Yourdoormat.com came about in 2000 as an idea to do a better job with better pricing and personalized service than catalogs for one product - personalized doormats. Suddenly, REALTORS began using us for closing gifts. I never even heard of the term closing gift. I learned quickly that it was a great idea for 4 main reasons:

1- A unique gift everytime

2- Affordable

3- Useful

4- It remains in front of the client's front door every day for months and years......yes, more REFERRALS.

Great business model and we have to deliver because our average agents use us for 5+ closings/purchases per month!

Advertising is my background. I worked for Rupert Murdoch at The New York Post and then at FORTUNE Magazine in NYC. I then ran a start-up newspaper in Richmond, Virginia before starting Yourdoormat.com.

In the publishing world, revenue comes from 2 sources: advertising and circulation. With advertising, in order to be successful, you must have a niche and you must serve it well. The demographic profile pf the readership, miexed with the frequency of the message is the make up of your audience and the 'coverage' the advertiser will purchase.

With the above in mind, agents already have their best referral market in place - your cleint. So that isalready taken care of. Next comes fequecny of the message. If an agent's tpical cleint is a household of 2, then if they both leave and return from the house 1x per day, they will see our personalized doormat a total of 4 x per day. This translates into 1,456 reminders of you per mat.

Our typical clients are serious marketers and they understand the value of a useful gift and certainly frequency. They sell, on average, 5 homes per month. Add up the numbers and they really like the marketing potential for referrals. 60 homes per year with a gorgeous and long-lasting personalized doormat from Yourdoormat.com translates into well over 80,000 impressions per year.

Knowing these incredible numbers, why would an agent lose out on this referral generator?

Use this section to write about your specific areas of expertise. Do you specialize in first time buyers - listing high end homes - etc. Are there specific market area's that you specialize in? The more you write about your area's of expertise the more knowledgeable you'll sound to a potential buyer or seller.

Hello Gordon,

My client, the buyer, commented immediately - "Hey Rick, the mat, really nice touch!"

It was the first thing he mentioned, even though I had spent $500 on a cleaning crew (you could eat off the door stops), a couple of hundred dollars on lawn & garden maintenance, and - there was a $210 bottle of Cristal champagne with two engraved crystal wine glasses in the refrigerator!! But what does he comment on? A custom, quality, personalized.... $60 door mat!!! (This guy smokes cigars that cost more!) By the way, the family is now back in Florida at their primary residence, I have talked to them twice...both times they mentioned the mat!

Crazy but great! Good Job Gordon....a great buy at twice the price! (Don't even think about it! )

Rick Strohm, Broker / Realtor
RE/MAX Property Specialists, Bryson City, NC