Are they important to you?

As many of you know, I've been doing this Marketing Strategies seminar for the past several months, and its been a great opportunity for me to share some new ideas and, hopefully, inspire the agents who attend to recommit to the idea of an ongoing marketing strategy.

I ran into an interesting statistic lately from NAR (that I have since incorporated into my seminar), that really hammered home to me the importance of staying in touch.

"Only 11% of buyers and sellers use the same agent on their next transaction". Now I don't know if that's surprising to any of you, but it blew me away. There are real estate speakers that go all over the country talking about the importance of 'generating referrals' and 'adding value'. Why then, are we leaving so much money on the table?

I think the answer is complex, but it probably has something to do with the way in which we view our business. It's easy to get so caught up with the everyday, that we lose sight of our 'system'. The machine that ensures long-term success. The message that says to our clients, "your transaction was important to me, and I want to work with you again".

Surprisingly, 89% of your past clients won't work with you again, not because you did a poor job on their transaction, but because you failed to remind them (over time) how important they are to you.

The answer to this is simple. Always put the relationship before the deal, and take every opportunity to let them know that they are important to you. Email me if you need an idea or two.

-Jeff