How to generate real estate referrals and repeat deals
As a real estate professional, it’s essential to understand how to generate real estate referrals and repeat deals. In fact, it’s the key to building a successful real estate business.
However, to generate more real estate referrals and repeat deals, it’s critical to ensure that the relationships you’ve been building with clients during transactions continue to develop as they become your past clients. That means working on building and maintaining personal connections— connections that keep you top-of-mind the next time they’re in the market or when they have friends who are.
Here are the 3 steps for generating more real estate referrals and repeat deals:
First, it’s crucial to understand how this process works. Developing relationships with past clients is a form of meaningful organic growth because it builds on an inherent level of trust. However, there’s no easy button—it takes time, consistency, and authenticity to pull it off. Most importantly, it requires a well-thought-out strategy that’s repeatable for many years.
Step 1: Follow up for at least 8 years.
It sounds like a lot — and it is a lot.
The truth is, referrals and repeat real estate transactions only come when you’re top of mind for your past clients—and only when it’s the right time.
Being top of mind isn’t something you’ll be if you only stay in touch for a year. Instead, being top of mind requires maintaining a consistent and genuine relationship for a while after each transaction that’s long enough to be thought of when it’s important.
That length of time should be at least 8 years—that’s about the average length of homeownership for first-time buyers. It’s also long enough for their family and friends to go through buying a first home, moving up, or downsizing.
The good news is that the longer you’re top of mind, the more deals you’ll likely get from the relationship.
Step 2: Personalize your follow-up.
Personalization doesn’t just mean that you use their name or send a postcard with a photo of their house or other houses you’ve sold. It’s also not just a one-time gift that seals the deal for eternity.
Personalization means that you communicate with them the same way you do with your friends. When something makes you think of them, you tell them. And when you reach out, it’s not to sell something or offer a service—it’s to say to them something you think they’ll appreciate or care about.
This means that for 8 years, it’s essential to reach out to them personally—by phone, text, email, and hand-written letters. Say something that they’ll care about, and make sure you actually want to say it. This isn’t a pitch, an offer, or a backhanded approach to getting them to pass your card along. Instead, it’s a process of building a real relationship.
Step 3: Add an element of surprise to communication
Most of us know steps 1 and 2. Even so, we don’t do it. It’s time-consuming, and it’s often incredibly easy to forget.
However, there’s one more thing to add to this must-do list of generating new real estate referrals and repeat deals: It’s doing something surprising.
As you work to maintain communication for eight years and seek to personalize everything you send, it’s also important to remember that you need to surprise them. The goal is to make them say, “Wow, that’s cool.” or “I didn’t expect this.” Why? Because a surprise is memorable, it’s remarkable, and it’s sharable. Those are the things they share with friends, and those are the things that keep you top of mind (and them coming back).
The Essential Client Follow-up Checklist
Year 1:
- Send a personal card when the transaction closes
- Send a two-month check-in text/email
- Send a mid-year check-in text/email
Year 2:
- Send a personal card celebrating their 1 year anniversary
- Send a 1-year anniversary text/email
- Send a mid-year check-in text/email
Year 3:
- Send a personal card celebrating their 2 year anniversary
- Send a 2-year anniversary text/email
- Send a mid-year check-in text/email
Year 4:
- Send a personal card celebrating their 3-year anniversary
- Send a 3-year anniversary text/email
- Send a mid-year check-in text/email
Year 5:
- Send a personal card celebrating their 4-year anniversary
- Send a 4-year anniversary text/email
- Send a mid-year check-in text/email
Year 6:
- Send a personal card celebrating their 5 year anniversary
- Send a 5-year anniversary text/email
- Send a mid-year check-in text/email
Year 7:
- Send a personal card celebrating their 6 year anniversary
- Send a 6-year anniversary text/email
- Send a mid-year check-in text/email
Year 8:
- Send a personal card celebrating their 7 year anniversary
- Send a 7-year anniversary text/email
- Send a mid-year check-in text/email
Don’t have the time? Then, hire Archie from Paperless Pipeline to stay in touch for you.
Archie is a follow-up system designed to do all this for 8 years.
With Archie, we take the busy work out of client follow-up. When a transaction closes, simply activate the 8-year sequence for your client and sit back—knowing they’re getting all of the right touchpoints to help keep you (and your business) top of mind.
How exactly does Archie work?
It all starts with a text (at precisely the right time)
Starting the week of closing, your clients will receive text messages from you for 8 years (and only 2 to 3 texts a year, nothing crazy). Each message is short, personalized, unique, and written for exactly the right time.
Natural follow up by email (only when appropriate)
When text messages aren’t replied to, follow up by email a few days later is automatic and natural. No pressure, no sales, just care.
Celebrate the milestones with thoughtful anniversary cards
For the significant milestones and anniversaries, Archie automatically sends personalized hand-written postcards. Hand-written addresses, on personal envelopes, with hand-written stamps.