After the holiday season passes, there will be a renewed need to reach out to expired listings in Manhattan. Perhaps one of your goals for the New Year is to prospect to more listings, or to turn a higher percentage into clients. One way to ensure those goals become reality is to follow up. And then once you’ve followed up, follow up again! When you set out to prospect and follow up, you’ll want to have systems in place to help keep you motivated and organized.
1. Have a follow up system in place.
After you call an expired listing right after it pops up in your database, how long do you wait to call again? If you reach them and there’s little to no interest, how do you proceed? What kind of mail are you sending to follow up? These and other questions will get you started thinking about how to best follow up with listing leads. It’s best to keep following up no matter what system you decide on. Called already? Drop a postcard in the mail. Gotten a bit of interest? Send out a personalized letter detailing ideas for their specific home.
You want to keep yourself organized in all the following up aspects as well. It’s easy with all the calls you’re making and emails going out to become frazzled or lose track of who you’ve called and how many times. Keep a spreadsheet (or whatever way works for you) of who you’ve contacted, who you’ve followed up with and how. And try to keep your follow up system the same for each listing to help streamline it.
2. Implement prompts to help after a challenging call.
It’s important to have prompts to keep you inspired and motivated. Especially after you get off of a call that was less than pleasant. Of course, these expired listing sellers often have reason to be wary of real estate agents; however, this doesn’t excuse rude or harsh behavior. And it can be difficult to pick up the phone again.
One idea is to display your favorite quotes or pictures of the goals you are working towards above your work area or desk. Having these images there while you’re on a difficult call will help keep you centered and focused.
3. Get a quality script to keep memorizing to build confidence.
Keep working on those scripts in the meantime to give yourself little breaks from prospecting. The more fluid your answers and information, the better. The more comfortable you are with the specs, statistics and information you’re passing along, the more it frees up your mind to improvise when needed.
4. Continually tweak letter template to have on hand.
This step is a great one to help you follow up, especially on the leads that seem a bit more promising. Have an expired listing letter already written and on hand: a template at least. Then tweak it each time a listing shows interest. Include details of their home and what specific ideas you have in mind for their property. Then you’re good to send it out the same day that you’ve spoken with them to ensure it arrives quickly while the conversation is still fresh in their minds.
Following up with expired listing leads is one of the most important steps to gain more clients. Craft a plan that works for you and stay motivated and organized.
*ExpLiMO provides high quality leads on a daily basis and offers a unique opportunity for Manhattan real estate agents to prospect for expired listing leads and grow their business exponentially.