To state the bloody obvious, it’s pretty great to be an agent when buyer demand ramps up and the market runs hot.

High performance agents know this is the time to ‘make hay while the sun shines’. You want to just get out there and “Sell! Sell! Sell!”, because this industry can quickly turn from feast to famine.

Yep – rocketing markets are great, except in one crucially important area… getting enough listings!

Unfortunately, the yin to high demand is the yang of listings drying up. So how do you build your listing numbers when they’re needed most?

How to get more listings

Before we kick-off on my tried-and-true process for attracting more stock, you must understand and adopt two crucial mindsets.

Firstly, you are not just looking for more listings, you are striving to build an attraction business that will have potential clients chasing you, not you chasing them.

This is the essence of ‘Brand U’.

The reason behind building a personal attraction business is it allows you to secure the largest possible market share of properties for sale within your specialty area, property type and price point (also known as your niche).

If you control at least 20 per cent of the properties hitting the market in your area, then you are always ahead of the competition. If the market is running hot, and listings are hard to come by, guess what – you are still getting 20 per cent (or more) of them because your name is synonymous in sellers minds with successful sales. No matter what, they’ll reach out to you for a chat before they list.

The second crucial mindset – you should be actively building your attraction business at all times, regardless of market conditions.

In a slow market, you still apply the process because you’re playing the long game. Don’t wait for a ‘hot market’ to get your attraction business underway. Lay the foundations for increasing your market share as soon as possible, because the rewards will flow for years to come.

The three stages of listing growth

With your mindset now in place, here’s my three-step process for growing your listings.

Grind

Experienced hands will remember the grind from when they first learned the ropes in real estate, but it still applies to those looking to generate more listings in a new business.

During the grind, you devote time each day toward making a certain number of meaningful connections. These connections work toward the goal of locking in at least one future face-to-face meeting every day.

Be disciplined and determined, and the results will come.

As an agent, my aim was to make 20 connections each workday that would result in booking at least one face-to-face meeting. That equalled 20 personal meetings per month which would result in around two to three new listings every month. That was a solid foundation to build upon.

So, I would set aside time on the phone (about 2 hours per day) and make as many calls as it took to generate those meaningful connections and lock in that meeting.

Momentum

Momentum follows on from the grind. Through securing two-to-three listings each month and providing excellent servicing to these sellers, I would invariably attract referrals via client recommendations, past business and through reputation alone.

It’s not that you can stop the grind entirely when you gain momentum. It’s the same with relationships, fitness and business – great results require consistency. But momentum is the first inkling of the attraction business you’re set to become.

Attraction

By concentrating on your niche, and promoting your expertise and sales success in that speciality field, you become the go-to agent for any seller that falls within your category.

For example, I chose to be THE specialist for $1 million-plus houses in Paddington (QLD). By sticking to my guns and putting in the effort, I reached the point where every owner there would contact me first when they were considering a sale. I might not have won every listing, but I was in with a shot, and that’s all that matters.

So, there it is, my secret to getting more listings in any market, but remember – success takes ongoing commitment. Even experienced agents need to get on the grind sometimes.

By getting your mindset right and putting in the effort, your personal brand and attraction business will flourish.

The views expressed in this article are an opinion only and readers should rely on their independent advice in relation to such matters. 

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