What’s your plan to EARN a prospective customer’s business?

Per Market Sherpa, 73% of leads (across all industries) AREN’T ready when generated. That’s no surprise—in fact, it’s somewhat of a relief. Especially in real estate… because, if your leads were ready as soon as you got ‘em, then—based on the data—your rate of conversion would absolutely tank. Lemme explain…

According to research from the National Association of REALTORS® the vast majority of home buyers and sellers opt to hire a real estate agent with whom they’ve worked in the past or by virtue of a referral. Here are those percentages over the past several years:

HOME SELLERS:

2017: 64%
2018: 63%
2019: 66%
2020: 67%
2021: 68%
2022: 63%

HOME BUYERS:

2017: 54%
2018: 53%
2019: 53%
2020: 53%
2021: 60%
2022: 50%

(Sidebar: due to a severe lack of housing inventory in the first half of 2022, many buyers, likely frustrated with losing in multiple offer situations, resorted to contacting listing agents directly and/or inquiring about homes via yard-signs. What’s more, first-time-homebuyers—due to affordability issues, mostly—accounted for far fewer sales than in prior years. As the marketplace adjusts and “normalizes,” I’d wager REPEAT/REFERRAL percentages will reclaim lost standing.)

If you Google “Best Realtors in {CITY},” for instance, you’ll get a wide array of results: Yelp, Google Reviews, agent-referral sites like MyAgentFinder, Zillow, and more. The tricky part, however, is that those sites hardly ever list any of the same real estate agents, which begs the question: can they be trusted?

Consequently, many consumers simply opt to work with a real estate agent they’ve used in the past or place their confidence in the recommendation of a trusted confidant. And herein lies your opportunity to move your leads from “friend-zone to end-zone,” professionally speaking.

With time, the intent of your leads will mature. That’s your window of opportunity to “win ‘em over”—to become the know-you, like-you, trust-you AGENT-OF-CHOICE.