The Real Value of a Listing
Another benefit of working by referral is a real estate’s ability to connect to people and be aware of someone’s life situation as a result. Life happens, but if you are a relationship-oriented real estate agent, you don’t need to worry as much as those who focus more on transactions or wait around for the market to change.
Instead, you know the people in your database – and you may have an idea of who needs a house or when someone might be interested in moving. Because of the basic human interactions that surround this type of practice, you’ve built a relationship with the people in your database. Plus, they know, like, and trust you.
If you strike up a conversation with them, they are more likely to confide in you about their life circumstances, especially if they are in the market to buy or sell a home or could be in the not-too-distant future. That’s a big advantage.
- As an agent who works by referral, you’re far more likely to get those listings than people who are just waiting around for the next Zillow listing to post.
90% of the realtors out there are going to be thrilled to get a listing because, as soon as that “For Sale” sign goes up, they know they’re going to get 3% of that list side commission. Most agents have spent that money before the sign has even gone up. For the most part, it’s understood that this is a done deal. Everyone wants to get paid.
However, the true value of a listing isn’t the side commission.
- The real value comes from the marketing demonstration.
The marketing power of a listing is going to have a huge impact on your personal brand and your real estate business. Every time you post a listing, it’s an opportunity for you to showcase and demonstrate your value as a professional to the entire neighborhood and the greater community. It puts you in the public eye and makes people aware of your business. You get a listing, and it’s cool to sell it, right?
I’d argue that it’s better to work that listing and really maximize its potential so every other owner in that neighborhood can see your worth as a listing agent.
- Don’t limit yourself by thinking that your audience is the end user, the buyer, or the agent that will bring a buyer.
Your audience is everyone else in that neighborhood who is now aware of your real estate business and could become a potential client. You need to show people what you’re capable of doing so they can see what you’d do for them if they chose to list their property with you. Show them what you expect, then make an effort to build on new personal connections when they become available.
Show Up For Your Clients and Focus On Building Trust
In most cases, when you list someone’s house, they could care less about you as an agent. They’re not invested in whether you can make next month’s mortgage payment or not.
What they actually want is to find someone who can help them get to the next stage of their life, sell their property, and do a good job.
- Most people aren’t trying to turn a profit and make $200,000 when they sell a house.
Usually, they are trying to make enough to get them to the next stage of their lives: the next house.
A good real estate agent can serve as a coach and work with professionalism and understanding to constantly ask questions, keep their clients apprised of the situation, update them on the next steps, and just generally be their liaison through the whole process. That’s how you can add value for your clients.
When you show a client that you’re just as excited about getting them to the next stage of their lives – and the next house that will be their home – that’s another big win. That’s where the core of the relationship between a client and a real estate agent stems from. It’s easy to market a property and sell a listing.
We don’t have to put up a sign, we can just put a property in the MLS and wait for some other agent who has a buyer to sell the house. But that’s not what agents hire us for, and that’s not what clients hire us to do.
- Agents hire us to sell their houses. They don’t hire us to put up a sign and let someone else do the work.
There are two technical aspects of marketing a house:
- Financial benefits
- Building trust with your clients
Piggybacking off the earlier sentiment with the second aspect of marketing a house, you’ve got to make sure your client knows you care about them and have their best interests at heart every step of the way.
I guarantee that, if you ensure your client knows your goals are in line with theirs – and you get them where they want to be – they’ll tell everyone they know about what a great agent you are and encourage others to use you as their real estate agent when they have a need to buy or sell a property.
When you’re on someone’s side – and they know it – that’s a priceless relationship, especially in the real estate world. A relationship-focused agent can become someone’s trusted advisor, someone they go to with questions, and someone who can assuage any potential concerns they have about the process. That’s the kind of advertising you just can’t buy.
To address the first point, once you get a sign in the yard, you could let someone else sell your listing. We still get paid.
However, I encourage you to think about how hard you worked to get that listing in the first place. Sure, every once in a while, we get a call from someone who wants to sell their house that day – but that’s not the norm. 90% of the time, real estate agents have to work extremely hard to get listings, and it’s not easy.
It’s a long game. Whether you secured that listing through a long-term relationship that paid off, time in the market, building awareness for your personal brand, or just keeping up your reputation in the community, you did a lot of work to get that listing.
What if you could have the mindset that, every time you take a listing, you’re going to turn that into three or four additional transactions down the road? That’s where the real magic is.
Think about it this way:
- You can sell the listing yourself, find a buyer who buys another house through you, or maybe even pick up another listing from the same street.
You could also get other referrals from either the buyer or the seller – and that all comes from the same listing. Sometimes, we get too caught up in the moment and we don’t always realize that one listing is the opportunity to expand and build a bigger business by focusing on the doors that a single listing opens.
Instead of focusing on the paycheck you receive from selling one listing, I invite you to consider all the other potential business you could drum up from that listing based on the connections you’ll make during the process and the time you’ll spend on the market looking at a particular neighborhood or neighborhoods.
Get New Clients, But Keep the Old Ones
I’m reminded of the rhyme many of us learned as children to help illustrate this point.
“Make new friends, but keep the old – one is silver, and the other is gold.”
As a marketer, sometimes we think about what’s better: new clients or older clients. The truth is, they’re both great. And they both have a lot of value to offer your business. However, you may think about the differences and weigh the pros and cons. For example, will it be easier to sell again to an existing client or convince them to do an upsell? Or, is it easier to get a new client to make an initial purchase with you as their agent?
Hands down, a person who knows, likes, and trusts you will be easier to sell to, regardless of what you’re selling. Therefore, you should keep them around. A lot of real estate professionals have long-lasting relationships, sometimes around 15-20 years. If you take care of people, I truly believe they will take care of you in turn. However, people move away. Unfortunately, people pass away – and some of those long-lasting connections may fall off your database or out of your life entirely. Life happens. So, while these long-term clients are valuable, we can’t rely on them for everything.
You can’t just get 100 names in your database and then stop. If you do this, sooner or later, you’ll start to see a decline in business. You have to constantly be adding names to your database.
It’s like how a shark operates: If they don’t keep moving, they’ll die.
Now, what about when you think you don’t need the money or you don’t need to add names to your database because you have over 300 great contacts or something like that? If you’re in the mindset that you don’t need to be spending five minutes a day or whatever to uphold your personal connection standards and continue to grow your business, change your perspective. Be proactive about continually adding names to your database because, at some point, you’re going to want to sell your business to another agent.
The more names you have, the more valuable that business becomes. So, don’t do it for the money today. Do it for the money you’ll earn in the future because your career isn’t complete unless you have something to show for it – and sell – at the end of it.
Final Thoughts
Selling your real estate listings is a big part of the business, and it’s to your advantage to figure out how to maximize the potential of a single listing however you can. Often, agents find there’s more value in a single listing than they ever thought possible – and that’s key to expanding your business and making a lot of money.
Don’t be squeamish about selling your own listings; as long as you do it right and remain a consummate professional, there shouldn’t be any issues with practicing your business in this way. You owe it to your buyers, your sellers, and the people you’ve spent time fostering connections with to do a good job and be someone they can depend on for this sale – and the next one.
Your clients are just as valuable as your listings, and there’s a lot of untapped potential in those relationships, too. However, whenever you get a listing – and they’re hard to come by in this market – it’s vital to be able to close that deal. And, even better, close that deal for yourself. Take the advantages where you get them, don’t shy away from embracing opportunity, and ensure that you’re providing the absolute best service for your clients. You’re the person who is ultimately going to get them to the next stage of their lives, their next home, and that’s an incredible thing to provide someone.
Don’t sell yourself short: You’ve got a unique skill set that your clients need. But you have to be able to become a market maker to prove the value of what you bring to the table. Once you realize the inherent value in what you provide for clients – and the value in each listing you acquire – your hard work will pay off.
