Home prices continue to soar in 2022, and the real estate market is currently hot for sellers. This year alone, home sales are expected to rise 6.6%, with prices rising another 2.9% above 2021 highs.
This hot market comes with fierce competition to the agent who closes the deal. It’s not enough to advertise or rely on referrals and word-of-mouth to help people cash in on their home’s rising value. If you want to grow in this market and be prepared for future markets, your prospecting techniques must be focused and effective. But before we dive deeper into the techniques, let’s discuss first what real estate prospecting means.
What is real estate prospecting?
Prospecting for real estate agents encompasses anything that involves finding new contacts and actively reaching out to prospective clients. As an excellent real estate prospector, you must do your research to identify potential clients and take steps to initiate contact. This can be done through phone calls, emails, text messages, and door knocking.
Prospecting is more than just landing a new client and a new sale. It’s also important because it solidifies you as a serious candidate in the community for any home seller or buyer. Think of it as a form of brand awareness. The more you’re out there, the more likely you are to genuinely be considered when someone decides it’s time to buy or sell a home.
6 prospecting techniques to get more clients
You don’t want to go door-knocking blindly as prospecting for real estate agents is a process. You want to be sure that a potential client is ready to be contacted. Here are some techniques and steps to take in your real estate prospecting process.
1. Network, network, network
Networking is an integral part of success in any industry, especially real estate. Selling homes is as personal as it gets for both the buyer and the seller. They’re not making a deal with a company or purchasing a product. They’re making decisions that will have lasting effects on their future. The impression you give prospective clients when networking with them will aid in deciding whether or not they want to work with you.
Networking doesn’t stop with prospective clients. Real estate sales is a community, and you’ll need assistance at times. Wouldn’t it be easier to have a colleague to work with instead of a competitor when negotiating price? Not to mention that networking can help you build a team around you, pushing your business to grow and thrive. Consistent networking will help you grow your contacts, increase access to potential clients and deals, and help you learn more about the market.
2. Start a referral program
Referral programs are a staple of nearly all successful business marketing campaigns. With every successful client you’ve made happy, you could generate several more leads through referral programs. But once a deal has gone through with a client, how do you get them to seek out new clients for you actively? Rewarding previous clients, brokers, or even other real estate agents is a great way to prospect.
3. Create a lead generating website
The first place a person goes when they’re curious about a company is their website, and the same goes for real estate agents. And once you have a website, optimizing it to generate leads for you is another matter. Start a blog on your webpage — you can hire a professional service to write SEO articles for you — and post on subjects that homebuyers and sellers research. Now that they’re visiting your site you can offer them a form to fill out their contact information, generating a lead. Additionally, if you’re working with a company like Aloware, their products can be configured to call or send a text to leads as soon as they submit a form on your website.
4. Find leads online in the right places
Nearly everything in the world can be found on social media, including prospects. Potential clients share their successes and failures in house hunting and selling. If someone is posting who could use your services, you need to know how to find them. Follow the top real estate hashtags and search for potential clients struggling through the process.
5. Contact expired FSBO and foreclosure listings
This is where focusing on your cold calling skills is extremely important. While referrals are the top way for generating new clients, cold calling follows closely behind and expired for sale by owner (FSBO) listings and foreclosures are where you’ll generate them. These listings have already demonstrated a clear motivation to sell and are likely looking to move fast. So, making direct contact with them through cold calling will be the most efficient way of starting things off for both you and them.
6. Know the law
While you’re cold calling, it’s vital that you know and follow the rules of the Do Not Call Registry (DNCR). Individuals who have added their names to this list cannot be solicited by businesses they don’t already have contact with. Failure to adhere to this law could result in up to an $11,000 fine per violation.
Leverage technology for effective prospecting
With so much to track, comply with, and leads to follow up on, it’s important to get help where you can. Technology can be an absolute game-changer when it comes to the contact you make with prospective and current clients. Technology revolutionizes prospecting for real estate agents, giving you an edge by helping you make informed decisions quickly, gather research and information, and keep in contact with leads.
Aloware is a perfect example. It’s a modern contact center solution that makes it easy for real estate agents to remain compliant. It also integrates with CRM (customer relationship management) tools so that you can automatically log all interactions made from that platform. This will give you a clear picture of your relationships with current and prospective clients.
Triple your selling power with Aloware
Now that you know the ways to find contacts, search for leads, and how to ensure that you’re contacting them in accordance with the law, Aloware now wants to help you maximize engagements. Its power dialer helps you increase your sales as it enables you to contact up to 500 leads a day. Request a demo today to use Aloware to integrate with your current CRM and build relationships to keep your client list full.
