How to get leads in Real Estate

What's up you guys, it's Graham here! So today I'm going to be making a video about how to get clients and get leads in real estate. I'll be starting with some really obvious ways first, and then working into a few more unorthodox approaches that you can take.

The easiest way to start out and get leads and meet some clients is through friends, family, and your acquaintances. So what you should be doing is this: make a list of absolutely everybody that you know. That includes everyone you have on like Facebook or Instagram—whoever it is, just make a list. Then let all those people know that you're doing real estate and that you're there to help. You don't have to come off as being very salesy or trying to be very pushy, but just let everybody know you're in real estate and that you're there to help.

I've noticed so many agents are so secretive about doing real estate for some reason, and I just don't understand it. Let everyone know you're in real estate because if they don't know you're in real estate, they're never going to think of you if they're looking to buy or sell or know somebody who's looking to buy or sell. What I found to be the most effective for me is that I like to post links on Facebook with just some cool real estate articles that I find. If I see a really good deal or a really cool house, I'll post it on Facebook.

It's nothing too in-your-face like I see some agents posting, like, “Hey guys, want to buy or sell real estate? Call me ASAP!” Maybe that works; maybe it doesn't. It's not my style, so personally, I don't like to use it. What I found is that posting now and then, posting links, maybe posting something that you've recently sold or recently listed—whatever it is—I found that to work really well. So step one: start with friends, family, and acquaintances. That's how you can start to get leads and clients in real estate.

The second best way to get clients and leads in real estate is through open houses, and I love to sit open houses. There shouldn't be any reason why an agent shouldn't be sitting in an open house pretty much every single Sunday. Now, if you're a new agent, I'm sure you can go to your brokerage and ask them if there are any open houses to sit on a Sunday. Chances are, another listing agent doesn't want to be sitting in an open house every single Sunday, so they're going to want someone else to step in. That's your opportunity to step in, sit in an open house, and you can meet such great people.

Chances are, if someone's coming to an open house, they're there for a reason. I always like to find out the reason. I'll usually ask somebody, “How did you hear about the open house?” If, for instance, they say, “Oh, I just drove by and I saw a sign, so I came in,” chances are they live in the area. So you can ask them, “Oh cool, do you live in the area?” Oh, awesome! “How long have you lived here for?” You just get to make some small talk with them and see if they're looking to buy or sell or if they're looking for someone else, or if they're just trying to get an idea of what their house is worth.

If I ask them how they heard about the open house and they say, “Oh, I found it on zillow.com or Trulia,” then I know they were specifically looking for homes that were open on Sunday and just decided to come see my open house because, for whatever reason, they liked it over other houses. So those are great clients to have because they really targeted it just to see a few homes on Sunday and yours was one of them. So find out why they're there, what they're looking for, and see if you're able to help them.

It's also really important to have everyone sign in at an open house, and that includes putting their email address or putting down their phone number and then following up with these people. Even if someone gives you an objection, like they're not really looking right now or they're just seeing what's out there, that's totally fine. But still, get their email address; get their phone number. Then follow up with them maybe six months down the line. Maybe they're looking then; maybe not. If not, put it in your calendar to follow up with them again another six months. Just stay in touch with these people because if you lose touch with the people that you've met from an open house, it's essentially a complete waste of time.

So stay in touch with these people because eventually, these people are going to be buying, selling, or will know of somebody who will be buying or selling. It's also very important to have a discussion with everyone that comes into your open house and really make an effort to find out why they're there. Don't make the mistake that a lot of agents do, which is basically sitting on the couch on their cell phone and then when someone walks in, saying, “Oh, let me know if you have any questions.” That's the laziest approach ever in the history of the universe to happen to real estate. Just don't be that dude! Actually, make an effort to go and talk to everybody. Show your personality; show them how much you're interested in helping them. Make an effort because that effort will pay off huge in the future.

Another viable way to get clients or leads in real estate is through door knocking and cold calling. Now, I've done both in the past, and personally for me, I didn't like it. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't work because a lot of people make a great business off of door knocking and cold calling, but for me personally, it's not something I enjoy. It's not something that I wanted to continue doing, so I haven't done it in a very long time. I can say for me personally that it just felt a little bit too random walking up to a random house and then introducing myself. It just seemed like a waste of time to me.

Now, I'm not saying it doesn't work because, like I said, a lot of people do make a great living off of door knocking and cold calling, but I just feel like it's not something that I should be discussing on here because I don't really have that much personal experience with it. Otherwise, if I'm going to be talking about how to door knock and cold call, I'm literally just taking info that I've read off the internet and then just spewing it back onto your screen. So I really don't want to be that dude who just regurgitates information. Everything I tell you, by the way, on my channel comes from personal experience. It's still out there; you can door knock and cold call because some people do have great success with that.

It could also be a Los Angeles thing—people here are a little bit more private, a little bit more secretive. A lot of these houses have big gates. Maybe these are just all excuses I'm coming up with for myself, but door knocking is just not something I want to do. I don't need to do it. So anyway, I'd recommend someone else if you want advice on door knocking and cold calling.

Another good way I've gotten leads personally is through zillow.com. Now, pretty much anybody can go and post up a listing on zillow.com. You don't have to be a listing agent, and you don't have to be an owner. If you know somebody who's looking to sell and you have the right to advertise it, by all means, put it up on Zillow. If I have a listing that's not yet listed in the MLS, I'll put it up on Zillow, and sometimes I can get some great phone calls from it.

Again, the people that are calling from Zillow looked out for that listing specifically and are reaching out to you. So those are really great clients to have. The next way of getting clients is pretty much how I built my entire business. Now if you watched my first video, "How I Made a Million Dollars in Real Estate by 26," it's through Craigslist that I was able to get pretty much all of my clients. I attribute pretty much all of my success, all of my referrals, all my repeat business essentially from Craigslist.

Now, I would probably estimate that probably about 90% of the business I do today, in some way or another, originates back to a Craigslist lease. My biggest sale ever was $55 million, and that started off as a Craigslist lease. Even a deal I did last year was $3.5 million, and it started off as a Craigslist lease. They've referred me a lot of business; they've been great repeat clients. I ended up selling them something a few years later.

Even another deal, I leased a home to this lady back in 2010. It took her 6 and 1/2 years to buy something, but eventually she bought something about $1.6 million, and she used me to do it. Craigslist is such a great tool to use, and I feel like it's so underutilized for a lot of agents. So here's what I do on Craigslist: I post up all of the lease listings that I have. I think right now it's about four, so I post them all up on Craigslist, and people call me on those.

If I don't lease them the home that they called on, I'll find them something else. Usually, those people end up buying from me in the future, referring me business, or just becoming repeat clients. Those are the best ways to meet people. So that leads me into the best way to get business, which is referral business. That is the business I deeply appreciate the most because people really go out on a limb when they refer your name out there.

Now, with referral business also comes repeat business. These clients will continue using you because they're already familiar with the way you work. They like the way you handle things, and they just have a connection with you. Those are the best clients to have, and eventually over time, you're going to find that your repeat business and your referral business just increases. It's a total snowball effect: the more clients you have, the more repeat business you get, the more referrals you get— which just ties back into the more clients that you have, which leads to more repeat business to more referral business—and it just grows from there.

I'm about 9 years in this business so far, and I would say right now the majority of my business is either repeat or referral. I don't really need to put myself out there and market myself that much outside of the clients I currently have, which is amazing! Eventually, what's going to happen is that I'm just going to be so busy dealing with repeat clients and referral clients that I'm not really going to need to advertise myself much else unless I really want to start expanding or growing a team, which, who knows? Maybe that might happen one day.

Just to recap, the simplest way to get clients is through friends, family, and acquaintances. Let everybody know you're in real estate. The next one: do open houses. Do an open house every single Sunday! It's a great way to meet people, a great way to meet neighbors, a great way to meet potential contacts. Do an open house every single Sunday!

So, the next one is door knocking and cold calling, and again, I don't do this personally, so I can't really speak too much on this, but it does work for a lot of people. I'm definitely not going to discourage you from door knocking or cold calling because it works for a lot of people, so you should absolutely do it if it's something that works for you.

The next way is online marketing. Again, Zillow works great; Trulia works really well; Craigslist leases; Westside Rentals—put yourself out there on the internet as much as possible. Then, once you start getting some clients, you're going to start noticing some repeat business, which is bound to happen, and then you're also going to start to see some referral business.

So again, you have friends, family, acquaintances, open houses, cold calling and door knocking, websites online that you can market yourself to, and then repeat referral business. Those are the best ways to get leads in real estate that I've used personally that have worked really well for me, especially Craigslist.

All right, so as always, you guys, thank you so much for watching my channel. It really means so much to me that you guys enjoy this. If you like this, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe if you're not already. Also feel free to add me on Snapchat; I'm posting a lot of cool stuff on Snapchat lately, so I think you guys will enjoy it. Until next time!