Nobody likes rejection.
But as a real estate agent, when the difference between a “yes” and a “no” is a huge commission, it can be particularly difficult to take.
If you’re a real estate agent, you’ve probably already read many articles about how you need to believe in yourself and have a positive attitude. By staying in the game, they argue, you’ll be able to overcome rejection and go for the win.
Now, we’re not saying that this approach doesn’t have its merits. Positive psychology can have an influence on performance. But simply wishing yourself more sales alone isn’t going to bring hard results.
It also requires better organization and communication with your potential buyers to ensure that their needs are met at every stage of the journey, maximizing your chances of making the sale.
Real estate CRM: Using rejection to your advantage
The first thing to know is that it’s a great time to be in real estate. Yes, that might be difficult to hear if you’ve just been rejected by a potential buyer, but the stats speak for themselves.
In 2021, an incredible 92% of homes sold in the US were done through an agent or a broker. What’s more, from March 2020 to as of June 2021 the average listing price for a home rose over 32%.
There is plenty of value out there in property and real estate agents are still just as necessary as ever. Unlike travel agents where the ease of the internet has seriously affected their viability, both parties—the buyer and the seller—still rely on the expertise of real estate agents to sell their high-value assets.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Buying a house is a huge decision for anybody and they have to be very sure they like the property to spend the next twenty or thirty years paying for it.
For you, that means there’s going to be a fair amount of rejection.
Often, the property just wasn’t right for the prospective buyer and the lack of a sale is completely out of your control. This is the kind of rejection that we just need to accept and realize it has nothing to do with you as a real estate agent.
But that’s not always the case and, in all the other scenarios, you can learn from past experiences to better understand what motivates people to buy and what puts them off.
Top-tier organization
Being organized is one of the most important aspects of being a successful real estate agent. After all, you have so many things to keep track of and how well you’re able to draw on relevant information when necessary can be the deciding factor as to whether they trust you or not.
For every property, you need to know:
The type of property
Is it an individual property or currently under development? If it’s the latter, then you have to keep tabs on which developments are associated with a particular property.
The features of your properties
You aren’t just selling a property, more often than not, you’re also selling a dream. The problem is, this dream is often already well formed in the buyer’s mind. And sometimes the dream doesn’t quite match with the reality of their budget.
For you, it often feels like you have to achieve the impossible, matching what you have in your portfolio to their price range. To have any kind of a chance at doing it, you need to know your portfolio back to front.
This means you have to record everything about your property portfolio, whether they’re residential or commercial. How many rooms they have and what types. Is there a back yard? Does it have a garage?
This is just the basic information that you can’t live without. But say your client specifies that they want colonial-style features or French windows, being able to filter your portfolio by features and find one they’re most likely to respond to is a must.
Location, location, location
As any real estate agent worth their salt knows, where your property is located is often more important than the property itself. There’s a reason a shoebox in New York is often worth more than a mansion in Kansas.
But you don’t have to compare huge swathes of the US to find a massive difference in price. In certain locations, a matter of a few streets apart can drastically change the price of your property and how interested your prospective buyers are.
Being able to find out where your properties are located exactly at the drop of a hat is exceptionally important.
Relationship management
Having good organization is just the starting point. It allows you to draw on information exactly when you need it and always have a good answer to hand.
But how you put this information to use is what’s going to set you apart as a real estate agent. One of the biggest advantages of a CRM is being able to transform the experience your buyers have with you and ensure relationships are strong from first contact to sale.
Personalize your messaging
You have information on properties and you have information on your customers, as all communications will be kept in one place. By leveraging the principles of content marketing and empowering your efforts through automation, you can provide more personalized solutions for each client.
Think beyond lead generation and consider how you can provide a more personalized onboarding experience and learn more about their requirements.
Timely communication
We like to think that we make important purchasing decisions based entirely on logic. But this simply isn’t true. If potential customers feel frustrated, they lose trust, and you lose the sale—even if the property was potentially perfect for them.
IBM claims that proper CRM implementation can lead to conversion rates of 300%. While this will vary depending on the type of business, it highlights just how important experience is in the buying process.
For real estate agents, this means you need to make sure that you are able to provide a smooth omnichannel experience and have all information to hand.
Follow up with past clients
Did you know that although 90% of homeowners would do business with the same real estate agent, only 10% remember that agent’s name?
While it’s true that buying a new home is a rare experience for most individuals, staying top of mind and reaching out to past clients can be extremely beneficial. Even if they aren’t ready to make another purchase themselves, past clients are great sources of referrals.
Leveraging insights
Why did the buyer reject your property? This is the question that you must know in order to improve. If you don’t know what the issues are, you can’t improve them.
By organizing your database and engaging in good relationship management best practices, you are in the best position to gain insights that will empower you to improve your approach.
Whether through direct feedback or by interpreting data, having these processes in place is the best way to turn rejection into advantage as a real estate agent.
If you’d like to find out more about how Pipeline.so can help real estate agents to streamline their customers’ experience and boost their conversion rate, get in touch with us today!
