I know that most everyone looks at me as an Internet guy who is good at lead conversion. As much as that is one of my strong points, one of my favorite things I do is teach my agents about Customer Education. Over the past few months I have spent a ton of money to educate myself on new concepts I could bring to the real estate world to help my company increase our business.  

One of our biggest obstacles, and most likely one of yours, is the lack of commitment that many home buyers are making these days. When I started my search a few months ago, I had no idea what I was going to learn.

I learned how to use Customer Education in our business to help drive sales.

Usually, as Realtors, we are quick to blame everyone and everything else about why a customer didn’t end up buying a home from us. I have observed this since I got into the business in 2001.  Since then I have realized that in order to become successful in this business, in fact in any business, is to accept responsibility and learn from our errors. Over the past year our Real Estate Agents have averaged 8 new buyers per month but only sold 1 home per 8 buyers per month.  

After analyzing these numbers, I realized that the reason Buyers were not commiting was because of the lack of information or more importantly their misinformation. After all, we are all products of the media these days and if they say the Real Estate market is bad, that’s a great excuse for Realtors not to become successful.  

If the Realtors don’t believe in the market, how can the buyer believe?

Step 1 – I had to create a new culture in our office about changing the meaning. We went from this is a tough market to this is a great time to buy! It didn’t happen over night, but it did happen and we are noticing a difference. However, it wasn’t enough.  We needed to do more to help our customers obtain their goals.

Step 2 – We had to help our customers become more educated. If we could educate them on the realities of our local market which goes against the media’s opinion of our market, we would receive more sales.

Step 3 –  Through a series of weekly workshops we created a Buyer Presentation that represents all the facts. One of the most important was that homes were selling at 91.8% of their listing price. On top of that it told our buyers that homes listed correctly were selling in less than 60 days and homes under $100k were selling in less than 30 days at even a higher close rate. 

By following these three steps, we were able to come up with a powerful presentation that is certainly helping my Agents become more educated by educating our buyers.  

We had a great email from a customer that left us last month because he didn’t think we were working in his best interest.  He thought we were just trying to get him to spend an additional $2,000 so we could make more commission.  After using another Realtor and missing out on several homes he liked, he came back and apologized because he realized that we were really trying to help him.  He got a contract on a home yesterday based on what our education information for buyers. 

In the end it really comes down to being a business person, a counselor and a great Realtor to be successful in this business.  Those who think they are going to blame everything but themselves might be able to rationalize for their lack of business in this market.  However, the reality is if you take responsibility and formulate a plan of action, you can succeed and most likely will succeed.  

We have found that by educating our customers, we are winning!  

The proof is in the pudding.  We normally write 25 contracts per month on average.  Last month we wrote 31 contracts and this month we wrote 35 so far with 3 days left.  Is it a coincedence that we implemented our education presentation last month?  

As always I’m available to help Real Estate Agents who are looking to take their business to the next level.  If you need help or have some questions about education based marketing, feel free to contact me.  Good luck!