Become a Listings Pro

When I speak around the country or around my town, every time I ask the audience if they want listing leads, everyone vigorously raises their hands. I won’t be able to cover all of my tips for becoming a Listing Pro in this short blog, but I would like to introduce a couple of key components.

MARKETING

A challenge for many in the real estate industry is marketing. I cover marketing under “How to Become a Listings Pro” because this is our chance to change and put the consumer first. Good listing marketing is the difference to becoming a listings pro.

Old school marketing is mailing postcards of the listing to the neighborhood and calling that marketing, but that is not how buyers are shopping. It’s possible a neighbor will receive the postcard and want to move within the neighborhood or it’s possible a renter will see the postcard and want to buy, but it is not the best place to be marketing a listing. Advertising in magazines is also an example of poor old-school real estate marketing. Old school marketing is more about marketing the listing agent, not the property for sale.

New school marketing aims to generate more traffic to the listing. Overall, I generate 3-5x more traffic to a listing than the average agent. I help people present their house like it's their wedding day. Then I use direct-to-consumer advertising – that is advertising to where the people are watching. This includes advertising on Facebook and Instagram.

IDENTIFY PEOPLE WHO WANT TO SELL

Another key component is to be able to identify people who own a house and want to move. People are staying in their homes longer, it used to be an average of 5 years, now it’s 10 years. Many people open up the discussion of moving about 3-4 yrs before they move. It is up to you to identify where they are in the moving process.

I think one of the best strategies to find seller leads is to hold an Open House because the people who come in are indicating they are thinking about moving – your follow-up process is the key, along with your web presence. You need to have a strong Google presence – this is a very underestimated factor.

I’ve been talking about this for the past 5+ years, and over this time, I still see a lack of strong websites. If you’re going to become an elite listing agent then your website needs to exude one thing – that you are a local area expert.