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I’ve been a real estate agent for 18 years now. I’ve seen and heard about virtually every kind of marketing tool, program, scheme, etc. there is.

 

Some of them downright scary – how about a “coaching program” for $2,500…per month! Seminars costing thousands, hundreds if not thousands to develop fancy websites (without a clue as to what to do with them). I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

 

Agents seem ready to spend any amount of money in search of some kind of “magic”. I’m guilty, too…went to a Mike Ferry gathering once…2,500 agents there. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I was at an evangelist’s “Come to Jesus” meeting. He even flaunted how much money he was making off of real estate agents!

 

Makes me crazy!

 

Boil it all down and the practice of real estate ALWAYS comes down to a simple concept. Get new clients…keep the ones you’ve got. Period.

 

How do you do this? Develop a list of people and talk to them on a REGULAR basis.

 

NAR statistics suggest that between 8-10% of the population moves each year. So, if you have a list of 250 people (shouldn’t be too hard for anyone), you can reasonably expect that 20-25 of them will buy or sell a home each year.

 

The trick is to be the agent of choice when those people decide to act.

 

I contend that having spent big bucks on a lot of the stuff I mentioned above ain’t gonna get you there, because the trick is that it’s not who knows you that counts, it’s who remembers your name at the instant they decide to buy or sell.

 

You do that by maintaining CONSTANT and REGULAR contact with your group. Regular enough contact to always be top-of-mind with them (that’s a minimum of at least once a month).

 

There’s no better way to do that then by sending a newsletter.

 

I’m talking a real newsletter with real meat in it. Not one of those preprinted, glossy things filled with real estate information that you slap your name on. Those immediately end up with the coffee grounds and the food scraps.

 

I’m talking about a newsletter filled with interesting stuff that people love to get and read.

 

One that is ridiculously cheap and enormously effective.

 

I write such a newsletter. I’ve been writing it fresh each month for more than 7 years…more than 85 issues.

 

I’ll talk more about the psychology of newsletters in subsequent posts and why mine is the absolute best out there.

 

In the meantime, if you want to regale me with comments (positive or negative), I invite you to do so.

 

David Pazdernik – www.thegoodneighborletter.com