For the past couple of months, Jared James has been saying over and over again that real estate professionals need to get ready for the surge. A lot of agents have been skeptical of this, but guess what? The post-lockdown surge is here. An article from CNBC stated that not only have loan applications gone up 54% since early-April, but they are also up 9% from this time last year! Now how do we leverage this surge to generate business?
Here at Jarja Media, we definitely understand the importance of creating a call to action in your marketing but the numbers DON’T LIE. Over 90+% of home searches start online, however, 72% of people will work with the first agent that they have a conversation with. Because of this, it is absolutely essential that we are striving to create real estate based conversations with as many people as possible. Let’s talk about 3 steps that you can take to create conversations and ultimately, convert that lead.
STEP #1: Start with a shared observation
Think about this step as getting the ball rolling. Creating a shared observation is a way to get a foot in the door to be able to build a conversation off of. This shared observation is a statement that no matter who you are, you are going to be able to relate. For instance, a good shared observation could be talking about finally being able to get a haircut after months or being able to sit down at a restaurant. The shared observation is a statement that whoever you are starting the conversation with, will agree with.
STEP #2: Call to Converse
After you have gotten the ball rolling with the shared observation, it is now time to give the ball a push with a call to converse. What this means, is that you are going to ask some sort of question based on their answer to the shared observation that is going to keep this conversation moving forward. For example, if you stated that it had been months since you last got your hair cut, and they agreed, now you can ask if they are going to do anything different with their hair now that it has gotten so much longer and they have options. With these calls to converse, the goal is to continue to push the conversation towards having a real estate based conversation. Once the topic of real estate gets brought up (which it most likely eventually will), then it is time to begin step #3.
STEP #3A: Acknowledge and Affirm (If it turns into a real estate based conversation)
Once the conversation has turned into a real estate based conversation, it is now at a point where the person you are having a conversation with will have some pretty strong opinions. You MUST listen to these opinions and affirm these opinions, regardless of how much you may disagree with them. For example, if someone were to discuss putting a lowball offer in on a house, you have to acknowledge this and act like if you saw everything that the media was saying, you most likely would put a lowball offer in on a house too. You could also discuss how you wish that you were able to put lowball offers in for people that were accepted because you would be able to do so much business. Now that you have acknowledged and affirmed, you can show your expertise and teach them why their opinion may or may not be correct. In the lowball offer example, you can teach them how there is very low inventory on the market which causes prices to increase, rather than decrease.
STEP 3B: What to do if it doesn’t turn into a real estate based conversation.
If the conversation doesn’t turn into a real estate based conversation, make sure to follow Jared James’ 5 Steps to Get Referrals From Your Sphere of Influence. Check out his video by clicking HERE !
How to use technology to create a call to a conversation:
So now that you understand why you should be creating a call to conversation and how to do it, now how do you create these without having to go one by one? How can you do this at mass? There are a couple of different methods that you can use. The first is a mass emailing service like Happy Grasshopper. Happy Grasshopper will allow you to send out emails to everyone in your contacts while also making sure that these emails are not getting sent to spam. The other method that you can use is a CRM with texting capabilities like the Jarja CRM. Sending out a mass text is an easy and convenient way to reach a lot of people in a short period of time.
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Even as things are starting to get back to what seems like normal, it is evident that there are going to be a lot of major changes to many industries. In real estate especially, creating real connections and making sure that you are on top of your follow up is going to be absolutely essential. Statistically, for every 41 real estate based conversations that you have, 1 of them should turn into a transaction. So get out there and let’s focus on creating calls to a conversation.
Want more? Check out Jared James’ new blog, How To Create Business Post Covid Lockdown.