Adam Hergenrother is the founder and CEO of Livian. He believes that business is nothing but a conduit for personal growth and embraces the company’s vision to Love How You Live. When he’s not leading and growing his organizations, you can find Adam either in the mountains or out in nature with his wife and three children.
What happened in the real estate market over the past two and a half years will likely never happen again in an agent’s real estate career. It was unprecedented. It was profitable. And it was a fluke. There is no point in wishing that the market return to the days of subpar listings getting 30 offers, half of which were significantly over asking price, with few, if any, contingencies.
The market is shifting. Accept it. Move forward. And get to work being a professional real estate agent.
Remember, the market doesn’t determine your success; it determines your strategy. We still have three months left until the end of the year. That is a lot of time to make a lot of success happen. If you preserve and have the right strategy.
Let’s talk about perseverance first. You will not succeed in this new market without perseverance (the continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure or opposition).
But never giving up and continuing to push forward does not mean that you have to grit your teeth, tense your mind and body, hustle until you’ve burned yourself out, or grind until you’ve got nothing left to give. It won’t be about the hours but rather the focus and the effort.
When you relax and apply the right pressure to the right things, you will create more power. Perseverance is about understanding what you are willing to do to succeed when the going gets tough.
Below are some strategies that will help you succeed in today’s market. But you must be willing to put in the work, despite setbacks or opposition. Ready?
Here are 4 key activities that matter for agents
1. Sign something
Did you sign a listing agreement? Did you sign a buyer-broker agreement? Did you sign a lease agreement? Did you get something in writing with signatures that moves your business forward?
It’s a simple yes or no answer.
2. Sell something
A contract is a contract. Did your buyer make an offer that was accepted? Did your seller accept an offer? Did you put a property under contract and send it to your closing department or transaction coordinator?
In our world, a pending counts as one of the four agreements. That is something that our agents can help control. Getting to the closing table has many other variables that are often outside of your control.
Remember, we’re focused on the activities that, if done consistently, move the needle of your real estate business. And when you have enough pendings in your pipeline, if one or two don’t close, it makes a minor impact on your overall business.
3. Set an appointment
We all know that an “appointment” can get pretty subjective if you don’t define what that means. We do not consider meeting an old college friend for coffee or attending an open house as an appointment. An appointment is when you are meeting with a customer or client where the opportunity to sign something (a listing agreement or buyer-broker agreement) exists.
4. Add new contacts to your database
Your database and how you serve the people in our database matter. Research from Keller Williams for The Millionaire Real Estate Agent shows that for every 12 met people in your database, it should produce one closing (if serviced correctly).
Whether you actually add one new contact a day or not, the real focus here is adding five new contacts per week. Despite all the new technology and frictionless ways of doing business, real estate is still a relationship game. Contacts are key to building your business. And your met database is your business!
Here are 4 key activities that matter right now for team leaders or CEOs
1. Do the 2
Did you set two intentional agent conversations this week? Did you set two real estate appointments this week?
2. Find your 3 team captains
If you don’t have three great agents on your team who can serve in a “captain-like” capacity, then find them or grow them from within your team.
These team captains will lead through their personal production, lead by embracing and exemplifying the team culture and by following your team’s systems or playbook.
3. Play defense with expenses
Now, and for the foreseeable future, removing any expenses that do not directly support your team’s growth and productivity will be incredibly important.
4. Know the playbook, and run the plays
As a leader, it’s your responsibility to call the plays. This means casting the vision and setting the direction for your team daily. This also includes knowing when to call an audible.
Whether you’re an independent agent, an agent on a mega team, or the real estate team leader, you can’t go wrong with the above activities. The path is in the math.
Curious about the math?
With 10 weeks left in the year, you’ll need to add value and deepen your professional relationship to at least 336 mets in your database, in order to conduct 28 consultations that lead to 19 pendings and 15 closings.
Right now, nothing is more important than focusing on dollar-producing activities and supporting your agents at a high level to do them.
All markets move in cycles. Today’s market demands more perseverance than before. But I know you’re up for the challenge.
Adam Hergenrother is the founder and CEO of Livian, the author of The Founder & The Force Multiplier, and the host of the podcast, Business Meets Spirituality. Learn more about Adam’s companies and culture here.
