Long-term Relationship with Tech Partner Leads to Long-term Client Relationships for Florida Brokerage

The Holy Grail of real estate is maintaining long-term relationships with clients--and reaping referrals and repeat business from them over the years.

But what about long-term relationships with your real estate technology partners? We talked about the value of a years-long relationship with broker Mike Larocque of LaRocque & Co., Realtors. He shared how his seven-year partnership with realtor.com has benefited his family-owned company. While the technology and consumer habits have changed, one thing has been consistent—realtor.com has been a steady source of quality leads for LaRocque & Co. for the better part of a decade.

Read on to learn more about how this long-term relationship with realtor.com has helped this brokerage build long-term relationships with clients.

Is the magic still there after seven years?

Yes, it's true we've been using realtor.com leads for seven years now. There have been consistent quality leads and it still represents the lion's share of the business that we do at a company level.

I've managed to expand into three counties and I've hired more agents. I'm in a growth spurt again at this time. I'm actively recruiting because I have so many leads that I need more agents to service them. I can only recommend it after seven years of a really profitable relationship with realtor.com. I'm a very happy broker.

Do customers you met there back in the beginning come back as repeat and referral business, or do they just go back online?

100% of our goal has always been to get the best quality leads from realtor.com and set a relationship as a customer for life. We acquire their referrals and their repeat business, friends and family. It is very common that we're doing multiple transactions with individuals originally sourced from realtor.com.

It's an exponential rate of return over time because you're not just doing one deal and done. You're doing multiple transactions with them over the years. Absolutely it's a big component of our business, as well as the repeat business from originally sourced realtor.com leads.

Do they need a nudge to remember you if they do go online again?

We are now using realtor.com®'s Local Expert(sm) for branding, knowing the importance of continuing to brand even to our past customers. We use this to catch them when they start looking at properties anew on realtor.com. The consumers are fickle and they want what they want when they want it. They don't oftentimes realize that we work in a contingency based environment, and so unless we consistently brand to them and remind them of who we are, they start looking at properties online or go to open houses and such and could wind up stepping foot across other brokerages and agents. Then it complicates our business model and our ability to get paid.

Is this the only branding you do?

I have no branding at a company level anywhere else. But Local Expert(sm) is giving me an opportunity to acquire some brand-new business. Because consider when the public hits "enter" to get more info about 123 Elm Street on realtor.com (or any site for that matter), they don't really realize who is going to be reaching out and contacting them. It's then that we need to set the hook and let them know who we are.

With new customers, branding comes into play after our agents have contacted them and we need to stay top of mind. When they go back to realtor.com, and they do, they're going to start seeing our smiling faces on and also crossing their feed on social media. It's going to click and trigger their memory a little bit and it's a good use and deployment of branding.

This is a neat tool and kind of a niche tool for us as a complement or sidebar to the tremendous amount of business we're doing from our realtor.com Connections Plus lead program. This is a nice little addition to that.

Is this all focused on buyers?

Actually what may be the most significant part of this is the "wow" factor under the auspices of acquiring listings. We can showcase how we can draw attention to a homeowner's property on realtor.com in a listing presentation for the purpose principally of acquiring that listing.

The likelihood of actually acquiring a buyer using this tool is awesome. It certainly becomes a more powerful tool in your arsenal than posting things like open houses, for instance, because you'll never get the exposure doing that. I know a lot of agents whose whole business model is hosting open houses with little more than lawn signs. Well, pitch that to the curb using the tools as we just described. If you can showcase a listing across a user's feed on realtor.com, that's a powerful tool.