You got into real estate to make a nice living and have the freedom and flexibility to be home with your family. But, on the other hand, maybe you’re just starting out, a seasoned professional who has hit a plateau, or you just want to up your game and sell more houses.
Whatever the reason, it will take some work, strategic planning, and patience if you want to sell more houses as a real estate agent.
The past couple of years has seen an unprecedented seller's market with inventory being stretched thin and appreciation in some areas being 20% or more, driving list prices through the roof. Stories of sellers having competitive offers of cash only, 10-day escrows, all contingencies removed, and $30,000+ over list price were not too uncommon.
Those days, however, are starting to wane. With inflation concerns rising, and the FED raising the prime interest rates to combat the rise of inflation, borrowing costs have gone up, slowing the buying frenzy that we’ve had since 2020. In fact, we’ve seen list prices cool, homes sitting a little longer, and less competition per listing.
That’s not to say that it can’t still be a seller’s market, but it will take some extra considerations on your part to see those prices of the past maintain.
Combating buyer sentiments, a shifting housing market, and the traditional concerns of being a real estate agent (getting clients and listings, marketing, etc.) can make it appear to be difficult to sell more houses.
But if you’re knowledgeable about the market, have a strategic plan to get more listings, and are able to be patient and persevering, you can win more listings.
Whether you’re brand new or a seasoned expert, this guide is designed to help you create the strategy to win more listings and sell more houses as a real estate agent.
Create A Super System
The first thing you need to do for your long-term growth as an agent and to be the go-to expert that wins listings repeatedly is to create a super system to help you become more productive and disciplined in your business.
When designing your systems, think about each end goal and work backward from there to build the necessary steps to accomplish those goals.
For example, if you want to improve your marketing on your farm and win more listings, you’ll need:
- Better brand recognition
- More “contacts” within the community
- Be front of mind when it comes time for a homeowner to sell–timing is everything
- Availability to schedule an appointment
So how do you create a system that addresses these needs while you also handle all the day-to-day operations and marketing you need to do? Implementing strategic plans that will make you more efficient with your time.
Understanding how to be more efficient helps to have an outsider’s perspective. The value of having a mentor or coach that will understand your strategy, look at your system, and make valuable suggestions to refine your efforts can’t be overstated.
Mentors are more experienced professionals that already have winning strategies and efficient systems in place and are an ideal solution for newer agents trying to learn what it will take. The relationship is two-way, however, as you’ll typically need to work under the mentor while also trying to get your own brand going. Nevertheless, it’s the cost of getting an apprenticeship under your belt and is a great way to catapult your knowledge of the industry.
Coaching is a service you pay for, and its primary objective is to help you get results faster than if you were doing it alone.
Utilizing the experience and different perspectives of your mentor and coach will help you devise the super systems you need to succeed at selling more homes.
Your system should present your brand as a solution to your potential clients. For example, rather than send out mailers with your name or a social media post about your business, craft your message and content as solutions to common questions and problems you see in the market.
For example, with the market shifting from a seller’s to a buyer’s market, explaining to your farm the benefits of selling now versus waiting, creating better curb appeal, or interior renovations that make a better return on the investment and won’t break the bank are eye-catching for your potential clients.
Systems should be things you can automate, like an email drip campaign, getting your social media content created and posted, and mailers sent out monthly or quarterly.
Your systems should not be a replacement for the hand’s-on work you do to meet, network, and interact with your clients, but it is an excellent way to get your brand recognized and your name front of mind when it comes time for sellers to hire an agent.
Win The Listing Ahead Of Time
The key to selling more houses in real estate is to get more listings. The reality is that before listing presentations, there’s a lot of preparatory work to be done, from analyzing the strength of the property, areas that may cause concern, and data of various comps in the neighborhood and market trends in general.
But winning a listing can be challenging even with all the correct information. So how do you win the listing before you even have your appointment?
There is a system for that!
To win the listing ahead of time, you need to be seen as the neighborhood expert and create content that builds likability and trust before ever setting foot in your prospect’s home.
You first need to create content that you can drip campaign to your farm and prospects. A drip campaign is an email or social media campaign that sends out content at a scheduled time and builds off previously important information.
The key is to include helpful tips that your prospects may want, and those suggestions can be an area you’re building trust in your expertise.
The primary goal at this stage is to create engaging content and educate about the neighborhood, market trends, your community, and yourself. For example, you can interview locals about things that make the community unique or create “favorite spots” in the community.
Your concept here is that you should approach your content as serving, not selling, at this stage.
The next phase of your content system strategy should include structuring your ads to be highly targeted and converting. For example, if you’re trying to generate more seller leads, then you would want to focus your ad generation on content that makes a prospect want to work with you.
Let’s use an example. You’re selling a home in the neighborhood and want to use it as an ad for lead generation. Well, you could try to craft engaging content that does two things: drive traffic to the listing and generate new leads.
Or you could craft an ad highlighting what you did to increase the listing price, such as before and after videos of improvements like curb appeal.
Once you create your content, next, you want to target the type of audience you want it to be shown to, i.e., people interested in potentially selling their homes. Again, the goal of your content is for the audience to see it, perceive you as the expert to help them, and be front of mind when it comes time for them to sell.
Your content marketing aims to create inbound leads, people reaching out to you to discuss their real estate needs. Once that occurs, you’ve baited the fish and have a nibble, so it’s time to reel them in.
The third stage of winning the listing is to follow up with potential prospects that have reached out to you. This stage presents a home evaluation that includes the benefits of selling now, current market trends such as days on the market, average list price versus sales price, and possibly projecting how the market may look in 6 months.
After you drop off a home evaluation, you want to follow up with a marketing plan you can share. This can be done separately or as part of step three.
All of these steps are things that are done to entice the prospect.
Your follow-up system should include a day-of or day-before strategy that consists of an email marketing video that wraps up all the materials you’ve sent prior, as well as specific marketing plans for their home that are different from what your competitors may do.
At this stage, you’re positioning yourself as the expert by showing them how to get top dollar, best-negotiated price, and being on the market shorter than traditional agent marketing.
It demonstrates how you will help them and the value you provide to your sellers. It’s about building a rapport and one that enhances the trust your prospect is beginning to develop about your services.
Winning a listing ahead of time is about garnering the client's trust while standing out in an oversaturated field. Setting yourself apart by demonstrating the expertise you bring to each listing is what will get you in the door and get the contract signed for the listing agreement.
Expand Your Reach And Grow Your Sphere
There are two ways to get leads in real estate, buy them or grow them organically. The problem with buying leads is that 1) you have to have a budget to pay for them, and 2) they may be shared with multiple agents making them non-exclusive and a potential waste of money.
With growing organic leads, it's a process that takes time to expose your brand, nurture them, and eventually convert them to clients.
The better strategy is to generate long-term organic leads to build a successful business, win more listings, and sell more houses in real estate. This strategy is dependent on building and nurturing your sphere of influence.
So how do you generate that level of trust and develop your sphere? It takes time and a strategy for marketing that is educational in nature.
Most people choose to utilize the services of people they trust or have been recommended to them. Yelp makes and breaks restaurants and professional services by the amount and quality of online reviews. Approximately 60% of people rely exclusively on online reviews, with over 80% of people trusting an online review tool to inform their decision.
Since people trust review sites, recommendations are crucial for you to get more home sales. Research indicates that it’s 7-8x more difficult in time, energy, and money to get new clients than it does to get more business and referrals from past clients.
Your sphere can significantly benefit your business if you build it up and nurture it strategically.
There are four primary ways to expand and nurture your sphere.
Organize Your Sphere
Your sphere is everyone you come into contact with that may eventually become a client or a referral. So first, organize your sphere into categories from most likely to list and refer to potentially listing to long-term nurturing. Then, organize them by the outreach you’ve had and the type of content you’re sending them.
Stay In Contact With Your Sphere
Now that you’ve organized your sphere into the three categories, how you market to them and communicate with them should also be strategic. For example, you want to communicate with past clients differently than someone you’re engaging with three years down the road.
Crafting personalized content and engaging with them on social media should be specific to the category of the person in your sphere.
Another critical point is that you want to be on top of mind about real estate, so creating a calendar of when and how to craft your message to the people in your sphere is crucial.
Again the messaging should be personalized and service-oriented, not salesy or pushy. Showing that you care about their interests and needs is the best way to stay engaging and nurture the trust you will bring once it’s time to convert them into clients.
Establish Your Services As The Go-To Expert
Being open and available as an agent, providing helpful tips and suggestions, and getting client reviews will do more to establish yourself as an expert than any other aspect. Focus your attention on these factors, and you become perceived as the go-to real estate expert.
To provide updates and helpful suggestions, utilize the power of content on social media and your website and blog. You can create content for one channel and use it in multiple ways to increase your overall traffic. For example, you can drive more traffic to your sites, boosting your site's popularity and reputation as an expert.
Expand Your Sphere
Now that you understand that your sphere of influence is a powerful tool to utilize to get more listings and sell more houses, it’s just as important to learn how to expand your reach and grow your sphere.
Ask For Referrals
There is power in referrals, and unless you make the “ask,” getting referrals may be few and far between. However, did you know that over 40% of sellers using a real estate agent signed that agent from a referral? If you haven’t started asking for referrals yet, the time to start was yesterday.
One tactic is to reach out to recent clients, check in, and see how they’re doing. You could do a phone call or video text, but since you want to request a referral, you’ll want to entice your clients with either an offer or event link to something you’re hosting, like a webinar or happy hour. In the body of your “checking in” email, you’d put a hard ask like:
“I enjoyed working with you and appreciate your business. If you have any friends or family who are curious about buying or selling real estate in the area, I’d love to speak with them.
I’m hosting a (happy hour, webinar, or event) next week about the current market. Feel free to share this event link with anyone you think could benefit!”
Without making the ask, getting a referral is next to impossible. It also shows past clients that you are interested in their well-being, furthering the relationship aspect of your business.
Networking events
One of the best ways to capture people’s information so you can later target them is to host or attend networking events.
You could partner with other service providers, host a home buying and selling Q&A happy hour at a local restaurant, and provide free drinks and snacks. To attend this Q&A happy hour, prospects would have to sign up and provide their information to be contacted with a reminder.
Another suggestion is to co-host a webinar that focuses on current local market trends with top tips such as Top-5 Tips To Increase Your Home’s Selling Price or Best TikTok and Instagram Marketing Tips To Promote Your Home Sale.
Sponsorships
Another way to get out in front and be top of mind for potential home sellers is to do some sponsorships of community events and activities such as youth sports, community events like outdoor summer theater, or concerts. Anything you can put your brand on that will be shown to people in the community is an excellent passive way to be relevant in your local market.
Partnerships with other local businesses
Partnering with other businesses, especially in complementary industries like home finance and general contractors, are an excellent way to be seen as an expert with knowledge beyond just home selling.
By partnering with other local businesses, you can cross-market to their clients, and they can also reach your sphere. It’s a joint venture that creates an opportunity for both businesses to benefit.
There are plenty of ways to go about it, but again, remember that you want to be seen as providing a helpful service, not trying to sell your services. So, for example, you could create a list of top service providers and show the benefits of using your suggested contractor or other creative ways to provide value without any expectation of reciprocity.
Be Creative With Your Marketing
Another way to expand your sphere and increase your sales in real estate is to get creative in your marketing strategies. Unfortunately, too many agents outsource their marketing or do the bare minimum of posting on social media.
The level of effort you put into your marketing almost equals the amount of traffic and interest you can generate.
Create Polls and Contests
Creating engaging content can be passive, such as with video, or you can take a more active approach and create more interactive content.
Polls can be fun ways to get your audience and sphere to become involved, allowing you to gain insights into their thoughts and needs, and amplifying your content creation strategy.
It works like this; you create a poll on some topic, such as the color of drapes in a living room. Then, add other questions that lead to more engagement from your followers. As you collect that data, you can create additional content to dive deeper into the favored results.
Contests work the same way as polls, except with awards presented at the end. With a contest, you could challenge your followers to post their favorite curbside garden or other items of interest. The reward could be anything from a free collapsible cooler or beach towel. You can cross-market these branded awards with an upcoming event.
As an award, you could also offer a free home evaluation and include ways to market the home to give an “early look” at what the potential client could expect from your services. I’ve taken this to a different level with my “Savvy Seller” book that I wrote and delivered to interested prospects. Maybe something for you to consider as well.
Social Media– Step Your Game Up With A YouTube Channel, TikTok, And Instagram
Most realtors use some form of social media to engage with their sphere and attract more prospects. But standing out from the other agents and their boring content is something you need to do.
Start a YouTube channel dedicated to solving sellers’ concerns and tips to boost their selling prices. You can get suggestions and content ideas by running contests and polls on other social media and then draw all your social media to a new video you created to solve the issues. This tactic will increase your perception of being an industry expert and further increase your sphere.
Another popular thing right now is utilizing TikTok to make quick, informational videos promoting your services, highlighting something you like about a home or other ways to present engaging, creative, and memorable content.
Instagram is great for polls and highlighting pictures of various homes and decor.
HARO– Becoming an industry expert
HARO, or Help A Reporter Out, is a service used by reporters needing quotes and other industry experts in every imaginable field. By reaching out to various reporters, you can establish yourself as the local real estate expert and boost your “street cred” in your sphere.
Another way to accomplish this is by reaching out to local magazines and newspapers to offer help whenever they need an insider’s perspective on any real estate topic.
Becoming a quotable source will add jet fuel to your reputation.
Selling more homes in real estate is a challenge. The main hurdle is standing out above the crowd and making yourself known as a real estate professional when the time to sell happens.
Growing your business long-term is a part of implementing strategy and systems, expanding your reach through your sphere, and being creative in how you market your services.
In addition, being tactical in every phase of your operations and business is the best way to generate better brand awareness which is crucial for building a more extensive client pool and increasing your sales.
