A steady pipeline of referrals from past and current customers can be a tremendous boon to a real estate agent’s business, yet few agents take full advantage of their sphere of influence. Here are four tips on how to interact with your clients in a way that will improve your word-of-mouth marketing.
- Start investing before the big sale. A real estate professional’s relationship with their clients is built upon every interaction they have. Take advantage of every opportunity to strengthen that relationship and establish yourself not just as a “salesperson” in their life, but a friend who’s genuinely looking out for them. Gifts are often reported as an effective way to do this, so celebrate every milestone on the journey to closing.
- Cultivate the relationship beyond the sale. The celebration doesn’t stop just because the deal closed. Part of building that relationship extends beyond the closing. You should be strengthening that relationship and staying ever so slightly on their mind, year-round. You can do this by continuing to celebrate milestones, like the one-year anniversary of when they closed on their new house, for example. But don’t limit yourself. Celebrate anything that’s important to your client, too, like the birth of their first child or the opening of a business.
- Make it personal. Sending a nice bottle of wine or champagne to celebrate milestones and wins is great, but what if they don’t drink? It’s important to keep the whole experience about them, not you. Throughout the process, get to know your clients so that you can tailor gifts and other experiences around their interests and preferences. You can even send them a curated list of gift options for the right occasion. But don’t forget the personalized message. Gifts are great, but stories are forever.
- Host some killer events. What better way to get people talking than to bring them all to an open bar? In all seriousness, a surefire way to get your clients buzzing is to bring them to an event they’ll be talking about all week. This can be in-person or virtual, but keep it relatively intimate by inviting 10 – 20 past and current clients, not counting their partner or family. This empowers them to network with one another and gets everyone talking about it with their own friends and family afterward. You’ll be a household name in no time.
Strategize and execute
Once you have strategies in place, finding the time to put them into action is a whole other story. Having someone on your team who can put these plans in motion, consistently monitor them and not just implement them, but keep them moving, can help you win those referrals and keep business flowing in. A MyOutDesk marketing or virtual administrative assistant can do that for you as you focus on growing your business and finding more people who will bring in more referrals.
To learn more, visit www.myoutdesk.com/services.
