Are you wondering how you, as a new agent, can get real estate clients fast?
Clients are the life force for any real estate business. They keep the money flowing in and help the business stay afloat. Your success in your realtor career is hinged on your ability to generate leads, convert them into clients, and get them to sign a contract.
Your first client as a new agent may be the most important client in your career. The first client kindles the fire and boosts your confidence.
However, most new real estate agents find themselves struggling to get clients. They realize that they don’t know how or where to start. Luckily, it’s possible to build a pipeline of great clients even if you’re just starting out. In this article, we’re going to look at a few methods to build your client roster and kickstart a successful real estate career.
Most successful real estate agents are familiar with the “sphere of influence” since it’s an essential strategy to kickstart your career. So, what does the sphere of influence mean and how can you use it to get clients fast?
Your sphere of influence refers to the immediate network of people you already know when starting your real estate career. Many new agents make the mistake of thinking that they have no sphere of influence. We all have a sphere of influence, it’s just that many people don’t know how to identify it.
Your sphere of influence includes your family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and basically anyone who knows you. You can work with these people when starting your career and seek professional help, opinions, and even mentorship.
The best thing about this strategy is that the people in your sphere of influence are already warm leads should they decide to buy or sell properties. There’s a high chance of them hiring you since they already know you.
How do you get started with this strategy?
Simply reach out to your family, friends, and acquaintances, and let them know the kind of services you’re offering. Even if they won’t become clients themselves, they’re likely to recommend you to someone else in their circle who needs to buy or sell.
2. Expand Your Network
While your sphere of influence can help you get your first few clients, you need a larger circle to build a sustainable leads roster. You need to expand your circle through networking. Networking has been proven to be an effective method to generate leads.
In case you don’t know how to start networking as a beginner, you can start by attending industry events, such as workshops, seminars or conferences. These events will help you meet other real estate agents who can mentor you or collaborate with you. You’ll be surprised by the number of agents willing to tell you about their listings.
Don’t only think of networking in professional settings. You could network while doing everyday activities, such as at the gym, book club meetings, talking to a random person at a restaurant, or in discussions in Facebook groups.
Volunteering in your local community is another way to network that’s barely spoken about. It’s an effective and organic way to network since you get to meet people while giving back. These people may end up trusting you in one of their biggest investment and financial decisions.
The key to networking is to introduce yourself to people and tell them what you do. Prepare a 60-second pitch that highlights who you are, your services, and why you’re different from other agents. Let them know your skills and why you’ll be valuable to them.
Practice your speech at home so that you don’t babble when they ask “what do you do?”
3. Door-Knocking
Door knocking is arguably the oldest real estate client generation strategy. Many real estate agents have been told to start by door-knocking.
As the name suggests, this strategy involves knocking on doors and talking to the property owners to see if they might be interested in buying or selling a property.
Most new real estate agents fear this strategy understandably because rejection could be demoralizing. However, the key to a successful door-knocking strategy is offering value.
When you’re offering value, the conversation becomes meaningful even if the homeowner isn’t interested in your services. Without value, the conversation isn’t worthwhile to the property owner.
How do you provide value while door-knocking?
Think of anything that could educate or improve the property owners’ lives. For example, some owners don’t know their property’s current market value. Show them what it’s worth or why that neighborhood could attract good offers.
This may not immediately change their mind to list their homes, but it may motivate them to do so in the future.
4. Maximize Your Digital Presence
In this digital age, you can’t afford to ignore the power of online presence. A vibrant online presence has helped many new real estate agents bag clients fast.
Creating an online presence for your business means having a professional website that explains what you do along with your contact details. You should also have pages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, as well as professional profiles on real estate platforms, such as Trulia, Zillow, and Realtor.com. If you can create video content, use TikTok and YouTube pages.
However, you need to understand that just having an online presence isn’t enough. You need to engage your audience and get their attention.
Create educational and valuable blog posts for your website. This can help you establish yourself as a thought leader or authority in your local market. Regularly post news or opinion articles on your social media pages. Ensure you engage your audience in the comment sections. The key is to always provide value.
The best thing about social media is that you can use it for marketing. If you already have a listing, you can post high-quality images on your pages along with an in-depth description. Be sure to use relevant hashtags to boost visibility.
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5. Cold Calling
Cold calling is much like door knocking, only it’s done on the phone. It’s referred to as “cold” since you’re calling people you don’t have a rapport with. Your goal is to see whether they may be willing to buy or sell a home.
The secret to successful cold calling is in numbers. The more people you call, the more you increase your chances of listing a client. This strategy is popular since it can be effective.
Just like door-knocking, you can boost your chances of getting a client by offering value. Since you’re reaching out to leads while still cold, you can make them warm and pique their interest by offering value. Your value is offering them knowledge and giving them information.
Your cold leads may become warm once they know how much money they could make from a certain sale or by buying a property and offering it for rent. In most cases, the lead may not be looking to sell or buy. However, you could be lucky and call someone who’s already considering buying or selling.
6. Automate
Real estate agents, both newbies and experienced, have struggled with reaching out to all their leads and staying connected. However, you can automate and use real estate software to generate more leads and get more clients.
It’s tempting to organize all your tasks by yourself since the real estate career requires you to have an independent contractor mindset. Since you want to save money and time, and also make your business easier to manage, you need to invest in software.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software will help you keep in touch with your leads. Since your budget as a beginner may not be huge, you can start with free real estate CRMs that can help you in lead generation. For example, these CRM tools can help you automate your email campaigns by consistently reaching out to your leads with custom messages and encouraging business.
I became a realtor when I was 25, Right now I’m a digital marketing expert helping realtors, brokers and real estate agents generate more leads online.
