Real Estate Sales: Are the Wrong Basics Back?

After another week on the road teaching some sessions and having lots of fun with my students, I’m happy to report that there seems to be a consensus amongst the (remaining) real estate professionals in the country: The Basics are Back.

You know, things like prospecting, following up on visitors to your open house, being organized, calling customers back, even reasonably pricing properties (Ok, that one really isn’t back but we can pretend it is…). Sales, my friends. Good old fashioned sales. That’s what everyone is “suddenly discovering” is missing in the business.

It’s no surprise: not to those of us who’ve been around a bit. Remember, according to the research, 60% of agents leave the business within 18 months; and 90% of the agent population turns over every 5 years or so. Now, if you do the math, that means that a significant proportion of today’s real estate agents (and managers) have been in the business for under 5 years. And many joined the business when it was HOT. So they’ve never “had” to sell before. Nope - no need to prospect or give the courtesy of a follow up to anyone when you can stand in front of a listing and get multiple bids on your listing within hours. An entire generation of agents “grew up” during the boom, where the only criteria for success were a pulse, a license and an offer form. Ok, maybe an agency disclosure somewhere and possibly a sticky-note with the dates of closings on it. But certainly not sales skills. Who needed to sell when the properties sold themselves?

Ah, the chickens. They always seem to come home to roost. And any farmer - and nowadays, REALTOR - will tell you: the one place you don’t want to be standing us just under the roost when the chickens return. Yup.

So that’s why the “basics” are back. Sales. Prospecting. Stamina. Patience. Benchmarking and measuring. Tracking advertising. Accountability.

Unfortunately, it all sounds good; but a closer look makes me worry. That’s because, believe it or not, the “wrong” basics are back.

Here’s what I mean: REALTORS are sending POSTCARDS again. Sending out mailings with their photo on them. Oh, goody. Just what we need - more high-school photos in our mailboxes.

And it’s not just “mailings”. They’re re-doing their websites. Not with new features - like blogs or podcasts or even video. Nope: They’re re-designing their bullet points, their personal credentials, their awards from production levels that were unrealistic to begin with three years ago - and have nothing to do with their ability to sell anything today.

And, since basics are back, they’re doing listing presentations again. No more sweeping into a home and saying, “pick any price and we’ll probably get 20% over it anyway…” They’re looking at MLS data - but they’re printing it out.

Personal Photo Mailings. Classified ads. Braggard websites. MLS printouts. Just about the only thing that’s missing from the list is, oh, let’s see: faxing?

The point, of course, is that while the basics of “sales” are back - not that they ever really left - the “methods” of sales have come a long way. At least far beyond postcard mailings and newspaper ads. And listing presentations on printouts. And checking voice mail because the agent still hasn’t bought a Blackberry. In other words, too many agents are returning to the basic methods of how real estate was sold 10 years ago (or more) that are not only ineffective, but so costly, they are certain not to survive this market downturn.

I don’t need to list the things that should be done instead. Most agents actually “know” what they are; they just can’t do them because they squandered the last five years when they had the money they could have invested in them (and the training to do them). All they have left are tired old techniques of so-called marketing, so-silly advertising and so-ineffective relationship building that they should just call it quits.

They aren’t getting calls because nobody reads their postcards; and nobody calls any more. They send emails - which the agents can’t see because they don’t have a Blackberry. They aren’t getting listings because they can’t make 30-something-sellers believe they are professional when they use photocopies in their presentations (especially when the sellers use a laptop themselves every day at their jobs). And they aren’t selling homes because not only don’t they know how to price them, they can’t possibly believe anyone reading a classified ad will really know that a “3 BR, 2 BA w/LGFMRM” is their dream home.

The basics may be back. I don’t think they ever went away. What should have gone, however, are these tired, silly, outmoded ways of selling that never worked back then, either. How scary that they are suddenly back.