Successful real estate agents love it, thrive on it, consider it a numbers game! “Bring it on”, they say. It’s a challenge they love to overcome!
Struggling agents avoid it at all costs! Period.
What is ‘it’? Lead Generation!!
In working with 1,000’s of folks in real estate, lead generation is either loved or hated. Those that love it, just do it. They time block on their calendars to make sure it happens every day that they work. During this time period, they go into Do Not Disturb mode because they recognize that there is no other business activity that will give them a greater return on investment of their time and energy!
After all, if there is no lead generation, then there is no sale. If there is no sale, there is no closing. If there is no closing, there is no revenue, and if there is no revenue, there is no commission. The degree of your financial success in sales is directly related to effective lead generation.
Yet I hear countless excuses as to why struggling agents don’t lead generate. I have even witnessed unreasonable decisions based solely on lead generation avoidance! I have seen agents move from one broker to another, based strictly on a promise to provide leads. I have taken note of the number of agents who have potential to succeed in this business, join a team just because they deliver leads. It is so much easier to compromise on quality and earnings just so one does not need to lead generate!
The latest story I heard was that an agent was willing to align with an out of town broker, learn his was through a new city, spend countless hours a day in his car just getting to his broker, thinking that it was easier to go where the leads are versus generate them himself. I have to chuckle when I think that he would rather spend his time driving to the lead instead of using that time to create one.
What makes people do unrealistic things to avoid lead generation? Fear of rejection! Just thinking about picking up the phone or knocking on a door or asking someone for a referral creates so much angst and pain. Not because the activity is difficult! It is because they might be told ‘No’. Worse yet, they could be hung up on! However, when I talk to the folks who actually do lead generate, they say that rarely happens, that most people are nice and polite. And if someone does hang up on them, they are brave enough, or humored enough, to call them right back and apologize for getting disconnected! How cool is that attitude! They have fun with it. It’s not life or death, but some do think lead generation, or rejection, is going to kill them. It’s not. It just creates pain, and most of us will go to great
lengths to avoid pain.
So what does that mean? Do the lead gen agents have a higher pain threshold? No. They just have a different perspective about it. The way I looked at lead generating was that I was offering to help people. I carried the thought that I was the best person to help them with their real estate needs and if I didn’t reach out and find them, they would find an agent who would take less care of them than I would. They needed me more than I needed them and they definitely needed the level of care and concern that I gave to all my clients. That’s not ego talking either. That is genuine concern for anyone who was buying or selling real estate, because what they didn’t know could really hurt them. Thinking of their pain when they weren’t being treated right was greater than my pain or fear of rejection. So I made the call, knocked on the door, sent out my newsletters and surveys, took care of my sphere of influence, and, if it was in my control, didn’t let a real estate transaction hurt them.
How can you shift your perspective on lead generating? It’s just an attitude. It’s just a mindset. Can you adjust yours so that you can tune in to the success that is possible when you go out of your way, and even your comfort zone, to help others? The challenge is on!
