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If you’re going to have the best year of your career, you will need to take more listings. This article will share the three areas of focus and 10 specific steps needed to help you build a listing machine for your business.
Plan and prepare for success
The first areas of focus are planning and preparing for success. By focusing on what we want and preparing for that success, we set the cornerstones for success in our businesses for the coming year.
1. Plan for success
Every successful agent or team I’ve ever known begins each year with a targeted number of listings taken and/or sold listings goal. The listing goal acts as a monthly target to easily identify whether you are on track or not for your yearly goal. It helps you identify what’s working and what isn’t working.
Once we have the goals in place, we can move on to the preparation for success.
2. Prepare for success
What skills or knowledge do you need to grow your business in the coming year? Do you need to dial in your listing presentation? Do you need to study the market in more detail to be able to understand the trends so you can price homes more effectively? Do you need to develop a plan of action for marketing listings that makes it impossible for potential buyers to not be aware of your client’s home?
Whatever it might be for you, your business will only be able to grow at the pace with which you are personally growing, and your knowledge of the business is growing. Prepare yourself to be a great listing agent, and the listings will follow.
Execute on specific strategies
You can have the best plan and be the most prepared agent, but unless you proactively pursue listings, your goals will be difficult to achieve. There are several different ways to generate listings, but the following are the areas I suggest you focus on for maximum success in the coming year.
3. Reengage your database
Statistics tell us that roughly 8 percent of the population buys or sells a home every year. If we apply this to your database, this means roughly 8 percent of your database will transact in the coming year. So how do you reengage your database in a way that leads to opportunities?
Nothing will outperform picking up the phone and having conversations, but the best re-engagement email I’ve seen is from Jimmy Mackin, co-founder of Listing Leads. This email focuses on a subject line that will be clicked if someone is considering selling soon. It utilizes recent statistics and has a call to action that creates engagement.
If you’re looking for a reengagement email for your database with proven results, this may be exactly what you’ve been looking for.
4. Provide unsolicited video CMAs
The biggest question listing prospects have is the value of their home. By providing homeowners with a video valuation update before they even ask for it, you are positioning yourself for listings now and into the future. Consistently providing these valuation updates to homeowners will generate listings.
If you’re not sure how these should look, check out this article that provides complete details on how you can start sending these unique updates today.
5. Buy lunch, not leads
The tallest trees have the deepest roots, and the strongest businesses are rooted in strong relationships. Odds are, you don’t need more leads; more than likely, you have existing relationships with the capability to provide you with more referrals if you can stay top of mind. When you focus on deepening the existing relationships you have, referrals will increase.
Heidi Harris, out of Raleigh, North Carolina, stopped buying leads at the beginning of the year and instead started inviting people in her sphere of influence to lunch. This has transformed her business and given her the ability to focus on the areas of her business she enjoys, like building relationships instead of calling leads that she must start from square one with.
Focus on the people who already know, like and trust you. Not only will your business improve, but your quality of life will improve as well.
6. Geographically farm a specific area
Nothing creates more listing opportunities than being known as the neighborhood expert. Most agents know they should farm an area, but many don’t act on making it happen. This is your reminder, and if you need a refresher on how to choose a farm, market to a farm, and ultimately dominate that area, check out this article for more in-depth details.
7. Take advantage of expanding expired listing opportunities
As we continue to see days on market increase and as we move back to a more normalized market environment, expired listing opportunities should continue to expand in 2025. I see two distinct opportunities with expired listings. The first is with recently expired listings and the second is with 6- to 12-month-old expired listings.
As we have more listings expiring, the attention expired listings receive from agents will expand as well. So, how do you stand out from other agents? This again is where Jimmy Mackin has provided the best email or mail piece for expired listings that I have seen. The following is an example of the letter he suggests sending.
The next area of opportunity is with 6- to 12-month-old expired listings. Recently expired listings have a lot of agents that focus on expired listings the day they expire, and some even have a few weeks or even a month of follow-up. But eventually, agents give up on expired listings that don’t relist their home for sale rather quickly. This is where the opportunity presents itself.
Listings that expired 6 to 12 months ago that haven’t been relisted or that haven’t sold off market often would still like to sell. The barrage of calls these owners received when their home first came off the market has subsided, creating an opportunity for the agent who reaches out to these owners.
The script I like to use is the following:
Seller, this is [Agent Name] with [Agent Company]. I saw where your home was on the market six months ago, but it isn’t today. I was wondering what your plans are, and if you received a great offer, would you still consider selling?
This script gets the conversation started and gives you an immediate understanding of whether they are still considering selling.
Multiply one listing into more business
Your success in taking listings and getting the listing sold provides you with the ability to turn one listing into multiple listings. The following are the steps you can take to compound the results from your successes.
8. Host open houses
Open houses are a great way to gain exposure for your listing and to attract prospective buyers, but most agents overlook the opportunity they present to have conversations with other homeowners in the neighborhood.
I would suggest knocking on doors in the neighborhood or making phone calls to the neighbors to make them aware of the upcoming open house. The neighbors recognize when an agent is going above and beyond for their client’s listing. It also can start the process of them seeing you go from listing their neighbor’s home to getting it sold.
Don’t miss out on the opportunities that open houses provide to set the table for your next listing in that neighborhood.
9. Utilize marketable moments
Marketable moments are times when an activity creates an opportunity for you to share a success or process for listing or selling a home. Open houses are a marketable moment as described above. A home going under contract or being sold (see an example of this type of marketing in step 10 below). Documenting before and after photos or video of staging a home. Sharing a review on social media. These are all marketable moments.
Take advantage of these opportunities. They provide prospects with the ability to see you successfully doing the job you desire them to hire you to do.
10. Tell the story of your successful sale
The best way to generate more listings is to share the story of your successful marketing and sale of a neighbor’s home. The problem is that we have become an industry where most agents just copy the same just sold card that every other agent sends. These cards highlight quick sales and multiple offers and leave the seller wondering why agents are paid so much if the sale is so easy and happens so fast.
Creativity and sharing the process of marketing the home is much more effective. Noah Escobar, serving the 30A market in Northwest Florida put a spin on the just sold story that sets his just sold campaigns and his business apart from other agents. The following is an example of a recent sale where he leveraged the story of the sale to create opportunities for additional listings around his successful sale.
If your desire is to grow your business in the coming year, focusing on listings is the best way to make it happen. Creating your own listing machine for your business is achievable. Follow this plan, and get excited for what the coming year holds.
Jimmy Burgess is a real estate agent and national team builder with Real Brokerage in northwest Florida, servicing the 30A, Destin, and Panama City Beach markets. Connect with him on Instagram and LinkedIn.
