← Your Daily Real Estate Podcast with Tristan Ahumada
Your Daily Real Estate Podcast with Tristan Ahumada
Episode 862: Half Your Referrals Are Hiding In This 30-Minute Call
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30 minutes, one meeting once a year. And some of the top agents I know that I talk to and coach say it accounts for nearly half of all their repeat business and referral business. In fact, I talked to one agent in Canada today specifically on this. Most agents will never do this. Not because they don't know they should stay in touch with past clients. I mean, we all know we're supposed to do that. They just don't have a structured reason to reach out. And believe it or not, that is probably the number one reason most agents don't reach out. They just don't know what this looks like. So they don't reach out. Today, I'm going to give you that reason. This is your daily real estate. It's a podcast. It's a show. I'm Tristan Almada. Let's get into it. It's called the Homeowner Annual Review. It's that easy. You can call it whatever you want. I came up with that name a few years back and it hasn't changed. It probably should. I should brand it into something personal, but I haven't. Now, the reason it works is because it doesn't feel like prospecting. It shows up as a service call. And if you notice a trend here, a lot of the things that I tell you to do feel that way, right? The local directory, the hey, I'm inviting you to an event. Hey, I've got this great outline for, for you, for possibly investing in other states, or here's what it looks like to add an adu. Now, you're not calling to see if they want to sell. You're calling because you're their agent for life, not just for one transaction or not just for one past transaction. That framing matters. And it matters more than you think, because it changes the way you approach things. When you reach out to past clients with nothing to offer, you feel it and you feel uncomfortable. They feel it. It just feels awkward. But when you show up with data, with a cma, with a seasonal maintenance checklist, and with real information about what their home is worth or where it's heading, that's a different conversation entirely. And you can feel it, too. Here's the part most agents completely miss or skip over. The meeting covers three things, and none of them are a pitch surprise. So for those people that tell you, listen, you've got to pitch them. You, you've got to do this and you got to do that. It's all about the bottom line in the business. That's a different world we're living in. A world of attraction where we provide value longer term. Think of what Gary Vaynerchuk says for years, right? Jab, jab, jab, punch. Is that what he said? Jab, jab, jab, Whatever he said, it was slow. Value, value, value, value, ask. Now, here's how you do it. The first is the equity update. You pull a current cma. You show them where the home sits today compared to when they bought it. That one's easy. You walk them through what their equity position actually looks like. Most homeowners have no clue. And even if they do kind of have a clue, they don't understand what this means. And they understand maybe what their home is worth. They don't truly have an understanding of what they can do and how the equity thing works. Trust me, I've talked to a lot of people, and you have to. Now, I'm not exaggerating when I tell you some homeowners have absolutely no clue. Bought it, they moved in, they stopped paying attention. Why? Well, they have to worry about everything else. You showing up with that number. Specific, current, accurate, and genuinely useful information. Well, guess what? They're going to be really appreciative because it changes the way you're approaching this. It doesn't matter if they're moving or not. It matters that you care enough about them to let them know where they stand with probably their biggest investment of their life. Second piece, maintenance. And we talked about this a couple of days ago, I think. And you go through a seasonal checklist. Now, if you're in an area that only has two seasons like mine, it still matters. Like, it gets really hot out in Southern California. And believe it or not, we need AC turned on quite a bit. And so before that happens, there's a checklist. Hey, these are the things you need to watch out for. And termites, be careful for termites. Well, you flag things they should be thinking about in the next 12 months. Roof age, H vac service, water heater, timeline. Deferred maintenance is the number one destroyer of equity and the number one source of ugly surprises. During home inspections. You help them stay ahead of it. That's not a listing pitch. That's a real service. Now stay with me because the third one is where this really comes together. The third thing is market context. What's selling, what's not, where mortgage rates are at, maybe where rates in general are at, what it means for their options. And I think when you translate it this way, not only can you use it for them, but you can take it to Instagram. You could take it to YouTube and, and you can talk about it then because it's your interpretation of what's happening. And that, believe it or not, is what people are looking for when they look for you. Think about what a good financial advisor does for a client every single year. They sit down, they go through the portfolio or whatever, they pull out, they explain what's happening in the market and how it affects the client's position. Your client's homes are probably the biggest asset they own. In fact, for most of us it is. And the fact that we don't treat it that way is kind of nuts. You should be treating those assets the same way as a financial advisor does with all of their other cash. When you do all of these three things in a 30 minute session, and I know what you may be saying, why would somebody meet me? Well, change that. Change it. Because this lays the groundwork for how you function. You function like an advisor. And this wasn't even my idea originally. I learned it from someone I was coaching and I was like, man, that is a really brilliant idea. Especially when they showed me the results. And let me tell you, you've earned the right to say something in this whole process to your clients. I mean, they are your past clients. You've earned that trust. And don't forget that at the end of this, once you've presented it this way and you have these three things, you're allowed to say something like, I do this for all my past clients every year because I want to be your agent for life. Now, if you know anyone going through a change right now, I love an introduction. You knowing me is the best reference that I have. And that's it. You don't have to go in the middle at the beginning, free call. You don't have to be asking for referrals. I think at the end they'll see the value. So that you can reword that so that it's. It comes from you. And that's the ask and it lands. You know why? Because you spent the last 30 minutes proving why they should refer you. Because they're going to love you. In fact, they love you after this. So how do you actually do this? At scale? Just block one per week, per quarter, easy. Pull 20 past clients from your CRM. Send them a simple message. Something like, I do a complimentary annual homeowner review for all my clients. It's about 30 minutes. I bring the data. No agenda other than making sure you're in a good position with your home. You want to set one up. And then a percentage of them will say yes every time. And the other ones who don't say yes right now, they'll, they remember you offered. And that matters. Now you can add another layer to this. For those that say no, you could simply have a one cheater that you send their way. And now all of a sudden they have some information, right? Because when something changes in their life, you're the agent who was already showing up, not just asking for referrals, following up and checking on their home. You're giving them an actual reason that's valuable for showing up. And I've been doing this long enough to watch agents build their entire business on past clients. That's it. No cold calling, no door knocking, no chasing strangers. And I've done all of that. I've cold called, I've door knocked online leads. I've done it. All right. And I can tell you when you do it this way, you build a different type of business. Because I'm also telling you from experience, it comes down to consistently offering value, structured follow up with people already trust you. So the agents who do the annual review don't need to prospect cold their database calls them. So here's what I want you to do today. Open your CRM or whatever you're using to track past clients and pull 10 names, people you closed in the last two years, three years, or maybe put a limit of like, hey, five years or older to somebody you haven't talked to in a while. Send them a message this week, offer the review. You don't need a perfect system to start. You just need to start now. If this hit home and you think this is valuable, please share it with an agent in your office or an agent that you coach or an agent that you think needs this. And do me a favor, please hit subscribe so you don't miss tomorrow's episode and so that I keep on growing to provide more amazing information for you. And please, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Talk to you tomorrow.