Tips for Winning Over Your First Listing

It can be challenging to find your footing when you start your real estate career. You’ve pursued the education you need, secured your license, and you’re ready to get started. There’s just one problem — you need to win over your very first clients.

You’re in the right industry. First-time homebuyers encompass about 30% of all buyers these days, so it’s likely your first clients will be completely new to the industry, too. Whatever real estate niche you choose to target, you can rely on your knowledge of the area and its homes to help them make informed decisions.

To get start, you’re going to have to do more work than just looking for the right clients. You need to prepare yourself for winning over a listing for the first time. From there, you can start growing your brand as an established agent.

Creating a profile on myagentdirectory.com can be a free and easy way to be discovered by home buyers and sellers. You can automatically share your first listing here for buyers to find, too.

1. Build Connections With Everyone You Know

This won’t be a surprise, but your relationships with others will be what secures your first listing. Many real estate agents’ first clients are friends or acquaintances secured through personal networking.

How do you speed this up? You should be passively working when you’re not active. Strive to reach out to other real estate agents and potential clients and form genuine connections and bonds with them. Look first for what you can offer other people instead of determining what they can do for you. They may surprise you.

If a person you build a connection with isn’t looking to buy or sell a home right now, they might remember you in the future if you make a good impression. If you meet people in person, don’t forget to hand out your business cards. Even if you give them primarily to friends and family, they might know someone who could benefit from having your contact information.

The best way to network is to have a pitch prepared. You should focus on your strengths and skills, telling others what you can offer them if they choose to work with you. You may also prepare answers to some common questions you can anticipate people asking.

2. Market Yourself Online

Personal relationships aren’t the only tool in your toolbox. You can also get a headstart on your first listing with smart, easy marketing strategies that get your name out into the market.

Many people find their marketing niche through social media. They share information or entertain other people to get profile clicks, which becomes lead generation. People spend around half their day looking at screens, so marketing yourself on social media isn’t a bad idea.

Sit down and commit to building your online presence by working out a posting schedule and optimizing your content for web and mobile browsers. This gets even easier with customer engagement solutions like Page Engage, which automates Facebook posts to increase interaction with potential clients.

Dream Sweeps is another tool for building a social media audience — it runs a sweepstakes promotion with minimal effort on your end to build up your presence. With less time devoted to manually updating your online accounts, you can instead use those hours to connect with your new leads and convert your first listing.

Page Engage posts engaging real estate content to your page.

3. Become a Local Resource

You’ve learned a lot about real estate as you’ve eased into this career move. Why not share that knowledge with others? Whether they’re potential clients or agents just starting like you, offering what you know can never be a bad thing.

One way to wow a potential client is to impress them with statistics. They are specific and informative, and if they come from a reputable source, people will understand that you did your research. For example, 28% of homebuyers find their house through their agent, not a website. That fact alone may convince someone to work with you rather than finding a place on their own.

You can also focus on education via your social media challenges or website. Become a go-to resource for information on neighborhood trends and market changes. Share local updates like new restaurants or school fundraisers. Before long, you’ll become a trusted community resource.

4. Keep Learning the Trade

You’ve had to learn a lot to get this far, so why stop now? Securing your first listing requires an ongoing commitment to growth. You should always strive to keep digging. Learn more about real estate as a whole or focus on your niche and learn something new.

Having this data in your back pocket allows you to be more prepared for questions from potential clients, and you can position yourself as an expert who has done extensive research to get to where you are.

From Real Estate Newbie to Expert Agent

It might take time to win over your first listing, but what matters is how much you devote yourself to the journey. Building strong habits now will make growth even more successful when you do overcome your first hurdle — and you will!

If you’ve been putting in work every step of the way and growing your brand and building lasting connections, you may see potential clients rolling in one after another. Enjoy the process and commit to learning as much as you can about real estate so you can better serve your future clients.

Meet the Author

Evelyn Long is the editor-in-chief of Renovated, a web magazine covering real estate market trends. Her writing has been published by the National Association of REALTORS®, Insights for Professionals and other online publications.