6 Things Successful Real Estate Agents Do Every Day

real estate agent to do list

6 Things Successful Real Estate Agents Do Every Day

real estate agent to do list

Real estate agents can often build their own schedules and, in some cases, be their own bosses. It’s one of the best parts of the job. But, as the saying goes, with more freedom comes more responsibility. It’s up to you to structure your daily schedule in a way that is conducive to your productivity and success.

Real estate agents need to find a balance between meeting with clients, calling potential new ones, honing your marketing efforts, generating new leads, and working on existing deals—not to mention maintaining a healthy work-life balance. This daily schedule will look slightly different for each agent based on their particular business, market, specialty, inclinations, and goals, but successful agents will likely share a lot of similarities.

The most important thing is to find a schedule and structure that works for you. Here is how I structure my day, as well as six things that I do on a daily basis that work for me and help me be as productive as possible.

6 Things I Do to Start My Day

  1. Get your minimum required sleep – If you’re going to perform and do your job well, then you need to be thinking, alert, and personable. That’s not easy to do if you’re tire and nodding off in a meeting. Whatever the minimum amount of sleep you need, get it. For me it’s 7.5 to 8 hours. If I get that minimum amount, I feel good waking up in the morning (well, at least most of the time).
  2. Exercise daily – I know that this is a tough one, but if you build your morning so that you can fit in a quick workout or some type of physical activity, you’ll feel awake and have more energy throughout the day. I like to do this in the morning. I either walk the neighborhood or do an exercise video, even if it’s only for 15 to 20 minutes.

3. Do some type of mindset work – As a real estate agent, you need to feel positive and motivated about your work. It can be a constant struggle against negative thinking. Whether it’s journaling, meditation, or something else, it’s important to do something. In the past I’ve written down three good things from the day before or three things I’m thankful for to counteract any negative thoughts.

4. Have a hard start time to your day – When you’re your own boss, you need to act the part. Set a start time to your day and stick to it no matter what. Pretend that you will get fired if you show up late too many times. For me it’s usually 8 or 9 in the morning.

5. Have a hard end time to your day – Same with having a start time, real estate agents need to have a hard end time. It’s all too easy to keep working and working, but you need to find time to shut it off. The quickest way to destroying your mindset and productivity and eventually your health is to constantly be stressed about what you didn’t do or aren’t doing.

6. Don’t treat yourself like a machine – Things happen, life throws curveballs, we mess up. Have your routine and stick to it, but don’t punish yourself if you have to break it once in a while. You don’t need to add “not sticking to my routine today” as another thing you’re feeling stressed about. Do the best you can and if your routine needs to be tweaked, do it.

Here is my power morning routine: I get my 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep, and then I make coffee, play some video games, walk the neighborhood or do an exercise video. Next, I help get the kids ready in the and then make breakfast. Then I start work. That’s about it. It works for me and I feel generally happy and (mostly) stress free as I go about my day. 

How Real Estate Agents Should Schedule Their Day

Once you find and implement a morning routine that works for you, then you have to schedule the rest of your day. Again, this will probably look slightly different for every real estate agent out there, but the general structure should be about the same. Typically, your day will be divided into lead generation and servicing your existing business.

Here’s what a schedule may look like:

7am: Wake up (after your minimum amount of sleep)

7am – 9am: Morning routine (breakfast, exercise, mindset work, getting ready)

9am: Hard start to work day

9am – 11am: Active prospecting and lead generation

11am – 12pm: Administrative tasks (check the status of transactions, clean up your CRM, confirm meeting times and places, etc. This can also be a time for trainings and skill building.)

12pm – 1pm: Lunch. Take a break and recharge your brain.

1pm – 2pm: Follow up with existing leads

2pm – 6/7pm: Appointments with leads and customers (or lead generation when you don’t have appointments)

6/7pm: Hard stop to the day

The Key Takeaways

Like I mentioned, the most important thing is to build a schedule and routine that works best for you and your business. It’s also critical to do prospecting and lead generation every single day—if you focus solely on existing business then the well is going to dry up fairly quickly. Always block time out for specific activities, schedule in lunch and other breaks, and treat your start and end times as sacrosanct and inviolable.

Do these things, and you’ll find your days are less stressful, more productive, and even more fun. Stay motivated and on top of yourself, and your business will thrive as a result!  

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How to Get Started with Real Estate Content Marketing

real estate content marketing tools

How to Get Started with Real Estate Content Marketing

real estate content marketing tools

Want to establish yourself as the expert in your market? Want to attract more real estate leads? Want your website to be more effective at driving sales? If you answered yes to any of these (I hope you answered yes to all of them), then you need to start or improve your real estate content marketing.

In 2021 it’s simply not enough to just have a good looking website that shows your listings and has a few nice pictures. You need people to find your website, and you need it to offer them value even before they hire you to buy or sell a home. Content is not only crucial for boosting your search engine optimization (SEO), it’s also critical for establishing yourself as the agent that people want to work with.

In this article we’ll cover what real estate content marketing is and why you need to do it, as well as the different types of content you should include on your website.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

  • What is real estate content marketing and why you need it
  • Content type #1: Customer stories
  • Content type #2: Tips for buyers
  • Content type #3: Tips for sellers
  • Content type #4: Market and industry updates
  • Content type #5: What do you bring to the table?

What Is Real Estate Content Marketing?

Real estate content marketing is simply creating content that helps make your brand more well known and helps people find your website. There are various types of content you can create, including blog posts and social media posts. Ideally, the two should work together and you’ll create blog posts that can be shared on social media and sent out via email.

Real estate blog posts can be either written or in video form. The important thing is to always create content that is helpful, informative, interesting, or valuable. You want to publish blog posts regularly, around once a week if possible. Cover various topics and don’t be afraid to make some posts a little more personal—about your success or lessons you’ve learned or about recent clients you’ve worked with.

The big question: Why??

Posting regularly on your website serves three primary goals:

  1. It boosts your SEO and creates more ways for people to find your website
  2. It gives you a ready stream of content to share via social media and email
  3. It shows you understand what you are doing and establishes you as a real estate expert

Regularly creating content allows you to take more control of your online reputation. You have limited control over what other people say about you through ratings and reviews, but you have direct control over the quality and type of content you create for your website and social and email campaigns.

Take advantage of that control.

Real Estate Content Type #1: Customer Stories

When someone is deciding whether or not to work with you, they want to know that you have a track record of success. You can’t necessarily control reviews that other people write, but you can be sure to fill your corner of the internet with as much positivity as possible. Describe a tough deal you closed for a client. Discuss how well something worked out for a client. Conduct an interview with a happy client so your readers or viewers can either read or see firsthand how clients feel about you.

The sky’s the limit with customer stories—you just need to be creative!

Real Estate Content Type #2: Tips for Buyers

What do buyers want to know? That they are buying in a good area and that you can find them what they want. Tell them about places to shop, eat, drink, and spend time with the family in your area. Create posts that have a list of your current listings or even more in depth posts that cover a single specific listing (don’t include the seller’s name of course). Include key buzz words like the number of bedrooms, the neighborhood name, the school district, and the price.

You can also create content about topics that will help buyers prepare for the real estate process. Things like how to clean up their credit, how to choose a mortgage broker and get preapproved, what to expect at different stages of the process (putting in an offer, home inspections, etc.), and even tips for choosing the right agent.

Establish yourself as THE expert with your real estate content marketing.

Real Estate Content Type #3: Tips for Sellers

Similar to tips for buyers, seller tips need to be interesting and valuable to your website visitors. Include things like how to properly prepare their home for showings and stage different rooms, how to appraise their home, which home improvements to make before selling, and how to go about pricing their house. It’s also helpful to include content discussing what other homes in your area have sold for, what sellers should look for in a listing agent, and any specific success stories you have about working with other sellers.

Real Estate Content Type #4: Market and Industry Updates

You should always be on the lookout for interesting developments in the real estate industry and your local market in particular. Things like new home construction trends, statistics about where the market is and where it is going, how homes are selling in your area, if and how many people are moving to or leaving your area, and any other information that you think your website visitors would gain value from learning.

The most important thing is to take these big ideas and distill them down to a form that is useful and easy to understand for the everyday person not particularly well versed in the real estate industry.

Real Estate Content Type #5: What Do You Bring to the Table?

In addition to customer stories, tips, and industry updates, you should include posts about the specific services you offer, what types of properties are your specialty, and information and statistics about your past success. Don’t be afraid to talk yourself up in these types of posts. It’s fine to sell yourself in some posts, as long as the majority of your content is not overly salesy.

Remember that your real estate content marketing is the best opportunity to make your business shine on the internet. Show what you do, how you do it, and your track record of success. Tell specific stories!

These are just some of the ideas to get you started on your real estate content marketing journey. Be creative and have fun with it. The result will be higher Google rankings, a more effective lead generation and conversion strategy, and an increase in business!

How and Why to Use Real Estate Drip Campaigns

email drip campaigns
email drip campaigns

How and Why to Use Real Estate Drip Campaigns

Drip campaigns are known by many names—automated email campaigns, drip marketing, marketing automation, autoresponders, lifecycle emails. But the idea is the same with all of them. The purpose of email drip campaigns is to have a set of emails that get sent out automatically in a series when a certain action is taken by a lead.

Drip campaigns are used in every industry. For example, a person will sign up on a website to receive information about products and specials from a company. They will then receive an initial email and then emails at certain intervals for a specified time period thereafter. The trigger for an automated email campaign can be anything from signing up on a list to purchasing a product to attending an event to having a designated period of time pass since a previous purchase.

For real estate agents and teams, having multiple email drip campaigns for different types of clients is a must.

Real Estate Drip Campaigns

Buying and selling homes are the largest transactions that the vast majority of people will make in their lives. That means that most people will take some time building up to actually buying or selling or even finding an agent and starting the process. Your goal is to get those people in your sales funnel and nurture them so that when it comes time for them to start the process, they turn to you for help. You also want past clients to think of you when they’re ready for their next home transaction.

That means that you or your team need to stay top of mind. The best way to do that is to consistently put your brand in front of prospects and provide them with valuable information. Real estate drip campaigns help you build trust, establish yourself as an expert, and cultivate future business.

The question is, how do you get started?

The Nuts and Bolts of Real Estate Email Campaigns

Here are the basics of setting up a real estate email drip campaign before you actually start creating the content:

  • Find a platform: The first thing you need to do is figure out a way to send emails. The good news for you is that in 2021 there is a very wide variety of options available. Many CRMs like Follow Up Boss or Real Geeks give you the ability to also send automated email campaigns. While other platforms like Mailchimp, constant contact, and SendGrid are more centered around email campaigns and can integrate with your CRM. There are many resources out there to help determine which is the best platform for your particular business and needs.
  • Subdivide your audience: Once you get set up on a platform that lets you send email drip campaigns, the next step is to segment your audience. The most basic way to divide your leads is into buyers, sellers, past clients, and unresponsive or inactive clients. Once you segment your clients, leads, and prospects, you can then set up different campaigns for each group.
  • Determine your send frequency: After segmenting, you can then determine how often to send out emails to each group. Frequency varies from company to company and the only way to really know what works best for you is to test out different lengths of time. Leads who are closer to buying or selling should receive emails more frequently than someone not ready to buy. For your active buyers and sellers you might want to send out multiple emails a week. For previous clients or people who want to wait to buy or sell, once a week or once every two weeks or even once a month might be sufficient.

What Type of Content to Use

The type of content in your campaigns should vary based on who you’re sending to. However, everything you send should be relevant, useful, valuable, or interesting. Here are some ideas for different types of leads:

  • Active Seller Leads – Send out things like stats and info on homes recently bought in your market. Include tips for how to present your home to buyers or entice potential buyers, and things like blog posts and seller client testimonials to establish yourself as an expert. You can also include some promotional information in active seller emails, like stats about your track record and facts about your business.
  • Active Buyer Leads – For buyers, you can send relevant listings in their area, updates on the housing market, like trends, prices, and mortgage rates, and even information on local restaurants and activities that could make them excited about moving to an area. It’s also a good idea to include tips and best practices on how to do things like get preapproved and the top things to look for in a real estate buyer’s agent.
  • Inactive, Unresponsive, or Past Clients – Your third main group consists of people who maybe initially showed interest but then stopped opening emails in your other campaigns, people who went through your entire active buyer or seller campaigns but did not take any action, or past clients. The goal of this campaign is to keep your brand in front of them. Send them useful blog posts, exciting developments in the real estate industry, tips for homeowners, real estate fun facts, and community developments.

Final Tips

When it comes to real estate drip campaigns, keep your emails short and sweet. You can always link back to your website or other relevant webpage if they want more information. Look up how to write compelling subject lines—they need to be intriguing, start a story, or show the reader the value they’ll gain if they open the email. You need to also include compelling CTAs that link back to your website and ensure your emails are mobile responsive (most people read emails on mobile devices).

Real estate drip campaigns are key to nurturing your leads, so get out there and take the first step today!

7 Things to Include in Your Real Estate Agent Website

real estate agent website backend
real estate agent website backend

7 Things to Include in Your Real Estate Agent Website

Your success as a real estate agent depends heavily on getting the word out about your services and track record. That means using ads, setting up social media pages, handing out business cards, attending local events, and even going door knocking. You also need to have an effective website.

In 2021, your real estate agent website is really at the core of your lead generation strategy. What happens when people find you on social media? They’ll look for your website. Where do you send people through paid ads? To your website. If you’re knocking on doors meeting people in your market, where’s the first place they are going to look after they are done talking to you? Your website.

You need a real estate agent website dedicated to your brand. It should concisely explain your services and what you offer, should be simple to use and understand, and should showcase your past success. There should also be ample opportunities for potential leads to enter their contact information and get in touch with you.

We’ve put together six things that every real estate agent website needs to include.

#1. A Professional Look

The first thing people notice when they come to your website is how it looks and feels. Images and videos need to be vibrant and high quality. There should not be any copy errors or broken links. And the copy has to be clear, concise, and easy to read (you don’t want any weird fonts or colors that make it difficult to look at). Your website also needs to load quickly. Slow load times make your site seem unprofessional and not worth looking at.

#2. Logical Organization

Most people only stay on websites reached through organic search for about a minute. A good average website session is two to three minutes. That is not a lot of time for you to successfully make your case or capture a lead. That means you need to make it easy for real estate agent website visitors to find what they need. Ensure things like home valuations or market analyses are quick to find, and put some form of your unique value statement front and center. Above all, use a simple navigation menu that’s visible on every single page.

#3. A Responsive Design

In 2020, 68.1% of all website visits came from mobile devices. Whether they are home or on the go, people increasing access the internet almost exclusively from their phones. As a result, your real estate agent website needs a responsive design so it can adjust its width and format based on the device it is being viewed on. There’s nothing worse than a website that looks great on desktop but has severe formatting problems when scaled down to mobile.

#4. Your Real Estate Listings

No real estate agent website would be complete without a page showing off your listings. If you can, the best approach is to include an IDX feed that integrates your MLS listings seamlessly into your site. If your MLS doesn’t allow you to do that, then see if they have any other ways to display listings on your website. 

#5. Listing Search Function

Your website should make it simple for visitors to find a listing their interested in. You want a search function in which they can set parameters for types of houses or must-haves, along with criteria like price ranges, amenities, and even school districts.

#6. Useful Content

It may seem simple, but your website needs to include ample high quality content. This helps SEO (search engine optimization), it makes you look like an expert, and it provides value for website visitors. Include things like blog posts about your market, local area, and the real estate industry in general. It’s also a good idea to add information about local neighborhoods—types of houses, restaurants, neighborhood events, and similar information.

Additionally, you want to have an “About You” page. This section will showcase your experience, how well you know the area, your track record of success, and what unique value you bring to the table that will help you solve the website visitor’s problem.

#7. Contact Info

Your phone number and email address should be easy to find on every single page, typically in the header, footer, or in a sidebar. The site should also include contact form fills and bots that make it convenient for visitors to request more information on a listing or things like a home valuation. Once they contact you through your website, their information should be automatically added to your real estate CRM.

Your website showcases your business and your brand. Invest the time and resources to make useful and professional, and it will pay off big as an effective tool in your real estate lead conversion wheelhouse.

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