New Year’s Resolutions Every Boston Real Estate Agent Should Make: Part One

Attention Boston real estate agents! 2024 is rapidly approaching and this is the best time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t in 2023. It’s been quite a year with high-interest rates and lower inventory levels on both sales and rentals. There have been a lot of real estate agents who have left our industry because they didn’t have the leads and listings they needed to make a viable living. There is an old saying that goes something like this “In the prosperous times, you put it in your pocket. In the lean times, you put it in your heart and that’s when you discover who you are.” When the real estate market is tough, it is often a time of self-reflection and course correction. It’s also a time to start making commitments to yourself that will propel you in a new powerful direction.

You might also want to ask yourself what technologies, new ideas, or adjustments could you make to continue your ascension to become a top Boston real estate agent. If you didn’t hit all your real estate goals – what kept you from reaching your true potential? For example, were you able to sell or list as many houses as you wanted? Did you rent as many apartments as you wanted to? Did you explore the real estate marketplace to see if there were better technology or platform solutions that could help you to the next level? If you happen to fall short, you need to figure out why. If you didn’t set any goals, then you fell short by default.

Luckily, the new year is the perfect time to start fresh with better habits in mind. Asking yourself empowering questions often leads to outstanding results. That is why New Year’s resolutions are so popular. Setting goals that require growth will set you on the path toward being an incredible Boston real estate agent. It takes hard work to make it in this industry. You might want to make it less hard on yourself by demanding a brokerage do more for you.

INCREASE YOUR ONLINE VISIBILITY.

“Location, location, location” as a standard doesn’t just apply to brick and mortar anymore. Your online “location” is crucial to your relevance. The most successful brokerages appear on the first page of Google. The most powerful brokerages invest in great websites and build proprietary listing syndication technologies that give you the edge in marketing. That means more leads and listings for you and less time having to try to market on your own which is incredibly time-consuming.

The best agents that make the most money usually work at offices with the strongest online presence. Organic page rank matters. You can tell the health and well-being of a real estate company by its domain authority across search engines and social media platforms. It’s also important to know that your brokerage spends a significant amount of resources on marketing for you. It’s a huge advantage to work in an office where the phones are ringing with investors, buyers, sellers, and renters calling!

Look for strong local companies that possess the highest domain authority for numerous keywords and examine the content on their blogs. Compelling local content builds a strong trust factor with a brand that helps with closing transactions.

Look at Where Their Real Estate Content is Featured

It’s vital to look for experienced local leaders in the Greater Boston real estate market that have been vetted by the local and national media. Not only do media appearances and unique real estate content offer more exposure for agents, but it validates that you’re among the best experts in your field.

Make it your New Year’s resolution to perform google searches on various top keywords in real estate. Think about how customers and the outside world also perform their Google searches for competitive keywords such as “Boston apartments” and “Boston real estate“. You should also try a host of smaller local neighborhood keywords to notice if you see any patterns. You might want to consider a real estate company by the overall site visits they receive in a year. You might also want to add up the amount of web traffic they receive and then divide by the number of agents.

All things being equal, if one company has one thousand agents across multiple companies vs. hundred agents with the same amount of web traffic – you could be looking at ten X less leads for you. Let’s face it, if you’re not on the first page of Google, you will never receive a decent amount of leads. That means significantly more hours just prospecting. This is incredibly time consuming and doesn’t often produce revenue for you. Remember when you are spending all your time prospecting that means you are not showing and closing. Ask your real estate company if they can guarantee you X amount of leads per week as you go into 2024.

Ask Real Estate Companies What They Invest Towards Your Success

It might be a prudent decision to consider working at a real estate office that invests substantial monies in providing a massive online omnipresence. It takes incredibly hard work and a lot of time to get onto the first page of google. Making the first page of google is not something that can be easily done within ten years. It takes a ridiculous amount of effort and expertise to rank well and create leads. That is why you almost always see the giant national tech monopolies dominating the first page of google.

Increased online visibility will make a massive difference to your bottom line going into 2024. The less time you have to spend in front of a computer generating marketing or posting ads, the more time you can spend on the phone, setting up showings and closing transactions. The best real estate agents in Boston work for companies that deliver the best marketing presence for their agents through dominant web presences. Finding a top tier real estate firm with the highest number of customers is always a win for your wallet! It’s time to start asking hard questions. Is your brokerage going to invest monies to help you get leads or will they send the profits off to corporate in some far away place?

SET NUMERICAL GOALS.

Vague goals are not real goals. Setting ambiguous goals is the first step towards lying to yourself about your professional growth. That being said, arbitrary numerical goals that don’t challenge you are not worth setting either. For example, you can set a goal of 5 calls per day. Technically that is a numerical goal, but any successful agent can tell you 5 calls a day doesn’t pay the bills. Any agent could make five warm or cold calls in 30 minutes or less. A good manager will be able to help you set challenging, yet realistic, professional goals.

You also want as many property owners phone numbers in front of you as possible. The more notes that reside in your database about a property owner or investor gives you more common things to connect about. Having to research new phone numbers on a daily basis is also a huge time-consuming task. If you are spending too much time doing research that means that your closing skills start to get rusty because you are not showing and closing enough. However, if you go to work at a company that has developed a massive database through over twenty years of real business relationships with landlords- well, that can be super lucrative. Landlords like to work with proven commodities that they know, like and trust.

The adage of working smarter AND harder applies here.

Smart is working at a place with the largest landlord and investor database that has accurate phone numbers and emails. Working harder is making more calls in the most effective manner possible. When you combine smarter and harder you become unstoppable. Ask yourself how much work you put in this year and how much you made. Use that as a benchmark for the bare minimum. Talk to successful brokers and agents and ask them about their goals- see what they each have in common. After all, why not follow tried and true paths to success?

It is said that it takes 21 days to form a new habit, and 66 for that habit to become automatic. That’s a relatively short commitment to help you form good sales habits that you can use for life. If you made 50 calls per week for new listings in 2023, set a goal to make 100 instead. Keep in mind that you’ll accomplish a lot more with those extra dials. If you really want to make the most of these calls, only count calls where you reach someone and build rapport.

Relationships take time to build, but that first call is crucial. Studies show that people call back companies more frequently when they have had a previous interaction with them. Name recognition is also important, so seek market leaders. This will undoubtedly help the ratio of call backs you receive over time. Having a powerful website chock full of real-time rental data also helps you look like you work at a powerful office.

Take the Steps to be More Successful in 2024!

In conclusion, the New Year’s resolutions outlined above offer valuable guidance for Boston real estate agents seeking to enhance their success. By incorporating these resolutions into your professional life, you’re laying the groundwork for substantial business growth. Now is the opportune moment to explore all available options and embark on this transformative journey.

As we bid goodbye to 2023 over the next few weeks, we want to express our commitment to your success. Stay tuned for Part Two, where we’ll delve deeper into additional strategies and resolutions tailored for Boston real estate agents. Our New Year’s resolution is to provide you with an abundance of listings, leads, and landlord opportunities at your fingertips, enabling you to maximize your earnings in the most time-efficient manner possible. If you’re interested in joining the Boston Pads team, visit our real estate careers page. We eagerly anticipate the opportunity to meet and work with you!