5 Expert Tips to Secure More Listings

It's no secret that real estate agents thrive by securing listings. In fact, many of the top agents rely on listings to find their next clients. If you're an agent, you know that your next client could be an unsuspecting buyer or seller who casually strolls into your open house or responds to your marketing efforts. We identified 5 simple and essential tips to help you secure more listings.

The 5 Essential Tips to Secure More Listings

If it feels like everyone is a prospective client, that’s because they can be. But what sets the highest performing real estate agents apart from the rest? Here are 5 critical practices that will take your agent game to the next level and help you to secure more listings: 

1. Start with your personal brand.

Confidence and clear messaging are king. What do you sincerely care about? Why are you in this business? There are other ways to make money so be very clear about why you chose real estate. What are some aspects of the business that you find attractive? And what do you find off-putting? Start to draw lines around how you want to spend your time and the type of work that you will accept and excel at. You also have an obligation to yourself to be picky about your clients.

Now put yourself in the shoes of a seller. What would you, as a seller, care about when selling your property? 

Do your research and know what personal brands are already out there - which of these really resonates with you and why? If you put yourself in the shoes of a seller and you really take the time to understand what a seller needs and wants, you'll be leagues ahead of other agents. Survey homeowners to understand what they care about and research leading lifestyle brands as an aspirational standard. Someone else likely knows the answers to some of these exploratory questions and may have already invested millions of dollars to understand why people gravitate towards certain brands and messaging- which leads us to the next point…

2. Find a mentor and be a humble student.

Even seasoned agents and the top CEOs seek advice and guidance from their mentors and closest advisors. Consider your access and hunger for curiosity and learning to be a competitive advantage. Spend a few minutes saying hello to agents at broker tours and open houses. Invite them to coffee so you can perform a discovery. Top professionals in any profession will tell you that they prepare for each meeting by researching who they will meet with and by preparing the most relevant questions in advance so that they make the best use of their time. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't prep for all professional meetings and find at least 3 questions about which you have a strategic curiosity. If you're a new agent, the prospect of having an open conversation and learning from other agents' successes and failures should be highly attractive. Ask questions like the following:

• What are some mistakes you made early in your career and how have you corrected your actions? 
• What tools do you use to make your services known?
• What mistakes do you think agents make when trying to obtain a new listing?
• How can you use a single listing to generate more business?
• What important factors contributed to a “tipping point” to help you acquire more listings in your career? 

Even agents who have been working in the industry for years, no matter how much property they have sold, can benefit from the answers to the above questions. There is always more to learn and being humble will make other people feel like they can trust you and confide in you. Reciprocate that trust and openly share your experiences as well. 

3. Talk to your neighbors and become an expert in a particular neighborhood or building.

The best place to start marketing your services is in your own neighborhood. Show your neighbors that you have a vested interest in the success of your neighborhood because you are also living there. Teach them something that they didn't already know and empower them to understand information about their own properties about which they may have been completely unaware. 

The key here is to initiate a useful, informative dialogue, without shoving a sales pitch down people's throats. Make sure that the information you share and the method of communication is consistent over a set period of time. If you send letters to your neighbors, make sure you send them on a quarterly basis so that everyone is apprised of the important market information about which you also sincerely care. Your consistent messaging will solidify your brand as the neighborhood or community expert.

Present facts about historic buildings and community services (such as dedicated security, cleaning crew, committees etc.) that would resonate well with buyers - this shows your prospective sellers that you are thinking about the neighborhood in the most positive light possible. Finally, invite your neighbors to reach out to you any time for questions about neighborhood activities, trends, and the market. Be resourceful without trying to sell. Your sellers will want to feel like THEY are choosing you, and not the other way around.  

4. Show your sellers something about their property that will excite them! 

ADUs have become a hot topic in California. To realize the full investment potential of their properties, California sellers should use every opportunity to communicate that value to prospective buyers. ADU potential, zoning info, neighborhood conditions, distance to transit, and permit history are just a few easy examples of property highlights that are exciting to homebuyers and that will help you successfully market the property.

Help your sellers assess the full value of building an ADU based on their particular property’s site conditions. How large can it be? How much will it cost to construct? What are the next steps to get one built? In many cities, planning department websites provide access to the municipal code so you can see how it applies to a seller’s property. To skip the code and see what’s possible on a property right away, you can use Symbium to visualize rich property data and generate ADU reports for virtually any parcel in California. These reports detail whether an ADU is allowed on the property and all the development standards (size, height, setbacks) and next steps that apply. Use Symbium to become a fast expert and perform ROI analyses for your clients.

In some cities, the local planning department website is a great resource for more than just the municipal code. These sites may contain detailed maps with information about a given property, adjacent properties, and general neighborhood conditions. For example, the City of San Francisco's planning department hosts PiM (Property Information Map), a free site that provides information on properties within the city, such as school districts and environmental monitoring requirements, as well as links to official resources. Using this kind of tool to evaluate a prospective listing, as well as nearby properties, will help you to establish your expertise, educate your seller, and get you one step closer to securing a listing.

5. Practice your pitch (again and again and again) until it's perfect.

Perhaps the most critical part of your job as an agent and the one that will determine whether you will succeed is your sales savvy. When a homeowner is trying to evaluate different agents and decide on which one to engage with, they're performing an evaluation of their own belief as well as their trust in you. On the one hand, they must believe that you are the best option to produce the highest sale / best outcome. On the other hand, they need to trust you as a professional. Since your homeowner prospects will likely be interviewing other agents, you need to figure out how to stand out! Mastering your pitch will help. 

Try recording a video of your entire listing presentation, from start to finish, using your mobile phone. Watch the entire thing and ask yourself whether you sound sincere and convincing. What are you doing with your hands? Are you speaking confidently? Would you hire yourself? Surely, you will identify many areas of improvement. Repeat this process as many times as necessary before your script is perfected and becomes second nature. 

Sincerity, expertise, professionalism, resourcefulness and confidence are your greatest strengths and people will notice them! Incorporate these strengths into deep seated values and success is sure to follow.