Put yourself in a buyer's shoes: You're moving to a new area, and you've signed up with a half a dozen Realtor® property update services.  All of those Realtors send you about the same list of properties, and all of those Realtors appear to be reasonably knowledgeable about the market.  How are you going to choose which Realtor to work with?  When all Realtors send the same properties, and most of them appear to have the same level of competence, a very scientific process must ensue: Eenie, meenie, minie mo...  Unfortunately, that's how many buyers choose their Realtor.

15 years ago, before the days of IDX I used to copy and paste MLS information into an email (and snail-mail that same info to those that didn't have email), and getting new clients was like shooting fish in a barrel.  These days, just about every Realtor out there has a property-update feature on their website -- not to mention sites like Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, and buyers can get whatever information they need.  When nothing else differentiates you as a Realtor, you're left to the odds of "My mommy told me to pick the very best one, and you are not it" - 9 out of 10 times.

"No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care." This is why building actual relationships with your prospects (and showing that you care about them as a person) is so extremely important if you want to get their business.  In fact, when it comes to getting them to choose you over your dozens of competitors, it's probably more important than actual knowledge of your marketplace.  One of the most powerful things we enable our agents to do is talk to their prospects about things other than real estate, and one great way to do that is to keep track of who is moving from where.

Let's say you have a large database of prospects, and you happen to know what states those prospects are moving from.  When you see on the news that a category 4 or 5 hurricane is going to hit Louisiana, why not filter for those folks and send a quick email:"Hi <customer>, I see that a category 4 hurricane is likely to hit Louisiana tomorrow. I just wanted to send you a quick note to say that you and your friends & family in Louisiana are in my thoughts and prayers."

When the time comes for those folks to actually pick up and move, who do you think they're going to buy from? One of the agents who have been spewing out tons and tons of property updates with no interaction at all, or you - who actually took time to engage in conversations that allowed you to get to know them as individuals? Not only will you stand out from the crowd because you showed you care, but you'll build valuable friendships in the process.

With our IDX real estate prospecting system, we ask all new buyer prospects where they are moving from for this exact reason. Whether you get 10 leads a month from your system or 500, try adding a "where are you moving from?" field to your inquiry form. If you take advantage of knowing that information, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised -- not only at your increase in conversion rates, but at how much more pleasurable it will be to work with the clients who will naturally gravitate to you because they like you - not because you won the "eenie meenie minie mo" contest.