Are you trying to run a referral business with an acquisition website?

About a decade ago, I was having a conversation with a luxury broker out of Malibu, when he said something that I’ve never been able to get out of my head:

“I hate my website leads”

He went on to tell me that just about everyone who registered on his home search tool was a looki-loo who was clearly just day-dreaming about owning a Malibu mansion some day. The lead quality was so bad that he almost never followed up with anyone any more.

In a nutshell, a successful luxury broker, who had spent tons of money to build an optimized website designed to drive leads, didn’t even want to work with the people who were coming to his site. Almost as an afterthought he mentioned the the only people he liked to work with were the people who were recommended to him.

Having talked with thousands of real estate agents over the years, it seems safe to say that most successful real estate agents would happily say that their best clients almost ALWAYS come from referrals (past clients, fellow agents, partners/vendors, friends/family, etc.).

In other words, most successful real estate agents are running businesses that are built on referral leads and yet build websites designed to attract new clients who are cold to them.

What if we flipped this model? What if real estate agents built websites, and really an entire digital presence, that were primarily designed to build credibility with potential referral clients? What might that look like? 

I don’t have any great examples of people doing this in real estate, but I have tons of examples of both brands and people doing this in B2B, journalism, and entertainment.  I think a comparison between the websites of E*Trade with Goldman Sachs is a great place to highlight the difference between an “acquisition” website and a “referral” website.

For E*Trade, the site is all about new client acquisition:

• Multiple call-to-actions (CTAs) and lead capture forms around opening an account
• The language is very aspiration, appealing to the novice investor about becoming a “better you”
• Features money back offers

For Goldman Sachs, the site is all about building credibility with people already familiar with the brand:

• No obvious lead capture forms or lead generation CTAs
• The language is all about credibility, appealing to the educated financial executive looking to work with an industry leader
• Features no offers whatsoever

Goldman Sachs is a referral business. They work with some of the most savvy people in the world because some of the most savvy people in the world recommend working with them.

In other words:

Goldman Sachs uses their website to build credibility with people who are already inclined to work with them.

Especially in luxury real estate, but I’d argue even in most areas of real estate, the real opportunity is not in trying to outcompete for cold leads, but rather in creating a web presence similar to Goldman Sachs that oozes credibility. Your website should make a prospect coming from a referral client feel like they’ve found the best real estate agent in the area and that they’ll be working with the best.

So, how might you go about building out a credibly digital presence in real estate that will help convert referral leads?

My experience is that regardless of your industry, you need four things:

1. Strong digital presence. You should have a website that oozes credibility
2. Identification of thought leaders. You should have an understanding of the people who are driving conversations among your referral prospects
3. Social engagement. You should be engaging with the thought leaders who are talking with your referral prospects
4. Keystone content. You need some content that demonstrates that you really are an expert in your field

Imagine a real estate website where the homepage didn’t copy EVERY other real estate agent site with pictures of beautiful homes and a big fat home search, but instead:

• Had some awesome piece of collateral that oozed with credibility (maybe an in-depth quarterly report on the market or podcast with community leaders or… )
• A simple video where the agent talked about the service level that someone gets when they work with them, including the reason you don’t have a home search. Maybe that reason is because clients have access to pocket listings that will never show up on the MLS. Or, you have a team that personally curates a daily list of most promising listings for all your clients, etc.
• An application to work with you because realistically, you only have time to offer such personalized service to the most promising clients.

There’s tons more that can be done with a referral-first strategy, so if you want to dive in a bit deeper, feel free to check out this article (To be or not to be… known) as well as a presentation I recently prepared for a luxury real estate event in Miami.

And, of course, if you have any questions (or even want to question the entire premise of this post!), don’t hesitate to leave a comment! I love the conversation.

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