This is not the time to sit on the sidelines and wait for things to happen. This issue we’re facing now will be resolved and you can either have a pipeline of buyers and sellers who will be ready to do something at that time or you’ll be sifting and sorting through the list of prospects that are ready to do something and be another 60 to 90 days away from a sale. The choice seems pretty simple to me.
Work hard now and build for the not-so-distant future.
2. Work on your skills: One of the main reasons that such a large number of real estate agents fall out of the market when there’s a downturn in the market is because they don’t have the skillset to generate, and compete for, business when things get tough.
The things you need to say and the conversations you need to have with sellers and buyers are tougher, more involved, and even more challenging than they are when the market is chugging along at a good pace.
If you’re not able to navigate a sales call at a time when the objections are tougher — and more prevalent — you are going to have a hard time finding people to work with in any downturn in the market. To that end, it’s incumbent on you to
spend extra time learning what to say, when to say, and how to say it. Take the time to role play, listen to your calls and even seek feedback from others on what you can do to improve. The amazing byproduct of working in this manner is that when the market does improve, your ability to convert will be so much better than your competition that you’ll be able to do even better then.
3. Be present in your market. When things get overwhelming, it’s a natural response to disappear for a while and get out of the public eye, so to speak. And, while it’s not necessarily a bad thing to hunker down from time to time, it’s really important that you remain visible and present to the people on your team and in your market.
Outplacement firm, Randstad Risesmart, had this to say about being visible in a crisis: “In times of crisis, whether internal or external, the best leaders make themselves highly visible. When employees are uneasy, nervous, or upset, they want to see and hear from their leader. Leaders should remain highly visible and attempt to add some perspective to what’s going on inside or outside of the organization.
Visibility and simply showing up go a long way toward building trust and fostering relationships across your team.”
If you have a team, make sure you have regularly scheduled meetings with them so that they can see you and you can guide them. For prospects, past clients, sphere and the people in your marketplace, make sure you’re recording videos or going live on Facebook on a consistent basis. Give market updates, keep people in the loop on what they can and can’t do regarding buying a home, bring some human interest into your presentations, etc. No matter what it is, make sure you do it consistently. You want people to see you as a leader and someone who shows up no matter what the current market environment is at the time. Doing so will help them connect with you now and want to stay connected with you when things get better.
4. Work on yourself. Business and life coach Gary DeRodriquez maintains that “life doesn’t happen to us, it happens to us.” More specifically, we get back in life what we give out in terms of effort, energy, emotions...virtually everything.
What this means is that even if you’re stressed, overwhelmed, scared about what’s going on, you still need to push through every day. As leaders, we need to make sure
we’re working on ourselves, becoming more confident, more educated and more well rounded as people and business owners.