Weekends in Real Estate: Make the Most out of Your Time

weekend in real estate
weekend in real estate

Weekends in Real Estate: Make the Most out of Your Time

One of the best parts about working in real estate is the fact that you get to set your own hours and get to be your own boss. That’s what they tell you at least. But what all real estate agents know is that that freedom often comes along with more obligations. Sure, you can set your own schedule. But the flip side of that is that you also have to be available to your clients when and where they need you. And many times, that includes weekends.

The thing about working for yourself is that you don’t have a big boss you have to answer to, but you do have a lot of little bosses in the form of clients. You are working for them. And although you have the freedom to choose who you work with and when you work with them, if you want your real estate business to thrive, then you’re going have to fulfill your clients’ needs to the best of your ability.

Working Weekends in Real Estate

The thing about working in real estate is that you have to be available to work when most be people aren’t working. You have to have meetings, show houses, and put on open houses when your clients have the time. And the fact of the matter is, the majority of people work your typical 9am-5pm job Monday through Friday.

That means that the evenings and weekends are when most of your clients are going to want to look at houses with you. It’s also when it may be easiest for seller clients to get out of the house for while so multiple showings can happen in a single day. If you have clients coming in from out of town, then I’ll bet that they are most likely coming in on the weekend to check out a bunch of houses.

Weekend Work-Life Balance

If you’re an agent then you know there are a lot of benefits to working in the real estate industry. High income potential, flexibility, the chance to build something on your own, just to name a few. And working weekends doesn’t have to be a major drawback. Below are a few tips for making the most out of your weekend while still killing it with your real estate business.

  • Make the weekends JUST about client meetings and showings – If you’re working in residential real estate, then there is no avoiding meeting with clients on the weekends. But one thing you can do to salvage some of your weekend time for friends and family is to make sure that meeting with clients is all you have to do. Complete other tasks like lead generation, filing documents, checking voicemails, and carrying out your marketing strategies during the week.
  • Put boundaries on your time – I know, you want to be available for your clients 24/7. And that’s a good thing and a necessary thing. But you can’t ignore the rest of the areas of your life or you’ll quickly get burned out. I know agents that block out one of the weekend days for personal and family time. They only make appointments on that day if it is very very necessary. Also, if you’re kid has a sports game or you have a family get together, treat that like an appointment on your calendar. If a client wants to meet during that time, see if they are able to meet before or after.
  • Set clear expectations with clients – As with most things in life, communication is key. Be direct and upfront with your clients about when you work and don’t work. The vast majority of people are understanding when it comes to balancing work with your personal life. As long as you are producing the results your clients want to see, they probably won’t mind if you say you aren’t working this Sunday to spend time with your family.
  • Hire an assistant – This may seem like a stretch but it’s not. Hiring a part time or virtual assistant is an investment that can pay back large dividends if you hire the right person. These days you can hire a virtual assistant for a relatively low cost, and they can help you vastly free up your time by taking over many day to day tasks like:
  • Updating and Uploading Your Listings
  • Making Small Changes to Your Website
  • Managing Your Contact Databases
  • Handling Filing and Data Entry
  • Submitting Paperwork
  • Creating Reports and Presentations

Afterword

As the saying goes, with greater freedom comes greater responsibility. As a real estate agent, you have much more control over your hours and income than the average 9-5 employee. But what that also means is that it’s on you to grow your business and make sure your clients are happy. That means being available when they need you and often working during the times when most people are not at work. However, that doesn’t mean you have to work 24/7 and be miserable.

Like most things, working in real estate is a give and take. Stay focused during the week, set clear boundaries and expectations, and work hard so you can start growing your business and building a team. Just remember, your family and your personal life are just as important as work. So make sure you treat it that way!

 

How to Build a Real Estate Team

real estate team
real estate team

How to Build a Real Estate Team

Let’s face it, it’s tough to get started as a real estate agent. That’s true whether you’re a solo agent or on a real estate team. It can take months before you sell your first house and sometimes even longer before you actually start making money because you have to become established and build a network.  

In addition to learning all the technical and legal aspects of the real estate industry, you have to learn how to find leads, how to successfully convert those leads into clients, and how to take them seamlessly through the entire process of buying or selling a home.

Being a solo real estate agent presents even more challenges. You have to determine where to spend your money and how to best use your limited resources to maximum effect. How much money should you spend on marketing? What kind of marketing should you spend your money on? Should I purchase training? How much should I spend on training? How do I find time to actually work on my solo real estate business in addition to meeting with clients and showing houses?

These are just some of the big questions you’re going to have to grapple with when starting out as a real estate agent.

Building a Real Estate Team

But let’s say you accomplish all of that. You hustle. You build up a valuable network. You find the right balance for your resources. You reinvest your profits back into training and marketing. Basically, you’re killing it.

Eventually, you’re going to reach a point where you have built up such a solid network and large circle of influence in the real estate industry that you are going to have more leads coming in than you can handle. This is when agents have a decision to make: “Do I just keep killing it as a solo agent and let the leads I can’t get to pass me by, or do I grow my business and build a real estate team?”

If your goal is to take your real estate business as far as you can and grow it as much as possible, then this decision is no real decision at all. As soon as you find yourself so busy with current clients that you simply don’t have the time to follow up with leads, generate new leads, or take advantage of all the business coming your way, it’s time to add to your real estate team of one.

How to Start Building a Real Estate Team

Once your solo real estate business has the volume necessary to expand, the first order of business is to ensure you have a solid foundation. That means you have to have a game plan. For example, it’s critical that you develop revenue goals and work backward to determine how many leads and team members you’ll need in order to meet them. Furthermore, you have to make sure your lead generating and nurturing systems are in solid shape—ready for the influx of leads that your new team will be bringing in.

Once the foundation is shored up and ready to go, the smartest first hire you can make for your real estate team is an admin. Remember, what’s driving you to build the team is the fact that you have so much success that you have no time. An admin can help you dig out from the mountains of paperwork that come along with that success. They can also help you with building your business’s strong foundation and with onboarding future team members.

Buyer’s Agent

Once you and your admin have developed the systems and processes necessary for a successful real estate team, you’re ready to hire a buyer’s agent. A buyer’s agent’s job is take your lead generation systems and put them into action. You and your new agent will basically be taking the reins together—each generating leads, nurturing leads, going on appointments, finding homes, etc. You guys will be partners in crime at this stage—both hustling and both bringing in new business.

Inside Sales Agent

As you and your first buyer’s agent keep killing it with leads and appointments, soon it will be time for your next hire. Once your buyer’s agent is handling about four transactions a month, it’s time to bring in some additional help.

The benefit of hiring an ISA (inside sales agent) for your real estate team is that it allows your team to specialize a bit more. An ISA is a dedicated sales person who specializes in generating warm leads and setting appointments over the phone. They act as the top of your funnel—the first face (or voice) of your business that prospects and new leads see (or hear).

With the inside sales agent handling the top of the funnel, you and your agent are freed up to do what you guys do best. That is, working with clients, showing houses, closing deals.

After hiring a buyer’s agent and an ISA, on a solid business foundation that you created, your business is going to grow exponentially. From there it is just a matter of hiring additional buyer and seller agents, maintaining flexibility so your systems and businesses can adapt to your growth, and making sure you are hiring the right people.

After hiring a buyer’s agent and an ISA, on a solid business foundation that you created, your business is going to grow exponentially. From there it is just a matter of hiring additional buyer and seller agents, maintaining flexibility so your systems and businesses can adapt to your growth, and making sure you are hiring the right people.

Who to Hire for Your Real Estate Team

Hiring good people is one of the most difficult aspects of running a team or a business. To start, it can be hard to feel comfortable passing off some of the responsibility that you have been shouldering. This is your business and your team—something that you have poured hours of work, sweat, and tears into. This produces a bit of reservation when it comes time to let someone else track down and follow up on leads in your name.

In addition to that, how do you even find the right people to hire? And then once you’ve hired them, how do you train them to treat your business as if they were you? The key to both of these questions is to hire motivated doers, and then focus completely on the second question and train the heck out of them.

Building your real estate team requires people who are as motivated and dedicated to its success as you are. Focus on the mindset of your potential new hires and the rest will follow.

Conclusion

Being a successful solo real estate agent is a massive accomplishment. But eventually, if you want to keep building on your success, you’ll be faced with the massive new challenge of building a successful real estate team. If you follow the formula above and focus on hiring motivated people who are able to learn and grow, and who care about your business as much as you, the success train will keep on rolling. 

 

Inside Sales Agents: How To Make Them Effective

successful inside sales agent training
successful inside sales agent training

Inside Sales Agents: How To Make Them Effective

Effectively training Inside Sales Agents is the key to success with your real estate business. Once you’ve built up enough sales and new business to warrant hiring additional agents or ISAs (inside sales agents), and are ready to hand off some of the responsibility of running your business, you need to learn how to train.

Even if you hire the best people, you still need to know how to train them effectively on the ins and outs of your particular business or market so they can achieve success for themselves and for you. They need to understand your sales model, your sales funnel, your philosophy and your values.

But on a practical level, the most important thing that your Inside Sales Agents have to do effectively, is being able to successfully make calls to set appointments. And the two biggest barriers to this are call reluctance and effective objection handling.

Overcoming Call Reluctance

Both call reluctance and successful objection handling have to do with mindset. This is your inside sales agent’s or real estate agent’s overall perception of their work, and how their perception of themselves, their role, and the business affects how they pursue leads.

Critical to this is the story that your new hires tell themselves in their head. Regrettably, most people have a lot of trash in their minds with regards to calling leads, what it means to pursue leads, and about sales in general. You need to put all that to rest. 

The biggest determining factor for whether a sales person will or will not be aggressive with generating leads, setting appointments, asking for contracts, and closing deals is the story they build in their heads.

Emphasize the fact that their careers and lives are in their own hands. When they are busting butt making calls and following up on leads, they are building the lives they want to live. In doing so, they are creating value for the client, for the business, and for themselves. Selling and productivity are noble endeavors.

This is where the business philosophy and company values come into play.

If your sales person has good stories in their head—if doing those activities that lead to productivity have a positive connotation—they will be unstoppable. If they have negative stories in their heads about lead generation, setting appointments, etc. and what those things mean about them as a sales person, then no matter what you do or say, they won’t lead generate.

Objection Handling for Inside Sales Agents

After self-perception and head stories, this is the area that holds most real estate agents and inside sales agents back from crushing their goals. If the agent/ISA doesn’t know what to say, or how to convert a lead from a “no” to a “yes”, they will not feel comfortable or confident lead generating. At that point, they will make all sorts of excuses for why they can’t or won’t bring in new business.

Objection handling often stops inside sales agents in their tracks. They are afraid that they won’t know exactly what to say when the lead objects to them or objects to an appointment. The old school way of handling objections with snarky scripts is so 1990. 

These days we handle objections in a much more sophisticated and conversational way. Teach your agents to ask questions to get to the bottom of a lead’s objection. Offering leads a different solution to reach an even bigger and better outcome is the best way to handle a negative response.

Circumvent the natural fear of objections with a comprehensive training on what to say and when to say it. Focus on training them to ask powerful questions that compel the lead to almost ask the sales person for the appointment. 

Let Your Inside Sales Agents Grow Your Business

Alright, so let’s bring this all back home. Even if you are killing it, if you are the best person at your business or too critical to the daily grind, you are going to hit a ceiling. You can only do so much! And as the owner and leader of the company, you need to have time to look at and consider the big picture. That’s how you will grow your business.

But in order to be able to grow your business, make more money, and create more time for yourself, is if you can effectively hire and train awesome people. And of those two things, training is the most critical. You don’t need to hire sales experts, hire people who are ready to work and then build a consistent and effective training system.

Train your inside sales agents to be masters of your sales process and masters of their craft. They will bring in the leads, nurture the leads, and set appointments with the leads. You will be amazed at how much awesome ISAs will be able to grow your company without you in the trenches each day. They will flourish and your business will begin growing to a degree you hadn’t thought possible. Hire go-getters, and concentrate their training in these areas to make them unstoppable.

Real Estate Training: The True Story

man looking at confusing real estate training
man looking at confusing real estate training

Real Estate Training: The True Story

We’ve written a lot of articles and put out a lot of videos basically discussing how to be a better, more successful real estate agent or real estate inside sales agent. We’ve discussed how to close properly, how to increase your call conversion rate, how to develop a successful inside sales team, how to hire and train powerhouse ISAs, to name a few topics.

But now I want to talk about something a little more personal. You’re reading this most likely because you’ve come into contact with Smart Inside Sales looking to improve your real estate career and your life. You want to make this whole ISA or agent thing work out. Actually, scratch that. You don’t want to just make it work, you want to thrive, make a lot of money, and build the life that you want to live.

And that is something that I can completely, 100 percent understand.

My Real Estate Story

A while back, I was teetering on the edge of possibly getting out of the real estate business. I was newly married, had a second kid on the way, and could not get this whole real estate thing to work out at all. The bills started piling up and I didn’t know what to do.

Eventually, my luck started to turn a little bit. I closed on a few deals and, although there was still a stack of bills that needed to paid, I carved out a little bit of breathing room for myself. With that breathing room I hired a coaching company.

I had always been a bit skeptical of real estate coaching and even training courses and materials. At the end of the day, I thought that a coach could give me some tips or maybe point me in a right direction, but not have a substantial impact on my career. I thought that I had to figure everything out for myself with no help at all. Because that’s just the way it was. Or so I thought.

As you can probably guess, I was wrong. My coach helped me to save my real estate career. And they are the reason why I am a real estate coach today.

After a little while of working with a real estate agent coaching company I was continually building up momentum bit by bit, closing more deals, paying off my bills, and putting some more money in my pocket. In turn, I reinvested some of that back into more training materials. I used those to master the lead conversion process and develop my own system to consistently convert real estate leads, book appointments, and win listings.

Real Estate Coaching & Training Are Not Enough

Coaching and training helped me to take my real estate career to the next level. But what I learned was that training alone is not enough. I’m sure you can relate to this: many people become endless collectors of training materials and resources but either never use them, or just read through them without any type of implementation plan.

I’m guilty of this too. Sometimes we feel the urge to improve and better ourselves, but the little spike of dopamine we get from just buying that course or downloading that ebook, or signing up for that webinar suffices for the moment. We feel like we accomplished something (even though deep down we know we haven’t) and then get back to our busy lives.

Even if we do go through the course, read the materials, or attend the webinar and actually soak up the information, rarely do we develop a way to put it into action. Consuming training, taking notes, and learning the material is not enough. In fact, too much training, tips, and advice—in other words, too much theory—can be detrimental to your development if you don’t actually use it. That’s because theory is only useful in the context of using it to take action and achieve an end.

Real Estate Training Systems

Learning a bunch of stuff without the knowledge or ability to put it into action leads to feelings of being powerless. Feelings of an inability to get better and improve your career. That’s crap.

What you need is training that allows you to implement the things you learn each and every day. When I was going through my own training period, I found that the only way it stuck was if I had actionable techniques that I could put to use immediately in my work. And I also found that most training or coaching courses out there (for real estate or other industries) don’t actually do that. They just teach you a bunch of ideas and concepts without a plan of action.

I kept that in mind when I created my own Conversion U training course. I made sure that the majority of it was made up of actionable advice and techniques that students could start making use of the same day they learned it. I teach Conversion U students how to have real conversations with people, give specific ways that they can overcome caller objections (objections that I know they are probably hearing on a daily basis), and tell them exactly when and how to close.

Conclusion: What Makes Good Real Estate Training

Whether it’s real estate or another industry, you are doing yourself a disservice by just collecting a massive pile of training materials. You feel good for a moment, but you aren’t just looking for a fleeting dopamine spike. You are looking to build a life you can be proud of—the life you’ve always wanted for yourself and for your family.

To do that, you need training materials that both teach you what to do, but also how to do it. I know from firsthand experience that theory without practice is not enough. That’s why great real estate training courses—like my Conversion U—combine the two in order to give you a viable path to a higher conversion, more sales, and consistent success.  

Keys to Success as a Real Estate Inside Sales Agent

keys to real estate
keys to real estate

Keys to Success as a Real Estate Inside Sales Agent

Being a real estate inside sales agent is a tough job. It’s competitive, fast pace, and you have to be able to learn quickly and adapt to changing situations. But at the same time, it can be an extremely rewarding job. You get the chance to be a huge part of the most important purchase in people’s lives and reap the financial rewards of being part of making large sales.

Here are several pieces of advice to take your real estate inside sales career to the next level.

Real Estate Scripts Alone Aren’t Enough

Real estate scripts are valuable as a general outline of how to approach the different types of leads and to make sure you are hitting all the points you need to hit. This is especially true for newer ISAs who are still learning the finer points of cold calling, sales calls, and converting leads over the phone.

They can’t, however, be the only thing in your wheelhouse. There are no magic scripts that will help you convert every time with every lead. Each conversation is different. To increase your success you have to focus on learning to deal with objections and how to get to the core of what the lead wants. Scripts are helpful to use as a general outline in case you get stuck on a call, but the key is focusing on having real conversations and producing real value for the lead. 

Think About Objections Differently

Real estate agents and ISAs fail when callers question them because they are viewing the objection in the wrong way. An objection is not an attack on you, and it does not mean that the call is already over. Actually, it’s exactly the opposite. A caller objection is an opportunity.

Objections give you a route to close. Through dealing with them successfully, you will have had to convince the lead that you can either assist them with their process, or you offered a better process and convinced them that your process will help them better achieve their desired outcome. Once you convince them of that, all you have to do is set the appointment.

The key here is to understand the lead’s perspective, process, and outcome—the three parts that make up every objection—from their own point of view.

Closing Logically on Your Real Estate Calls

The problem that many ISAs or agents have is with timing. Knowing when to close and not closing too early. The solution to this is actually pretty simple: closing has to be the logical conclusion to the conversation you are having with the lead. This means you have to be having ACTUAL conversations with leads on phone. You can’t just be going blindly from a script—you have to be in the moment, react to what the lead says, and ask relevant questions given where the conversation goes.

If you are working with them to get an understanding of the outcome they desire, and you are powering through any objections they present, then the time to close is going to naturally arise once you can tell they are satisfied with your answers to their objections. Just follow the conversation.

Learn to Ask Great Questions

As a salesperson, you have develop the ability to ask good questions and to read between the lines when the prospect or lead gives you their answer. You need to be able to gather all the bits of useful information that the lead says and doesn’t say. Once you have a clear picture of what the lead wants and what is holding them back, you can pounce on the opportunity and ask information-gathering questions that will lead you to the natural conclusion they seek—a sale.

Conclusion

All of these tips relate to having real conversations and to closing. Because that’s what it means to be a successful inside sales agent. You need to learn how to have real, engaging, and persuasive sales conversations over the phone. That’s how you convert more leads and that’s how you will end up putting more money in your own pocket.

Real Estate Role Play: Show Them the Way Without Making Them Wrong

real estate role play video

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Real Estate Role Play: Show Them the Way Without Making Them Wrong

If your lead is searching for homes in a way that you know is wrong or not the best way, it’s your job to give them a better way.

The thing is, though, if you just come out and tell them what they are doing isn’t right, the lead will most likely get defensive and they might just shut down. You have to perfect the art of explaining to the lead a better way without telling them they are wrong.

See this in action in today’s role play video. 

P.S. I am offering a free lead conversion training webinar to people in the Smart Inside Sales network. You’ll learn to convert leads into cash without memorizing scripts or objection handlers.
 

Want to

CONVERT MORE LEADS? LAND MORE APPOINTMENTS? CLOSE MORE DEALS? Take our free 1 hour lead conversion training.

Real Estate Group Role Play Video: Rapport Building Is Everything

real estate ISA coaching

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CONVERT MORE LEADS? LAND MORE APPOINTMENTS? CLOSE MORE DEALS? Take our free 1 hour lead conversion training.

Real Estate Group Role Play Video: Rapport Building Is Everything

Building rapport is critical on your sales calls. In order to set quality appointments and to get people to actually show up to those appointments, you have to have a personal connection.

That means speaking to the lead like a real human (not like a script), asking them questions about their specific situation, empathizing with them, relating to them, and proving to them that you can understand what they are going through.

Watch agents and ISAs work on building rapport in today’s role play video. 

P.S. I am offering a free lead conversion training webinar to people in the Smart Inside Sales network. You’ll learn to convert leads into cash without memorizing scripts or objection handlers.
 

Want to

CONVERT MORE LEADS? LAND MORE APPOINTMENTS? CLOSE MORE DEALS? Take our free 1 hour lead conversion training.

Closing on Real Estate Calls: Gain All the Information You Can

how to close on real estate calls
how to close on real estate calls

Closing on Real Estate Calls: Gain All the Information You Can

The key to real estate sales (and any sales) is being able to close successfully. But before you can even think about closing on your real estate calls, you have to understand what the lead is after—from their own perspective. And more than just understanding what the lead is after, you have to see what their current plan is to get themselves there.

But as a real estate agent or ISA, this isn’t news to you. Your job and your livelihood depend on your ability to consistently set appointments with high quality leads and to successfully close on deals. The question is how you do that.

How to Close on Real Estate Calls: Objections

Objections are the keys to closing. Yep, you heard that right. It might be counter intuitive—you might even be afraid of having a lead object to working with you—but you need an objection in order to find out what the caller is after.

Through dealing with them successfully, you will have had to convince the lead that you can either assist them with their process, or you offered a better process. Either way, though, you will have had to convince them that your process will help them better achieve their desired outcome. Once you convince them of that, all you have to do is set the appointment.

How to Deal with Caller Objections: Information

Real estate agents and ISAs can use objections to close. But before you can close, you have to actually overcome the objection. To do that, you need to gather as much information as possible on the call. What this means is that:

  • You need to be a real human on the phone
  • You have to find the caller’s pain points
  • Real estate scripts can’t help you

The key here is to understand these three parts of the objection from the lead’s point of view, not just from your own. Below are the five most critical aspects of dealing with an objection once they tell you it:

The lead’s perspective is their past experience, knowledge and speculation. Examples of perspectives that may lead to objections are “I’ve sold my home myself before”, “I’ve already met with an agent”, and “I can do what an agent does, you guys don’t do much.”

The lead’s process is their own plan that they have for their situation. Examples of a process is “I’m going to sell my home myself”, “I’ll just use the agent I used before”, or “I am just going to wait until spring to sell my home and get a better deal”. The process is typically what will lead to an objection. They have their plan and you are not a part of it in their mind, so they turn you down.

And finally, the outcome. This is the unique result or benefit the lead believes their process will deliver for them. Examples of these are “not wasting time”, “avoiding disappointment”, and “proving to my neighbors or real estate agents or to the world that I am right”.

If a lead tells you they want to wait to sell their home until the market improves, what are they really telling you? What does “better” mean? If they could find the right buyer would they sell now? The information behind this objection is that they (or the real estate agent currently working for them) have been unable to find a quality buyer willing to pay the price they want to sell their home for.

This means that if you can convince them that you’re the agent or ISA who can find them the right buyer willing to give them the price they want, you’ll be able to effectively close the on the call and set the appointment.

Conclusion

As a real estate agent or inside sales agent, your job is to try to produce the best possible outcome for your client. To do this, you first have to get to the heart of what their desired outcome is. Once you understand that, you then have to determine yourself if you think it would make sense for them to continue on their current path or if you can offer them a better one, given their desired outcome.

Learn all you can on the call, ask questions to gain the necessary information to understand their situation, calmly and confidently handle the objection, close on your call.

Group Roleplay Coaching Video: Ask About Their Previous Agent

group roleplay real estate coaching

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Group Roleplay Coaching Video: Ask About Their Previous Agent

What do you do when you’re on a call and the lead says they already have an agent they are working with?

This doesn’t have to stop you in your tracks. In fact, this presents you with an opportunity to understand what the lead is looking for in an agent and what they like and don’t like in an agent.

There are many directions you can take this type of call in. One way is to ask them questions to dig down and learn how they chose their agent the first time around. What did they like about their agent? What didn’t they like? Why didn’t their house sell the first time around?

Watch the group and the coach work through this type of call in today’s roleplay video.

P.S. I am offering a free lead conversion training webinar to people in the Smart Inside Sales network. You’ll learn to convert leads into cash without memorizing scripts or objection handlers.
 

Want to

CONVERT MORE LEADS? LAND MORE APPOINTMENTS? CLOSE MORE DEALS? Take our free 1 hour lead conversion training.

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