Why I work this way
I work by referral. Most of my business (over 90%) comes to me by referrals from past clients, business connections and friends with the rest coming from the internet, sign calls and just chance meetings but my favorite thing is a past client shareing someone with me that needs my help. It forges a chain of connections that makes my business work.
Most real estate agents don’t do it this way.
Most successful agents spend about 75% of their day doing something we call prospecting. There are 4 major components to most prospecting. Cold calls, Door Knocking, For Sale By Owner (FSBO) and Expired Listings.
Most of us have been ‘cold called’. You might not have gotten a call about selling your house but I know you get calls about insurance, cell phones, retirement planning and the list goes on. Telemarketing is another name of cold calling. I don’t like getting the calls and I certainly don’t like making them.
I choose to not do that.
Door knocking is cold calling in person. I actually got door knocked by another agent a few days ago and I found it amusing. I was done for the day and the door bell rings. Now I have a No Soliciting sign on the door. It says:
NO SOLICITING
We are too broke to buy anything
We know who we are voting for
We have found Jesus
Seriously, unless you are selling cookies
Please Go Away!
I don’t have it up to be rude but I work from home and I spend a lot of time working on the phone. This business is time consuming and I talk to sellers, buyers, inspectors, appraisers, underwriters, attorneys, contractors and the list continues. I don’t have time to spend answer the door to say NO. The sign works most of the time but this time it didn’t. The agent started in on his script and I let him go until he had to take a breath. I then smiled and said I was a real estate broker and I didn’t want to sell my house. I don’t like getting interrupted anymore than you do and I certainly don’t want to be the one doing thing interrupting.
I choose to not do that either.
FSBO is the 3rd way we are taught to prospect. About 10% of the sellers attempt selling their homes themselves and most FSBO attempts end in the seller working with an agent eventually but it take a lot of time to get to that point. Agents will go see the FSBO or call them repeatedly in an attempt to get their listing. It works but it take a lot of time to build trust and get the seller to a point of reality that finally gets their house sold. There is a lot of competition for what amounts to 2% of the total business. It’s not that productive for the time spent.
I choose to not do that.
Expired listings are the last way. When a listing does not sell in the time allowed the listing expires. There are services out there that will scrub public records, call lists and real estate listings to create a ‘call list’ for the day. They sell that list to multiple agents in an area and the poor home seller starts getting phone calls from aggressive agents, all on the same script. It can start as early as 7am and they will get 30-40 calls a day for about a week or until they re-list. I have known the agents to call the home phone, cell phone, kids phones, parents phones and just about any number they can find to try and get that listing.
It’s a battle and I choose to not do that either.
If you read this far then I want to tell you how I work. Chances are we know each other. You get this in an email or are a friend on Facebook. You might follow me on Twitter or know me from LinkedIn. Many of you have referred me and you know I take great care of your referrals. I get referrals from other agents too. They call me to help their clients that are moving in to or out of the Atlanta area. They know if I can’t help them I will get them to a great agent that can. I have created a network of hundreds of agents that share referrals with each other just so we can get our clients the best possible care.
The win for my clients is I don’t spend 75% of my time looking for my next deal but rather I spend all of my time working for my clients when they need me the most. That’s why I work this way. I love my business and my clients and I would be honored to help anyone you know that is selling or buying in this market. I will help anyone move anywhere so please call me and share their name and number with me and we’ll take care of them.
Thanks for listening,
Jerry Robertson
678-231-1578 Cell