How do you make more sales in today’s real estate market?
To correctly answer this question, we must break it apart into two more questions…
How do I make more sales that close in the next 90 days?
How do I make more sales that close in the next nine years?
What most agents want to know is how I make more money now. At the same time, the wealthiest agents are solving both questions. Let me explain the key differences.
That solves cash flow when you want to make more money in the next 90 days. Cash flow is for business what air is to the body. Without air, the body will shut down, just like a company will shut down without cash. It doesn’t matter how fit and healthy someone is; they will always be 5 minutes away from being out of breath.
In business, we can have air reserves that protect us from downturns. This would be a cash reserve.
As of March 2022, Apple Inc.’s cash was $51.511 Billion. Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway’s cash on hand in Quarter 1 of 2022 exceeded $100 Billion.
If the greatest of all-time investors has $100,000,000,000 in cash during ultra-high inflation, then real estate agents in a one hundred percent cash business should follow suit.
I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t give you this advice.
Have a minimum of six months of cash reserves to cover all your personal and professional expenses. Imagine your sales go to zero for six months; you have enough savings to weather the dip.
Once you achieve six months, you can start making bets on advertisement, marketing, technology, hiring, and capital purchases. At the same time, increase your cash reserves to twelve months.
A very wealthy businessman I know has ten years of cash reserves. His goal is ultimate independence. To me, that is a worthy goal over any trip and material item to be able to sleep at night during the subsequent depression. If my planning is overkill, then I overshoot my target on savings. That is much better than the alternative.
To the point of this essay. How do I make money now?
Here are three ways to increase your sales activity now.
Direct response marketing (Publically & Direct to consumers by e-mail, phone, or text). Go Beast Mode on prospecting, and follow up with a clear and concise call to action.
Risk Referrals – For the consumer to purchase or list their home in a risky environment, someone needs to provide mitigation of their downside. All sales pitches and offers need to be boiled down to… “You have nothing to lose.”
Sell things you don’t need and help others sell things they don’t need; instead of telling people to declutter, team up with estate companies and junk haulers and help people declutter their homes. In the last 24 months, direct-to-consumer sales skyrocketed. People have too much stuff.
The second question is the more important question, how do I make more sales over the next nine years?
Nothing has changed in the real estate industry for sales agents except one thing. The sales cycles have increased. Client acquisition to close timelines went from seven to seventy days, and seventy days could go to seven hundred.
If a lead, on average, took seven hundred days to result in a sale, how would you structure your lead conversion and follow-up plan?
Tell me about your e-mail marketing plan for a seven hundred-day lead?
Tell me about your video strategy for a lead that takes seven hundred days?
Tell me about your past client and sphere of influence after-sales plan?
In 2009, I sold one home because the sales cycle was seven hundred days. I made thousands of calls and tens of thousands of e-mails and drove 38,000 miles. I sold one house. Or Did I?
In 2011, I sold sixty-two homes; why? Because all the work I put in during 2009 & 2010 paid off. I had acquired ten times as many clients while the competition was sleeping.
To make more sales in your career, you must commit to being ruthlessly consistent in your client acquisition process. Know that every client you acquire is a sale in your career; you just can’t predict when.
Nick McLean
Nick McLean Real Estate Group
Cheplak Live Coach
Real Estate Greatness