Tips for Scoring Repeat Business
While it’s true that real estate agents must be adept at marketing themselves online, especially via social media, there’s another way to garner success. This method has always been a cornerstone of the real estate business, and it always will be! Today we’re talking about repeat business.
Keep in mind that no matter how recently you’ve become a real estate agent, it’s important to begin working toward earning repeat business from the very first transaction you close.
By the time you’ve been working for a few years, as much as 60% of your business can stem from organic referrals and repeat business. If you’re not comfortable relying on cold calling, for example, shift your focus toward providing remarkable service to the clients you do have.
This post is all about tips for scoring repeat business. Let’s get into it!
1.) Be Honest at All Times
What’s the quickest way to lose a client’s respect, damage your reputation, and sabotage a sale?
In our experience it’s being untruthful. Whether you lie to them about a house, stretch the truth about a neighborhood, falsify your own level of experience: it doesn’t matter. The effects will be equally devasting.
The reverse is also true, however. The more you work at being transparent, the more your clients will trust you and appreciate your informed opinion. Make it a point to be honest with your clients, with other real estate agents, with the attorneys involved in the sale, and you’ll see both your repeat business and your organic referrals grow.
2.) Prioritize Your Clients Over Your Commission
If you are primarily focused on your commission, your clients will pick up on your self-centeredness. If, on the other hand, you stay focused on your clients, placing their needs at the forefront of your mind, your clients will be pleased and impressed.
The good news is, keeping your focus on your clients is precisely how you’ll start earning higher commissions. Don’t mistake this tactic for a recommendation to give up on achieving your career-related goals and aspirations.
3.) Cultivate Constant Communication
Whether this is during house-hunting, closing, or years down the road, your job is to keep lines of communication open with every client you’ve worked with.
Send an informative and helpful monthly newsletter. Send cards on birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. Consider calling your client on the anniversary of the day they closed on their home.
As a result of you being a person who puts effort into personal, positive communication, your clients will remember you and maintain their good opinion of you for years to come.
4.) Show Your Appreciation for Your Clients Through Your Actions
It’s one thing to tell your clients you appreciate them or to regard them fondly within your own mind.
It’s an entirely different undertaking to take actions that show your clients your appreciation—and the effects of these different approaches are incomparable.
Common methods used to show appreciation are small gifts, cards, and even gift cards. There’s nothing wrong with these methods, but they are expected, and will lead you to miss out on a huge opportunity to build relationships with your current and previous clients.
Instead, consider hosting a client appreciation night during two seasons: either spring and fall, or summer and fall. Rent out a local brewery, coffee shop, or bowling alley for an hour or two, and invite every one of your clients.
Pick up the tab for food, drinks, and games (when applicable), and allow your clients to relax and socialize with each other.
During this time, maintain a friendly, fully professional demeanor as you take time to interact with each client. Express your thanks for their attendance, and ask if there’s anything you can do to help them.
Listen for clues about the needs and wants of your clientele! Not only will this help you with your existing client base, but it will also prepare you to anticipate the needs of new clients you’re able to gain.
5.) Show Genuine Care and Concern
Clients will be more impressed by your genuine kindness than they will ever be by your knowledge of your region’s real estate market.
With that in mind, place at least as much emphasis on being a good, reliable, helpful, caring person as you do on learning about real estate and marketing your services.
The impact this approach will have on your business will be profound. Over time, you’re going to become a frequently recommended agent, for whom the majority of business arises from organic referrals and repeat business.
6.) Mentoring
Having a mentor to help you navigate the complex world of real estate can benefit you immensely. Remember, though, to choose a mentor to work with whose business model involves providing the level of service and attention to past clients that you wish to emulate in your own business.
There’s little point in spending months—or years—learning from an agent whose style, goals, and methods just don’t match up with your own.
Once you’ve aligned yourself with a mentor who consistently pulls in repeat business and earns organic referrals, take the time to observe, note, and internalize their strategies. Clearly, whatever they’re doing to prioritize the happiness of their clients works; it’s up to you to make it work for you, too!