In the world of doing good business, you must know your competition.  Since I've take the roll of pushing a small office into the world to grow, we have discussed how we can stand out in the land of 1000 agents (Napa's very small town too...) and yet not be trashed on while we are so young (because new agents have alot of ego...and so do the experienced ones...LOL).  This is where we have to take a hard look at how we market the homes we service and stare real hard into the bliss of nothingness...in otherwords we have to ask a 6 year old what it is that we are doing.  Here's what a few pre-teens (not mine!) said that we do to sell homes:

1.  "You stick funny looking signs in their yard"--- This is obvious

2.  "You play on the computer"---Not obvious, Web Sites for office, realtor.com, etc.

3.  "What do you do with all those stuck up people every week" ---LOL...MLS...do you think?

4.  "It's like Halloween for you except there's no candy, is there?"---This one is not obvious because alot of Agents dont actually do this one...its the Just Listed/Sold Flyer in the neighborhood where you just listed a house or sold one.  Door knocking, mailers, etc...do what you can do consistantly.

5.  "Do we really have to visit you at that house...it's so boring."---Open house of course.

6.  "You put your picture in the newspaper" --- periodical advertising.  Newspapers, Real estate books, etc.

As you can see, we do funny things to sell homes.  Especially in the eyes of the people who can put your business in perspective.  The reason why I put it in these terms is to take you out of the view of your everyday duties that you see as being essential...and they are essential as they are the BASIC 6.  Now we need to identify other things to do (some without cost, some with) to market yourself and your homes in such a way as to not break the bank.  I also want to up front mention that I am not an avid fan of periodical advertising as it is not effecive.  It does work, but not effectively.  I would like for you to ask yourself if you would rather control your market or have the market control you...well, relying on advertising in my humble opinion, places you at the mercy of those who might see it, differentiate between you and all the others, decide to call you instead of the neighbor, and they is ready-willing-able to move forward.

Check here and reply if you wish...please be kind and open minded as we will go over at least 18 other forms of marketing yourself and home in an EFFICIENT manner so that your listing presentation is a REAL big step above the rest of the crowd and you can not only compete, but WIN!

Thanks, Matt Brewster