Do you have a real estate agent operations plan in place for your business?

An operations plan is critical to systematizing your real estate practice. It outlines what you do and how you do it. And it makes the process replicable so your employees and successors can deliver the same quality experience you’re committed to.

So today, we’re going to walk through the exact steps needed to create a strategic real estate agent operations plan.

By the way, we’ve been on a planning kick recently! If you’re working on a plan for your business, check out these recent posts:

• The Quick and Easy Guide to Real Estate Agent Branding
• How to Create a Bullet-Proof Real Estate Financial Plan
• The Ultimate Real Estate Agent Marketing Plan

Now, on to the operations plan…

How to Build a Killer Real Estate Agent Operations Plan

Your real estate agent operations plan will consist of 5 sections:

1. Services
2. Supplies and Vendors
3. Your Team
4. Lead Follow-up
5. Building Referrals

Let’s take a closer look at each…

1. Services

Here’s a question most agents never think to ask themselves: What services should I offer?

Most agents think the answer is obvious. You sell real estate, right? What’s to ask?

This is a HUGE missed opportunity.

There’s so much more to real estate than sales. What other services could you offer to 1) diversify your income, 2) recession-proof your real estate business, and 3) best serve your clients?

Not sure what I mean? Here are a few examples of services that would complement your existing real estate practice:

Property Tax Appeals

The property tax appeal industry is surprisingly lucrative, but almost no one is capitalizing on this need! Probably because so few people have ever heard of property tax appeals (I certainly didn’t know it was an industry before I unexpectedly landed in a property tax consultant position…)

Here’s how it works:

1. County assessors use a formula to estimate property values county-wide for taxing purposes.
2. In a down market when property values are less than the year before, assessors almost always over-estimate the values, which leads to a too-high property tax bill.
3. If the property owner, or their representative (that’s you!), can show the county that the fair market value is lower than their estimated taxable value, the county will grant a property tax reduction.

All you have to do as the homeowner’s representative is complete a Comparable Market Analysis for their home and present it to the county to convince them to lower the taxable value. Homeowners are typically willing to pay good money to a real estate professional, like you, who already knows how to value real estate. If you can navigate this property tax appeal process for your homeowners, most will gladly pay you a fee of 35-50% of the tax savings you achieve for them.

Learn more: How to Make Money With Property Tax Appeals

New Home Photo Shoots

If it isn’t on Instagram, it didn’t happen. Millennials and beyond want to show off their new home on social media. And they’re willing to pay for quality photos of themselves in their new place.

If you have photography skills (or you partner with a professional photographer for your listing photos), you can easily add this service to your real estate business.

Offer photo shoot packages to your buyer clients. But don’t stop there. Ask your colleagues if you can reach out to their buyers as well. Then promote your photo shoot services online. Before you know it, you’ll have a healthy new income stream!

And the best part: your clients’ social media pics become free advertising for you. Not only will this boost your photography services, but it can also bring you new buyers and sellers!

Read more about the benefits of offering new home photo shoots.

Property Management

If you want to land more investor clients (and wow them with your services!), offer property management services.

You know, tenant screenings, rent collection, maintenance requests, renewals, etc.

In most markets, property managers can command a 10-20% commission on the monthly rent for property management. It doesn’t take many units to add up to a substantial income stream.

Not interested in taking on on-going property management work? Simply helping property owners screen new tenants can earn you a commission of around 50% of the first month’s rent, then the day-to-day management can be handled by the property owner until they need new tenants. It’s an easy way to land a quick paycheck!

Other Services

There are tons of other ideas for additional income streams you can add to your real estate business. Check out 55 Ways to Make Money in Real Estate for more ideas!

2. Supplies and Vendors

Once you know what services you will offer, you can plan for your supply and vendor needs.

Supplies

As a service business, your supplies should be minimal. Here are a few supplies to consider:

• Laptop
• Phone
• Vehicle
• Printer
• Ink
• Paper
• Marketing Materials
• Software Subscriptions

Not much to it!

Vendors

Depending on the services you offer, you may need to utilize the services of several vendors.

In the real estate sales side, you have the standard players:

• Lenders
• Title Reps
• Escrow Officers
• Transaction Coordinators
• Marketing Publications

Then consider your other income streams. If you’re offering property tax appeals, you may want to hire a virtual assistant during appeal season to research assessed values and handle your data entry. If you’re offering new home photo shoots, you may want to partner with a professional photographer.

Ask yourself two key questions:

• Would a vendor boost the quality of my business?
• Is it worth paying someone to complete certain tasks so I can focus my energy where it will have the greatest impact?

If the answer to either question is yes, you should absolutely use a vendor.

3. Your Team

For many real estate agents, you’re a team of one! You do everything yourself. But many agents want to grow a larger team: admin, buyer’s agents, listing specialists, etc.

Technology has opened many opportunities to help you grow your team. For example, your first team addition might be an inexpensive virtual assistant. You can hire a freelancer to take care of all your data entry, social media engagement, appointment setting, and even blog writing! And you don’t have to pay a full-time salary or offer benefits to a freelancer.

Tech has also introduced new challenges. Managing a virtual admin is very different from having an assistant in your office. You don’t get the face-to-face communication, and you don’t have the level of control that you would have over a full-time, in-office employee.

What works best for you? You can always try hiring a freelance VA for a short time to see if you’re comfortable with that arrangement. And if not, you can post a job ad on Craig’s List for a part-time (or full-time!) in-office assistant. This position is generally paid hourly. Depending on your market, this could be a $12-$20 per hour position.

Then you can branch out into specialists. The order of your hires will depend on your personal strengths and preferences. If you love listing and you’re great at it, you don’t need a listing specialist; focus on getting a buyer’s agent, marketing coordinator, and operations manager instead.

Be honest with yourself about which tasks you just don’t enjoy, and which tasks you struggle with, then hire people with those as strengths!

Just remember to give yourself time to grow. You don’t need to go from 1 person to 10 people this year. It takes time to build an effective team. Give yourself 6-12 months between each hire to avoid the worst of the growing pains.

Here’s an example of an org chart for a full real estate team (the numbers indicate a recommended order of hire):

4. Lead Follow-Up

First, schedule time every day for your lead follow-up. Every workday, you’re going to sit down at a designated time, open your CRM (Customer Relationship Manager), and follow up with your leads. Statistically, the best times to reach people are 8-10 am and 4-6pm. So for the best chances of success, your follow-up should take place during those hours.

Studies have repeatedly proven that you don’t convert a lead to an active client in a single follow-up. It typically takes 7-8 touches for a lead to become your client. But that’s just an average. If you really want to boost your production, you need to follow-up with every lead until they become your exclusive client.

What if your lead ends up listing with another agent? They’re still a lead. Contact them every couple weeks to make sure they’re satisfied with their agent’s performance. If that listing expires, who do you think is going to land the new listing?

Here are some tips to increase your conversion rates from leads to clients:

1. Put every single lead in your CRM. Every seasoned agent has been surprised by a lead they thought was low-quality. If you don’t log the lead, you lose them.
2. When a new lead comes in, aim to reply to them within 5 minutes. The sooner, the better! Auto-responders can buy you a little time.
3. Schedule your next follow-up immediately after every follow-up.

5. Building a Referral Business

What is your plan for after the deal closes? Is your current plan resulting in repeat business and referrals? If not, it’s time to re-think your post-close plan.

Lucky for you, I have a tried-and-true plan, ready for you to implement today!

Here’s a simple 3-step process to building a referral business:

Step 1: Showing Genuine Gratitude

Some agents are bucking the trend of closing gifts. They have already provided quality service, so they don’t see the need to spend part of their hard-earned commission on a closing gift.

But failing to give a closing gift is a huge missed opportunity.

First, many clients expect a closing gift because of the tradition of closing gifts. And your goal is always to exceed expectations, never to disappoint your clients.

Then there’s also the fact that closing gifts give you the opportunity to express your appreciation for your clients’ business. Without their business, you don’t survive as a real estate agent. So cultivate that attitude of gratitude and show your thanks with a thoughtful closing gift.

Lastly, closing gifts are an opportunity to make a lasting impression. A thoughtful closing gift helps your clients remember you. And a carefully selected closing gift can even generate referrals! Check out our list of 20 affordable closing gifts guaranteed to impress your clients.

Step 2: Providing Ongoing Value

Most agents consider the job done when the deal closes. Savvy agents know that a little ongoing effort pays off HUGE in referral and repeat business.

How can you help your clients after the sale? First-time homeowners are pretty clueless when it comes to home maintenance. Maybe you can send them a friendly list of home maintenance issues to tackles each season.

Offering property tax appeal services is a great way to provide value to your clients every year! Surprise and delight your clients by conducting a “complimentary property tax assessment review” every year. All you have to do is compare the assessed taxable value to the market value.

• If the assessed taxable value is lower than the market value, you can send the client a letter to let them know that you’ve confirmed that their property taxes for the current year are fair and ready to be paid in full.
• If the assessed taxable value is higher than the market value, you can let your clients know that your calculations indicate they are being over-taxed, and you’re happy to file a property tax appeal on their behalf to try to lower the taxes for them. (you can download a done-for-you letter template from our post on property tax appeals).

You should also send custom value estimates to your clients every 6-12 months to let them know how much their home has increased in value (just in case they’re thinking of selling).

Step 3: Maintaining the Personal Relationship

Don’t just rely on blanket marketing to stay in touch with your former clients. Schedule some personal touches as well to make sure your personal relationship is maintained.

Here are a few examples of effective personal touches:

• Send a Happy Housiversary Card every year. And maybe a small gift for that first year (if you really want to wow your clients!)
• Host an annual event, and invite all your formal clients. A simple party at home is nice and personal. But it’s certainly not the only option. Hosting an outdoor movie night is perfect for families. Offering a “Hidden Gems” tour of your city is great for areas with lots of non-natives. And renting out a boat for a sunset cruise with drinks and live music would be ideal for luxury market clients.
• Check in out-of-the-blue. Send a quick text just to say, hey I was just thinking about you and wondering how you’re doing. Anything new and exciting going on? These messages are great because there’s no agenda. You’re just reaching out to an old friend to see how they’re doing.

With these personal touches, you’re not just staying in front of clients, you’re building on your personal relationships with them!

Need a Shortcut for Your Real Estate Agent Operations Plan?

You can absolutely open a Google Doc and just start typing out your real estate agent operations plan. But if you’re short on time, and want to get straight down to business, consider buying an inexpensive operations plan template. Key Real Estate Designs is currently offering a Real Estate Agent Operations Plan on Etsy for under $15.

What are you waiting for?! Build your strategic real estate agent operations plan today and enjoy the benefits for years to come!