Real Estate Strategy Is Changing – How Agents Win In 2023
The real estate industry is facing significant changes in how properties are bought and sold. Technology and online platforms have disrupted traditional methods of finding and listing properties, making it harder for agents to succeed.
As a result, many agents struggle to adapt to these changes and find it difficult to attract new clients and generate leads. They are also facing increased competition from online portals and other tech-savvy players in the industry.
This blog post will discuss the latest trends in the real estate industry and provide strategies and tips for agents to stay ahead of the game in 2023. We will cover topics such as leveraging technology, building a strong online presence, and differentiating yourself from the competition.
By implementing these strategies, agents can continue to be successful in the ever-evolving real estate market.
Or click below if you’d prefer to watch my video or listen to the podcast on the changing real estate strategies:
Niche Down
The first way agents win this year is by niching down. Too many agents either choose a niche that’s too broad or don’t choose one. Now more than ever, people want to work with similar personalities, and with social media and video, it’s easy to find the right match. There are many benefits of niching down, including:
- Your Investment Goes FURTHER – By specializing in a specific real estate market or demographic, you can focus your marketing budget and resources on target prospects.
- You Become THE Expert Faster – When you focus on a specific real estate market, you can quickly become the go-to source. Niching down helps you build a reputation and generate more leads.
- You ATTRACT People You WANT To Work With – Niche real estate agents attract clients with similar values and interests. Attracting like-minded clients creates stronger relationships and is vital to providing better service and generating more leads and referrals.
- Greater Sense Of Accomplishment – When you focus on a small real estate market, it’s easier to make an impact and measure success.
Focus On Relationships
As the world has become more digital, real estate is STILL all about relationships. There are two main aspects of focusing on relationships. These two aspects include increasing the number of relationship opportunities and scalably adding the most value to those relationships.
How To Increase Relationship Opportunities
To increase your relationship opportunities, you NEED to KNOW your audience. Knowing your audience means hanging around the places your audience is at, both in-person and digitally. You need to know your audience’s hopes, fears, and goals. Knowing these will help you perfect your messaging, leading to more people wanting to do business with you. If you are not currently attracting relationship opportunities, the value and message you’re putting out to the world are ineffective (or non-existent).
How To Scalably Add Value To Those Relationships
Once you’ve accumulated more relationships, the next step is creating a plan to add more value to those relationships. Real estate is indeed a relationship business but also a numbers game. The agent with the highest quantity of solid relationships will be the top at their game. Having opportunities to increase connections is only half the battle. To be one of the best agents in your market, you’ll also need to stay in touch and add value to hundreds, if not thousands, of relationships daily, weekly, and monthly.
Have A Plan And Stick To It
In today’s environment, if you don’t have a well-thought-out plan and stick to it, you’ll get passed by savvy agents who do. Information is so easy to come by these days, and agents are coming out of real estate schools by the thousands. An increasing agent count means the bar is raised daily by new agents who are hungry and willing to make an effective plan and see it through.
Your plan should include your target audience, brand and messaging, budget, primary and alternative lead-generation methods, marketing and advertising channels, and what metrics you will track.
Additionally, your business plan should be simple. You don’t need a 20-page document to be successful. All you need is something that will help you stay focused and outlines your real estate goals, strategies, and tactics.
Be sure to back your plan with data and examples you’ve gathered from other agents you KNOW are successfully implementing a similar strategy. Be bold and ask questions, seek answers, and pay for knowledge. Often a tiny upfront investment will save you money down the road.
Finally, disciplined real estate agents must stick to their plan even when it seems complicated or overwhelming. Don’t let yourself get distracted by shiny objects. Stick to what works, be fearless, and make tweaks as you go along.
Consistency Is KEY
People don’t like change. These people include your audience. Once you’ve created a simple plan and stuck to it, your audience will notice your efforts and see you as a stable, organized real estate agent with whom they want to work alongside.
We all know each person’s perception is THEIR reality. When you create systems to stay consistent in your prospecting and marketing efforts, your client’s perception is that you are devoted to their real estate needs and always available. This perception will help you build strong relationships with your clients and ensure they feel secure that their real estate needs are always top of mind.
To stay consistent as an agent more efficiently, you need to create a system for accountability for yourself and your team. This system could be in the form of an accountability partner or system.
Create Your Environment
Next, in today’s shifting real estate market, you need to create an environment where you’re the authority. This environment could be a local network you’re a part of or online like a Facebook group, YouTube channel, Blog, or Podcast.
When you put your leadership on display, it instantly boosts your authority and gives potential clients the confidence to work with you.
The most significant step to creating your environment is showing up daily for your audience. Whether a simple social media message or an important initiative, moving the ball forward daily is essential.
Once you’ve begun to create your environment, the next step is to extract leads from it. Now that you have people’s attention, you need to find a way to make people want to be in a relationship with you. This next step doesn’t need to set up a buyer or listing appointment immediately. It could be downloading a lead magnet you create as a helpful resource for that audience.
Grow Your Personal Development
Selling real estate REQUIRES leadership. You lead clients to one of the most significant decisions they’ll ever make. You need to be prepared with real estate knowledge and lead and navigate through negotiations, contracts, and closing.
This knowledge requirement is why real estate agents must stay updated on real estate trends, education, and professional development. Being a top-producing agent means reading real estate books, attending conventions and workshops, or taking courses.
Many agents attend “training” but don’t put enough effort into personal development. Suppose you’ve never run a commission-only, customer service-based business before. In that case, there are many skills you’ll need to develop in yourself, including communication and sales skills, accountability, budgeting, and more.
Video… Video… Video…
Without a doubt, video is THE most effective and fastest way to grow a real estate business this year. While real estate agents have been using video for years, technology has made it easier to create high-quality videos and put them in front of the right audience.
Some of the most effective social media platforms for sharing your videos include:
YouTube – Use YouTube to share educational long-form and short-form content. Create content like “Pros and cons of moving to {insert your city}” and “Top 5 Things To Know before moving to {your city}”. Break down that longer form content into shorter, minute-long YouTube shorts.
TikTok – Use TikTok to reach a younger demographic than Facebook and YouTube (However, keep in mind, it’s not ONLY younger people on the platform). Mix in some educational and entertaining short-form videos. Also, it is starting to be more of a search platform, so use descriptive captions and relevant hashtags.
IG Reels – The most effective type of content on Instagram are short-form reels. These 60-second videos need to hook a viewer up front, educate or entertain quickly, then throw in a call to action.
The equipment you use matters less than the content you create. People will watch real estate videos with average production value if they have helpful content with a unique perspective or style.
Invest In The Right Things
Every agent must look at each expense they make in their business like an investment and constantly evaluate whether or not the investment is netting a return. While this is easier to do for actual monetary expenses, often, real estate agents don’t assess their time like this.
Dividing your total yearly earnings of last year by 2080 (52 weeks x 40 hours) gives an estimate of your hourly wage. This calculation helps you understand the value of your time and prioritize tasks accordingly. By focusing on higher-earning tasks and delegating or outsourcing lower-earning tasks, you can maximize your hourly worth and increase your overall income. It also helps you evaluate your workload and ensure you’re not overworking yourself, leading to burnout.
Every year an agent should evaluate what tasks and skills they perform that are not worth performing any longer and which skills they should invest more time and money in.
Skills Not Worth Your Time To Possess
There are specific skills real estate agents may have learned that don’t make sense to spend their time on anymore. As real estate technology rapidly advances, real estate agents are no longer required to possess these skills, as technology takes care of the work for them.
Some real estate skills that real estate agents shouldn’t focus too heavily on are:
- Transaction Management – Hire a transaction manager that you pay per transaction when it closes. Your time is better spent prospecting new clients and working with opportunities that have yet to go under contract. Plus, most agents don’t naturally possess the organizational skills (or patience) transaction management requires. Outsource this.
- Implementing a marketing system – An agent should develop the marketing system they wish to implement in their business. However, an automated system or person (or both) should handle the actual day-to-day activities that need to happen.
- Initial outreach to leads – I believe an agent’s time could be better spent on something other than initial outreach to potential leads (or I call them inquiries). Find someone skilled at communication who can handle initial lead response so that you can focus on leads that have already been pre-qualified (as far as the opportunity, not necessarily financially).
Personal Development (Skills Worth Your Time)
Here are some skills that real estate agents should instead spend some time learning. These skills are easily outsourced, but without a firm understanding of how they work, they’ll likely be ineffective, cost you more money than it’s worth, and waste your time.
- SEO – Having a base knowledge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a skill worth your time. Even if you eventually outsource the work, you need to know what is being done and that it’s being done right. This task can be vital to an agent’s business, and it’s too important not to have solid oversight.
- Ads – Same as SEO, except if you decide you want to go more on the advertising side (or a mix of both ads and SEO). Ads can be very effective, but you need to understand what’s possible and how to track effectiveness.
- Relationships – You should become a master at creating and maintaining solid, healthy, prosperous relationships. This level of mastery includes growing your communication, empathy, and active listening skills. While this may seem obvious (and maybe even easy), there are solid strategies that take you from good to great! And that subtle change can be the difference between an average agent and the top producer for your market.
Leverage (People & Tools)
Once you’ve determined what skills you should and should not invest in for yourself, it’s time to leverage tools and people to increase the hourly wage we calculated above. Based on your hourly rate, hire people or purchase tools that take tasks off your plate that can be performed below your hourly rate. If you habitually do this, you’ll constantly be focusing on the higher dollar productive tasks, earning you more money and increasing your dollar-per-hour rate.
To Sum It Up
In conclusion, real estate is constantly evolving and adapting to new technologies, market trends, and consumer behavior. To thrive in this competitive industry, agents must embrace change and stay ahead of the curve. In 2023, agents who can effectively leverage technology, build strong relationships, and provide exceptional customer service will be the ones who succeed.
I highly recommend taking my course, Agent Flight Academy: Flight 101. This comprehensive program will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and strategies you need to thrive in the changing real estate landscape. So don’t wait any longer; join the Agent Flight Academy today and start your journey to success.
Also, leave me a comment below saying #endcrew to let me know you read this post through to the end or what you’re working on to win this year!
Would You Like To Partner With Me?
I’ve helped hundreds of real estate agents, team leaders, & brokers all over the country increase their sales, online presence, and create scalable systems. I would love the opportunity to work with you. Together, we can make this year your best yet!
