List More Sell More

In a sellers’ market, where you sell almost every property you list, the last thing you want to do is run low on listings. List more and you will sell more – we all know that – but many agents are low on stock. If you are one of those salespeople, what are you doing about it?

To get more listings, there are four areas salespeople should focus on.

Prospect Pipeline

Now is not the time to empty your prospect pipeline. When we prospect, we find some people who are ready to sell now, and others who say they plan to sell in the future.

Constant prospecting in healthy numbers (40 homeowners or more spoken to each day) keeps your prospect pipeline full.

In his book, Fanatical Prospecting, sales expert Jeb Blount discusses the importance of the 30-Day Rule. This rule states that the prospecting you do in this 30-day period will pay off over the next 90 days.

Jeb says that this is a simple, yet powerful, universal rule that we ignore at our peril. Set aside prospecting because of the “I’m too busy” excuse and you won’t be busy when you run out of listings!

Direct Mail

As with prospecting, consistent direct mail is another essential element for a constant flow of listings.

Whether you are responsible for generating listings through your own marketing efforts, or whether your company takes care of the marketing, you will get more incoming responses from your print marketing if you personally sign at least 50 letters per day (1,000 per month) and follow up to ensure that they are delivered.

Don’t wait for this to happen – talk to your leader and get direct mail underway, or arrange it yourself if you are responsible for your own marketing. Either way, do it!

Leaflets

As with direct mail, leaflets still generate business if delivered in large numbers and with consistency.

A word of warning: salespeople should not deliver leaflets. Pay walkers to deliver leaflets – doing so is below a salesperson’s pay grade.

Salespeople should be talking with potential sellers and with buyers, not dropping leaflets into letterboxes. That said, it must be done consistently, or you will become invisible in the marketplace.

Follow up

Diligent follow-up is essential to getting the most from your listing leads.

Leads are time consuming and expensive to generate. Without good follow-up, leads lost to the opposition far outweigh the cost of marketing.

In the days of outstanding CRM software, there is no excuse for allowing any lead to slip through the cracks.

Whether it’s prospecting or marketing, consistency in your lead generation activity will provide you with a constant flow of listings, which will increase your sales and income. But only if you constantly follow up all leads.

Speak to more people, and you will list more and sell more. Don’t drop the lead generation ball and you WILL list more. You’ll enjoy a higher income too.

Gary Pittard