After a listing presentation, there is a special and frequently overlooked opportunity to interact with potential clients: the follow-up. It's much more important than whether you close the deal or not. A strong first impression on each prospective customer you meet ensures more referrals, a better local reputation, and future success in the real estate industry.
Each listing appointment is obviously unique because of the seller, so when you follow up, you should keep their interests in mind. Nevertheless, there are some fundamental principles for following up that apply regardless of the listing price, duration, client preferences, or other factors.
Create A Presentation For Your Listing Follow-Up Earlier
Just before your listing appointment ends, consider your follow-up. Ask yourself how you might add a personal touch to your call, email, or handwritten follow-up if you know information about the client, such as their interests or time limits.
Even better, write your thank you messages in writing and mail them the day or the afternoon after your listing presentation. If you need a little more information about the customer, prepare a basic idea of what you want to say before the appointment, make a note of the information you learn during the listing presentation, then quickly fill in the blanks and complete your follow-up message.
Make Contact Right Now
No matter how you feel about the sellers, it is irrelevant. Any future fruitful encounters with the client depend on a swift follow-up. Prospective customers may get the sense that you don't value them or their time if you wait too long to follow up with them. Unfortunately, if you don't stay top-of-mind through regular communication, you also provide another agent with the perfect opening to take over.
Follow up as soon as the following morning or that evening via email or phone. Follow-up letters should be hastily written and mailed so that your clients receive them the following day.
Pose Inquiries
More than just a simple "thank you for your time" may and should be included in your listing appointment follow-up. Dialogue and the development of a relationship are far more advantageous than focusing just on making sales.
Customers frequently have questions that are answered during or after the presentation that they had not previously asked about.
Maintaining Leads And Being Consistent
Consider the relationships in your life that are truly valuable. Did you have one conversation with each of them and hope for a permanent connection? Did you impress them with your love and care, depart, and then continue to be happy with them? Just like any other relationship, working with clients requires upkeep and attention. You can't just give your all when things are going well or when there is money on the table if you want to reap the rewards of a devoted customer or referral.
Throughout the sales pitch and after the presentation, be prepared to keep the same level of excitement and zeal. Before they sign on the dotted line, you haven't won their business. Even if they decide not to use you for their current listing, you should still put all of your efforts into potential future recommendations and sales.
In order to maintain contact with and remain top-of-mind for these seller leads, your CRM is essential. You should have several sellers lead marketing funnels in your CRM that are dedicated to warm leads, cold leads, referrals, or any way you like to organize them. Add the seller client to the appropriate funnel before your listing presentation and use the lead nurturing techniques you have in place to move as quickly through the presentation, follow-up, sale, and beyond.
One of the best lead nurturing techniques for brand-new potential clients is a drip campaign. It entails adding your prospects to a computerized list that receives emails tailored to their hyperlocal interests and where they are in the buying/selling process. According to campaigncreators.com, drip campaigns have three times the open rates and an open rate that is 80% greater than single-send emails. The Secret Behind a High Converting Real Estate Marketing Funnel is a great resource for further information on marketing funnels.
You Shouldn't Remove Uninterested Leads From Your Pipeline
Customers occasionally have good cause to choose another real estate agent. After launching a lead nurturing campaign, if you haven't closed the deal or noticed any interest, it's acceptable to communicate less frequently (but don't give up).
After a few months have passed since the listing presentation, follow up to see whether your seller lead has changed their mind. If they show interest, you may then increase your pitching efforts, or you can tone down your emails and limit them to hyperlocal market updates.
Impress Customers With Real Estate Content That Is Market-Specific
What existing material of yours can you reuse to speak to sellers? Take essential information from your existing blog or killer newsletter and repurpose it for market-specific emails, follow-up correspondence, social media postings, and more.
Bring Up Past Accomplishments Subtly
Don't be timid because the success of your real estate company is a reflection of your abilities and knowledge as an agent. Some of the most effective persuasive techniques in your real estate agent toolbox are positive reviews and client testimonials.
Feel free to mention successful sales of comparable homes in your prospect's hyperlocal market in your follow-up if you have done so (the important word being "gently"). Avoid overwhelming them with statistics, figures, and trendy terms. The flow of rapport and continued dialogue is blocked by force. Instead, cite an engaging success story that demonstrates your creative thinking, expertise, and subsequent accomplishment. Consider the factors that contributed to the success of those deals or the information that these clients would find especially important.
Make Plans To Reconvene
Building client relationships is the key to it all. When real estate brokers are overly preoccupied with the sale that is immediately in front of them, they tend to lose sight of the lifetime of prospects they are forgoing.
Offer to set up another meeting after the listing appointment, before the sellers make their final choice. This is a chance for you to add value and genuinely show off your knowledge.
If you want to share your market research with them, think about inviting them out for coffee. Alternately, show them around a neighborhood you are familiar with and that they are interested in purchasing a home in. Make it worthwhile for them to spend time by being inventive with the value you offer. They'll work harder to keep up a mutually beneficial relationship the more at ease they are with you.
Make A Note Of The Successes And Failures
Every chance is a chance for self-improvement. Agents may improve on a number of different aspects of a listing appointment, including public speaking, effective communication, networking, and being top-of-mind.
Examine the points where leads leave your pipeline. Is that following your speech? following some time spent on your email list? You just need to pay close attention. Client reactions provide a plethora of information about what you're doing right and wrong. After a client accepts or rejects your proposal, one of the greatest methods to get their opinion is by sending them a short survey that is simple and straightforward to complete. The majority of consumers are willing to provide their feedback and are appreciative of the agent's efforts to enhance their services.
Finishing Up
The prospect-to-client journey and the follow-up following a listing presentation are both essential components of a bigger marketing funnel. Without effective follow-up, you're letting warm leads become cold, giving the job to diligent agents.
With every client, it's simple and quick to implement the steps to an excellent follow-up. The basic line is that maintaining focus on long-term relationship building and not becoming sidetracked by short-term deals is the foundation of effective follow-up.