New Real Estate Agents Need a Real Estate Prospecting Platform

What Is a Prospecting Platform?

A Prospecting Platform is a solid foundation from which to launch your efforts. Most new real estate agents follow this non-platform pattern:

They get their license. They get training from their broker in how to get started. Now, it's in the broker's interest to get them a client as fast as possible. This keeps the agent's motivation high and gives the broker a return on his investment. So training usually focuses on activities with the biggest possibility of NOW business.

NOW Business

What are the highest NOW business lead-generating activities?

1. Open houses.


2. Referrals from immediate friends and family.

That's really it. And you SHOULD do these. I still do open houses. I love them. They're like picking the lowest hanging fruit...or as a friend of mine once put it, like shooting slow fat rabbits.

But that shouldn't be your platform.

Examples of a Platform

Your platform should be something you both enjoy doing and are very good at. Your platform should be an inch wide and a mile deep...something you focus on and do very well without diluting your attention by trying the latest "get rich quick" prospecting schemes.

Your platform will be the foundation of your career as a real estate agent. For example, in one of my San Diego neighborhoods, Afton Miller is the "queen" of the neighborhood. Why? Because she farmed it for 20 years the old fashioned way...by going door to door and talking to people, by showing up for or sponsoring neighborhood events, by greeting every new resident, whether she sold them or not, or whether they were renters or owners. Farming was, and is her platform.

When I first started in Real Estate in Salt Lake City, an agent named Turid Lipman was the queen of expires. Why? Because she or her assistant printed out a list of them every day and called them. Every one of them. Every day. It was her platform.

An Inch Wide, a Mile Deep

Neither Afton nor Turid (you don't need an unusual name to be successful in real estate) jumped from prospecting system to prospecting system. They focused an inch wide and a mile deep. A mile deep includes all the follow up parts, all the marketing methods, and all the language that goes with the system.

The real value in doing this isn't to get NOW business. It's to fill your pipeline with future business so that you can stay in business.