How to Uplevel Your Listing Strategy

As you build your listing strategy, CINC client Jeff Cook Real Estate Team shares best practices to help agents win listings in a competitive market.

In this video from Inman Connect, Jeff Cook, Kris McDonagh, and Mike McDonagh share why it's now more critical than ever to drive listings and squash the competition. The Jeff Cook Real Estate Team recently closed 1600+ transactions, so they know the strategy to deploy and continue to refine the actions needed to win at the closing table. Below you'll find strategy tips, lead source ideas, and resources to increase your listing capacity.

Listing Strategy Tips

• Train every agent on how to secure a listing. It's not just the top agents in the brokerage, but all agents should know how to win at the listing table. Understanding the listing strategy allows your team members to be better agents and write stronger offers.

  Keep listings in front of mind with the team. Offer incentives and prizes to drive listing activity.

• Provide ongoing training focused on listings. At the Jeff Cook Real Estate Team, they provide all agents with a 3-day intensive course. If you are interested in learning more or taking the course, email hello@realtypartners.com.

• Don't forget that listings have babies, and they are called buyers. The Cook Team has found every listing creates 1.3 buyers.

Listing Lead Source Ideas

• Sign Riders in Front of Homes: Every time you sell a home, make sure to update the sign rider to Pending then Sold. This action allows you to receive additional image branding as the neighborhood expert. Also, moving forward, consider using a similar strategy with sold signs, but for buyers, you help find their next home.

• CINC Lead Generation Tools

  • Generate Buyer Leads: At CINC, buyer leads are also asked, "Do you have a home to sell?" That's an instant listing opportunity. Consider the flow of how a real estate transaction works. Consumers are more excited about their shiny, brand new home vs. their current home and the task of moving. Many home sellers hide as home buyers, and it's essential to generate both types of leads and identify how you can assist. To learn more about CINC buyer leads, click here.

  • Get Your Home Offer Now Landing Pages & Lead Capture: The cash offer and iBuyer strategy continues to engage homeowners. As an agent, these leads are further in the sales funnel compared to what is my home worth as cash offer leads tend to prefer to avoiding doing the repairs, updates, etc. and just want to get their home on the market and cash in their pocket. To learn more about "Get Your Home Offer" landing pages, click here.

• Advanced Strategies: If you have a strong brand appearance in your local market, consider using Billboards and Radio Advertising. Monitoring your return on investment will be more difficult as there are various metrics you can track. Make sure your messages are consistent, engaging, and have a call to action.

• Quarterly Newsletters and Past Client Events: As a top agent and team, your past clients are your future business, but you need to stay in touch. Build a community of past clients by hosting events, giving away pies at Thanksgiving, or even providing a database of contracts, lenders, etc. At Jeff Cook Real Estate, 25-28% of their listings are direct referrals.

• CINC Bonus Tip: Buyer Match Tool: Do you want to find buyers for your latest listing easily? OR even impress potential sellers during your listing presentation? CINC's buyer match tool allows you to easily find active buyers in your database that match the specific criteria of current MLS and off-market listings. After the system reverse farms your database, you can send a personalized email or text to your buyers within seconds.  To learn more about CINC's Buyer Match Tool, click here.

Listing Resources to Share With Your Team

• Create a Listing Interview Cheat Sheet: Empower your agents with understanding the process that should occur during a listing interview. Items to consider in this cheat sheet include best practices on communicating with sellers, ways to be proactive, and tips on building agent relationships.

• Offer a Commission Menu: At Jeff Cook Real Estate Team, they provide all agents with a commissions menu. The menu outlines the four options of marketing and services available to a seller. By having the options documented, the agent can overcome the object when sellers want to discount the commission. The goal of the menus is to stay in control of the transaction by providing value vs. just giving a discount.

• 2 Unique Addendums to Offer

  • Cancellation Guarantee: Provide sellers with the opportunity to cancel at any time. All they need to do is give you 48 hours' notice. For teams, this allows you to understand what went wrong and, if required, find another agent. By offering this policy, a consumer understands they are not stuck with the team.

  • Communication Guarantee: Sellers want to make sure they know what's happening with their listing. This addendum highlights that the team will communicate weekly.

These best practices are only the beginning of winning the seller at your next appointment. Systems like CINC not only provide the leads, but the automation tools to build authentic relationships.