Scott's Blog

Successful Real Estate Agents Understand Marketing & Advertising are Separate from Long-Term Relationship Building

One common trait among agents with a loyal client base is an understanding that advertising and rapport-building are distinctly different activities. While advertising has a place in an overall marketing plan, it is considered a completely different channel and applied accordingly.

The typical mistake lower performing agents make is confusing every opportunity to communicate as an opportunity to advertise their services. This “while I have your attention” mentality is responsible for more damage to agent/prospect relationships than any other mistake, save complete unresponsiveness.

Clients and prospects quickly come to regard the agent as self-centered and begin to anticipate that every conversation with the agent is ultimately a pretense for “who do you know who needs real estate services?” It’s an agent-centric approach versus a client-centric approach.

This bad habit in agents is by no means malicious. It is learned in part through a kind of antiquated coaching which assures agents that building a client base is “all a numbers game.” Additionally, it is learned through imitation.

Most consumer advertising is based on this kind of message saturation. The problem is one of perspective. Can agents genuinely expect to sell professional real estate services the way soap, cell phones, and junk food is advertised? Top producers say: Absolutely not.

If an agent communicates with prospects and clients the way commodified products are advertised, they quickly face an audience which:

1) Interprets the agent’s message as interruptive and self-motivated

2) Comes to equate the agent’s services with other exchangeable, commodified services (and is therefore driven to find the cheapest suitable option)

So what is the alternative?

Agents with deep experience have learned over time that substantial wealth in real estate depends upon adopting the successful habits of “long cycle” salespeople. A “long cycle” or “nurture sales process” is common among salespeople who earn a living selling big-ticket investments, such as enterprise software and hardware, for example.

The path to these six-to-seven figure sales isn’t a matter of a postcard, website, and a single meeting. In order to earn the business, the prospective client must:

1) Perceive a friendly familiarity with the salesperson in which interactions are pleasant or helpful

2) Trust the salesperson to act as an advisor, guiding them towards a good decision

3) Feel confident presenting the salesperson to others when called upon to validate their decision

4) Anticipate that the salesperson will be available throughout the purchase process and the life cycle of the purchase

When these four criteria are met, a substantive professional service relationship is given chance to grow. This is why, from the point of personal contact forward, top producers immediately shift to a rapport-building communication strategy which works to support one or more of these four criteria with every interaction.

Traditional advertising, in no way shape or form, contributes to these four criteria. While advertising may have played a role in a general awareness in the marketplace, it is likely not even the source of lead (more likely the lead came from referral).

In fact, after the point of personal contact, continued advertising may actually damage the relationship, undermining the objectives of a nurture sales cycle. With each mass-market or direct mail (or email) transmission, the prospect quickly begins to feel that any deeper business relationship they have with the salesperson is potentially false, as each ad indicates the valuable client has been tossed back in the general prospecting pile.

“Don’t they know me?” “They’re already working with me, why would they send me this?” “We had a conversation last week about this, and I already said I wasn’t interested.” What’s more, the advertising (however briefly) distracts the prospect, interrupts their day, and diminishes their receptiveness to the agent’s overtures in the future.

Attention is currency, and savvy agents spend it wisely.

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