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Stacey Moseley
Client for life strategies are important, but don’t become an agent that 'pesters' people, one leading real estate professional has warned.
“It is so essential to be adding value to your relationship, [but] not just calling them on their birthday or anniversary,” Darren Pearce, sales consultant at Bresic Whitney Estate Agents in Sydney, told Real Estate Business.
"Clients are clever - they know you are just prospecting."
Mr Pearce, who is considered one of the leading sales agents at Bresic Whitney, said in order to successfully retain past clients, an agent must keep a database that has up-to-date and relevant information.
“A lot of people have a false sense of security that their database of 5,000 people is great, and will get them their next sale,” he said.
“I’d rather have a database of 500 clients who really respect me.”
When it comes to “taking” clients' time, Mr Pearce is very conscious to ensure he has permission from the client to send out emails.
“Everyone receives emails they never read and it goes straight to the bin. I ensure the people I am sending my newsletters out to want to read them,” he said.
“And when I do ring a client I make sure it is when I have relevant information for them, for example, when a property has sold ten doors up for them and I have details of prices.”
Measuring the success of a client for life strategy can be difficult, Mr Pearce said, but he believes 80 per cent of his business is repeat or referral based.
“It is a hard task to put the worth of a client for life strategy into monetary terms, but if I look at all my listings right now, 12 of the 14 are because of referrals or are repeat clients,” he said.
“These people are very enjoyable to work with because there is already a sense of trust, because I am being referred or I’ve worked with them before.”
Mr Pearce will be a speaker at the forthcoming Advanced Real Estate Learning (AREL) 2012 conference in Sydney. He will be a presenting on ‘Nurturing Your Database and Keeping Clients for Life’.
“We will also be focusing on how to best use a database to create and keep clients for life," Mr Pearce said.
The AREL 2012 Annual Forum will be held in Sydney on Thursday, May 31 and in Melbourne on June 1. It's open to all industry practitioners across Australia.
To learn more about client for life strategies, look out for the Real Estate Business’ April edition, due to hit desks next week.
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