Prospecting is the lifeline to your business success. How well is your current approach to it working? In today’s Coaching Tip I’m going to step you through some back to basics prospecting and help you begin to see some real results from your efforts.
You may not realise it, but your best prospects are the people you already know. Everyone in your life should be in your database, because everybody will need a real estate agent someday. You want to be their agent when that time arrives. Otherwise they will be working with your competitors.
Becoming a trusted advisor is not a status you can demand. It’s a subtle process you achieve through building relationships with your clients over time. It’s about your social proof and the value you deliver. Think in terms of what you can offer to the people you know rather than the business you can get from them. That’s how you become a friend in the business – by being a valuable friend.
Start your approach to prospecting by making a complete list of all the people you know including shopkeepers, service providers, teachers, and everyone you interact with through social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all of it. Next, find out where they all live through geographic mapping so you can target your data for just listed/just sold-based prospecting.
All those people you know live somewhere, and someone near them is going to be selling a property at some point. You want to know which clients to call when those listings happen. This is your opportunity to offer information of interest about that property, what it sells for, and how that relates to the current value of their own properties. Building and maintaining that value-added relationship year after year with each person you know will bring you more leads than you can imagine.
Back to basics prospecting really is all about the quality and currency of your relationships with all of the people you meet, or have ever met, and maintaining efficient database, geographic mapping and prospecting systems that allow you to stay relevant and frequent with all of your clients for the long term. Relationships come first; all of your best opportunities will follow from there.
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.