Level Up Your Game

If you didn’t know it was a hard job prior to getting your real estate license, you now know we do more than just stick signs in yards. In your first year of real estate, most of your transactions likely came from close friends or relatives. As such, this pool of clients is likely to soon run dry. So, what are things you can do in your second year to reach the next level?

Make a concerted effort to beef up your online presence in your second year. National Association of Realtors statistics suggest that over 90% of both buyers and sellers start their home buying or selling online.

#1- Your website.

This is the “foundation” to everything we do online. Just like building a home, we have to have good foundation to our online presence and it starts with your website.

We typically see two types of websites. The first is called a “business card” website. These websites are generally cheap to purchase and maintain. A website like this one offers very little in the way of content to potential clients other than maybe a homepage, an about me page, a contact page and maybe a property search. The second type of website is called “try and build”. These websites have hundreds if not thousands of pages of useful content for potential clients and they’re geared toward taking your business to the highest level you can achieve. These sites, when done correctly, will rank well with search engines because you have spent the necessary time and given the effort to create specific pages which give good “content” to a user looking for a particular topic. Build as many relevant webpages as you can for your area.

Again, if you want to take your career to the next level, start focusing on adding relevant content to your website.

#2 – Blog.

Let’s admit, most of us dread blogging. We might find ourselves thinking – “What do I have to say? Where will I come up with stuff to talk about? Keep in mind, it doesn’t matter if you are real estate agent in New York, California or Florida, we all face the same problems, issues and funny anecdotes. Still scared to blog? Don’t be. Share your stories, change the names to protect the innocent and join the community of real estate bloggers. It’s actually a pretty fun and tight-knit bunch.

#3 – Concentrate on buyers before sellers.

The pressure of representing a buyer is far less than that of dealing with a seller. All you have to do with buyers is find the right home, get through the negotiations, the inspections and close the deal.

On the other hand, sellers will call you almost daily until their home sells. They will fill your voicemail, text messages and email full of questions about their listing. 100% of these questions revolve around why their home isn’t selling. No matter how they say it, they’re asking why it isn’t selling. Working with sellers can be very tricky. If a home sells too fast, they think you priced it too low. If a home doesn’t sell fast enough, you aren’t doing your job.

A lot of other companies and agents take listings at a substantially discounted commission rate. Unless you want to work for half of your commission (or less in some instances), don’t worry about listings. When you represent a buyer, you will get the full commission rate in almost every instance.

Want to know a secret? An estimated 60% or more of the buyers represented also have a home to sell. So, relax and target buyers with your web and marketing efforts. Do a good job representing those buyers on their new homes and you’ll get a nice little number of listings in return.