Michael Fanning welcomes Stevi Fanning to the Windermere Ask a Coach podcast. Stevi is a successful real estate agent and also coaches with us through Windermere Coaching. Michael asked Stevi if she would jump on the podcast with him and she said yes.

Here are 12 key bullet points summarizing the content from the conversation between Michael Fanning and Stevi Fanning, about generating referrals in real estate:

1. Know your feeder markets - understand where people are migrating to and from using tools like the US Census Bureau and HowMoneyWalks.com. This helps direct your referral strategy.

2. Utilize social media - create content valuable for agents in your feeder markets to connect and build relationships. Follow and engage with them.

3. Get involved - connect through local, state and national real estate affiliations and boards. Great for meeting referral partners.

4. Attend real estate events and conferences - create strategies to connect with agents from feeder markets. Plan small events to further build relationships.

5. Have an engagement plan - maintain relationships with referral partners through newsletters, gifts, calls, emails, etc. to stay top of mind.

6. Set expectations - let clients know upfront you'll provide great service and ask for referrals. Makes it easier to ask later.

7. Tap their network - allow clients to bring guests to your events to meet their contacts.

8. Time it right - ask clients for referrals when they're happiest, like at closing.

9. Stay connected - newsletter, calls, gifts to remind clients you want referrals.

10. Be a connector - refer clients to people you know to build reciprocity.

11. Incentivize - gifts, dinner, experiences motivate people to send you referrals.

12. Perfect your process - an amazing client experience means more referrals.

- A lot of real estate agents are nearing retirement and pushing their business elsewhere. Can we develop relationships with some of these agents to be able to handle their business while they're moving on to something else? Totally, absolutely.

- Real estate related events and conferences are a gold mine of opportunity for referral business. Create a strategy on how to connect with people. Planning small events like happy hours and dinners and mixers. Only takes one referral from an event like that to pay for it.

- Having an engagement plan is really important. A monthly newsletter that's specifically targeted to referral partners. This monthly newsletter keeps you top of mind.

- Do you have a category in your CRM that says referral partners? I'm calling people in my referral partner database quarterly to say, hey, how's business? How's it going? Having an engagement plan is just as important as it is in your business.

- 63% of buyers and sellers find their real estate agent through a referral from a friend, family or colleague. 85% of sellers said they would refer their agent to other people, but only 20% of them actually did. If you have more specific questions, feel free to reach out.

Stevi Raff, [email protected], www.windermerecoaching.com