Are you hoping for a consistent, predictable business during the next market downturn? It’s what every real estate agent wants for their business, but do you know how to prepare for it? Use these tips to help plan for the future, and avoid an unpredictable business dependent on market changes. Keep reading to discover how to come out on top when the market hits rock bottom.
10 Real Estate Tips For Consistent Listings In A Changing Market
1. Go And Get It
2. Aim For The Bullseye
3. Time Management Is Money Management
4. Find A Lead Stack That Works For You
5. Hit The Ground Running
6. Get Your Mind Right
7. Know What To Say
8. Don’t Break The Bank
9. Pick The Low Hanging Fruit
10. Don’t Give Up
1. Go And Get It
First thing’s first: if you want consistent business, you have to go and get it. Josh draws an important distinction between the dependent “lazy” agents who sit around and wait for clients to come to them, and the independent “prospecting” agents who actively seek out new clients and never have to worry about an empty pipeline.
When the market slows down, the dependent agents are left wondering why they aren’t getting any new business, and usually end up leaving the industry. The proactive “prospecting agents” see the declining market as a challenge, and use it as an opportunity to take on all the listings that other agents leave behind.
During the last market downturn, Josh recalls, “Lazy agents were leaving the business, and the agent count on the real estate boards were going down. It actually benefited Realtors like myself who were out there working hard, and competition went down.”
Like Josh, agents who continuously prospect through rough markets don’t have to worry about tough competition (or an empty pipeline).
So even when the market takes a turn, you can keep your business running by prospecting, door-knocking, calling your sphere of influence, and doing everything else a dependent agent doesn’t do. Not only will you have a consistent income, but like Josh says, you’ll pick up what the competition leaves behind.
2. Aim For The Bullseye
Even though you may not be able to control the market, you can control how you navigate it. Josh recommends goals as a great way to “keep you moving.” Without goals in place, road blocks, frustration, and poor results are inevitable.
If you want more listings, consistent cash, and peace of mind, you’ve got to know what you’re aiming at if you’re going to hit the bullseye.
Start by looking at what you’ve achieved so far. How many homes did you sell last month? How about last year? How often did you call your sphere of influence to ask if they’re ready to buy or sell? Or how many times did you get on the phone to prospect? Start with the basics to set clear, attainable goals, then build on what you’ve already done.
If you already have goals set, are they broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks? If you don’t have goals, grab a notepad and write some down. Knowing you can set and achieve goals will have a great impact on your income and act as a defense against a declining market.
3. Time Management is Money Management
According to Josh, successful and unsuccessful prospectors have one thing in common: they both desire a consistent and predictable income. Where they differ is in their ability to manage time and stick to a daily routine.
In order to hit his 180 transactions a year (no matter the market conditions), a prospecting routine in Josh’s business is a must.
Like every successful prospector knows, if you don’t set specific times to prospect, you’re going to find excuses to avoid doing it.
In Josh’s experience, “The best time to prospect is in the morning and late afternoon into the evening.” Get out your planner, Google calendar, or daily to-do list, and prioritize how you’ll earn a predictable income (even in an unpredictable market).
With a clear routine and the motivation to follow through you’ll never worry about where your next listing will come from.
4. Find A Lead Stack That Works For You
With prospecting prioritized in your daily schedule, you’ll have to figure out exactly what to prospect. Calling the right leads at the right times can boost your contact rate and the amount of listings you’ll take.
Josh’s lead stack starts with For-Sale-By-Owners, then Expireds, then potential buyers, and finally, he circles back to call past clients.
With a routine-based lead stack in place, Josh not only knows what works best for his business, but he also knows how he can reach more homeowners and set more appointments no matter the market conditions.
Although Josh has a routine that works for him, your schedule might be different. Some agents prefer calling early in the morning before any other agent gets on the phone, and others prefer starting with unique lead types.
The important thing to note here is that there isn’t one “perfect” way to create a successful schedule. Try out a few different schedules and lead stacks to determine what works best for you and your market. It’s one of the nicest things about having your own real estate business – you get to set it up, then change it exactly how you want to.
5. Hit The Ground Running
Even with a great schedule and lead stack, hopping on the phone and starting your calls is often the hardest part. Whether it’s at the beginning of your real estate career or at the beginning of each prospecting session, call reluctance is real.
In the book “The 5 Second Rule,” author Mel Robbins says that when you want to start something new, you have to act within five seconds or your brain will turn against the idea. This means you don’t have time to think about potential prospecting problems when you hop on the phone. If you hesitate, you’ll never do it.
Josh recalls getting a list of FSBOs to call from his broker with the instructions to just “get to it!” No script. No advice. No time. Just, “Do it.” Even with such little guidance, his drive to be successful (especially in the face of poor market conditions) was what pushed him to do something so unfamiliar.
His first few listing appointments failed. But “getting beat up” over the phone is what led him to become a successful, experienced, and confident prospector with a consistent, predictable, and reliable business.
Just like coal requires years of heat and pressure to become a diamond, agents require heat and pressure of their own to come out on top as “diamond” prospectors.
6. Get Your Mind Right
Whether you’re optimizing your schedule or overcoming your fear of calling, growing pains are inevitable. So what can you do to make them more tolerable? What’s the best way to get out of bed every morning with the motivation to prospect?
Even though the answer might be easy, the execution is where people usually get choked up. Ready for it?…
The key to staying motivated is getting your mind in the right place. As you’ve likely heard before, mindset is everything in a real estate career, and you’re unlikely to survive with a negative one, especially in a declining market.
In the beginning, what kept Josh going was his positive learning mindset. “I kept a positive attitude and just kept thinking in my head, ‘Hey, I’m learning.'” To him, all the bad phone calls and awkward pauses were the stepping stones to a bulletproof career.
A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor, and easy prospecting never made a top-producing agent. Resist the urge to let a negative call, person, or market lead to a negative mindset and train yourself to turn every bad phone call into a positive learning opportunity for a better future.
7. Know What To Say
Even though there’s a learning curve for every aspect of prospecting, there are just as many ways to cut the learning curve in half, and the right scripts are one of the most effective.
Knowing what to say on the phone will increase your confidence, which in turn will increase your listing appointments. In time, this cycle will ultimately give you the paycheck you want (and need), independent of market conditions.
Do a Google search for “real estate scripts” and you’ll get a ton of results (74 million to be exact!) Results like this can seem overwhelming. Which is the best one? You’ll just have to try a few, adapt them to your own style, and stick to the ones that give you the most success.
For Josh, a soft approach tends to work best. He focuses on asking the right questions, and his only goal is to get the appointment.
In this training, you’ll discover how top prospectors start every call by asking the right questions, the formula they use to overcome any objection, and how they set appointments even after being rejected.
8. Don’t Break The Bank
You might be thinking to yourself, “Okay, this is great advice… but how much is all this prospecting going to cost me, especially if the market changes?” It all comes down to how you invest your money (and your time). Don’t break the bank!
Too many real estate agents get discouraged because they think spending money on flyers, mailers, ads, and billboards will help them stay afloat. These might work for a few listings, but in a declining market, they’re unlikely to pull you ahead (especially when you’re already on a tight budget).
If cost is an issue for you, consider investing in lead sources and prospecting tools that bring consistent value over time. Just like investing in stocks, investing in prospecting tools will promote long-term stability in a potentially unstable market.
In the beginning, Josh purchased REDX FSBO leads as his only lead source. He couldn’t afford much more than that, so he invested in something that could create consistency in his business. “It was so easy to just get the leads and go rock and roll with them,” says Josh.
Now that he’s consistently prospecting Expired and FSBO leads, Josh says “REDX pays for itself by at least a factor of 10 every month.” Starting small and bringing in different lead types over time will be the safety net you need no matter which direction the market turns.
9. Pick The Low Hanging Fruit
As you discover which lead types work best for you, you’ll learn that sometimes people don’t answer or just aren’t ready to sell their homes. But don’t count these leads out quite yet! If you want truly consistent listings, lead follow-up is essential.
As you start to optimize your prospecting strategies for any market, integrate a solid follow-up strategy to tie up the loose ends. Agents who don’t follow up with people lose out on way too many listings.
Agents who do follow up find that “NO”s become “YES”s since leads change their minds all the time. If someone says, “We’re not ready to sell quite yet,” make a note to follow up with them in a few weeks. Otherwise, when they are ready to sell, another agent will snatch up the listing.
And if you’re worried about “being annoying” – don’t! It’s easy to assume your calls are starting to annoy people and skip follow-up calls altogether. But Josh recommends avoiding this mindset by focusing on the potential earnings. “I know it’s a lot of calls… but in my mind it’s $5000.”
10. Don’t Give Up
Even after our most magical money-making moments, it‘s easy to become discouraged and unmotivated on those “I just don’t want to” days.
No one has time for those days, especially when you have prospecting goals to achieve. You could have the best prospecting system in the world and still want to throw in the towel when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
When Josh has one of those days or gets off a bad call feeling discouraged, he turns up the jams, gets out of the office for a few minutes, and calls up a friend who pumps him up. “We bounce ideas off each other and give pump up talks,” says Josh.
Sometimes we can’t pump ourselves up on our own, and that’s okay. Having people, places, and practices in place to help when things get tough will hold you accountable and remind you of your ultimate goals. Just find someone (a co-worker, a good friend, a parent, or your dog) to remind you of your goals and who won’t let you quit.
Get It And Keep It
All of these tips add up to one thing: a successful and consistent real estate business. If implemented, you’re going to be a lot more confident, make more efficient prospecting calls, and get more listings (even in an ever-changing market.)
So the next time you see headlines about the market crashing, you’ll be safe and sound knowing you implemented a system that’s safeguarded against the unexpected.
“If you’re persistent, you’ll get it. If you’re consistent, you’ll keep it.”
About REDX
REDX offers real estate professionals a complete all-in-one prospecting platform for generating listing appointments. The platform includes seller leads, a dialer with up to three lines, and a lead management tool for simple follow-up. REDX maintains the position that all agents should be compliant with state and federal telecom laws – learn more here. Call (800) 731-7339 option 1 to learn more about prospecting FSBOs, Expireds, FRBOs, Pre Foreclosures, GeoLeads, and our Power Dialer – or visit www.redx.com
