With the real estate industry still at its brisk pace, it’s important to prepare your business for what lies ahead, while actually continuing to operate. It may be safe to stick with what you know, but top clients never stay put.
Here are three areas you can focus on when it comes to keeping your business growing in this ever-changing – and downright unpredictable – industry.
1: Create your inventory
As REALTORS® professionals, we know very well that the housing market is facing a shortage of stock. But when some see limitations and roadblocks, top dealers see that the very factors that have led to a shortage of inventory actually create opportunity. If you know what these factors are and how to take advantage of them, you can create new listings – listings that are not yet on the market.
Commit to sending 10 Neighborhood Reports per day via text, email, video, or handwritten cards for the next 90 days. If 900 consumers see that the demand for their homes is high and are reminded of the amount of equity they own in their homes, they may list with you.
2: Simplify your operations with technology
In today’s on-the-go world, you should think about how to simplify your work to not only reduce processing time, but also to help keep you focused on your customers rather than paperwork.
Consider working on an all-in-one platform, which makes everyday tasks more efficient and time-sensitive. This type of tool, focused on making the agent more flexible in this area, provides more access and options for creating custom transactions. For example, agents must be able to accomplish everything from creating listings to checking the status of a transaction to uploading paperwork to a broker review in the palm of their hands.
Without this type of technology, you will not be able to deal at the price you want and you will have what you need to beat the competition in such a fast paced environment.
3: Cooperate with trusted partners
Collaborating with trusted professionals who specialize in other areas of real estate transactions such as mortgage, title and escrow provides an opportunity to provide your clients with useful connections when they need additional support. Top agents tell me that it’s also one of their best sources of new business via referrals. Investing in these relationships creates dependable collaborators in your corner who constantly refer clients to you and bring in not only ongoing business, but quality business.
The right partners also extend your services, allowing you to provide superior service to your customers no matter what they may need. Plus, if you expand your thinking beyond just mortgage and title/escrow, and into roofing, electrical, landscaping, and more, you can build a large pool of moving partners that offer more to your customers up front and throughout their transactions. This can significantly differentiate you and put you ahead of your competition, creating new business in a narrow market.
By getting out of your comfort zone and seeing how you can improve your business, you are setting yourself up to get better potential outcomes and quality clients no matter what’s going on in the industry.
Todd Somni He is the Chief Industry Officer at HomeSmart. For more information on joining HomeSmart as an agent, please visit HomeSmart.com/joinor visit HomeSmart.com/franchising for franchise opportunities.
