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Whether you’re new to the industry or seeking to take your sales career to the next level, sometimes moving from where you are now to where you want to be requires strategy.
This strategy is particularly important to new entrants to the industry but can be equally valuable to agents who are on the right track and have proven results but find themselves challenged to take things up a gear.
So, what sort of strategy are we talking about? It’s one that I like to call reverse engineering, and it works a little like this:
Know your ideal destination and work backwards
Whether your goal is to write a $500,000 GCI in your first year or to shift beyond a current plateau and become that oft-talked-about million-dollar agent, reverse engineering is all about having an end goal and then simplifying it back to a single KPI – appraisals per month.
In other words, calculate the number of appraisals you need to conduct in order to reach your sales target.
For example, if you want to write $500,000 GCI, based on an average sales commission of $15,000 per sale, you need to sell 33 properties.
To sell 33 properties, you might have to list 35 properties because sometimes life happens and sales fall through.
To list a property, you might need to conduct five appraisals.
Therefore, in order to sell 33 properties per year, you need to conduct 175 appraisals, or about 15 each month.
So now we have the key metric we need to reach – 175 appraisals for $500,000 GCI. But again, we need to employ some further reverse engineering to ensure we get called in and have a foot in the door to appraise a property in the first place.
Reverse engineering your target appraisals
With the knowledge of how many appraisals we need to conduct each year, the next key metric to look at is how many people we need to talk to in order to get called in.
We also need to examine the most effective ways of prospecting and ensure we know the best lead sources in our respective markets.
Have a good look at what you know is working for you. In other words, existing agents should have a good sense of their numbers to understand what activities are most likely to see you called in to appraise a property.
Is it social media, buyer follow-up, withdrawn listings, referral partners, letterbox drops, emails or texts to the owners of properties on a street where you have just enjoyed a successful sale?
Chances are it’s a combination of a few of the above, or perhaps you’ve just identified some extra lead sources you could be tapping.
Either way, this is the place to apply extra effort to increase your appraisal volume.
If you’re new to the industry, look at the lead sources that work for other agents in your team or office.
Uncover the highest producing “appraisal” activities and double down in order to reach your minimum monthly appraisal number.
It’s not just a numbers game
While metrics help you understand the target numbers you need to hit to reach your goal, don’t get so sidelined by volume that you forget the basics of the business.
For every appraisal you conduct, ensure you have a world-class follow-up system. For every successful sale you are part of, ensure you have a client-care program, and for every buyer or potential seller that reaches out to you, ensure you have the team or systems in place to call them back (promptly).
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, nine times out of 10, and especially in this market, the real estate industry does not have a lead generation challenge.
Instead, it has a follow-up challenge. And this is an area where there is much to be gained by simply ticking the boxes of the service basics.
You cannot set it and forget it
So now you have your end goal in mind and your key appraisal number in sight. Excellent. Don’t forget the sales principle of one-for-one selling.
Basically, this means every time you list a property, you need to have another property directly behind it in the pipeline.
And the key to this is your recent sales.
Research consistently indicates that 60 per cent of sellers are influenced in making their agent selection based on the most recent success of a sale in their area.
The takeaway? Have an effective marketing and prospecting strategy that is based on your recent sales.
An industry of incredible opportunity
The real estate industry offers incredible opportunities where you can effectively write your own pay cheque with no ceiling to your success. That certainly makes the industry alluring, but as any high-performing agent will tell you, achieving that success takes work, and behind that work is strategy.
So why not make reverse engineering the strategy that helps guide your success?
Manos Findikakis is the chief executive and co-founder of the Eview Group.
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