How to Recession Proof Your Real Estate Business
The uncertainty that comes from market shifts and headlines proclaiming a recession is on the horizon tends to make people freeze up.
After all, a real estate transaction is a major financial decision. In times of financial uncertainty, what is a major financial decision and what isn't can vary a lot among clients.
A good real estate agent knows the right dialogues and conversations to help reassure leads and move them into taking action.
After consulting industry leaders who have been through many market fluctuations themselves, we at Real Geeks have compiled a guide for real estate agents on how to manage market shifts, client objections, recession proof your business models, and how to scale your business effectively through it.
Prepare to adopt new strategies
A trait of any successful entrepreneur is flexibility and adaptability. This skillset will benefit you in any trade or profession, but especially as a real estate professional during turbulent times.
Take a look at what has been working and what has not been producing that much ROI in your business.
Although some strategies might be comfortable during times of uncertainty, it will most likely benefit you more to forgo the comfortable strategies and add a few new strategies to your outreach.
Get creative with the resources you already have like your website and social media channels.
Drive traffic to your site and your business by building out area pages and guides to the markets you serve. To learn more about this strategy check out our Episode with Bob McCranie: The Power of SEO and Area Pages With Bob McCranie.
Utilize landing pages and create unlimited home valuation landing pages. Add and create as many communities and add as many home valuation landing pages as you wish. Customize them by adding unique images, text, calls to action, and URL's for your targeted audience.
In addition to creating your own landing pages, you can utilize a home valuation widget like The Real Geeks’ Home Valuation Tool which is embedded in every property and market report page to entice site users to evaluate what their home is worth. When they complete the form, this notifies the assigned agent to reach out to the lead.
Users submit their addresses to find out what their home is worth, creating a lead for you in the process. If the user abandons the process before completing the sign-up, the address is still captured as an address-only lead.
As times change, you also need to adapt and learn how to generate seller leads even in low inventory areas.
This can be done in many ways by utilizing the above strategies, but for a deep dive into generating seller leads in low inventory markets check out our Keeping It Real episode with Lisa Chinatti and Jason Posnick: How To Generate Seller Leads in Low Inventory Market w/ Lisa Chinatti & Jason Posnick.
Revisit your approach to objections.
Every craftsman needs to practice their craft in order to perfect it and with real estate, there is no difference when it comes to practicing their approach to handling objections.
There are endless strategies and takes on how to practice handling objections but the best way echoed by the most seasoned real estate professionals is to get out into the real world and practice role-playing with as diverse of a pool of players as possible.
You will find that every conversation is unique and every person has their own background and concerns, it is important to expose yourself to as many people as possible to ensure a well-rounded approach to handling objections.
To dive deeper into the strategy of handling objections check out our Keeping It Real with Jeff Glover: Top 10 Real Estate Objections Answered w/ Jeff Glover.
Mind your routine — If you don't have a routine you don't have a business.
Rewrite your schedule and eliminate anything you cannot track a positive ROI from. Look at your schedule and all the things you consistently write there and ask yourself what your ROI is. If you have a hard time answering that question, you need to think twice about whether that needs to be in your schedule.
Re-evaluate your schedule and eliminate stuff that doesn’t contribute to investments’ gains.
Work on your mental endurance. You need to have the mental endurance to stay the entire day. Talking to over 20 people a day is no joke. Stick to the game and avoid all distractions that come your way.
Work on your physical endurance as well! This is a good time to focus on your physical wellness because you will be needing that extra energy and stamina. The physical side really helps the mental side. One way to break the pattern of lack of motivation and fend off burnout is to start increasing your physical strength, getting some fresh air, breaking a sweat, and staying consistent.
Take time for yourself. Every successful business leader knows the most valuable asset in any business is the physical and mental wellness of it’s employees. Even in an industry like real estate where many professionals work unconventional hours and are constantly re-orienting their schedules around clients,a commitment to wellness and work-life balance is not to be overlooked.
Especially in stressful times, it’s common for people to overdraw and burnout under the pressures to maintain a sense of financial security but maintaining financial security is not done sustainably without centering wellness.
This of course is much easier said than done, but might be one of the most important areas the focus on when weathering uncertain times.
Automate what you can.
What a time to be alive! With all the ups and downs the markets have had in the past, this is certainly the most technically advanced time to experience a market shift.
Allowing the smart use of technology to automate your workflows can not only save overhead costs but can save your precious time.
Don’t let your business go down just because the number of transactions in your market goes down. Make the most out of your database and deploy automated drip campaigns. To learn more about the best drip campaigns to deploy check out: 4 Drip Campaigns You Can Activate Today and Get Huge Response, our guide where Greg Harrelson and Abe Safa break down their favorite drip campaigns you can activate today using your Real Geeks workflow library, as well as a drip campaign of their own.
Keep a busy schedule meeting with clients while Robin, Real Geek’s Geek AI Assistant makes sure no leads slip through the cracks. It can be tough to reach out to every lead immediately; with 'Speed to Lead' being the name of the game, you can't risk missing out on an opportunity.
Have confidence that leads are contacted immediately with the Geek AI Assistant! Strengthen your follow-up, and enjoy the much-needed peace of mind.
Find community
It’s easy to become overwhelmed with all the moving pieces of life and business. Do not let these overwhelming times create distance between you and your network. Often times we hear the importance of keeping a network/ database but do not consider the community-building aspect of real estate.
Reach out to other real estate professionals in your market and see if there are any collaborative opportunities. Attend networking and community-building events within your market. Get in touch with the needs of your community and position yourself as a resource to people.
Business coaches always press on the importance of providing value to your clients and sometimes the best way to provide value is just by being a present and collaborative member of your neighborhood and community.
Many deals often come from organic relationships years down the line so it never hurts to increase your reach.
Create your own MeetUp group for real estate professionals or real estate investors for your market. To learn more about how to successfully build a MeetUp group and build a business off of your own, check out our Keeping it Real with Rob Chevez, who began a local MeetUp focused on empowering real estate entrepreneurs to build wealth and create a legacy.
Less than 10 people attended Rob’s first meeting. Now, what is known today as GRID, has grown to over 16K+ members in 8 states and over 18 locations.
Putting in a constant effort will build attendance over time, and before you know it, you will have collected a community of regulars at your events that can also serve as a potential client base. Networking greatly helps get leads, even if not by a massive count at first.
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