The following paragraph was taken from the article: Six Powerful Prospecting Tips to Build Your Business: By Deirdre Woollard
Tip Three: Strike while the Iron is HOT
Prospects, like food in your refrigerator, are perishable and therefore need to be contacted quickly. Each day you let slip by without making initial contact with your referral dramatically reduces the probability of you making the sale. Develop the habit of contacting your referrals within two-business days or sooner. Have a system to keep track of your referrals so they don’t end up falling through the cracks. It’s critical to have a computerized client contact management system to record your remarks and track future contacts and appointments. Relying on your memory alone is a very poor business decision that will cost you dearly.
Although there are 6 Tips in the article, Tip #3 is my favorite. I do encourage you read the entire article more than once in order to get a better understanding of the importance of prospecting for new clients.
Prospecting, by definition, is the process of “searching for something”. So when we talk prospecting in real estate, we’re talking about searching for new clients. The key to prospecting is to understand what kind of clients we’re prospecting for.
If you’re willing to take on every kind of client, then you’re going to end up working for every kind of client. Is that what you really want? I used to prospect for every kind of client and I’ll tell you, working with several different kinds of clients at once is no fun and it’s not easy.
At one point I was working short sales, renters, investors, owner occupant mortgage buyers, owner occupant land contract buyers, etc all at one time. Although I was closing them out, I wasn’t as productive as I am now that I’m more focused.
Prospecting for motivated sellers is where you should want to spend the majority of your time. The reason for this is simple; motivated sellers will provide more opportunities for quicker closings than any other kind of client, and will save you a lot of time in the process.
It’s true that some people have made a great living working with buyers, sellers, renters, etc, so the important thing is to make a decision as to what kind of clients you’re going to be prospecting for. Next, once you start prospecting know that you have to FOLLOW UP quickly (Tip #3). One of the worst things that you can do is allow a hot lead to turn cold. When you allow a lead to turn cold, you waste time, money, energy, and you also look bad in the process...and you lose the opportunity for future referrals.
Again I ask: What does your prospecting schedule look like?
~Matthew
Here’s another article that you all may enjoy, I haven’t read it yet, so I’m hoping it’s good :)...