7 Strategies Managers Can Use to Coach Agents to Generate Listings Quickly
Listings have always been the most important way to control a market. Let’s face it, when you control the listing inventory, you control market share. Your agents are guaranteed one half of a sale side. They get more play on the listing for more advertising and should sell three or more additional houses from each listing. We know that so many great and amazing things happen when your agents dominate the listings in your market. They must, or someone else will. Top agents are predominantly heavy listing agents and, as the broker, you want your team focused on listing leads, weekly appointments and new listing contracts every week.
Additionally, when listing inventory is low in some markets, and buying power is high because of low interest rates, you can create your own market just by sharing this news with everyone you know. Have your agents re-engage old leads that haven’t looked at homes for a while or have them call their entire sphere and share the great news of what their home is potentially worth today and what kind of home they could move into with their buying power. Most of our friends, past clients, family members and neighbors don’t know this information unless we tell them. You will find that having your agents share this news with their sphere (and everyone) via a weekly email, video post and phone calls, will generate a lot of new business for your brokerage!
Train your agents on these seven strategies to create new listing opportunities that will result in appointments, listings, sales and income for all.
1. Focus on listing leads. It is important that your agents have a large amount of listing leads in their pipeline every month. Just having a couple that “might list this month” isn’t going to cut it. They need to have a long list of potential listing leads that they are prospecting at all times. These “leads” can be offline or online and can be motivated or thinking about putting their home on the market. Regardless, they want a lot of leads because the more people they are talking to about selling their home, the more opportunities they will have to convert these leads into actual appointments and then actual listings and sales. Ask them who is on their list, how many leads they are working and what the total volume of potential sales it represents. You will have a pulse on what they are actively working on and you can help them secure appointments with their list of leads.
2. Focus on listing appointments. Every week, your agents should be going on listing appointments and, more importantly, converting the appointments into actual new listings every month. Making sure they have appointments every week is paramount—it’s literally your main focus. Ask them how many listing appointments they have scheduled this week and how many listing leads they have currently. Doing this produces amazing results and drives results and creates accountability.
3. Prospect FSBOs. These are leads that your agents should be focusing on through a thought-out strategy that adds value to a FSBO and helps them see why they need to list with your brokerage to achieve a successful sale. If you don’t have a plan to prospect FSBOs for your agents, you should create a system they can follow to call or drop by their home over a 30-day period. Always have them focus on getting an appointment and letting potential sellers know they are not trying to list their home on the first visit and that they understand they are trying to sell it themselves and save the commission dollars. After weeks and weeks of failed marketing and no sale, coupled with your agent’s value-added script strategy, you can provide the solution and get your agents hired with a FSBO contact.
4. Prospect Expireds. Expired leads are honestly one of the best, free leads available to your agents and they are right in your MLS database. Let your agents know that the beauty of being the second agent means that they can usually get the seller to have a more realistic pricing strategy or they will be more interested in making small improvements that will yield a faster sale for them in the second round. Remember, Expired leads need enthusiasm, attention and care. If your agents are excited about selling the home, and they let the seller know they have the proven strategy to get it done, coupled with new market data, your agents can convert that lead into a closed sale.
5. Use social media to generate listings. Have your agents post on their social media channels, advertising new listings and promoting their marketing services to help people sell their homes. They can use graphic promotions that demonstrate their creative marketing plan, as well as offer a free market value analysis via a landing page or post. Boosting this ad with a low budget to target communities will generate listing leads for your brokerage.
6. Contact and maximize your sphere of influence. Have your agents call, email or connect with their sphere on social media to ask for referrals of people interested in selling. If they are regularly contacting their sphere and seeing them in person, they can literally ask their sphere who they know (neighbors, relatives, friends or work associates) that may be considering making a move in the next 6-12 months.
7. Target market neighborhoods. Have your agents go after more listings by targeting specific neighborhoods that are in hot price points, that are selling fast or are in the market where multiple offers exist. They can write homeowners a letter or mail them a postcard stating they have preapproved buyers who they can sell their home to if they are interested. They can also increase their effectiveness by dropping by and introducing themselves.
These strategies are designed to help your agents dominate your market by truly dominating the listing inventory. Making sure your agents are focused every week on generating new listing appointments will increase your listing inventory. This will drive up your listing inventory and sales. Adopt these methods to get your brokerage members motivated to go after and win more listings. Happy listing!
For a FREE copy of Sherri’s exclusive Weekly and Monthly Action Plan Worksheet to plan and track sales-producing activity, click here.
Sherri Johnson is CEO and founder of Sherri Johnson Coaching & Consulting. With 20 years of experience in real estate, Johnson offers coaching, consulting and keynotes, and is a national speaker for the Homes.com Secrets of Top Selling Agents tour and the Official Real Estate Coach for McKissock Learning and Real Estate Express. She is also an RISMedia 2020 Real Estate Newsmaker as an industry Influencer. Sign up for a free 30-minute coaching strategy session or visit www.sherrijohnson.com for more information.
