Changing your mindset is key!

“You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out.”

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Warren Buffett????????????????????

I love this quote because, in times like this, you find out who the winners and losers are.

This article is dedicated to all of you who kept your trunks on but meant for those of you that, maybe, didn’t!

Remember when the market was so hot a few months ago? It was easy for agents and brokers to get leads because demand was high and inventory was moving.

This is no longer the case.

Smart real estate professionals are feeling the need to generate more leads.

How are you doing this? Are you buying them or organically generating them from your clients and the rest of your sphere?

If you are buying them, how much are you paying, what’s your conversion percentage, and what is your return on this effort?

My guess is you are probably paying too much, you don’t have a very high conversion, and, as a result, your return is not very good.

If you are organically generating from your clients and sphere, first of all, good for you. Most agents have an abundance of people in their sphere, even if they haven’t done a lot of deals, and all those people know others that are looking to buy or sell real estate.

The problem is providing something meaningful that allows you to cut through all the noise and actually have people pay attention. It’s not going to happen effectively if you are not providing real value.

So what is real value?

How about a true home valuation and market insight report?

There are some automated tools out there I like. The problem is that to really have value, there has to be some amount of agent/broker involvement.

As we all know, no matter how good the algorithm is, it will never replace the market knowledge and expertise of a local real estate agent. The issue is that it takes a long time to do it right and most agents/brokerages are busy and can’t justify the 30 – 45 minutes, or more, it takes to do things the old-fashioned way.

As a result, not as many agents or brokerages are consistently generating leads from:

• Broker orphan clients… in the broker’s database but not attached to a current agent.
• ?Agent existing clients… refrigerator magnets don’t cut it anymore.
• ?Agent sphere… the average agent has 397 people in their database and most of them know someone who wants to buy or sell real estate.

I am often asked what the biggest challenge is to get agents and brokers to do things different. My answer is always “mindset”.

Humans are creatures of habit and will make every excuse in the book.

• “This is how I have always done it.”
• “I get this free tool from my MLS.”
• “I don’t have time.”

If you look out into the future and determine how you can be consistently successful, regardless of market conditions, you will realize you have an explicit need to change how you are doing things.

The reason for this is that if you change your mindset, do things differently, and provide the value consumers are looking for, you will be viewed as something more than a real estate agent or brokerage.

I am a big believer in real estate professionals providing value throughout the home ownership lifecycle.

Historically, it’s been difficult to justify spending time on certain activities that would provide value because it just took too long.

With advancements in access and ability to extract intelligence and insights from real estate data, agents and brokerages are in a much better position than they have ever been to provide more of what consumers are looking for and deserve.

Now all you have to do is change your mindset and take advantage of what you have available to you!