Home sales and purchases tend to slow during the fourth quarter as the holiday season revs up and families leave summer behind for the daily grind of school and work. To keep your real estate business running in high gear, you should leverage this downtime to focus on key areas that will help you grow when the market heats up again. Here’s how you can stay productive during the slow season so you’ll be ready to take advantage of new opportunities come spring.
Crunch the numbers. Now is a great time to thoroughly run over your numbers for the year and ask yourself some key questions. Are you pleased with what you’ve accomplished so far? Are there places you can improve to reap greater financial rewards? Once you have a clear picture of your performance, you will know where to focus your efforts going forward. With that said, even if you are exceptionally pleased with your numbers during the first three quarters, you shouldn’t use that as an excuse to rest on your laurels until the year ends.
Try to drum up some business. Although the real estate industry is notorious for slowing down during the winter, hard-working agents can still move inventory. Since many agents tend to take a step back during the fourth quarter, you will face less competition. Set aside a couple of uninterrupted hours every day for active lead generation, not passive tasks. Place phone calls, text your leads and write thank you notes to recent clients.
Increase your knowledge base. Take the opportunity to brush up on industry information and make sure you can answer questions from clients. If you have a blog, use it to publish informative, relevant content that will position you as an industry expert. Take classes and attend conferences where you can gain knowledge and connect with key players within the industry.
Engage your audience. By doing an aggressive marketing push right at the end of your busy season, you will be bringing in leads that won’t be ready to buy for several months. Buying a house is rarely a fast process, and people want time to consider all of their options. If you’ve had a successful year so far, invest some of your profits in marketing efforts. Write a blog post about the advantages of selling or buying at the end of the year, and target customers who’ve indicated they will be buying within the next three to six months. You should also take this opportunity to get social accounts up and running to engage your followers.
Stay consistent. Highly effective people don’t wake up feeling motivated every single day. To reach their goals, they put in a reasonable amount of work on a consistent basis, even when they don’t particularly feel like it. Instead of waiting for inspiration to strike, try to dedicate a specific amount of time to your business and marketing strategy every single day. Over time, this will build into compelling results that can help boost your business when things pick up again. As with most things, consistency is key to avoiding complacency.
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