Uncategorized / Chris
It seems like every person you meet in Naples is a Realtor® or knows someone that is. In fact, Florida Realtors® says that our local board has over 6,000 members! With that many people competing for their piece of the pie, I have no choice but to work incredibly hard every single day for my customers and earn their future business and referrals. So, how do I do that?
Monitor our #1 source of business
My wife and I founded the Naples, FL group on Facebook with nearly 60,000 members so that is a great source of business for us. My mornings always begin with me moderating that group and keeping it a welcoming and helpful asset to our members. Please join if you haven’t already!
Dive into the MLS
The MLS is my next stop. I look at the hot sheets (a report showing new/changed listings) to try and find properties for my buyer customers or see what new competition there is that could affect my sellers. I’ll then scour the MLS for listings that may work for my buyers that may not have showed up in their saved searches because perhaps only one of the criteria is different.
Advertise our listings
Next up, I set up (or monitor existing) advertising for my listings and track the performance of those ads. I can tell you with 100% certainty that most Realtors® put their listings on the MLS and simply wait for someone to come along and make an offer. I find this incredibly offensive. Customers pay good money to have their agent sell their home and deserve to have someone actively selling and searching for buyers. This generates a lot of leads for me to contact so that’s an ongoing daily activity.
Send out hundreds of letters
Since the market is so competitive and there isn’t much inventory at the moment, I usually have a mailing project going. I often send letters to every single homeowner in neighborhoods where my buyers want to be in order to find off-market property. Right now, I have a mailing going to Tuscany Cove in North Naples.
Keep in touch with everybody
I spend an awful lot of time in my Customer Relationship Management software following up with current customers, checking on future customers and reaching out to past customers to make sure everyone has their unique needs met. This benefits my sellers and buyers too as I can sometimes find a match that meets their needs.
Go on appointments
I often have appointments scattered throughout the day as well. Sometimes I’m touring properties with my buyer customers. Other times I’m sitting at future sellers’ dining room tables discussing the specific steps I will take to sell their home and hopefully earn their business.
Compare notes with my wife
Almost daily, my wife and I discuss our team (we sit 8 feet apart in our office!). We discuss what we could do better, what additional steps we could do to get our listings sold, and discuss the challenges we have with finding homes for our buyers. By discussing every facet of our business throughout the day, we’re able to achieve our goal of constant improvement and learn from each other which benefits our clients.
Those are the main areas of focus each day. There are a lot of other things below that pop up as well.
Other tasks along the way
- Respond to emails and calls from clients, mortgage brokers, title companies and lawyers and anybody else that needs my assistance.
- Attend closings. Yes, I go to every single one.
- Write listing descriptions that showcase the unique features and benefits of our clients’ homes to encourage potential buyers to see them.
- Hold open houses for my seller clients or work on marketing material to disseminate at the open house.
- Attend inspections. It’s surprising how frequently the other agent isn’t there on behalf of their customer. Here’s why I attend every inspection .
- Write blog articles that hopefully help buyers and sellers stay informed on various topics.
- Create packets to give to appraisers to give them the information they need to give an accurate appraisal on my sellers’ homes.
- Tour listings and do FaceTime showings for my buyer clients up north.
- Handle necessary paperwork that is needed for a closing.
- Attend trainings on topics that will make me a better Realtor® for my customers.
- Write this newsletter!
These activities above keep me awfully busy but I’m never too busy to have a chat and answer your questions.
Want to discuss this further or talk about buying or selling? Give me a call at (239) 248-8171 or email me.