Recently I provided an "Answer" in the questions and answers section of Ractive Rain. My answer was lengthy and detailed enough, that I thought it would be a good blog entry.
Basically the question was regarding suggestions for how to farm and do initial marketing. So here are some tips.
Consistiency
If you're doing mail pieces like postcards or letters and you only send one piece, don't bother. Save your money and spend it on something that will have a recurring benefit. I really believe that if you only send one piece to your farm area, you might as well throw your money in the toilet. If you don't feel like putting it there, let me know, and I'll put your money to good use :) Seriously though, you have to get your message in front of people about 6 or 8 times before there's any dramatic increase in the probability that they'll actually respond to your message. You gotta send your message over and over and over and over ..
It's all about THEM
Remember, you really need to keep your message focused on the client. This is much like the difference between features and benefits. For example, if you were advertising a new car, a feature would be "air bags." That's fine, but you'll have a much more effective sales pitch if you say "Keeps you from dying in a car crash" than if you just say "Has air bags." Make it even more effective by making it really personal "Keeps your family from getting hurt or dying in a car crash." That's a WHOLE lot more effective than "This car has air bags." The same principle applies to your features and benefits. Don't make your sales pitch about how great you or your team is. Instead focus on the benefits of how great you are. Remember, you're the expert with this real estate stuff, that's why they are going to hire you. You need to ask yourself what is it about using me that makes my clients life easier? They get more money for their house, the get more offers, they get it sold in less time, they don't have to mess with negotiating or interpreting legal documents and contracts. It's all about THEM. I'll probably get some flack for this, but I don't think people care if you're a "dog person," or that you love pets and enjoy taking long walks on the beach. They want to know when you can sell their house and for how much.
Leverage Every Opportunity
There are a LOT of tools and opportunities that are available to you that can help you make contact with people. One of the worst things you can do is be a "closet" Realtor. Make sure people know what you do and that you want to help them. For example, I use Plaxo to manage my contacts. It's got a great feature that will search through your computer and your mailbox and figure out the email address of all the people that you communicate with and add them to your address book. Make sure you send out an update request about once a quarter. This will just remind people who you are and remind them that you're a real esate agent. Hopefully people will provide their birthday as well. Plaxo will remind you that they have a birthday coming up and give you a link to send them a ecard. Make sure you something like "Happy birthday, etc etc. By the way, my business is almost exclusively by referral, if you or someone you know is thinking about buying or selling real estate, I would be grateful for a referral." Don't be afraid to ask for the business.
Think Outside The Box
I did a really extensive CMA for this family recently and I thought to myself that it was unfortunate that just this one family would get the benefit of all this work. So I sent a letter to the rest of the homes in that neighborhood and indicated that I had recently completed a comprehensive analysis of home values in their neighborhood and encouraged them to give me a call and I would be happy to come talk with them about what is going on in their neighborhood. This lets them know that I'm an expert, I'm not afraid of hard work, and that I'm available as an expert resource for them. If they think real estate, they'll think Hackett Team.
Hope this all helps you! Good luck out there!
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