Don't Dawdle with Low Probability Prospects

In my earlier career as a management consultant, I frequently assisted small business owners and career professionals with marketing and sales.

One of the continuing problems I saw was that these business people would often spend too much time on low probability prospects. When I asked them why, they said that they didn't have enough business, and it was better to take everyone on. I protested.

Here is advice I dispensed to a real estate agent in central North Carolina who was working double time but, I felt, ineffectively:

1) Securing listings is more viable than finding buyers. There are methodical ways of finding people who are going to list properties, namely those who have been promoted, fired, transferred, and so on. Announcements in the Business Journal and other business newspapers display who has been promoted, appointed, hired, and so on. Sometimes all the individuals in whole departments or divisions are prime candidates.

2) Finding buyers for listed properties seems to be harder: they call at random, then you might have to show them properties which ties up time, gas, and energy. I would never make a considerable trip to show one prospect, one property. It's simply too much hit and miss. I would insist on at least two properties viewed, per prospect, per trip.

3) I would not retain prospective buyers for more than three months, or 10 showings at the most. After that, the probability of them selecting anything with you diminishes. Hand them off to somebody else in your company, tell  them your focus is shifted, or announce that you're going on a long vacation -- do whatever it takes. I would not hang with one and two-year prospects who haven't bought anything. It's too much of a time and energy drain.

4) Focus more on a specific geographic area. It strikes me that having a territory from North Raleigh down to Holly Springs and as wide as Hillsborough to the west and Garner to the east is way too much territory. Even if it seems as if you need a huge territory to have enough possibilities, I recommend staying highly focused and becoming known in one section of town, such as North Raleigh, if possible. 

5) Since you are very personable and can meet people at the networking groups, I would play that up, especially groups of movers, shakers, and high-salaried people who work for big corporations.