What if the business opportunity is already around you?

In our last post we talked about looking at this month of September instead of just having our eyes set on the last quarter of the year and achieving immediate results. Now we present six simple ways to recover all the opportunities that don't even seem like opportunities yet. Perhaps the best starting point is not what we still have in hand, but what has already passed through our hands.

1. Recover the "we talk after the summer"

All consultants have them. The owner who wanted to wait for the holidays, the couple who decided to suspend the search, the person who asked for a review but was not yet ready to sell, the contact who ended with a "we'll talk in September". Well, it's precisely now that it makes sense to resume those conversations. Just don't do it with a generic follow-up message, go back to the context where you left them.

Instead of, "Hello, I'm just getting in touch to see if you're still interested."

He experiments: "Hello, João. When we talked in June, we had agreed to come back to this topic after the summer. In the meantime, some things have happened in the market that I think are worth taking into account. How are you thinking about the decision now?"

There is an important difference between stalking a contact and continuing a conversation.

2. If there is no next step, there is no opportunity

A contact may be in the CRM or in your database, have responded two weeks ago, and even look promising. But if you don't know what happens next, you have little more than one name on a list.

For each opportunity you decide to keep active, set a next action and a date: call after the meeting with the bank, send comparables on Thursday, talk again when the work is finished, review the demand in the first week of October.

It sounds basic, but it forces you to distinguish interest from intention. And it avoids that categorization called "I follow up", where contacts stay for months without anyone knowing exactly what the next step is.

3. Seeks life changes, not just people who say they want to buy a house

Few people wake up in the morning thinking: "Today I'm going to look for real estate help." Before that, they think they need an extra room because a baby is coming, that their children have left home and now have more space, that they are tired of spending two hours a day in traffic, that they have started working remotely, that their parents need to be closer, that they spent August in a certain area and, for the first time, imagined what it would be like to live there.

Real estate often starts before the search for a property. It starts with a change of life. The better you know the people around you, the sooner you can understand those moments, without having to turn every conversation into a commercial approach.

4. Back to fundraising that did not advance

There are attempts to raise money that seem to go nowhere. Either because the owner was not prepared, because he thought he would get a higher amount, because he preferred to wait, decided to try it himself or simply stopped responding. That doesn't mean that the conversation has died. If a few months have passed, you now have a legitimate reason to return to that fundraising attempt, since the context is no longer exactly the same.

Review what has happened in that area since then. Which properties have entered? Which ones have been sold? How long have they been on the market? Have there been relevant changes in the offer? If you have new information, you are no longer simply asking "so, have you decided?". You do have something useful to add to the decision.

5. Look at those who have already done business with you

When we think of pipeline, we almost always think of the next customer. But there is a part of the business that is not in the future, it is in the history. A former customer may not buy or sell a house again anytime soon, but he knows people who will. And more importantly, he already knows how you work. This doesn't mean calling all the old customers in September to ask for recommendations. It means not letting a relationship disappear on the day of the deed.

A message because you remembered that family, a piece of information that you know might interest them, or simply a conversation without any request in the end keeps a relationship alive in a way that no campaign asking for recommendations can manufacture. If you don't know where to start, look at the last ten scriptures and ask yourself how many of those people you actually kept in touch with.

6. Save a part of your September for January

Does it seem early? In real estate, it may not be. Not every conversation you start this month will turn into a business before Christmas. Some shouldn't even do it. A homeowner who is just starting to consider selling, a family who wants to move next year, or someone who is still getting their financial situation in order may need months to make a decision.

Don't dismiss a good opportunity just because it doesn't fit your goal for the last few months of the year. The best pipeline doesn't end on the last day of the quarter. Not even a good contact becomes less interesting just because it won't close until December 31st. And instead of starting to address an endless list of things to do, try breaking down the opportunities you already have into three questions: 

• Who needs me now? Conversations with clear intention, need, and timing. 
• Who deserves to be re-engaged? People with whom there is enough context to resume a conversation in a useful way. 
• Who should I simply continue to follow? Relationships and opportunities that may not be a business this month, but that it would be a mistake to abandon. 

This distinction alone can help you turn a database full of names into a pipeline where you really know who deserves attention and why. Most of the time, you don't need more contacts on your list. You just need to know better what to do with the ones that are already there.