Expenses can add up quickly when running your own brokerage. Revenue streams and costs vary from location to location, but there are plenty of techniques you can try to boost your bottom line. This list should help give you some ideas on improving your office and increasing your profit.
1. Commercial Copier
Truth be told, every desk in your office does not require a personal printer. While this may be the norm at traditional real estate offices, it’s an expense that adds up fast. Not only is the cost of buying each printer expensive, but the cost of toner, ink, and paper can be devastating to your bottom line.
Instead, try consolidating to a single commercial copier. Through one copier/printer, you are able to reduce your costs and create an opportunity for additional revenue. With commercial copiers, you have the ability to assign printing codes to each agent in your office and track their activity. Generally, brokers choose to apply a slight charge per black and white copy as well as a charge per color print. These charges should be much less than the cost to print at the business centers in your area. Therefore, you will eliminate the late night printing of 4,000 yard sale fliers for personal use.
With this solution, you can cover the cost of the copier itself, and, in larger offices, are able to possibly generate revenue from the copier.
2. Shared Advertising
Next, consider your advertising costs. Advertising is an essential in real estate, but agents are usually looking for ways to cut their costs. There’s a solution that could save your agents money and earn you a profit: shared advertising.
To do this, you can assemble deals with various advertising websites and publications by leveraging the size of your office. By combining your team, you should be able to negotiate a better deal than your agents would be able to secure individually. Then, you can sell your available advertising spots to your agents. This is a win-win situation; your agents save money on their advertising, and you can collect a profit from the ads you resell.
3. Lead Generation
The next expense to tackle is lead generation. Lead generation is a crucial element to your office’s success. Depending on your strategy, it can lead to large profits for your office. Typically, brokers purchase lists and freely distribute the potential client information amongst their team. In exchange, the broker hopes their agents will have added closings, leading to higher revenue. While this method is tried and true, there are new strategies to better handle lead generation for your real estate office.
To begin, try creating a lead capturing system for your office. Instead of purchasing a contact database that’s probably been used over and over again, this will draw in fresh leads. Lead generation capturing systems can involve multiple components and will require some effort to set up. However, this work will pay off when you start receiving strong, new leads. When you distribute these to your team, you can refer them out to your agents at a referral fee.
For example, one popular way to capture leads is through your business’s website. To be successful, design the website specifically as a lead capturing tool. The reason brokers fail with this technique is by using standard websites that are difficult to find and offer no incentive for contacts to enter their information.
Once your website is up and running, be sure to dedicate a portion of your advertising budget towards driving traffic to your site. Take advantage of local publications, other websites, and search engines. Another great way to drive traffic to your site is through effective sign riders and yard flyers.
Finally, once your site begins generating leads, they will be of much higher quality than purchased leads. These contacts are the ultimate tool for recruiting new agents to your team, increasing the level of transactions, and earning from referral fees.
4. Sponsored Office Events
Usually, brokers will plan large events for their office in recognition of their agents or clients—or they’ll conduct large training sessions and bring in outside speakers and consultants. These events can be highly rewarding and improve office culture, but they can also become extremely costly. To combat this, check in with local companies that you regularly do business with and ask if any are willing to sponsor an event. You may be surprised at how willing your community is to help in exchange for a mention or appearance.
Final Notes
Hopefully you found some ideas that can help you boost your real estate office’s bottom line! By combining these techniques, you will notice a significant increase in your profit and your overall business.