By David Miles Miles BrandDNA

The next in a series about marketing and social media.

Realtors have never been more important to builders than they are today, especially now that more and more prospective home buyers are using the Internet to find their home.

According to recent research, in 72% of new-home closings involving a co-op Realtor payment, the home buyer initially found the home, typically through the Internet, and then engaged the Realtor as an expert third-party source to validate the price, location, builder, quality and more.

During the last 10 years or so, the Realtor’s role has evolved from locating and showing homes to one of validating them.

Builders need to build or adjust their Realtor strategy to accommodate the real estate agent’s new role of validating homes and builders — and they must base their new strategy on several assumptions:

• Realtors Have Buyers
  
  Realtors represent more than 75% of all real estate transactions in most markets. To ignore or try to eliminate Realtors from the sales process is to ensure failure — as a builder and as a sales person.

• Realtors Validate Purchase Decisions
  
  While Realtors still have a significant influence over where buyers look for homes, what homes they consider and what home they eventually purchase, their most important role is to affirm and confirm the buyer’s purchase decision.
  
  
• The Role of the On-Site Sales Person Has Changed
  
  The days of waiting for sales traffic to arrive at the sales office are long gone. Today’s on-site sales counselors must be as proficient at Realtor outreach — at contacting and “selling the brand” to Realtors — as they are at closing prospects on-site. On-site sales counselors must assume the role of “brand ambassador” to educate Realtors and build a relationship of confidence, trust — and endorsement.
  

Engaging Realtors

When building stronger relationships with Realtors, builders and sales counselors should keep in mind that:

• Realtors are not in the habit of showing new homes.
• Each Realtor has their own obstacles to showing new homes.
• The most effective way to build Realtor loyalty is to build long-term relationships.
• Each contact with a Realtor either builds or diminishes trust in the relationship. People are not neutral and Realtors like to do business with people they like, respect and trust.
• It takes time and consistent effort to build a strategic relationship with a Realtor.
• On-site sales counselors can increase their probability of success by focusing on specific Realtors rather than large groups.
• As with any relationship, it must be maintained and nurtured to build long-term success.

With that in mind, the following are several strategies for building a solid relationship with Realtors:

• Target specific groups of Realtors to build individual strategic relationships.
  
  
• Assign ownership for the implementation of the Realtor strategy to sales managers and individual sales counselors who will be responsible for building strategic relationships with the following target audiences:
  
  • Rookie Realtors
  • Career Realtors
  • Brokers in charge
  • Key offices
  • Overall Realtor marketplace
     
• Implement specific tactics to support strategic relationships.
  
  In order to be successful in new home sales, salespeople need to be effective at attracting and sustaining Realtor business. Each sales person should be responsible and accountable for developing Realtor relationships that generate consistent registrations and sales.

Conduct One-on-One Meetings With Realtors

Individual meetings with Realtors are key to building long-term relationships that will create trust, drive traffic and produce consistent endorsements. But after the initial meetings, periodic one-on-one meetings will be necessary to maintain the relationship and keep the momentum going.

While numerous support tactics also need to be employed, trying to build relationships without meeting Realtors one-on-one in order to educate and inform them is doomed to failure.

Maintain Consistent Communication

Consistent communication is essential to producing consistent results.

The goal is not to elicit a specific response, it’s to support the relationship by keeping the sales counselor and builder brand in front of the Realtor. Without this consistent communication, efforts to build the relationship will be lost and, at best, produce inconsistent results.

Communication can take on several forms, including::

• E-blast campaigns
• Mobile text campaigns
• Voice mail updates
• Personal phone calls
• Post cards
• Gift cards
• Event invitations
• Birthday cards, seasonal cards
• News updates

When builders embark on a Realtor strategy, they need to determine how actively or passively they want to engage Realtors.

Two factors should make the choice clear — Realtors have buyers and Realtors are highly influential in guiding and validating buyer purchase decisions.

Builders clearly need to become intentional about building long lasting relationships with Realtors who understand, trust and are willing to endorse the builder brand.

David Miles will be discussing this topic during the 2012 NAHB International Builders' Show in Orlando beginning at 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 8, at Sales Central in West 311 E.

Next in the series: Media and referral strategies using social media.

David Miles is president of Miles BrandDNA, a Denver-based real estate branding and communications firm. During his career, which spans more than three decades, Miles has worked with such leading real estate brands  as Disney, Hines, Orco (the largest developer in Europe), Newland Communities, General Growth Partners, Pulte Homes, Centex Homes, Shea Homes, David Weekly Homes, John Wieland Homes, The Seaside Institute and the Urban Land Institute of Colorado. He has won numerous local, national and international creative awards, including 92 Gold Nationals and more than 500 Silvers. For more information, visit www.milesdna.com; or email Miles, or call him at 303-880-2531.

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To view or purchase this publication online, click here, or call 800-223-2665.

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