Mining Your Seminars for Real Estate Leads

Part of the Professional Real Estate Agent Handbook Series

The advantage of attending seminars goes beyond simply learning new things. As a businessperson, you probably have participated in your fair share of seminars and if you’ve been around long enough, you probably already know that these events are opportunities to establish new connections and strengthen existing ones.

What many may not realize is that events like seminars and conventions offer rich marketing potentials for your real estate business – potentials that are unfortunately often left untapped until the next time another seminar comes up.

What follows are some helpful tips in increasing the advantages you get from attending events like seminars by making a conscious effort to build a network, not just of mere acquaintances, but also of potential leads.

1. Cards – ask and you shall receive.
Think about it, when making a new acquaintance at a function, doesn’t it make you feel good that a person asks for your business card? It shows that this person thinks of you highly enough to want to keep in touch with you.

Thrusting your card out to every person you meet may not have the same effect. In fact, giving your card out without being asked for it shows presumption and pushiness on your part – something you don’t want people to be thinking about you as a real estate agent.

2. Talk less, listen more.
This is perhaps one of the most overlooked, yet essential skills in building connections that translates to leads. You may be so caught up in your own excitement about what you can do for people that you can end up monopolizing a conversation.

In a convention with a huge attendance, sometimes, a few minutes are all you get. Use that precious time to get more information from your fellow attendees but also taking care not to look like you’re conducting a thorough investigation.

Keep the mood light, but appropriately steer the topic towards conversation that probes for your contacts’ real estate needs – needs that you can perhaps address once the conference is over.

3. Remember to take down notes right away.
It’s all well and good if you can remember every single conversation you’ve had throughout the entire duration of the event. Unfortunately, for most, these can be easily forgotten or worse, interchanged for another.

The advantage of taking down notes right after a conversation is that important information regarding this new contact and his/her real property concerns are kept fresh. Jotting down a few lines at the back of their business card makes for an excellent reference system. When you call or write, it will impress them to see that you remember the conversation you had - showing you thought of them highly enough to remember what they said. This alone earns a lot of points in your favor.

4. Create categories.
All this wealth of potential leads can become potential headaches as well if left unorganized. Remember that the acquaintances you make may not all be direct leads. Some may be good buyer/seller leads, while others may not be as such but can rather be rich referral sources.

Similar to taking down notes, categorize these contacts right away and save yourself the trouble to needing to recall what group they fall in several days after the seminar.

5. Follow up conscientiously.
With each day that passes, opportunities come and go so it is wise for you to cultivate these newly forged relations as soon as you can. Don’t wait a week after the seminar ends to begin following up your contacts.

With your well-annotated, organized collection of business cards, start with at least writing a friendly email to retouch the contact. Invite them to respond and to keep in touch.

Ask them if they’d be interested in joining your mailing list where you provide things like free and useful information on real estate concerns. Your willingness to share your skills will make you come to mind more when something about real estate comes up.

These are just some of the ways you can get the most out of the seminars you attend by mining it not only for head knowledge, but also for useful and potential leads.

Remember to be more than just being an attendee. Participate actively by interacting with your fellow attendees and conduct yourself exceptionally at all times. You may never know who’d be looking.

In the kind of business real estate agents are, your character has a lot of bearing on whether people will do business with you or not. These may seem like small measures but the results can return a whole lot more if you take the time to do them.