Learn how Realtors can create an online ecosystem to cross-market to their various databases.
What is an online ecosystem for Realtors? And how do you create it? Today we are featuring a special podcast episode instead of our usual video. I was the guest on The Weekly Boost, hosted by Ricardo Bueno. We talked about a lot of things (take a listen to the full episode below) but focused in on how to create an online ecosystem.
PODCAST: How to Build an Online Ecosystem for Realtors
You can find all of our The Real Estate Trainer Podcasts here.
Technology as a catalyst for change
Technology will always push the real estate industry forward. It forces us to adapt and pivot the way we do business — and it’s a good thing. It makes us more efficient, effective, and ultimately earn more income. If you can embrace technological leaps, you will be better for it! And, technology can enable you to build an online ecosystem for Realtors in which you can cross-market yourself.
Books to read: Prospect and SOI
If you are familiar with my books, you know that two of the heavy hitters are PROSPECT: The Lead Generation Manual and SOI: Building a Real Estate Agents Sphere of Influence. Between these two books, I cover all the different ways you can generate business in real estate.
My sphere of influence (SOI) book talks about ways to cultivate, grow, and generate business from a group of people that you already know to some degree. Which is great, but very few real estate agents work their SOI purposefully.
Very few agents have a systematic process for working their sphere of influence (SOI) database and as a result, they don’t get the easy repeat/referral business they should be getting. This is actually the reason why a lot of agents come to us at ICC to coach them and hold them accountable to the activities they know they should be doing. As a result, we represent a majority of the top-producing agents, teams, and brokerages across North America.
My other book, PROSPECT, applies to looking for business from people you don’t already know. This kind of lead generation includes FSBOs, Expired Listings, Circle Prospecting, Door Knocking, Online Lead Generation, etc. Prospecting takes more time, in general, because these are leads you need to nurture and grow rapport with.
How to build your sphere of influence (SOI)
If you want to quickly grow your sphere of influence (SOI), starting with your phone is probably the best place. Scroll through your contacts alphabetically and see which people you think would know you by name if you ran into each other. These are the people that belong in your SOI database.
You can also use prospecting to grow your sphere of influence (SOI). Eventually, as you nurture and grow the leads you prospected, they may fall into your SOI as a long term relationship. Your prospecting through online leads, social media, etc. can eventually feed into your SOI database. At ICC, we refer to this as an online ecosystem for Realtors. More on that in a moment.
Of course, it is important to have an annual database contact plan in place. This will ensure that you are making enough contacts with your sphere of influence (SOI). And, it will generate repeat and referral business by keeping you first in mind! This contact plan contains anywhere from 35-40 contacts per year per SOI member. These contacts can include mailers, social media messages, phone calls, texts, holiday cards, etc.
How to create an online ecosystem for Realtors
This is something that we started to implement with our coaching clients after COVID-19 hit in early 2020. The pandemic was the big push that many agents needed to embrace technology and everything innovation the internet has to offer. Here’s how you can create an online ecosystem for Realtors.
- Focus on building up your sphere of influence (SOI) as the base.
- Identify several other sources for prospecting.
- Work all online channels to market yourself. (Facebook, Instagram, online marketing, etc.)
- Develop strategies for communicating with your organic reach online as well as people you don’t know. (i.e. Facebook retargeting ads)
- Market across all channels. If you are marketing across all channels, including your traditional methods of working your SOI and prospecting, people will start to see your name everywhere. (Mailers, yard signs, etc.)
- This is an online ecosystem for Realtors. It builds tremendous mindshare among people in your SOI, and it begins to work on people who don’t know you yet but are seeing your name everywhere.
- You become the dominant agent in your area. Simply by creating an online ecosystem and marketing across all channels (traditional and technological), you saturated your market. You may be viewed as the top agent even if you don’t have the sales to support it (yet!)
Interested in learning more?
Do you have an online ecosystem working for you? Get a free consultation with one of our coaches today. Get an ICC coach in your corner to help you set up a strategy and keep you accountable along the way.
