According to the National Association of Realtors, as many as 97% of home buyers begin their search online by scanning listings. They spend an average of 7 seconds previewing a real estate listing online before deciding if they’ll look deeper or move on.

Too many MLS listings and photos are poorly crafted and fail to capture the buyer’s interest, meaning the opportunity with that buyer is lost forever. Studies have shown that once a buyer by-passes a listing, they don’t return to it for a second look. This does not serve your seller or your real estate business.

It benefits you to craft your listing remarks from the seven second perspective. What should you put in the “public remarks” section of your listings? Here are some ideas:

Paint a Word Picture…

…but don’t be flowery or vague. For instance, “Enjoy the large backyard and open floor plan” is a bit vague. But “Sleek mid-century 4-bedroom home on a lush 1/4 acre yard” paints a solid picture.  Weave data into the picture.

Words with Value

Choose your words carefully. Studies show that certain words help a listing get more attention. Which words should you pick? Check out this list to help you craft the best description of the properties that you represent:

Beautiful
This word has impact, so use it! All buyers want to live in a beautiful home.

Fresh, Bright, Light
Most buyers enjoy light. Emphasize these words where you can to describe the property.

Landscaping
Things like curb appeal and lovely landscaping attract attention and increase the value of the home.

Turnkey
Turnkey, means that buyers can move in without making any major renovations. This appeals to buyers who can’t or don’t want to fix up their new home.

Handyman Special
At the same time, a lot of people like to get their hands dirty. Some customers like to work with their hands and repair, renovate and remodel a house.  “Handyman special” appeals to a certain demographic, just as “turnkey” attracts another type of buyer.

Fixer
This word seems to connote real problems. If it’s not a major fixer, you’d be better off using Handyman Special.

Unusual Words
Sometimes being different gets more attention. The words “cool” and “unusual” get attention, as in “very cool backyard space for entertaining.” Too slangy for you? Is it too slangy for the kind of buyers who might want that home?

How to Address “Turn-Offs”

There’s always been a debate about how to handle problems with a property in real estate listings. Do you highlight the thing that might turn buyers off, or do you downplay those problems? You know the jokes…”Charming cottage” means small; “Easy freeway access” means right next to the on-ramp. Some agents believe this positive spin helps buyers see the bright side of the problem. Other agents believe in calling a dog a dog using humor. “Very small home, fit for gnomes and newlyweds.” Or “Right next to the freeway…how else would you get this much incredible home for so little.

Put It All Together

Check out this example of a remarks section that puts all the above advice together:

“Sleek mid-century 4-bedroom home on a lush 1/4 acre yard with a very cool backyard entertainment space. Beautiful fountains cover the hidden, but nearby street noise. Bright kitchen and fresh appliances. Turnkey property with 2 fully remodeled baths. A unique home that will pleasantly surprise you.”

Good MLS Photos Are Your Duty

One final notes about MLS listings…buyers look at photos to make a final determination. If your photos show things like the bathroom with the toilet seat up, bedrooms with piles of laundry in the corner, a kitchen with dirty dishes in the sink, the turn-off is instant! Immediately the value of that property drops. You have a duty to provide the seller with the best price and marketing possible. Tidying up the house is the easiest and first thing you should be doing so you can provide photos that attract buyers who are not predisposed to pay less before they even look at the property in person.

Be consistent. Be bold. Be smart. Linda Schneider is a real estate business coach for smart real estate agents who want to be more powerful in their business. Drop by RealEstateBusinessCoaching.com for more about selling skills and real estate marketing ideas to take your business to the next level.

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• Can anyone recommend a good lead generation service?
• Do you know of a good website?
• Which are the best magazines to advertise in?
• Does anyone have advice to help me get more listings?
• Do you think I should start going after short sale listings?
• Should I start blogging (or farming, cold calling, networking, etc)?

The responses to these questions are fairly pedestrian: “Ask for referrals.” “Hold open houses.” “Canvass doors.” “Conduct a workshop.” “Blog about your community.”

This may not be earth-shaking advice, but the answers reflect a truth about our industry: there are no magic pills in real estate marketing. It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone who’s gotten a real estate license doesn’t know this already. Yet hope springs eternal.

What Matters Most in Real Estate Marketing

The real question is If these methods work, why don’t they work for everyone?

They don’t work because there’s something missing, and I think what’s missing is support and motivation. Agents want to know that what they’re doing is worth the effort. They want to know it’s going to work. They want to know how to make it work. They need a barometer of effectiveness, someone constantly saying, “I did this and got that.”

Motivation, Not Methods

I think most agents are looking for motivation, not methods. Any agent can pick up a dozen books from Amazon that will give them a dozen different real estate marketing plans. It’s not more methods that agents need. It’s motivation and confidence in the methods they choose.

I got an illustration of the power of motivation yesterday at my local Board of Realtors. The Ethics presenter was a leader in understanding real estate contracts and a 30-year veteran real estate agent. He continually illustrated how he uses provisions in the contracts to separate himself from his competition, allowing him to win clients. I could see the agents in the room getting excited and motivated. More than 50% of them signed up afterwards for his contracts class.

How to Get Motivation

With so many isolated real estate businesses in our online world, how does an agent find a mentor to motivate them?

My advice is to explore what’s available to you. Take classes in person, not online. Talk to your broker. See if you can join or start a mastermind group. Investigate the real estate “gurus” out there who can keep your energy up and make you feel confident in your marketing methods. I started my career following Mike Ferry. I enjoy door knocking, relative to other forms of real estate marketing and prospecting, and his energy kept me moving.

Note: Don’t get swept up in  buying a “guru” program without evaluating it fully. Gurus are skilled at selling their programs. Do the programs work? Yes. Are they the best approach for you? Maybe. For instance, there is a real estate guru out there who does an incredible job showing agents how to use social media marketing to build a thriving business. But if you’re someone who just got your first smart phone, or you only have 10 friends on Facebook, this might not be the best approach for you at this time, as attractive as it is.

Finally, no matter what real estate marketing approach you choose or what motivator you work with, it’s important to read and learn about your industry constantly. The more knowledgeable you are, the more confidence you’ll have…and confidence sells.

Be consistent. Be bold. Be smart. Linda Schneider is a real estate business coach for smart real estate agents who want to be more powerful in their business. Drop by RealEstateBusinessCoaching.com for more about selling skills and real estate marketing ideas to take your business to the next level.

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Then I had one of those V8 moments. (Where you slap your head and say, “Now I get it.”)

I realized I was leaving money on the table by not looking creatively at how to leverage relationships in my real estate business.

So I came up with an idea…a 3-way win-win-win. Maybe you’re already doing it or know someone who is, but if it’s a new idea to you, then give it some thought.

Spice Up your Strategic Alliances Using “Special Offers”

First of all, you have to understand the power of strategic alliances. A strategic alliance is a partnership with a business person who has clients who could be your clients, and visa versa. Many agents think of their lender as a strategic alliance partner.

But in my experience, most lender-REALTOR relationships only go one way… the agent giving leads to the lender, but seldom getting anything back from the lender. That’s because lenders get most of their leads from other agents and they’re not free to refer those leads to you.

But what about your plumber? She knows home owners, and I need to meet home owners. Perfect match. And she needs to meet new home owners who might need plumbing help. I know home owners, especially new home owners. Perfect match.

Now if we can figure out how to introduce one another to each other’s database in a way that benefits both of our databases, we’ll have a strategic alliance.

For example, I could provide an exclusive rebate (if legal in my state) to her plumbing clients. Or I could provide a free book or other “bait” to entice them to contact me to create more leads for my real estate business. In turn, she can provide a sharp discount on her plumbing service for my database. I win. My plumber wins. And both of our clients win.

Once you’ve set up one of these alliances, you can do it multiple times with multiple business partners, including your carpet cleaner, electrician, dietician, painter, auto mechanic, and so on. It takes a little creativity, and you may need to try it a few times to work out the kinks in the system, but if it can work for a multimillionaire like Jay Abraham, I’m pretty sure it can work for you.

Be consistent. Be bold. Be smart. Linda Schneider is a real estate business coach for smart real estate agents who want to be more powerful in their business. Drop by RealEstateBusinessCoaching.com for more about selling skills and real estate marketing ideas to take your business to the next level.

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• One of my listings looked terrible in the online photos. No one was clicking unless they were real estate investors looking for a deal. So we spruced up the outside with modern greenery and paint, took professional pictures, and overnight the showings tripled!
• Another listing was getting low-ball offers which the home sellers were rejecting. Once we staged the interior by removing the “college dorm room” decor and added “Pottery Barn” furnishings, they got a realistic offer that they accepted.
• All too often I walk through listings with buyers who recoil at the sloppy, cluttered household. They “can’t believe the seller could ask what he’s asking” for the house. Yet we can go into a nearly identical house down the street that’s perfectly clean and tidy, and suddenly they’re in love…and at a higher price.

Staging matters. According to the Accredited Staging Professionals (ASP) group, FULLY staged homes sell in an average of 29 days compared to non-staged homes which sell in an average of 145 days. Addmittedly the ASP group’s sample sizes may not be identical, but we get the point. Staging sells real estate.

As a real estate agent, it isn’t easy to convince a home seller to stage, especially when they’re already planning to pay you thousands to sell their home. (Yes, never mind that you haven’t made that money yet.)

But it does raise the question, “Should staging be part of your real estate service?” I say that it should, to whatever extent you can afford. If a home is priced correctly and you have every confidence it will sell, then staging is worth the risk. And it doesn’t have to be much. For example, I am able to hire a housekeeper with an eye for detail to completely clean and then use the seller’s existing furnishing to stage a home for under $400. It depends on the condition of the home and furnishings, but in the case of staging, sometimes a little goes a long way.

As an agent, or as a home seller, try to visualize how the buyer will see the house. Remember that a dated, shabby, or drab look, inside and out, may result in fewer qualified showings, lower offers, and longer market time. I do a staging checklist with sellers where we walk through and identify all the places they need to make changes before selling. For the most part, these are the kinds of things homeowners have lived with so long, that they go unnoticed. For instance, have you ever been in a someone’s house and noticed a bit of black mold on the tub? Wouldn’t you think the home owner would notice that? They don’t, or they don’t register that it matters.

Real estate agents can’t always persuade home sellers to stage. But at least when you’re taking the listing photos, please put the lid on the toilet down, get the dirty clothes pile out of the picture, and move the parked cars from the front. Your MLS photos should look like the marketing photos they are, not like snapshots.

Share your own staging stories below!

Be consistent. Be bold. Be smart. Linda Schneider is a real estate business coach for smart real estate agents who want to be more powerful in their business. Drop by RealEstateBusinessCoaching.com for more about selling skills and real estate marketing ideas to take your business to the next level.

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At least that’s the way it is for now. And until something changes, you can push forward with this information to garner more listings and be of service to your marketplace.

With just a bit over a two months left before the scheduled expiration, you might consider urging homeowners to do their short sale immediately, so they can get a deal closed before year’s end. However, be aware that deals not approved and closed by Jan 1 may be subject to taxation.

If I were a home owner considering a short sale, that might make me pause.

Considering that last March a bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to extend the Mortgage Debt Relief Act through the end of 2015, people may want to sit tight until they’re sure. I suspect we’ll see fewer new short sales come on the market in November and December just for that reason.

As a real estate consultant, you are positioned to discuss this with homeowners. If they’re in an NOD status and must sell or go to foreclosure, they might be more motivated to risk short sale, even with just barely 60 days left until the deadline. On the other hand, they may simply decide it’s time to go to foreclosure rather than be faced with a sizable tax bill. They’re really caught in the middle and need help.

You can help them weigh the options, and possibly generate listings for yourself. Here’s one idea for some last-minute short sale marketing:

Hit the Road for Listings

Nothing sells like urgency. You can use the pending expiration of the Act to get the attention of homeowners who are in NOD status or who need to move for other reasons. And one of my favorite approaches to getting their attention is to hit the road. Do a hard-core door-knocking real estate marketing campaign for the next two weeks.

When you do talk to homeowners who’ve been hit by the crisis and are under water, be sure to let them know that last March a bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to extend the Mortgage Debt Relief Act through the end of 2015. The new bill, titled “Homeowners Tax Fairness Act” requires congressional approval, which has not been given yet, but all the pundits believe it will.

Short Sale Marketing Package

Here’s how you can use the current expiration to introduce yourself to homeowners and provide information that can do them real good, whether they list or not.

1. Put together a short sale marketing package

Include:

• A cover letter introducing yourself and your real estate credentials, preferably with referrals. Make sure to include a crystal clear call to action.
• A short book or series of blog posts that offer short sale FAQ’s for homeowners. Make it simple.
• Alternatives to short sales ideas…be a consultant. Talk about renting the home, putting it into a vacation rental pool, doing a lease option, or other possibilities.
• Positives about short selling, such as the availability of relocation funds. (If they have a Bank of America first loan, and they activate their short sale before it is offer-generated, they could be entitled to up to $30,000.)
• Information about buying again fairly quickly (or even before selling if they can rent their home for enough to make up the mortgage payment) and take advantage of low rates and lower prices. A better start.

2. Put the marketing package into a Fed Ex or Post Office overnight envelop

This will ensure the package gets opened if you have to leave it at the door. When handing it to the homeowner in person, remove it from the overnight envelop and hand your real estate company folder to them.

3. Go knock on the door of the homeowners currently with NOD (notice of default) status

Knocking rather than calling on real estate leads may take a bit more guts, but you’ll have vastly better results with the personal touch. You can also door-knock in general, without needing NOD status. The NOD status simply improves your odds.

4. Use a simple script

Say something like: “Hi, I’m __ with ___. Are you Mr.____? I’m on a list that notifies me when someone in my market area has been issued a Notice of Default by their lender. My job is to let you know that you have options, depending on your situation. For instance, with the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act set to expire in December, getting a short sale started immediately may be your last chance to escape the tax consequences of a short sale. Do you have a few minutes to talk about this now or would you like to set an appointment for sometime in the next few days to go over your options and get your questions answered?”

Make sure you rehearse your speech until it’s natural.

5. If there’s no answer, leave the overnight package by the front door. It’ll get opened

By providing useful information, you’re offering help to homeowners who might otherwise not realize they have options. By engaging in a discussion with them, you can better understand their constraints and help them think of solutions to their real estate dilemma. You can be their sounding board.

At the very least, you’ll be out there talking real estate to homeowners…and isn’t that the best way to get listings? If the new Act is passed by congress, you can return to those homeowners who weren’t ready to take action yet.

Be consistent. Be bold. Be smart. Linda Schneider is a real estate business coach for smart real estate agents who want to be more powerful in their business. Drop by RealEstateBusinessCoaching.com for more about selling skills and real estate marketing ideas to take your business to the next level.

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Is it hard? Yes and no. Like anything, once you learn it, the real estate business becomes easier. The trick to being a great real estate agent is managing complexity. You don’t have to be a wizard, but you do have to balance competing demands and create balance for yourself.

Just for fun, I sat down to create a list of the daily, weekly, and monthly activities I do in order to meet my productivity objectives. Once you get involved in real estate, you’ll probably have a different list, but at least this will give you a “day in the life” kind of picture of what it’s like to be a real estate agent.

Sample Daily Activities

• Call or knock on 100 doors and ask them if they plan to sell in the next 12 months.
• Follow up on yesterday’s leads.
• Call at least 5 people from your sphere of influence. Ask how you can help them. Then ask for a referral.
• Ask for 5 appointments from 5 people during the day.
• Attend appointments that are scheduled for the day.
• Set showing appointments and show houses based on your client’s property search.
• Attend inspections, closings, and other time-sensitive tasks.
• Complete tasks from existing appointments or a current real estate sale.
• Monitor your numbers daily. Track mileage, prospecting time, money spent and earned, etc.
• Check and sprinkle your weekly activities into your daily activities.

Sample Weekly Activities

• Preview 5 listings from your firm or other firms. (If you’re not already out showing buyers.)
• Call someone from a story in your local newspaper (maybe someone from a business article, or a wedding or birth announcement).  Congratulate them on their achievement or event, and find out if the changes to their lives require your services.
• Do at least one Guerrilla Marketing tactic each week to promote your real estate business.
• Visit a business and ask if they’d like to do referral exchanges.
• Read something newsworthy about the real estate market so you are better informed and prepared with ready information during appointments.
• Practice your sales skills and presentations.
• Conduct an open house.
• Attend at least one networking event, and add at least 5 names to your prospect list.
• Write a new blog entry or post a response to someone else’s blog in your community.
• Attend weekly caravan or broker’s open so you are better prepared for each client’s property search.

Sample Monthly Activities

• Create and send a neighborhood or sphere newsletter.
• Solicit local businesses to advertise in your newsletter publication in exchange for the use of their site as a distribution point or for referrals.
• Explore new marketing ideas.
• Review your progress and activities with your adviser or mentor.
• Attend a Board of Realtor event or class.
• Balance your books.
• Plan your next month’s marketing program. Think about improving by one more real estate sale.

This is, as mentioned, a sample of what I try to do in my own real estate business. There are innumerable other permutations and tasks that might be involved, depending on how and where you like to do business. The point, obviously, is that a real estate agent’s life will be very busy. The more real estate sales you make, the more compressed your time will be to do all those other non-transaction activities.

This can and often does lead to real estate agent burn-out. You want to keep making money, but you only have so much you to go around. That’s when it’s time to consider hiring a real estate assistant.

Hiring a Real Estate Assistant

When does that point hit for most agents? There’s no hard and fast rule. Most real estate agents these days will use at least a transaction coordinator—a special type of assistant who handles the details of the real estate file during a transaction. Beyond that, it varies.

I’ve known agents who needed at least some part time help when they had two transactions per month. Others were averaging three transactions per month before getting help. Agents doing three or more transactions per month will likely have a full-time assistant working with them.

When your business gets going and you get busy with clients, remember that you are the agent, not the assistant. You need to stay front and center with clients. Almost any of your other tasks can be delegated.

The trick, remember, is to manage the complexity. Start with systems. Work with your mentor to create the right filing, time management, lead management, and other systems you’ll need early on. This will enable you to focus on getting business, not on recreating the wheel every week.  As busy as I get, I wouldn’t trade this career for the world. Go for it!

Be consistent. Be bold. Be smart. Linda Schneider is a real estate business coach for smart real estate agents who want to be more powerful in their business. Drop by RealEstateBusinessCoaching.com for more about selling skills and real estate marketing ideas to take your business to the next level.

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Here’s some advice about hiring the right real estate agent and having a great real estate buying or selling experience.

General Advice for Home Buyers when Hiring an Agent

Home buyers need to interview agents. That doesn’t mean scheduling interviews. Interviewing can be done on the spot.

For instance, if you find an agent at an open house and you’re thinking you’d like to work with him or her, go through a quick interview right then at the open house. If you’re not satisfied by the answers you get, walk away and go on to the next open house. Or when you call a “house for sale” sign for information, go ahead and use your interview questions on the phone with the agent immediately.

General Advice for Home Seller when Hiring an Agent

A common mistake home sellers make is to hire an agent who gives a higher opinion of their home’s value than it is really worth. Although you may be tempted to embrace that agent as if they were Einstein, the agent is doing you a disservice. Some agents suggest a higher price just to get your listing.

Pricing decisions should be made in consultation with your selected agent, and not be the basis for selecting an agent. Interview agents independently of how they’d price your home. Then work on setting the value of your home correctly based on market comparables.

Powerful Interview Questions

The following interview questions should help you discover quickly if the agent you’re talking to is the kind of professional you’d like to work with. You may or may not choose to use all of the following questions, but the more questions you ask, the better qualified your agent will be.

Question 1: References

How many clients have you served in the past 4 months? Will you provide reference names and phone numbers from all clients you’ve served in the past 4 months?

References are meaningless without a context. The first part of the question “traps” the agent. If they tell you they’ve worked with 6 clients in the past 4 months, then you know how many references to look for in the second part of the question.

If the agents can’t provide references for all those clients, ask why not. Judge their responses fairly. Perhaps the clients were divorcing and hated anything to do with selling the house.

Call all references and ask questions about what they liked and didn’t like about working with that agent. Ask for ideas about working with that agent effectively.

Question 2: Communication 

How will you ensure I feel promptly and thoroughly communicated with throughout this process? (Also: How available are you if I have an urgent need or concern after hours or on weekends?)

Agents sometimes fail to keep real estate clients fully informed simply because they don’t have anything to say. A good agent who’s on top of the details may not think about the client’s perspective of sitting at home wondering what’s going on, even if there’s nothing going on.

If your agent is a professional, they will have a system for contacting you regularly throughout the transaction.

For example, some regular communication systems might include:

• “At the beginning of the week, I’ll leave you a voicemail telling you everything that is expected to happen this week, and the various times we’ll need to talk.”
• “I’ll call you every afternoon and leave a voicemail about what’s happened during the day.”

When it comes to begin available 24/7 many of the best agents will not work late evenings or even on weekends. They have a balanced life and will only work with people who will respect that balance.

However, they will also make exceptions based on need. For example, if you list your house for sale on a Friday, a good agent will either make an exception for that weekend, or will provide a capable partner in their place.

When it comes to emergency contact, work this out with your agent in advance. If you find out something on a Friday evening and you need to talk to your agent right away, how would you reach her?

Question 3: Removing Conditions

After I’ve signed a purchase agreement, what steps will I have to go through before closing and how will you help me?

If you don’t remove conditions (inspections, loans, etc.), the transaction will fail. Traditional agents will limp through this process, often leaving you angry and frustrated. The Right Real Estate Agent will be able to clearly describe the steps you’ll have to take and the potential problems that can arise. Avoid agents who appear to bluster. Look for agents who will tell you the truth.

Question 4: After the Closing

How will you be involved with me after the closing?

This question is not meant to determine anything specific about the kind of service you’ll get from the real estate agent. However, a real estate agent that intends to maintain a relationship with you after the transaction is more likely to be the kind of real estate agent you want to work with during the transaction.

 Conclusion

If you get satisfactory answers to these interview questions, you’ll have found an agent worth working with. But remember the oldest adage in business: “Buyer Beware.” Always make the final decisions for yourself, trust yourself, and be willing to walk away.

I’m sure there are many other ways to qualify a real estate agent before hiring. Please share your ideas in the comments below.

Be consistent. Be bold. Be smart. Linda Schneider is a real estate business coach for smart real estate agents who want to be more powerful in their business. Drop by RealEstateBusinessCoaching.com for more about selling skills and real estate marketing ideas to take your business to the next level.

Unfortunately, our distaste for being “sold to” makes us paint all salespeople with the same brush, including ourselves.

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But here’s the truth about selling skills: If you’re in a real estate business for yourself, having sales skills works better than having no sales skills. Whatever you might think about salespeople, as a real estate agent you will do more real estate business and make more money if you learn how to sell.

Not having selling skills means you’re just winging it, hoping you say the right things at the right time and in the right way.

Having good selling skills means shortening the decision cycle, helping people get off the fence, helping them process the issues that are holding them in place.

The act of selling boils down to language skills. By understanding how questions work, how people process information and their own thoughts, and how tone and word choice can impact the DIRECTION of a person’s thoughts, you can sell. When you get really good at those things, you will hold a lot of power in your hands — power that can be used to manipulate or to serve.

I’m sure you’ve met with both kinds of salespeople. There are those who make you feel like you need to wash your hands, and there are those who make you feel grateful you found them. Both are using the same language skills, but one uses them consultatively and the other uses them coercively.

As a real estate agent, you need to learn the right pattern of sales conversation for your typical sales situations, including open houses, sign calls, referrals, cold calls, door canvasing, for sale by owners, expireds, and more.

Different sales situations require different approaches to the sales conversation. A one-call-close telemarketing cold call, for example, requires an instant attention-getting phrase, plus a tone that implies authority. It requires a steady building of yesses. Too much back and forth communication significantly lengthens the decision cycle and gives the customer too much time to access their fears about the decision. If you’re doing telemarketing, it’s important to have high integrity and a truly effective product, otherwise you will end up being the kind of salesperson no one likes.

On the other hand, a real estate conversation with a prospect during, say, an open house or a for sale by owner visit, requires a different approach. As with telemarketing, an open house conversation also needs an instant attention-getting phrase. But from there, it’s less about convincing people to keep listening and more about drawing them out and getting them to talk.

The way to get people to open up to you is to ask questions in a specific sequence to help them move through the decision cycle…a cycle of diving deeper into their needs and concerns. Your questions should draw people out. The more you can get people to talk about their needs, fears, and concerns, the more they’ll trust you. It’s a curious paradox that when you ask great questions and get someone else to do most of the talking, the more intelligent you sound.

There are many sales training courses, each with a slightly different approach for working through the decision cycle with a prospect. In the residential real estate sales context, I prefer openhanded selling or high-integrity selling approaches, as opposed to more “old school” approaches that rely on presentation and objection-handling. Openhanded consultative selling isn’t for everyone, but it works well for real estate agents who are confident about listening and asking questions.

Be consistent. Be bold. Be smart. Linda Schneider is a real estate business coach for smart real estate agents who want to be more powerful in their business. Drop by RealEstateBusinessCoaching.com for more about selling skills and real estate marketing ideas to take your business to the next level.

They no longer wonder who will handle their escrow documents or who to call for a home inspection at the last minute. They can list a house for sale, handle a property search, and discuss mortgage rates as offhandedly as other people talk about the weather.

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No, the problem for experienced agents is not knowing what to do. The problem is that they get too busy to take care of the next level of systems needed to grow and sustain a high-volume business. They keep handling their business, but not putting in place the systems and processes that will make their business more peaceful and profitable.

Here are five areas of opportunity where experienced agents can tune up their business, gain a more solid foothold, and eventually have a more consistent flow of clients and money:

1. Having a CRM and using it effectively

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management or Client Relationship Manager or other variations) is a database. For example, Outlook is a basic CRM. In the world of real estate there are dedicated real estate CRM systems, such as homes.com, realtyjuggler.com, and topproducer.com, among others.

The point of having a CRM is this: When you collect names, contact details, and notes from hundreds of prospects over many years, you need a way to maintain consistent contact with them. You not only keep them close, you look more professional and referable when you stay in touch regularly.

You also need a way to search for people by various characteristics, such as anniversary of purchase dates, past clients, leads, buyer vs. seller, etc. A good CRM will populate your calendar with call-backs automatically, and should allow you the ability to handle automatic email drip systems, including sending anniversary cards and newsletters. Regular contact with a robust circle of influence is the hallmark of successful agents.

Finally, a database makes a great exit strategy for some years down the road. A CRM database full of people with whom you’ve built referral relationships, kept in consistent contact, and done business, will result in a sellable product when you retire — that’s genuine passive money.

2. Having and using a real estate marketing plan

A marketing plan is more than a simple list of things you’d like to do to get more leads. To create a brilliant real estate marketing plan you would start with a review of what has already worked for you in the past. Those would be some of the first areas to enhance going forward.

Next you would explore untapped opportunities in the “hard work” categories, such as door-knocking, cold-calling, and visiting For Sale By Owners and Expireds. Unless you have a ton of money, you will have to do the work of canvassing to generate more business.

These days, your marketing plan should include some form of internet marketing, which is discussed below.

And finally, your marketing plan would be a written document that included a schedule of your marketing programs, a budget, and goals for each marketing effort. You should be able to predict to some extent how many transactions will result from your efforts.

3. Investing in internet marketing appropriately

Real estate agents, like any good business person, want to see ROI (return on investment) before shelling out $400/month or more on things like pay-per-click, banner ads, placement on high-profile sites, and even decent website design.

However, half-hearted measures simply won’t work in the internet marketing arena. If you are not appearing on the first page of Google for home searches in your area, you will get little or most likely no business.

Perhaps the next best thing to trying to get your website ranked on the first page of Google is to invest in one of the top real estate search portals (homes.com, zillow.com, trulia.com, reltor.com) that have already gotten to the first page of Google. They have many options for buying placement that sends buyers and sellers to your website directly.

4. Learning sales skills

Agents might resist being called salespeople. However, the best agents are usually excellent salespeople, so it stands to reason that improving your sales skills might improve results. Take something as simple as stopping to talk with a For Sale By Owner. It can either be a fear-inducing activity, or in the hands of someone with good sales skills, a simple sales call that results in a listing.

Perhaps the challenge for many agents is in defining the term “sales skills.” There are many different methodologies and thoughts about selling, and with a little research, you can probably find a consultative selling methodology that works for you.

5. Diversifying income sources

In 2007, real estate agents got a cold, wet slap in the face when the market took a nose dive. Several years later, those who were still around often had other sources of income than residential real estate sales. Perhaps they handled investors or invested themselves, or managed rental homes, had marketing companies on the side, retooled themselves into REO specialists, bought into stable companies, or had family income to support and sustain them through the rough patch. The agents who struggled or failed altogether were those who relied 100% on their income as residential real estate agents.

You can prevent this from happening by diversifying your income sources. Invest your profits rather than living high on the hog. Consider working different kinds of real estate markets instead of putting all your eggs in one residential sales basket. Become a property manager and handle rental homes. Think about selling commercial real estate.

Final Word

It’s really a case of being able to see the forest beyond the trees. Each of these areas of advice take a little more time up front, a little more risk to do something new, and a little more forward thinking beyond getting the next client. The goal is to run your business instead of letting it run you.

Be consistent. Be bold. Be smart. Linda Schneider is a real estate business coach for smart real estate agents who want to be more powerful in their business. Drop by RealEstateBusinessCoaching.com for more about selling skills and real estate marketing ideas to take your business to the next level.