The one activity every Agent should steal from top producers

There's an old adage that to become a top performer you must think and behave like one. Here's one simple activity any Broker/Agent can steal from top performers. You be the judge, check out the data below.

Until ReachFactor came along (hehe) I know it was a very manual and tedious process for Brokers & Agents to collect feedback from past clients. But I was quite surprised to learn how few real estate professionals actually collect feedback and use them in marketing. In fact, the numbers are quite startling.

We sent a survey to 1,550 Brokers and Agents and asked whether they collected their own feedback from past customers, and if so, how they used it. We got nearly 600 replies.

1. 75% of the people who replied said "NO", they do not collect their own feedback. Of these people, 88% said they relied on the fact that their Office or their Brand was already sending surveys to clients on their behalf, so they felt they didn't need to. WOW! (If you've ever seen those surveys you'll know why I'm surprised)
2. Getting past this, of the 25% who said they do collect endorsements more than half said they collect them on paper and said it was hard to reuse them. They said they rarely used the endorsements in their marketing aside from having copies when they met clients in person.
3. Finally, it appears that only ~10% actively collect endorsements and actively promote them in their marketing (retyping into their website & using them in direct mailers were the #1 and #2 response respectively).

Here it is visually...

You'll notice that the green bar is around 10% of the respondent universe.

Indicative of the 90/10 rule?  We haven't correlated the data to sales transactions so I can't say for sure, but I have a strong sense this 10% may very well outperform the other 90. I poked around their websites and could see a definite difference in professionalism and presentation styles.

Active marketers naturally look for more content to use in marketing and the best sales material is always what others say about you, not what you say about yourself (see post on comScore study about the business benefit of reviews).

What do you think? Is the 90/10 rule rearing its head in our survey results? Is this a surprise to anyone?  Please share your thoughts and comments.

Shameless plug -- If you've never collected your own endorsements from past customers and don't use them actively in your marketing I think you're missing a prime opportunity to grow your business. ReachFactor now automates collecting endorsements and makes it super simple to get them on your website, Facebook, and more. You can even start for free at www.reachfactor.com. No excuse to not try..