When considering client categories inside your database, keep in mind that some individual clients actually belong in more than one category. What this implies is that your business should address them according to every area of the market where they are active, from sales to property management.
Let’s say you have a client who is a tenant in a couple of places, a landlord in a couple of other places, a buyer in one location and also a seller in that same location or elsewhere. All of your database categories relate to each other one way or another. Often that relationship comes together in a single customer. In essence this is a four-dimensional customer.
In real estate there tends to be a rivalry between sales teams and property management departments. These units could provide useful leads and resources for each other, but instead they fail to communicate or share information. Consider for a moment that a large client may have thousands of properties under management of which 8-9% will probably sell each year. Sales of those properties represent sales leads to the sales team, but the sales team rarely reciprocates with property management leads, even though they regularly receive that kind of information from owners and investors they meet at open for inspections. Your challenge is to bring your sales and property management teams together.
You can begin by establishing an in-and-out style leader board for numbers of referrals per month from each team to the other. Establish a measurement for referrals coming in from the sales team to the property management department, as well as referrals going out from property management to sales. In reality, you want more referrals coming in from sales than going out from property management. Remember, sales leads from property management to sales represent managed properties your business is losing, while sales of other properties represent income from those sales as well as new properties your business can now manage.
This is just one of many new ways to view the way the real estate industry works. Think how efficient it would be if a significant number of your sales leads came directly from property management. The only follow-up necessary would be to verify that the sellers are already owners in your market. Once you do that, you can contact those people and ask them if this is their first, second or third purchase. If it’s their second or third then you know they are potential sellers or landlords.
By establishing regular communications between teams, such as weekly emails to each other with greetings and a friendly reminder to share any leads they may run across, you set an expectation for referrals to be collected and shared. By breaking down the barriers between the sales team and property management department and getting them to work together, your business will become a truly full-service real estate business. In this way you will provide full customer service whether your customer is a buyer or seller, tenant or landlord, or all of the above.
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip. I look forward to seeing you here again next week.