Monthly Archives: June 2018

Building a SALABLE Book of Business

Posted on by The Profitable Recruiter
28 Jun

How You Can Help Agents Succeed at a Higher Level

by Real Estate Coach Judy LaDeur

Recent NAR predictions state that nearly 70% of active real estate agents will exit the business over the next 5 – 10 years, most intending to simply walk away from the business they have spent years building.  Of the agents that would like to sell their business, most don’t know how and without help would likely experience problems with tracking, second party referrals, the buying or selling agent going to another company as well as trying to determine who is responsible for keeping the business going through advertising, marketing and mailing.  Understanding how to help an agent sell their business is a Recruiting/Retention tool that allows a company to capture the market share of retiring agents within their market. It’s not just for agents that are considering retirement in the next five years, it’s also a great opportunity for agents with five or less years in the industry who want a jump start by purchasing someone else’s business, as well as the agents who find themselves in between these two scenarios who want to learn how to make their business saleable in order to get top dollar in the future. The best part is that there is no money up front, but lots of money over the next 5 years, so it’s easy for any agent and any broker to implement.

NAR predicts that over 50% of the REALTORS® who currently sell real estate will retire, relocate, or leave the business due to serious illness in the next ten years. Each time one of your agents leaves for any reason, you lose that market share.

What’s the first step? Your agents should have a saleable business. If their business is not currently set up in a contact database management program, then it cannot be sold.  To leverage their business and take advantage of this particular program (the ability to sell their real estate business at some point in the future) – that is the first thing you should do as a broker. Educate your team about the importance of having their business organized and set up in a CRM program. Offering that program is a good retention and recruiting tool. It should have the ability to set up several categories and upload photos. The more categories you have, the more valuable your business will be.

Components of a good data management program:

  • Easy to use. When we get busy, we are less likely to use a program that requires a lot of steps to enter the data.
  • Robust. The notes area should be sufficient to make 20-30 notes on each client after each call and or visit. Remember, you will have this database for many years and the notes are important when you sell.
  • Diverse. You should be able to create a minimum of 20 categories such as: Great for referrals, Buyer, Seller, purchased 2-5 properties from me, investor, seller prospect, buyer prospect, farming area, bowling club, family member, friend, out of area friend who refers clients, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, leads that were referrals, etc.
  • Intuitive. If you have taken my course on how to know how they will make their decision based on their behavior pattern, you would also add the categories of expressive, amiable, analytical, and driver.
  • Searchable.  Remember, you can have 1 client in 6 different categories, but you want to be able to say, “I have 267 people who have purchased a home from me, but 198 of them have purchased 2 or more homes from me.  However, note that 190 people in my database were sent to me as referrals from a client in my database.”
  • Detailed.  Keep all details about the clients, their families, their referrals, property details, etc. on their contact sheet.
  • Have the ability to create alerts.  You should be able to put reminders about when you will make contact with them on your calendar from this program.
  • Exportable.  You should be able to easily export from the database for your mailings.
  • Group-able.  You should be able to set up groups for purposes of sending group emails or specific group mailings.
  • Visual.  A great feature is the ability to have their photo on their contact sheet!

The more people that are in the database, the more valuable the business is when they decide to retire, relocate or leave the business for any reason.

Marketing is another important component.  A recent survey showed that 87% of people surveyed reported that they definitely would use their agent again, but didn’t because they can’t remember who they are or how to find them!  Are you agents marketing to their databases on a regular basis? What are you doing to support their marketing? Studies show that 10% of the people in their database will do business with them or refer business to them each year if they stay in contact. For most of your agents, that is more than their current level of business.  Your agent should do the following to build and maintain a strong business:

  • Stay in touch 12 times per year with something of value in writing. Our Profitable Sales Agent Newsletters are the perfect tool to stay positioned with something of value every week.
  • See your past clients and sphere of influence at least twice per year.
  • Send personal notes 4 times per year.
  • Talk to your clients at least 3 times per year.
  • Interact daily using social media

If their business is organized and they are marketing on a consistent basis, they are positioned to sell their business for hundreds of thousands of dollars.  The How to Successfully Sell or Acquire a Thriving Real Estate Business kit is available for purchase on our site at www.JudyLaDeurInternational.com for just $79. 

Want to learn how to master these skills and build an extraordinary team?  Bookmark our blog, and join The Profitable Recruiter today.  We have a full spectrum of membership benefits with all the tools, strategies and solutions you need to position yourself to win this year and every year. Our goal is for you to become the “turn-to” broker in your area for every agent.  

Join today and take advantage of our special offer of 40% off with the promo code 40OFF any membership.  That’s 40% off everything you need to be in the right place at the right time when the agents you want are ready to make a move – including SEVEN HOURS of recruiting audio training!  What are you waiting for? When you join – you and up to 10 managers can access your account! Try it for a month and see what it can do for you.

Past or current Profitable Recruiter member? RENEW today and save 45% with the code RENEW.

 

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Posted on by The Profitable Recruiter
14 Jun

The Cyclical World of Real Estate Sales

By Judy LaDeur

The world of real estate is one of cycles. What goes up, must come down. We had enjoyed a strong real estate market for about five years, but will that bubble burst again this year, or next? No one knows and it’s impossible to predict what will happen, but you can be prepared.

Interest rates have increased and may increase again. Some say that rates will go as high as 6% by the end of the year. For those of us who have been around a while, we are smiling as we remember the days of 20% rates, and how we dreamed of a day when rates would fall below 10% again. It’s not really about how high the rates are or will be. It’s about how that information is delivered to the agents and how they perceive the market.  After all, perception is reality. As the Broker, you are the captain of the ship. The person in charge of the information that is distributed, as well as how it is perceived. You are also responsible for the routing of the journey. As the captain of the ship, if you saw that there was a potential storm on the horizon, would you alter your course? Would you start to make plans and prepare? Of course, you would. A real estate office is no different. Regardless of what happens in the market, there are things on the horizon that you should be planning for today.

Things that you know will happen such as:

  • Agents will have lots of closings in the next 30 days and they’ll be planning their summer holidays, meaning they might not work as hard the next few months. How will that affect your company revenue in September and October?
  • Most agents start September with an empty pipeline of business, which makes it easier for them to change offices. That makes you vulnerable as a Broker but also creates opportunities as a Recruiter. What are you doing today to prevent your agents from leaving, and what are you doing to position yourself as the Broker agents think of when making a move at the end of summer?

When you look forward, you can be better prepared for whatever the market does. Here are a few tips to help navigate through any storms on the horizon.

  1. Schedule training for your agents, to begin September 1, designed to re-launch their business for a strong finish to 2018.
  2. Host some fun events, or contests, in the month of July to keep your agents focused on business, even in the summer months!
  3. Create marketing pieces for your agents to use to position themselves in front of their clients for those fall listings.
  4. Remind your agents that there is no better time to stay consistent with their Monday morning messages to their clients than the summer. Everyone is talking to and visiting friends and family. Stay top of mind for additional business opportunities.
  5. Don’t forget to send your Monday Morning Motivation Messages to your recruits each week. Summer is especially important for you, as the Broker, to stay positioned with potential recruits. September is one of the strongest recruiting times of the year.

And don’t forget, there are always changes and cycles in this business. You can change the size of the wave, but you can learn to surf! 

Want to learn how to increase your market share and build an extraordinary team?  Bookmark our blog, and join The Profitable Recruiter today.  We have a full spectrum of membership benefits with all the tools, strategies and solutions you need to position yourself to win this year and every year. Our goal is for you to become the “turn-to” broker in your area for every agent.  

Join today and take advantage of our special offer of 35% off with the promo code PLAN35 any pro membership.  That’s 35% off everything you need to be in the right place at the right time when the agents you want are ready to make a move – including SEVEN HOURS of recruiting audio training!  What are you waiting for? When you join – you and up to 10 managers can access your account! Try it for a month and see what it can do for you.