Recently I saw an online article discussing a new real estate agent who was looking for input and direction. The agent had been in real estate sales for one year and, despite having prospected over 3,000 people personally, still had not closed a single transaction. Needless to say, the agent was frustrated.

Prospecting and having systems for prospecting are important components for developing new real estate clients. But prospecting is only the beginning part of the formula. The other part is successfully enrolling your prospects in working with you exclusively. This latter part brings into play the quality of your people skills and how good you are at having others feel that they'd like to work with you.

In the case of the new agent mentioned above, they certainly prospected enough people to uncover a solid amount of new real estate business. Depending on the area they're working in and the level of activity right now, between 1 in 7 to 1 in 15 of the prospects in the area will be involved in a real estate transaction over any one-year period. For the new agent, this means that between 200 and 430 of the 3,000 people prospected were going to be involved in real estate transactions in the weeks and months ahead. This translates into a lot of new business that the new agent missed out on! What probably happened is the agent might have been poor on their follow-up with the prospects, and/or their own presentation skills might have actually repelled people from wanting to do business with them.

I've noticed myself what I'm referring to here when residential real estate agents who work in my area contact me. There are those I know I would consider working with when the time comes to buy or sell a home, and there are others I'd have no interest in working with whatsoever. This conclusion is drawn from the quality of the mailers I receive from the agents, and how I feel when I interact with them personally. So as I notice the responses that these agents continually generate within me, I know that the same effect is happening with the prospects you're continually working with also.

For those prospects who don't like the impression an agent gives them, they might simply tell the agent that they have no upcoming real estate needs at all when in fact they know they'll be doing something in the weeks and months ahead. It's simply easier for some people to say something like this rather than tell the agent the truth and then have to fight them off later on because they don't want to work with them.

So the questions I have for you are these:

How are your people skills with the prospects you want to be working with? Do you continually project that you are professional, likeable, and someone they would want to do business with?

The prospects you're looking for are always there in your area and they're busy closing transactions every single year. When you've mastered both locating them and having them want to work with you exclusively, you'll be well on your way to achieving the success you've always imagined for yourself in this business.

Published: April 2, 2004

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Jim Gillespie, Ph.D., is America's Premier Real Estate Coach℠. He has over 20 years of experience in real estate sales and is a past president of three different real estate companies. His FREE real estate E-newsletter with tips and creative ideas to help agents make more money is now read by over 35,000 agents nationwide. You can subscribe to his FREE E-newsletter by visiting RealEstateSalesCoach.com or contact him at Jim@RealEstateSalesCoach.com.