Audrey- Thank you for commenting! There is alot of info in our expired links.

Bart- You have to send out 20 or more per day. You must have a good call to action and you must speak to the seller about them, not about why they should list with you but what is their pain and how will they get relief. You must be patient. We have been doing this for years. Brandee has only been using our program for 4 weeks and already got a listing even breaking into a new neighborhood. Most of our listings are expired listings from our letter. We do not call them, we do not door knock. We get about a 6% rate of return on ours. That is very high. Brandee is getting about a 2% return which is still huge for direct mail.

Terry- Why would you avoid expireds? It is the best market! The best listings are those where you are the second or third agent!

Joan- If you were here we would refer our buyers to you! :) Yes, there are no expired buyers!

Debbie- That is great! You can really utilize more of a package than a letter if you are only getting 20 at the end of the month. If there are that few, you can drop off your pre listing package in a US Express Mail envelope at each door or mail them to them with 2nd day air packages. When we were low on expireds we had good results with that technique. I don't leave home that much anymore. Only when I really have to.

Kevin- Keep following your plan! It will work.

Ron- The last 4 million dollar plus listings we got were all from our expired letter. We get a very high rate of return. We only send out one letter because we have SO many expireds here. In our county it is typical to have 400 expireds in a day here. Nestor chooses very carefully which expireds to send our letter to. If you are sending out more than 2 letters to the same people that would make your mailing ineffective. Read our expired listing posts and revamp your letter. If you are not getting the calls, something is wrong with your letter.

Natalie- Thanks for commenting! Go for it!

Liz- I know all about your market. Fred Carver is one of my clients who I coach and we put an expired listing program together for him. His area in Victoria BC only had like 1 or 2 expireds each day, somedays 0 expireds. But we did it anyways because now his system is all in place, it is a routine for him now, like a smooth running system, so that as soon as the market shifts, which like you said, is beginning to shift, he is all ready in motion. Even with the small amount of expireds he has had to work with, he still got calls.

Debbie- You are very welcome, it does grab their attention.

Carol- The power is in the listing! The most important time management skill, stress saving skill, the highest and best use of your time is to have a large listing inventory and to get a buyers agent for your buyers. This was the first lesson I learned from my 60 year old mentor back in 1982 when I started and it still holds true today in this internet driven world of 2008. GO GET THOSE LISTINGS!

Not Yet Licensed, the posts on working expireds on our blog will get you up and running. Put a system into place and get it working smoothly. It is our mainstay.

Pam- Thank you, direct mail must always be viewed as a long term program. We tweaked ours over and over again, always testing for the next best letter. It takes time to see your results.

Don- Make it a wonderful weekend, thanks for reading our blog!

Adam- This is the main difference between my coaching and most others. I use only customized coaching geared toward each individual person. We also coach from the inside out. It does not matter how many systems you put into place in whatever kind of market, if you are sabatoging your own work, you will never be successful. I find that limited beliefs hold most agents back from breaking through imagined self imposed income levels.

Most of my clients are Mike Ferry graduates and Brian Bufini graduates where somewhere their 'systems' did not work for my clients. Not all systems work in all places either. They have great systems, but for many agents systems are not generally all that they need. Then they only get coaching on the systems and relate it all back to the system. Well, life is not like that. I find that with many of my clients we run into snags and we have to figure out what the source of the resistance is and move through that before they can move on.

If a client hates to make cold calls, I will never ask them to make cold calls. Because people who hate to make a call will take all day to do it and then create so much stress around it, that this is not the highest and best use of his/her time. So we work on making strengths stronger and delegate the weaknesses or eliminate them from their own business model.

Expireds are the best way to break into luxury markets and new markets. It is also the best way to build up a listing inventory.

Carole- That is great news! I am so glad your friend was able to use these principles. They work in every business. Most of it is copywriting effectively with direct mail strategies that have been used for over 100 years.

Mindy and Jay- Thank you for reading our blog!

Charlie- Expireds are a great niche to market.

Margaret- Thank you so much! You are such a wonderful support!

Gary- You are right. Consistancy is key, focus and always testing!

John- Brandee is breaking into the luxury market. She had to learn all about the new market before we approached it. The prerequisites are all about breaking through limited beliefs and Brandee will go into more detail about that in her posts that she is writing about her progress in our coaching program.

Lorraine and Loretta- That is looking at your glass half empty. We get returned mail too. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Sometimes the post office are jerks and return mail where we know they are still living there. That is just the cost of doing business. THe benefits far surpass the obstacle of returned mail. It sure is better on your pocketbook than the time and gas money it would take to knock on their doors or the insulting method of phoning them.

Businesses cost money to run and you must use marketing methods that get a great return.

We get an average of a 6% rate of calls back to us and Brande got 8 calls from 400 letters! That is a winner! Why would I even concentrate on the returned mail with these results! There is money in the bank! We have been doing this for over 20 years.

What you focus on expands:) Katerina

Jeremy- I coach Brandee over the phone and email. I researched her market virtually and with her sending me all the stuff I asked for including the maps of her areas so I could visualize where she is driving, etc.

Thom and Ray, Thanks for commenting. I did get your email and will get back to you, perhaps I will even write a post to help out.

Bryant- It is a total no brainer! And you are right, if the calls don't come there are either too small amount of expireds, but even then, eventually the calls will come as I can attest with the agents who are following my advise, or they are not consistant. I find this to be the case whether it is mailing out expired letters or blogging on AR. The agents who are not getting results are those who are not consistant. And I have read some very SUCKY letters! Thanks for your support, I know how much you believe in this niche! We now have a short sale expired letter to send to the listings who expired and were short sales.

Michael- Read through our whole series of expired listing niching. There is all the info there you need to make a successful expired program.

George- Thanks! Make it a wondeful Sunday!

Donna- If you are not getting results from your letter, without even looking at your letter I will tell you that your letter is NOT about them. It is most likely about you or your company. They don't care about you. Good direct mail is all about them. Read your junk mail, it is a great lesson in what is good and what is not in direct mail.

Deb- Thank you Deb!

Wayne- Brandee is a superstar in the making. She was a star already, just taking it up a notch!

Brande- Thank you so much. I am looking forward to your post! I am so excited about the wonderful progress and results you have made already. You are a shining star and I am very proud of you! SO is your Father in Heaven. You have made some huge strides which I am looking forward to you sharing about too. Coaching is a great way for you to be accountable and work on the things that are income producing.

Work more on yourself than you do on your business, that is how you reach a higher income level.

Christine- This post has the link to all the other expired lisiting program posts. Or you can look under my tags and choose expired listings, the one with the most entries. Happy reading:)

Bob and Carolin- Then become a short sale expert in the area and then service those pre foreclosures! That would be a gold mine!

Sally and David- this is the lifeblood of our business and has been for most of the 20+ years in the business.

Kay- This has worked for us for over 20 years. There are somethings that stay the same! The power is in the listing.

Diane- OH, that is not good:) Go above our photo and click on Subscribe up there. That might work. There seems to be a glitch in the system and it changes my button's link language by default. Try the one above our photo on the right side bar of our blog. Thanks.

Chris- Because then you appear 1. desperate 2. like a 'salesperson', 3. it loses the effectiveness of time is of the essence. You appear 'needy' You are at their mercy at that point, our letters are from the point that the seller is losing out, not us. Very effective reverse psychology!

Chris- You lose your ability to use time is of the essence as a way to get them to call you. If you keep sending them letters, they are thinking, oh, I don't have to call now, he is going to write again and then I will call and so it goes on and on. We only send out one letter. That letter is so powerful that we have sellers who keep this letter along with our brochure for over a year before they call us. The point is, it must be in their mind that you are of value and they need to call you. The more letters you send, they are just not going to be saving them are they!

Kerry- You are very welcome. That is why I love AR so much!

Karen- Thank you my dear! You take care too! Enjoy the weekend!

Agnes- No we send no comps or listing agreement in the expired letter. We do however tell them in our letter most all they will need to do and then we send the listing agreement by email now. On all our short sales, we do not even meet with the sellers until we have the signed listing agreement back. We do not send them comps but tell them on the phone what those comps are and what we need to price the house at. Does that answer your question?

Sandy- Make sure you are consistant and committed! You must keep going, it is not an overnight thing.

Not Yet Licensed- Bruce- Thank you so much, that is so wonderful and I truly appreciate your referral. She has not contacted me yet. I am sure she will when she is ready.