The Real Estate Sales Game (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this post, three aspects of real estate sales were addressed--lead generation, asset valuation, asset management. These real estate sales characteristics require a specific approach when applied to real estate sales. In this post, the remaining two aspects of real estate sales will be discussed--marketing and customer relations. These aspects of sales are more uniform across all sales profession, both in and out of the real estate industry.

As a reminder, the term real estate salesperson includes all real estate professionals that spend a significant portion of their time selling real estate assets, including property salespeople, real estate capital markets sales professionals and commercial and residential loan officers. 

Marketing

Sales professionals across industries must concern themselves with marketing. If lead generation is the bloodline of sales, then marketing is the sales lifeline. Few owners of real estate assets are well known enough to sustain consistent sales without advertising their assets or needs on the market. Even further, marketing is not merely advertising, but also the market research necessary for the sales force to conduct a successful sale. This includes market, customer and competitor research. 

Admittedly, marketing takes on a different appearance in the different types of professions that engage in real estate sales. Direct customer advertising and research are very common among property sellers, whereas marketing in the real estate secondary and capital markets may consist of networking, listing on exchanges and purchasing market data from data providers. Despite the idiosyncrasies of the industry-established method, effective marketing is absolutely necessary to the success of any sales professional and any business, as no one will seek to purchase an unknown asset. Real estate salespeople are not exempt from this essential business function.

Customer Relations

Much like marketing, proper management of customer relations is key to success in business. Sales professionals should seek to ensure that the needs of their customers are met, as satisfied customers are great for business. Research has shown that the overwhelming majority of business referrals come from customers who have had a positive experience with a company. The bottom line is that satisfied customers are one of foundations on which a successful business is built and real estate companies are not exempt to this business tenet. The profile of a customer may vary among the different types of real estate professions, but be they consumer, corporate, governmental or institutional customers or clients, their satisfaction is integral to the success of the real estate sales professional.

Bringing It All Together

Although the various sales roles present in the real estate market each have their own characteristics, they all share a concern with the five aforementioned sales concepts. The most successful real estate salespeople have implemented systems to manage these five aspects of sales in an effective manner. Real estate sales professionals that lack in any of these areas would do well to assess where they lack and address any such shortcomings. That is my take on real estate sales, please feel free to provide your prospective on the matter below.