Every day I get calls, emails and faxes from agents who want a better, easier way to grow their businesses. The process of building any business is quite basic, and involves creating:
- A unique and beneficial product,
- A sales generation system(s) to market and sell that product and retain your clients for as long as humanly possible to generate a) more sales and b) referrals, word of mouth and repeat business,
- A unique product/service delivery system, and…
- Measurement systems (to know if what you’re doing is working!).
Below, in no particular order, are ideas and “marketing wisdom” that will generate more clients, and build a long-term viable business. Many of these suggestions are further detailed in the 3-Steps Marketing System at www.3-Steps.com
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Prioritize Your Marketing Time, Money and Effort According To the QUALITY Of The Prospect/Market. “Quality” is defined as how well the prospect already knows you and is most predisposed to use you over any other agent. Don’t go chasing cold prospects at the expense of higher potential prospects. Here’s how I believe you should prioritize your marketing: 1) Build a “house list” and market to them on a monthly basis (this is your “market share”, where 70% or more of your business should come from – more on this later), 2) Market off “Transactional Leads” (from your listings for buyers) and other listings (once you have them), 3) Work hot leads – follow-up is essential. At the very least, you know they’re in the market to buy/sell, and most agents hopelessly ignore follow-up, 4) Do your research homework to select market niches that have the most promise, and work them (i.e. fish in a stocked pond) – this includes geographic markets (farms), specialty markets (resort, golf, vacation, etc.), 5) Work FSBOs and Expireds – but notice the low quality of this group. We both know the reason.
Here’s a revealing fact: The National Association of REALTORS® produces an annual research report called Profile of Buyers and Sellers. It’s filled with lots of facts and figures, but the most startling fact they’ve discovered is that approximately 74% of all real estate transactions occur because the client either 1) knew the agent already, or 2) was referred to the agent from a trusted source.
This means that 3/4 of all transactions happen because of a relationship – yet only 4% of all agents have any “systems” to harvest deep relationships and build market share. So about 4% get the lion’s share of business and 96% wrestle each other over the scraps. THIS fact alone is why I told you (above) to create a “house list” of friends, family, past clients, acquaintances, etc., and market to them first and foremost. It’s also why I created Service For Life!® at www.ServiceForLife.com as a ready-to-use tool to capture that business. I’ll cover this in more detail later.
- When Starting Out, Spend 80% of Your Time Prospecting. Whether it’s cold prospecting or establishing marketing systems, focus your resources on getting business. Don’t allow distractions (self imposed or otherwise) to interfere with this task. At the same time, don’t neglect establishing other marketing systems so you can quickly stop manual prospecting.
- Get a Hotline and Use it. Your hotline will become the foundation of your marketing systems, and will become the “mechanism” that generates leads and clients automatically from ALL your other marketing, so you can do your job: working clients, closing deals and cashing commission checks. You’ll use it for classifieds, display ads, sign tags, info tube flyers, listing presentations, and lots more. Go to www.SixFigureHotlines.com and subscribe to the free course there and examine Proquest’s product – it’s first-rate.
- Product-Ize Yourself. This industry is a mass-commodity of agents all screaming the same thing to prospects. You need to be seen as different. So create unique products out of your services. For example: “Your Maximum Value Home Marketing Plan,” or “Preferred Buyer Program”. Another example: Rather than give CMAs, agents will offer a “Maximum Home Value Audit” to examine and determine ways to maximize the value of a home and sell in least time. The secret is to weave the greatest benefit for the client into the name. Then, make a simple list of everything you do for the client as part of your program – even if other agents do it, it’s likely they don’t promote it, so you have the advantage.
- Make Yourself A Self-Proclaimed “Specialist” in Your Market. Farming a resort area? Make yourself a “resort property specialist” and title your product specifically to it: “Ventana Canyon Golf Property Specialist” and “Ventana Canyon Maximum Value Golf Property Program.” Use your creativity and match your services specifically to the market.
Continued in this real estate marketing article
