For those who are acronym-challenged, MTOTD stands for "Marketing Tip of the Day." Yes I made the acronym up and really didn't expect anyone to get it, but thought it might at least get someone's attention...
Marketing Tip of the Day: Coffee on you!
Pair-up with a business partner (Title Rep, Escrow Rep, your favorite Mortgage Loan Originator hint hint, nudge nudge), meet at your preferred walk-in coffee spot and each of you put $20 onto a gift card from that location. Then hand the gift card to the cashier and ask them to pass the word -- that you would like to pay for each single order of coffee until the gift card runs out. Let them know where you will be sitting and that you'll be talking about home buying and selling if anyone asks who paid for your coffee. Then grab a drink of choice for the two of you and strike up a conversation about -- you guessed it - home buying and selling!
I've done this 3 times. We chose off-peak hours because a) we didn't want the money to be gone in 10 minutes and b) we didn't want to hassle the cashiers (who are often also the baristas) during their rush times. Plus we were there to catch up and talk about -- once again -- home buying and selling.
The $40 ($20 from each of you) should buy around 10 coffee orders. Each time I've done this, I or my Real Estate Agent partner (or both of us) received at least one real lead or referral. Nothing like saving someone $4 to get the conversation started! Every time someone's drink was paid for they came over and at least said thank you and nearly every time had a question or two and took our business cards.
The first time I did this, one of the contacts came from a barista who came over to thank us for the extra tips (people were putting half or more of what their coffee would have cost into the tip jar), and turned out that she and her husband were looking for an equestrian property in rural Snohomish county and the Agent happened to know of one.
Not bad for spending $20, wouldn't you agree? If you're anxious at all about approaching strangers or are just looking for a fresh way to do it -- I highly recommend this. It's about the best $20 in marketing I can think of. Definitely worth passing on.
For the life of me I cannot remember who originally suggested this, I'd love for someone to comment on the source of the idea if you've heard of it before.
And in the meantime...
Coffee anyone?
Thanks! -- James Wirth
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