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10 ways for real estate agents to prepare for spring

By January 16, 2018Real Estate

Ah, winter. It’s the time when the number of real estate transactions slow down. For some real estate agents, it’s the time when they sit back and relax. However, successful agents use the winter months to prepare for the spring rush.
Here’s how they do it!

1: Don’t let good habits die

It’s tempting to change your daily routine when sales are slow, but don’t do it! If you keep your marketing going in the winter, you’ll have lots more to do in the spring!

2: Reinvest in your business

Some agents believe that it’s foolish to spend money on their business when things are slow. In fact, the opposite is true. If you wait to improve your business until commissions are flowing, you’ll never get around to making the improvements!

3: Move from spreadsheets to a CRM

Remember when you swore you’d get a truly effective CRM while you were tearing your hair out last spring? Now’s the time to do it, especially if you’re currently keeping your contact list on spreadsheets or the backs of napkins. It’s tough to build your contact database if you don’t actually have one.

4: Build your database

AdWords is cheaper in the winter when competition is lower. Take advantage of that and keep leads coming in. Also, answer your phone! When someone is contacting you in the winter, they’re likely serious about buying or selling. Finally, send eye-catching holiday cards with your brand on the front. Many people display their cards, and your “Ad” could be seen by many.

5: Keep in touch with existing contacts

Now isn’t the time to slow down on nurturing your past clients and leads. Many of your contacts, or people they know, may be planning for a spring sale, so stay top of mind. For example, send year-end market reports, projections for next year, and tips on preparing a home for a spring sale.

By the way, we’re experts in Customer Relationship Management and have even built our own awesome CRM tool!

6: Clean up your database

Slow times are perfect for going through your database. Fill in any missing contact information, including names of family members, birthdays, anniversaries of transactions and interests. In addition, make sure that each contact has the tags needed to ensure they receive the correct emails coming from your lead generation tools.

You do have lead generation tools, right? If not, add that to your “reevaluate your business software” list of things to do.

7: Update your automated communications

All of the emails you use for prospecting or client contact will get old after long-term use. Take this opportunity to rewrite the prospecting postcards you mail to your farm, and the series of emails your lead prospecting tool sends to prospects in different levels of the sales funnel.

8: Update your website

Stale content can also be a problem on your real estate website. If you haven’t freshened the key pages on your website in the past year, you now have time to do that. Not only will you have the opportunity to attract new leads with fresh content, but your existing clients will appreciate seeing something new, also. Experiment with new Calls to Action to see if they generate more leads. In addition, make sure the testimonials are current and that there are no broken links on the site.

9: Update your social media strategy

Determine whether you’ve really kept up with the social media pages you’ve created. Are you posting information regularly and responding to anyone who comments? Take another look at your strategy: should you eliminate some social media sites, or add new ones? Ask yourself what you could do to make social media work harder for you.

10: Create next year’s business plan

It seems that many agents are particularly reluctant to put effort into planning, but successful agents know it’s critical!

Don’t delay — start setting yourself up for a busy spring season today!

We couldn’t find a CRM that was strong enough to support our businesses—personally selling over 800 homes a year and running one of the largest teams in the country. So we built it.