I'm Shaping Up!

A month ago I wrote a post "Shape up or Get Out."  I was excited.  I had just began the process of waking up at 6am and getting to work by 8am.  Well now I get up at 6:30 and I can still get to work by 8am.  Not much has changed.  I have been committed to going in my office each day, prospecting and setting appointments. 

When you get reenergized about your business, all of a sudden the brain starts to flow with new ideas, and that is just what happened to me.  I work in center city Philadelphia, just blocks from the Liberty Bell.  My office in building is gorgeous and houses 100 of offices and yet my office has never touched those business's.  My office, Coldwell Banker Preferred is located on the lobby level, and it Is incredibly rare that we get a walk in.  Most times people think we are a bank hence the name Banker in our title.

With that said I decided to set up shop.  I quickly spoke to my manager about setting up a table just out front of our office and he was gamed. I spoke to building management and they gave me a song and dance before saying yes.  I called our corporate office and the Coldwell Banker Preferred banner had been reserved for my event.  All that was left was to figure out what to do next.  How was I going to organize it?  What was I going to hand out?  Was I going to hand out flyer's?  Send out invites?

I knew one thing; I was not prepared to spend much.  So I started to call local business's, two being local restaurants that I eat at regularly, asking them if they would be willing to sponsor my event.  Immediately they said yes, to my surprise. After the week was said and done I had scored 5 gifts from local business that I would raffle off for free to customers.  The only thing that I would ask in return would be for customer's information, nothing too detailed.  I was scared it would frightened them away.  I asked for their name, a phone number, email, and had them circle yes or no to 4 questions pertaining to real estate.

To attract people to my booth I decided I needed more.... food!  So I got our in house mortgage officer and our title company to donate food.  Nothing big.  Donuts, coffee and fresh "Philly Pretzels" just enough too lure folks in.  I was in at 7:30am, the morning of my event, tired from stressing about how well or horrible it would go.  At the beginning of the week I had put up a poster about the event on an easel in the building and quickly the buzz circulated around my office.  "What's this event I hear about" I was asked.  Very few people knew what I was planning.  I didn't want to be distracted by any naysayers. 

The day was a success.  I set my table up with  balloons,  my lap top to tap into the MLS, information about  the market,  a buyer's checklist, and a seller's check list.  The mortgage officer set out her information as well.  I even made up gift certificates for my service to receive a $400 visa gift card at settlement!  *As long as a contract was entered into on or before September 30, 2008.  At the end of the day I had obtained 109 contacts! 

That night I was so tired and my colleagues were impressed. I knew then that I had been successful at what I wanted to accomplish, touch people in the building that didn't know us and most importantly didn't know me.