Any highly successful real estate agent will tell you that having a great real estate referral network is the key to their success.
There are numerous ways for you to obtain referrals as a real estate agent but bear in mind that each strategy has its own set of benefits and drawbacks.
That’s why we decided to publish an essay to walk you through all the benefits and drawbacks of the best tactics, so you can determine which is ideal for you.
The following are the top four tactics for increasing real estate referrals:
Although this may appear to be common sense, we believe it is worth addressing because many real estate brokers appear to be unaware of the importance of social media.
Due in part to the COVID-19 scenario, everyone, even corporations, now uses social media. In general, individuals are more accustomed to purchasing items or meeting new people online than ever before.
Your social media profile is the 21st century’s business card. It reveals everything about you to your potential client and either strengthens or weakens their faith in you.
It’s worthwhile to put time and effort into developing the greatest profiles on the most prominent social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Because LinkedIn is primarily used for business rather than leisure, it should be the most important social media for you if your objective is to produce more agent recommendations.
For recommendations, join Facebook and WhatsApp groups. Should you take part?
Posting for referral in these public groups is akin to tossing a dart out the window into the wild and praying it lands in the lap of the correct person halfway across the nation.
You can picture the unpleasant experience that all parties involved in transferring the recommendation client to another agent will have.
Also keep in mind that you have no control over any of these groups. Administrators, often known as moderators, are in charge of the group.
To boost your internet exposure, we recommend that you create your own Facebook page, Website, and other profiles.
Joining groups that are controlled by others, on the other hand, is ineffective. Instead, we strongly advise you to create your own referral network, cultivate it with agents in all key hot real estate markets, and use it to generate good incoming and outbound recommendations.
2. Obtain references from previous customers.
Getting referrals from previous clients is a great method to grow your real estate company. If you pick this technique, there are a few things to bear in mind.
First and foremost, it is critical that you do your best to ensure that your client is completely satisfied with your work. Following up after the sale and asking for comments is extremely encouraged once the task is completed.
Staying in touch with prior clients and building connections with them on a regular basis is essential for obtaining referrals. Send direct mail newsletters, contact, or visit them at least twice a year, for example.
Doing all of the above ensures that your client remembers you and that you will be the first person that comes to mind when they are asked whether they know a good real estate agent.
3. Are referral companies the best option for you?
Referral companies frequently pitch their services to real estate brokers. Are you familiar with what these so-called referral businesses do?
It’s a corporation that provides leads to their own clientele, who are real estate agents. While receiving leads from a business that discovers the client for you may sound fantastic, there is a catch.
The caveat is that these businesses charge a fee based on a percentage of the sale. The percentages may differ, but the rate is normally quite disadvantageous for the real estate agent.
In addition to the percentage fee, these companies demand a large cost to add a recommendation to their network. They also charge a lot of money to be a member of a real estate referral service.
A few internet portal companies, like Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com, have launched referral programs. These companies’ leads are frequently unqualified and of poor quality, resulting in a waste of time for the agent who receives the reference.
What if there was a better method to get leads and ultimately scale your business without having to pay a middleman a hefty percentage fee?
Referrals from agents to agents.
4. Real estate referrals from agents to agents
We feel that, of the tactics discussed, direct agent to agent referrals is the greatest way to scale your business since it gives you the best chance of success while without requiring you to pay additional fees in the form of a portion of the transaction to the middleman who sent you the reference.
You might be wondering why one agent would ever offer a reference lead to another agent.
This predicament can arise for a variety of reasons. Some of the most common reasons are as follows:
The agent may be a listing agent for a seller, but he or she does not represent the buyer.
Because the agent is too busy to manage all the clients, he delegated all the extra work to other agents.
The client is moving to a new city. In this case, an agent would assist them in selling the home and refer them to another agency in the target city.
We at Referrals.io noticed that the majority of individuals didn’t know how to start using the agent to agent referrals approach, so we decided to design a solution to help ease agents into direct agent-to-agent referrals.