How to Mold Your Real Estate Prospects Into Ideal Future Clients
There’s nothing better than working with a client who listens to every piece of advice you give along the way. It makes for a smooth transaction, you enjoy working with each other, and it helps you get them the best results possible. They’re the type of client who has you saying, “If only they could all be that way…”
Unfortunately, they aren’t.
That’s not to say that most clients are too difficult, but more often than not you feel like you have to convince every client to do (or not do) something during the process of buying or selling a house. It can be anything really, but here’s a short list just to get your head nodding:
- Sellers who want to price higher than they should
- Clients who take their parents’ (or any other person’s) advice as gospel
- Buyers who want to wait to make an offer until it’s too late
- Sellers who don’t want to reduce their price when they should
- Buyer who don’t want to get pre-approved until they find a house they like
- Sellers who want to stay home during showings or open houses
- Buyers who want to keep looking even though they found the perfect house
That’s just to name a few things buyers and sellers tend to throw at agents during the process. For the most part, agents just kinda look at it as part of the process—something that just comes with the territory. You deal with it if and when it comes up…and it probably will.
And it’s not that they don’t have their reasons…
Of course they have their guard up!
It’s harder to get a client to do the right thing when you’re in the thick of a home search or sale for a lot of legitimate reasons:
- They usually don’t know any better.
- The “right” thing probably isn’t as appealing as what they think or want to do.
- People are stressed. (Buying and selling houses are two of the most stressful events in a person’s life.)
- They don’t want to make a mistake. After all, it’s typically their biggest purchase or asset.
- Everyone in their life is probably giving them conflicting, uneducated advice. (Not just their parents! Coworkers, Uncle Frank, their cousin who was an agent for a hot minute in 2015, their hair stylist…)
- Concern that you’re just trying to get them to do something for your own benefit, not because it’ll get them the best results.
- And ultimately, people just don’t want to feel stupid…to put it bluntly.
Not that it makes it any easier to deal with, but it’s good to acknowledge that they have their reasons for disregarding even the best advice. The trick is getting them to know better ahead of time, so none of this becomes an issue when it matters most!
But, there is something you can do to increase the chances of working with more clients who not just listen to your advice, but also follow it.
Mold people into better clients ahead of time…
Many agents tend to spend a lot of time marketing or advertising their real estate services in general, but don’t spend time educating their future clients ahead of time.
It’s fine to spread the word that you got a new listing, or just successfully closed on the sale of a home to a buyer. (At least in moderation…)
It makes sense to share if you’ve won some type of award. (Go ahead and toot that horn; you earned it!)
It’s okay to remind people to think of you the next time they (or anyone they know) is thinking about buying or selling a house…
…but along with doing all of those things, you should start molding your friends, family, prospects and past clients into better future clients by subtly educating them about the do’s and don’ts of buying and selling!
Teach ‘em how and why…on the sly!
You could always put together seminars you hold for free at your office, but good luck getting much of a turn out even if you offer free refreshments. It’s just tough for people to carve out the time in their life even if they want to go. So most people won’t be motivated—especially the ones who probably could use it the most.
Luckily there are easier ways of imparting your nuggets of wisdom to way more people, and with way less effort!
Here are three easy ways to educate your future clients ahead of time, without them even knowing you’re molding them into ideal clientele:
1) Memes
Memes are a nice, concise, and often funny way to drive a memorable point home with people. They take no time or effort to consume. You aren’t asking someone to stop what they’re doing and learn something, yet you can teach them something that’ll stick with them for years to come without them even knowing it.
Here are a couple of examples:
This one is a good example of teaching buyers not to wait to make an offer, or they might lose out on a house using the five second rule everyone can relate to.
But memes don’t always have to be funny. You can share ones that are just great tips, like this one for sellers…
Memes like these are obviously great to share on social media, but you can include them in emails, or send them as texts for example. Even if people don’t react or let you know they saw it when you share it, it’s sticking with them and you’re getting your message drilled into them one meme at a time, over time.
You can find a lot of free real estate memes to share on our Lighter Side Facebook page, but if you want access to a bigger selection and be able to put your own branding on them, check out our Inner Circle membership!
2) Articles
Articles require a little more effort for people to consume. So, they won’t all read every single word of every single article you share, but they’ll at least get the general gist by way of the headlines. However, you can increase the odds of people reading your articles if you make them fun and interesting, while also driving a point home that you want to make.
Take these for example:
Here’s one that helps sellers avoid regrets, by teaching them about 7 common things many sellers say that they end up regretting…
And this one is a great one that sheds light on 10 typical mistakes buyers make…
You can certainly write your own articles which’ll give you some serious authority points with your audience, but if you don’t have the time or writing chops to do so, you can easily find ones to share online. Just make sure they’re shareable and people can open them without having to subscribe or pay. We’re constantly publishing new ones on our website that you can share for free.
3) How-to booklets
Creating your own how-to booklets can be the ultimate way of establishing credibility and authority, while also molding your prospects into ideal future clients. You need to make sure you package and present them in a way that offers them valuable information they want and are desperate to devour, but if you do, you can use them as a way of subtly show them how to be a better client ahead of time.
Here are a few types of booklets you may want to create to get your juices flowing:
- A general buyer’s guide
- A guide specifically for first-time buyers
- A general seller’s guide
- One for sellers that drills down into how to prepare your house for sale
As you can imagine, they’re not the quickest, easiest things to create, but they’re an incredible vehicle to be able to offer people valuable information they want, while also giving you the ability to inject your own thoughts and perspective into their minds with what you write and advise.
If you’d rather hit the fast-forward button and save yourself tons of time and effort (or just aren’t into the whole writing thing), you should definitely check out our Inner Circle membership. We have 20 different how-to booklets that are already written and just waiting for you to put your own branding on them!
While you’ll never be able to entirely avoid dealing with clients who need their arms twisted just to take the best advice, you can certainly create a heck of a lot more ideal clients by subtly teaching them the ins and outs ahead of time using these ideas!
