The Holy Grail in this business is for people to come to you without you doing a thing. It is the dream of all agents. The only way that happens is if you build a spear that trusts you and has the personality to find clients for you.
Sphere or Database?
Imagine if you knew 50 people that had the influence and network to refer you one person a year. 50 deals a year from just being friendly and maintaining relationships that you were already maintaining. And part of the reason it’s the Holy Grail is there is so much less work to deal with the referral from someone who trusts you. Instead of an internet lead or a random sign call that you have to try and prove value, somebody has done all that work for you because you did that for them at some point.
There are some that think you should have a huge database that you stay in touch with regularly. You can’t have the same level of connection with 1,000 or more than you can with 200. Decide if you are going to go deep or wide.
You’re probably tired of hearing me say this about everything, but there are different ways to approach this. I’m just trying to lay out all the options for all the different ways personalities.
There’s the famous 36 touch system from the millionaire real estate agent book. Now people are saying that it is a 48 touch system and that people are getting harder to really connect with. Now I feel that is for the growing of your sphere which most of you need to do to find the ones that are guaranteed to give you a referral every year.
As I mentioned earlier agents are terrible about follow up. we will talk ourselves out of calling a client after a closing because we’re worried something went wrong and we don’t have to deal with it
Too many of us get caught in our own heads about how we think we would want to be treated. The problem is you are not them. You don’t need a real estate agent. There are plenty of things you think you wouldn’t do until the time comes and you’re fine with it. So get out of your head and follow a system.
Some agents have a monthly or quarterly dinner with their top referrers. And I’ve heard one story where an agent sends out a newsletter mentioning the dinner which causes FOMO to others that weren’t invited. And it can actually get ridiculous during the dinners where people are one-upping each other saying that they’re going to get more referrals for the agent than the other person. Imagine sitting back while people argue over who will find you more referrals.
Some agents do random pop-bys of their sphere’s work or homes and drop off a little gift. Another thing is to hold events like movie nights, pumpkin pie giveaways, organizing garage sales, hosting the neighborhood wine crawl, and many other things.
And I know some terrible agents who get referrals just because they get along with people so well. imagine. if you are an awesome agent and you connected well with people, how crazy your business could be.
So let’s say that you haven’t talked to your database in forever and you really haven’t talked about real estate. Now some of the culture coaches and trainers would say go out and just go tell them that your real estate agents. Go ask them for the business. And while that may work I don’t think that that is a tactic that is endearing too many people. we did have a new agent who joined the team and I said hey you need to know your sphere needs to know that you’re in real estate so start calling them.
And I feel that that style is more transactional versus relational. I feel you’re going to get much further in a relational style. You need to re-establish the connection with your sphere. My take is you reach out to all of them and don’t say a single word about real estate unless they ask. For me at least, call me for the first time in a long time, and then asking me to help you isn’t about me it’s about you, and what have you done for me lately. So reestablish your relationship with these people, and then the opportunity will come up.
There’s an agent I heard speak who was from Reno and got started at a young age. He said that he had six people that he felt cared as much about him closing a home as he did. And he said six was a big number. And that’s what he started with. Now what he explained was a little more transactional but based on his style and talking to him I’m pretty sure he’s relational. What he would do every month is he would start with a list of his sphere. The top of the list was the people who cared and were refers. He would call down that list for the month and wherever he ended on the list is where he stopped and he made sure that every month he called those top people. He said eventually that people got used to the calls and would say hi Rick No I don’t have anyone for you this month. And that was it occasionally people would want to chat with him and he would say hey do you have time on Saturday? Right now I just need to make my calls.”
There are some agents who get referrals without following the system and that happens when they do such an excellent job that they are unforgettable. When you are with a client you need to be with that client. They need to know that you’re fighting for them and you care about their well-being.
I believe it’s Steve Martin that has a line “be so good that they can’t ignore you.” If you can’t follow a system to stay top of mind with your past clients and friends and family, you have to be the best agent that those people have ever seen or could imagine.
Exercise: Get EVERYONE into your CRM. Set a plan to contact them on a regular basis. Set a deadline to complete this.
Do the work, get the results.
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