The Follow-Up: How Soon is TOO Soon?

There is no specific formula developed for when you should follow up with people. It really comes down to instincts.

If you are like 99% of the real estate agents out there, you are constantly trying to gauge the fine balance of time between contact and the follow-up. How soon is TOO soon? 

Use Your Instincts

There is no specific formula developed for precisely when you should follow up with people. It really comes down to instincts. If you follow up too often, too soon, then you come across as desperate. However, if you don’t follow up soon enough, they forget about you, so every situation is different. It depends on your conversation with them – their urgency, what you cover in the chat, and so on.

There’s a rule of thumb when it comes to communication – what to say, and how to follow up depends on your style, their style, and what was previously discussed – these are the three ingredients that will affect the follow-up. 

What NOT to Say

What’s one of the most common mistakes that agents make is that when they are talking to a homeowner on the phone? They start talking about listings and commissions and the length of time on the market. Now, here’s how we work on the telephone: you should never, never, never, never talk about getting a listing on the telephone.

When you get a lead on the phone or lead on the Internet, your job is to turn that lead into a face-to-face appointment. It could be a virtual face-to-face if you aren’t able to meet in person, but it needs to be a dedicated conversation.

You need to bring people through the discovery process — these potential clients need to discover the value that you bring to the table. You cannot jump right to “Here’s what I charge, here’s what the length of the listing should be, here’s the price that we should listed at.” 

The only time you DO jump right to that conversation is when you’re a top producer and you’ve been referred. When a homeowner comes to you because they’ve seen your face, they’re reaching out to you. Whether they call you because they have seen your self-promotion or because they were referred to you by somebody else, the difference is that this homeowner already has a positive opinion about who you are. This is why they’re coming to you, so you don’t have to bring them through the discovery process of who you are and the value that you have to offer.

It’s kind of like dating – If you’re on a blind date versus somebody who was recommended to you by a friend. When you talk, the nature of your introduction is going to shift how that first meeting occurs.

Every week, we’re delivering new and powerful ways to not just get listings, but to build listing inventory, grow your business, and create customers for life. We’d love to do the same for you.

 About Your Author Darryl Davis, CSP, Speaker, Coach, Author  

Darryl has been spoken to, trained, and coached more than 100,000 real estate professionals around the globe. He is a bestselling author for McGraw-Hill Publishing, and his book, How to Become a Power Agent in Real Estate tops Amazon’s charts for most sold book to real estate agents. His real estate training system The Power Program®, proven to help agents double their production over their previous year. Darryl is currently hosting weekly free webinars to help agents navigate change and grow their businesses. Learn more at www.DarrylSpeaks.com/Online-Training.