In our previous video we discussed the importance of direct mail and online marketing. In this video we discuss the next lead source that I would recommend to Realtors, which is the open house. It is a phenomenal way for agents to meet face to face with customers.
If I don’t have listings already how am I going to get open houses?
The great thing is that we’ve got wonderful internal relationships here at at the My firm, so what happens with the Brokers here is that at each one of our company meetings we are holding open what opportunities we have for open houses. What this could look like is perhaps Jane has a listing and Jane tells Barbara that she can go ahead and hold that listing. So that’s one of the great ways we do it here.
If you’re working somewhere else and you don’t have that network set up you can certainly call other agents and see if they’re willing to let you hold an open house at their property. There’s always opportunities out there we just try to make it a little bit easier here by always promoting the idea that any agent in our firm can hold an open house at one of our properties.
How do you pick the best property to hold an open house at?
That’s a question that every agent should ask, not just you know can I identify the open house and where can I hold it, but which one’s going to get me the best return on investment? The first thing that I start with is, is it an area that you love you generally as a human being? As a salesperson you will perform better when it’s something you’re generally happy about and it’s an area that you like.
I would also look at what the traffic count is in that area, how many people do I think might be able to come by? That’s a key component. You might find that you’ve got an enormous traffic count if your property is right on the highway, but nobody can stop from 80 miles an hour so that probably is not going to be your best opportunity. You might find a community that’s very well received, but this listing is tucked way in the back of the community and that might not be a very easy one to bring people into. We want to find something that’s easy to access so you have the best opportunity to bring a lot of buyers into that listing and have more conversations and more face-to-face meetings.
How should you best prepare for an upcoming open house?
Preparation is key so you want to prepare for the open house by learning everything that there is to know about the product, and understand that the product expands beyond the home. Certainly you want to know about all the features, amenities, and benefits of that home but you also want to know about the community and all of the amenities that the community has to offer beyond that.
You also want to know where do things generally trade in this community, what are the prices in the community, how quickly do properties trade? Everything here is about your education on the product because you’ve got a prospect in front of you that you’re meeting with and now is your time to shine. In order to do that you need to have a proper education on what your product is beyond product knowledge.
What are some key components to a successful open house?
You’re geared up for the open house, you know everything that there is to know about that Community, but again it’s not going to do you a bit of good if nobody walks in that front door. So the next step on the agenda is going to be marketing for that community. There are a ton of ways that you could market an open house, but it certainly goes beyond just sticking a sign in the front yard.
When do I get my signs out, the first key is that you don’t put your signs out the minute that you start the open house. You should be arriving there hours early, and if the community will allow for signs to be out much earlier I would be putting that open house sign with time and date and your cell phone number out a day in advance, two days in advance.
This is also a great opportunity for you to leverage your CRM to reach out to everybody that is in your database and let them know that you’re holding this open house. Let them know that you are open for business, even if that consumer does not come by that open house you have now created a touch point showing them that you are out there in the field and that you are working.
We want to have anybody come by the open house who can, these are all relationships for you to nurture. I like to leverage the community itself with hand delivered door-to-door invitations to come to the open house, or if I have enough time in advance, a direct mail into the community inviting all of the neighbors to come by and to take a look at that property. If there are neighboring apartment complexes, direct mail to the neighboring apartment complex to bring them by to see it.
The more marketing that you do the more bodies will come in the more opportunities you will have in order to share all your wealth of knowledge on that Community
After generating great traffic, how do you turn prospects into customers?
Turning visitors at an open house into customers is obviously one of the most important things. So we’ve done all the right things, we picked the right open house, we marketed it extremely well, we have a lot of traffic that’s going by, but now here’s a problem that I find with a lot of new agents who have been in the business for a short time fall into. They’ll hold the open house and will come back very happy that they had 25 people stop by the open house. But when we really start to dig into the coaching, what I find is that there is no followup in place and that there is no meeting scheduled, and that’s a big no no.
You want to make sure that you do have the next meeting scheduled with each one of these individuals who stopped by. As you’re finding out more about what they’re looking for it should be creating an action item for you as an agent; “Great, I know that you’re looking for a three-bedroom two bath in this community, I have another listing that I’m going to send over to you and I’d like to show you that listing on Tuesday of next week”. With those appointments you ultimately will end up with a very very high rate of conversion of those visitors into clients.
Now that we have covered our top three lead sources, in the next video what we’re going to cover is developing your sphere of influence and making sure that you have the right outreach to your sphere of influence to promote your business.
MY is a suite of real estate businesses designed to serve our clients through all of their real estate endeavors. From first time home buyers to investors to real estate developers, we have a service group tailored to provide you with results. Let us know what you’re looking for.
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