7 Costly Mistakes Solo Real Estate Agents Make That Keep Them Stuck
If you are a solo real estate agent, then you know how difficult it can be to juggle all the work that comes with running your own business.
You wear many hats: from a buyer’s agent to seller’s agent, from transaction coordinator and to marketing coordinator, video marketer to social media manager, and more.
The job is challenging enough as it is without adding in these 7 costly mistakes!
In this article we will discuss costly mistakes solo real estate agents make, keeping them stuck and frustrated and simple solutions to overcome them.
These costly mistakes are discouraging and time-consuming.
Sometimes mistakes are the only way we can learn and make progress.
Observing and learning from someone else's mistakes is a nice shortcut to success.
And being willing to assess and learn from someone else's expertise and experience takes things to a whole new level, even faster. Here's your opportunity to do that.
This short list will help you avoid making costly mistakes so many solo real estate agents do.
1. Not Building an Audience and Attracting Leads
If you aren’t growing your database/audience, even if you hit your goals, you’ll have the same problems of hitting your goals next year, and the year after, the year after.
Almost everyone is trying to use Facebook, Instagram and other social media sites that can help them find new clients.
But be wary of the fact that you are not just competing against other Realtors: there is also a bunch of real estate companies, content sites, property aggregators that compete for the attention of buyers and sellers.
HARD REALITY: Simply having a website, making videos and joining the latest and greatest social network will not help you attract more leads and build an audience.
Posting constantly about you isn't going to work.
Sharing listings for sale and your latest success story gets old fast.
Templated and regurgitated content gets easily ignored.
Being on the wrong platform is a waste of time.
Thinking you have to be everywhere and post everyday is a fool’s errand.
SIMPLE SOLUTION:
Know you, your value and your values.
Understand how your audience thinks, talks and acts. Deeply understand this.
Balance between sharing about you to connect with them, and sharing insights about their concerns and worries that reflect them.
Create Market Leadership by not shying away from real estate.
Lean into your personality and almost develop a Persona; an amplified character of yourself.
2. Prospecting 1 to 1 Grind (POTOG)
First, let's talk about the numbers, then talk about the toll.
The Numbers
How many clients and transactions as a solo real estate agent/lender can you handle per day/per month?
3-5?
How many calls or door knocks can you make in one day while managing your clients and transactions?
Maybe 50.
From those 50, how many contacts and conversations will you actually have?
A study from the Keller Research Center at Baylor University shows for every 209 calls made, one appointment was set or referral was received (a 209:1 call-to-appointment-or-referral ratio).
It also stated,
"Collectively, we see that it will take an investment of approximately 7.5 hours to complete 209 calls, leading to a return of one appointment or referral. If calls are broken-out across one workweek, agents can expect to make 1.5 hours worth of calls each day for 5 days to secure one appointment or receive one referral – a positive cold calling outcome.”
7.5 Hours of cold calling …. To get… One. Appointment.
Not one client.
One.
Appointment.
YIKES!!!
Get the mindset right!!!
So how many of those cold calling or door knocking appointments turn into actual clients?
What's your conversion rate? 50%? 25%? 10%?
Now you can reverse engineer your math.
You can see that it could take 400, 800, or even 1,000 calls/knocks to find a client.
*Keep in mind, this study was 2011. I think people today are less likely to answer a cold call and accept an appointment from a stranger cold calling them. What do you think?
The Toll
What goes on in your head after so many rejections? How do you keep showing up?
Prospecting One To One Grind slowly crushes your soul, discourages you and makes you second guess career choices.
SIMPLE SOLUTION:
Or you could take 20-30 minutes, make a social media post, do some content marketing and reach 100 or 1000 people pretty easily.
Maybe add a few dollars and do paid promotion and reach 10,000+.
3. Dropping the Ball on Conversion
What is your follow up system when someone first signs up?
Not a lead requesting a showing. That should be a slam dunk.
I'm talking about a lead that signs up to search for homes or wants a home value report or requests a resource/guide.
Most solo real estate agents don't take the steps to help contacts convert into clients.
Trying to immediately convert a contact to a client will scare them off and they'll ghost you.
Passively asking if they want help or have questions will make them think you don't have the knowledge or expertise to advise them, so they'll ignore you.
SIMPLE SOLUTION:
Conversation comes before conversion.
Lead generation is you are telling stories, lead conversion is the contact telling their story. Get them to tell their story.
Start a conversation. The conversion will happen naturally.
4. Not nurturing leads who don't convert right away
Most leads aren't going to convert right away.
Buying or selling a home is a big decision.
Most people start thinking and planning the process months out.
So if your only method for follow-up is to 12 Days of Torture them as soon as they sign up... they'll probably be so scared of you, when they are ready, they won't be coming back to you.
The other mistake is to stop following up after that first couple of weeks. If they stop hearing from you, they’ll forget about you.
You think backing off and following up three months later is being a nice person, but they forgot about you and now you’re an annoying “salesperson” spamming them.
SIMPLE SOLUTION:
Do a temperature check early (this can be automated).
Then be systematic about your follow-up.
Use multiple methods and channels.
5. Tracking time instead of results
If your background is either being paid hourly or salary, if you've not been self-employed, it's easy to fall into the trap of focusing on hours worked, instead of results achieved.
This leads to 10-12 hour days, 6-7 days a week. Which ultimately leads to burnout.
Working More Hours Does NOT Work
The reason you cannot increase your production and productivity by working more hours is because you will just fill up the hours with more activities, tasks and projects.
By working more hours… by sacrificing more time… you’re simply working more and longer.
Working more hours in a day or a week doesn’t equate to success.
As Tim Ferriss says about productivity in his best-selling book, The 4-Hour Work Week…
“…our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity. Few people choose to measure the results of their actions and thus measure their contribution in time. More time equals more self-worth and more reinforcement from those above and around them.”
SIMPLE SOLUTION:
Before you start trying to do more transactions, I want you to cut back the hours you are working.
Yes.
You heard that right.
Cut back.
Do less.
What you are doing here: you’re finding your pace.
Once you find your pace and you get comfortable with it, you can start to increase it.
Business and sales is not the only place this works by the way.
For example, when trying to lose weight, it makes the most sense to get your diet right first. Start with healthy eating habits BEFORE starting an exercise routine. Why? Well, diet makes up 80% - 90% of the success in losing weight. And if you start exercising first, your body is going to go into shock, wondering what is going on and desire more calories, because of this new stress of exercising is putting on it.
It's about priorities.
It's about doing things in the right sequence.
6. Not Having A 5 Star Offer
If you want 5 Star Reviews and to get 5 Star Referrals, you need to give 5 Star Service, related to a 5 Star Offer.
Not being able to concisely, clearly communicate what you do to help a buyer or seller, not only costs in your marketing and conversion, but also in getting referrals.
If you can't explain what you do and how you do it, why would someone in your sphere, who isn't you, doesn't know real estate, be able to explain to a friend why they should contact you?
SIMPLE SOLUTION:
Know their pains and problems.
Have a solution to fix each pain and problem.
Back it up with proof and a promise.
7. Not Getting Referrals
If you're not getting referrals, it could be an ask problem or an offer problem.
You're asking for referrals too infrequently, at the wrong time or in the wrong way.
You might come across as begging or annoying. It might feel like your clients are doing you a favor instead of you helping them or their friends and family. You're taking instead of giving value.
Or you're not providing a solution that your sphere finds worth are sharing or don't know how to share it.
If all you're doing is calling every 90 days and asking, "Who do you know who wants to buy or sell..." maybe they don't like being put on the spot with an “ask” from out of nowhere.
Do you like being caught off guard and asked for referrals on the spot?
So there you have it: 7 costly mistakes most solo real estate agents make.
We've made these mistakes, plus one of the biggest mistakes, trying to scale and team build before we were ready. And then realizing we don't want a traditional real estate team.
Let this be a lesson.
Learn from them.
Avoid these mistakes.
But if you already made these mistakes, try your best to learn from yourself so you don't make the same mistake twice. Making the same mistakes leads to burnout.
Want to avoid these mistakes and others, let’s chat about More Leads and Appointments, my coaching for solo real estate agents who are under $300K a year. Click the button and message me “7”. I’ll take it from there.
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