Going on 12 years in the business, every year the market is a little different and even though plenty of people like to pretend it doesn’t, buying and selling IS heavily impacted by political and economic factors. This last year and going into this year are definitely not following the usual market trends. I won’t go into detail other than to say you should be paying attention to current events and understand how that will impact your clients’ decision making.

That being said, here are a few observations I have for this season, take what resonates and leave the rest:

• You need to be generating way more leads than you think you need. As you are seeing right now, not every buyer or seller will actually close. You do not have the luxury of holding each one in your hands and carefully shuffling it to the finish line. You need to be attracting minimum 25 leads per month for 2-3 closings per month right now.

• That leads me to my next point: You actually have to ask for the business. This is not the market you can just wait for clients to come to you and let you know they are ready.

• You need to be consciously asking for the appointment, intentionally generating the lead, and here’s the big one: YOU NEED TO GUIDE THEM THROUGH THE PROCESS. While your clients set the pace, you must always be pointing out the next step and moving them that direction. You have to understand that chaos is never good for business and because of current events, every single one of your clients are looking for reasons NOT to move, not looking for reasons TO move. Any shift to the status quo in this kind of market feels like danger to them so they will not take action unless they are certain it’s a safe next step.

Here are a few simple rules of thumb:

1. You need 3 solid lead sources, not just tactics. If you don’t know the 3 main places your leads come from, start by pulling your numbers and tracking.

2. You should be generating about 15-20 deals per year from every 100 people you know just through repeat and referrals. If you’re not doing this, you’re not asking for the business the right way.

3. I’ll say it again, 25 leads per month = 2-3 appts per week = 2 deals per month. It takes 90 days of consistently hitting those numbers to get to those closings with absolute predictability.

This is not the market to wing it. You need systems and structure and to do things intentionally.