Want to know the biggest difference between run-of-the-mill six-figure agents and multi-6 and 7-figure agents?
A signature real estate system.
Six-figure agents sell themselves.
But seven-figure agents sell their system.
I know this because I was guilty of it, too.
I built a business where everyone knew my name. It was all about me.
Referrals were coming in fast and furious—but the clients only wanted to speak to me directly. They didn’t even want to talk to my assistant.
They wanted to know when I would be calling them. Because of this, everything became single-threaded through me—every conversation, every email, every phone call.
My biggest mistake?
I didn’t have a repeatable real estate system.
How To Develop a Signature Real Estate System
If you want to build a real estate team, there’s no way around it, you need a standardized process.
You *need* to have a standardized client process that is branded and marketed that you can start passing off to agents on your team if you want to scale your real estate business.
A Signature System solves the problem of clients who refuse to work with anyone other than you.
It makes sharing your leads and clients amongst your team that much easier – because your clients have bought into the system…not just you.
Your system is the foundation from which you build your SOPs (standard operating procedures).
SOPs allow your team to execute your system at a very high level—no babysitting necessary. Every single client is taken care of, maybe even better than you could have taken care of them on your own.
Clarity is Key
When developing your system, it’s important to keep it simple. You want to structure it so that clients understand it right away.
Tell them:
- What the system is
- Why do they need it
- What are they getting
Many agents fall into the trap of reinventing the wheel for every single client.
But if you’ve taken the time to carefully select an ideal client avatar, your ideal clients should all be facing a similar problem.
Whether they’re families looking to upsize or corporate millennials looking to get into the condo market, you want to create a signature real estate system tailored to getting YOUR specific clients the results they’re looking for.
Take a moment to take inventory of your ideal client’s needs.
- What results are they looking for?
- What’s going to make them happy?
- What problems are they facing?
Then you’ll build your solution based on those answers.
A signature process means you’re able to deliver the best possible experience – no matter which agent on your team is using it.
Having a system creates predictability, which is a key ingredient to being able to SCALE your real estate business.
Choose Your System’s Pillars
You want your system to have a methodology in the same way my book, More Money Less Hustle has a methodology. Once you have the pillars, or cornerstones, of your methodology fully built out, they become the foundation for your system or process.
Name the entire system—and each pillar—so that it becomes the core of your work and the backbone of your business. This system will be what sets you apart from the crowd. It also gives you the framework you’ll use to build out all of your services.
Your client has to understand why each step happens at that particular part of the process. Explain the pillar and what it entails but limit that explanation to just a few sentences. Boil your system down to its absolute essence for your clients. If you tend to get wordy when describing things—don’t. Your descriptions must be refined and clear.
Get Them from A to B
If you’re a savvy real estate agent who’s already served dozens of clients, chances are you already have a signature process of some sort.
You most likely just haven’t nailed it down, documented it, or named it.
The problem with having a loose set of steps you follow in your mind rather than a documented process is that it gives the impression you’re flying by the seat of your pants. It also contributes to the perception that no one else can “do it” other than you.
Having this Signature System will become your unique value proposition. It’s your differentiator.
The most important thing you will express through your system description is how you’re going to help your clients get from A to B—from their current situation to their desired outcome.
People don’t move because it’s fun. It’s not.
People move to solve life problems or to build a better future. The key here is to understand what isn’t serving your potential clients in their current situation and to understand what they see as the vision of their future after the move.
To convey this, you should have a guide that walks them through the process. This same guide should also serve as your listing conversation documentation.
The Real Estate System as Marketing
Your Signature System isn’t just how you do business.
It’s also how you MARKET your business.
You can—and should—use your Signature System as a cornerstone of your marketing. It can serve as an education piece so that people buy into not just you, but what you do.
The real estate system becomes a secondary piece to make your business scalable. It makes the handoff of things within the process so much easier.
If you’ve laid out your system in clear terms, addressed your clients’ pains, and offered solutions, you’ll have their buy-in.
If you’ve done your job correctly, this buy-in eliminates objections when you explain that you’ll be bringing in another member of your team who specializes in solving a particular part of their problem.
The creation of the Signature System may seem overwhelming, but it definitely doesn’t need to be — not if you follow the method below.
Start With Their Pain Points
The first thing you want to do is to start with your client’s pains and problems.
What are they in their most specific form? It’s important that you don’t just guess but that you find out from your ideal clients—past or present.
For example, an upsizer might realize that the cute starter home they bought isn’t actually family-friendly when they’re lugging their child up and down a staircase to change them several times a day.
You want five steps maximum in your process and only want to include the steps that your client or prospect will see. Ask yourself:
“How can I take what I would normally do and apply this very specifically to solve the main problems that I’ve identified?”
For the upsizers, most agents will start with a needs and wants assessment. I disagree with starting there because upsizers often aren’t looking at the bigger picture.
They need help seeing that their current home can serve larger wealth-building goals. What they need the most support with is creating a long-term plan that ensures the move they’re about to make sets them up for success. What you would do for someone selling their third home is very different than what you would do for someone selling their first.
Knowing and acting on this is how you build lifelong clients.
Remember: You’re not just working for the transaction.
Your goal is to create influence with that person—for life. You want to be their trusted advisor forever—and becoming that advisor starts with the first step of this process.
Because of this, every step has to be very intentional.
Ask yourself:
Why is the next step you choose important? And why is it in this particular order?
When you do this, you’re able to look at a whole process holistically and break it down into steps for your clients to easily understand.
Your relationships and trusted sources can also be included in this process, too. Your “team,” including your mortgage lender, lawyers, etc., can be very useful in helping take some initial stress off the clients’ minds.
Automate While Staying Personalized
Including automation in your real estate signature system is key to helping you and your team deliver efficiently.
Just keep in mind that your clients never want anything to feel automated. They want to feel that their relationship with you is special.
At the end of the day, everyone just wants to feel seen and heard.
When you can do that for your clients, they’ll never want to go anywhere else. And it changes the types of conversations that leads have with you.
Every day, our members get emails asking, “Do you have space in your schedule to take on new clients?” and not, “I’m interviewing five other agents. Can you do a deal for 1 percent?”
When you sound like a professional with a solution that caters to people’s problems, you become the go-to expert in their eyes. And that means your sales conversation isn’t really about sales as much as it is about confirming the fact that you want to work with them.
Are you ready to get started creating a signature system that turns leads into clients for you?
This is exactly what we teach inside The Listings Lab.
Check out all of the program details and apply here to start scaling your real estate business to multi-6 and 7-figures.
