According to a recent report by Google Trends, the most popular “how to become” search over the last year was “how to become a real estate agent.” With thousands of new agents jumping on the scene, it’s essential that you know how to run your real estate business, whether you’re one of those new agents or you’ve been in the real estate industry for a while.
Here are 16 tips that every real estate agent should know that will help you run your business and succeed in real estate.
Tip #1 Document Everything
The first of our tips for real estate really applies to everything in your life: document everything you’re doing. You should keep close track of your processes for every important task for a few main reasons:
- To see how you spend your time.
- To ensure continuity in the business.
- To share your processes with assistants as you hire them.
Keeping documentation of important things is crucial. Document:
- Your processes.
- Your scripts for talking to leads, clients, or prospects.
- Your daily schedule.
When you keep documentation, it will be that much easier for you to grow and expand your business.
Tip #2 Create Systems
As you develop your business, create clear systems for all tasks. This might include:
- Writing scripts for talking to leads and clients.
- Systematizing your daily schedule.
- Systematizing the process of working with clients, from the first contact to follow-up emails to the selling and closing process.
No matter what you’re doing, use your documentation skills to create a system and set it up so that you can follow it in the future. Make sure that your system works for others too—when you hire a sales agent or assistant, you want them to be able to follow your systems step by step to ensure consistency for your clients.
Tip #3 Guard Your Time
Finding and connecting with prospects and helping clients find homes can take a LOT of time. In fact, these people will take as much of your time as they possibly can. However, you don’t have endless time, which is why one of the most important tips for real estate agents like you is to protect what time you do have.
As you’re building your business, it’s crucial that you guard your time for the most important things. Make sure you have time for marketing, gathering leads, connecting with leads, helping clients, and doing paperwork. Don’t let yourself be overwhelmed by the people who want you to help them every second of the day.
Protect your time, not only to focus on what’s important in your business, but also to spend time NOT working on your business. You can’t spend all your time working or you’ll lose relationships and other skills that make your life meaningful. Be sure you have time to focus on all the things that are crucial to your healthy and happy life.
Tip #4 Continually Improve Yourself
Train, train, train! You must always train yourself to grow and improve so that you don’t get left behind. Keep seeking out education in your business. Learn new marketing and social media skills. Talk to experienced agents and hear from experts. In fact, if you’re looking for reliable education with industry leaders, check out the Agent First Summits every Tuesday.
Without improving yourself continually, you will be left behind. You’ll start losing clients because your work isn’t up to par with the standard anymore. Keep training so that you can do better in your business and always seek to reinvent yourself to better serve your clients.
Tip #5 Develop Good Habits
We all have habits, whether they’re good or bad. To succeed with these tips for real estate, start by building habits that will keep you confident and strong in your business. Instead of letting yourself “fall in” to habits that come naturally to you, build good habits.
The thing about habits is that they will help you keep going even when you don’t feel like it. If you have the habit of calling prospects every day, even when you’re not feeling like talking, you’ll still follow your habit and do it. Good habits make real estate SO much easier and more predictable.
Tip #6 Be Consistent
As we mentioned when discussing the importance of creating systems and maintaining documentation, it’s crucial that you remain consistent. As much as you can, complete your work in a consistent manner.
If you remain consistent following these tips in real estate and pursuing the same processes, you won’t have to guess later, wondering what you did that worked so well last time. Once you find a system, a script, or a habit that works and brings you success, you can repeat it over and over to maximize your success.
Also, be consistent for your clients and real estate team. They need that certainty that you’re a leader worth following and that you won’t be sporadic with them. They need to know that what you say today will be consistent with what you say tomorrow.
Tip #7 Never Stop Prospecting
Don’t let your foot off the gas! You should always be looking for the next client or you’ll get stuck in a rut where you aren’t making any income. Even while you’re working with clients, keep running Facebook Ads, maintaining drip campaigns, cold calling, hosting open houses, and following up with leads.
If you need help, don’t hesitate to hire an assistant. It’s crucial that you keep prospecting and bringing new clients in on a consistent basis to keep making the money you need to thrive.
Tip #8 Niche Down
Be the master of one thing and be known for it! Proving your expertise in one area won’t lead to you having to work in that area always, but it will give you the chance to market yourself as an “expert.”
Don’t worry though—even with that expertise, you’re still going to get calls to help with other types of sales. It’s primarily important that you show you know your stuff and can be trusted so that clients will come to you with faith that you can and will help them.
Tip #9 Know Your Market
One of the most popular marketing tactics is to say that you’re the “expert in your area.” You absolutely want to use this tactic—but you don’t want to lie about it! Make sure that what you’re saying is absolutely true by becoming the local expert.
Dig deep into the state of the market, the local neighborhoods, and the local businesses. Get to know your place and start sharing videos and posts about the locality so that clients see what you know and want to reach out to you for help when they’re looking in your area.
Tip #10 Pick Up Your Phone
Don’t be one of those agents it’s impossible to reach. Pick up your phone when someone calls. If you can’t answer right then, make sure you call back as soon as possible. You must be a communicative agent if you’re going to do real estate right.
You never know who wants to talk to you. Whether it’s a client who can (and will) give you a review based on how well you responded to them or a prospect desperate for your help, answering the phone could be the difference between the life and death of your real estate career.
Tip #11 Nurture Future Business
Follow up with every lead, even leads you might consider “dead leads” (i.e. leads that aren’t ready to move or haven’t responded). You never know who might change their mind and suddenly be ready to talk to you.
Keep offering your presence and your help to every lead. You could be one phone call, text, or email away from $7,000+ in commission!
Tip #12 Give Back
We all started somewhere, and we all needed help when we started. Don’t forget the people who need help, even as you start building on your success. If you don’t have the extra capital to give back with money, choose to give back with your time instead.
Give to new agents, to community projects, to confused clients and leads. Give of the knowledge, time, and even money that you have been blessed with. You never know when a gift you give will change someone’s life.
In giving, you will find purpose. In giving, you will find joy.
Tip #13 Be Open to Change
Change is always going to happen, no matter what you do. To succeed in any business, but especially in real estate, you must be open to changes in the market, in marketing trends, in your clientele, and even in the law.
Be open to change and be ready for anything. If you don’t learn to adapt quickly and efficiently to new opportunities and challenges, you’ll quickly fail as a real estate agent.
Tip #14 Show Empathy
There may be times when it seems like clients ask you 100,000 questions…and maybe they do! But be patient with them. Put yourself in their shoes and realize that they don’t do this every day like you do. You’re the expert, but they’re completely new to all of this.
Have patience with your clients and show empathy by understanding where they’re coming from and connecting with them. Listen and answer eagerly even on question #998,893.
Tip #15 Don’t Lie
It’s tempting to fudge a little and avoid the truth if you fear it’s going to make you look stupid. But if you lie, you’ll end up causing more problems than you solve by throwing a wrench into the process and proving yourself untrustworthy.
If you know the answer, that’s great! If you don’t, simply get back to them with it as soon as you can. Never make things up! Lying only makes things worse—you can lose the deal, you can lose your client’s money, you can get your license revoked…but maybe worst of all, you can lose your reputation.
Tip #16 Ask Questions
Your goal when talking with leads and signing with clients is to get to know people. You have to understand where they’re coming from and where they want to go so that you can truly and effectively help them.
Sure, some questions will feel uncomfortable at first. But if you ask even the hard questions, you’ll save a lot of time and money in the long run. So, be sure to qualify everyone:
- How much capital do you have?
- Are you pre-approved?
- Where are you looking for a home/offer?
- What will you NOT accept in a home/offer?
These types of questions will help you engage with your clients on a deep level to understand their needs and how those needs fit in with your business and your job.
Conclusion
If you follow these tips, you’re not likely to fail as a real estate agent. Take a look at them again and tell me what you think: Do you think that if all agents followed these tips for real estate, we would be better as an industry on the whole?
I think yes, we absolutely would be! So, take your time to follow these steps and build the strong business you deserve. With a little dedication and hard work, you’ll improve your business and the real estate industry in no time.