Real Estate Marketing Tips Blog

When you try to think of all the ways you can build your business, you can probably come up with hundreds. With all of these choices it becomes very difficult to decide what to do first. The confusion can become so overwhelming that you don’t begin to implement anything. You just keep doing the same things over and over again and you keep getting the same results. Even worse, you may try one or two things that don’t work out as well as you had hoped and you conclude that nothing works, why bother?

Well, let me make this a whole lot easier for you. You see, when it comes to building up your real estate business, there are only three things that you can do. In fact, these same three things are the only 3 things you can do to build any type of business. The first is to increase the number of new clients you work with. The second is to increase the average dollar amount of each transaction. The third is to increase the number of times they return to do business with you again. That’s it. There is no more. Everything you can possibly think of to increase your business will fall into one of these categories.

So with that out of the way, where do you start? Well if you’re like most people, you will start with finding new clients. In fact, most businesses focus practically all of their efforts on this one. Real estate agents are no different. Now if you are just starting out and you have no existing clients, you will have to start here. Without having any clients, it’s impossible to implement the other two strategies. The most common question most agents have once they get their license is “How do I get business?” The answer will vary somewhat but it will always be considered marketing. No matter what you do to get business, you are marketing. Most real estate agents will take on any, and every client they can get their hands on because they simply don’t have enough business to make the income they had hoped for? So while finding new clients has to be step one, you can, and should, combine it with step two which is to increase the average dollar amount of each transaction.

Sounds good, but how can you do that? Well it’s much easier that you would think. Let’s look at a few things you can do. The first would be to work with higher priced homes. By target marketing and specializing in higher priced homes, you will earn a higher commission at the same rate. What I mean is 5% of $300,000 is a lot more than 5% of $200,000. The second thing you can do is to negotiate a higher commission. 6% is more than 5%. Another would be to negotiate for a higher commission split with your office or go to a company that offers 100%. You’ll probably have to pay fees, but when you figure how much more you are making, you will still come out ahead after the fees. These are just starting points, there are other areas you can apply this principle.

Lastly, you can increase the number of times a client does business with you. Real estate, unlike many other businesses, is not one where clients need your services month after month. They buy a house and most likely don’t need another one for a while. But you can still apply this. The first thing you can do is be certain that when they do need your services, that they contact you. To do this you must make sure you have provided them with exceptional value throughout their dealings with you. You want to exceed their expectations and be 100% certain they are happy with what you have done for them. The second is to make sure they know how to get a hold of you when they do need you. Stay in constant contact with them forever, at last once each quarter, monthly would be better. You would be surprised at how many people don’t call you back because they either think you don’t care about them, they forgot who you are, or they don’t know how to get a hold of you because you have changed offices or they just simply lost your phone number. You can also offer other services through what is called “back end sales.” What will they need after the sale that you could either provide or refer and earn income form? Be creative. There are plenty of opportunities.

So let’s wrap this up and put some numbers to it. You can double your income without doing twice the work. Small increases in each of these areas will exponentially increase your bottom line. Let’s look at an example. If you sell 10 houses at a price of $200,000 dollars each, your commission rate is 5% and your office split is 50%, you will earn gross commissions of $50,000. Now let’s look at what a small increase, only 10% to 25% in each of these areas will do. If you sell 12 houses at $250,000 dollars each, you raise your commission to 5.5% and your office split to 60%, your gross commission increases to $99,000. Add a referral or two in there and you doubled your income without doubling the work you had to do.

All of this is very possible and actually easy to do when you apply effective real estate marketing strategies.

To learn more about real estate marketing that works, get your copy of the FREE mini-course, “How To Double Your Real Estate Income In the Next 6-12 Months, No Matter What The Current Market Is Doing!”

Download it free here: Free Real Estate Marketing Mini Course

The #1 most common real estate marketing mistake that agents make is simply this… Doing what everyone else is doing and not setting yourself apart from the rest of the crowd. Real estate is a very competitive marketplace but it doesn’t have to be that way. When you set yourself apart from the rest of the agents, you become the clear choice of who to do business with.

Whether someone is buying or selling a home, they always have the same question in their minds… Who should I use for a real estate agent, or should I use an agent at all? The question your real estate marketing has to answer is this “Why should I choose you over all of the other options that I have?” When you look at most of the real estate marketing out there, you will find that most ads appear to be the same. When the marketing is the same, the agents, and therefore their service, appear to be the same. Your real estate marketing must set you apart from all of the others so that you become the clear choice to do business with.

This may sound difficult at first, but when you realize that 99% of the real estate marketing that is out there is practically identical, then you also realize how easy this really is. The one thing that most all real estate marketing doesn’t do is express a clear benefit to the prospective client. When you express clear benefits that immediately explain why to use you over the others, you gain a very distinct competitive advantage and the choice becomes easy. Practically no one does this which is what makes it so easy for you to do. When you are the only one, you’ll stand out in the crowd.

The easiest way to do this is to answer the question yourself… “Why should someone choose you over all of the other options they have?” If you can’t immediately come up with the answer to this, then your real estate business is in serious trouble. If you think of things like “I am #1,” or “I give great service,” then you will surely generate a “who cares” response. The problem is that practically everyone says these things so they become useless. It doesn’t set you apart from the others and it doesn’t state a benefit to the reader. Think about it, if you can’t answer that question by yourself, how could a prospective client possibly answer it?

Most of the real estate marketing that you’ll see will almost always promote the agent rather than the benefits of using the agent. Most of the advertising is ego based and tells about the agent themselves rather than express a clear list of benefits that the prospect will get by using the agent to buy or sell a house. The response of the reader when seeing this is usually “who cares?” They want to know what’s in it for them. They really don’t care about the you. When you make this simple distinction and begin to direct your real estate marketing in this direction, you will begin to immediately see a drastic difference in the results you get.

To learn more about real estate marketing that works, get your copy of the FREE mini-course, “How To Double Your Real Estate Income In the Next 6-12 Months, No Matter What The Current Market Is Doing!”

Download it free here: Free Real Estate Marketing Mini Course

Just yesterday my wife called me into her office to look at an e-mail she had received. I could tell by the sound in her voice that she was a little disturbed. Yes, this has happened before. Quite often actually.

You see, she had sent out a feedback form to an agent who had shown one of her listings. As you already know, feedback is often hard to get because the other agents don’t want to do what they perceive as a waste of time. They are not very cooperative. Unfortunately, the sellers don’t understand this. They just want feedback about their home and if you aren’t providing it, then they also get a perception. They perceive that you are not doing the job they had hoped and are not living up to their expectations. Even though she explains it right up front before she takes the listing, they seem to forget quickly.

So, in the often futile quest to get feedback from an agent with a buyer, we have devised a system that works very well. It combines convenience with persistence. We developed a short list of questions that we send by e-mail to the showing agent within a few days of the showing. If they don’t respond, we send it again for a total of three times. If they don’t respond by then, they are not going to.

It’s a quick questionnaire that only tales a few seconds to fill out and hit reply. You can then forward it to your seller so they can see exactly what you do. We have gotten all kinds of responses from other agents. Some love it, a few hate it, and even a few in between. But for the most part, it works well.

The response yesterday was from one of those who hated it. One of those upity agents who thinks they are so good they don’t have to lower themselves to responding to feedback forms. They also forgot that when they joined the local MLS to co-op deals with other agents, that co-op really means cooperate.

Anyway, as I looked over my wife’s shoulder at her computer screen, there was a response that said the following:

“Buyer is not interested! Stop sending me feedback forms!”

Not courteous, not friendly, and certainly not cooperative. When I looked up her web site, she had a whopping 2 listings. Not exactly the picture of success in a market where the inventory has been building.

When I say that this has happened before, what I mean is that his in not the first time my wife has called my attention to her frustration when dealing with other agents. She goes into a rant asking “What’s the big deal? Why can’t she just answer the questions? Why are these agents like this? Why can’t they be more professional?” etc., etc.

And the point I want to make to you is this. The lesson to be learned lies in my answer to her every time she gets frustrated with the uncooperative behavior of other agents. I simply tell her this…

Be glad they are like that. Be thankful for other agents who act this way. For if it weren’t for them, you wouldn’t be able to stand out in a crowd. If everyone were good at this, then it would be harder for people to choose you over them. When there are so many incompetent, uncooperative, unprofessional people out there that you have to compete with, it makes presenting yourself as exceptional just that much easier.

And this all adds up to one thing, value! The easiest way to compete in this or any other business in simply to provide more value to your client. And if that means going the extra distance to get feedback because that is what is important to them, then that’s what you have to do.

When you keep your clients best interest as your first priority, and you provide them with what they need and want, you are providing value to them far above what most others are willing to do. You become the clear choice and essentially eliminate the competition.

One more thing. The fact she received an e-mail from the other agent and is able to forward it directly to the seller accomplished two things. One, she was able to prove to the seller that she is trying to do what she said she would do, which is get feedback. The seller knows for sure that she is not just being lazy and handing her a line as some think.

The other thing it did was actually more important. It reassured the seller that she hired the right agent to sell her house for her. When she saw the comment from the agent who had shown the house, she had this to say…

“I am sure glad I didn’t give her my listing!”

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If you ever wondered how the “top producers” earn such a large income, then you are in the right place. Why is that some agents make fortunes selling real estate and others barely scrape by? Do you remember the 80/20 principle? Where 80 percent of the business is done by 20% percent of the people? Well in real estate, they now claim it is 7/93. That is that 7% of the agents get 93% of the business. Well I am not sure how they determine this, but there is one thing that is certain. The majority of the money is earned by only a small minority of the agents. Here’s why…

First of all, we are not all created equal. Some have more natural ability and talent than others. This is not to say there is no hope for those who are not yet at the top, there is. But, most of what is being taught doesn’t work. There is so much information out there on how to be successful as an agent, that everyone should be successful. I mean that every one should be earning big money. And the fact of the matter is that everyone is not. So why can’t you buy a program from a guy who is making millions and have it work for you? Because you have been misled, that’s why. You have been led to believe that all you to succeed is to know more, and you will make more. And it’s not true. You have been told that more information is the key to your success, and it’s not. To make matters worse, as you go around believing this and gathering information, most of what you are getting is pure garbage. It’s doesn’t work, or at minimum, it’s not as effective as it could be.

If information alone were the key to your success, you would still have to be sure you are getting the right information, wouldn’t you? And there lies yet another problem. Not only are you told to get more information, you are more than likely getting the wrong information. Let’s face it. Most agents with a little bit of experience are capable of seeing a transaction through from beginning to end. Yes, some are better than others, but most can get the job done. The first misconception is that you have to be great at what you do in order to get more business. And it is not true. It’s the “build a better mouse trap” theory. If it’s better people will buy it. Bull! Nothing can be further from the truth. Being a better agent by itself will not make you any more money.

Let’s see how this really works. You decide to become a real estate agent because you think you can make a lot of money, and you can. You take a short course on licensing and you go and pass the test. Your first question will be, how do I get business? They didn’t cover that in the course, did they? As if that isn’t enough to discourage you, there are thousands of others with the same idea. They too are getting their license. In any business where the potential earnings are high and the barrier to entry is low, you will have a great deal of competition. Many people get their license and then don’t know how to get their first deal. Who do you turn to? Your broker? He will train you because he knows how, right? Well, in most cases the broker isn’t much help. Think about it, They depend on you to bring in business for them. If they were great at it, they would be giving you deals to follow up on all day long. But they don’t, because they can’t.

But there are still some top producing earners who bring in big money. How? Well most of them have teams. When you see someone say they did 300, 400, 500 transactions or more last year, they can’t do it alone. There isn’t enough time in the day. This is not to discount their success though. They are good, very good. The only reason they are able to have a team and do those kind of numbers is because they do know how to find the deals. So well in fact they can give them out to team members. You see, they are not so big because they have all of theses people working with them. They actually have all of the people because they have the ability to keep them busy. They know how to get business.

What’s their secret? Very simple. They are great marketers. Well above and beyond average. It’s how good they are at marketing that brings in the deals, not how good they are at real estate. Now you may think you know all about marketing. You may do what you broker told you to do, sphere of influence, farm, post cards, fsbo’s expired’s, etc. Only to find that there is too much competition there too because this is what everyone else is doing.You may have tried a bunch of stuff that didn’t work the way you though it would and you then concluded that it doesn’t work. You may have gone back to doing what you have done before. Waiting for the next deal to come to you.Quite frankly, very few people know how to market. Even less of them are selling real estate. Which is why the door is wide open for you to succeed. If you want to be a success in real estate and bring in the big money, you will have to become a great marketer, well at least better than your competition. And you will be surprised to learn why the information that’s being sold out there alone can not help you. It takes more, and no one is else is telling you this. If you want to know what I mean, then keep reading this blog.