Real Estate Prospecting Tips for New Agents in 2024

What Is Real Estate Prospecting?

It’s All About Finding New Clients

If you are new to real estate, chances are you will use some combination of the following tactics to find new clients:

• Reach out to your friends and family members in search of a referral.
• Maintain an active presence on your social media sites.
• Invest in search engine marketing by bidding on real estate keywords in your area.
• Send introductory letters or postcards to homeowners in your area.
• Hand your business card out at community events such as summer festivals.
• Launch your own website.
• Attend networking events such as those sponsored by local chambers of commerce.
• Buy digital ads or local billboards to build awareness of your personal brand.

We’ll revisit a few of these below, but suffice to say, these are all acceptable marketing tactics to build your business. However, here’s the thing: they are all inherently passive income-generating strategies. By passive, we mean these tactics cede control of your ultimate success to the hope that a homeowner will CONTACT YOU to reward you with a contract to sell their home. Or, if they are buying a house, they may seek you out to be their agent, which means you’ll have the unenviable job of spending your weekends showing countless homes to your client.In today’s post we are going to discuss the nuts and bolts of real estate prospecting, with a focus on phone prospecting.Most of the country’s 1.5 million real estate agents (according to N.A.R.) stick with passive marketing/prospecting for one simple reason: they want to avoid the rejection that is an inherent (and important) part of active, continuous phone prospecting. They don’t like the idea of calling strangers and aren’t comfortable with asking for the business.But here’s the thing: mastering the art of phone prospecting is a must-have skill for any aspiring agent. Why?Because the real estate industry’s top-performing, highest-earning agents are active, committed phone prospectors. In our guide to real estate prospecting, we’ll cover the following areas:

• Define real estate prospecting and its benefits.
• Phone prospecting basics.
• Passive marketing/prospecting approaches.
• Prospecting tips and best practices

What Is Prospecting In Real Estate?

The Value Of Real Estate Prospecting

Prospecting in real estate refers to finding new contacts, converting them into leads, and eventually into clients, aka listings. It’s a simple concept, but when done right, prospecting provides agents with new opportunities, helping them grow their business and increase sales.Prospecting offers agents numerous benefits, helping them find more opportunities and get more listings to increase their sales. Let’s look at a few of the more important benefits:

• Build your database of contacts. The more you prospect, the greater your database becomes. Not everyone is going to be a “now” client, but as long as you’re continuously building your network, you will realize the benefits down the line.
• Generate more qualified leads. It’s great to build a network of leads, but ultimately you’ll benefit by qualifying those leads to determine their value to your business. The more you become comfortable with prospecting, the more effective you’ll be at asking the questions that will help you qualify those leads.
• Get comfortable with “the ask:” The more you real estate prospect, the more comfortable you’ll become with identifying the right time to ask for the business.
• Drive your revenue. Top-performing agents know that they need to make their own success and can’t wait for business to come to them. Those agents with a prospecting

Technology Redefining Real Estate Prospecting

It’s All About Warm Calling

As mentioned above, most of the country's top-producing real estate agents rely on phone prospecting as their primary business strategy.When most people hear the term phone prospecting, they will likely think of cold calling. Cold calling in real estate means contacting potential clients by phone who have not previously expressed interest in buying or selling their property. In this regard, the purpose of a cold call is to introduce yourself to the homeowner.Top-producing agents, on the other hand, leverage technology to move from cold calling to what is often referred to as “warm calling.” When making a warm prospecting call, a real estate agent knows the homeowner’s situation and can use that information to guide the discussion. Cold calling is a low-percentage strategy. Warm calling, on the other hand, can be a highly lucrative approach to real estate selling.For many top-earning agents, the cornerstone of their business is a real estate lead generation system like ESPRESSO AGENT. Espresso Agent is widely regarded as one of the industry's leading sources of proven MOTIVATED REAL ESTATE LEADS. There are several ways Espresso Agent helps agents maximize their warm calling efforts:

• Expired listings are the low-hanging fruit in real estate. These are the homeowners who listed with another agent but could not sell for several reasons. They likely have an urgency to sell quickly.  Espresso Agent delivers superior, expired listing leads to your desktop daily, with email addresses and multiple phone numbers.
• FSBO leads. Working with FSBO (For Sale by Owner) homeowners requires more patience because they need to reach their conclusions about using a professional realtor (and paying a commission). Until they reach that point, you must provide value and advice without making a hard sale.
• For Rent by Owner, or FRBO, leads can be tremendously lucrative because these are investors who often have multiple properties… and are more likely to buy and sell more frequently than a traditional property owner.
• Espresso Agent also provides Pre-Foreclosure leads. These are homeowners who, for any number of reasons, are in danger of losing their homes and may be interested in selling quickly.
• Real Estate Farming (otherwise known as Circle Prospecting) allows agents to become neighborhood experts in their MLS. Espresso’s Real Estate Farming data lets agents focus on areas surrounding their “just listed” or “just sold” properties.

Warm calling is about calling with confidence that the person on the other end of the call has a real estate need that you can address. That’s where Espresso Agent can make a difference in your business.

Additional Real Estate Prospecting Strategies

Finding Clients By Building Your Brand

As we said at the outset of this post, most agents avoid phone prospecting in favor of more traditional approaches to marketing their brand. Let’s walk through a few of these:

Prospecting Letters

This might seem outdated, but sending personalized letters can still be a solid way to reach potential clients.These introductory letters should be tailored to the recipient, addressing their potential needs or interests in real estate. Make it short, highlighting your understanding of their neighborhood. Introduce your approach to real estate selling and share recent results and testimonials. You can also send a direct mail postcard as an alternative to a letter.

Advertising

In today’s digital age, advertising extends beyond traditional mediums like newspaper ads to include digital marketing strategies such as social media, pay-per-click ads, and targeted email campaigns.Effective advertising communicates your message and the unique services you offer. Be sure to highlight your successes, such as homes you’ve sold in the area or special expertise you possess.Always ensure your advertising targets the demographic most likely to respond to your offerings and generate those fresh leads.

Open Houses

Hosting open houses is about showcasing a property and networking with potential sellers and buyers.An effectively staged open house can create a memorable impression and be a soft introduction to your services. During the event, engage with visitors, gather contact information, and follow up afterward.Offer value by providing insights into the market or tips for home staging, which can help establish you as knowledgeable and approachable, maximizing your chances of potential clients reaching out to you.

Door Knocking

This traditional method can seem like a waste of time, but it can be very effective in certain markets. Door-to-door knocking allows you to meet potential clients face-to-face, giving you the opportunity to make a personal connection.When knocking on doors, be respectful and brief. Introduce yourself, offer a compelling reason for your visit - perhaps a recent sale nearby or changes in the local real estate market - and leave them with your card or a flyer.

Event Sponsorship

You might want to explore sponsoring local events or sports team as a way to get your name into the community. During the summer months, in particular, you could get involved in neighborhood street fairs, food festivals, etc.

Real Estate Prospecting Tips And Best Practices

Mindset Matters

Real estate is not easy; if it were, everyone would do it.Real estate can be financially rewarding and psychically fulfilling for select agents who focus on listings and embrace phone prospecting. Top-producing agents love that they are entrepreneurs who can control their destinies. They revel in the freedom and security of earning significant money on their terms.But these select agents also know that success lies in sticking to the fundamentals and never letting up. To that end, here are a few of the tips and best practices that many of the top-producing agents in the business follow:

• Prospect daily: You cannot treat prospecting as an occasional exercise you do when you have time. If you want real estate prospecting to work, you must integrate as a priority into your daily schedule. Creating the most effective system might take some time, but once you do, stick to it daily.
• Be confident and persistent: Prospecting can be intimidating, especially for new agents. Unfortunately, you’ll need to battle through it. Prospecting is all about persistence and confidence
• Embrace failure: Top agents know that they likely need to get nine rejections before they nail a listing. That’s what drives them. They understand that if they aren’t hearing “no” enough, they aren’t making the necessary number of calls daily. One other important thing: top performers don’t take rejection personally.
• Use your scripts: We’ve written extensively about the value of LEAD GENERATION SCRIPTS. Many agents avoid using scripts for fear of sounding too mechanical. But in reality, the opposite is true. The more you work with scripts, the more comfortable and confident you’ll sound. Homeowners want a confident agent! As an Espresso Agent client, you’ll have access to myriad scripts designed to help you control the direction of your prospecting calls. Perhaps
• Be dogged about follow-up: Top-producing agents will tell you that the bulk of their listings and revenue come during the LEAD FOLLOW-UP They understand that persistence and excellent organizational skills pay-off in the long run. This might explain why so many top agents turn to Espresso Agents CRM SOFTWARE to manage their contacts and stay on task during the follow-up period.
• Practice, practice, practice: Successful agents often start the day with a role-playing partner. Morning role-playing is a valuable way to get your head in the game and practice handling the objections that will come your way. Look at it as a pre-game warm-up.
• Find an accountability partner: Regardless of how disciplined you might be, it helps to have a trusted ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER to help keep you focused and on task.
• Work your sphere of influence: Your sphere are the people in your life who are likely to give you a reference, including friends, family members, professional associates, and former clients who appreciated your approach to selling their home.
• Build and nurture partnerships: Successful agents know they can’t do everything on their own. As such, they build a network of professional partnerships that help them offer their clients a comprehensive real estate experience. Such partners could include mortgage brokers, home inspectors, landscapers and contractors,
• Invest in your success: If you’re new to the business, your knee-jerk reaction to this suggestion might be, “I can’t afford it.” That’s understandable. However, we urge you to do what you can to invest in your future success. For example, hiring a real estate coach can pay huge dividends. A coach will challenge you to be the best real estate agent you can be.

Real Estate Prospecting: Closing Thoughts

Move Outside Your Comfort Zone

There could be any number of reasons you got into the real estate business. Perhaps it’s a family legacy. Or maybe you have an entrepreneurial spirit. Or maybe you like the idea of making lots of money. These are all valid reasons.But here’s the thing: unless you consciously decide to actively prospect leads, you will have difficulty finding success in a highly competitive industry. You must have a hunter mindset to stay one step ahead of the many agents in your area. You have to go after the business instead of waiting for the business to come to you.Hopefully, this guide to real estate prospecting will provide you with some of the basics you’ll need to consider if you want a thriving real estate career.If you’d like to learn more about Espresso Agent and the value of a lead generation system, please Contact Us.