How Agents Can Thrive In Face of Coronavirus

Summary

While most real estate agents are in trouble because of the economic downfall, you have a choice and the power to prosper in these trying times.

Here are 3 Key Strategies you can implement now to thrive in this crisis:

1. Talk to more people. Focus on motivated sellers & buyers.
2. Care and show encouragement. Send out texts with positive messages. Continue building relationships with the people you know by sowing the seeds of goodwill & creating Top-Of-Mind-Awareness(TOMA) with them.
3. Focus on immediate opportunities:

Investors. They have money to buy property at any time.

Notice of Defaults (NOD’s). The more unemployed people are failing on their loan payments, the more opportunities you have to help them sell.

Vacant properties. Owners are motivated to sell quickly because of the dropping market

AirBnB, Vacation properties. The sooner sellers take action, the more money they get. Be the best agent to get them the best results

Creative financing. e.g., Lease-to-own.

Nobody knows how long this crisis will last, but you don’t have to be one of those agents who are in trouble. Look for ways to help people buy or sell, and add value without B.S. Always expect YES, and you will thrive.

Full transcript

While most agents are in trouble, the good news is you don’t have to be one of those agents.

Hi everybody, it’s Kevin Ward, the founder of Yes Masters Real Estate Success Training, helping you get more YES and more successes in your business and in your life. And let’s be straight. Most agents, real estate agents across North America and probably in a lot of countries are in trouble. The economy is at a standstill, and in a lot of our states and a lot of our cities, agents cannot even show properties. They can’t do open houses, they can’t show properties, they can’t prospect, they can’t door knock, and they are stuck. And most of them are going to curl up in a ball and pray for this to blow over. And the good news is, it will blow over. The question is how much of what they have now will be lost before it blows over? Because we’ve never seen this before.

When I got into real estate, I got in real estate in 1998, 2000 we had the dot-com bubble burst and everybody freaked out. Things were tough for a while and then it came back to normal. 9/11 came, 2001, 9/11, bam. My office was 10 minutes, less than 10 minutes from the DFW Airport, American Airlines, everything was shut down. American Airline employees were affected dramatically. My market was effected dramatically for a matter of months. And then came the 2008 economic collapse. Everybody’s market was affected dramatically for months and for years and yet we’ve never seen anything like this. It is faster, it is more vicious. Virtually, it has shut down the economy. And while most agents are in trouble, the good news is you don’t have to be one of those agents. And today I’m going to talk about some actionable strategies.

I recently did a free live training for real estate agents across the country on what you can do to thrive right now in the face of coronavirus. I’m going to share with you, just in summary, I’m going to share with you some actionable strategies on where are the immediate opportunities right now for you to get business in the coming weeks and months for you to continue to get business and convert that business as this continues to unfold. And it’s a moving target, things are continually unfolding, so if you’re watching this a month after I posted it, there’s things that are going to continue to unfold, and so my promise is I will continue to bring great content and training and updates on how you can adjust as this market situation unfolds. Not only the pandemic but beyond the pandemic, into the aftereffects that are going to be with us for a while.

So, fact, the economy has shut down. Fact, no one knows how long it will last. Fact, it will affect the real estate market dramatically. Fact, you have choices and you have the power to do something to dramatically impact your personal situation over the coming weeks and months as this unfolds about whether or not you’re going to be successful and make money in the real estate industry while a lot of agents aren’t making money. So what I want to talk about on this video is just simply three key strategies that you can implement right now. Three strategies you can implement right now to continue to put points on the scoreboard, move the ball down the field and put dollars in your bank account as a real estate agent.

Strategy number one, and this is all going back to the fundamentals. Strategy number one is talk to more people. Talk to more people. Talk to more people, prospect, lead generate. And yet as you talk to people, understand that the conversations are going to be somewhat different. And if your strategy has been cold calling, as an example, I think right now cold calling would be like … I wouldn’t do it. I think it’d be the last resort. I just think … I think right now, you intrude into people’s life. And you’re soliciting business and they’re going like, “Are you nuts?” I just don’t think you’re going to gain credibility and gain much ground. If you talk to enough people and you were to cold call or circle prospect, which is a new term for it. If you were to circle prospect and not people, yes you are probably going to find a deal or an opportunity. I just think there are better ways to do it. I’m not against it. I just think there are better ways to do it.

Here’s what you focus on as you’re talking to people. I think you talk to the people that you know. I think you add value to people. I’m going to do that in strategy number two, but here’s the thing. What I’m looking for are two things. Number one, I am looking for clearly motivated sellers and strong motivated buyers, and there are those out there right now and they’re going to continue to be out there. I’ve been watching across the country and looking at the MLS’s from my coaching members who send me reports of how many new listings are coming on the market, how many sells are being pended, and in the last two weeks, even when we been in shutdowns, in lots of cases in legal shutdowns where the city or the mayor of the city or the County or the state has said, “No, you cannot do things you used to do.” They are still … Listings are still going active and sales are still being done.

So don’t … If you’re one of those who goes like, “We’re all screwed. Nobody’s buying, nobody’s selling.” That’s your little world and it’s your little reality. Your reality is not the world’s reality. Just to be crystal clear on this. So here’s the deal. There are people that are still going to be motivated to buy, motivated to sell. I’ve got one coaching member as an example, Michelle Beaver in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that yesterday she had an investor. The investor’s driving around looking at vacant properties and he sees five … And he looks at five or six vacant properties on the market right now. She isn’t showing them, he just goes looks at him, said, “I want to make offers on these five.” So she’s writing him sheets, sends them to him and signs then, they’re submitting.

Okay, right there five … And now he may only get one or two of those deals. But the bottom line is there is a … Sellers out there have vacant houses they’re trying to sell and there’s an investor, a buyer out there that’s wanting to buy them. And they’re going to do everything virtually, virtually. Virtually virtual. There you go.

All right, so here’s the other thing. So I’m looking for that. However, there’s also a lot of people that you’re going to talk to, especially your relationships, the people that you know that … They’re not doing anything right now. Everything is on hold in their world. So they were like, “We can’t buy, we can’t sell, but we want to sell, we want to downsize, we want to move. As soon as we get past this, we’re going to be doing this, we’re going to buy as soon as we know the job is secure,” or whatever, “We’re going to take action.” So a lot of the strategy right now is you talk to more people, is you are sowing the seed. You are building relationships, you are increasing top of mind awareness, and you are increasing good will.

So if you can’t be a Hunter right now, you can be a farmer. If you can’t go out and hunt for deals that are immediate business, you can be a farmer and sowing the seed of finding people, and so you’re filling the pipelines of leads, and future leads so that when the market unleashes again and we get things … Get back to business, then you’ve got people that you can go out and help right away. You’ve got listings you can put on the market right away. You get buyers or you can go out and help buy right away. Because there’s going to be a lot of pent up demand. There’s going to be a lot of impact. And we don’t know how significant it’s going to be, but there’s going to be a lot of that.

Number two. So number one is you’ve got to talk to more people. Just talk, ask, ask for business, ask, “Who do you know that I can help?” and so forth. “When do you think you might be looking to make a move?” Have those conversations and don’t be pushy. Be polite. And this leads to number two, and that is care more than ever before and share encouragement. A lot of your conversations, especially with the people that you know is just giving them positive energy. Just giving encouragement, just giving … Helping brighten their day. Because when you do that you’re going to build Goodwill. You are going to build top of mind awareness so they’re thinking of you.

I’m going to give you one example. I have received multiple texts like this from different people. Texts or messages or Facebook messages instead of … This is from Cindy Lam. So Cindy Lam in Beverly Hills is our personal rep. Our sales person at Dolce Gabbana in Beverly Hills. And I bought some stuff. I bought a tuxedo there a while back and so I just get this text message today. And this text message from Cindy Lam said, “Hi Kevin, I hope you are doing well and are safe. I wanted to share a great Vogue interview, Vogue Magazine, a Vogue interview about Mr. Dolce, about the Corona virus in Italy.” Very relevant, got my attention, and she goes like, “It is a good positive read and refreshing during these times. Heart, Cindy Lam, Dolce Gabbana, Beverly Hills.”

That’s the text message. And here’s the thing, she’s not selling anything to me, but she just reminded me who she is. Top of mind awareness. So when I need clothes and I’m like, “I’m going to buy a new suit or I want to go whatever, spend way too much money on something,” I’m going to go like, “Oh Cindy from Dolce Gabbana.” And every time we’d go to Beverly Hills we drop by Dolce Gabbana, or we walk by it, I’m like … I will not forget her because in a tough time, when you know their business is suffering because people … When things are like this are happening there, I’m sure the store’s closed right now. She’s still doing business. She’s still working, she’s still building relationships. She is caring and sharing encouragement.

And you do that, especially to your personal circle, to all the people that know … I’ve been talking about, if you’ve been following me on Facebook or social media, I’ve been talking about, one of the things you can do is send text messages to all the people you know, just saying, “Hey, just want to send you some positive energy vibes. Hope you’re well.” And that caring and sharing is still sowing the seed. It may not mean a deal this week or this month, but this is going to pass. And when it passes, you want people lining it up and you want that top of mind awareness. So they’re thinking of you and they’re more loyal to you because they like you more and they know that you care about them even in tough times.

And then number three. And that is focus on immediate opportunities for business right now. So this is very tactical. Where are the opportunities in the coming weeks and months to get business? Because I said, focus on finding motivated, strong, motivated sellers and well-qualified motivated buyers. Where do you find them? So here are the places that you’ll be finding it right now and in the weeks to come.

Number one, investors. Investors are awesome. Investors have money and … A lot of them do. Not all of them do, but a lot of them do, and they can buy any time. So number one is you need to build a pocket full of investors. I’m going to go into strategies later, but we go into strategies in our coaching on how do you find these investors, how do you build credibility with them and how do you help them? So number one though is focused on finding investors. There’s going to be a lot of vacant, ugly properties out there that they are going to want to buy. So find investors, build relationships with investors, work with investors.

Number two, Notice Of Defaults (NOD’s). People that are not able to make their loan payments. We’re going to have people that aren’t employed and I’m not … This is a horrible situation. Nobody wishes it, but they have to move. They lose their job, they can’t make the payments. They’re going to have to move. Now the good news for you, the good news in a sense for them, is unlike 2007-2008-2009 almost all of the NOD’s back in that day, when I was selling real estate, almost every NOD was upside down, which meant they owed more than the house is worth. As the market collapsed and prices drop, they had zero equity because many of them had gone in with no money down. So there was no equity, no room, and they were busted up. The worst part was, when they left they got no money out of it, under most in a lot of cases, there was … And it was a painful, long process. Because you had to get bank approval, you’re going through all the loss mitigation and all that kind of stuff.

So it takes three, four, five months to close a deal. For you it’s a nightmare, for them it was a nightmare, for everybody it was a nightmare. The good news is now a lot of people that have bought, they may lose their job and they may have to sell, but the good news is they have equity, because they actually put 20% down. They had to actually be able to finance it, and the market has continued to appreciate in most of your markets. So they’re going to have some equity so they can put their house in the market, sell it now, and you get paid. The deal closes on time. It’s not a long drawn out thing, and they have equity, so they actually get to collect some money at the end and move on with their life. So there’s going to be a ton of opportunities, especially the worse the economy gets, the longer this drags out and the more unemployment there is, more people lose their jobs and all that. Again, I hate that we wish you well, hope it doesn’t happen, but if it does, that is going to be an opportunity for you to help people and gain value from them.

Next, vacant properties. If a house is sitting empty right now, somebody’s bleeding money with that vacant house. That is a motivated … Unless they have plans for it or whatever. But so many of those vacant houses, those people, all of a sudden their motivation just went up because they’re looking at it and going like, “Oh no, the market may drop and I may start losing more money and it’s sitting there vacant.” When the market’s going up, it’s sitting there vacant, they’re paying taxes on it, insurance, costs them a little bit of money, but they’re also like, “Yeah, but it’s appreciating. I’m good.” Now they’re looking at it and going, “Wait a second. If the housing market goes down now, a little or a lot, I could be in trouble.” And so you have to look at the worst case scenario, and for them the odds are, probability is that the house it going to be worth less, so it not only are they losing money in their monthly expenses, but they’re also going to lose money in their equity, and so they’re going to be motivated so quickly.

Next, vacation homes, vacation properties, vacation rentals, AirBnBs, second homes. There’s a lot of people across America that have invested, and they got second and third homes. If you’re in a vacation market and that kind of thing, it’s going to be a blessing and a curse, there’s going be a lot of people selling. Now the bad thing is those are likely to drop. The prices are likely to drop quickly, which is bad for sellers, great for buyers. So the sooner those sellers take action, the more likely they are to get the most money out possible. So your being there and you reaching out to those people and being proactive on this and having these conversations with them about what could happen next … And you’re here to help people that need it. These are people that own a house, they need to sell it, they need the most money out of it, they need the best results, they need any professional agent that can help them get the best results.

All right, so all of those are areas of immediate opportunity. Now here’s some other things that are becoming creative financing. If you’ve got homeowners or property owners that own the properties free and clear where they can do seller financing, you’re going to have a lot of creative financing situations and opportunities that may come up. So you want to start learning about creative financing opportunities, even if it’s as simple as lease-to-own, where you may only get a very small commission during the lease part of it, and then in the own part, when they actually close on it, is when you get paid, which may be six months or a year down the road, but it’s business. And right now you want to keep the wheels turning, keep the wheels moving, and look for ways that you can help people who are wanting to buy, sell, lease. Wherever there’s business, take advantage of it. Add value to people, help people. No BS. You’re not ripping people off. You are helping people who need it. Be proud of it. Be professional. Play to win. Always expect yes, and you will thrive through whatever comes next.