34. How Specific Niches Became My Game-Changer in Real Estate

“Is it possible for adding a niche offer to actually set you apart as the go-to expert in your field?”

Today's episode of The Work From Anywhere Agent dives deep into this question as Dolly shares her meeting experience with a financial advisor specializing in empty nesters planning for retirement. This encounter made her realize that honing in on a specific niche not only distinguishes you from the crowd but also positions you as the unrivaled expert within that space.

Throughout the episode, Dolly reflects on her personal journey and how her experience with the probate process inspired her to develop a unique offer for inherited property. She explores how leveraging emotional storytelling and tailored solutions can turn a complex process into a seamless experience, keeping both clients and referral partners invested in what you do.

Curious to learn more about crafting offers that are irresistibly engaging and how they can elevate your real estate business? This episode is packed with insights that might just transform your approach.

Join the conversation in our Business Systems for Realtors Facebook group or explore our 7-Day Funnel Challenge to continue building your niche expertise. Ready to elevate your niche strategy? Tune in now!

Chapters

• 0:00 The Value of Niche Specialization
• 1:30 Personal Story: The Why Behind Inherited Property
• 2:28 Handling the Emotional Burden of Belongings
• 4:07 Creating a Complete Property Solution
• 5:47 Selling the Vision, Not Just the Property
• 7:11 Crafting Your Unbeatable Niche Offer

Transcript

Alexa: 0:00

There's something to be said for niche offers, right? So when we think about going into a specific niche yes, we talk about the marketing and we talk about all the fun stuff, right, we talk about how it's easier to get referrals. But when you really lean into a niche and you start building an offer around it, all of a sudden you no longer fall into the same category as everybody else. You become the standard for that type of transaction, and so let me explain what I mean. So I just had a meeting today with a financial advisor who specifically works with empty nesters who are retirement planning and like wanting to make sure that their money is made through retirement, right. And so he works with a lot of elder law attorneys. He works with a lot of CPAs that get referred to him when people need to adjust their plans, and that's all he does, right? Like can he do a financial plan for somebody else? Yeah, sure, of course he can. He can definitely do that, he has the licenses for it, but that's not the clientele that he works with. And so when I first got on the Zoom call with him, he was introduced to us by one of our probate attorneys, and when I first got on the call with him, he was kind of a little skeptical, right, because real estate agents are always trying to get somebody's business. They're always trying to get in front of somebody, right. And so when I started asking him questions and then just jumped into our offer and how we specialize in working with inherited property, you can see the light in their eyes change. It is the craziest thing where they are now invested in helping you, especially when you can layer a story on top of it. And so when I have these meetings with referral partners who fall into these categories, I always start with the why. Why did I pick this type of client to work with? And so if you've been around here for a while, you know that my dad passed away, my family went through the probate process and it was a nightmare, and so that became sort of the foundation for dealing with inherited property. But as we've started to build on our inherited property offer, what I'm finding is that people go oh wow, I didn't know that this was such a big issue and all of a sudden we now become the only person that would ever get a referral from them for that specific thing. So I'm going to walk you through the way that we explain this and how we talk about it, and so maybe you can start thinking about for your own business like a unique niche, a unique offer that you can put together so that when somebody asks, like, how are you different, you actually have an answer for that, you actually have an offer that makes them invested in what you do.

Alexa: 2:28

So for us, we always say that when somebody inherits property, the most stressful part of that process is figuring out what to do with all the stuff in the property, and I'll usually pause there for a second and I give them a second to think about it. Right? Because when somebody passes away and sometimes I'll even give the visual like, let's say, somebody passes away and they now have all the mail that they ripped open sitting on the counter, they have their toothbrushes, they have the medicine that they were taking sitting on the nightstand next to them, the dishes are still in the sink or the dishwasher right, and now all the stuff is just there, and sometimes, if I'm really feeling it, I'll even go into. You know, it really makes you think about how insignificant all the stuff that we have is. When you think about someone's here and then they're gone. And then now there's all this stuff that's still here, right, and that like really pulls at their emotional heartstrings, because we're not just talking about the real estate, we're talking about our legacy, we're talking about the mortality of humans, right, it gets really deep. And so I get them like super invested in this.

Alexa: 3:30

And so then I talk about how a lot of families it's like going back into the houses Now it's super overwhelming because you have to get rid of all this stuff. But you're grieving, right, you're trying to figure out how do you release all of this and how do you figure out the vendors to come and take care of all of it. And so I always explain to them that we take care of all of it, like from the very beginning. They hand us the keys, we let them go in, take out whatever stuff they need to, and then we coordinate all of the removal of the stuff. Sometimes that means having an estate sale company come in, sometimes that means junk removal, sometimes it means donations, whatever that ends up being. Now, to be clear, I'm not the one who does this, right, I have a vendor partner who, they are a moving concierge, and so they coordinate all of this. So literally all I do is refer the business to her and I end up taking the listing.

Alexa: 4:22

But by being able to present this as one all in experience, the clients love it. The attorneys go crazy over it, and most attorneys, when I walk them through this whole thing, they always have some story about a client who they had to go to the storage unit with the client because it was two sisters and they couldn't get along and they couldn't decide who was gonna get what. So they sat there for seven hours and even though they got to bill for it, they still had to sit there for seven hours while they fought over every single thing. And so in situations like that, I explained to them that one of our vendor partners will actually go in and catalog the entire property, like every single thing that's in there, so that the attorney or the heirs get a PDF copy of pictures, itemization, the whole nine right, and they can go through the PDF and decide who gets what. And then from there we can again use the estate sale companies or take some stuff to auction, whatever it ends up being. But again, the power of leverage here is so important because I'm essentially a salesperson for my vendor partner, but I benefit by being able to get the listing and so taking that a step further.

Alexa: 5:29

Then I always talk about how, in inherited property and in a lot of cases the property is super dated they haven't done any sort of renovations, maybe they haven't really maintained the property really well, and in many cases there's not really any funds left in the estate in order to get the property ready for the market. And so most agents and this is how I'll present it to them is most agents are just going to focus on the fact that the property needs a lot of work and they're going to sell it for a rock bottom price and they're going to encourage the client to accept a lowball offer from an investor. And so I present it to them as we actually have a contractor come in, we get estimates for all of the repairs that need to be done. We then do virtual renderings of what that repair would end up looking like, what those renovations would end up looking like, and then we actually market the listing as almost like a renovation project, or more so along the lines of a new construction right. And so instead of just selling like a plot of land on new construction, they sell the designs, they sell the whole property and the builder will come in and actually build the property for them.

Alexa: 6:33

We basically do the same thing, and so we've been very successful in helping our clients actually sell very quickly and for top dollar, because we're able to sell the vision, not just the property or the situation that it's in.

Alexa: 6:47

And so by presenting those two things right, like very specific issues that inherited property is gonna end up facing and how we solve for those issues, we have now solidified in that person's brain that anytime they hear the words inherited property or probate or trust, or you know, my mom passed away and I have to figure out what to do with her house that is how we get those referrals. And so I want you to start thinking about when it comes to your niches is how do you not just have a good story around it, but how do you build an offer that is so highly tailored to that particular niche that no agent will ever be able to hold a candle to you without having the processes and the relationships and the systems and you right, and to the story that you're selling them in this process? And so that is the episode for today. So, as always, please join in on our daily Facebook discussion in the Business Systems for Realtors Facebook group, and I will see you in the next episode.