Once you become a real estate agent, everyone starts asking for your money. All kinds of companies come after you asking for money for their leads. So how do you choose what to spend your time and money on to generate leads? I am a solid believer in making your largest time investment at the beginning of your business. If you have extra cash, put it all into two, maybe three different avenues.
If you live in the area where you want to work and already know people who like and trust you, a large part of your business should come from them. This is also known as your sphere of influence, and it’s critical to stay in touch with them. Take them out to lunch, speak with them, get to know them—you’ll get the best bang for your buck from the people already in your life.
Then you want to look at other avenues. Farming by investing heavily in a single zip code area is a wonderful avenue for generating leads. This was what worked for us; we became experts in one neighborhood. Farming may not be right for you. It involves door knocking, community events, and passion for that specific area. You can’t just be in it for the money.
Another opportunity is to be some other kind of expert. Get in touch with a community of people who are outside your database. Maybe you’ll decide you want to be the Realtor for the skiers of Nashville, for example, and you join that club and get involved with those types of people. That’s called growing your “haven’t met” database. You become part of a group, you meet them, you pull them into your database, and you market to them. Then, of course, you stay in touch just like with the rest of your database. By creating a relationship, you can provide so much value.
“You’ll get the best bang for your buck from the people already in your life.”
You can buy internet leads, just be aware that the site you use can pull the plug at any moment, costing you those leads. So don’t depend on internet leads alone. We have a couple of online sources, but it’s less than 10% of our business.
70% of our business comes from our past clients and our spheres of influence. Your sphere is going to be your biggest return on investment. It’s the cheapest, you stay in front of people, they already like you, and you’re not trying to get strangers to call you. What two or three things are you going to focus your time and money on for leads?
If you have further questions about how to generate leads, please reach out to me by phone or email. I would love to help you.
