Top 9 Ways To Get Your First Client As New Real Estate Agent

Yay! You’re newly licensed, you’ve found your sponsoring broker, and now you’re ready to land your first client as a new real estate agent.

At this point, it’s been a journey. You put in countless hours attending pre-licensure courses, studying, taking a test, and doing the research to find the right broker for you.

That’s exciting. Now, you’re ready to get started being a real estate agent.

You just need to land that first client. The one that’s always the hardest.

Do a quick internet search and you won’t find a shortage of marketing and lead generation ideas for the real estate industry — from modern tactics like real estate SEO to old-school methods like door knocking.

As a brand new real estate agent, especially if you don’t have any marketing knowledge, it’s a challenge to discern good marketing ideas from bad ones.

I should clarify when I use the word “bad”. All marketing and lead generation ideas aren’t bad or good.

It’s about timing. The right lead generation strategy at the right time.

The lead generation strategies you pursue as a new agent won’t — and shouldn’t — be the same after one year in real estate or after you’ve closed 30+ transactions. Your real estate lead generation should differ from a high-producing real estate team.

In this article, I’m sharing some of the best lead generation methods real estate agents can use to get their first clients.

How The List Was Made

In order to make this list, the lead generation strategy had to meet three requirements.

• Generated a lead within 30 days
• Had an upfront cost of no more than $100
• Generated a lead that would close within 120 days

As a brand new real estate agent, you’re up against the clock. It’s called a cash flow clock. Everyone’s time is different, but the goal is the same.

Get money to come in and have less money going out.

To get started in real estate, you probably paid hundreds or thousands. You now have monthly start up fees that you’re paying — from desk fees to association dues.

Your goal is to get a client to come in as quickly as possible. That’s the reason your lead generation ideas should generate a lead within 30 days that will close within 120 days.

There are lead generation ideas, for example, that provide a lead in 30 days, but also generate leads that are more than 120 days out. Some of them can even be more than a year away from being ready to close.

Since you’re already bleeding money as a new real estate agent, you don’t want to make it worse by investing in lead generation strategies upfront.

So, in order to make our list of lead generation ideas, it had to cost less than $100 upfront. That means the lead generation ideas that made the list either had a cost lower than $100 or were only paid if you closed a transaction.

Alright, let’s dive into our list of top lead generation ideas new real estate agents can use to get their first client.

Strategy #1: Sphere of Influence

The most obvious and common place to start is your sphere of influence, or SOI. Your sphere of influence is the group of people that already like, know and trust you.

Examples of people inside your sphere of influence are your friends, family, past co-workers, etc.

Since these folks already know, like and trust you, they’re a great source of early leads. They can provide you with referrals or they may need real estate services themselves.

To make this lead generation channel work, you will need to follow up consistently with your sphere of influence and remind them that you’re a real estate agent.

You can do this through personal touches, like phone calls or text messages, or you can do this through bulk marketing methods, like posting on your social media account.

Here’s an example post I sent out to my sphere of influence.

I didn’t hard sell in the ad and I used my sense of humor. You can definitely make posts that look like your business card, and you should.

Find more creative ways, without people feeling bothered, to tell them you’re a real estate agent.

Other social media posting ideas that can work:

• Video tour of a house on the market
• Q & A video of a common real estate question
• A behind the scenes photo of you attending real estate training classes

On social media, the idea is to tell people you’re a real estate agent without always telling them you’re a real estate agent.

The problem you will find with your sphere of influence is that you may not be able to generate a lead within 30 days from them.

Most of your friends and family won’t be in the market to buy or sell a home.

Strategy #2: Floor Time

My very first client was a floor time lead and cash buyer that closed in 60 days from when the client first called the broker’s office.

So, I might be biased, but I believe floor time works and it’s a low-cost lead generation strategy for generating buyers to get leads that can close within 120 days.

You will get two kinds of potential leads from floor time:

1. The Come List Me Seller
2. The Active Buyer

The “Come List Me Seller” is rare. These are clients who call up your brokerage and wish to work with an agent at your company. If you get one of these leads, consider yourself lucky. They are rare, but they can be gold.

It’s exciting to get a listing as your first client.

The second type of floor lead is the active buyer who will likely close within 90 days. These people call the brokerage for a variety of reasons. Part of it has to do with the confusion of who to contact.

Yard signs often include both the list agents and broker’s phone number. Zillow lists the broker’s phone number as the primary method of contact for a listing.

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Another reason these leads call is because they tried to call the list agent, but they didn’t answer. These floor call leads want information today and now. They don’t have time to wait. Or, at least they don’t feel like they do.

The biggest mistake I see new real estate agents make, which causes them to throw their hands up and claim floor time doesn’t work, is that they don’t do enough floor time.

You’re going to have to log a decent number of hours — like 20 — every week to make this lead strategy work for you.

Strategy #3: Open Houses

People will tell you that open houses are dead and don’t work for generating leads. That’s just not true.

In my first year, I got a few clients from open houses and there was a newer agent — two years in the business — in my office who generated over 20 sales per year just from clients she got at open houses.

Open houses bring in all sorts of people. You will have buyers who are just starting their search process and aren’t likely to buy, home buyers who are actively working with and signed an agreement, and home buyers that just started and don’t have a real estate agent.

Running an open house won’t cost you more than a few dollars, unless you adopt the large event open house strategy.

I don’t recommend that if you’re new. Remember, we’re trying to keep costs down.

You can test different variables for finding the most effective open houses. For example, I would encourage you to test:

• The Day of the Week
• The length of an open house
• The time of an open house

What causes real estate agents to fail at open houses is their lack of sales script skills or they simply don’t do enough.

It’s unreasonable to hold one or two open houses and believe that you should get a client from it. When I did open houses in my first year, I had to hold about 15 open houses to make a sale.

Your metrics could be different based on your sales skills, market location, and current real estate market. You might be better. You might be worse. You only know by testing it.

Step #4: Partner With New Lenders

New lenders are in the same position as a new real estate agent. They spent time and money getting their license and now they need to find their first few clients.

As a result, that can create an opportunity to partner up with lenders. Several lenders will reach out to you as a new real estate agent. Some will be established and experienced, while others will be new.

You can partner up with these lenders and hope that you get a referral from them. It’s a great method, but there are two downsides to it.

First, it’s considered a passive channel. All you can really do is meet the lender and market to them in hopes that they have a lead they can send you.

Second, there is often a reciprocity expectation. If a lender sends a lead your way, they’re going to expect one back.

The good thing about this lead generation strategy is it’s going to create strong leads. You’re being referred to a buyer who is pre-approved and ready to buy a home.

My word of caution is to add this to your lead generation efforts, but don’t make it your primary method. Instead, use it to supplement open houses or floor time.

Strategy #5: Create Your Agent Profiles

This strategy can generate clients if you do it right, but it’s more likely to act as a conversion point for potential leads, especially cold leads like the ones you meet at open houses.

To generate leads from agent profiles, you will need to appear high in the search results and have a powerful profile.

Here is Alex Craig, who is ranked as a top recommended real estate agent.

As a new real estate agent, you don’t have clients you can collect a ton of reviews from. So, ranking is pretty hard.

However, you can still create a powerful profile in case people Google you.

You see, when you Google my name, my agent profiles show up.

So, a prospective buyer might meet you at an open house, but then Google you when they get home. Heck, your friend could be referring you to their friend. The referral doesn’t reach out, but instead Googles you to determine if they want to work with you.

What do they see when they view your current profile? Are they impressed?

Too many profiles are boring and just list facts. They don’t connect emotionally with the buyer or seller. The profiles don’t really share who you are as a person and who you are as an agent. They don’t show your personality.

Focus less on how many kids you have or your prior work experience, and focus instead on who you are and how you can help buyers and sellers.

Strategy #6: Broker Leads

Many real estate brokers, in some way, offer leads for their agents. Lead cost, quality and quantity will vary from broker to broker.

Either way, they are worth plugging into when you’re a new real estate agent. Some example programs that real estate brokers might offer include:

• Zillow Leads
• Opcity Leads (Realtor.com)
• Broker Website or Franchisor Website Leads
• Cartus Referral Program

Since the broker is generating regular leads, you can often find a lead within 30 days. There is typically no upfront cost to these broker programs.

Some brokers, however, may charge you a fee on the backend. You can expect to pay roughly a 30 percent referral fee if your broker does charge a fee.

This is in addition to the commission split you will have to pay them. Effectively netting you a 40-60 arrangement.

Depending on the lead program, leads could be in a variety of stages. Some are ready to buy and others are a year out.

In my first year as a real estate agent, my broker offered leads through their website. They were mostly junk leads for a new real estate agent. A majority of them were early in the home buying process.

Plus, few of them ever answered their phone. Nature of the business. But, it required over a year of nurturing before I was able to close a lead from their website.

However, if your broker offers a Zillow or Opcity lead program, you can generate a sale within 120 days.

Strategy #7: Referral Programs

It’s not just brokers that are willing to give you leads. There are a lot of referral programs out there that charge you a fee upon closing a transaction and have no upfront costs.

These companies will charge you roughly 30 percent of your gross commission income. Then, you will receive your commission split.

Example: Samantha closed on a lead from a referral program that generated $6,000 in gross commission income ($200,000 x 3% commission). The referral company charges 30 percent and will take $1,800. The remaining $4,200 is split with her broker at a 70-30 split. Resulting in $2,940 paid to Samantha.

Effectively, Samantha’s commission split can be thought of as a 49-51 split, where she received 49 percent and 51 percent went to the broker and referral company.

Some potential referral programs include:

• HomeLight
• Effective Agent
• UpNest

Avoid referral programs where you have to pay upfront. There are some out there that charge an upfront membership fee, in addition to their referral fee for every closing.

Step #8: Agent Referrals

Agents in your office and around the world can be a source of referrals. There are real estate agents who only work with specific kinds of clients, and therefore, they will refer out all other leads.

These referral leads from real estate agents are rarely free and it will often have a referral fee, like the referral programs, that you pay at the end of closing.

This method brought me in a few clients over the years. Every so often I get a call from a real estate agent within the franchise system who has a client that’s moving to my area. I’ve always had to pay a referral fee.

I’ve also been on the opposite end where I have given out clients when my calendar is too busy or they don’t match the type of client I can help the most.

This goes back to building the best real estate agent profiles. To get leads from agents in your office, you will need to build trust with that agent.

Help them first. Then, try to get referrals.

This method is a bit more passive like partnering with new lenders. So, again, supplement this method with floor time and open houses.

Step #9: Join A Real Estate Team

Lastly, you can join a real estate team. A real estate team will often have plenty of leads to give you. This allows new real estate agents to get up and running pretty quickly.

Of course, that assumes you join a good real estate team.

The biggest pitfall with a real estate team is if you join one that is more of a bottom-feeder model. Meaning, the team lead, or top agent, takes all of the good real estate leads.

They leave the agents on their team with the crappy leads and leftover chum. Making you a bottom feeder.

Many real estate agents hate these kinds of teams, especially realtors that are self-driven to succeed and only need some support.

These kinds of real estate agents would be better off leaving a team and joining Exit Realty where there is a high-level of support and a culture of collaboration rather than competition.

Underestimating: The Biggest Mistake

The biggest mistake I see with new real estate agents is underestimating the amount of effort it takes as a new agent to get their first client. For some reason, new agents get in their head that they can make a single Facebook post or hold one open house and have enough buyers or sellers to keep them busy.

I couldn’t be further from the truth. It takes a lot of effort to generate leads. The more time you have to do these activities, the more leads and clients you can generate.

That’s why we think it’s hard to do real estate part-time. There often isn’t enough time to do enough lead generation every week.

As a new agent, my personal philosophy is that it’s an all out effort of doing all of these activities to get your first few clients. After that, you can lower the throttle to work with current clients and focus on the marketing efforts that are bringing in leads.

For some agents, that will be floor time. For others, it might be open houses. While others, it may be their sphere of influence.

Once you have found a marketing channel, your goal is to make it work better and go through the process of developing a long-term marketing plan.

Holding open houses every week or doing hours of floor time will quickly lead to burnout.

Final Word

Your real estate agent profile forms the foundation to all lead generation strategies… even when you’re asking your friends and family to do business with you.

An agent profile needs to give a REASON for WHY home buyers and sellers should work with you. In our Agent Profile Blueprint course, we go over how to stand out and build an authentic profile that connects with buyers and seller so you convert more leads, earn more while working less, and start attracting leads rather than chasing them.