Part 3; B//:
With your website underway and your branding style you will want to get the phone ringing. Look for your “LOSS LEADERS” and milk them for the calls, contacts. If your hungry (we haven’t been since about month #2), you can do all kinds of things to get the phone to ring.
You should choose a level of expertise? We chose ‘waterfront’; paid the best too. Become the expert in the chosen field, but really, you will become an expert in all your field; period. Your loss leaders will likely sell fast, so you have to act quickly.
Buyers are very good at keeping a distance, so you have to build loyalty. Also listers love our “Zero Day Unconditional Cancellation” in writing; we list all our properties for an entire year (less work renewing), but offer the zero day cancellation for any reason at anytime. (Remember to think like the client). RE is a referral sport, so
PR is very important; keep the people happy.
Here’s an over the top tip: Now you’ve built expert marketing packages for all your listings and you’ve become an expert on the market; so you also know which homes compete with yours. Go out and build marketing packages for all the other homes too. Make viewing appointments, tell them your previewing for an out of town buyer. Go to the property and take your own photos, get a lot plan, make a map of where it is and put it in a file with a marketing package prepared and ready to go. Do this for your loss leaders first, then expand to others, starting with your chosen expertise areas.
There is NO REALTOR in my area who can tell you more about any property that YOU are interested in buying. Period. Often buyers tell us that you provide more info than the listing Realtor did. Gotcha! $$$$ Ca-ching. When someone inquires about your loss leader, and/or others you reply back with an email campaign that will knock their socks off. Here’s a tip too; if people say you provided too much info, guess what? They’re not buying. Buyers always want info, the more the better.
Your goal is to get them into your car; then sell them your listing; but if it doesn’t work out, the downside is you sell them somebody elses listing. We sell as much as we list; no other Realtor does this either. The competition is either good at listing or at selling, but nobody else does both in our Region, fyi.
The RE software will allow you to check the performance of all other Realtors in your Region; “the Truth”; find out who’s the best at what and set your goals. Our worst year we lapped the No.2 guy 4 times! We lap the average guy 10 times.
I’ll send you one of my email marketing campaigns; you’ll see what they look like; fyi.
During this time, you’ll be taking a load of work off your Realtor partner; they will start having more free time, enjoying their work more and be freer to sell; you’ll have to blow your own horn and keep the reigns in tight at first, but the success will spread to your business. Your partner isn’t going to do anything different from what they’ve been doing the last 20 years; mine still doesn’t, but he does make a lot more money than he’s EVER made before.
It’s really all about “Marketing”. I always say, “Show me a developer who doesn’t know how to market their development and I’ll show you a developer in the process of going broke.” It’s true. RE people aren’t marketers. In development we have to do studies to figure out where to buy a property, then we have to study the zoning and trends of previous development, then do rezoning, sub-divide, etc. We have to constantly build proformas that build confidence with banks and investors, etc. The list goes on and on. No Realtor thinks like a developer; which by the way, a developer hates to pay a RE commission; ha, ha; unless of course it’s earned. Think like a developer and give the client what they want; share the market and all its details with your client and they will be as loyal as your dog when it comes to choosing a Realtor.
During this process of getting your RE career going, you’ll be paying your partner some big cuts; but you’ll keep track of the work that you bring in and he/she will notice their work load cut down. Work the spouse too; they will love their partners newly found free time. (top realtors are always busy). You will gain their knowledge. There’s likely not a day that goes by where I don’t utilize my RE partners expertise; he’s been doing it for 23 years. He knows the clauses, contracts, etc like the back of his hand. You will need this expertise, very much!
That’s a start Jake….. let me know if you want more and I’ll chime in again.
I wish you all the very best my friend, I expect to see all your signs all over the place the next time I’m over there!
Cheers,