4 Tips on Playing Offense in Your Business

Joshua Smith’s real estate career has been on the fast track from the beginning. A dynamic Team Leader with RE/MAX Professionals in Surprise, Ariz., Smith is a RE/MAX Lifetime Achievement Award recipient who’s been working hard on his systems for nine years.

Generous with his insights into successful strategies, Smith offers tips for agents on You Tube and his blog. He’s even been the featured guest on real estate webcasts. Here are his top four favorite tips for growing your business.

1. Cultivate your most valuable asset: your name

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reports that only 11 percent of buyers rehire their agent a few years later. Why? Usually it’s because the buyers have forgotten their agent’s name or don’t know how to reach him or her. To succeed, you have to include past clients in your sphere of influence.

How to do it: Foster a relationship that lasts long after the closing. Don’t just put past clients on a mailing list; pick up the phone and call clients on a quarterly basis to check in and ask about their families. Making it personal builds a strong sphere of influence that generates repeat business.

2. Play offense 100 percent of the time

Too many agents send out postcards or buy advertising, then wait for something to happen. In my view, waiting for advertising to pay off is playing defense.

How to do it: Playing offense is prospecting. Host mega open houses, go after FSBOs and expired listings, court prospects and keep in touch with past clients. You have to go out there and create opportunities instead of waiting for them to come to you.

3. Follow up to follow through

Learn how to turn a prospective client into a client. Accept that it can take 15 attempts before communication is established. Understand that the person isn’t necessarily rejecting you; he or she is just not ready.

How to do it: Develop a system to identify and nurture contacts, and follow it every single day. My recommended system is to respond to every lead within five minutes, if at all possible. Then follow up every day for five days in a row, and every 72 hours until communication happens. After you get a response, make a judgment call on how often to contact your prospective client based on his or her needs and situation. I recommend agents set aside time every day to do their follow-ups according to this schedule ­- or whatever schedule they devise that works. Those who are unwilling to regularly court their contacts and their former clients simply won’t grow.

4. Host open houses that people will notice

In my experience, about 80 percent of the people who visit open houses aren’t working with a Realtor yet. There’s no better way to introduce yourself to prospective clients than at a well-done open house.

How to do it: My team’s open houses are eye-catching events that we advertise in advance with fliers and videos. We celebrate the big event with balloons and a giant flag to draw in a crowd. And I personally invite neighbors and prospective buyers. I signal that this is no ordinary open house, and I’m no ordinary agent. A good open house for my team results in at least one closed sale.