5 PIPELINE MANAGEMENT TIPS FOR REAL ESTATE AGENTS

As a real estate agent, your job is managing a sales pipeline to close more deals. In the real estate business, each agent handles their pipeline differently. It is likely a combination of marketing, in-person meetings, property showings, placing properties into escrow, and closing on the properties.

An active pipeline is crucial toward your future success as an agent.

When you master your pipeline, you’ll see at which stage any deal is, whether you have enough deals on the board to achieve your goals, and which deals need your attention now.

Sales pipeline data keeps you on top of the number of potential deals you are currently working, the average size of your deals, your close ratio and the average time to close.

Read on if you’re interested in making a sales pipeline work for your real estate business. We’ve asked several successful agents how they’re managing a pipeline for maximum returns.

Upgrade your pipeline tools

Will Featherstone, founder and owner of Baltimore-based Featherstone & Co. of Keller Williams Excellence, has helped hundreds of homeowners navigate through the home selling process.

A few years ago, his team integrated a CRM system to close deals. Before doing so, Featherstone says he lost thousands of dollars in both potential and future business. Since then, his team has been consistently ranked first or second in the Maryland/D.C. region for number of closed deals. In the past, Featherstone did everything by email and spreadsheets, but he had his first aha moment within two days of adopting CRM software.

Score your leads

Once you’ve added prospects to your pipeline, lead qualification is crucial. Julian Walker, is Director at Spot Blue International Property Ltd. His team uses a sales pipeline to close deals with British investors seeking properties in Spain.

Make and track your phone calls

According to the National Association of Home Builders, 5.48 million existing homes and 592,000 new homes sold in February 2017.

That’s a lot of potential. Your job is to move a small slice of that pie through your own sales pipeline. It’s not enough, however, just to get on the phone every day.

You have to track your phone call and meeting activity. By logging call and meeting details with relevant notes, you’ll keep a prospect moving forward toward a closing date.

Don’t lose sight of the whole pipeline

As you grow your pipeline, avoid spending too much time on only one part. If you have four deals likely to close this month, it’s still important to keep adding new prospects through prospecting and marketing. A pipeline isn’t helpful unless it consistently receives new inputs.

If you focus only on your showings or closings, you’ll have nothing to do a month from now.

Organize and track your prospecting so marketing campaigns are never random or inconsistent.

Keep adding prospects, qualifying your leads and setting up meetings to learn about your clients’ changing needs and goals. We buy ugly houses.

Convert

Move prospects along your pipeline through engagement: fast responses to inquiries, focused meetings with buyers and sellers, lots of questions and results tracking. Organize your pipeline with closings in mind.

To stay on top of your pipeline, Ailion suggests tracking where the lead is in the sales funnel process. The key is quick response, meaningful engagement based on where the prospect is in the sales process and tracking results.

By taking a disciplined, activities-based approach to your sales pipeline, you’ll have strong 2017. Stay focused, keeping the whole picture in mind, upgrade your tools and stay in the forefront of your clients’ minds.

7 Real Estate Agent Personality Traits Essential for Success

Looking to launch your own real estate business? It’s an appealing career path for business-minded, entrepreneurial individuals who prefer the flexibility of a job that isn’t strictly nine-to-five.

It isn’t an easy career, however, and not all real estate agents are successful. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual wage difference between the bottom and top ten percent of real estate agents is more than $90,000.

So, what separates top performers from everyone else? Contrary to what many people think, there’s more to being a real estate agent than driving around and showing houses all day. With more than a million agents across the country, it takes a lot to stand out and be competitive.

I’ve compiled seven real estate agent personality traits commonly found among top-performing agents that you can examine against your own habits to see how you measure up.

Integrity

The first step to selling any home is winning a buyer’s trust. If an agent is purely profit-driven, buyers can sense it. The best agents genuinely want to help their buyers. Sometimes, this means going above and beyond for little or no return to build your reputation as an agent with integrity.

Never put a commission in front of a buyer or seller’s needs. Make it clear to your clients that you have their best interests in mind, and you’ll reap the rewards of referrals here: affordable movers phoenix

Proactive nature

An American Psychological Association study found that “proactivity” accounted for a significant percentage of the difference between the top and bottom performers in real estate.

Successful agents know how to make the most of their leads and don’t wait to be contacted. According to Mischa Mileman—a top-performing realtor with Owners.com—this is where top agents separate themselves from the pack. Mileman says:

“The number one factor in an agent’s success is leads. Having a brokerage with a strong lead generation program is critical. You have to have leads to have closings. Not every lead is going to be a sale, but you have more control over it than most people think. You have to earn their trust to earn their business.”

Schedule face-to-face meetings with leads as soon as possible, regardless of their stage in the buying or selling process. If you are proactive and increase your number of meetings, you increase your opportunities for success.

Persistence

Top agents follow up on leads as soon as possible, and stay with them. They know that sometimes it takes several weeks or months for buyers to truly begin their home search, so they use that time to build a relationship.

Mileman has more advice for us here:

“I work on my leads until they’re dead. I’m not afraid to kick a dead horse. You’re supposed to follow up at least five or six times, but I will follow up more if I think there’s any chance they’ll choose me as their agent. If someone is unresponsive, I try different modes of communication until I get a response. The worst thing they’ll do is tell me they’re not interested in buying a house. That’s fine! More time to follow up on other leads.”

Love of competition

In this business, things can get tough. It’s a competitive industry, so agents have to be ambitious and driven to succeed. Successful agents don’t blame struggles on outside factors—they dig deep to push past encountered obstacles and get things done.

If they’re getting bad leads, top sellers find a way to convert them into good leads. But, they also don’t solely rely on leads provided by their brokerage firms.

Ultimately, it’s up to agents to generate leads and grow their own business.

Outgoing and extroverted

You can’t be shy as a real estate agent. To be good at selling homes, you have to be able to talk to people. Really, you should develop a love for talking to people.

Top agents make friends and grow their network everywhere they go, handing out cards to virtually everyone they talk to. Most of all, successful agents aren’t afraid to pick up the phone or go out of their way to connect with people.

With each meeting, you increase your sphere of influence by at least one person.

Detail-oriented

The dullest aspect of selling homes is the paperwork, but successful agents stay organized and on top of the details, carefully guiding their clients through the entire process, from contract to close.

“I always make sure to write a strong contract that protects my client’s interests, especially earnest money,” says Mileman. “If the contract doesn’t address something important to my client, I add it to the special stipulations in clear language so that all parties are on the same page. Then I carefully track all due diligence and contingency dates—I put them in my calendar in red.”

How do you stay organized? Good real estate management software will help you with this task.

Experience

According to a Journal of Real Estate Research study examining the factors affecting real estate sales performance across 16 firms, experience was one of the strongest factors contributing to the success of top performers.

Seasoned real estate agents have seen enough contracts to know what to expect. They can anticipate challenges that newer agents may not know how to prepare for.

It takes time to build a strong network. The longer you stick with selling homes, the better you’ll get at it. Over time—especially for agents who stay within the same region—your network will grow, and you’ll learn your market inside and out.

What personality traits have you noticed in top-performing real estate agents? Sell my house in Grand Prairie.

Anyone can try their hand at selling homes, but success requires a little bit of talent and a lot of hard work. These traits can be learned and fostered; take the time to evaluate how your current business practices measure up.