Help With
I have been emailing my database for years – why do I need RiTA?
RiTA is not here to replace your current strategies, she is here to enhance them. Bulk marketing techniques such as email and SMS blasts have been used to convey messages to a huge number of people at once, and definitely have their place in the marketing basket of any agency.
However, RiTA does not look at these marketing initiatives as the methods which provide a high-level engagement and human interaction with the people, simply because they are not designed to be quality, interpersonal relationship builders. Rather, these techniques are intended to disseminate data and information quickly to the masses. RiTA recommends more human contact between you and your clients. We know that this is one of the fundamental needs of relationship management.
So, even though you have been emailing your contacts weekly for the last five years, you haven’t built a proper working relationship with those contacts, and RiTA helps you do that. This is why RiTA is so powerful.
Conversation Topics and What to Say – New Sales Listings, Owner on the Same Street
NEW SALES LISTING PROPERTY OWNER ON THE SAME STREET
RiTA is constantly monitoring the portals and she is aware of all the new listings coming to the market. It takes her a lot of processing power to do this, and it is something that takes agents and even homeowners a lot of time to maintain knowledge around.
Advanced common sense tells us that when you own a property – that is that you have a large amount of your personal wealth in the bricks and mortar of a dwelling on a particular street – there will normally be a curiosity about what the property would be worth, over time. Sometimes this curiosity is really focussed – like when someone wants a detailed CMA because they are thinking of selling – and sometimes it is more of a background curiosity that can be sparked by ‘new’ news about similar properties coming to market.
RiTA matches the ‘new listing event’ of a property coming to market near a property owner that you have in your CRM as a prompt to have a conversation.
The conversation has a dual objective – to see if this baseline curiosity can be converted to a desktop or a in-person presentation OR to defend the relationship you have built over time by providing your contact with relevant and up to date market information that positions you as an expert.
Some Dialogue if There Is Some Curiosity:
“Hi there it is Sarah from Delta Real Estate and the reason for my call today is to see whether the appearance of a ‘For Sale’ sign at number ## in your street has sparked any curiosity about what your home might be worth now?”
“If there was some kind of an appetite to know about how the value is tracking I can help you in one of two ways: I can give you a report on some general trends in the area in terms of what is selling or I can come out and give you some research that takes into account the more specific features of your property. I am happy to do either, but it probably depends on whether you are simply curious or if there is a small part of you that is entertaining the idea of selling?”
In A Scenario Where There is No Interest in Appraisal or Desktop:
“Of course, it is not the time for you and I can understand that. In any event, shall I keep an eye on that property that I mentioned and let you know the result of that sale?”
If they answer ‘YES’ to being notified of a result, then you would use the ‘Remind Me About This Later’ option and select a date in a few weeks time (depending on days on market in your area) and then you can reach out and let them know if it has sold then. RiTA will bring the opportunity back on the day that you have selected.
As a protective strategy:
The worst thing that can happen is where you know a property owner and you have invested in their relationship over time, but then they come on the market with a competitor who has met them via a listing on their street. Maybe they have put DLs in the letterbox and capitalised on the curiosity of their listing. Maybe they doorknocked the neighbours and invited them to the open home. Maybe the neighbours came through the open home and struck up a conversation with the competitor agent. The point it – the relationship was lost because it wasn’t defended.
So in the worst case that the property owner you know on the street of a new listing doesn’t want an appraisal – you have at least had the opportunity to step in and secure the relationship from being taken away by a competitor and this will position you for the business when the time is right.
Conversation Topics and What to Say – Quarterly Owner Nurture Strategy
QUARTERLY OWNER NURTURE STRATEGY
For many real estate agents we find that the term ‘long-term’ nurture is more of a reason not to call someone than it is to call someone. For example, if a prospect isn’t ready to sell today, we tend to put them into a long-term nurture paddock and what that usually looks like is a regular email and a quarterly CMA, which more often than not is either not done or not done in a way that is personal to the customer.
Here is the thing. The goal of a long term nurture isn’t to get people to sell their homes. The idea is to talk to them, about them and to do it regularly. Why would we want to do that? To establish a relationship. Why is that important? Because, eventually, that person will have request for service from a real estate agent. And if you already have the relationship, you probably already have the business.
Moreover, those people live in the community where you sell. They interact socially with many other property owners and people like them. You can only expect to be referred when you have earned that privilege via a long-term relationship.
Remember the property owner community where you sell real estate are the ones who decide the number one agent is – through the power of their choosing an agent. They also have the power to fire everyone in your organisation from the CEO down.
Every day you have the opportunity to connect to property owners and to deepen the relationships that will cause you to have listings in the future. Through this long-term nurture strategy, Rita has identified the best people for you to connect with today, all you have to do is contact them.
It doesn’t matter if you call, text or email them – so long as the information is personalised. So, before you make a call – think about what that person might need from you. Most homeowners are curious to see where the market would place their property, so you could offer them a desktop appraisal.
But you can’t just ask that all the time, can you? Because a rigid conversation plan or script over and over is not really sufficient. The goal is to stay in front of your customers in a way that creates value, not interruptions.
Here are five different ways you could start the conversation, based on your previous relationship with the property owner:
If you sold them the house:
“Hi, its Sarah from Delta Real Estate. I drove past your place on Smith Street and it made me remember when you guys moved in. I was curious about how you all are going? … Would you be curious to know what the property might be worth today?”
If you don’t know them at all:
“Hi, it’s Sarah from Delta real estate. I’ve grabbed your file out as I’m hoping to get to know some property owners in the area and see if I can help in any way. Are you still at 12 Smith Street? If you don’t mind me asking, when did you buy that property? 7 years wow. Things have changed a little bit around here since then, in fact, I’ve just finished a suburb report which had some fascinating insights – I might pop in your letterbox over the next few days then if it is alright, and I’ll just give you a ring every now and then when something changes the game in the local market. Before I go, is there anything else I can do for you while I have you on the phone?”
If you spoke to them 3 months ago:
“Hi, its Sarah from Delta real estate. We spoke a couple of months ago and I’m really just checking in to make sure you are up to date on the local market. The news has got some people worried and I probably want to just be a voice of reassurance for local homeowners…What we are seeing, is that it takes a bit longer for buyers to get finance these days but we work with them and although it takes a bit more time, it hasn’t really affected demand. People still want good homes in good areas. ”
No real reason to call:
There are times when you have nothing to “say”. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t connect in a way that is personal. Here is what you are going to do. Head to your favourite property news site – try the portals, try the newscorp, or if your agency had a good blog go there. You can see I found this article for Brisbane’s North Side this week:
So instead of calling I’m going to click the email button. There is a pretty standard email template and I’m just going to add this text: “I saw this article showing Brisbane’s Northside is hitting goals and I thought of you guys. Hope you are still enjoying Bevan Street, let me know if I can help with anything: https://www.domain.com.au/news/brisbanes-most-affordable-houses-are-all-on-the-north-side-new-research-says-790029/
See, by sending a personal email 2 things are going to happen. 1. They are actually going to get it because it isn’t trapped in their junk email and; 2. Forget about email newsletter open rates – this is a personal connection – they might even write back!
Trigger Event:
A few times a year there is likely to be something going on in the neighbourhood, in the office or in the calendar that could prompt a conversation. One example could be if your office sponsors a local sports team. If they have an important game, you could simply invite your client down to the game. If you have a charity that you support, perhaps they are having a Christmas fund raiser, you could call your owners and simply let them know that you are helping out the charity by letting all your clients know about their work and the opportunity that exists for them to get involved – no pressure. If it is tax time, you might want to call and see if a market appraisal of their property would be helpful for when they go to see their accountant. Be creative, be relevant, be human, be helpful.
Remember with long term nurturing, the goal is to make friends and to stay in touch so after a few calls, none of this should feel uncomfortable. If you haven’t been in touch with the property owners in the database for a while, just remember – people who own property do want your service. Their mortgages normally represent extra hours they worked, holidays they didn’t take or kid’s soccer games they had to miss. They want to know that all of that was worthwhile and you can help them enjoy home ownership by keeping them up to date with a regular temperature of the local market.
Conversation Topics and What to Say – Vacant Rental Opportunity
VACANT RENTAL OPPORTUNITY
A vacant rental opportunity capitalises on the situation where a property owner that you know has their property listed for rent with a competitor.
There are two opportunities in one here, where the business also has a property management department. Sometimes RiTA will have been asked to send these opportunities directly to a BDM so if you don’t get any of this type of topic – it is worthwhile checking with your administrator.
RiTA matches the ‘new listing event’ of a property coming to market near a property owner that you have in your CRM as a prompt to have a conversation.
The Sales Opportunity:
Far too many sales agents underestimate the opportunity of a rental property becoming vacant. No one buys an investment opportunity forever, and investors are always looking for the event where it makes financial sense to either liquidate the investment or to leverage it and grow the property portfolio.
Exit Event or Update on Property Value:
While the property is vacant, it is an ideal time to sell. Marketing and negotiating a tenanted property is not impossible but it does add an extra level of complexity to the deal that most investors will appreciate. For some investors, the vacancy will be the ideal trigger but as the rhythm of re-letting is property manager driven – a sale process may not have occurred to the owner or it just may have seemed too hard to proactively consider.
“Hi, it is Sarah from Delta Real Estate and I have noticed that your house in Smith Street has come on the rental market. The reason for my call today is to see whether the vacancy might be a good opportunity to see where the capital in that property is sitting with an analysis of where similar properties have sold in the sales market. It’s a free service and there is no obligation of course, but with an investment, part of the fun is tracking that capital growth over time and I wondered if I could help you do that today?”
The Property Management Opportunity
Where the business or sales agent has a relationship with a property owner, and their property is under management with a competitor then there is an opportunity to acquire that management for the business. For sales agents, it is much easier to sell that property when the time comes IF that management is under the roof of where you are selling.
If there is no RiTA opportunity for the sales agent, it may be worth referral to the BDM to see if the property management opportunity can be executed.
