What if there was a magic equation that could tell you what each client was really worth to your real estate business? Would it change:
- How you market yourself?
- How you handle that first conversation?
- How you handle the follow up?
That’s what Billy Ekofo, Director of Leads Management at Century21 Redwood Realty, wants you to think long and hard about. Billy feels there are some very specific reasons why you should handle that client as though that relationship were the most valuable thing you have.
Because it probably is.
On Wednesday, March 29 at 10 AM Pacific, join Billy and me for an Inman educational webinar as we discuss this concept in detail.
“If you and I are to help someone, you and I have to acknowledge that there is something more to that person,” Billy said onstage recently — something more than just a new lead or a new potential transaction.
Billy’s own life journey informs his approach to people and to leads. Forced to leave his family behind in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 17 years ago, he never imagined that the next time he’d see them would be onstage at Inman Connect San Francisco 2016. His message of #MOYO and seeing the possible is worth hearing, and his is a story worth sharing.
This idea of worth is central to Billy’s approach. Instead of leads, he wants agents to look for people worth helping. “As you open your phone, your CRM or your computer … your contacts. Are those people leads? Or are they actual people?”
Agents have to reevaluate their management of clients because those clients are reevaluating them. I also stood onstage and told an audience of real estate professionals that they needed to rethink their value. I spoke as though I was a home buyer. “I found the house on Zillow,” I told them. “We secured the mortgage ourselves. We even figured out the comps. We did it all from our phone. So no disrespect, but why do I need you again?”
I likened real estate agents to the Sherpas of extreme mountaineering. Has demand for Sherpas gone down since the advent of better climbing technology? “Absolutely not,” I told them. “It has not because what they’re selling are core values that add up to confidence … you sell confidence, which is not easily disruptable.”
For both Billy and myself, the answer to both issues is in value. Can you see the value in your client as a relationship? Can you provide value to justify that you are still relevant as a real estate agent?
So back to that magic equation. There actually is one. In this upcoming webinar, we will show you how it works and how it could lead to a tenfold increase in the value of each of your clients.
To top it all off, Inman Ambassador Laurie Weston Davis of Better Homes & Gardens Lifestyle Property Partners will lead our conversation. Don’t miss it.
The Lead Lifecycle: From First Call to the Closing Table & Beyond
Wednesday, March 29, 2017 | 10 – 11 AM PDT
Can’t make that time? Register anyway and we’ll send you the replay.
Jed Carlson is CEO of Adwerx, an online marketing firm for real estate professionals. You can read more of his work on the Adwerx blog or follow him on LinkedIn or the Adwerx Twitter page.