When many real estate agents get into business, they take on any clients they can find. Later, when they start to consider specializing for a real estate niche, they realize they have a hodge-podge of past clients who may or may not share similar characteristics.

To start narrowing your focus, look at your current and past clients and identify characteristics and motivations that they share. Once you analyze your client base, you can group those clients with similar traits into groups.

Who Were Your Last 10 Clients?

A helpful exercise to help you choose your niche is to evaluate your last 10 clients. This exercise is designed to get you thinking about the buying process of real people. Too often, real estate agents approach marketing as a generality – “most clients want this or do that.” By focusing on real people with real problems and concerns, you can move past stereotypes and look at why these specific people hired you and how satisfied they were with your services. It’s helpful to pick at least 7 “good clients” – people you’d like to continue working with – and at least 2-3 “bad clients” – people you hope never to work with again.

For each client, answer the following questions:

• How did he/she find out about you?
• Why did he/she need your services?
• What was his/her role in making a decision to hire you? Who else was involved (ie spouse, family member, friends, coworkers, etc)?
• What were his/her major concerns about hiring you?
• How much education did he/she need before being able to make an informed decision to hire you?
• What kinds of questions did he/she ask you to explain?
• How long did it take from initial contact to signing an agreement?
• What was the best thing about working with this client?
• Would you want to work with this client again? Why/why not?
• Did any problems come up when you worked with him/her (ie not paying bills on time, not managing expectations, any arguments, etc) If so, what could you have done to avoid such problems?
• Would this client refer others to you? Why/why not?
• Has this client referred others to you?

Identify Similar Characteristics

Now, scan the list.

• What characteristics do they have in common?
• Where did the majority of them come from?
• Why did they buy from you initially?
• What did they appreciate about working with you?
• What did you appreciate about working with them?

As you look over your list of current and past clients, you should see patterns – some may have come from one particular referral source, others may share characteristics in common, while others may have had similar aspirations and motivations.

Organize Clients Into Groups

You want to categorize them into larger groups and make note of:

• their demographics
• their interests and lifestyle
• what their biggest motivation was for buying or selling
• how you can reach them through your marketing

If none of your past clients share any characteristics in common, you can do one of two things – either focus the exercise on your top three clients that were a pleasure to deal with or do some market research to choose your real estate niche.

Need more help identifying your target audience or ideal clients? Check out our Lifelong Clients Workshop, where you’ll learn how to identify ideal clients, ways to generate more referrals and revenue, and how to provide exceptional client service.

Related Posts

• How To Identify a Profitable Real Estate Niche
• Segmenting Your Target Market
• Why Choosing a Niche Is Essential To Reaching Prospects Affordably
• The Secret to Reaching Prospects Affordably
• How Many Target Markets Should I Pick?