Open Houses Create Successful Prospecting Opportunities

If Prospecting is the lifeblood of a real estate agent's career, then open houses are the blood cells themselves. No other single activity gives more opportunities to prospect for new customers than the open house.

Frequently, real estate agents try open houses and then give up doing them because they quickly learn that open houses don't work. Though this will sound contradictory to my initial statement, they're right. Open houses don't usually work ... by themselves. Most of the time an agent plans an open house by placing an announcement on the local mls, an Open Sunday sign, places a directional sign or two and lets it rip. If this is your idea of an open house, let me save you some time, GIVE UP!

Open houses offer many proepsecting opportunities that need to be used to not just increase attendance to the open house but to also prospect for other buyers and sellers.

- Think about your sellers. They're looking for the BEST price for their home. Brining in more buyers may bring more than one offer but at least the highest possible offer.

- Think about the neighbors. They're watching the for sale sign in your seller's yard. They are considering selling but haven't found a real estate agent yet. They're waiting to see your efforts.

- Think about other buyers. Often buyers visit open houses long before they're ready to buy.

Prospecting for these groups will increase your customer base dramatically. Having success using open houses takes a systematic approach with a variety of open house invitation and follow up activities.

Follow Up...A Key to SUCCESS

Following up with prospects is a key to being successful in real estate. Having a system that allows regular, consistent, and expected contact with your prospects is a must. When designing a follow up system consider the following five pricniples to get the most from your follow up routine.
1. Reach out on a regular basis. Consistently contact your leads and focus on building your relationship. The more a prospect hears your name, the more likely they will remember it. If you remain in contact with a prospect, they will be more inclined to work with you because you made an effort to stay in touch.

2. Make yourself memorable. Make yourself stand out among other sales associates. Give your prospects a unique item; tell them something interesting about yourself (hobbies or other interests outside of real estate); wear something distinctive so it's easy for potential buyers and sellers to remember you. Provide your prospects with a higher level of service than your competition so you stand out from the rest.

3. Make it personal by being a student of your prospects. Knowing details about your prospects' lives helps you to have a more natural flow to your conversations. People feel more comfortable with someone who can talk to them about leisure activities and common interests. Also, your leads will be very impressed and flattered that you took the time to learn something about them.

4. Give something of value. The purpose of each contact with a prospect should be to offer them something to help them with their real estate needs,and ultimately lead to them working with you. Offer to provide them with new listings that meet their needs, meeting with your Gold Services Manager, the Weichert Brochure or one of the other Weichert Tools at each contact. Get to know the inventory and stay current on the local market statistics such as average days on market, absorption rate, and median sales price in your area so you are ready to talk abut these helpful facts with your prospects.

5. Write it down - Use a system to schedule and organize your activities. Don't let disorganization keep you from following up with your prospects. Put a system in place to organize notes on your prospects and prompt you to call them in a timely and regular manner. Whether your system is online or paper based, the discipline of recording what action to take and when with each prospect will keep the relationship alive. When your prospect is ready to make a move, it's you they will turn to since you were the professional who kept in constant contact, focusing on their needs.