How To Generate Leads As A Real Estate Agent

If you’re wondering how to generate leads as a real estate agent, this article will give you a better understanding of how to think about client acquisition.

Whether you’re a new real estate agent or been in the game for many years, you have probably found out that finding clients is one of the hardest things to do since the market is very competitive.

Think about it, there are quite literally hundreds, if not thousands of other agents you have to compete with.

What makes you stand out from the rest so that a buyer or seller decides you’re the one they should choose?

That is what we cover here. How to stand out from the crowd so that you become top of mind when your prospective buyer or seller needs the the services of a real estate agent.

What Most Real Estate Agents Do To Get Leads And Why It Sucks

Do you hand out tons of business cards? Do you post pics on social media that you just joined Agency ABC and plaster your social media profiles with pictures of your latest property?

Or do you hang out at networking functions (with several other agents) looking for people to market your company and services to?

What about cold calling strangers to see if they need an agent?
Some of these techniques MIGHT work…… for a while.

But here’s the problem with many of these techniques. Most agents do them and because of that you end up in the large crowd of real estate agents and that SUCKS, because now there is nothing that makes you stand out.

I’ve seen it time and time again. Someone becomes a real estate agent and the first thing they do is post a pic on social media that they are now an agent with ABC Realtors.

What follows from there are multiple posts of the new properties they have on the market

I would bet that more often than not, you simply scroll past many of these posts because you have zero interest in it right?

Or some agents will join various Facebook groups and flood the group with posts of their latest property for sale or to rent, hoping to get tons of people calling them up. But that hardly ends up being the result they get

How to generate leads a real estate agent depends on how you position yourself in the market first.

That is step 1

1) The Importance Of Branding Yourself (Not Your Agency)

Ever watched the show “Better Call Saul”?

If you haven’t, you should. Because that is a perfect example of what I’m referring to here. In the show Saul Goodman is a lawyer that makes these funny TV commercials and after some struggle his business begins exploding with clients because of the clever advertising

Most other lawyers don’t do what he does and he bends the rules to gather attention from the the crowd. But eventually it works and his name Saul Goodman becomes a brand that people easily identify from the crowd.

Most real estate agents start their career off working for a real estate agency like Remax or Century 21. And the first thing many do is print business cards alongside the agency name and brand. And this is pretty normal.

That is also the problem…..it’s normal.

Which means more than 95% of real estate agents do this. Many take it further and go onto social media changing their banner pictures and profile pics so everyone is able to see that they are an estate agent with XYZ Real Estate.

The problem with this however is that if your estate agency has 100 agents under the brand, you are now competing with with 99 other agents. I know. Some agencies will separate agents by geographical area so they do not compete.

But you also compete with every other estate agent in your market who works for other agencies. So nobody really stands out.

And potential clients do not really care if your agency has been the number 1 agency in your area for the last 10 years

All they care about is whether you can help them or not

And the way you do this is by standing out from the crowd….by creating your own brand

So how you get leads as a real estate agent is by you becoming the TRUSTED BRAND

Now. I am not suggesting you start your own estate agency ….yet. What I am suggesting is that you can make YOUR NAME your brand

And a brand is not just some fancy logo. It’s your ability to bring value to your potential clients BEFORE they even make use of your services, so that they recognize who you are and begin to build trust in you

We get into this a little more later in this post. For now, just understand that you need to build a brand that revolves around your name, instead of the agency you represent.

During your career as a real estate agent it is likely that you will change agencies a few times. And this is a big reason why you want to build a brand around yourself. So that it does not matter whether you work for agency XYZ or ABC. YOUR brand never changes

Because YOU ARE THE BRAND.

2) Deciding On A Niche (Within The Niche)

This might sound weird. But your next step after deciding on how you will build your brand, is to decide on a niche within your niche.

Now, if you don’t know what a niche is, it’s simple. It’s basically identifying a small group of people within a larger group of people where you will deliver your content

So instead of saying that you assist everyone buy or sell a home, you might select only high end Professional clients like doctors, lawyers, engineers or accountants. Or you could become the agent that helps newly married couples find their perfect started home. Or perhaps you only serve divorced single parents.

Get the idea?

If you are able to select a sub niche like this and become so knowledgeable about the things that your niche is going through, you WILL become the most sought after agent within that niche.

Making a niche selection like this might seem like a risky move but think about it. You will not have much competition from other agents who try to serve all types of clients.

Now….you are standing out from the crowd instead of fitting into the crowd and being like every other estate agent.

3) Create A Lead Generation Machine: By Building An Audience That Knows You

After you have decided to build a brand around your own name within a sub niche of the real estate industry, you are ready to build a lead generation machine

This could be you starting a real estate podcast where you teach people about what to look for when purchasing a home or writing a weekly blog teaching Sellers what buyers look for in a new home.

The key is not to try and sell them anything….yet. The key is giving them valuable informative content that makes them build a connection with you.

How to generate leads as a real estate agent begins to take shape here. You want to “appear” to be everywhere

But you start by being somewhere.

This could be starting a Youtube channel or TikTok channel first and creating content on this one platform.

Then, as you master content creation, you can take the same videos and post them on other social media platforms, which makes it seem like you are everywhere

This allows your name and brand to become known in the marketplace. And once you do this it is almost impossible not to create an online lead generation machine

4) Understand The Problems of That Niche Better Than Anyone Else

The question you might have next is….What content to create

This is where your niche selection above comes into play

If you followed that step and you chose a sub niche like I recommended, you are way ahead of the game now

You see. Someone selling their home because of a divorce has a different motivation or problem compared to someone who is selling their home because they just inherited a large some of cash and wish to upgrade

So if you selected your niche, the next question to ask is “what problems do people within that niche have and how can I help them with that?”

So for example if your niche is newly married couples, you would think about what problems these people have. Things like a limited budget or getting out of their parents home are common problems for this niche.

So you could now create content that explains to them how to start saving for a new home on a tight budget. Educate them on the hidden costs that are a part of purchasing a new home.

All this becomes part of your daily content creation plan

And as you put out more of this content for your niche, they start following you and begin to trust you because you are HELPING them.

Offer them Solutions To These Problems through your content

5) How To Generate Leads As A Real Estate Agent: Capture The Lead!

As you begin producing content and engaging with your audience on social media chats and comments, you reach a point where the leads are simply becoming too difficult to keep track of manually

This is the point where you may want to start creating an email list so that you can communicate with people more easily

It is common for online marketers to know this but not so common for real estate agents

Think about it. If you could have a list of people on your email list who joined that list because of the valuable into that you share, then it does not matter which real estate agency you work for in the future, these people will always maintain a relationship with you

And your email list is the key to making this happen

Your email list will allow you to Nurture The Relationship with your clients and potential clients

Conclusion: How To Generate Leads As A Real Estate Agent

How to generate leads as a real estate agent depends on more that just handing out business cards and announcing on social media that you represent a certain agency.

Sure, you could do that but then you don’t stand out from the crowd and clients have no way of knowing how you can add value to their lives

Remember that nobody cares which agency you represent. All they care about is how you can help them and the way you do that is by standing out from the crowd and getting noticed

As self serving as it may sound, you need ATTENTION from your clients. They need to notice you from the sea of other agents trying to sell them a home

And building your personal brand by creating content that entertains and educates your niche market is the key.

Sincerely

Aslam