Real estate agents are always looking for ways to increase their client base. As a realtor, you want to make sure that your marketing efforts are successful and not wasteful.
Nothing is more frustrating than spending money on marketing campaigns that don’t generate any leads or clients.
It’s important to be strategic about the time and money you spend on these campaigns, so they’re worth it in the long run.
Without further ado, here are the 15 new real estate agents’ mistakes realtors must avoid if you want to succeed in this industry.
1. Failure to Set Up a Business/Marketing Plan
Starting a real estate career without having a business or marketing plan is setting yourself up for failure. Without these plans, you will struggle to find new clients and keep the ones you already have.
It’s important to set goals and outline your strategies, so you know where exactly your efforts are going.
Also, remember not to stretch yourself too thin by taking on more than one client at once. This can cause infighting between potential buyers or sellers, creating a bad image of you as their agent.
2. Not Giving Lead Generation Enough Time to Work
It’s important to understand that lead generation takes a lot of time before you start seeing results. If you do not give it enough time, you might spend lots of money on marketing campaigns without getting any return for your investment.
It’s also very tempting to jump straight into costly marketing efforts when things are slow, but this can cause even more problems in the long run.
You should always have at least one or two lower-cost options available, so when they stop working after a while, you still have something else waiting in the wings.
To be sure whether a lead generation strategy is working or not, you should do it consistently for not less than six months. During this period, you will see whether the campaign is profitable or not and adjust accordingly.
Speaking of lead generation time frame, it is also essential to analyze the source of leads you are pursuing so as not to wait for too long when the leads you get are of good quality.
Most new real estate agents focus on internet platforms such as social media and even Zillow to get leads.
You should know that while you may get some quality leads, they come at a cost. You will have to pay a little more, and it might take a long time before you can convert them into sales.
Such platforms will give you false hope, where you give your strategy six or more months just waiting, and what you get doesn’t help you generate revenues.
3. Having the Wrong Mindset
As you start your journey into your real estate career, you should know that mindset is the key to your success or failure. If you are not positive about your work, it won’t be easy to attract any clients.
You need to have the right mindset to think that everything is possible if you put in enough time and effort into what you do.
Remember that you are getting into an industry that already has more experienced players. The competition will be stiff, and the feeling of giving up might always be around the corner.
Your competitors will not be ready to help, let alone give up on their clients for you. So as you start as a real estate agent, it would help if you were ready to fight for your space and win over clients.
4. Not Keeping Track of Past Clients
Failing to keep track of your past clients is a fatal mistake in the world of real estate. It’s essential to stay in touch with your clients even after you have closed their deals.
You should always be asking how they are doing if the property meets their expectations, and so on.
You need to know past clients are the number one source for quality leads, as nothing beats referrals for leads generation.
By keeping their contacts and getting in touch once in a while, you will likely get to know some of their plans regarding buying or selling their properties. In such instances, you become the automatic agent for them.
And it’s not just about them wanting to acquire or dispose of the property. Your past clients have friends and relatives who might also want to buy a house in their neighborhoods.
If you have established a good relationship with them, it becomes easier to get such referrals.
5. Failure to Take Action After Analysis
While choosing the right lead generation strategy is a good step towards getting quality leads, the process itself won’t be of much importance if you spend a lot of time analyzing it instead of putting it into action soon enough.
You need to understand that business is all about taking action and not just sitting back thinking of the right strategy.
You should know when it’s time for you to take action, whether in terms of making follow-ups on leads or otherwise.
A good strategy can go to waste simply because you failed to act on it at a reasonable time. An example is when you have a trending topic which you can use to reach potential clients.
Instead of putting up a campaign relevant to the trending topic and using it to convert potential clients, you wait until the topic is no longer trending and then put up a campaign. This delay will not give you good results.
6. Not Knowing What Makes Your Business Unique
Your business will never be able to stand out in the crowd if you are not clear about what it is that makes your real estate business unique.
So many other businesses provide services and products like yours, but what sets apart a successful one from others?
And how do they manage to develop different strategies when their focus market has not changed much over time?
The answer lies in knowing why your business stands out among the rest and then building upon this uniqueness for better growth prospects.
An example of such uniqueness could be giving discounts on properties under foreclosure or abandoned homes.
This way, you attract clients who might otherwise feel uncomfortable buying such properties at expensive rates; also, there’s no competition here as most brokers won’t want to handle such properties.
7. Not Working Together with More Experienced Realtors
It is important to note that the real estate market has turned more competitive than ever before, and this means you will have to go the extra mile if you want your business to grow.
So it’s not just enough for you as a new broker to work hard towards generating quality leads.
What makes all the difference here are your connections with other realtors who can help bring in front some of their contacts or even refer them your way.
And this applies regardless of whether they are brokers working right next door or others across town.
If there isn’t any cooperation between agents within an area, then expect businesses operating out of the same space to be under threat from outside competitors.
These might come from another agent looking to acquire clients or a real estate brokerage looking to set up shop.
8. Not Having a Business Plan for Your Clientele Acquisition Efforts
To stay ahead of the competition, you must have some strategy in place; know what works and what doesn’t when acquiring potential leads and determining where all these are coming from.
A good way would be to create a segmentation analysis that enables you to identify both the target audience and those who can become lead sources through referrals-based strategies.
Then, determine how to reach them to maximize return investment results on marketing activities/campaigns.
In addition, such an approach will give you better insights into areas where your marketing efforts are not strong enough and what you can do to improve the same.
9. Failure to Build Personal Brand Awareness
Having a personal brand in real estate is not just about being good at your job. It’s also very much about getting yourself out there so you can be noticed.
That means having business and social media channels such as LinkedIn where you get to interact with potential clients; these should give an idea of who you are and what makes you stand apart from other brokers.
You should come up with ideas that will help increase the numbers of people seeing how great working with someone like yourself would be.
This way, they will feel more inclined towards investing their time and money looking for properties through your brokerage firm instead of any others active within the area.
And once this happens, then expect things to take off without too many issues down the line.
10. Lack of Focus on Print Marketing
As a real estate agent, you should know that there are two main forms of marketing. The “online” form refers to efforts made through websites and social media channels like Facebook.
On the other hand, we have what’s known as “offline” or print marketing which plays out in newspapers and magazines.
You can target potential clients by publishing articles written about your business under such publications.
These offline advertisements usually take up more space than online ads.
Hiring an agency for this purpose will be beneficial because their wide readership increases your exposure to hundreds, if not thousands, of people across town or even globally.
So before you invest in online marketing, spend some time looking into print ads, as these are proven to be great for helping realtors acquire even more clients.
11. Not Having a Website for Your Business
Having a website is a must for real estate, which means you should consider investing in one as soon as possible.
This way, potential clients will have an easy time finding out more about your brokerage firm and what makes working with someone like yourself so great-including seeing the properties that are available for sale or rent.
What’s even better is how websites work on all devices, which means people can access them from their smartphones too.
This way, they’ll be able to get information regarding listings whenever they feel like doing so, whether at home or while waiting around during lunch break/meetings, etc.
On top of being convenient, having such online platforms also helps reduce costs since there isn’t any need to print brochures and hand them out to people on the streets.
12. Not Tracking Efforts and Results Daily
Real estate agents need to track everything that’s going on in their business to know which marketing efforts are the most successful from a cost-benefit perspective.
This includes both online and offline channels where leads come from and how these people behave once they reach out.
This helps you figure out whether it might be worth investing even more into such mediums while also finding ways of reducing costs when doing so isn’t necessary.
Using tools like Google Analytics (for tracking website traffic) or Facebook Ads Manager for ads running across different platforms lets you see who is looking at what content.
From here, you can perform data analysis and can take appropriate action based on conclusions drawn.
And because there are multiple sources involved here besides your brokerage firm, it’ll be easy to know what works and what doesn’t, allowing you to make better decisions moving forward.
13. Not Joining Real Estate Associations or Organizations
Joining a national association like NAR (National Association of Realtors) is always beneficial for new and experienced agents alike.
They can learn more about the industry while also networking with others who are active within their community.
By working together on specific projects/initiatives, members will feel part of something big, leading them to share content online published through such channels, thus helping reach even larger audiences.
On the other hand, if you want to target a particular group of people based on their location or interests, joining local real estate organizations is something else that can be beneficial.
For example, groups focused on specific neighborhoods/regions provide agents access to industry events and workshops held by experienced members that they can attend to improve their skills.
At the same time, it exposes them to potential leads who might reach out after seeing your name in association with such activities.
14. Sending Spammy Emails to Past Clients/Customers
Most clientele brought on by real estate agents aren’t acquired within just one transaction, so whenever somebody decides to sell a home (or buy one) later down the line, it shouldn’t come off as a complete surprise to you.
And because people talk to each other within their community, it’s also essential for agents not to spam them with emails or random phone call requests.
Sending cold messages through LinkedIn is not advisable either since these are ways of annoying potential clients who might already be working with someone else.
Instead, real estate professionals need to create an email or phone list that they can use when reaching out over time based on available information regarding purchase history, etc.
This allows one to send personalized messages containing relevant offers and discounts while still staying in touch with potential clients.
After all, buying another property at some point down the line is always possible, making both parties happy once word gets out.
15. Discounting Services to Friends and Relatives
When it comes to real estate, many professionals make the mistake of thinking that they can use their network for gaining more business. They offer lower prices or free services during friendly gatherings where everyone is having fun.
However, these types of discounted offers aren’t beneficial in the long run. Most likely, friends and family will end up referring you to others who are strangers instead.
And because people talk about good deals no matter what industry we’re talking about here (think Groupon), the word might spread quickly even without your involvement at all.
Instead, new agents should build a solid online presence by posting content regularly on social media and working with current clients together. Hence, both parties feel satisfied before moving forward towards making referrals instead.
This way, you can still offer discounts when the time is right, but it won’t be at the expense of losing potential customers in return.
Conclusion
Becoming a successful real estate agent is not as hard as many would want to make us believe. But at the same time, it is not an easy journey, especially if you fail to recognize some of the mistakes that most new agents inadvertently make.
