Real Estate Agents can lose out on thousands of dollars in commissions by not having connections to agents in other areas to refer their clients to.
Repeat and referral business has always been a low cost to acquire new business sales compared to expensive marketing costs. Real estate is a very competitive industry and agents have to find ways to market themselves and stand out, in a cost-effective manner.
Referring through a referral network supports the give and take nature of referral business, as many agents will want to both receive and give referrals to maintain their success in the network. Agents can form relationships across far distances as they work together and trust one another with their clients.
At PrimoAgents, real estate agents that are not members of the network can still refer to members within the network and request their standard referral fee. Also, keeping that relationship ongoing with your client means that they are more likely to think of you in the future.
There is huge importance to maintaining the client relationship even after a move. Perhaps they move back to your area because they are moving “back home” or they decide to buy a secondary property in the future in your area. Remember, your area may be where family or friends live or that job opportunity that had them move out of town has ended. There are lots of reasons why clients (or their contacts) may need to buy or sell in your market and it’s very important to maintain those client relationships you spent so much time and effort building. You’ll want to remain their go-to agent they think of for their real estate needs. It also just feels nice to develop positive client relationships over decades of time for both parties. Relationships can be maintained through several “touches” such as mailing out a holiday card or reaching out with a phone call. Remind your client they can come to you for any of their real estate questions – you might not know the answer, but you can hopefully point them in the right direction to find one.
If a client is moving out of town; whether it’s to the next town over, or across the country, one of the first people they will talk to is their trusted real estate agent. Often a move involves the selling of the primary residence and purchase in the new area. The client will contact their agent regarding the sale – and they may not think to ask their agent to refer them to someone in the new area. When an agent gets that initial call – they can ask the client where they are moving – and assure them they have an agent to refer them to.
The referring agent benefits from getting a fee for the referral if a deal goes through and the agent receiving the referral is happy to pay this fee since they gain a client they otherwise most likely wouldn’t have had. The client is happy to not have to do the legwork to finding a good and reputable agent to work with in the new area. It’s a win-win-win for everyone.
Often real estate agents just don’t know who they could refer their client to as it is practically impossible to have contacts in all areas. Since picking an agent at random would not be in the best interest of their client, a great alternative is to use a referral network. At PrimoAgents we have, and continue to, build a referral network of select real estate agents across North America, that agents can feel confident sending their clients to. These agents have to meet several important criteria relating to education or equivalent (20+ yrs in the business), experience in business both in years and number of deals, and other factors, in order to be approved for membership.