By Jason Blackburn
The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time.” Joe Girard
As a coach and trainer (and someone that has been a salesperson since I was 12), I am always struck by the number of agents that are not reaching their business goals, but insist on working by referral only. While I agree that referrals are extremely important to the growth of an agent’s business, the reality is that if you only try to generate business “By Referral Only” you are headed for disaster. In fact, the top income producers in real estate only averaged 1 out of 4 closed transactions were the result of a referral. Here is the reality from NAR’s 2010 Member Profile.
For many agents, working by referral only is a comfortable but unsuccessful way to run a real estate business. Real estate sales gurus who are more concerned with selling you their system then how to be a successful real estate agent will actually tell agents that other agents that are cold calling, door-knocking, and doing other selling activities that help them meet new people through hard work and determination were crazy and wasting their time.
Think about it, have you ever seen a “referral guru” present you with this slide above?
There is nothing further from the truth and the most successful sales people follow simple steps that yield consistent sales growth year after year regardless of the type of market. The steps are simple and ones that by referral only agents are missing out on:
So feel free to work only by referral and spend your days calling and meeting only with the people you know and love. But, that is only one-third of the steps to success and when a real estate market and economy are both in decline as they are now, referrals from past clients and sphere of influence drop considerably.
The steps above been proven by the results of those agents that earn six-figures . The goal in executing each step is to build a high trust relationship with new people, friends, family, and referrals. This takes time, effort, and determination. New relationships do not automatically have a high trust level. You will need to prove your commitment and value to these people.
The question you have to answer going forward is, “How am I going to meet new people and convince them to work with me?” There are lots of ways to do this and you need to commit to trying multiple ways before you abandon the idea altogether.
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