Growing Your Real Estate Sphere Of Influence: Tips For A Better Pipeline
Did you know that realtors get almost 20% of their business by using relationships they’ve established?
When you’re new to real estate, the best way to make your first sale is to leverage your personal connections and relationships. Building strong personal connections significantly enhances your chances of successfully securing a deal.
This doesn’t just apply to new brokerages or agencies. People are more likely to recommend or work with someone they know and trust.
These relationships and connections are often called your real estate sphere of influence (SOI).
Growing and maintaining your sphere of influence will ensure a steady stream of new deals and referrals in the real estate industry.
In this article, we’ll discuss how you can grow your real estate SOI and maintain your relationships to develop a consistent and healthy pipeline of new deals.
What Is a Sphere of Influence and Why Is It Important?
Your sphere of influence refers to your network of personal and industry connections. The stronger your relationships, the more influence you will have in the industry.
Improving your sphere of influence is important because you can ask more of people you have strong connections with.
If you’ve read our guide on how to start your own brokerage, you’ll know that your sphere of influence is vital when starting any new real estate business.
When you begin, you’ll need to make your first sale quickly. But you’ll face a significant hurdle: your business is still unknown. This means that to start with, new clients won’t come to you, and you’ll have to seek them.
One of the best ways to do this is to use your current sphere of influence. You could ask for referrals from:
- Friends and family.
- Former colleagues.
- Your contacts in the local market.
- Neighbors and local community members.
5 Ways to Expand Your Sphere of Influence
Each relationship you build could result in several closed deals and be worth millions.
Expanding your network is vital, as it helps with lead generation, referrals, and repeat business, ultimately helping you build a successful real estate career.
The good news is that you can proactively grow your sphere of influence. You don’t necessarily have to wait for clients to come to you. Here are some ways to do this:
1. Take stock of all your current connections
Begin by writing down every person in your current sphere of influence and immediate circle as a real estate professional.
Challenge yourself to think of as many individuals as possible, and consider the people you could get to know or those you could be introduced to.
You should segment this list into groups representing each type of relationship. This will help you target each audience with relevant, personalized communication.
For example, imagine you were looking for seller referrals. You probably wouldn’t approach your list of prospective buyers. These people don’t want to sell and haven’t done business with you before, so approaching them wouldn’t be helpful.
But you would approach family and friends. Phone calls or in-person chats with them would be appropriate.
2. Ask for referrals
Imagine you were looking for a buyer for an extensive ranch property. You can seek referrals from your contacts by attending weekly local real estate networking events.
This approach will likely be successful because you have an in-person relationship with these people, which means they may be more willing to give you a referral.
On the other hand, sending a generic message asking if anyone knows a buyer via your social media accounts is less likely to result in success. Lacking a personal relationship with these individuals could lead to your request being easily dismissed.
3. Get networking
In real estate, nothing beats in-person connections. You simply need to get out and meet people. Here are some networking tips to grow your sphere of influence:
➡️ Join professional real estate agent bodies
Your local real estate association will likely run events to help people create connections, network with like-minded people, and provide a great opportunity for professional development.
Most real estate agents focus on a specific niche. They may get clients that they can’t or don’t want to work with. In these situations, they’ll need someone they trust to refer the client for real estate assistance.
By networking with industry professionals, you can both broaden your sphere of influence and gain valuable insights.
Here’s a good example from Greater Nashville Realtors. They hold summer mixer events, golf tournaments, and awards ceremonies. All of these are great ways to meet fellow realtors:
➡️ Join local business groups
Don’t just focus on building strong relationships within the real estate industry. Get involved with your wider business community, too.
For example, you could join your local chamber of commerce, your city’s trade association, or even more general networking groups for local businesses.
Networking can generate real estate leads and allow you to meet other professionals, like lawyers or accountants, who could help with your business.
Here’s an example from the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. The organization provides the usual networking opportunities, but you can also choose to get involved with something more meaningful, like joining a policy board:
➡️ Get involved in the community
Get involved with your local community center, charity, and community events. This will help you with meeting new people and building relationships with them. It will also be rewarding for you on a personal level.
Being well-known in your community as a realtor keeps you top-of-mind, making you the go-to person for buying or selling real estate.
You could also host client appreciation events such as barbeques, happy hours, trivia nights, and giveaways. These are great for nurturing relationships and broadening your real estate sphere of influence by meeting new potential sellers and buyers.
In the example below, this Realtor showcases her client appreciation events to nurture her relationships with existing clients:
4. Use digital marketing to your advantage
You can use digital marketing tactics to foster new connections, engage with those you have existing relationships and generate leads. Here are five ways to do this:
💻 Start with a good CRM to track interactions
Once you’ve begun networking, you’ll need a system for communicating with your sphere of influence and growing it digitally.
The first step is to get a real estate customer relationship management (CRM) platform. This system allows you to store and update your contact list and automate common sales and marketing tasks.
A good CRM will also help you track your marketing efforts so that you know what’s working and what isn’t. This will help you narrow your SOI marketing approach so you can spend time on the most effective tactics.
When it comes to choosing a CRM, we suggest using either HubSpot or Follow Up Boss. However, always do your research before deciding on the right CRM for your business.
✍️ Delve into content marketing
Very few real estate brokerages do content marketing well, so it’s a great way to grow your sphere of influence, gain a competitive advantage, and build authority in your industry. Content marketing involves creating and sharing material like videos, blogs, and social media posts that don’t explicitly promote your brand.
Over 80% of marketers say content marketing is the most effective method for demand generation.
Most brokerages simply blast current clients with outdated listings or emails telling them the market is ‘hot.’ This information isn’t useful to potential clients and may even lead to them unfollowing you on social media or unsubscribing to your newsletter.
Focus on creating content that buyers and sellers will find genuinely useful. This could include:
- Buying and selling process tips.
- Home maintenance tips.
- Training courses and webinars.
- Listing alerts.
- Industry newsletters.
This real estate brokerage leverages content marketing by publishing informative blog posts that are useful to the reader, potentially helping them generate real estate leads:
📧 Use email marketing
Once you have your content in place, it’s time to deliver it to your potential clients. Email marketing is an efficient method for sharing and promoting your content and an excellent SOI strategy.
Over 30% of marketers use email newsletters to nurture leads, and 29% say email marketing is the most effective channel for content marketing.
The great thing about email marketing is that you can connect it to your CRM and send highly personalized messages to different contact groups.
In the example below, this brokerage uses email marketing to send friendly welcome emails to potential clients who sign up for their newsletters:
You can read a full guide to running real estate email marketing campaigns on our blog, but here are some pointers on getting this type of marketing right:
✅ Segment your email list
You can use your CRM or an email marketing tool to segment your list of email addresses into different groups.
Segmenting your email database means sorting your professional contacts based on certain criteria, such as their location, interests, or your relationship with them.
You can then target each group with emails that speak to them directly, like with content around market updates or local events like open houses. This helps you deliver more targeted messaging via email and stay connected with your existing and potential clients.
✅ Use personalization
Personalized emails get an impressive open rate of 29% and a click-through rate of 41%. If you’re not personalizing your emails, you’re missing out.
Personalizing your emails can be as simple as incorporating your contact’s name in the subject line, which leads us to our next point.
✅ Create compelling subject lines
Your subject line is the first thing your potential clients see, and it’s what ideally gets them to open and read your email. So, your subject line needs to be good.
A subject line should clearly state the email’s content and give the recipient a good reason to open the message.
Some examples of good subject lines include:
- [Name], your dream home is just a click away
- [Name], don’t miss out: open house this weekend
- [Name], discover the latest real estate market trends in your area
✅ Use a clear call-to-action (CTA)
You can’t expect your potential clients (or the connections you’re building a relationship with) to figure out on their own what their next steps should be. Your email needs to clarify what action you want them to take through a call to action (CTA).
Usually, email CTAs come in the form of clickable buttons that lead the reader to the next stage of your pipeline.
📱 Leverage social media
Another effective way to build relationships that can lead to sales is via social media. A survey found that the top benefits of social media marketing are 80% increased exposure.
Many of the contacts you want to connect with will likely be on platforms like LinkedIn, which is also a good place to market your new business.
One promising strategy is to join local real estate groups on social media platforms. These groups could be places where potential clients ask questions or even find a real estate agent to help them.
You could provide real estate advice and market reports in your social media posts to make them engaging and useful and establish yourself as a knowledgeable resource.
You can also post market updates, information about your real estate services, and testimonials or success stories from satisfied clients to generate genuine interest.
This broker regularly shares market updates on LinkedIn for his local area, potentially helping him gain more exposure, build relationships, and get more leads:
Interestingly, Reddit is a particularly good platform for this, as most cities have a subreddit dedicated to their local real estate market. Reddit has 365.4 million weekly active users, and 44% are 18 to 29 years old. This is the perfect platform to be active on if you’re targeting first-time buyers.
Additionally, Reddit questions and answers show up prominently in Google search results. So, if you’re active on this forum, your answers could show up in search results without much effort.
Here’s an example of a subreddit dedicated to California real estate. As you can see, the first couple of posts are questions that, as a real estate agent or broker, you could answer:
As with other networking and business opportunities, always be authentic on these platforms. Use social media groups to answer people’s questions and find real ways to help them.
| Getting Social Media Right Check out these two guides to find out how you can grow your real estate business using social media: How to generate leads using social media How to create effective Facebook ads |
⚙️ Automate your content distribution
Managing your real estate sphere of influence will become more challenging as it grows.
Networking, emails, social media posts, and creating new content all take time and effort. That’s why we recommend using automation tools to handle as many common content-related tasks as possible.
For example, a social media automation tool allows you to schedule posts in advance instead of manually publishing them daily. You can dedicate time to planning a month’s worth of social media content, freeing you from this task for the rest of the month.
However, automation should be reserved for less personal, regular communication. For example, you shouldn’t automate messages to family members and friends. On the other hand, it would be suitable to automate a weekly newsletter.
5. Stay in touch with your clients
One mistake that real estate professionals often make after closing a deal is failing to stay in touch with previous clients.
There’s a possibility that if you make a good enough impression, these clients will want to work with you again. By not maintaining your relationship with them, you’re missing out on the opportunity for repeat business.
Something as simple as a thank-you note and a small gift after your deal closes can go a long way and allow your relationship to continue to form naturally. Use messages to check in with them, celebrate their personal milestones, and provide any additional advice they may need.
According to recent research, the average length of home ownership is 13 years. If you stay top of mind with former clients through consistent communication during that time, you can build meaningful connections with them and turn them into repeat clients. You’ll be the first person they think of when it comes to new deals and giving more referrals.
| An Expensive Mistake By staying in touch with clients, you are building a future pipeline of real estate sales for your business and ensuring its success. Unfortunately, most Realtors simply add their clients to their email database and send them the same generic content everyone else receives. This is not an effective way to maintain your sphere of influence. Failing to stay in touch with your past clients can cost you future income as you lose out on referrals and repeat business. |
Grow Your Sphere of Influence with Paperless Pipeline
Your sphere of influence as a real estate agent or broker is imperative to your success. Without the right relationships and contacts, growing your business will be significantly more challenging.
Once you’ve started growing your sphere of influence, your number of transactions will naturally increase. To manage this, you need the right software.
Paperless Pipeline is purpose-built transaction management software designed to automate and streamline the transaction management process.
With a simplified process, you can continue to grow your sphere of influence, close more deals, and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Visit our website to try Paperless Pipeline for free today. We’re excited to show you just how simple the transaction management process can be.