Are you spending too much time, effort and money on marketing and getting too little in return?

Hi Richard, I've learned over the years when working for someone else to spend your marketing dollars very wisely. My former boss spent $30K on a business consulting firm and I told him not to do it. We would be spending our emergency money that I saved for his company. When it was all said and done, we were left with an Excel spreadsheet and no emergency reserves. It was a total waste. Of course he told me he should have listened to me but it's a day late and a dollar short. Lesson learned on his part.

Paragrapgh number two sums it up. It is not about the amount of money spent. There are so many people out there who want part of your budget!

You make a lot of great points here Richard.

Much like we strive to do our due dilligence for our clients, we also need to do the same for ourselves when it comes to slicing up our revenue.

Richard in my brief experiences here on ActiveRain, I have found that the 'Incredible Opportunities' are coming far more frequently, and I can only equate that to the blogs. Seems as if there's always somebody calling to help me increase my SEO with their great program. When I ask them how they picked me to be so fortunate, they tell me it's because they found me on the first page of their search. My response will always be, if I can get to page 1 without them, then it only takes a bit more effort on my part to move up higher and the people here on ActiveRain are teaching me to do that.

Besides, my accountant tells me to cut back on advertising.

Richard,

You make some great points. I might also add we can have a great plan, but we must also know there is sufficient market demand in the target area to product results with that plan. If we don't know (or the company we hire doesn't know) this information it can be a real waste of time. JOT

Steve

Oh so true...and I know with more and more of us cutting back rather than increasing our dollars spent this couldn't be more timely!  
thanks for sharing! 

So true.  Thanks for the advice, pointers, and reminders.  It seems everyone is always trying to sell me some easy way in RE.  I'm a total skeptic!

Marketing is the biggest expense and risk in any business.  Even if something works for a while, it may not work all that well long term.

Richard - Excellent points. Blind marketing wastes time, money and effort. I continually monitor the effectiveness of my efforts.

Richard - all great points. And one final one, give yourself a fixed time period and carefully track the results over that period. If it does not meet minimum expectations, drop it.

Richard - I especially like the recommendation to "Ask for the names of existing satisfied customers".   I did that one time and the sales person said "our customers are all very busy agents, they don't have time to talk to you".  Needless to say I didn't buy their marketing product.

Richard_ Sounds like the dame kinds of questions people should be asking before they pick a realtor.

Richard it's a good list of questions.  I for one am very tight with any money I spend on marketing, advertisement or whatever one wants to call it.

Hi Richard, today it is such a wild ride . . . no sooner do you commit to a path of action, a superhighway goes up right next to you. You have to be flexible.

Otherwise known as ROI (return on investment).  So true.  Lot's of folks spend so much that the bottom line just isn't very appealing.

I am struggling with this issue right now.  How much should be spent on print advertising?  Obviously, I want the dollars I spend to be productive. 

Richard, this is so true, especially with internet and web page advertising. Some of these companies promise the moon, only to never quite get it done correctly.

Richard:  There is a very successful agent in our office that has a rather expensive website.  The company that put it together for her likes to call all of us, her co-workers, and brag about how her website is helping her achieve her top producing status.  Last office meeting, she got up and was talking about working from referral.  She made a flip comment about making only one sale per year max off her website.  Can't wait to tell these website guys next time they call brag about her success and sell me that product.