Have Your 30-Second Pitch Ready to Attract New Agents
You never know when you are going to meet your next successful new agent. As a broker or manager, you need to be ready at all times when the opportunity presents itself—or, better yet, you create the opportunity—to talk about a real estate career and create interest in the mind of a potential new agent.
Elevator pitches help make that happen. By preparing these in advance and honing them over time, they will become incredibly valuable tools for your recruiting efforts and will lead to more recruiting appointments, more new agents, and more profit for your company.
Here are elements to include in an effective new agent recruiting elevator pitch:
Start with a compliment. Whether you are talking to a stranger or someone you have known for a long time, there is probably something about them that would be useful in real estate sales. Let’s say you are talking to your server in a local restaurant; you could say, “You have been so pleasant and attentive!” When they thank you, continue with your pitch.
Pique their interest. Use a quick transition statement to focus their attention on what you will say next. This is best delivered with good eye contact. Your pitch now sounds something like this: “You have been so pleasant and attentive! I have a really good idea for you.” For maximum effect, try adding a brief pause after this line to ensure that they are totally focused on what you say next.
Suggest a career in real estate. This does not need to be complicated. Simply state that they should become an agent, which now makes your pitch, “You have been so pleasant and attentive! I have a really good idea for you—you should be a real estate agent.”
Say who you are and what you do. This helps give validity to your statement and lets them know why your opinion matters. Even if they know you already, you are reinforcing why your opinion matters. Now you have, “You have been so pleasant and attentive! I have a really good idea for you—you should be a real estate agent. I manage the top office in the city and one of the most important things I do is help new agents start their careers.”
Tell them the benefits. There are obviously too many benefits to being an agent to cover them all in an introductory conversation, so pick one or two that might relate to who you are talking to, such as, “You have been so pleasant and attentive! I have a really good idea for you—you should be a real estate agent. I manage the top office in the city and one of the most important things I do is help new agents start their careers. With your personality and service, you could make double your income by selling homes, and you would love all the different people you would work with!”
Make a call to action. Now try to immediately set up a time to talk with them more in depth. Set up a specific in-person follow up, preferably at your office. If not there, a coffee shop or at their home is fine, depending on the person. Whatever the case, propose a definite plan to meet, making your elevator pitch complete:
“You have been so pleasant and attentive! I have a really good idea for you—you should be a real estate agent. I manage the top office in the city and one of the most important things I do is help new agents start their careers. With your personality and service, you could make double your income by selling homes, and you would love all the different people you would work with! I would love to tell you more about it, so how about we meet at my office soon? I’m open tomorrow afternoon at 3 or Saturday morning at 10…which one of those is better for you?”
That entire pitch only takes 30 seconds.
If the person is not interested, that’s ok. You can still leave them your card and invite them to follow up with you if they reconsider. Many others will continue the conversation, though, and you can keep them engaged based upon their individual questions, interests and concerns. The point is that having your elevator pitch ready to go, and knowing the structure of it to tweak within individual conversations, will make you more effective at creating interest in more people that you run into during everyday life.
Use this approach consistently and often, and you will see your new agent recruiting increase dramatically!
For a FREE copy of Sherri’s exclusive “Recruiting Skills Assessment” for building your agent team through new and experienced agents, click here.
Sherri Johnson is CEO and founder of Sherri Johnson Coaching & Consulting. With 20 years of experience in real estate, Johnson offers coaching, consulting and keynotes, and is a national speaker for the Homes.com Secrets of Top Selling Agents tour and the Official Real Estate Coach for McKissock Learning and Real Estate Express. She is also an RISMedia 2020 Real Estate Newsmaker as an industry Influencer. Sign up for a free 30-minute coaching strategy session or visit www.sherrijohnson.com for more information.
