Real Estate Team Strategy in a Slow Market

Real Estate Team Strategy in a Slow Market - Learn how teams stay productive and generate business when sales are slow in the off season, when inventory is low, or when home sales are slow.

What is your real estate team strategy for when the market is slow?

Any time that sales are slow, I think of a bear hibernating. The hibernation is the slow season. Before hibernating, a bear will eat a ton of food. The bear is preparing for a time when he won’t be eating for a while.

The same goes for a slow time in real estate. The real estate team strategy to get you through a slow market, whatever the cause, starts with three key components.

1. Capitalize your business. Have 6 months reserve in your operating expense account.

2. Adjust your mindset. Move from scarcity to abundance.

2. Stockpile business in your lead pipeline.

VIDEO: Real Estate Team Strategy in a Slow Market

What do you do when business is slow?

If you are developing a real estate team strategy to get you through a downward turn in the market, this is essential.

Remember that what Realtors do — sell houses — is essential for human survival. Shelter is a basic human need. And for that reason, when a downturn in the market happens, it always corrects itself. Sometimes, fairly quickly.

Also remember that real estate is seasonal. In the winter, some markets see a very dramatic slowdown. This is to be expected, and through careful real estate team strategy, you can prepare to not only survive these times, but thrive and experience continual growth while your competition falls by the wayside.

Be preventative: capitalize your business with this real estate team strategy

A common knee-jerk reaction when business is slow is to cut expenses. On the opposite side of the spectrum, some people invest more and double down to get through the slow season.

Instead of living in reaction to the market, you need to be proactive and set your business up for success, no matter the market. If you are operating your business based on the real estate market, boy do I feel sorry for you. That is stressful!

During a low-sales period, do you have the reserves you need to get you through? Dave Ramsey, probably one of the most conservative guys on the planet, says you need 6 months of operating expenses saved in your reserves to get you through hard times.

This allows you to lose money as a business and not need to lay off personnel and slash your expenses. You can weather the storm and resist riding that awful real estate market roller coaster.

Don’t cut muscle. When the market turns back up again, you won’t have the essential ingredients to get back on track for growth. Minimize cuts as much as possible.

Real estate teams need to have an operating account and a secondary account that is capitalized so you keep reserves on tap for when they are needed. Stop running your team by default — reactive to what is going on in the market — and start running your team by design.

Don’t cut muscle. When the market turns back up again, you won’t have the essential ingredients to get back on track for growth. Minimize cuts as much as possible.
Brian Icenhower

The best real estate team strategy: adopt an abundant mindset

You need to think in a different way. You need to change your mindset.

It’s easy to fall into a scarcity mindset. Whenever the season changes and the market slows, some real estate agents are reactive. They panic and scramble. They work themselves harder than ever, and they feel stressed and overwhelmed.

Agents want business NOW. So, it’s natural to panic during a slowdown.

Instead of going to that place with your mindset, you need to adopt an abundant mindset.

If you have the real estate team strategy in place to provide for these market slowdowns, your people will have the systems to keep them afloat. They won’t have to stress about survival. They will be allowed to focus on continued growth, even during the slow season.

Take your real estate team off the real estate roller coaster and create an environment that fosters an abundant mindset.

Real estate team strategy: be prepared by pipelining future business

This is probably the most powerful real estate team strategy for getting through a slow market.

If your team has a system that helps them pipeline future business when the market is strong — especially during the busy season each year — they will have the security of having leads while other real estate agents are starving.

Your team members need to pipeline as many people in the off season that need to buy or sell in the next 12 months as humanly possible.

That is the key! Your people need to switch from the idea of “I need a client right now that wants to buy or sell” to “I need to be working with as many buyers and sellers as possible in my pipeline.”

It truly is a numbers game. If you are working with only two buyers in your pipeline during the slow season, you’re in trouble. But if you have 30 buyers and sellers in your pipeline, there’s a good chance that at least one of them will go to contract each week.

If you have a bigger inventory of buyers and sellers, you are increasing your odds. You are pipelining enough business to keep you bringing in commission income even during the slow season.

Real estate team strategy: if not now, when?

If you don’t try to get business right now, when are you going to? In spring and summer when you’re busy handling your clients?

Most people don’t spend much time trying to get new business from the people they know (or even the people they don’t yet know). Now’s the time to do it. You have plenty of time on your hands. The activities you do right now during the slow season can prepare you for tremendous growth for the rest of the year.

The winter is the perfect time to generate more business. What you do in the off season is what builds up your pipeline for a huge spring and summer.

The activities you do right now during the slow season can prepare you for tremendous growth for the rest of the year.
The winter is the perfect time to generate more business.
Brian Icenhower

Real estate team strategy for leaders

If you are the leader of your team, the real estate team strategy you create will make or break your team during the slow season. Here is a recap of some high-level strategies that you can begin to implement immediately.

Focus your people on the lead generating activities they need to do right now in the slow season.
Prepare your real estate team strategy and insure that your operating expenses are stockpiled to get you through the downturn.
Remind your people to grow their inventory pipeline.
Keep them in a positive, abundant mindset as they prepare the leads that they will harvest come spring and summer.
Celebrate the agents that have a lot of people in their pipeline.
Meet regularly to go over your team dashboard and keep on top of team member metrics.
Motivate team members with friendly team contests for adding leads to agent pipelines.

FREE DOWNLOAD: Inventory Pipeline

Today, we are giving subscribers a free copy of our Inventory Pipeline. This spreadsheet will help your agents and your overall real estate team strategy. Be sure to watch the video at the beginning of this blog to learn more about how to develop a real estate team strategy.

Want to learn more?

Read The High-Performing Real Estate Team. You can buy Brian Icenhower’s best-selling book on Amazon.
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