Let’s face it: When you control the listing inventory, you control marketshare, and you are guaranteed one-half of a sale side. You get more play on the listing for more advertising, and should sell three or more additional houses from each listing. We know that so many great and amazing things happen when you dominate the listings in your market. You must, or someone else will. Top agents are predominantly heavy listing agents, and as a team leader, you want your team members focused on listing leads, weekly appointments and new listing contracts every week.

1. Focus on listing leads. It’s essential to have a large amount of listing leads in your pipeline every month. Just having a couple that “might list this month” isn’t going to cut it—you need to have a long list of potential listing leads that you and your team are prospecting at all times. These leads can be offline or online, and can be motivated or “thinking about” putting their home on the market. Regardless, you want a lot of leads, because the more people you are talking to about selling their home, the more opportunities you will have to convert these leads into actual appointments, and then actual listings and sales. Ask your team who is on their list, how many leads they’re working and what the total volume of potential sales those leads represent are. You will have a pulse on what they are actively working on, and you can help them secure appointments with their list of leads.

2. Focus on listing appointments. Your team members should be going on listing appointments every week, and, more importantly, converting the appointments into new listings every month. Making sure your team members have appointments every week is paramount—your main focus with your team. Ask them, “How many listing appointments do you have scheduled this week, and how many listing leads do you have currently?” Doing this produces fantastic results and drives results and creates accountability.

3. Prospect FSBOs. Your team should be focusing on FSBOs through a thought-out strategy that adds value, helping them see why they need to list with you to achieve a successful sale. If you don’t have a plan to prospect FSBOs for you or your team members, create a system to call or drop by their home over a 30-day period. Always focus on getting an appointment; let potential sellers know you’re not trying to list their home on the first visit, and that you understand they’re trying to sell it themselves and save the commission dollars. After weeks and weeks of failed marketing and no sale, coupled with your value-added script strategy, you can provide the solution and get yourself hired.

4. Prospect expireds. Expired leads are one of the best free leads available to you, and they are right in your MLS database. The beauty of being the second agent means that you can usually get the seller to have a more realistic pricing strategy, and/or they will be more interested in making small improvements that will yield a faster sale for them. Remember, expired leads need enthusiasm, attention and care. If you’re excited about selling their home and have a proven strategy to get it done—coupled with new market data—they will meet with you.

5. Hold the right open houses with a strategy to get listings. If you approach an open house with the right strategy, you will generate more listing appointments with move-up buyers and lots of potential transactions and income. The open house, when done correctly, can be the most profitable and productive 2-3 hours of your and your team’s week. Be sure to hold open houses that attract the move-up buyer, as you are trying to pick up clients that have a home to sell.
   

6. Convert online leads into listings. Be sure to consistently follow up with your dashboard of online leads in your CRM, or the inquiries on your listings over the past year. Your list of online leads can be a goldmine of potential listings and buyers. Send emails, call them and add value to convert these leads into actual listings and income.
   

7. Use social media to generate listings. Post on your social media channels that you are currently taking new listings, and promote your marketing services to help people sell their homes. Use graphic promotions that demonstrate your creative marketing plan and offer a free market value analysis via a landing page or post. Boosting this with an ad will help generate listing leads for you.
   

8. Contact and maximize your sphere of influence. Call, email or connect with your sphere on social media to ask them for referrals of people interested in selling. If you are regularly contacting your sphere and seeing them in person, you can ask them who they know (neighbors, relatives, friends or work associates) that may be considering making a move in the next 6-12 months.
   

9. Target-market neighborhoods. Go after more listings by targeting specific neighborhoods in hot price points selling fast, or a market where multiple offers exist. Write a letter or mail a postcard that says you have preapproved buyers that you can sell their home to if they are interested. You can also increase your effectiveness by dropping by and introducing yourself.

These strategies are designed to help you dominate your market by truly dominating the listing inventory. Making sure your team members are focused every week on generating new listing appointments will increase your listing inventory. This will drive up your sales. Adopt these methods to get your team motivated to go after and win more listings.

For a copy of my exclusive Generating Listings Worksheet, click here.

Sherri Johnson is CEO and founder of Sherri Johnson Coaching & Consulting. With 20 years of experience in real estate, Johnson offers coaching, consulting and keynotes, and is a national speaker for the Homes.com Secrets of Top Selling Agents tour. For more information, please contact coaching@sherrijohnson.com or 844-989-2600 (toll-free) or visit www.sherrijohnson.com.