How to Keep Doing Lead Generation While Everything is on Lock-down
Summary
How can you continue generating business when everything is on lockdown?
Here are 3 strategies:
- Talk to your PC. Send them a text to let them know that you care. This way, you increase Top-Of-Mind Awareness. Fill your pipelines and sow the seed for future business.
- Virtual networking with investors. They will want to buy during the probable housing downturn. You’ll find them at online real estate investor meet-up groups. Go to meetup.com, find investor groups, and join or initiate virtual meetings with them.
- Keep prospecting for motivated sellers (Expireds, FSBO’s, vacant homes, vacation homes) because they need to liquidate assets so they can get cash reserves. Do a virtual listing presentation with them.
Even when everything is indefinitely on hold, keep filling the pipelines. Be proactive and find people to help. So when everything opens up again, you’ll be in a position to make money and you can thrive through the tough times. Play to win, and always expect YES
Full transcript
Wouldn’t it be nice to have the pipelines full of listings and buyers that are ready to go, and so when the flood gates open, you’ve got business?
Hey there, it’s Kevin Ward, the founder of YesMasters Real Estate Success Training, helping you get more YES’s and more successes in your business and in your life, even when everything is shut down.
One of the most common questions I’m getting now from real estate agents is how do you keep doing lead generation? How in the world can we prospect when everything’s on lockdown? In some states, in some markets, you cannot call people on the phone. You certainly can’t go door knocking and you can’t … If you get a listing appointment, you can’t go on the listing appointment. How do you keep doing lead generation when everything is on lockdown? That’s the topic of this video. I got three strategies for you right now that you can use to continue lead generating, keep generating business for your business even when everything is on lockdown. Now, this video is obviously time sensitive.
Number one is your personal circle. That’s the people that you know. All the people that you know is you’re now, right now your lead generation is sowing the seed for future business. You are filling your pipelines. That’s how you have to approach this because in some cases there’s just not anything that you can do right now. Even if you find a motivated buyer or a motivated seller, you can’t show them a house if they’re a buyer, you can’t list their house or show their house if they’re a seller. There is a sense in which right now that part of the process is on hold, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to fill your pipelines and generate business.
Because when everything opens up again and we’re able to go back to functioning normally and actually able to show properties and list properties and all that, wouldn’t it be nice to have the pipelines full of listings and buyers that are ready to go and so when the floodgates open, you’ve got business already ready to go, rather than being the agent who’s been sitting there going like, “I can’t do anything. Oh no, we can’t … I’ll be glad when we get back to normal.” Then when things get back to normal, they got nothing and they’re starting over with no momentum and nothing in the pipelines.
Number one is you have to have that mindset of going through here and the first group, your first strategy is talking to your personal circle. Now here’s the thing, I’m not talking to them and say, “Hey, who do you know who’s going to buy or sell right now?” Now you can say that, but right now the first thing is you want to do is let people know that you care about them. If you haven’t already done this and I’ve been talking about this for the last couple of weeks, is you want to be sending text messages to every single person in your personal circle.
You go through your phone, every single person that you have in your phone and just send them a text message, just say, “Hey,” and if you’re sending it to me, “Hey, Kevin and Julie. I hope you guys are doing well and staying safe in these uncertain times. Just wanted to send you some positive energy and good vibes,” and then a smiley face or a heart and then your name. If somebody you just met one time, haven’t talked to him a long time, you send that to them, put your name and your real estate company just to remind them who you are and that makes you memorable to people. I’ve had two text messages that I’ve gotten from people that we have done business with in the past, not real estate related, but they just sending me a text message saying, “Hey, hope all is well.”
I’m like, what a great way to give a personal touch to somebody that builds goodwill with people, that builds credibility with people, that tells them you care and what you’re doing is two things. Number one is your increasing your credibility, making people like you more, feel better towards you. Number two is you are creating or increasing top-of-mind awareness because they know you’re in real estate. The next time you talk to them when things open back up, then you say, “Who do you know that’s looking to buy or sell?” Now, after all this pent-up time you can have that conversation in the future, but right now think of it as sowing seed for the future.
Number two is virtual networking with investors. Investors are going to be a great place to go because if all of this turns into a housing downturn and I think the probability is it’s going to, then investors are going to be coming out of the woodworks. You want them to be working with you.
Well, if you don’t know investors, where’s the best place to find investors? The best place is at real estate investor Meetup groups. Problem is they’re not meeting right now. What can you do? Get on there, go to meetup.com, get in the real estate investor groups and get on their virtual meetings. If they’re not having meetings right now, get in there, find out who the organizer is or organizers are and say, “Hey, why don’t we set it up on Zoom or some other platform, a video conference platform where we can still have a virtual meeting?” I’ll just give you an example. I was just looking at Meetup just here right now, and I’m looking at here in Los Angeles, Best Los Angeles Real Estate Investment Club, they typically have dozens and dozens of people, like 20 to 30 to 40 people that come to an investor Meetup group, and here is what it says.
It says, “April 1st meeting has been canceled due to the rapidly escalating health concerns.” They canceled the meeting. Well, now I can’t network with that group. All right, what if I could help coordinate? It actually had 28 people who had already registered to attend that event that they have canceled. 28 attendees right there on the internet right now. What if you could set it up so they do a virtual and you help organize it. Now, even if you’re new in that group, they’re going to go and say, “Hey guys, this is awesome. We’re so grateful for all you guys to come in and want to thank Bill, a new member in our group for helping set up the Zoom and coming up with the idea so we could continue to learn and help each other and learn about real estate investing and where the opportunities are going to be as things change in this market. This is awesome.”
Now you are somebody who is adding value and that is going to help you connect with more people and you right now want to be building relationships with investors and learning about real estate investing. If you’re not, if you don’t know anything about it and building relationships with investors because there’s going to be a lot of opportunities coming out of all this on the back-end.
Third is keep prospecting for motivated sellers. Keep prospecting for motivated sellers. Now, if you are in one of the few places where they have actually said you are not allowed to call but, for example, FSBOs, Expireds. I say follow the law, follow the rules and all that kind of stuff. But for the most part that’s going to be temporary. It’s temporary. What do you do? You keep prospecting for motivated sellers with a view to the markets, everything reopening. When everything reopens you already want to have those leads in the pipeline. You already want to have those appointments set or tentative appointments set of them going, “Yep, as soon as we get this done, let’s meet.” Or, “As soon as this opens back up, let’s get the listing on the market.”
You can get stuff done virtually. You can do FaceTime, you can do Skype, you can do Zoom where you can actually video, do a video listing presentation and so forth. Again, it comes back to motivated sellers. People that aren’t motivated that don’t need to move right now, there’s a lot of them going, “I just think right now I’m going to stay put.” Okay. Got it. Don’t try to convince them to move when they’re not moving.
What am I looking for? I’m prospecting, looking for motivated sellers with a view to the market, so to speak, everything reopening. That would be for sale by owners. You’re going to have for sale by owners right now they’ve been trying to sell it themselves and now with all this happening, they’re going, “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the real estate market. I think I need a good agent to help me.” That’s going to happen. There’s going to be FSBOs that were trying it on their own, but now because they’re nervous and rightly so, they’re going like, “I think I need to hire an agent.”
You’re going to have expired listings and listings that have canceled or expired and they’re motivated and they’re just waiting for things to open back up and they need a great agent and you can be that agent. Vacant homes. Vacant homes in the past, for the past few years, when the market’s good and prices are going up, a guy that owns a house and it’s maybe been sitting there vacant, he’s tried to sell it but he’s in no rush because he knows, “I’m just paying insurance and I’m paying insurance and utilities and property taxes and it’s not really costing money because it’s making me money as it appreciates,” but now they’re looking at the proposition that the market could be going down. House prices could be collapsing and they’re going, “Man, we’ve got to sell this house.” They are now bleeding money and terrified of bleeding out equity and all of a sudden their motivation goes through the roof and they’re ready to go. There’s a lot of those.
There’s vacation homes, second homes, Airbnb rentals. Who is renting Airbnbs right now? Nobody. In vacation markets, resort markets, that kind of stuff, people who have a lot of second homes. A lot of people, their incomes are going to be going down. Their businesses are losing money and they’ve had a second home in these good times. They’ve had a second home, a third home. They’re going to be selling those because they’re going to be liquidating assets so that they can get cash reserves so that whatever happens, they’re prepared for it. Those, my friend, are motivated sellers.
Even if everything is on hold for days or weeks, it’s going to unleash. It’s going to come back open. Why not use right now to keep pumping the pump and keep filling the pipelines? Be sensitive, be aware, be respectful of people. Don’t be a jerk. Don’t be pushy and all that kind of stuff, but be proactive. Keep yourself in business and keep finding the people that you can help. When this all opens back up again, your business is going to be positioned to continue to help people and to make money so that you can thrive through everything that’s going on right now. Play to win and always expect YES.