RE/MAX Preferred: 12 Actions to Turn Your Slow Season Into a Grow Season

It’s my sincerest hope that every agent reading this has just as much business – or as much down time – as they want, this time of year. But cultivating a mature understanding if the seasons and cycles of this business includes facing the truth that things often slow down when the weather grows cold and the holidays have most Americans otherwise occupied. For many agents, the next five weeks will be the most fallow season of the year.

What if, instead of leaving the soil of your business to sit fallow, you decided to grow a cover crop, so to speak, over the next five weeks? I’d like to challenge you to do just that. Here are 10 “cover crops” that you can plant, relatively simple, efficient tasks you can do – 2 per week between now and New Year’s – to replenish what’s been depleted from your business over the last twelve months and position yourself for a flourishing 2013:

1. Set your targets.

Setting targets for measurable outcomes you want to create in your business (and your life, for that matter) is one of the very first steps to achieving them. And this is not all about vision boards or magical thinking. If you marry your targets with the basics you already know about your business, you can use them to back all the way into a precise plan for reaching your goal that shows what you need to be doing every single quarter, month, week and even on a daily basis.

I suggest you sit down and write out, with precision, exactly what you want to reach in 2013. And think creatively about what buckets or categories in which you set targets. Start with the basics, and start soon, so that you can add to the list over the next few weeks as things come to mind – include some or all of the following items:

income (gross and/or net)

closed sales

buyer clients/seller clients

listing appointments

buyer seminars taught

vendor referrals given

blog posts written or questions answered

incoming lead response time frames, etc.

2. Explore new niches – and pick one to double down on.

In today’s market, if you are marketing to everyone, you’re effectively marketing to no one. Explore the possibility of finding a new niche or subgroup you can market to, whether it’s a group as simple as buyers, or taking an approach as narrow as focusing on:

a particular neighborhood,

a particular property type or

a population with ties to a large university or employer.

We’ll talk in much more detail about picking a niche or building out a specialization over the next couple of weeks – but this item is a must on your ‘cover crop’ planting plan.

3. Set your marketing plan and budget.

Once you know what your targets are and have in mind any new niches you want to target in 2013, you’re in position to build out your marketing plan and budget – and to start executing it by signing up and setting up ads or other tactics to help you reach your goal.

Include approaches that have worked for you in the past and some new ones you’ve always wanted to try, but haven’t yet. Your down time is the right time to do the research, allocate budget and line things up to be ready to activate your marketing plan at the top of the new year.

4. Revisit and refresh your online profile.

Chances are good that, at some point in time, you started a Trulia profile, you know – uploading your name, your photo, the area you work in and so forth. Chances are also good that your profile is not complete or fully updated to showcase yourself and your expertise in its best light for the millions of buyers who come to Trulia every month looking for listings and for agents!

Take 5 minutes during your slow season and update your profile, maybe adding your new head shot, or specifying your specializations. Click here, polish up your profile and we’ll automatically enter you to win this Mercedes E550. (How’s that for planting some prosperity seeds??)

5. Call or check in with 1 past client every day until Christmas.

This one’s simple – call or email one former client (whichever method they prefer) every day from now until Christmas or New Year’s. Ask how they are, ask if there’s anything you can help them with, then ask for their referrals and reviews.

6. Create one new, good habit.

Most people wait until New Years to put a resolution in place and end up dropping out like everyone else. I like to get some momentum up heading into New Year’s by taking the last 30 or 45 days of the year to create at least one, single new habit.

One big source of leakage, a spot where many agents miss out on business simply because they haven’t changed their habits yet, is in responding to incoming online leads. While you’re updating your Trulia profile, make sure you update your primary e-mail address to one you actually check.

Also, get in the habit of responding to your Trulia leads inbox at least one time a day, when you check your other email. Many buyers will fill out several agents’ lead forms at a time – and the first – sometimes the only – agent to respond is the one who winds up with that lead and, eventually, that deal.

7. Refresh and stage your website to reach your target clients.

Have you ever advised a seller to go attend other open houses, then come back to their own and walk through it from the perspective of a buyer?

Now’s the time to heed your own advice, and do a virtual walk-through of your own website from the perspective of a buyer or seller who has clicked from an ad you’ve placed, from your Trulia profile or even from a referral – especially if your site has been running on autopilot for months or even years.

How do you ‘show’?

Is all your information current?

Do you feel like the site represents who you are and what you want to put out into your local marketplace, to tell the people you want to work with why you are different from every other agent in town?

If your answer to any of these questions is ‘no,’ there’s no time like the present to make the power-tweaks necessary to make sure your website paints a vivid, accurate picture of what working with you is like – and that it speaks to the wants and needs of the buyers and sellers you want to work with.

8. Check your online reviews and put a review plan in place.

If you don’t have a Google Alert set up for your name, set one up – it’ll take you less than 30 seconds. That way you’ll know the moment someone posts a review of your services anywhere on the interwebs. Then, check Trulia, Yelp! and other review sites to see what, if anything, past clients have been saying about you.

If your 20th century post-closing client touches involved delivering a folder of documents, gifting them a bottle of wine and asking for referrals, the next-gen version is to deliver your clients a USB stick containing their transaction file along with a request for both referrals and online reviews (the wine still works!).

Data shows that well over 80 percent of home buyers and sellers are very happy with their agents after they close a transaction – that’s precisely the time to ask them to share their happiness by posting a positive review on Trulia and other review sites.

9. Get a new head shot or business cards.

Enough said. Okay, just one more thing: again, if you have decided to target any new niches or develop any core specializations in 2013, make sure your business cards and online profiles/personas message to these groups.

10. Refresh your listing presentation and materials.

Many of the best agents among us are still using listing presentation materials they’ve been working with, updating ad hoc, for years. Revisit yours, during the slow season: does it showcase your online marketing prowess? Does it demonstrate the strong data points that prove your expertise? Are client testimonials in the mix?

Get creative – here’s some inspiration; this agent just used an iPad app called Haiku Deck to land a $1.4 million listing with a very minimalistic deck that showcased his deep understanding of the market data and what buyers want.

11. Hire a bookkeeper + meet with a CPA.

Sound, orderly financials and the ability to predict your income and expenses are the fundamentals of a strong, growing business and a sane personal life. If you do not yet have a bookkeeper or you are still doing your own taxes, there’s no time like the end of the year to enlist one, review where your money came from and went in 2012, and set up a plan to align cash flows – in and out – with your business and life priorities in 2013.

12. Read 1 book per week.

There are some powerful business and personal development books on the market as we speak, which can reset your mindset, help you course-correct what’s not working in your business and inspire you to an unprecedented 2013. If you are truly ready to break through to a new level in 2013, consider reading one book per week through the end of the year.

Here are 12 power tactics for making the most of your time and growing your business this season. What else would you add to the list?