Just consider this a bonus Ask An Ambassador post for the week!
I believe a key to success in real estate is understanding the source of your clients.
There is absolutely NO shortage of things we can work on each day, so it's important to choose the things that are productive.
And what's productive? That's may very well vary tremendously from agent to agent.
I'm an introvert. For me, going to a party and schmoozing the crowd and letting drop that I'm an agent is just not for me. Extended time with strangers wears me down, so you can bet door knocking is also low on my list of desirable activities.
So what do I do? I do things that fit my personality more, thus the day after day blogging habit, the creation of tons of subdivision posts, long tail search posts, etc. They're perhaps a bit passive, but done in volume they provide a good web presence so people find me.
But how do we know what works?
In my case I track our production sources and it's a simple method.
Just a little Excel workbook that lists clients and the best estimate of how they found me. I ask of course, and in many cases the answer is "the Internet". That's obviously pretty general, but I can often zero down a bit. Did they call me about a particular subdivision that I know I have a custom search page set up? Or just a specific blog page? For me, whether it's my ActiveRain blog, my ActiveRain Outside blog, or my Wordpress IDX pages, I consider it all fruit of the same tree. The AR posts push traffic to the IDX pages.
In other cases, I know I've been found by a "___________ near me" search. Fill in the blank with real estate agent, Realtor(R) or RE/MAX agent. It might be a mobile sourced search, or a general Google search, but those Google My Business spots in Mason and Lebanon Ohio pay off for us.
Other times it's easy to identify the source. Sometimes coworkers from my engineering job ask for help. They know about my dual career life and have known me for a decade or more so the relationship is already established.
And sometimes the source is "accidental". For instance Liz does a lot of volunteer work with Bunny the Chihuahua, but she makes no effort to identify herself as an agent. She's there to help and not gain business. But some people ask and file it away in their mental data bank. And later when they need help, they may remember and give us a call.
Bottom line, I can go back years and identify the likely source of each client. That identification helps me know where to apply my efforts, and what efforts are not productive.
Do you know where your business comes from?
Bill of Bill & Liz aka BLiz