How Realtors Build a Client Pipeline during the Coronavirus Crisis

https://youtu.be/FeP7T3DLdKU

Clients aren’t comfortable going out and viewing homes.

Clients don’t want to list their homes or show their homes.

Clients want to wait to buy or sell.

Suddenly, we’re moving into an era with the coronavirus where we must be sensitive. However, you are a real estate professional, and you still need to earn a living. So how do we adapt to make sure we are helping our customers while maintaining our livelihood? We need to shift our mindset and change our mentality to filling a pipeline. Imagine it’s October 31st. You bump into someone that wants to move, and they need to list their home and buy a new home. You might talk to them, and they’ll tell you. “I’m not ready right now.” They may have an excuse like, “I’ve got a lot of family coming for Thanksgiving next month and then Christmas and the holidays. We’re going out of town to see my grandparents.” They might say, “We may list our home sometime next year, maybe even in the spring. That would be more convenient for us.”

Now, we can work to try to increase their urgency and show them some of the benefits of moving sooner. There are many instances where you’re just going to have to wait. It’s their timeline. Prioritize their interests, their wants, and their desires before our own. We can work with this and build a pipeline. We can accomplish more buyer leads and more listing leads. We can stay in touch with them while we nurture them over that period. In this example, the wait is until spring. In our current real-life situation, we may be nurturing leads from now until fall. Regardless, in that window of time, we try to add value to them so that when we can – we get past any obstacles. Building a pipeline means we can hit the ground running when our clients are ready. We can have many clients prepared for when this period passes. That’s how we are going to have to look at this coronavirus.

Now it is important to note, we still see a lot of activity in the market, agents are adapting, and people and showing properties virtually at a very high level across the country right now. However, we are going to have to try to adjust to the new environment of real estate because there’s going to be an increasing number of clients that are not comfortable with showings. As the virus spreads, as the fears grow, and as people take more and more precautions and stay in their homes, as people avoid human contact and practice social distance, we will adapt.

IcenhowerCoaching.com will be frequently be putting out valuable content including videos and other training materials about the coronavirus and how we can work to generate leads during this time. We are working around the clock to help our followers on topics like nurturing clients and adding value. Be sure that you are a subscriber and join our Facebook group, “The Real Estate Agent Roundtable”.

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Our clients are using the Inventory Pipeline Tracker to make sure they are actively filling their pipeline. It tracks listing inventory, buyer inventory, pending inventory, active listings, listing agreements signed, listings waiting to go active. Listings waiting to go active could be repairs, photos, staging, etc. The most important thing is keeping track of listing leads we know they will go live sometime this year. We may not have a signed agreement yet, and this is the number we want to grow. It could be several months before this coronavirus blows over. In the meantime, what we want to do is get listing agreements signed right now. We can do a virtual listing consultation with them via a zoom video conference, or if you’re both comfortable, you might do a standard listing consultation face-to-face. It may be months before you list but try to get a listing agreement signed and down the road, you will have that when they are ready. For all the listing leads you were not able to meet or get a signed contract from, you still want to count those as listing leads.

As you build your pipeline, you can nurture these leads. We can stay in contact with them. Set them up on listing alerts for their neighborhoods. Then they can see the prices homes sell for what amenities they have by looking through the photos. Most of your MLSs have an auto prospecting or listing e-alert email system or listing emails so that clients can be aware and are kept up to date through this process. E-alerts also give you a reason to continue to call them, contact them, text them, work with them on social media, stay in front of them, so you maintain that mind share throughout the crisis. Do the same thing with potential buys and get buyer agency agreements signed if you can.

Stay motivated and build this pipeline like its winter. Get people in your pipeline and do what our coaching clients do with their team! Meet virtually and add this pipeline review to your agenda. Please make sure all the agents on the team are growing their pipelines, and we’re holding ourselves accountable. Make sure we’re staying in contact with these people. We’re nurturing these leads, and we are continually staying first of mind with all our potential buyer and seller leads throughout the process. We are hopeful that even with this significant setback, by the end of this year in all likelihood, the same amount of people are going to buy and sell, so make sure you are the person they choose. Add value for your clients, stay focused on your pipeline, and stay positive and we will finish the year strong.