I’ll preface this brief narrative by stating that I’m retired from actively working in the real estate business. I market for active agents. The best I can do is relay to you my thoughts and actions on this topic from my past experience.
My niche was land and new construction. When one intends to work with builders, visibility and communication are most important. It was much easier to stay in communication with builders than with past resale buyers and sellers.
My thoughts on business were always focused in the future. Future business with builders happens when land is found and offered to them. Not all real estate agents market to find land. I did, and I learned to do that after I sold my first new home.
When you find a method of making money, and you love what you do, you go full force finding the best method of doing it. Listing new homes was my niche, and I wanted to do more than any other agent in the entire county.
After some thought about how that could happen, I decided I needed to do what no one else was doing. I found land. I used direct mail marketing to find land. I decided to NOT charge the land owner a commission on the land so the phone would ring, AND IT DID!!!
I had enough well-treed land to feed every termite in the state plus heat every home. My goal was to secure new home listings. The land commission was minimal compared to the flow of listing fees and the additional resale business that was attached to each new home sale.
FIND LAND, AND THE DEVELOPER/BUILDERS WILL FIND YOU. They did. It’s was a trial and error method of finding, feeding and friending many builders. There are riches in niches.
I was NEVER focused on marketing to past clients. My thoughts were always full force ahead and filling the pipeline with future new home communities. I never had a follow up system with past buyers. I’d estimate half of my past clients were repeat business for me. I didn’t have time to work them, and referred all of them to others.
The point of that statement is to say, if you do a good job, they’ll NOT FORGET YOU. While others were using the “Top Producer” program, I was using the US Postal Service to find land. That’s the truth, and it worked well for me. It’s not typical. I marched to my own drummer, but that’s typical for ME.
I was never a “throw a party for past clients” type person. I’d rather hang out with builders at 5:30 am at the local coffer shop and talk about land. It was the place to be, if one wanted to list new home communities. I learned that lesson very early in my career, and I continue to use it now for those for whom I market.
At this time, those agents do not have enough new communities to NOT follow up with past clients, but they will!!! Those communities are now going through approvals with towns, and the first will be up and running at the end of this year.
I’m confident they will always follow up with past clients, since they have a growing team to whom those past clients can be referred. Times have changed and teams are a valuable structure for highly productive agents.
Thanks for reading this, and I hope I didn’t bore you.
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