The World Cup ended Sunday. The Fourth of July is well behind us. The two biggest distractions of the summer are done, and if you are waiting until fall to restart your prospecting, you are about to miss the best window on the calendar.
Here is what I watch happen every summer as a broker. Offices go quiet. Trainings get slim. Happy hours slow down. It does not matter what the brokerage puts on the schedule, because agents are people, too. They are just like our clients. They have trips booked, kids out of school and downtime they have earned.
I am not going to pretend that’s a problem. It’s not. But it is an opportunity, and most agents miss it.
Think about the math. In late November and December, every agent, every lender and every title rep reaches out to your client at the same time. Your card is one of 30. Your text lands in a pile. That is exactly why I tell my agents to find reasons to reach out in the fall away from Thanksgiving and the December holidays, because that is when everyone else is doing it.
Right now is the opposite. Your client’s inbox is quiet. Their phone is quiet. The agent who sold them their house three years ago is on a beach and not thinking about them. When you show up in that silence, you are not competing with anyone, and you have a much higher chance of getting a hit back.
3 ways to prospect right now, while all is quiet
So what do you actually send? Here are three options that work.
Pop-bys
If you have not done them this year, now is the time. And a hint: People still need sunscreen. It is simple, it is seasonal, and it puts you in front of someone for 90 seconds, which is worth more than any email you will send this month.
Something that actually affects them
Have you read the 21st Century Road to Housing Act? It just became law. It is the most significant federal housing package in nearly two decades, roughly 50 measures aimed at housing supply, affordability, access to homeownership and veterans.
Your clients have not read it, and they are not going to. That is your job. Break down what it means for them in three sentences and send it. That is the difference between an agent and a friend who happens to have a license.
Hyperlocal news they cannot get anywhere else
A new business opening down the street. A development that just broke ground. A change coming to their neighborhood. Nobody covers that for them. You do. A hyperlocal update is the easiest way to remind a past client that you are still the person who knows their market.
Now let me be honest with you, because I do not think this works any other way.
Want to hear a secret? I wrote this article on vacation.
I am the first person to tell agents to protect their calendar, including their time off, or they will burn out. This is not a pitch to skip your trip. But protecting your calendar cuts both ways: When you block time for rest, you also block time for the work.
The agents who struggle are not the ones who took a week off. They are the ones who never decided when the work happens.
So take the vacation. Then look at the hours you do work this month and ask whether you are spending them on the highest-value thing available to you. Right now, that is reaching out while nobody else is.
The World Cup is over. The cookouts are done. School starts in a few weeks, and the fall rush will pull everyone back to the phones at once.
Get there first.
