5 Ways to Lose a Listing (and How to Stop it from Happening to You)

The real estate business can be rewarding, but it can be tough. It’s all about getting the listing and then finding the right buyer so your clients walk away happy with a little more money in their pockets. The challenge you probably face is landing the listing in the first place. Nothing hurts worse than working really hard to land a listing only to find out that another agent closed the deal instead.

While you try not to take it personally, it stings. You tend to beat yourself up and overanalyze all of the things you might have done wrong. It can cut deep when it’s someone you know on a personal level, but acquaintances and prospects who steer away from doing business with you can hurt, too. Here are the top five ways you can lose a listing and the secrets you can use to prevent it from happening again.

1. Networking into Nothing

Everywhere you go, you talk to people. You’re outgoing and sociable. You talk about your work in the real estate industry so that everyone you come into contact with knows what you do and how you can help them buy or sell a home. For example, maybe one of your biggest networking pools is your church community. You’re very active in your Bible study group. You volunteer on church cleanup days and you always make several dishes for the potluck dinners. One Sunday, you overhear someone you’ve known for 15 years say she just listed her home for sale. You get that free-falling sensation in your stomach.

Solution: Email marketing could have saved your “networking into nothing” problem. While the people you mingle with at church and other social functions see you on a regular basis, they “see” you on a personal level. When you capture their email addresses, you can stay top of mind with them on a business level too.

You already talk about home and garden tips or weekend DIY projects when you see them in person, so why not through email too? When they receive emails from you as a real estate agent, your content should be industry adjacent and be interesting and entertaining. Build yourself up as a trusted source of ideas and information. That way, when it is time for them to buy or sell a home, they’ll think of you then, too. Constant communication on indirect real estate matters gives you the opportunity to build credibility with your audience on a professional level.

2. Neighborly Brush-off

You’ve lived in your neighborhood for 10 years. You specialize in selling homes in the area because you know it so well. You walk out one morning to get the paper and see that your neighbor has a For Sale sign in their front yard with another real estate agent’s name on it. Yikes, how did this happen?

Solution: Content marketing is still king. When you share relevant content with the people you know, it positions you as an expert in your field, which is good because you are an expert. Everyone wants to work with the expert. When you have your neighbors on your email list, you can share content with them on a regular basis. When it comes time for them to buy or sell a home, they instantly think of you because you have been educating and sharing relevant information with them on an ongoing basis.

3. Friends and Family Let Downs

Your cousin invites you over for the family reunion. As you pull up into the driveway, it slaps you in the face. There is a huge For Sale by Owner sign stuck, plain as day, in her front yard. This is your cousin—someone you have known your entire life. How could she possibly decide to sell her home on her own rather than allow you to list the home for sale?

Solution: Social media marketing could have come to the rescue here. You are connected to your family and friends on your various social media accounts. By sharing industry news, quick tips and information that indirectly relates to real estate, you are opening a constant two-way street of communication with them and your other contacts and followers. Since they are constantly on their social media accounts, they would receive consistent updates from you—enough to gently remind them to call you when they are ready to buy or sell their home.

4. Neighborhood Farming Fail

You canvas your neighborhood from time to time. You leave door hangers with information about you and your real estate business on every front door of every home in your area. You are driving to an open house one day and see two new For Sale signs in the neighborhood. It’s like a slap to the face. Not only do you wave hello and talk to these people on a regular basis, but you even left some marketing literature at their front door.

Solution: Adding your neighbors to your online marketing campaigns is the way to go. They might not be in the market to buy or sell at the time you hang the information on their door. Rather than direct selling to them with a door hanger that likely winds up in the trash, you can stay in touch by providing them with useful information. Rather than one touch point, such as a door hanger, you can touch base with them with several different methods—emails and social media being but two.

Share an article on ways they can cut their heating and cooling costs. Use your e-newsletters to provide information on the fruits and vegetables that grow best during which season. When you are an informational resource to your neighbors, they tend to look at you as an educator and a professional—a professional they want to work with when the time comes to sell.

5. Warm Prospect Blunder

You’re sitting at your desk in the office. A prospect walks in and requests a CMA for their home. They are thinking of selling. You spend hours compiling the information for them. You have numerous phone conversations with them to gather the information you need to compile the report and to follow up with them about putting the property on the market. A few weeks later, you are conducting a search in the MLS for a different client and you see the client you did the CMA for listed their property for sale … with another agent.

You feel a bit misled. You put in a lot of time, effort and work for them and then they chose another real estate agent to reap the benefits. Ouch.

Solution: While compiling the CMA for the prospect should have been enough to show them that you are the ultimate professional, sometimes you need to do more. Being able to communicate with them on a couple of different levels with various types of information can help. In addition to the follow-up phone calls, adding them to your email list and getting them to connect with you on social media networks allows you to share information and educate prospects indirectly, while the CMA report is more of a direct sale communication. Consistent communication builds credibility and trust, especially when you’re sharing helpful information.

It’s a Trust Thing

When you work so hard to build and maintain personal relationships with a number of people, it can be extremely painful when you find out you didn’t get their business. The issue is that they might not be in the market to list their property at the exact moment you meet. You’ve made contact and maybe even gotten a prospect to trust you, but you also need them to remember you when they’re ready to pull the trigger. You can avoid pain down the road when you add contacts to your list (with their permission, of course) and encourage them to connect with you on social media so you can send them various types of communication over time.

Constant and consistent communication, especially via email and social media, can give you an advantage over your competition and help you win business when prospects are ready to sell. When you consistently nurture the relationships you’ve worked hard to build, your prospects will instantly think of you when they decide to list their property for sale. You get the listing and they don’t have to waste their time interviewing multiple agents: it’s a win-win.

If you need help with staying top of mind with your past clients, OutboundEngine can help you automate this process too.