it's a great time to sell, but, and I wanna sell, but I'm not putting my house on the market because I'm afraid that if I put my house on the market, I'm gonna be homeless and I have nowhere to live. Okay. So now when I say it's a great time to sell, you know, inventory's low, you are tuning me out because I'm not telling you that you actually have the ability to sell. So what if I do this? Are you thinking of selling your house? But you're afraid that if you sell your house, you're gonna be homeless. Because right now there are, is a limited inventory.
Well, guess what? I totally understand. We have the solution for you now. All of a sudden that seller was tuning me out because he wanted, he, he knows it's a good time to sell. He knows there's multiple offers in bidding wars, but he is afraid that if he sells, he's going to be homeless. Now, all of a sudden I have his attention. Okay?
That is so, so different because now I know who my client avatar is. I know what they're worried about. I know what their concerns are, so I can speak directly to that in my marketing messaging. And now they're actually paying attention. Now I'm more likely to convert. And now I'm solving their problems, answering their questions, providing value, positioning myself as the expert, breaking down their barriers, showing that I'm the authority. Now all of a sudden, boom, I'm grabbing their attention.
Okay? So here's what I want you to do for your client. Avatar. I want you to write down every single thing about them.
I can go on and on about all the different things that, that you know, I'm gonna, you should be thinking about when thinking about your client, ideal avatar. So when you do this, now, all of a sudden you're gonna be able to curtail your content to speak directly to them.
Think about what types of new neighborhoods that they like to be in would do they wanna be around properties, um, areas that have schools or not, what hobbies do they like to do? Where do they like to go? I can just go on and on about all the different types of things that you want to be able to address and know about your client avatar. So that's your homework right now. So get out of pen, past pin, pencil, pinner, pencil, pause this video and answer all those questions.
3. How To Become A Community Influencer
Number three, I want you to become the community expert regarding your client avatar. Okay. So think about now that you know who your client avatar is, what places in the community would they like to go? What things would they like to do? What hobbies in interest are them. And I want you to start creating content regarding your specific client avatar and their likes wants, needs, and interest locally become the community.
Go to authority, the community trusted advisor that your client avatar is looking to for advice and value in what they should be doing in their community. In order to be a top producing real estate agent you're going to create videos. As you find out what your client avatar wants to do, what their needs are, and what their interests are, you will be able to provide them with a lot of value.
Then BAM, what happens? You then become the go-to trusted advisor that they look to. I also want you to take this video content and make sure that you do what I call video repurposing. Take it, make sure you place it on YouTube, place it on your website. Why, why is this important? Because when people go to do searches, now, all of a sudden, because Google owns YouTube, right? And your website is aligned with Google.
Now you start showing up under searches and you be get higher placements on Google because you're getting search engine optimization because you are creating video content. And where do people go? When they're looking for information, they go online. Your job is to show up where people are searching when they're searching and way before. They're ready to make that decision. When they're actually in the education and research phase. That way, when they're ready to make a decision, you are already top of mind.
4. How To Be A Community Educator
Great. Now number four I want you to educate your community about the real estate process. Okay. That's number four. So we live in an informational age. People are constantly Googling. What do you do when you wanna go buy pizza? And you're in a city that you don't know, or you wanna go out to a nice restaurant? What do you do? You go online.
Okay. Real estate and buying a home is one of the most important that somebody will make. It's probably one of the most largest investments they'll ever they'll ever purchase or they'll ever sell. So it's a really, really big deal to them. So I want you to start creating content around the real estate transactional process. Think about what kind of questions people are going to ask. What are the biggest mistakes that you've seen happen? What are the best things that people need to do around the entire real estate process?
Also want you to start creating market updates about what's happening locally in your area. Find out if it's a sellers market or a buyers market and how that affects things.
What's being forecasted and what is happening in the real estate market? You want to be the go-to trusted resource. Anytime anybody thinks anything real estate related or anytime anybody thinks about your community. I also want you to think about what questions people are Googling. Like, what questions are they putting into the search bar on Google? What questions are they putting into the search bar on, um, in YouTube? What are they doing?
As a top producing real estate agent, again you need to research. The more that you understand who your client avatar is, what their concerns are, what they're going through, the more likely you're gonna be able to do this, a great resources called answerthepublic.com. You can go there and you can type in a question. It's gonna give you like hundreds of questions or the most common questions that, that are around that subject matter. So go ahead and try that. That'll give you enough content for you to use for a year.
5. How To Provide Value
Number five, give value. Let me ask you a question. Do you like being sold? No one likes being sold, right? So the more that you give value, the more likely you will actually sell right? Serve. Not like we have to serve, not sell mentality. Before you try to sell somebody or ask them for something. I want you to educate them, give them value, help them, make their life easier. Move them closer to things they want and answer their questions.
Become that go-to trusted advisor. So many marketers make a really big mistake. Remember, my goal is for you to be a marketer, not just a top producer. If you become a marketer, you will then inadvertently hopefully become a top producer because you're marketing and you're attracting business.
Okay? So I want you to think about yourself that way. And that way, if you give value, add you serve, not sell. They're gonna be much more likely to give you the contact information. When you ask for what do most marketers do? They put out lead magnets and they say, Hey, download, give me your information. I'll give you this list. No, no, no. If you create valuable content and you help people and you offer value, you give them what they're looking for.
They are gonna be much more likely to want to give you their contact information because you served them first. You did not just sell, okay? Do things differently than everyone else. Add value. First, give them as much information as possible because they are researching just like when you go to buy a pizza, just like when you wanna find a restaurant online, if they're gonna be buying a house or selling a home, I can guarantee that they are researching far before.
In fact, the national association of realtors shows that buyers on average, spend three to six months thinking about buying researching before they actually pull the trigger. Your goal as a marketer is not to show up when they're thinking your job as a marketer, as a real estate agent is to show up way, way before that I want you to offer value in your videos, give free PDFs, free resources, give seller guides, buyer guides, best things to do in the area. Things to consider when selling things to everyone, buying utilize these resources based upon the, the, the problems, the concerns, the issues, the questions, and where they're at in their life cycle for you as a client.
6. Building Relationships With The Community As A Real Estate Agent
Number six, I want you to build valuable relationships with other people in your community. Now think about in the real estate industry, how many different people are they dealing with along in the real estate journey or right.
They need a mortgage officer. They use title, escrow, title officers, escrow officers, home repair, credit repair, um, financial advisors, financial attorneys, real estate attorneys. I can go on and on about the different types of professionals that are involved in the real estate transaction, or that can be of benefit and of service to people that are thinking about buying or selling.
The more that you can align yourself and partner with these people, the more that you can be exposed to their audience, and you can add value to their audience and the more they can also be exposed to your audience. So it's a win-win information. You can start together by adding valuable content, creating resources, creating guides. For example, I'll tell you that, um, we have, we have aligned ourselves with divorce attorneys, with probate attorneys, right? We've aligned ourselves with financial advisors and we give this information to other, um, to our customers and our clients, because then it, they can make sure that they're fully supported.
So think about who can you build partnerships with also? Is there something in your area, like maybe a really great restaurant or is there a social media following or page that, um, or group that people absolutely love and they have a large audience, the more that you can add value in that audience, the more you can help people within those Facebook groups within those partnerships with, and the more you can expose yourself to their live, the more likely that they're going to be able to see you as the go-to trusted resource and advisor.
And the more likely they're also going to refer you again, this is a serve, not sell mentality, offer as much value as possible in these partnerships to their people, so that they'll be more likely to want to refer you. And they'll be likely to actually want to continue to let you come, come on their, you know, come on their, uh, Facebook group floor, you know, be exposed their audience, or do some kind of collaboration together.
7. How To Invest In Your Business As A Real Estate Agent
Number seven, start treating your real estate business like a business, right? I mean, how easy is it to get into real estate? It's one of the easiest things that you can ever get into. It's very, very simple into real estate. In fact, it usually takes around 25 hours, 30 hours to get into real estate, but you can make more money in real estate than most other professionals, doctors, attorneys, lawyers. Okay. And they go to school for years and years. So I want you to start treating your business like a business, start investing in yourself, be an entrepreneur, right? Treat your business like you're a business owner, invest in education in courses. How can you learn to cutting edge techniques and show that you are not just dominion? There's everyone knows a rules agent. There's so many of us, right? Everyone's brothers, sisters, mothers, father is a real agent.
And so that's why you need to show up differently. You need to be doing, if everyone's doing X, I want you to do a, if everyone else is, you know, advertising in the local newspaper, I don't want you to look advertis in the local newspaper. I want you to start marketing yourself online. I know of somebody who spent $350,000 on a coffee cart, a portable coffee cart. Okay. Just to sell a cup of coffee for, you know, let's just say at the most $7, okay. And they invested $350,000 as a real estate agent. If you want to succeed, you have to be willing to invest. You have to be willing to invest on your education, on your growth on marketing yourself. You have to be willing to invest in your properties and marketing your properties and understand something. When you market your properties, you're also marketing yourself.
You are always on a job interview and anything and everything that you have your name on, whether it is a video or a sign or a business card or a flyer or whatever it might be. It is a representation of you and how you do business. I'm you to think like, think like everything I do is a representation of how I do business, right? I'm perceiving to the world that this is what they can expect from me. So invest in your business. I want you to invest money. Yes. Money on a marketing budget to get yourself seen in front of people. How do you do that? You do that through running Facebook campaigns, through the, the ads manager account or from running campaigns on Google, make sure that you are investing in that also want you to invest time in your business. Be intentional about your schedule.
Be intentional about what it is that you're doing, right? Invest in actually treating your business like a business on taking it serious show up every day, learn the market. No know what's on the MLS. Understand what's happening, how quickly things are selling, how many offers there are. What's the market climate look like invest time and energy in understanding why one neighborhood might be selling for more or less than another. How different styles of homes and types of homes based upon condition or location in certain neighborhoods, how they may or may not suffer more or left. All of these things are opportunities for you to position yourself as the authority and to show up differently than everybody else also invest in resources. That's going to help you be on the cutting edge of what's happening in the real estate market. What is expected and being forecasted and trending?
Invest in your education and your knowledge to be on top of these things and be a reporter. Talk about it, create content, create PDFs, create videos, create lead magnets, create valuable resources that are gonna help you help people.
8. How To Be Unique As A Real Estate Agent
Number eight, don't be minion. Don't do what everyone else is doing. I want you to be different, right? Why is it that every rule estate agents doing the exact same thing, invest in solar signs so that they BR they light up at night, invest in doing Facebook ads, invest in creating awesome, memorable, funny, fun, educational content. That's got some or maybe no graphics on it. Okay. Take that video content and run Facebook ads or run YouTube ADSS, invest in yourself and do things that other people are not doing. I want you to take this so, so serious. Look around other professions.
What are they doing? Right. That's what I did. When the market crashed, I looked to see what were the fortune 500 companies doing? I remember getting called the foreclosure queen and all of a sudden going from selling, you know, 169 homes in a year to 12. And literally nobody knowing who I was.
I researched what the fortune 500 companies were doing. How are they serving their, their audience? How are they adding value? And they were creating content. They were adding value. They were serving, not selling. So think about how can you do that with your audience? You can do it by doing what no one else is doing. Video video. I know is scary. You're afraid of what you're gonna look like. You're afraid if you're gonna say something wrong, you're afraid of people are gonna like you. And here's what I'm gonna say. If they don't like you, that's great because here's the deal I don't have where I learned this from.
But there's, there's people love you, right? Or they, um, they, they like you or they don't like you, or they hate you or even worse. They don't know you. So what's worse that they hate you, or they don't know you it's worse that they don't know you because research shows the more people see you, the more likely they're going to start to like you, right? It's like that whole repetition factor.
I want you to think about using funnels instead of just a website. We to think about creating lead magnets and landing pages. I want you to think about doing things differently than what everybody else is doing. How is your listing presentation process, right? Do you have a marketing plan? Do you have a Geers buy? Do you have a seller's guide? Are those information and stats in there relevant in current? Or is it just one that you've gotten, you know, that you paid 5 cents for all of these types of things are gonna help you stand out as a and be different, right?
You wanna have an Omni presence. You want people to think real estate think community. They think about you and you do that by being different. Don't be marketing on the stupid carts at, at Safeway. Nobody looks at those, right? Those don't work. You want to be doing things that no one else is doing. I can guarantee you that very few people are creating real estate, um, content marketing content on a regular basis and being consistent about it. So do that be different also, how are you getting people to position you as an authority? If somebody wants a market analysis, are you just emailing it to them? Or are you hand delivering it? Are you doing a zoom or a loom video describing what it is? Are you then directing them to a QR code where there's a listing presentation video, or a seller seminar funnel, or a lot more information that they can look at.
Those are the kind of things that we do that helps us dominate, right? And it also position us as the expert. And we're winning before we arrive. The goal for you is to win before you arrive. How do you make sure that before you go to that buyer appointment, or before you go to that seller appointment, they already know you like you and trust you. You do that by creating content, by adding value, by doing things differently than everyone else to make an impact.
9. How To Set Up Systems As A Real Estate Agent
Number nine, set up CS. I want you to have a awesome CRM where, which by the way, is one of your most valuable assets, because you're gonna be able to collect people's information. Your job as a marketer is to get people off of, of other platforms like Facebook and YouTube and Instagram, and get them onto your own platform so that you actually own that list because you don't know what can happen to these different types of platforms.
A really good Russell burn talks about is how he used to, um, you know, market on Google. And all of a sudden Google got really, really popular. And so, and a word, let's just say, realtor, realtor on Google used to cost. Let's just make it up a dollar. Now that word is $50. When you can get people off of other platforms and onto your own.
So you can email them on a regular basis and you own that information. That's when you are doing things correctly. So I want you to set up systems in your business, create workflows, create campaigns, create automatic things that happen once a happens in B, C, D, and E happen, right? A ally. So you can become more effective, more efficient, more top of mind, add more value. If you do that, you're gonna have more energy as well. Because all those little things you need to think about are actually off of your mind when you have good workflows and systems.
People think that you're working around the clock, although you're not right, because your systems and your workflows are doing the work for you. You plug in the dates and then on what automatic emails go out, automatic text messages, go out automatic video videos, go out all because you have a really good CRM and systems in processes in place.
Now I know for some of you the thought of a CRM and setting up kind of like is like, it's scary, right? Like I remember I used to utilize top producer and you know, and it wasn't my favorite. Like my far it's probably was the worst transaction management software, sorry, top producer that I've ever used. It was so outdated. They didn't do a very good job. So the thought of leaving top producer, it was like, oh my gosh, right? Well, we actually now have our own CRM.
It's called the mare method. And it's like all these different platforms, all in one. And it was a beast not only to create, but to get it customized. Right. But once I actually got it customized and did the work early on, then all of a sudden, my job got much, much easier.
You need really, really good systems so that it appears as though you are working, even when you are not. Your buyers and sellers deserve top-of-the-line customer service. You start getting more referrals, and you actually deliver the best fulfillment and delivery process with CRM. You're gonna be creating email campaigns and drip sequences, upright automatic market updates, local market updates, videos, national market videos. So they, they get sent to them on a regular basis with relevant current information.
That's gonna help them also make sure you SNT your clients in your CRM. For example, if their or buyers or want a specific neighborhood curtail that content. So it goes directly to people based upon what they're interested in, because they'll be more likely to actually listen and watch, and they'll be more likely to convert.
10. How To Use Text Messages Right As A Real Estate Agent
And number 10, lastly is doing video text messages. Do you know that this one strategy alone? I, we, we have tested it. We've proved that on a average, you will pick up two new clients in a month by sending 10 video text messages a day, who do you send them to? You send them to past clients, friends, family members, old clients. Um, you send them to people at your kids' schools or, um, from different events that you're involved in. What groups are you a part of? Send these people go through your phone, right?
Pick out, um, you know, start with contact a and then go down to contact Z and just send a video text message. But here's what I want you to do. Do not ask for business, do not ask for a referral, just add value, mention something that, that they've done. That's cool. Maybe they've had an anniversary or a bur deer. Their kids went to college or they, they won a certain award. Maybe they just went to this restaurant that you like, and you're like, Hey, did you have the chicken parm on? Because I love that chicken parm on there. Or maybe you say, oh my God, make sure you don't eat this because it gave me the runs last time. I don't know. The point is send 10 video text messages that Ave value serve, not sell, do not ask for business, do not ask for referrals.
Now you might be thinking, well, Krista, I don't know anybody right in the area. Well, do you at least know one person? Do they have, can you go on social media and look at who their friends are? Can you look at cool things that have happened to them and say, Hey, I'm new to the area. And I just noticed that, you know, John and John and I are friends that just wanted to say hi and do, just let you know that I saw you went into that restaurant last night. Looked super cool. Hopefully when these days live able to see, and we can actually, you know, maybe have coffee or something like that. There's always a solution if you are resourceful.
