Keller Williams President Josh Team believes there’s a tremendous opportunity for all agents to grab market share in today’s current economic climate.
Josh Team | Photo credit: Keller Williams
The data Team shared at the company’s virtual Mega Camp conference backed up that claim, but also showed how easily agents could also lose their own clients right now.
“The world’s changing, market share is up for grabs, and the people that are doing things in different ways have an opportunity to seize the moment,” Team said.
Keller Williams has an exclusive-to-the-industry data-sharing partnership with Google that provides the international real estate franchise with data to help guide its technology roadmap. One of the recent insights from Google the company shared is that 54 percent of consumers are willing to try a new brand, during the pandemic.
“The world has never been down to this level of a playing field,” Team said. “Everyone is up for grabs.”
“Fifty percent of your database is in jeopardy because of the market,” Team added later in the presentation.
Jason Abrams | Photo credit: Keller Williams
Team, who was joined by Jason Abrams, the company’s vice president of industry, told Keller Williams agents and brokers to look at their own databases right now, and essentially cut it in half — those are the past clients, family and friends that are open to trying a new brand that is offering them a safer, comfortable, better way to buy or sell a home.
“If you’re not re-imaging your business right now, you’re not pouring into making those calls, someone else is — and you’re in jeopardy because of this moment,” Team said.
But not all of those consumers are turning into repeat customers for those new brands, which means those brands aren’t providing the value. They may be advertising a contactless way to pay, or a seemingly safer experience, but they’re simply closing a transaction, rather than gaining a new customer.
“The real opportunity here is to make sure you have the new offering, you’re leaning into the market at the moment, you’re creating the value the consumers need and you’re able to talk to the consumer the way they want to be talked to, and creating a complete customer value to make sure they stay a customer for life,” Team said.
Data from Google also showed that there’s 15 million consumer leads out there of customers looking for virtual or three-dimensional tours. A third of the consumers that Google surveyed recently said they won’t be comfortable going out in public in the near future and prefer a contactless option to do business.
There’s also been a 400 percent increase in searches around 3D or virtual tours. Key search terms include, “virtual home tours,” “virtual open house” and “3D tours.”
Offering and advertising these services is an opportunity for agents to take market share, or retain their existing customers.
“If I was an agent right now, I would audit everything I do,” Team said. “What are my scripts? What does my presence look like? What do my emails look like? What does my website look like? Am I holding myself out to the world to be relevant in this market?”
“If the answer is no, someone in your world probably is.”
Another way that agents can retain customers is through the use of branded apps, according to Team. Citing data obtained through the Google partnership, Team said that consumers that use a website or an app to conduct real estate are 44 percent more likely to have found their agent through the digital medium than television advertising.
Getting consumers in your database to download your branded app to make sure it’s their preferred search portal, can help you create a “moat” around the consumer.
“If they have your app they’re more likely to stay with you,” Team said. “These are small ways that we can use technology to create those moats.”
Team and Abrams also shared insight from the company’s partnership with Facebook, which found that 65 percent of homebuyers are influenced by their friends’ posts on social media.
Agents can utilize their clients to help increase their sphere, by doing things like having them record a video to talk about the transaction experience with that agent.
“Nobody should ever sell a house again without having their customer go Facebook live and talk about how they enjoyed the experience,” Abrams said.
