Prospecting seems to be almost a dirty word in the real estate sales arena, but prospecting is an integral part of the sales process. Before a sale can be made, some type of prospecting must be done. Realistic agents know that there is no way to avoid the necessity of prospecting; successful agents wouldn't avoid it if they could. Prospecting is not only essential; it is one of the most profitable, inexpensive ways to increase your business, and there are many different ways to go about it. Prospecting doesn't always have to be done over the phone or in person. It doesn't have to be cold-calling, expireds, FSBOs or knocking on doors. But I have found no path to success in sales that doesn't involve some form of prospecting.
I have seen everything available to agents today, and I know that there are a lot of speakers and trainers trying to sell the "magic system" that will be prospecting-free. Unfortunately, there is no "magic system," no place on earth where success in sales precedes the work of prospecting. There is an old saying: "The only place where success is found before work is in the dictionary." Zig Ziglar said, "Life is like a cafeteria line - first you pay, then you get to eat." Zig is exactly right. We all have to pay the price of hard work before we receive the reward. Any one of us who assumes that we get to enjoy the cafeteria line of life without payment is mistaken. To think that there can be selling without prospecting is pure folly.
The good news is that prospecting, although it is hard work, does not have to be a nightmare, even for agents who have struggled with it in the past. There are ways to improve your success in prospecting. The secret is to find the techniques and systems that work best for you. There are more and less confrontational ways to prospect; some methods require a higher tolerance for rejection than others do. Not everyone should pick up the phone and call expireds or FSBOs. But we should all be calling and training our past clients to work for us in generating new business. We should all prospect our past clients, with whom we already have positive relationships, for friends, neighbors, and co-workers that we can help.
Just as you have to train yourself to put the necessary time and effort into prospecting, you must train your past clients in order to generate referrals from them. Sending out mailers monthly will put you in front of your past clients; only clients who are thinking of you can send other business to you. To really drive referrals your way, pick up the phone and call your past clients. Maintain your relationship with people you have helped, and tell them where to look for more people you can help. Focus them in on one of the spheres of people whom they know. You can't give them the whole world as search parameters; they will be overwhelmed and unable to think of anyone in particular. Instead, zero them in on one area, such as their church, their neighbors, their family, their co-workers, their friends or their kids' soccer teams. When you do this, they will actually think of people, instead of saying, "I don't know of anyone." Over time, you can train your past clients to keep their antennae up for you and your services.
Working with your past clients is one method of prospecting that does not require nerves of steel. But like any method, it does require the discipline to do it, and to do it regularly; and a new discipline in turn requires motivation. Agents sometimes don't prospect even past clients because they don't see how the time spent prospecting will pay off for their businesses. The perceived pain of prospecting, then, becomes far greater than its rewards. Since they can not see the benefit, the thinking goes, why even attempt the perceived pain? This is the same reason why the American public is overweight and eats a high-fat diet. Most people see little benefit at 30, 40, 50 to eating right and exercising regularly. Unfortunately, in their late 50s and early 60s they pay the price for their lack of self-control. People need to see the benefit in order to be motivated to make the change.
The biggest benefit an agent receives from prospecting is the ability to select the client. An agent who prospects enough can qualify -- or rather, disqualify -- the client who is a poor match with the agent's business style and philosophy. For example, I found that it was not in anyone's interest for me to try to work with clients who were unrealistic about themselves, their homes, the value of their homes, or what my job was. Rather than wasting my time and theirs trying to change the clients or my business to create a better fit, I simply excluded unsuitable clients from my life and business. An added benefit was that my staff also didn't have to deal with these people, which was a blessing for them. I could exclude these clients because I was able to choose from many better-suited clients, whom I found through extensive prospecting.
Now I want to be perfectly clear: The fact that I excluded these people did not mean that they were bad people. It just meant that I couldn't help them without dramatically compromising my philosophy. When you prospect with regularity and produce enough leads to disqualify people, you can focus on those whom you can help, and be true to those clients and to your belief system. Being true to your belief system, in turn, leads to less stress and to more income, happier clients, more referrals, and ultimately less time spent working. These benefits are more than worth the struggle to create the discipline of regular prospecting.
There is no path to success that goes around prospecting, but the path through prospecting will take you to a level of success that you had only imagined. Take the powerful step to prospect daily so that you can run your business and your life as you intend for them to be run, and you will have found the magic answer to sales success.
