When you call homeowners with expired listings, there’s a good chance that you’re not the first to reach out to them. So how do you stand out from the rest? cHow do you deal with disappointments? Here’s how you gain an edge in this industry where competition is the name of the game.
First, Build that Resolve
Success is an inside job. And one of the first steps you must take to work your way to the top is to stick to the daily grind.
Start with the End in Mind
You can ask top-performing agents their secret sauce to success. There’s a good chance that the one common thing they all have that sets them apart from the rest is that they all have goals.
Goals keep you focused. You can have your daily activity revolving around achieving your goals. It helps you say no to the numerous distractions that could derail your efforts. But for goals to keep you motivated, you need to do these:
Break down your goal into small actionable steps. You can’t build an empire in a day. But you can build it one day at a time. For instance, if you notice that you can make one property owner to say yes out of the 10 you’ve met or talked on the phone, you can then work out the number so you can break down your goal on a weekly, daily, and hourly basis.
Thus, if your target is 20 listings per month, that would entail talking and meeting 200 people. That’s a very daunting number. But if you break it down further, that’s just around 50 people per week, 10 per day, and 3-4 people per hour if you allot 3 hours of work on expireds. This is how you make the law of averages work in your favor.
Track everything. Since this is a numbers game, keeping track of your metrics gets you ahead of the curve. By tracking regularly, you will know if you’re getting sidetracked and you can correct your course to stay focused on achieving your monthly goals.
Say for some reason you didn’t hit your target that Monday, you have the rest of the week to make up for it. And if you didn’t hit your goal for that week, then you can put more effort into your prospecting so that the following week can make up for it. By religiously tracking where you are on your daily, weekly, and monthly goals, you can easily take some corrective course of action.
Persist. You will have bad days and you will have difficult calls, those are a given when you’re prospecting for expired listings. How you respond to those grinding situations can set you in the league of successful agents or be one of those who couldn’t consistently pull their numbers. You have to learn not to take it personally. And to help you deal with it, get used to a daily routine. Make it a habit to go through your schedule even if you just had the phone slammed on you. Make that next call. Set that next appointment. Mail those letters. And once you’ve formed that habit of sticking to your daily schedule, you’ll be unstoppable. No amount of rejection can hold you back from hitting those numbers.
Ways to Reach Out to Owners
Never limit yourself to one source of clients. Here are the best ways to keep those expired listings coming
Calling Leads
Calling expired lists have drummed up sales of many agents. And it still remains the most common way of getting endless expire listings. To excel in this, consider these tips:
Follow a script. Knowing what to say before you even pick up the phone can shore up your confidence in ways nothing else can. And property owners are more likely to respond positively to you if you exude confidence. You can also anticipate their questions and prepare excellent answers to those queries. But to take this to the next level, formulate some of your own questions as well. Aside from encouraging interaction, this will also give you insights into how motivated the owners is in selling their property and if this listing is even worth your time to pursue.
Record and listen. Improving is the only way forward. And the best way to make the most out of a bad call is to learn from it. That’s why it’s wise to record and listen to your calls and take note of areas you can improve.
Empathize. Get in their shoes. Make the discussion about them and not about you. Encourage them to talk by asking the right questions. And when they talk, listen to understand their situation. You’ll learn more and you’ll earn people’s trust by listening. The industry is rife with stories of property owners losing their confidence in agents. You have to buck that trend.
Schedule an Appointment. Your main goal in calling should be to set an appointment. Although there are cases where you can instantly get the listing over the phone, but still, there’s no replacing face-to-face human interaction. If you can’t schedule an appointment, ask for their email instead. This gives you additional channels for you to follow up with them and get further information in front of them.
Direct Mail Marketing
Reaching out to expired list owners through the mail is another prospecting technique you can master. Here are some good practices you can employ with this strategy:
Use Postcards. Pictures and bright-colored letters capture your prospects’ attention. In an age where people are bombarded with marketing stunts designed to snatch their attention, a well-designed postcard is your best bet to even compete with those other marketing messages.
Provide a FREE Service. Don’t deny it, your eyes gravitated towards the word FREE. There’s a good chance your prospects will be attracted to that too. For example, you can offer a free consultation or a free appraisal.
Online Advertising
Digital advertising through social media or website banner ads is a great way to build brand recognition. You can get in front of potential clients without exerting much effort and without being too intrusive. You just have to be very savvy with this as this can be a very competitive platform and may cost you serious money if you don’t know how to set up an effective campaign.
Pound the Pavement
At a time when technology is advancing and there are many ways to reach out to clients without meeting them face to face, going door to door may seem like an overlooked technique. It’s definitely more strenuous and time-consuming than the other two strategies. However, agents who still do this report that they have a better conversion rate with this strategy compared to calling in or mailing postcards.
Which is the best approach to snag that expired listing?
The bad news is, you don’t know for sure until you see them coming. The good news is, you can stack the odds in your favor by using advanced tools with predictive algorithm. Marketing tools like ProspectNow analyzes thousands of transactions every week to give you insights on the best approach to reach out to clients and the probability of them relisting their property. This way, you can laser-focus and pour in your energy into efforts that will most likely yield successful results.
Whether you see the fruits of your labor right away or it takes time, keep going at it. Even if you don’t see success right away, think of it as a process where you get to cultivate the right skills and mindset—two important things to have to get to the top.