Need help building personalized relationships with your real estate clients? Looking for the secret sauce to improve relationships with real estate leads in cold calling?
The first rule of a meaningful relationship as a real estate cold-caller is to Know Your Clients (KYC). Being practical and understanding the client’s situation is the key to getting potential clients’ attention. That’s why warm introductions and open-ended questions are essential to tailor personalized sales pitches.
Real estate calling agents should make 20 calls daily to achieve a 10% to 20% yearly success rate in cold calling. Studies also show that 50% of real estate leads are derived through cold-calling efforts.
This article teaches the nuts and bolts of building rapport with prospects in the cold-calling real estate business. It covers the starting pitch strategy, creating personal connections, and increasing the lead conversion rate. Youâll also learn to get the most out of the cold-calling effort as real estate professionals.
How Do You Build Rapport in Cold Calling Real Estate?
Working as a real estate cold caller means understanding each lead’s underlying interests. The callers listen to their words, identify potential real estate requirements, and recommend suitable realty solutions.
The mission of a real estate cold-caller is to build a genuine friendship with qualified leads. The client must feel comfortable, know the cold caller, and trust the cold caller’s offerings. Here are ten proven cold-calling techniques for building rapport with real estate clients.
1. Research About Your Prospect
There are various ways to collect information about real estate leads. First, online research is a better place to find the individuals you’re calling on. This will help you have a successful conversation with your prospect. You can also look at their social media profiles to learn about their jobs, families, and interests. This information will help you tailor personalized real estate services and build rapport. By doing this, you will not only grab the lead’s attention but also gain valuable insights into cold-calling strategies.
The second important source of information about the lead is searching your company’s real estate CRM and previous phone calls or email records. This can help you identify where the lead left off and what next steps to take. If you don’t find any documents or notes about the prospect, start building them by making phone calls.
2. Make Sure That Your Prospects are Not Busy
A busy person barely receives or gives importance to cold calls. So, you should be careful about the time of the day you call potential clients. Avoid calling during peak operating hours such as early mornings, lunchtimes, and evenings. Also, you should avoid calling when people drown with tasks during the week. However, reach your prospect during relaxing periods so they are more likely to converse with you.
To understand the best time to call your prospect, research the best time to call in their area. Good options are between 11:00 AM and 12:00 PM or after the weekday lunch break. Never call on weekends, event days, or office closing times.
Research says potential clients take only 30 seconds to show interest in your discussion. So, get straight into your main topic, reasons for contacting them, and what’s in it for them. To grab interest quickly, ask open-ended questions and know if they want to discuss real estate. Refrain from stressing the conversation if someone says they’re busy with something. Instead, politely ask them for a preferred time to discuss the topic.
3. Acknowledge the Situation
Understanding the prospect’s current situation is essential to build rapport in real estate cold calling. The lead can be busy with their business or clients and not pick up the calls. In this situation, you should only call them up to two times. This will show professionalism and increase the rate of getting a call back from the prospect in their free time.
On the other hand, the gatekeeper or personal assistant (PA) could pick up the call instead of the target prospect. At this moment, you should politely talk with them and know when the person will return or be available to speak. You have to be a people person and revise your cold-calling scripts to grab potential leads in the real estate industry.
4. Starting with a Friendly Greeting
Using a confident yet calm voice and warm greetings increases the possibility of continuing a conversation. These tactics will help you comfort the prospect, and your call will sound different from a salesperson’s.
You can also utilize the following tips to enhance the flexibility of your leads:
- Call by their name to get their attention.
- Mention events in their neighborhood to make them feel close.
- Start with a cherishing tone as a local real estate expert.
- Ask casual, open-ended questions about their current situation.
- Make a slow drive toward a sales pitch.
A friendly greeting with a personalized tone enhances the possibility that the lead will listen to your offerings. So, create compelling cold call opening lines to close more deals in the real estate industry.
5. Ask Open Ended Questions
Open-ended questions motivate prospects to give detailed responses, allowing you to derive potential information and understand their needs and aspirations. Ask questions about “why” to reveal their motivations and reasons for making real estate decisions.
These questions help you to encourage the prospect to discuss more and allow you to craft your sales pitch regarding their needs. You could ask the following rapport-building questions to build connections with prospects:
- What do you think about the current market price of your residence?
- What are the most critical factors of a new home?
- What are the property types you are looking for?
- How do you define your real estate goals?
- What kind of neighborhood do you mostly like?
- What factors motivate you to buy a new home?
- How flexible you can be in terms of your budget?
- What is your point of view regarding real estate market trends?
Follow a 60-40 rule when discussing a prospect. For 40% of the time, the conversations with prospects involve asking questions and talking less. Then, you must actively listen to your prospect’s responses in real estate cold calling. You should also avoid closed-ended questions while qualifying leads. Give top priority to the prospect’s response to tailor the following questions or sales pitch effectively.
6. Give them Always Personalized Touch
Personalization when discussing prospects increases deal closing percentages. If you listen closely to the leads’ needs and motivations, you can craft your pitch based on their requirements. You can offer them reference-based solutions regarding market trends, recent property listings, or features of the provided residence.
Align your conversation based on the prospect’s priorities, market trends, and industry trends to create an engaging discussion. You can have a personal approach by mentioning recent sales pricing for their areas of interest. Instead of unthinkingly following the script, focus on building a deeper connection with the buyer/seller of real estate. If the prospect doesn’t comply with you, politely acknowledge their response and look further.
7. Be a Consultant, Not a Salesperson
48% of cold callers find communicating value to potential customers challenging. The secret tip for each real estate cold caller is to think of themselves as a consultant rather than a salesperson. You should have the attitude and interest to assist prospects in identifying and meeting their real estate goals. Providing creative solutions, advising potential options, and listening to their demands will increase your client’s trust.
Remember that as a cold caller, keeping the prospect’s best interest is your top priority. It’s not just about sales; it’s the connection you’ve built over time. These approaches create a positive relationship that increases the chances of success.
8. Handle any Objections and Build Trust
Let’s say your prospect got angry for calling them in a profound moment. How would you deal with anxiety situations? Would you also get angry and drop the phone instantly? Sounds unrealistic. You should keep yourself calm and might apologize for such inconvenience. This will make them feel understood and in control. Then, have a meaningful conversation and ask them for a convenient time to get back to them.
Another common objection most often occurs after pitching your packages in real estate cold calling. They could have some issues or concerns about their real estate goals. You should handle these potential objections with empathy and understanding to grab high-quality leads.
Here are some suggestions that you can follow while handling objections:
- Comply with the prospect’s objection, and don’t try to defend it directly.
- Stay focused and resourceful to tailor creative recommendations on their issues.
- Don’t take any objection personally because they are buyers and have the right to clear their objections.
- Try to understand the prospect’s perspective to offer customized packages sincerely.
- Feel free to ask clarifying questions to understand their problems better.
One prime reason for unsuccessful cold calls is difficulty handling objections. Research shows that 64% of clients agree to purchase real estate if the cold caller can identify their objections. So, there is no scope to take clientâs objections easily if you want to derive potential clients for your real estate business.
9. End The Call Politely, Leave The Door Open for Future Contact
At the end of a sales call, you must take a proactive approach and direct your prospect in the right direction for future contact. At the end of the session’s starting phase, summarize the whole discussion’s keynotes. This will help your prospect to memorize the key points of the conversation. Next, clearly state what the prospect should do right after dropping the call.
Before dropping the real estate cold calling, cross-check that you have the following information:
- Detailed information about the prospect’s demand and issues
- Correct email address and phone number.
- Convenient time to call.
Thank them warmly for their valuable time and consideration. Maintain a positive tone to sound confident and enthusiastic. Being polite dramatically increases the conversion rate.
10. Follow Up
Effective post-call follow-up is essential for nurturing prospects, building trust, and enhancing client satisfaction. However, you must be creative in reminding them about the last call. Right after the initial call, you can send a follow-up email that includes the discussion minutes, the prospect’s next step, and your company’s contact details.
When following up, never recite the following-up word with the client. Instead, try to say, “I have some insight about the last solution we discussed.” There are also various follow-up strategies that you can use to close more deals.
Final Thought
Building rapport in the cold-calling real estate industry includes various strategies. Having an expert cold caller for the real estate business is essential to close potential deals successfully. You should practice the techniques mentioned to get better real estate lead generation results. Also, you can hire an expert Calling Agency to secure more deals and manage meaningful relationships with your leads.
