What Are the Biggest Challenges Facing Agents in Today’s Market?

By Greg Harrelson

Greg Harrelson is the founder and leader of the largest Century 21 offices on the East Coast. With offices located throughout South and North Carolina, Greg coaches the top real estate talent in the Carolinas and also founded Real Estate Sales Solutions which has coaching programs like the Agent Success Academy.

I’m always keeping an eye on the market, so today I want to talk about three of the challenges I see real estate agents facing right now when trying to build their business or break through to the next level:

1. Being too late to the lead. A lot of agents are struggling with the “speed to lead” concept. By the time many agents reach out to a lead, the lead has already spoken to another agent. That’s not a new concept. You already know the challenges that can happen when you don’t have that speed. Could you be throttling your leads based on your availability? If you know you’re going to be out all afternoon, why would you generate leads during that time when you’re not going to be able to reach out quickly? I’m not a proponent of turning your lead flow off, but you do have to ask yourself why would you have them if you can’t use them.

2. Managing consumers’ nurture demands. The demands of agents have changed with our consumers. The challenge is that now we’re capturing the lead so much earlier in the process than we used to. It requires a much more longer-term nurture. Instead of being ready to buy in 30 days, they might not be ready for another 18 months. Those leads require two different nurture programs, but not all agents have caught up to that fact yet. When you’re building a nurture campaign these days, you need to make sure they combine multiple avenues (text, call, email, Facebook messages, etc.). You’ll need multiple channels in order to win the attention of leads in today’s real estate world.

3. Focusing on the one thing that works. Just about everything works if you just give it 100% of your effort. Whether you choose to go the open house route, the direct mail route, or the FSBO route, all of these strategies can work, but they won’t all work at the same time. Pick one or two areas and put 100% of your effort in for 90 days at the minimum and you’ll generate tremendous momentum.

These are the three biggest struggles I’m seeing with agents in today’s market. If you have any questions for me in the meantime, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I would love to hear from you.