The real estate agents and home inspectors are both in a referral business, requiring marketing efforts to drum up the clients, especially when starting out. Like selling real estate, selling home inspection services is primarily a matter of selling oneself. Something I have learned the hard way is the importance of following up with prospects to prove one’s capabilities and to demonstrate a commitment to helping them.
Usually the real estate agent is my true client even though I enter into a contract with the home seller or buyer. I have to find that sweet spot where I don’t badger the realtors and yet make some degree of contact at least to establish my recognition. In turn, realtors have to find that same sweet spot in their relationships with past, current and prospective clients.
I came across a kind of confessional written by a professional real estate broker. In the letter, he exposed three follow-up mistakes he made that cost him business. This post relays the ideas behind his mistakes, discusses how commonly such follow-up errors are made, and shows how easily they can be remedied.
First Mistake: Ceding Responsibility
As a home inspector, I get some business directly from the public. When someone comparison shops, inquiring about price or availability, I will make an offer, but it is too easy to leave the ball in his court, especially if he seems to be putting me off for some reason. This is first mistake, that of ceding follow-up responsibility to the other party. You want to make it your responsibility.
The real estate agents are constantly making arrangements to meet with buyers wishing to view homes and sellers ready to list. These are potential customers in an exploratory phase. Don’t ask them to call you back when they are ready. Schedule an appointment now, express your commitment to keeping that appointment, and put the onus on them to cancel the appointment if they must. Of course, do this congenially in the spirit of getting the preliminaries settled and out of the way.
Second Mistake: Waiting Too Long
The second mistake is similar to the first in that by not following up in a timely manner the real estate agent sends the signal that you really don’t care. If the client is ready to list and suggest a meeting ‘right now’, it is highly advisable to arrange the meeting or convince the client to schedule it as soon as possible. A home listing appointment for several days will make you the victim of real estate agent competition and you may lose the opportunity.
Third Mistake: Using Confusing Real Estate Jargon
The realtors have their routines and memorized scripts. These patterns are so second nature to the real estate agents that they may be entirely unaware while their prospective clients do not understand the jargon. Such miscommunication is a hazard to any form of client follow-up.
When the real estate agent is interviewing a customer who wants to move by selling his current residence and buying another, the nature of the broker’s offer to the customer may depend on what he wants to do first, gauge outside interest in the current home or see what is out there to buy. ‘Do you want to buy first or sell first?’ is a reasonably sounding question, but it goes over many people’s heads. The phrasing per se is not so bad so long as you take the initiative to make sure it is understood.
It never hurts to refine constantly one’s way of communicating with others and developing new habits, such as following up promptly, that will grow one’s business. Now you must avoid these mistakes your deals of off plan real estate Dubai.
