Prospecting – Do You Pass the Prospecting Test?

Being an independent contractor in real estate can be one of the most satisfying and financially rewarding opportunities, if you’re successful prospecting for buyers and sellers.  Very few agents have so many good buyers and seller to work with that they can’t get to everybody.  On the contrary, most agents feel compelled to work with low quality prospects because they have too few people on their prospecting lists.

For most agents the number one priority should be prospecting for buyers and sellers.  It’s very easy for an agent to rationalize limited prospecting efforts.  If you don’t have enough buyers and sellers to work with, determine how much of an effort you’re really making to grow your business by being honest about your efforts as you answer the questions below.

	M	T	W	TH	F	SAT	SUN	Weekly   Total
How   many people did I talk to about real estate face to face?
How many prospecting phone calls did I make or receive?
How many direct mail pieces did I send out?
How many prospecting emails did I send?
How many hours did prospecting take?

Fill in the blanks in the chart above and then ask yourself for each day how much time did your prospecting efforts actually take.

If you don’t have enough buyers or sellers you should be spending 50% or more of your time prospecting.    This could amount to a minimum number of hours equal to 20 or more.  Next identify what prospecting campaigns you want to use.  For example

1. You could conduct an open house on Saturday and Sunday for 3 hours each day

2. You could mail letters and make calls to 100 listings that have expired in the past year.

 

Whatever you’re doing, you should be spending as many hours as possible creating more opportunities with buyers or sellers.  Once you have lots of buyers and sellers to work with, you’ll need to learn how to prioritize your list.