What Is the Biggest Fear of Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Teams?

What’s the biggest fear that real estate agents have?

Market downturns? Maybe. Not being able to beat the odds and overcome the extremely high attrition rates that agents face? Probably. The inability to provide for yourself and your family through this career path? Most definitely.

But what do all these fears have in common?

What they all have in common—what the overarching and underlying fear is—is the fear of not being able to generate business when you need it most. This is the fundamental dread in the industry and is shared by real estate agents and businesses alike. The prospect of not being able to consistently bring in business and close sales on demand means that you will get stuck in a feast or famine cycle.

Real Estate Agents Want Control over Their Business

Many people become real estate agents because they want a greater amount of control over their careers and their lives. They are drawn to the industry to have flexibility with their schedule, they want the chance to be their own boss, and they want their income to directly reflect their skills and ability—with no artificial caps or limits imposed by having a non-commission salary.

The problem is, this dream is often not realized for many who start on the real estate agent journey. Tom Ferry claims that 87% of all agents fail in real estate. Even for those who “make it”, they get stuck in a cycle of good times and bad times in which the freedom, flexibility, and control over their income they dreamed of seems illusive or unobtainable.

When times are good and you’re converting leads, setting appointments, and closing sales, your life is great and you feel like you’re on top of the world. But then the famine hits. You struggle just to get by, you call lead after lead with no luck, and you have bills piling up. During these times, your life is filled with stress, worry, and uncertainty.

Even when times are good, for many agents and ISAs there is the voice in the back of their head asking themselves how long the good will last. They’re afraid that, although they are making sales now, will they be able to keep it up? When will the “feast” end? How will their bank account look next month or the month after?

Real Estate Companies Fear This, Too

The fear of the feast or famine cycle is not only confined to solo agents. Real estate companies of all sizes share the same thoughts in the back of their minds. “Times are good now, but will it last?” Smart real estate teams dedicate a large amount of resources towards lead generation and have systems in place to create a steady flow of new business—partially as a result of this fear.

In fact, entire teams of real estate ISAs (inside sales agents) are hired to ensure that business is being generated and that the company has a steady supply of qualified leads to keep them going in great times and not so great times. Having inside sales agents is a good step towards creating a predictable system for converting leads, but it is not necessarily a guarantee.

What Is a Real Estate ISA?

At Smart Inside Sales, we like to explain the role of ISAs to our clients in terms beyond the general view of appointment setters or lead scrubbers—ISAs are skilled real estate professionals who are highly trained, skilled, and dedicated to their craft in the same degree as an outside agent.  The advantage of the ISA is that they specialize in the initial tasks of lead generation, lead nurturing, and setting listing and buyer consultation appointments.

Basically, a real estate inside sales agent is a lead generating and converting ninja who, as opposed to an outside agent, conducts their craft over the phone instead of in person. They are first point of contact with your real estate company and are responsible for getting new business in through the door.

The basic structure of a real estate inside sales role is:

• ISAs receive inbound leads and conduct rigorous outbound prospecting to uncover leads.
• ISAs scrub leads, determine motivation, timing and ability.
• ISAs set the listing and buyer consultation appointment for an outside agent.
• ISAs also maintain a nurturing database of leads and work that database to produce future appointments.

But even if your real estate team has an ISA or multiple ISAs; if they don’t have a tried, tested, and proven system for converting leads, then you can’t be sure of a steady stream of new business.

How to Escape the Fear of Not Being Able to Generate Business on Demand

Whether you’re a team with ISAs or a solo agent, the only way to have total control over your business is to feel confident that you can consistently bring in new sales. This means you need a lead conversion system that is both reliable and predictable. Depending on your situation, you, your agents, or your ISAs need to be the master of scripting, dialog, objection handling, and closing. Plus, you have to know how to receive, manage, categorize, and nurture leads so they don’t get lost forever in your CRM.

You can generate all the new leads you want, but if you don’t know how to effectively and consistently convert them, then the time and money you sunk into getting those leads was for nothing. That means you have to know how to talk to them, how to overcome objections, when and how to close, and how to keep everything organized.

This is where Conversion University comes in.

Conversion University teaches everything we know at Smart Inside Sales. It’s a comprehensive training program for real estate agents and ISAs that gives you the tools to set 20, 30, or even 40 new appointments every single month. What’s more is that the agents and teams who work through this program are able to do this on demand with predictability.

Most real estate agents fear that the good times will end. The skills and training you receive through Conversion University make it so that they won’t ever have to again.

Conclusion

The biggest fear that real estate ISAs and agents have is that they can’t predictably create new business. That every time they pick up the phone it’s a matter of luck whether they can set the appointment or make the sale. That it’s out of their control.

The way to overcome this and gain that control back is to have the right training and put the proper system in place.