The Best Streams of Business for REALTORs
Real Estate Agent Lead Generation Pillars
As a real estate agent, you should focus on selecting between 4-5 streams of business. A stream of business is a lead generation strategy or approach to sales. Picking pillars to your real estate business will ensure you stay focused on activities that will build your business and will help avoid distraction.
In this real estate agent training podcast you will learn about the best streams of business for new REALTORs and growing real estate agents.
Examples of streams of business
●SOI/Past Clients ● Social Media ● FSBO ● Geographic Farming ● Demographic Farming ● Online Leads ● Open Houses ● B2B Referrals ● Networking Associations ● Builders ● Buyer/Seller Seminars ● Investors/Landlords ● Relocation Companies ● Door Knocking ● Paid Leads ● Sports ● Clubs/Associations ● Attorneys ● Commercial Agents ● Out of Town Agents Referrals ● Giving/Charity Efforts
Podcast Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School. The podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:11] Hello and welcome back to Rev Real Estate School. I'm your host Michael Montgomery. Today we are talking about streams of business. So you've heard me say this concept before you've heard is this one of your streams of business or you should potentially be thinking about this as a stream of business. So in this episode we're going to talk about what our streams of business why do we have them and what can we do in order to improve our streams of business. And then finally what are my recommendations which ones would I choose if I were you.
[00:00:42] So first off what is a stream of business. It's basically just a way that you're getting business. I think of it as a lead generating strategy so it's a certain way that you're going to go about getting a business for instance are you going to focus on geographic farming. Are you going to focus on online leads. Are you going to focus on first sale by owner is expired. These are all different streams of business and what I recommend for people is if you are a full time agent you want four to five streams of business.
[00:01:11] If you are a part time agent ideally you still have that much but if not then you're three to four streams of business. And why not just take on all of the streams of business. And I think we know the answer to this when we take on everything we end up doing nothing. We've heard these concepts before. There's all these different ways for us to get business and if we focus on absolutely every single way to attract business we'll end up taking away from other ways. For example if your main source of business is past clients and your sphere of influence but you're not focusing on that because all you can do is focus on all the other streams of business that can potentially come in there then you're not going to do that well in real estate because so much of our business comes from past client and sphere of influence.
[00:01:55] Therefore, setting yourself up with streams of business helps you focus on what it is that you need to do. Any time that you're sitting there wondering if some new lead generation strategy or if you want to go and try this new marketing campaign you just have to run it through basically a decision matrix. And part of your decision matrix should be you should be looking at cost are why these sort of things. But also does it fit with one of these streams of one of these pillars. And if the answer is no then you may want to think about doing that down the road. So if you're not focused at all on open houses let's say then doing some sort of Open House campaign when you have five other streams of business might not make as much sense. So it's about dedicating your time and effort to doing something over and over again in real estate. We need to be doing the same things over and over again. If you've ever tried geographic farming I know I have. I've done this like one month geographic farming campaign or three month geographic farming campaign and I couldn't figure out why the heck I wasn't getting any calls. But then when I started to do geo farming for a year a year plus the leads really started to pour in. So this is what it's all about is is just about organizing your life.
[00:03:05] So you make sure that you're focusing on things that are driving business to you and your staying organized into how you are going to go about lead generating so quickly that's run through a few examples of what some streams of business may be what you may choose to focus on.
[00:03:21] Here are some examples for you. I go past clients and sphere of influence in one category I treat that as one source of business. There can be social media marketing for sale by owners expires geographic farming online leads open houses B2B referrals. If you haven't heard that episode that's a great episode on learning how to best interact with other business owners networking associations builders buyer or seller seminars investors relocation companies all sorts of things out there sports attorneys commercial agents out of town agents. These are all different streams of business and you can see that if you focus on every single one of these then you're really going to be focusing on none of them you're not going to have the time money to put towards every single one of these campaigns. So choose four to five if you are a full time agent if you are a part time agent then you're looking at three to four if possible. If you're going with four then you're pretty well good on both sides. So which one of these streams of business should you focus on. That's great that there are all these options out there but which one really lead to the best are a lie. Well it does depend but we're going to talk about a few different strategies here depending on where you're at in your business.
[00:04:39] First off no matter where you are whether you're brand new or you've been in the industry for years and years sphere of influence and past clients that stream of business should always be number one that should always be one of your main focuses. That doesn't mean you can't do other things but that should always be your main focus. Because nine times out of 10 in most real estate agents business that will lead to 75 percent if not more of your business. So that should be number one and actually when we're doing business plans I always have this already pre. In my business plans for my agents because it's so important. Now let's talk about if you are a new agent. What else should you be including so past clients and sphere of influence. There's your first stream.
[00:05:22] Next I'd recommend social media as a stream. Just because if you're getting into real estate this is going to be a huge part of our life. Moving forward if you're newer in real estate you have a long career ahead of you. We really need to be focused on social media so that can of course be. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn all of the above but you should have a plan around it. There should be some time that you dedicate towards it and there should even be some money that you put towards it as far as ads go. So that's one that I usually recommend for newer agents.
[00:05:54] Next for newer agents I recommend geo farming. So geographic farming I recommend for absolutely everybody because it can create such a long term stable and sustainable business as you go on. Yes there's some upfront cost or some upfront time depending on how you look at it but it will produce a return. You'll have to be prepared to do it for 12 to 18 months before seeing a deal but it is definitely worth your time. Go back and listen to the episode on Geo farming. You can just search it on our website if you'd like. Just search geo farming and the article and podcast will come up. But listen to that one because if you're a new agent if you're experienced I'd put geo farming in there as well. But as a new agent you just have such a long career ahead of you. They would very much focus on Geo farming next for a new agent.
[00:06:43] I would also focus on open houses so doing one to two open houses a week will lead to business. Not only will it lead to business but you'll also just be having conversations about real estate you're going to be learning about real estate you're gonna be learning the questions that buyers ask. You're also going to learn how to market yourself. You'll also deal with some rejection through open houses. They are an amazing source of business for new and experienced agents but I'd highly recommend having that as one of your streams of business.
[00:07:11] If you are new now there's a number of other strategies out there you may want to do for sale by owners and expired. You may want to do some online leads. I wouldn't necessarily recommend online leads for newer agents just because of the upfront cost but there are a number of different ways and I'll put some examples in the show note so you can go and look at them. But those four are great. If you're a new agent those are just solid staples that you can use so that sphere of influence and past clients social media geo farming open houses and then you can choose your fifth one whatever your fifth one may be. If you're a part time agent maybe you want to stick with those for now.
[00:07:48] If you're an experienced agent or you're a growing agent what do I recommend. All of those options that we just went over those for are great but you can explore some other things now. Now if you have a little bit more of a budget to work with. If you started to build a little bit of a name for yourself and your community then you can start thinking more about potentially buying some online leads and learning the online lead gen game that can be a source of business to just understand that if you're doing that. That is a stream of business. You still have to be focused on your other streams. So if you have a ton of leads coming in every single day and you can't keep up with them then you're probably hurting your other streams. So just keep that in mind. Also networking associations builders buyer or seller seminars these can be great investors and landlords relocation companies these can all be great streams of business.
[00:08:38] If your experience if you're new as well but mostly if you're experienced and then out of town agent referrals as you start to build your career and you start networking with agents outside of your community and outside of your state even outside of your country you can really start to build a great network of out of town agent referrals so this can be another great source of business. So what you're seeing here is an organization system a way that you can really focus on certain things and do them well like I was saying at the start. If you just dabble in geo farming you might as well not do it at all you're just throwing your time and your money away. But if you really focus on these streams of business you start putting effort money and time towards it then that's when you will start to see the return.
[00:09:23] So again I recommend if you are an experienced agent or if you're a full time agent you need to be doing four to five these if you are a part time agent then you may look at three to four.
[00:09:34] Thank you so much for listing this episode. I really appreciate it. Remember you can ask a question anytime you'd like. Just head over to revrealestateschool.com. You can find out more and you can ask a question there if you'd like. And you can find me on Instagram I'm at @the.michael.montgomery
[00:09:47] Thanks so much for listening and we'll see in the next lesson this episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you back here for the next lesson.