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

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

“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.

Ten Reasons to List With Me!
Today I received a great letter from a very ambitious, hard working agent. Nice headline, well-thought out points why this particular agent is a head of the completion. It’s a very good letter. Strong impressive selling points, and all the facts that are important. There is, however, one fundamental problem with it. It’s not a good first contact letter. Here is why…

When a listing expires, sellers are bombarded by agents with letters and calls. And the message is always (or most of the time) the same:
1. “I know why your house didn’t sell. You had the wrong agent and wrong price.”
2. “List with me, I’m different/better/expert/specialist/top producer, etc.”
3. “I sold many homes”

Now, those are all relevant messages, but why don’t they work on the first approach? I’ll give you an example…

Let’s say you want to buy a car. You walk into a dealership, look around, and a salesman approaches you: “Hello, my name is Joe Carguy, I’ve been in business ten years and I’m the top producer of this dealership, I won three awards this year, and I sell to 93% of all customers that walk in.”

What’s wrong with the picture? The first contact is all about Joe. I don’t care about Joe. I care about a car. Do they have what I want? Is it a good choice? Is it priced well? Can I test drive it? How much can I get for my trade in?

So back to expireds… the first contact (actually several early contacts) need to be all about them. On the phone, in letters, postcards, in any contact, make it about the seller, because that’s what they care about, and that’s all they want to hear. The rest is simply an advertising noise that ends up in the trash.

It’s that old saying slightly modified: Show us how much you care first, then we’ll care who you are and what you can do for us.

The trouble with most letters (and not just to expireds) is they sound too stuffy, too professional, too much like a loud and cheap radio commercial. You may be better off writing it yourself rather than recycling what has been said and trashed thousands of times. But it’s not an easy task to come up with a fresh letter that would get seller’s attention and persuade them to call you.

Here is a method that has helped me come up with some good marketing writing. I use a small Sony digital recorder, but a mike and a computer would do just fine. First I come up with a list of seller’s questions. Here is an example:

I think about the questions a bit, maybe jot down an idea or two on how to answer them. Then I turn on the recorder and simply answer the questions as if I had a pleasant conversation with a nice home owner on the porch of the house.

Next, I listen to the recording and write down ideas and thoughts that stand out; first in just a skeleton outline, then in a letter form. Then I take a break, get a cup of tea, and let it go for a while.

As they say - There is no great writing, only great rewriting. I go over the first draft, rework it, polish some ideas, discard others, change and edit the piece. It helps me to read it out loud, or have somebody else read it back to me (my wife Monique helps me with each marketing piece I create, bless her patient soul). Does the letter flow? Does it make sense? Is it interesting? Is it compelling?

Many times I end up with material for more than one letter. Try this method and you’ll discover that your expired letter is better than 99% of the recycled “professional” sales letters out there, that expireds get all the time and trash right after “Dear Homeowner, I know why your home hasn’t sold”.

One final tip: I spell check, grammar-check, and proof read it several times. Even the best writing will get crushed by typos.

Seal, sign, send off… done.

Do you have a writing tip that has worked for you? Share your ideas.