2016 PROSPECTING
Top 10 Business Priorities
#6 Prospecting Expired Listings
The first 5 priorities we have focused on so far:
- Buyer Strategies
- Seller Strategies
- Strategies for Existing Listings
- Relationship Management with your Past Clients, Advocates & Sphere of Influence
- Farming a Geographic Area
The 6th most important priority involves Prospecting Expired Listings. Most agents are taught to check the MLS every day for listings that expire and then call or mail something to the Seller’s they would like to represent. This means that virtually every agent that wants to list property is going to be calling or mailing something to this group. You can just imagine how frustrating this is for seller’s that have let their listings expire!
A good rule of thumb with any marketing or sales effort is to: “Be different that everyone else”. In other words, if you do the same things everyone else is doing, you’re very unlikely to stand out. You must be different than other agents. Because we know that most agents aren’t willing to put extra effort into chasing expired prospects. One of the easiest ways to be different is to be persistent. Instead of attempting to contact prospects a couple of times, communicate with them every week, until they either list with someone else or ask you to stop. Here’s a great outline for prospecting with expired listings:
- Research every listing that has expired or been withdrawn in the last 6 months, or even one year in your geographic farm or area of interest.
- Revise this list by removing anyone that has re-listed or sold their property.
- Plan on communicating with the remaining owners every week.
- The best way to contact this group is to go and see them face to face with the following script:
” Hi Mr. & Mrs. Smith, my name is Mike Realtor. I’m with The Real Estate Group. My company has recently sold a number of homes in this area, and we still have a number of buyers that want to live here. I noticed that you had your property listed for sale ____ months ago. I was wondering if you were still thinking about selling your home, or have you decided to wait until the market improves?”
Remember, it’s highly unlikely anyone else has had the courage to warm canvas. If you’re not comfortable knocking on doors, get another agent to go with you and split the listings. If that won’t work, at least plan on dropping something in the mail to your group every week. It’s also highly unlikely that any other agent will try more than a couple of times to contact this group before they give up.
The strategy that works best in most prospecting approaches is to “TAKE THE SHOTS”.
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!”