9 Minutes of Brutally Honest Real Estate Advice

You need brutal advice from someone who's been there and someone who knows how to tell it like it is. I am a real estate agent of 10 years and I've directly coached over 600 real estate agents across the world. I've got some advice that you need to hear. One thing that I've learned over 10 years is that not every lead is worth your time. Now that is not an excuse to not follow up properly, but a lot of real estate agents really focus on converting more leads when they're not even clear on what the kind of leads that they need to be attracting into their business are to start with, right? So this, a really good example of this is a new agent who comes to me, who's like really excited and like has all the hope in the world for their new career, which I love that energy, but they really look outside their scope for clients when they need to narrow down that niche. Maybe they're really well suited to working with first time home buyers or second time moving up because those are like the types of referrals that they would be getting in their database, but they get one opportunity that's something completely out of left field, like a referral for a commercial lease. They don't know anything about commercial real estate. They've been spending all their time prepping themselves for residential real estate and they'll come to me and say, Stephanie, this like could really be a great opportunity. Look at this deal. Like, this is their referral. They're just like asking me for help on these things and I'm trying to answer their questions. And when something is outside of your scope, you have to be able to detach from it. You cannot be looking just at the bottom line. You have to understand that not every lead is meant for you. Not every opportunity is meant for you and you need to double down on the ones that are. The other piece of advice that I have for real estate agents, especially those who are like unsure still about social media, which how can you be unsure, is that social media is a necessity. I recently saw a campaign. I think it was a campaign for the 2022 midterms and it was here in Phoenix and there was an attorney general candidate, I think it was something like that, for the state who was running. And it was clear that this candidate really wanted the younger vote. They wanted to get in front of younger demographics and so her campaign team, I'm guessing, was telling her to get onto TikTok because that was a great way to expand her brand, expand her reputation, expand her reach. And so for some reason, this candidate decides to get onto TikTok and put on this rant about how she's on TikTok and there you have it, here I am, you win on this stupid app and here's why you should vote for me. The way that she prefaced all of that leading up to her video, well, on the stupid app and here's how you should vote for me, absolutely got a ton of attention, first of all. That video went viral and for all the wrong reasons. It got a ton of attention, but it was because this lady had just outed herself in showing that she didn't get it and she didn't care to. She didn't understand the perspectives of the voter demographic that she needed to win and she instead showed them that they didn't matter to her and she didn't care. She was doing it out of a sense of obligation, not out of a genuine sense of connection and that alienated people who she really needed support from and she ended up losing her campaign. And now why am I using a political metaphor here? Well, your clients are no different. Whether you are looking to attract first-time home buyers or second-time move-up, white-collar professionals who are relocating to your area, maybe even older generations who are downsizing or right-sizing or helping mom move into a home, right? They are starting their home search online. They are starting their home search by doing research on the internet, by connecting with others on social media and if you are still looking at social media as a burden rather than a direct channel to the people you wanna be working with, you have to get your mindset in line. Social media is not a place to just be posting on for the sake of posting on. Social media is a powerful, the most powerful tool for connection with people who you don't already have in your world, who don't already have your back and you can overlook that at your peril and I will tell you that over 10 years in real estate, the best thing that I ever did was started my business on social media because in 2015 when I got into the business, I didn't have a huge network. I didn't have a lot of people that I could reach out to for warm referrals. I had to grow that on the tools that I had which at the time was social media. Let's talk about what happens when you are overcomplicating it. I promise you, you are overcomplicating so much more than you think and a lot of times when I see this happening to the detriment of the agents who's guilty of it is they overcomplicate their approach to their clients. When did we start overcomplicating how we speak to other humans? I don't understand why this is something that I see as often as I do. Recently, I was talking to a real estate agent who was saying, I know I need to be following up with this client and I know I need to reach out to them but honestly, I'm not sure what to say. Should I say this? Should I tweak it like that? How should I approach this conversation? A lot of times when real estate agents get stuck in that, when they're afraid to reach out because they don't wanna sound salesy or spammy or they don't wanna sound like they're trying to be exploitive of the client, they won't reach out at all and then they end up losing the client or months go by without them touching base with the client and a lot of times what happens in that situation where I'm speaking to a realtor, they'll say, I do this and I fall into this trap and then I don't reach out to them for months and then it's too late. Why would it be too late? Stop overthinking this. Your clients are not paying that much attention to how often you're reaching out to them until it becomes mission critical, like their writing offers at which point, hopefully you are not dropping the ball on communication but when it comes to long-term follow-up, I promise your clients are not paying that much attention and the same goes for past clients who have closed who you maybe haven't followed up with after the closing for a couple of months or even dare say a couple of years. A really simple script is all that's needed here and I'm gonna show you how simple that conversation can be. It can be as simple as, hey, your name just came across my desk. I'm so sorry if I dropped the ball from our last conversation. I hate to think that I might've. The last we spoke, you were considering buying later this year. Was that still part of the plan? That's all it has to be. That's your script. Do not overcomplicate this. Now, of course, that's follow-up but think about everything else you're doing. Think about your social media content. Think about your client management. Think about that VA that you really need to hire but you're afraid to hire until everything is perfect or you're hitting a certain number of deals a month. Stop trying to overcomplicate things and just take the simplest next step. One of my favorite quotes is from Tim Ferriss and he says, what would this look like if it was simple? Think that every time you try to do something new or accomplish something that feels a little complex in your real estate business. My final piece of advice is gonna be along the lines of this. If you do not know where your next lead is coming from, you do not have a business, you are operating like a salesperson. You are completely at the mercy of the whims of the public or the changes and fluctuations of the market. When this NAR settlement stuff came out earlier this summer, honestly, I was thrilled because I saw it as an opportunity for real estate agents to really double down on professionalism and tighten up their systems. And I was really upset, honestly, kind of disappointed on how many agents I saw who were looking for loopholes, complaining and not doing anything productive and just doing very much like woe is me stuff or thinking worse, thinking that it wasn't going to affect them at all. What a mistake and what a missed opportunity for one, because when you have the opportunity to tighten up your systems and really reinforce your business with some tools that are actually gonna be helpful to us in the end, then you can only benefit and grow from that. But when you're operating like a salesperson and your entire life revolves around one client at a time, then you're gonna be at the mercy of changes like this and you're not gonna have a good time. Now, this is really pretty baseline advice. I feel like that any real estate agent can take and do something with. But if you're listening to anything that I've shared today and you're like, well, that's not something I really thought of from that perspective, then I wonder where you can dive deeper to continue reinforcing your business for more success. Maybe you're finding that you really do need help on that social media. Maybe you're finding that you really do need help on the systems and the client experience. Maybe you're finding that you need to grow and you have all the resources you need to grow, but you keep getting in your own way because you're overcomplicating it. Then you're someone who I wanna speak to. At the Market Authority Academy, we turn overwhelmed agents into strategic referral-driven powerhouses because in this business, it is all about working smarter, not harder. That's what we do in my coaching program in the Market Authority Academy. And if it sounds like something up your alley, I wanna talk to you. All the links to book a call with me and my team and begin your journey in coaching for the Market Authority Academy are below. Check it out. I would love to see your name pop up on our calendars. And in the meantime, if you enjoyed this video, let me know in the comments. Tell me which piece of advice struck you the most and be sure to hit subscribe to this video and like it so I know to make more videos like this. Thanks so much as always for tuning in. Until next time, keep on crushing it.