Every real estate agent wants more referrals coming in to them. Real estate coach and trainer Travis Robertson shares with you FIVE things you can do, starting today, to explode the number of real estate referrals you are getting!
HOW TO ACTUALLY GET REPEAT AND REFERRAL BUSINESS
Everybody wants more referrals. Every agent wants more people coming to them or talking about their business, because those are often times the best people to work with. Want to know how to generate more of repeat or referral business? Here are five different things that you can do, starting today, to explode the number of referrals that you are generating.
EXCELLENT CLIENT SERVICE
You’ve got to deliver client service during the transaction process that exceeds your client’s expectations. Too many people just try to meet client expectations and think that’s going to be enough. Some agents think “well, if I meet my client expectations then they’re going to be happy and they are going to refer me.” But that’s actually not the case. People are not excited when their expectations are just met. Why? Because they got exactly what they expected. If you expect good service, and you get good service, you’re happy. People only get really excited when their expectations are exceeded. You need to go about the business of raising the level of service that you provide through all parts of the transaction process.
POST SALE MARKETING
You’ve got to create a marketing plan for after the sale. What are you going to do to stay top of mind and keep in touch with the people that you just finished delivering great customer service to? Too many agents, once the deal is done, forget about the people that they’ve now built a relationship with and they lose all of that opportunity for referral or repeat business. Keep this in mind: you’ve always got to be bringing value. Send out hand written notes, birthday cards, reminders of their home anniversary, or anything that has personal touch. Invite them to a client party. Get on the phone with them. Stay in touch with them. Keep yourself top of mind and keep that relationship strong. That way, when they are asked “who was your Realtor? ” or “who do you recommend?” they remember your name and they want to refer you.
CLIENT PARTIES
It is shocking how few agents are actually throwing client events. Nothing is better at actually generating repeat or referral business than getting together, getting in front of and face to face with your clients and their friends around a fun activity. Whatever it is you need to do, you need to be having these client parties and events. Make sure you tell them to invite their friends and family. It’s a great way to get introduced to their sphere of influence around a non-threatening activity such as a party where they can hang out and get to know you on more of a social level first before they think about using you for business.
REWARD YOUR REFERRALS
If somebody gives you a referral, it doesn’t matter if they close, if they’re not going to close, or if it was a bad or unqualified lead. If somebody sends you a referral, send them a hand written note, or maybe even a small little gift. The note can be as simple as “hey! Thank you so much for entrusting me with this relationship. I’m going to take great care of them and that means a lot to me that you would entrust me with a person that is so important to you.” Any time you get a referral, it needs to be rewarded.
ASK FOR REFERRALS
Just putting a little line at the bottom of your signature line in an email that says “send me your referrals” or “I’m not too busy for your referrals” is not going to cut it. You need to bring value first before you ask for the referral. What are some ways you could do that? You could provide an updated CMA to the people that you’ve served or past clients. Follow up that CMA with a call saying “did you have any questions?” or “did you find that valuable?” Once they say “yeah, I did find that valuable!” then you can ask “do you know anybody else who might find something like this valuable?” or “who do you know that might find something like this valuable?” It’s opening up an invitation to say “look, I just want to bring value to somebody else. Who do you know?” It’s a great way of softening that question but doing it around something that is not threatening. It’s an item of value. Anything like that that you can do before asking for a referral is going to increase your chances of getting somebody to go “Oh you know what? My sister, Mary, she’s thinking about selling her house. She could probably really use something like this.” Do those things first and the referrals will start flooding in.
