One of the biggest mistakes real estate agents make is not following up the people who attended their home opens.
The next biggest mistake is trying to contact those people on a Monday afternoon or perhaps Monday evening. Why? It’s the worst day to call someone because it’s usually the busiest day of the week – people are getting back into work, dealing with the kids back at school after the weekend, and preparing for the week ahead. Let’s face it, no one wants to receive a phone call from an agent on a Monday, but if you wait until Tuesday or Wednesday, you will unfortunately already have been forgotten.
The solution is to call them back on the day they visited the home open.
There are some sound reasons behind why you should do same day follow-up. Even if you’re doing four to six home opens a day and are absolutely knackered by the end of it, you still need to find the time for the follow up calls. Here’s why:
Most importantly, all the buyers will remember you. They’ve only just met you, you’re fresh in their minds and hopefully you’ve given them something at the home open to remember you by. This is where the law of reciprocity comes into play.
You’ll get useful feedback. It’s quite likely that the buyers viewed a number of properties that day and they will be comparing them all. This will allow you to gain constructive feedback as to how your property compared to the others they saw. They may also be keen to give you a price on where they thought the property would sell and whether or not they were interested. This means the feedback will be a lot more accurate and people will be a lot more willing to provide it.
It’s a better time to chat. Even though it might be a Saturday or Sunday evening, in general people will be in relaxed mode, meaning they will be more likely to talk to you and give you the feedback that you need.
You will leave them with a positive impression. Yes, they may not end up buying that property, but imagine how impressed they will be with your prompt follow up – if we go back to my opening sentence, so many people complain that agents never follow up. Not only have you contacted them after the open, you’ve done so on the same day! How amazing is that! You’ve shown them that you care about getting feedback for your sellers and you care about helping buyers. They’re bound to be impressed and you’re well on your wall to building a relationship with them.
It’s an opportunity. Maybe you received an offer for the home that was open. You might think it’s pointless to call all those buyers, after all you don’t need price or presentation feedback. But those people are still looking for a home and you might have something else that suits. They might also have a home to sell and who better to help them than the agent who made the effort to follow up after the home open.
Same day follow-up is an absolute must, in my experience it is without a doubt, one of the most powerful changes you can make in your business.
This is a completely different and more powerful way to talk to people. It’s definitely not always easy, but usually the hardest things are what get the results at the end of the day.
My Agent Success System includes scripts for following up with buyers after a home open. If you want to know more about this as well as follow-up for sellers and holding fantastic home opens, register now for my upcoming FREE half-day Real Estate Brilliance webinar.