It’s all over the news; things are tough. In our industry, we are not only living in a low-inventory world, but we are also dealing with inflation at a 40-year high, historically high home prices, and more competition with other agents. These are unprecedented times to be sure.
The question becomes, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to sit around and complain, or are you going to be proactive and future-proof your income? Business basics teach us that there are three ways to grow any business:
- Increase revenue
- Decrease expenses
- Increase profit margins through a combination of the above
So, these are great in theory, but what about execution?
How do you increase your revenue? Simple: you generate more closings.
- Nurture your sphere of influence with consistent, hyperlocal information through a customer relationship management system or CRM. Here are five strategies to stay hyperlocal.
- Use websites and technology platforms to generate leads and fuel your sales funnel.
- Consider geo farming and other prospecting methods to reach new clients.
- Find an unfilled niche segment of your local market and serve that audience with targeted content and advertising. For example, senior citizens downsizing, investors securing rental income in a college town, property management, to name a few.
How do you decrease your expenses?
For most agents, their most significant expense is not their marketing. Instead, it is their broker splits. So, how do you decrease this cost? The solution is deceptively simple — move from a brokerage charging a larger percentage split to a brokerage charging a smaller split or even better yet a flat fee per transaction. Flat fee, 100% commission brokerages like Fathom Realty are among the fastest-growing brokerages in the country because agents want control of their expenses and how they spend their commission dollars earned.
How do you increase your profit margins?
Before you start working on increasing your profit margins, you will need to examine your costs of doing business and the time involved in those tasks. One easy way to increase your profit margin is to look at all the activities you do for your business and see which would be more efficient to have someone else do.
For example, if a task takes you three hours to complete, but you could hire an assistant to do it for a small fee, you could use the amount of time you get back to generate more closings, thus increasing your overall revenue. Now is a great time to evaluate your systems to see how your business can be more efficient.
Here is a checklist of the four core operational functions in your business.
As our industry evolves, so must we. Instead of burying our heads in the sand, now is time to examine what works and what doesn’t. If you’d like to learn about Fathom’s business model and how we are helping thousands of real estate professionals across the country build their business for today and tomorrow’s success, we should talk. Learn more about us at www.fathomcareers.com.