Be irreplaceable in a DIY marketplace

Key Takeaways

• If you fail to communicate your value to potential clients, you become a commodity — an easily replaced agent with perceived low value.
• Technology is making it easier for consumers to do market research themselves — stay relevant by maintaining deep knowledge of your market.
• Stay connected with contractors, builders, lenders, and others who can help you solve difficult situations for your clients.

What do you offer today’s savvy buyer who watches HGTV and knows how to stage a home? What do you offer buyers who know how to do their own market research and gauge the value of their property?

How do you stand out among your peers? What are you doing that’s unique? What advantage does someone gain by hiring you over other competent agents?

If you’re not communicating your answers to these questions to potential prospects, then in their eyes you’re just there to open doors and put homes in the MLS. By failing to communicate your value, you’re reducing yourself to a mere commodity, which makes you replaceable.

If you are unfamiliar with the term commodity, it’s a mass-produced, unspecialized product bought, sold, or traded on a large scale. Oil, coffee, gold, corn, and grain are examples of commodities.

Webster’s dictionary further defines a commodity as “a good or service whose wide availability typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors (such as brand name) other than price.”

So real estate agents who don’t bring anything special, unique, or valuable to the consumer run the risk of being viewed as replaceable, unimportant, or a commodity in which they hold little to no individual value.

Stay relevant

Every day technology moves one step closer to making you seem nearly irrelevant to homebuyers and sellers. There will be a day when a seller can click a button and get a professional photographer to her house, access comps on properties that are selling in her area, and get a home stager to drop by.

All the tasks that were once complicated will be easily provided. Buyers might be able to wear specialized glasses and literally walk through active listings without being there physically.

So how do you stay relevant? First, make sure you are constantly learning and gaining knowledge that can significantly help your clients. You can achieve this in a number of ways by considering the following questions:

Do you study local housing market statistics? A lot of agents ignore these statistics, even though they’re readily available. Agents have no excuse for not knowing these numbers better than their clients do. Study your local housing statistics and share your knowledge with your clients.

If you focus on an area of town, how well do you really know that market? What sold this month and for how much? The more in-depth knowledge you can share when you’re meeting with a client or a contact face-to-face, the more valuable you become.

If the homes you list often need work before they sell, do you know where to refer your sellers? Do you have a list of contractors you recommend? Have they been vetted? Can you call in a favor with them? That knowledge and those connections can be of high value to prospective clients.

When showing buyers properties, if you can’t find what they’re looking for, can it be built? Let’s say you’re looking for six months or more for a client’s perfect property, and you’re just not finding it. Is it possible that they could buy a lot and build it? Do you know which builders to recommend? This kind of industry information makes a huge impact with clients.

Are you finding information for the buyer that they can’t find on their own? MLS information is everywhere now, and there are all kinds of websites where people can tap into resources and get information. What are you able to provide that consumers can’t find on their own? Are they finding the properties and doing all the work themselves?

If so, you need to find things that you can do for them in addition to that. Otherwise, you’re just there to open doors for them — you’re a commodity, which is a dangerous place to be as a real estate agent.

Our industry is changing so fast that the future can seem scary, yet the best way to stay relevant is often a simple solution. Know your stuff. Find ways you can help people where others fail to. Don’t be a salesperson  — be a provider, a connector, a solution.

As entrepreneurs it is common for us to learn and master the “fake it until we make it” game, and it is important for us to learn to think on our feet. But if we don’t develop and consistently bring our very own unique set of knowledge, skills, and abilities to the table, we are in danger of being replaceable commodities.