Part 1: Looking to Improve Your Prospecting Skills? Be There!

What’s the world coming to? Doesn’t it seem that most businesses today actually are looking for ways to avoid talking to customers? The airlines are a classic example. Want to make an airline reservation by telephone? Good luck! Just to accomplish this means spending several minutes going through an elaborate push-button menu. Then you are on hold for who-knows-how long. Really, the airlines would rather you go online, make your own reservation, get an e-ticket and print out your own itinerary and receipt.

I don’t think companies intend to avoid customers. I think they want to use technology to its fullest extent to serve customers better and in the most cost-efficient way. But they have been overrun by technology.

Some real estate agents are doing the same thing, especially when it comes to prospecting. They are searching for a technique, tool, software or system that will eliminate the task of prospecting, when in fact it will only eliminate prospects. It’s time to get back in touch with some real, fundamental principles about the reality of prospecting.

Principle #1: Be There!

Prospecting isn’t a part of the real estate business; it IS the real estate business. It would be logical to assume that to have a good month, you have to be a really GOOD agent. However, a bad month usually isn’t the result of low rapport, marginal trust, lack of benefits or missed closing questions. Low productivity is the result of low prospecting.

Have you ever purchased a product from a salesperson who wasn’t GOOD? Yes. Why? Because he or she was THERE. Being good gives you the right to be in the real estate business; being there is how you get paid for it. This is true of actors, doctors, lawyers, politicians and every other business.

To be there is to be where prospects are. They’re in open houses, asking friends for referrals, reading ads, on the web or looking at mailers. So you must stay in touch with your past clients, hold open houses, visit For Sale by Owners, call expireds, work neighborhood farms, be present on the web, make personal visits, call often and advertise.

• Development Differences Part I
• Development Differences Part II
• Mobile: What's Often Overlooked