The Blog

We once heard this story which applies pretty well to sales prospecting and increasing your real estate closings. It goes something like this:

Imagine that it is perfectly sunny outside and you are at the beach. You are sitting on your towel looking at your phone, reading a book, eating a snack, or watching your kids play in the waves. All of a sudden, within seconds, it starts pouring rain. Nothing dangerous, but pouring rain and the sky is so gray it looks like it might rain for hours. Nobody has an umbrella. Nobody expected it to rain. Heck, it wasn’t even in the weather report. Everyone around you picks up their personal items quickly and runs for cover. All of the beachfront restaurants are now filled with people. More beachgoers are packed in like sardines under any patio overhang in sight. You look back at the beach and nobody is on the sand any longer, yet it continues to rain.

You’re probably wondering, “What does this have to do with real estate sales?”

That’s easy. The most successful agents are the ones that understand that the rain is a metaphor for the leads. The empty spaces are the best place to look. Everyone is “under the patio overhang or at the restaurants” looking for leads in the same places. Yet there is plenty of rain on the sand—where there is absolutely no one and a ton of rain (read: leads).

Example 1: The year is 2008. The economy is in free fall and everyone and her mother needs to sell their home because they cannot afford to make the mortgage payments. Every agent wants listings, but nobody wants to deal with short sales and short sale lenders.  Agents are frothing at the mouth for REO accounts and kowtowing to asset managers. In this example, the sand and the rain on the sand are short sale leads. Agents who embraced short sales and found short sale processors that they could trust had no shortage of closings. It didn’t matter when they closed; the goal was to put as much as possible into the sales pipeline and ultimately almost everything would close. Agents who embraced this philosophy were able to stay on the sand and have as much rain as they wanted.

We are in 2021 beginning to see the impact of the pandemic—something we may not ultimately see for years to come. Now is a great time to consider where all the other agents are going… and where you can go instead. Take time to brainstorm and mastermind with respected colleagues and you may unearth new leads sources that will bring you more real estate closings. 

And, if you or anyone you know needs a transaction coordinator for your next transaction, feel free to contact the team at Transaction 911.