Cold calling is must business continuity, brokers should maintain steady communication with prospective clients
am a RERA Licensed Real Estate Agent in Hyderabad
What is cold calling in real estate?
Cold Calling are pre-planned telephonic conversations in the hope of establishing a possible communication between a prospective home buyer and the broker/seller. It helps as a reference point, where you can settle a buyer’s curiosity by answering his/her queries on pricing, availability, USP, details and more so, know his intent in the first place.
Best practices in COVID-19 times
Understand the intent, gently
It may not be the right time to weigh heavily on people. You can never know if a particular family has been impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic. Hence, try to understand the buying intent gently and do not go overboard. Restrict calls if you hear ‘call later’, ‘I will call you back’ or ‘not interested’. Do not be in a rush to call them back. It may be better to pause, before you go at it again.
Don’t beat about the bush
Relationship building is one aspect and maintaining professionalism is another. At the cold calling stage, get to the point quickly. Given that most people are working from home, while they may have time, you never know about their work and rest schedule. Approach people politely and understand their preferences first.
Call etiquette
Do not call very early in the morning or late at night. Lunch hours are also not good. Call at a time when you think that a prospective client may be done with his/her morning chores and is in a good mindset to entertain the call. Ensure that your network is stable and reliable, so that you wouldn’t need to call repeatedly.
Keep your script ready
Keep your notes handy, if you feel you may miss out on a couple of good points. Create an agenda and structure on how you would pitch a property. There may be many reasons why you are cold calling. It may be to test the intent, following up on leads from online advertising, referrals, reviews, etc. In all these, your script may have to be different for each situation. Do not fumble, as you may end up wasting someone’s time.
