The AgentMapIt Blog

Getting referrals from other agents is all about building a network of referral partners and “working” the network. That means staying in touch with your network partners and gradually building a profile as a trustworthy, reliable, experienced partner.

But is that all you can do to build your agent referral business?

No it isn’t.

You can generate referral business right within your own client and contact base.

How can you do that?

Well, here is one way. You can become a Relocation Expert and promote yourself that way to your clients and contacts.

What is the “Relocation Expert” Approach

The Relocation Expert Approach is about refocusing your message and presenting your service from an angle you may not have thought of or seriously tried before.

In fact, the Relocation Expert Approach involves developing and packaging your service in a new way so you can reach a new market. You already have expertise at helping people relocate from one city to another. So why not promote it?

Becoming a relocation expert involves more than just selling houses. The relocation market is broader than this. It includes anyone who is moving from one place to another and who needs advice on buying or renting accommodation – whether they want to buy a house through you or not.

Obviously some (perhaps most) real estate agents are already providing this kind of advice, but from what I can tell, very few focus on it in a sustained way, and very few use it as a marketing approach.

Think about this for a minute. If you are an agent in Tampa and your cousin in Toronto has been reassigned to Seattle, your cousin is a prospect. Why? Not because you can sell him a house, but because you can give him expert advice, and you can hook him up with an agent in Seattle – at absolutely no cost to him.

Or say a client of yours who bought a house through you last year in Syracuse has an elderly parent in Albany who wants to downsize. You can help your client by recommending a trustworthy agent in Albany who will help them find the right accommodation.

Or say one of your clients is being relocated to Kansas City, or a friend’s daughter is looking for a place in Dallas. If you are a “relocation expert” you can help.

What can you offer your relocation clients?

Obviously this depends on your background and your expertise. But at the very least you should offer:
– All the normal real estate services for local clients
– Help in finding information for clients moving out of town
– Help in locating a reliable agent in the area they are moving to
– Relocation guides and tips

Have you had any success with this approach? Please leave your comments.

There are two types of networking: passive networking and active networking.

Passive networking is much like old fashioned advertising. You run an ad and you expect people to respond to it. With passive networking you join networks like AgentMapIt, ActiveRain, or Facebook and while you may make a contribution from time to time, you don’t actually get to know anyone.

With passive networking you don’t shake hands or rub shoulders with real people. It’s like being a candidate for political office where you go to the all the public rallies and all candidates meetings. You make the speeches and sit in on the panel discussions and debates, but you don’t stick around after to meet the actual voters.

Active networking is really an old fashioned concept. It is what real estate agents do when they go to community meetings, hold open houses or coach minor sports teams.

Active networking happens when you rub shoulders with real people, take an interest in what they are doing, and participate in the same activities they are involved in.

Our programming at AgentMapIt was originally written only for USA and Canada locations, so when we started getting requests for membership from other countries we had a bit of a problem.

We’ve developed a temporary workaround by creating a Regional network for Mexico, Central America, Caribbean, and South America. We know this is a big region, and we’ll eventually create smaller sub-regions, if necessary. For the time being, this allows us to accommodate members from those countries.

We will use the same approach for other countries too, as members join from those countries.

To find members from countries other than Canada and the USA, just select the appropriate regional network.

In last week’s post we briefly touched on the importance of creating as large and as active a network of referral agents as possible. This week we want to make some suggestions for “working” your network.

By “working” your network we mean staying in touch with your network partners, putting your face in front of them, reminding them on a regular basis that you’re still around and still looking forward to sharing information and doing business with them.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Create a Network Partner List – Build a “formal” list that includes the name, postal address, telephone number, email address and other relevant information for each network partner. By a “formal” list I mean something written down or stored in your computer somewhere.

Most agents have access to all kinds of “contact” software. Many of these programs are overkill for this purpose, and force you to spend more time figuring out the software than actually using it. Whatever you do, don’t get caught up in the “system” at the expense of actually corresponding with your network partners.

A good place to start looking for referral network partners is right here at AgentMapIt. To use AgentMapIt as a source for building a network list you should look through as many member profiles as possible, and then make a list of the ones you want to contact. Then you might try sending an introductory email something like this:

Hello Alice,

All the best,
Renaldo Realtor

2. Contact Method and Frequency – Decide how you’re going to contact your network partners, and how often. If you like using the telephone, probably a call every couple of months is sufficient. Or if you prefer email, a regular email every two or three weeks is probably not too often.

Either way, try to have something interesting to say. If you have a blog it is always effective to refer to a recent post in your email messages. Blog posts don’t have to be long and involved – perhaps something of interest about the real estate market in your city, recent trends or sales figures, or an interesting video you stumbled onto. Remember, one of your objectives is to demonstrate that you are an expert when it comes to your local market.

3. Other Networking Websites – As you probably know, there are many social networking websites you can take advantage of to stay in touch with different groups of people. Some like ActiveRain and AgentMapIt are specifically for real estate agents. Others like Linkedin are for more general business and professional networking. Still others like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are not specifically for business networking, although many people claim they can effectively be used for business.

None of these sites will be effective networking tools for you if you don’t put some effort into them. As I have said elsewhere, “As with all other social networking sites (Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), the benefit you derive from them is completely dependent on the effort you put into them.”

And personally, although I am a member of many different social networking sites (Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, ActiveRain, to name a few) I find it impossible to spend enough time “networking” in this way to get any real benefit from these sites.

In other words, don’t bother with sites like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and ActiveRain unless you intend to spend some time working on each of them. You won’t get anything out of them unless you put quite a bit of time and energy into them.

I have come to the conclusion that the best way to use social networking sites is to choose one (or maybe two) and concentrate on that one alone. That means you should take a close look at the objectives you want to accomplish, the people you want to “network” with, and the opportunities for exposure within each of these sites.

That is one important reason why we have designed AgentMapIt to have a very narrow focus. AgentMapIt is primarily meant for networking with other agents for the purposes of generating referrals. So if that is something you think you should be focusing on, then AgentMapIt is the ideal place to help you build and “work” your network.