Sunday, November 3, 2013

Real Estate Leads 101: Take the Pledge

Congratulations, you're a licensed real estate agent! You've completed 2-8 weeks of classwork with some testing and a final exam that went over pretty much everything you will never need or use again. If you were smart, you were collecting real estate leads even as you were taking your courses just by gathering a list of every single person you know by name or face.If you weren't very smart, you simply focused on your courses and learning and figured the real estate leads would come later. You then searched for a real estate office to join and they most likely said "Well, you're breathing, we'll take a chance with you!" They showed you a cubicle, phone, coffee pot, bathroom and told you to have at it! No real estate leads yet.Now you're scratching your head, watching a veteran agent next to you screaming beause he's losing at Checkers on his computer while a group of agents are hanging out for hours reading the paper and STILL complaining about the Sixers trading Iverson to the Nuggets. You haven't heard a word about realty or real estate leads yet. At this point, you cannot help but wonder, "Are these guys on salary and is this all I have to do to make money in real estate? The answer is a loud, resounding NO!Rory Wilfong, a successful agent himself and co-founder of GetMyHomesValue says, "I don't care if you've been a licensed real estate agent for 2 days or 50 years, you probably never took the Real Estate Agents Pledge for real estate leads. If you expect to be successful with your real estate leads and with realty in general, you must take and live by the pledge."The Pledge:I, (State your name), as a licensed real estate agent realize the importance of getting real estate leads, working leads and following up properly with my real estate leads. I also realize that everything I do from this point forward is for the sole purpose of lead generation. Some real estate leads may have some inaccurate information and I must be mature enough to look past that and not immediately proclaim them "bogus" and through a little research or help from others, I can get the information I need to proceed. My pipeline of real estate leads must never run dry because if it does, I will not have the ability to turn those real estate leads into clients and take those clients into settlement. As such, I will not be able to make money and I will begin to blame others for my failures.I accept the fact that most real estate leads from all of my lead generation efforts are not going to produce immediate results however exceptional my follow-up system is and my pipeline of real estate leads will take on a wide range of settlement time, anywhere from next month, 6 months, next year, 2 years or even 5 years from now. I also must continually contact a lead until I actually get an appointment to help them with their real estate needs. This contact process will involve several phone calls, several knocks on the lead's door and several mailings in order to achieve my goal of getting the appointment.I will work with an Accountability Partner/Coach so I do not become LAZY with my real estate leads. I will learn to overcome my fear of rejection and knocking on doors so I will never become SCARED of my real estate leads. I will educate myself regularly through various means for betters sales, customer service and marketing techniques so I will never become STUPID with my real estate leads. I will exhaust every effort (within my means) to make myself memorable to as many people as possible for when they have a real estate needs. My real estate career is a business and I need to treat it as such and put all the correct business components in place to increase my chances of success. I realize that real estate leads are the lifeline of my business and without them I will fail... and failure is NOT an option!It's recommended you read this pledge to work your real estate leads every morning before you start your day. Remember, failure is not an option!