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Seminar Idea

By Brett Villeneuve

Real Estate Sales Representative with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage

March 28, 2008 08:17 AM

Good afternoon all,

I am thinking of using a seminar as a basis for finding and working with new listings and people who are considering re-listing their homes. I have investigated the cost of a conference room and advertising ( I figured I should start 3 weeks before the event). I have not looked into a caterer, the event would only be about 1- 1/1/2 hours long.

I was hoping that someone out there has done this before and could steer me a little. Should I hold this event around lunch time on say a Saturday, and there by hope to pull in more people. Would that justify a catered lunch? Does providing a catered lunch improve turn out, or does it just bring in people for a free lunch?

What kind of conversion rate should I expect? What kind of turn out? I figured to have people RSVP, especially if I had it catered. How many that RSVP will be no shows?

Does anyone have any experience and have some idea of the numbers?

Thanks in advance

Brett

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Ann Cordes

Century 21 Randall Morris and Associates, Waco - Waco, TX

Home Ownership is Not a Distant Dream

My company tried to have a buyers Seminar on tuesday. We held it at a local title company in their largest conference/closing room. We had myself ,two other agents, our broker, an insurance person to talk about homeowners insurance, a mortgage guy to talk about mortgage programs.

The mortgage guy sent notices to 1000 people, ran radio commercials for three or four days, and everyone from my office called or e-mailed people we thought would come. We just had store bought cookies and soft drinks. We also had coloring books and crayons for the kids. But NO ONE came! Not a single person! We are going to try again next month and promote it in the local REAL ESTATE BOOK. We are also moving the time back from 5:30 to 7:00. Hopefully we will have better attendance next time.

Good luck with yours!

Mar 28, 2008 08:29 AM

Anonymous

Ann

Thanks for getting back to me. That is the part that is so scary for me, what if no one comes and I am just out the money of the prep. I wonder if RSVPing might help and then I think it will accomplish nothing. Did you guys all split the costs? How wher eyou going to handle the lead split?

Good luck on you next one.

Mar 28, 2008 11:10 AM

Brett Villeneuve

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage - Fountain Hills, AZ

OK I have commited to doing this. The conference room is reserved, I am starting to advertise, the lunch is laid on. Now all I need is an audience. I plan to advertise in the local paper and both mail and hand deliever invetations to all the expireds and canceleds in the last 3 months from our town. The audience must RSVP so I can get a firm count for lunch.

Wish me luck everyone.

Apr 03, 2008 08:15 AM

Cobb Corbin

SnowyMountain - Tortilla Flat, AZ

Good Luck.

On our most recent tour we had them RSVP and everyone of them showed. That really did surprise all of us.

Get a hold of Barb at The Times and she'll also put a article in the business section about your seminar for free. She's always been very helpful in doing this.

Apr 03, 2008 08:54 AM

Far out! thaks for that advise. What kind of a turn out did you get?

Apr 03, 2008 09:32 AM

We have 15 people show up for the bus. We're going to do the same thing on April 19th but this one will be Gated communities only.

Apr 03, 2008 02:34 PM

Seminar Idea

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