With 2021 only two months away, there is nothing many of us want to do more than focus on the future and forget 2020 ever happened. While luxury sales stayed strong and even skyrocketed in many parts of the country, the pandemic has created challenges big enough to break even the toughest agents.
But as The Agency’s star brokers David Parnes and James Harris point out during a session at Tuesday’s Inman Connect Now, now is not the time to drop the ball and wait for better days ahead. If anything, agents should be working double-time to stay at the top of their clients’ minds and have work lined up during the slow months of January and February.
James Harris
“Your energy, your excitement and your passion towards that call is 99 percent of it,” Harris said. “Good energy is contagious. You have to be in the right frame of mind, you have to be in the right setting and you have to go in with a level of excitement.”
Harris and Parnes give agents their top tips for finishing off the year strong and heading into 2021.
Continue to connect with clients
As the end of the year draws near and things start getting busier, it can become easy to focus on getting those last few big deals while forgetting about the clients you’ve had earlier in the year. But an agent’s job is all about fostering those connections even if there is no immediate sale in sight — call to check in, ask after the family and provide updates on their market and, when the time to buy or sell does come, you will be thought of as the agent who cared enough to call.
“It’s just standard procedure: calling clients, connecting with them, keeping them updated on the market, on their properties,” Parnes said. “The core of our business is staying connected with clients and making sure that we are constantly connected with them and vice versa.”
Review and reorganize
Now is the time to take stock of your business throughout the last year. This means going over all spreadsheets and tracking everything from marketing strategies and expenses to final escrows and sales. Doing all that now will allow you to take stock, set goals and change strategies for the future before you get caught up in the holiday rush and busyness of the new year.
David Parnes
“I don’t think any successful team should ever become satisfied or complacent with where they currently are,” Harris said. “You always have to strive for success.”
Incentivize one another
Some healthy competition can be a way to stay motivated when things start to slow down. Team leaders can offer financial incentives or prizes for top performers while agents who are part of a larger team can push one another or team up to do things like place a certain number of calls or improve social media strategy. The motivation to take those extra steps is enormous — as things start slowing down, you can fill the void left by other agents.
“This is the time to accelerate,” Parnes said. “As long as you and your team keep that mindset, you will have the most productive and hopefully the most successful fourth quarter you’ve ever had.”
