Starting a real estate business isn’t easy, trying to grow one is even harder. Real estate is a crowded market and it’s a common adage in the industry that 3 out of 4 real estate agents fail within their first five years. However, growth is still in your hands and there are a variety of ways you can actively improve your business, reach new clients, and increase your revenue. The four tips below will provide you with valuable steps that can help take your real estate business to the next level.
Create an online presence
For 44% of all buyers, the first step is to look online for real estate. No matter how much local marketing you do, a solid web presence is needed to attract and engage online leads, especially when COVID-19 restrictions are still in effect. It's crucial to consider how technology can be used to grow your business and one of the easiest ways of doing this is to establish an online presence. With 2.8 billion people using social media, a professional website and dedicated accounts on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as a social media strategy to effectively manage and use these sites, can go a long way in reaching a huge number of people for a relatively small price.
It is also possible to be far more specific and effective with online marketing too. You can run ads, share content and drive leads online, all while reaching a wide audience of potential buyers or sellers, which can be targeted via region, occupation, age and much more. Targeted views on ads can also help to increase brand awareness in your area. As Google ranks pages, not websites, another great way of reaching potential customers is by increasing search engine visibility through blogging. This will not only help gain more traffic to your website, but also produce useful content your audience wants to read.
Make customer service a priority
The value of great customer service for real estate businesses is often overlooked. Due to negative perceptions of the industry, some clients will feel as though they have to hide certain information from their agents, however building a reputation for excellent customer service and showing the agent is on their side can go a long way in improving this perception. It's important to focus on building trust with your clients by remaining honest with buyers and promptly replying to phone or email inquiries to help build quality connections with clients in the market.
A voicemail assistant like Vxt can improve your customer service by helping you stay on top of your voice messages and the many time-consuming tasks associated with running a real estate business. Vxt helps manage missed calls, converting voicemail to text and forwarding them to email, allowing you to detect urgent messages from potential clients and replying to them before they choose to go elsewhere. By utilising tools like Vxt, you can ensure your customers feel valued and listened to, while also spending more time on growing your business.
Improve your time management
Time is your greatest asset. You can find more money, but you cannot find more time. If you’re forever trying to reach the end of your to-do-list, it becomes impossible to grow your business. Instead of playing catch-up, it's important to focus on activities that will help your business grow and that starts with making more time for the work you are truly passionate about. An easy-to-use time management tool such as Trello can be essential to organising your day, week, or month and is worth its weight in gold in assisting realtors to complete specific tasks within a set time frame. By prioritising time management, you will ensure you deliver work on time and will find you produce better quality work too.
Planning for distractions is also an important part of time management. Most real estate agents who want to build their business don’t include time for distractions in their daily plan. It's important to set aside time for distractions, so when that random phone call comes through, you know you only have 5 minutes to wrap it up to stay on track and on task for the day. Accounting for distractions and focusing on developing your time management skills will help free up more time to focus on activities that drive revenue and will help further grow your business.
Networking and building relationships
The key to a successful real estate business is building strong relationships through your sphere of influence. One way of widening this sphere of influence is by attending networking events and connecting with people that can help your business, as well as interacting with other business owners in the community – you never know who could be a potential homeowner. The process of giving is just as important as receiving, so by building connections with local businesses, you can add value to your clients by referring them to someone you trust, just as other business owners can send leads your way if their clients ask for a referral.
It’s also important to focus on client relationships. The most successful real estate agents generate several deals through referrals from previous customers and a customer referral is most valued by a new buyer or seller. One survey of more than 500 real estate agents found that three-quarters of an agent’s business comes from referrals and word of mouth. New clients are going to feel more comfortable selecting a real estate agent when referred by a friend, colleague, or relative.
For many new agents, real estate can be a second, third, or even fourth career. While the idea of ‘being your own boss’ seems appealing, the ‘freedom’ of being a business owner also comes with its own challenges. It may seem daunting at first, however, those who actively take steps to grow their real estate business will be the most successful. Once you’ve leveraged these steps to your advantage you will reap the rewards in greater leads, sales, and revenue.
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