Expired Listings, Real Estate Marketing Tools

Teresa from Grant Cole Realtors in Lexington, MA writes about our last week’s seminar on how to sell more listings:

“Hi Borino- I enjoyed listening to you today and took 3 pages of notes.”

…and McCullough from Re/Max North Carolina says:

“What a wonderful and helpful session! Thank you so much for sharing your time and knowledge! I look forward to more of these sessions!”

All good, BUT…

We ran into a problem. Jennifer and I had too much information to share on how to get ready for a kick-butt listing presentation, how to price the property right, and what do to get it sold in a short time without “giving it away” and making your sellers mad.

And we didn’t even get to all of the great questions you guys asked about pricing, marketing… how to avoid turning a price reduction into a WWF match.

Good stuff, but not enough time.

But don’t worry. The good news it, we are doing Part II and get to all of it.

Listen, you worked hard to get a listing, now it’s time to sell it so you can actually get paid!
I know, easier said than done in this weird market.

If you have one good listing that needs to be sold pronto, or a bunch of them just sitting there, come join us and we’ll chat on Saturday, May 17.

This is by “invitation only” teleseminar. And yes, you are invited

Sign up before it’s all booked up like the last session. It’s free. Here is your link:

http://www.expiredplus.com/seminar-5.17b.htm

One more thing: Sorry - there will NO FREE replay. If you have listings that need to be sold now, then we should talk:

http://www.expiredplus.com/seminar-5.17b.htm

OK, now back to unpacking. Long story…

Technorati Tags: real estate marketing tools

Those were his exact words. And he wasn’t smiling. Neither was I.

I swear I thought I’ve done everything right. Everything! Great CMA, smooth listing presentation.
We were just a bit too high on the price, but not by too much.

The house was decent and fairly clean. I had the lock box on, the sign up, good description
in the MLS, several promising showings…. and nothing. Not one offer.

Mr. Zimmer - the seller was getting ancy. I could just tell he began to wonder if he hired the right guy.

What was worse, it was an expired - my specialty.
“Look I do this every day. This is my expertise. I can get it done, watch.”

My usual cocky attitude was beginning to melt like Frosty in July. Not fun, you know…

Have you been there? A good listing, priced well, shows well, you’re sure you got in the bag…
and three months later not a single low ball, let alone a decent offer?

I know. It’s crazy, this market. You can do everything right and still not get paid. So what do you do?

Well, I can tell you what I did. Not only that, another veteran agent and expert in getting even the hard ones sold will show you her tactics as well.

My friend and author Jennifer Allan - yes the Sell With Soul Jennifer - and I will spend 90 minutes with you and go over all the secrets and tricks to get even the toughest listings sold and get paid:

• Four things you must do before a listing appointment
• Three factors that make or break every deal
• How to build trust with a seller in minutes (and why)
• What does “price it right” really mean and how to actually do it
• The dangers of overpriced listing
• Effective marketing tools to attract more agents and more buyers
• The biggest mistake I made with Mr. Zimmer and how I fixed it
• …and tons more.

We’ll chat on Saturday, May 3, at 8:30 AM Pacific Time.
Come join us and learn some cool stuff.

From Listed To SOLD Teleconference

The teleconference is free, all you have to do is register.

And if you remind me, I’ll tell you how I sold Mr. Zimmer’s house in 28 days.

From Listed To SOLD Teleconference

I got it again in the mail yesterday. The usual real estate postcard:

“HEY, Look at me, I just sold a house”
Whoopty doo!

Another poor schlep plucking down her hard-earned money on a lame direct mail campaign. When will these people learn?

Geo-targeting (direct mail to a specific geographic area for the uninitiated), is one of the LEAST effective direct mail methods.

Yeah, I can just hear you yell at your computer:

“But Borino, I sent some Just Solds out last month, and I got a listing. Ha! So what do you say to that, Mr. Marketing Know It All?”

Listen to me… Don’t waste your time with another “JUST LISTED” or “JUST SOLD”. Or worse: “I’m your neighborhood specialist”. Stop putting your neighbors to sleep, please!

Everybody and their grand-aunt that’s been in real estate since the Great Depression does it, it’s way too generic, and it lacks a good marketing HOOK. Here is a better approach…

Step One: Good List
You need a good focused list - a specific group of people that have one thing in common. For example:

* Expired listings that are over one year old
* Vacant For Rent properties
* For Sale By Owners selling for more than 60 days
* Properties occupied by the same owner more than 20 ears
* Multiple non-owner occupied properties owned by single out of state owner
* Seniors over 65 living in 4-bedroom homes
* …and on and on. You get the idea.

Step Two: A Good Sequence
Put together a SEQUENCE OF MESSAGES, letters, or postcards, or even better – a combination of both. And here is the most important part…

In each letter or a postcard speak SPECIFICALLY to your target audience. Here is an example of a postcard message:

***
Selling a house without an agent can save you up to $17,492! Visit this web site for a free report and find out how.
www.YourSpecialWebSite.com

***

Now, can you guess which list this piece would go to? Yep, all FSBOs on your list. Then you have a nice simple site explaining the benefits of selling without an agent. Get it? Give your audience information they most likely want. Specific, targeted, and RELEVANT.

Qualified, interested leads hit your site, some will sign up and you can start a follow up mail campaign.

What should you send? Easy. Useful information about the market, the selling process, how to fix a house before selling it, how to qualify a buyer… anything a FSBO should know. But here is the best part…

You don’t mention anything about listing with you – YET. Let them enjoy their short flirt with real estate. You and I know Jessica Simpson has a better chance of winning a Nobel Price for science than an average FSBO actually selling in today’s market.Robert Duval

Take your time and play the role of an adviser – think Robert Duvall in Godfather.

No pressure, no slick selling. You’re there to help. And after a while you become their logical choice to list and sell their property. Just keep in touch until most FSBOs realize it takes A LOT to sell a house and they may be biting off a lot bigger chunk than they can chew… Cancellieri to the rescue. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Back to our mailings… Follow the same process with all your target marketing lists. Help landlords with rent comparisons, market statistics, or recommend good carpet cleaner.

Send old-timers interesting information on a new Florida retirement community with golf and yoga.

Mail expired listings success story about other expireds that have relisted and sold.

You with me?

Every campaign you execute carries a targeted specific message that is RELEVANT to that particular group.

And the best part is your mailing lists don’t have to be huge or expensive.

Step Three: Repetition
It’s ridiculous to believe any one shot mailing is going to uncover everybody interested in your service. Think about your own life. You’ve probably received some offers that you were interested in but you never acted on.

To overcome this, you’ve got to create a plan for multiple contacts. Many marketing experts say it takes up to seven contacts to convert a lead into a client.

Finally, Step Four: Test and Adjust
Track, learn, see what works, fix or discard what doesn’t.

The more you know, the better you get. The better you get, the better your marketing will be… and the more money you will make.

And don’t EVER mail that old boring “JUST SOLD” again. I dare ya. I double-dog-dare ya!

Now go out there and Get ‘em!

Borino

Thomas Edison failed 1,000 times before he invented the light bulb.”
“Colonel Sanders offered his recipe to 1,000 restaurants before one finally took it.”

WOW. Perseverance, you think?

Bull.

God, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that ‘inspirational’ perseverance nonsense from all the ra-ra trainers, motivational snake oil salesmen, and pump-up coaches…. I’m just sick and tired of this sh… stuff.

So what does that mean, exactly? That you have to stubbornly keep doing something and fail miserably 1,000 times before you finally reach success? NONSENSE!

If something doesn’t work, then STOP for crying out loud. Give it a fair - FAIR - shot, yes, but no sense in killing yourself thinking, or worse, hoping things will magically change if you just keep going. I mean, think about…

If you contact 100 expireds and not get one listing out of it, then there is a good chance SOMETHING’S WRONG, bubba.
If you go on 10 listing appointments and walk away with zero listings, then it’s time to pause and see what’s up.

Don’t just stubbornly keep mailing, calling, showing, prospecting, presenting, wasting time, and wasting money… If the results are not what you want them to be, you are off course. Common sense, right? You’d think…

And yet look around you: same old boring marketing, bad postcards, dull ads, wrong approach, ineffective presentations, overpriced listings… It’s the Sanders/Edison approach of “just keep going and hope hope hope”. No wonder so many agents quit every day.

The way I see it, Edison was one smart guy, no question, he just sucked at time management. And he had all the time in the world! No urgency. Honestly, if he took this long today at GE he’d be fired by now, light bulb be damned. And Colonel Sanders might have been a decent chicken cook but boy was he horrible at sales and presentations!

Can you afford to be like them? Keep trying and failing for years? I didn’t think so… I think you’re smarter than that.

So don’t make the same mistake. Go for it with gusto, give it your best shot, take time to get things going, that’s all good. BUT see where your shots are landing, and ADJUST. Evaluate. Learn. IMPROVE. THEN repeat.

Don’t believe for a second that success takes a long time. Or thousand failures. It’s all within your reach. You just need to know what works, and what doesn’t. Do it the smart way.

Now go out there and Get ‘em!

Borino

“The market is bad, we want to wait.”

“We already have an agent in mind.”

“If we can’t get $450,000 then we won’t sell.”

Sounds familiar? What do you say when your potential client gives
you an objection like that? Your next listing and thousands of
dollars in commissions depends on your answer. If you fumble, get
stuck, or say the wrong thing, it’s game over. It happens quick.

You have to be ready. You have to know what to say, why, and how to
say it. That comes only with practice.

Come join us for a free one hour hands-on phone workshop on how to
handle even the toughest objections from FSBOs, expireds, buyers
that visit your open house, and much more.

The entire call will be recorded and you’ll get a free copy.

So come join us
PROSPECTING OBJECTIONS WORKSHOP
THIS SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2007
9:00 AM PACIFIC TIME

Sign up here.

Oh, and make sure you share your toughest objection you’d like to
overcome while prospecting. Just put it in the sign-up form and
we’ll tackle the best ones during the call. Hope to see you
on Saturday!

“Does anyone know of a successful marketing strategy, or a marketing tool that you have had success with… I need help!!”

As a matter of fact I do. How would you like to get your business up and running within the next 90 days, guaranteed? Here is a simple (and cheap!) plan. Can you do it for the next three months? If you can, you will get plenty of leads, listings, and business. Go for it!

Daily Plan:

• Talk to 2 expired listings on the phone, or preferably in person
• Talk to 1 FSBO in person
• Knock on 25 doors around your listing, your company listing, or a pending sale. Pass out fliers with the property/sale information, your information, and offer for a free CMA, or an invitation to your Open House.
• Talk to 3 people on your SOI (sphere of influence list) and ask them for business or a referral:
  • Your family
  • Your school friends
  • Your neighbors
  • Other businesses you frequent (gas station, dry cleaners, grocery store, etc)
• Preview 3 properties for sale in your area
• Read for 30 minutes or more a non-fiction book (inspiration, real estate, financing, sales)
• Practice 30 minutes: scripts and dialogs on listing presentation, prospecting dialogs, expireds dialogs,etc.

Weekly Plan:

• Every week take one successful agent to lunch and ask for tips.
• Hold at least one open house.
• Take one day off, relax, and enjoy the day.

There you have it. Follow it every day - every single day - and you will be successful.

Today’s guest article offers some great tips on how to become a successful Expired Listings agent… enjoy.

How to Make Six Figures Prospecting Expired Listings

Prospecting expired listings can be the core of anyone’s business in the real estate field. You can create a system that will give you repeatable results for your effort. Let’s look at these three very positive characteristics in prospecting expired listings.

They are easy to find: The expired listings come up everyday. You will have a handful that you can work on, on a daily basis. Expired listings provide a steady stream of new leads of people to contact for listing appointments. There are usually a few very heavy days in each month. You will need to set your schedule to take advantage of the heavy days. The end of the month is usually one of the heaviest times for expired listings; up to 25% of the expired listings for the month may come up on a heavy day.

They want to sell: The expired listings were on the market at one time, unlike many other types of clients you want to contact. The clients had a plan laid out to sell and move. Their plan did not work out, and in most cases they wish it had. There will be some expired listings which were listed by clients who are now tired of the process, but the majority of them still want to sell.

The bulk of them are looking for an agent: If the client still has the desire to sell, as most do, then they are searching for a new agent. They are looking for someone who can solve their previous problem. Most do not know why their home did not sell, but they are frustrated with their previous agent and sometimes all agents. They will rarely return to their previous agent.

The successful way to work expired listings is the CAP system.

• Consistency
• Attitude
• Persistence

The first part is consistency: You must consistently work the expired listings. For you to achieve a large return on your time invested, you must work diligently for a minimum of four weeks straight. Expired listings cannot be started and stopped without losing momentum. There is a rhythm and a flow to expired listings. They must be a daily discipline that you work on. If you prospect them for two weeks, then take a week off, you are back to zero. I did not prospect weekends, but I did diligently call Monday through Friday.

Your leads must build, and your follow up must grow. When you get down the road 30 plus days, you will begin to receive calls for listing appointments from your work earlier in the month plus your appointments from new expireds. You must work to create a pipeline of expired listing clients.

The second part is attitude: Your attitude plays a crucial role to your success with expired listings. You need to convey to the seller an attitude of compassion and problem solving. They are not just looking for someone to pound a sign in the ground. They are looking for someone to get their home sold. They are looking for someone to solve their problem. They feel that everyone else is the problem, when it really is them and their price. They can get even more resentful due to the high volume of agents that may call them.
The price is the problem 90% of the time when it comes to expired listings. You have to read the people you are meeting with regarding their home. Too many agents who work with expired listings hit their prospective clients with a ball peen hammer between the eyes about the price. That will work with some and fail miserably with others. You must be able to adjust your delivery.

You need to read the prospective clients, but most importantly you need to exude an attitude of caring and compassion for their situation while conveying confidence in your ability to get the job done; sometimes the only way to get the price down is to convince them you care and it pains you that they have to sell for less, but there is no other way. It is like the doctor who tells his patient she has cancer. He does not like it, but he has to do it so he can cure her.

The last, and at times most critical, is persistence: Your persistence or ability to stick it can have the most positive results of all. Many of the expired listings do not set appointments right away with agents. Sellers will wait a week or two or a month. The amount of calls they receive about their home drops dramatically as the weeks tick by. Do not be one of the agents who drop off unless the sellers have low motivation or are unreasonable. Be one of the ones left standing at the end of a week or two.

Be persistent in your calling. Call them a few times a week. All you are doing is trying to set an appointment. You are not doing a listing appointment over the phone. Just close for an appointment. That is what the call is for. You just want to be one of the three or four they interview. If you keep that as your goal, you will get plenty of salable listings.

Focus on the CAP system daily. Work both today’s expired listings and the past ones daily. Effectively follow up with your hot leads daily. Remember consistency, attitude and persistence are the keys to success to make six figures in prospecting expired listings.

……………………………………………………………..
Dirk Zeller, President of Real Estate Champions, is recognized as the premier coach for the real estate industry. He has developed a system that takes “regular” agents and “regular” managers and transforms them into “top gun” agents and managers. Dirk’s coaching systems are built around his incredible success in the 90’s as one of the top agents in all of North America. He closed over 150 transactions annually while working Monday through Thursday and taking Friday, Saturday & Sunday off. Copyright© 2000, Dirk Zeller. All rights reserved. To contact Dirk about his availability to speak to your group, please call the Frog Pond Group at 800-704-FROG (3764) or email susie@frogpondgroup.com; http://www.frogpondgroup.com.

“I need a sample expired listing letter to send out. I am new and want to make sure that I send out the right letter to the homeowners. Thank you.” wrote a real estate agent from California recently.

I spent two years perfecting my expired listing letter I sent to the expireds with my resume. Re-writing, testing, editing… Constantly looking for that perfect paragraph that would finally make the phone ring with “Come list our house, please!” But it never did. Here is the problem…

When a listing expires, the owners get from 20 to 50 expired listing letters within 48 hours! That is one BIG pile of mail. It doesn’t matter how powerful my letter is, how well written it is, it will get lost in the stack of others. That’s the bad news…

The answer is not in ONE letter. One expired listing letter will never do. If you really want to list a bunch of expireds, you must use multiple contacts using multiple methods. Let me give you an example…

Some sellers prefer letters. They open every one, read it carefully, and are influenced by the message. Others respond better to post cards. They prefer the short and sweet message, and they like the interesting visual elements.

Others sellers review your resume page by page. Some will closely read your web site. Some will read your emails you send them. Some only engage over the phone. And some like to meet you in person. It just depends…

And then there is another group of sellers that you need to approach using a mix of all the real estate marketing tools. Since you don’t know what will work with whom, you have to do it all, do it well, and do it consistently. For how long? Until you (or somebody else) list the house.

It was not unusual for me to list a house that had expired 12 months ago. Most agents give up after a few mailings. If you stay persistent, keep sending well written expired listing letters, postcards, updates – anything that’s interesting, it will pay of handsomely.

Finally the materials are done! According to the UPS tracking, they should be delivered on Friday, April 25. Stay tuned for details.

The good news, friends, is it’s coming soon. All letters are done, and so is the X-tracker projection and tracking. Right now I’m converting all the marketing materials (resume, postcards, and market updates) into Microsoft Publisher so it will be easy to customize and edit them. Both manuals are done, I received the final revision from the editor and it will be ready for print next week.

I found a good printer and I’m hoping for quick turnaround (10 to 14 days). I will be doing a final re-write of the Quick Guide. Then it all should be ready for shipping by the end of March. We’ll see. I will not release it until it’s complete, and perfect. Not a day sooner.