Real estate professionals have a common belief that they must be available 24/7 in order to grow their businesses. You’ve probably been there: A new client relocating to the area is coming into town this weekend, and they want to see as many homes as possible. You have to cancel all of your plans to show them a dozen homes, hoping to make the sale—or, a client gets an automated email about a hot new listing, and they have to see it tonight because they don’t want to lose the home to another buyer.
You’re forced to choose between your business and your life, and, sadly, your life gets put on hold for your business.
It may be hard to believe, but you can engineer your real estate business so that you don’t have to work evenings and weekends. Rob Minton, an agent in Ohio, did exactly that.
According to Minton, the key to having complete control over your schedule is changing the way prospects and clients see you. If they see you as a salesperson, they’ll expect you to be available 24/7.
This changes, however, when prospects and clients see you as an expert. Expert positioning will change your entire business. It will allow you to have complete control over your schedule. It will also eliminate your need to prospect for new clients.
When Minton started working to create expert positioning in his business, he was shocked by how quickly things changed. The first thing he noticed was that he no longer had to prospect for clients; prospects started approaching him on their own.
In fact, he had so many prospects approaching him that he started having prospects apply to become one of his clients. In any given month, Minton was getting between 20 and 30 new client applications. Because he had expert positioning with these new clients, he was able to completely control his schedule.
The problem is most real estate professionals tend to copy other real estate professionals. According to Minton, a better approach is to copy attorneys or doctors. Here are three steps you can take to obtain expert positioning in your business:
1. Stop giving out your cell phone number. A prospect shouldn’t be able to call you 24/7. Can you call your doctor right now on his or her cell phone? No, you can’t—and that’s the point.
2. Work only through pre-scheduled appointments. Again, consider your doctor. Do they offer same-day appointments? Probably not. You shouldn’t either. Force clients to work in your schedule, instead of you working in theirs.
3. Do the opposite of what most real estate professionals do. If you do what salespeople do, you’ll be seen as a salesperson. This means you must do the opposite of what salespeople do. This simple change will instantly shift how prospects and clients see you.
Minton has detailed additional steps he took to obtain expert positioning and how he completely transformed his business in his new book, “How You Can Double Your Home Sales Without Working Evenings & Weekends.” His book is available for just $2.97 at www.DoubleHomeSales.com.
Beth McGuire is RISMedia’s online managing editor. Email her your real estate news ideas at beth@rismedia.com. For the latest real estate news and trends, bookmark RISMedia.com.
