There’s an age-old marketing adage that I believe applies to real estate agents who find their business plateauing or career success eluding them: “If you try to be all things to all people, you'll end up being nothing to no one.”
That may sound harsh, but if you ask the most successful real estate agents in business today, they will likely tell you it is absolutely true.
In my experience, success in real estate is all about specialization. It is about discovering a niche. When you find a niche in real estate and perfect that niche, you will find success.
The No. 1 agent in the world, based in Texas, specializes in listing homes for builders. He does not work directly with buyers or sellers, but instead works with builders and holds the Guinness World Record for real estate home sales. He is not afraid to focus.
Do you fear to focus?
I believe most agents are afraid to focus. They might not even realize it.
Let me share a vivid example that I have seen happen often in real estate: Agents are worried that when they start to specialize, they are going to miss out on the rest of the market. Even though many leading real estate experts recommend that agents find a niche — become a specialist in a sector of real estate — as a proven formula for success, agents are still afraid of losing something they don’t even have: total market dominance.
There are plenty of opportunities to find a specialized niche in real estate. If you want to focus on property type, you could specialize in equestrian properties or become a waterfront property expert, a vacant-land specialist or the local condo king or queen. With a geographic focus, you could become a hyperlocal or neighborhood expert.
But in my experience, some agents are concerned that by specializing in waterfront property, they’ll lose access to the clients who want condos. So instead, they become pseudo-specialists. They keep one leg in the river and one leg on land.
What's the problem with that? They can't walk very well, and they sure can't swim.
Face your fear.
What I believe real estate agents don’t realize is that when they go all-in, such as when they become a neighborhood expert, they will likely gain more business than they will lose. They don't know this yet because they continue to try to be all things to all people, but you have a better chance of hitting a target when you are taking careful aim at it.
I’ve seen business cards on which an agent says they are a hyperlocal agent for the city of Denver. That is an oxymoron to me. A city is not hyperlocal; a neighborhood is. But I believe the agent fears having a business card that says, “Chaffee Park’s go-to real estate agent” because that might turn off a client looking to buy or sell in the West Colfax neighborhood of Denver.
What the agent doesn’t realize is if they are the go-to agent in Chaffee Park, they likely won't have time to sell homes in West Colfax.
Less is more.
Focusing is a good thing in real estate — a very good thing. It is why some of the top agents in the U.S. specialize in a niche. Agents need to put on their proverbial blinders when they are jumping into a niche to specialize and stay focused. This is a case when less becomes more.
The magic of being hyperlocal in real estate is that the agent knows their market better than anyone, and they can dominate the business. They can be the contact on the refrigerator magnet people have in their homes.
More importantly, I believe agents who specialize are better prepared for handling referrals. Someone who is an excellent hyperlocalist, for example, can still help clients outside their area because they know how to find out the intricacies of neighborhoods. Then they can find the top agents who dominate those neighborhoods and connect them to the buyers, so in the end, those buyers get exactly what they need.
The lesson for real estate agents is to try to be the best at what you specialize in. When you are, you might not be everything to everyone, but you’ll be everything to a lot of people.
