New Real Estate Agents: Kickstart Your Business
Starting your career in real estate can be tough.
You may be leaving a full-time job to dive into a career where income is not guaranteed. This can be quite rewarding as your output is in direct proportion to your input. This can also be stressful for you as you are not guaranteed any form of compensation.
So, how can new real estate agents get clients and make money?
Online Presence For Your Real Estate Business
Social Media For New Real Estate Agents
Having an online presence isn't going to provide results out the gate. However, this will prove very beneficial long-term and will aid in building credibility when potential clients research you.
Mike Blankenship
For social media, I recommend starting with the platform you consume content on. If you are frequently on Instagram, start creating content there.
If you have never used LinkedIn, you may find it difficult to form a habit around publishing content on a platform you never use.
What sort of content should a new agent post?
The great thing about creating content is there is no right or wrong method. Some agents post information on market stats whereas others post more about their personal life.
Market stats can be great but they don't allow prospective clients to know you as a person. No connection is being built when reading numbers on a screen.
As an agent, there are multiple opportunities to create content throughout your normal day. This can be a tip you learned from a mortgage broker, a quick 30-second video showing the outside of a home you are about to show, or even a photo of a countertop that caught your eye.
Most agents overthink the content they publish. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that you are consistently showing you are out and about selling real estate.
If you are struggling to come up with content ideas, I recommend checking out the resource linked below. I frequent this site, almost daily, to help generate ideas for content.
Google My Business Page For Real Estate Agents
One of the best ways to increase your online presence is to create a Google My Business Profile. These profiles are 100% free and will allow you to show up in local search results.
I created a full guide on Google My Business Page For Real Estate Agents, that I highly recommend you checkout.
Create a Real Estate Website That is Focused on SEO
SEO for real estate agents means where you rank on search engines for buyer and seller searches. Creating a SEO focused website is a great way to drive traffic to your site and you can also reuse the content for email marketing and social media.
Real Estate Email Marketing
Email marketing is a low cost yet very effective way to stay in contact with your sphere of influence. Email marketing can also be automated, making it low bandwidth to keep up with.
If you are a new agent, you can use email marketing to showcase local events, shoutouts, and other information that your email subscribers will find useful.
How to find Buyer Clients as a New Agent
As a new agent, finding buyer clients is a great way to build your book of business. There are also multiple free methods to start building out your pipeline. The important thing to note is to create a plan for your daily prospecting. This is especially important for your first 30 days as an agent.
Facebook Marketplace
Facebook marketplace is a wonderful resource for agents. Reach out to agents within your office or other agents who currently have listings. Ask them for their permission to post their listing on Facebook marketplace.
Post houses in different locations and various price points to attract different types of buyers.
Once the houses are posted, it's a matter of responding to messages, setting appointments, and updating the posts.
Open Houses
As a new real estate agent you are going to have to do things that you may not enjoy all that much... That means spending the weekends for at least the first 6 months conducting open houses.
Open houses can be a hit or a miss... Some attract 30+ buyers whereas others attract nosy neighbors. However, it only takes one new client to make it all worth it.
If you ever doubt if it's worth it or not, do a quick calculation of time spent over the course of 4 open houses. Then, determine what you would earn in commission if you gained one new client.
Looking at it from this angle will show you that the hourly rate you will receive will make it well worth it in the end.
IDX Website
An IDX website is a site that is connected with your MLS. In return, this allows buyers to signup and view homes for sale.
IDX sites are great as they are automatically updated as the MLS updates. They also allow for emails to be sent upon a new listing that meets your buyer's criteria.
It's very rewarding when a new buyer signs up on your IDX site as they came organically to you.
How to Get Listing Clients as a New Real Estate Agent
When you sign your first listing agreement, you may never want to represent a buyer again. Listings are obviously much different in terms of time commitment and prove to be the best form of compensation.
For Sale by Owners
Calling for sale by owner listings, or FSBO's, is one of the most popular techniques for new agents to obtain listings.
Now, the one thing to keep in mind is the number of calls these listings receive. With this in mind, you must differentiate your approach.
Converting for sale by owner listings is a long(er) term play. In order for them to see the value in the services you offer, they must feel the pain of listing on their own.
You can talk about the value you bring all day but without truly experiencing it, they don't really know the difference.
I'm not a "script" person. I believe in creating connections and follow-up. If you hound FSBOs, it's very unlikely they will call you when it comes time to list.
The approach I have found best is to simply call and see if you can bring value. Do they need a state contract? A recommendation for a photographer? It doesn't matter what it is, just find a way to bring value to them.
Motivated Sellers
A homeowner who qualifies as "motivated" can mean a number of different things. This could be anything from homeowners who are empty nesters to landlords evicting a tenant.
Regardless of the motivating reason, these homeowners will be listing their houses soon.
At the end of the day, the method that you use to generate clients does not matter all that much. The most important thing is consistency.
Pick no more than 3 methods and focus on those for 6 months before switching or adding additional methods.