Real estate growth does not always require more leads, more advertising, or another complicated marketing system. Dave Kohl and Mahmoud Faisal Elkhatib discuss three fundamentals brokers can use to create more business from the opportunities already around them. Dave explains how to sell solutions instead of properties, build a memorable niche that separates the broker from the crowd, and organize existing contacts so the right people receive the right message at the right time.
Dave Kohl has worked in real estate marketing since the early 1990s. The technology has changed dramatically during that time, but one principle has remained consistent. Clients care more about solving their problem than hearing another property description.
A buyer may need access to a train station, a particular school district, additional space, lower monthly costs, or a property that supports a specific investment plan. The broker creates more value by identifying that motivation before presenting the available choices.
The property becomes more compelling when the client understands exactly which problem it solves.
Real estate transactions sometimes require more than finding the right property. Financing, ownership, title, contract terms, and the client's larger objective may influence how the deal should be structured. EV Häs helps Chicagoland buyers, sellers, investors, and brokers evaluate those legal pieces before closing.
Mahmoud Faisal Elkhatib is a Chicagoland real estate and foreclosure attorney, investor, entrepreneur, and former real estate broker. His work includes transactions, foreclosure matters, title disputes, building code cases, and complicated property ownership issues.
Through The Bow Tie Edge, Mahmoud speaks with professionals who help real estate businesses improve the legal, operational, financial, and marketing systems surrounding their work.
Dave Kohl is a real estate marketing consultant with First in Real Estate Marketing. He began working with real estate professionals in the early 1990s, before the internet became the primary way buyers searched for property.
His work has evolved from telephone based property marketing into consulting, database strategy, market research, presentations, and business development for brokers, investors, and other real estate professionals.
A broker can show the same property to several people and each person may value it for a completely different reason. One buyer may care about the commute. Another may care about schools. An investor may care primarily about the future use, rental potential, redevelopment opportunity, or financing.
Dave recommends learning the motivation first and then presenting the property through that lens. Instead of giving the buyer several disconnected options, the broker explains how each option connects with the objective the client already identified.
This same approach can extend to the transaction structure. Depending on the circumstances, buyers and sellers may explore conventional financing, seller financing, rental arrangements, or other lawful structures with the appropriate professionals.
Options become solutions only when they are connected to the client’s actual objective.
Dave encourages brokers to become associated with something specific. That may be a location, property type, investment strategy, client segment, or another area where the professional can build recognizable expertise.
The broker does not need to reject every transaction outside that specialty. The purpose of the niche is to give people a reason to remember whom they should call when a particular situation appears.
A professional known for luxury homes in one community, investment property, exchanges, distressed real estate, or another specialty becomes easier to refer than someone whose message is simply that they handle everything.
The market cannot remember what makes you different when you never tell it what makes you different.
Being known for one area of expertise does not mean every client or project must fit that category. Dave uses his own business as an example. His marketing focuses strongly on real estate professionals and investors, but the same strategic knowledge can sometimes apply to businesses outside real estate.
The specialty establishes authority and creates the introduction. Once the relationship exists, clients may discover additional services and capabilities.
The same applies to brokers. Someone known for investment properties may still receive residential referrals. A broker associated with one community may receive opportunities in neighboring areas because clients trust that professional’s expertise and network.
The objective is not restriction. It is memorability.
Dave’s third growth principle is what he calls the marketing glide. Instead of constantly searching for more contacts, the broker first organizes the people already inside the database.
An investor should not receive the same message as a first time buyer. A homeowner planning to sell after a child graduates should receive different information from someone actively searching for a property today.
Segmenting the database allows the broker to send information that reflects the person’s situation, interests, timing, and goals.
The value of the database is not the number of names stored inside it. The value is knowing enough about those people to communicate with them intelligently.
Dave shares an example of a broker who identified an underperforming property with redevelopment potential. Instead of sending the opportunity to every contact in the database, the broker contacted investors who could understand the opportunity.
An investor acquired the property, redeveloped it, and later sold the finished project. The broker was able to participate in multiple stages of the opportunity because the original message reached someone capable of acting on it.
This is the difference between maintaining a contact list and operating a useful database. The broker knows which contacts are investors, future sellers, current buyers, past clients, referral partners, or people interested in particular locations.
Once those categories exist, future leads can immediately enter the appropriate segment instead of becoming another forgotten name.
Better decisions come from better information. Brokers and investors should understand comparable sales, transaction history, market activity, ownership issues, and the professionals involved before presenting a strategy to a client.
Dave closes with a simple recommendation. Track more than the property. Understand who sold comparable properties, how close those sales were to the asking price, which professionals were involved, what happened in the surrounding market, and how those patterns may affect the next opportunity.
That information gives the broker something more useful to discuss than another generic market update. It can support pricing, prospecting, referrals, investor outreach, and conversations with future sellers.
The three ideas in Dave’s playbook work together. Understand the problem so you can provide a solution. Become known for something so people remember you. Organize the database so you know who needs each opportunity or message.
None of those ideas requires complicated technology. The advantage comes from doing the basic work more deliberately and more consistently than the professionals competing for the same client.
It means understanding what the buyer, seller, or investor is trying to accomplish and then explaining how a property or transaction strategy may address that specific goal rather than simply presenting available listings.
A niche makes the broker easier to remember and refer. It can establish recognizable expertise around a market, property type, client group, or strategy without preventing the broker from handling other transactions.
Database segmentation means organizing contacts according to relevant characteristics such as buyers, sellers, investors, past clients, geographic interests, property types, or expected transaction timing so that each group receives more relevant communication.
No. A CRM may make the process easier, but the underlying strategy can also begin with a spreadsheet or another organized system. The important part is accurately categorizing contacts and maintaining useful information about them.
Brokers can track recent sales, listing prices, final sale prices, days on market, property characteristics, professionals involved in transactions, neighborhood activity, and other information that helps them recognize patterns and advise clients more effectively.
