Real estate marketing is all about prospecting for either buyers or sellers. It amazes me how many Realtors do not know that there are major differences in how to find and court buyers and sellers!

A saying in the biz is that buyers buy houses and sellers buy marketing. I have to say that this more true than many people know! So how can you prospect for buyers or sellers?

Prospecting For Sellers

Prospecting for sellers is about growing a database of people who have owned their houses for at least 5-7 years. While there was a time when flipping worked, that time is long gone. So, if you can search your tax records, make sure to use a value of say, have owned their home for 5-10 years (or longer).

Another group of people who would be looking to sell are absentee owners. In many MLSs this data is available and easy to access.

Don’t have tax records? One really good way to do affordable marketing is to buy a “carrier route” with your local mail house. This means that they will deliver direct mail pieces to everyone who lives on that mail carriers route for about 17 cents postage per piece.

When I was an agent I did open houses A LOT (two a week for a whole year). Those nosy neighbors…they are potential sellers and I could get them into my database easily with just a sign in sheet.

Last but certainly not least, prospect for FSBOs and expireds. These guys have already decided to sell their homes, now they just need a great agent like yourself to get them over the finish line!

Prospecting for Buyers

Sellers buy marketing but buyers buy houses so the easiest way to their hearts is to have house and subdivision information readily available in person and online.

If I was a buyers agent without a buyer in my car during business hours, I guarantee I would be sitting in an open house. In our MLS I could put in the office number and then do a search for vacant properties. I sat in open houses for LOTS of agents in my office, freeing them up to do important realtor stuff while I made connections.

You can do well by advertising on Craigslist.com with your listings or other agents’ listing (make sure to ask their permission). You can also pick a house you would be interested in selling and write a generic ad that fits the description of that property.

Social media would be a great way to contact potential buyers (did you know that you could do a search on the Twitter for terms like “moving to Tampa” or “know a good realtor?” You want to reach out to people who are moving with a light touch and just provide info, NOT jump on them and start talking about how great an agent you are.

Lastly, you should be doing LOTS of videos. Posting videos on the YouTube about houses you have shown or listed, PLUS every subdivision in your area would make you a VERY available agent and attract buyers like bees to flowers!

So, if you are taking the time to do real estate marketing, why not take a couple of minutes on the front end to consider whether you would rather work with buyers or sellers!

{EAV:6a94ad154b940726} – Just a little tickle for empire avenue…:)

One of the big questions I always get is “What should be in your listing presentation?” I was shocked to find out that there was not even one post on the interwebs about it, so here goes!

Disclaimer: This may be a little different from what you hear everywhere else so if you are looking to be same old, same old, move along nothing to see here!

What Is In “NORMAL” Listing Presentations

• Snazzy cover with a picture of their house that you drive by and take before getting your presentation together
• About Us
• About Our Company or Brokerage
• Who We Are
• Our Mission Statement
• Our Vision
• Our Story
• Our Team
• Our Ingredients (not sure what this one is, but I saw it, I swear)
• Our Services
• Our Pledge
• Why You Should List With Us
• What You Should Expect From Us

are you sensing a theme here?!?!?! We do this, we do that, we, we, we…they don’t care about you at all, they only care about them and getting their house sold! Carry on…

• Testimonials
• Preparation For Showing
• Home Selling Process
• List of a Million Things That Have To Be Done To Sell Their Home
• Showing Tips

What SHOULD Be In Your Listing Presentation

• Snazzy Cover with Contact Info
• One Page Mini About Us (optional)
• Tax Records
• Past MLS Listings
• Listing Paperwork
• Your Comparison Listings (laminate separately)
• CMA
• Marketing Plan
• Commission Chart Handout
• Where Do Buyers Come From Handout
• Frequently Asked Questions (this is where you can add your special showing instructions, tips for decluttering, etc. since they are phrased as questions it seems less snarky)

How can I say that you only need a one optional page about you and then the rest all factual data and handouts? Well think about it, when you got to the accountant, does he hand you a 20 page packet about why you should hire him, what his qualifications are, testimonials for past clients, and heaven forbid, his mission statement? OR does he go to work on your accounting.

Lawyer, about the same, maybe a little more about the firm and the lawyer, but mostly they talk about you and your problems.

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This is the difference between other professionals and Realtors. Realtors have been told they have to be “consultants” or “your realtor for life”. They have been told that they should have their picture on EVERYTHING and that their marketing materials should talk about how they LOVE playing the banjo. They have been beaten down by the industry and market to the point were most of the articles I read about getting your listing presentation together talked about being brave and acting like you deserve the listing (or the commission).

What about this? Why not actually BE professional? Take yourself and worth seriously and go in there with data to support your suggestions. Have concrete systems in place to get houses from listed to sold with scheduled milestones and communication with your sellers. Have a structured listing presentation that isn’t all fluff, but is hard core meat and potatoes, showing why you are the only agent they should hire?

If you would like to find out more about how to get the coaching and materials to BE this type of listing agent, check out our real estate coaching programs! not for the faint of heart, only for determined, driven professionals

List building for realtors and entrepreneurs is simple, not easy but not hard either! Everyone talks about the need to build a list if you are going to do any marketing, whether via the internet or by direct mail. Everyone says that you should add to that list on a daily basis. Well, as annoying as they are, I agree with everyone! Having a list, mostly targeted to your industry is the most powerful tool you have in your business. Here are my top ten tips for growing and nurturing your list!

Top 10 List Building Techniques

• NUMBER ONE AND MOST IMPORTANT – READ THIS IF YOU SKIP EVERYTHING ELSE! Make sure you are proud of what you send out to your list, every time. I have a newsletter that focuses on marketing for entrepreneurs and realtors. It takes me about 4 hours, 2 days per month to do my newsletter. I am ALWAYS proud of what I am sending and have very few people request to be removed from my list.
• Having a list means needing a database. Your database can be an excel spreadsheet or huge CRM product, either way you need to be able to contact those people on a regular basis. Include First Name, Last Name, Address 1, City, State, Zip, Email and Phone at a minimum. Find out more about what a small business database is!
• When you are starting out, ADD EVERYONE! – I had a conversation with a client yesterday and he questioned the viability of adding someone you know that has no connection to your business. I have had the most referrals for my business from a friend who has never purchased from me. You never know who your friends and family know who might be a customer.
• As for a business card from EVERYONE you meet. We often give our card to people and forget to ask for theirs. Add those people the day you get them and start them on an autoresponder series (see below) to keep yourself fresh in their mind
• Autoresponders (or drip marketing) are series of messages that you send to people after putting them in your database. They give information about your business and can gently sell your product or service. Most database programs allow you to set up autoresponders, if you are using Outlook, make a task to send out messages for at least the next few weeks to your new person.
• Places to get new list members #1 – I get LOTS of new list members by teaching! Offer a prize and collect business cards or send a sign-up sheet around to all the attendees. Make sure they know they will be added to your list!
• Networking Groups – Go to meetup.com and search for local groups you can join. Talking directly with humans is a GREAT way to get people to add to your database!
• Social Networking – Using Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn and Twitter is a great way to build your list. DO NOT add everyone who “friends” you. From time to time put a link in that encourages them to sign up for your newsletter.
• Your Sphere – I know, you have added EVERYONE from your sphere already but have you thought of your doctor, lawyer, accountant, church members, gym club friends, your spouse’s friends, your kid’s friends parents.
• Last but not least – NEVER SPAM YOUR LIST! EVER! Recently I had someone belittle me because I wouldn’t take an “opportunity” to sell something to my list. Well…I didn’t believe in it, it didn’t match my list and I declined. I have NEVER regretted not sending something to my list and will never send anything I am not proud of!

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Lead generating for small businesses is VITAL! Any small business owner will tell you that the most important part of STAYING in business is having new clients and servicing past clients – all of these are part of your pipeline.

Your pipline is the people who have (in order from low priority to high priority):

• Noticed you are in business but are not currently using your services
• Have indicated that they are interested in something you have to offer
• Have purchased from you in the past but are not currently using your services
• Have purchased from you in the past AND have referred other people to you!

The order may seem amazing to some of you – people who are interested in purchasing RIGHT NOW are less important than old clients? YES! Old clients have shown a willingness to spend their hard earned dollars with your company and should be cherished. You should be contacting them regularly and making sure that they know you value them!

THEN you should have a system set up to contact potential clients regularly until they are ready to buy. A database is a great tool for this as it will let you know regularly who you should be contacting, be it by email, phone or mail.

If you do not have a formal pipeline in place right now – get one. Start a list of EVERYONE you have ever done business with and make sure they are in your database. Then make a list of everyone who has expressed an interest in your services. Rank them according to their level of urgency AND have some sort of system for determining their probability of closing. A good system is 90% for people you have sold and are just waiting for payment, 50% is someone who might buy but who has finalized the decision and 10% for someone who has requested more info.

When you are getting ready for your day, you now know who to call! Start with the 90%-ers and work your way down. Send emails to remind the 10%-ers about your service. AND don’t forget to contact a couple of old customers with something relevant to your business – an email newsletter, an article you think they might enjoy or just a “hi, just thinking of you” email.

If you would like more information about lead generating sources join our FREE Marketing Newsletter For Entrepreneurs! This month’s article will be focusing on sources for leads for all small businesses.

How can hiring a virtual assistant help your small business? Well let me tell you about MY day:

• 3 Client Phone Calls – 1.5 Hours
• 2 Fun Phone Calls – 1 Hour
• 2 Calls to cancel services – 1 Hour
• Submitting Sites to RSS Feeds – 2 Hours
• Errands – 1.5 Hours
• Writing Blog Post – .5 Hour
• Emails to 2 Virtual Assistants to do what would take me 10 Hours (I am paying them $50 total) – 15 Minutes

Did you catch that last one? 15 Minutes and $50 to get 10 HOURS of my life back?!?!? Time to lead generate, consult with clients, talk with friends, ANYTHING BUT doing 10 hours of work!!!

If you are in real estate, I have a great post over on active rain with lots of VAs that are ready to help now (http://activerain.com/blogsview/958318/Real-Estate-Virtual-Assistants-Anyone-have-a-good-referral). If you are a small business owner with a great virtual assistant please let me know and I will be happy to post them here for everyone to know about!!!

The single-most question I get is “How will social networking make me money?” I am SO not qualified to answer this BUT I can tell you how it has helped my business!

Social Networking Makes You More Approachable

I teach classes and am very aggressive about what I think people should do to grow their business (sometimes even when they don’t ask…:) I have great ideas BUT not everyone likes that IN YOUR FACE information. People who would like to have the info without all the grief can join my networks on www.Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com or Twitter.com and watch without the hype. (I am Taradactyl on all of these and would be your friend – just ask!)

Funny things sometimes happen too! On facebook, someone from my high school class posted our senior picture and I am on there dressed in black – I still dress in black and take a lot of grief for it BUT that makes me more accessible to people who don’t know me BUT who might want to buy my services.

Social Networking Lets You Help People

The other day my business friend Maggie Morris’ Iphone lost my number. She had a situation that was important and needed to reach me. Because she is my friend on facebook, she could send me a message that came to my email and I called her right back. How cool is that?!?!?!

People can watch what you are doing and can copy it. If I find a great new site that could help get me new business, more than likely I will be posting something about it online. If you are in my network, you will see it and be able to take advantage of that opportunity.

Social Networking Is, Well, Social AND Ranks Well On Search Engines

There are many things that you can add to your profile which will be found by humans AND by the search engines. I hear all the time that you need to have backlinks to your site to make it more google friendly. One of the easiest ways EVER to get backlinks to your site is to make them yourself. In your profile make sure to add your website!

Join some groups that you like! In class yesterday Frank was truly puzzled by why he should take the time to join a network. Well Frank sells real estate AND likes boating. People who like boating buy houses on the water. Houses on the water cost more than houses not on the water. Connect the dots!

Anyways….there are some reasons, if anyone out there has better, more comprehensible ideas please feel free to jump in…:)

How to pick a database – the age-old marketing question. When you are setting up your online and offline small business marketing plans it is confusing to know what database you should use and if it will be able to accommodate your email marketing needs going forward.

I will start with my sad tale….

I have a great database that I really like (www.clpsuite.com) which has served me well for a couple of years. Lately I have had a burning desire to have online credit card ordering capabilities so I started using www.1shoppingcart.com for my credit card processing AND they offered email capabilities. I thought GREAT! I can have my database, my credit card processing AND my database all in one. NOPE. They do a great job at credit card processing but as a database not at all (it is almost impossible to get your people to “opt-in” which means you can no longer communicate with them – a REAL problem!).

So now I have a database with email capabilities and a online credit card processing system. Two is not bad. I guess. RATS!

So for everyone else, what are my database recommendations?

General Databases – You can put your clients in, send a reasonable amount of emails and set up auto-responders or activity plans

• Microsoft Outlook – already on most computers
• Act – I like the sales funnel reports you can get in Act
• Wise Agent – BEST Database for Realtors
• Top Producer – Widely Used Realtor Database

Email Marketing Programs – If you get over about 400 people in your database I highly recommend that you start having your people in a “real” email program. If I had it to do all over again, I would have started with this as I have about a thousand people and getting them all to opt-in has been a nightmare!

• Aweber – This is the one that I (and the internet business mastery guys recommend – see below). Aweber has great email and autoresponder capabilities!
• Constant Contact – This is a friendly email program that is great for beginners

I should have listened to the Internet Business Mastery Guys! They have a great podcast on iTunes and I belong to their Internet Business Mastery Academy which tells you start to finish what to do for each aspect of your internet business. They said that Aweber was for email and 1shoppingcart.com was for credit cards. Lesson learned – I will listen to their advice from now on!!

CRM for Small Businesses sounds very ominous. It could mean almost anything! What it actually is is Customer Relationship Management. According to Wikipedia’s definition of CRM, it is “a term applied to processes implemented by a company to handle its contact with its customers”. WOW does that sound dry and not fun!

What it means to the small business owner is the way you handle your customers and prospects from the time you learn about them until they become a clients and beyond. It is everything you send them via email, all the invoices you send, how you treat their questions and concerns and how often you contact them.

The most important part of my CRM is my database! It stores all my suspects, prospects and clients in a handy dandy place. I can categorize them according to their industry, where I found them, what products they have bought and notes about the last contact that I had with them. (if you need info on how to start your small business database please read “what is a small business database“).

For today we will just talk about how CRM affects our prospects (people who we know about BUT who have not used our services yet!)

In my business I always strive to have a database that people are excited to be a part of! I don’t spam them or sell their names. I make sure that every time I communicate with them it is something that will be valuable to them. Some things that we do are:

• Send monthly email newsletters with an article about a topic that would appeal to small business owners – this doubles as a marketing piece since it is branded with the Thrive look
• ALWAYS include something extra – I tend to find lots of free technology tools around the internet and include them in my technology tips section
• Don’t forget to send your newsletter to your current clients – boy was this a doozy on our part! We did not send out the newsletter to our current clients since it DOES have a lead generation function but one of them saw it anyways…:) She was so excited about the article that we realized it should go to EVERYONE, not just the people we were trying to sell our services to!
• Send postcards with the Thrive branding – this is more marketing based and just adds another layer of reinforcement that we believe in the service that we provide to our clients
• Auto-responders – we have a series of autoresponders that start as soon as we put a new prospect into our database. This tells about The Thrive Client Contact Program, provides testimonials AND gives them information about lead generation and followup techniques (DO NOT send a series of marketing pieces to your prospects without providing a value to them!)

If you pay attention, it is easy to find ways to contact your prospects in a fun and useful manner that will result in them becoming clients. Just because they are not ready to buy this instant doesn’t mean that you should ignore them – use the time to show a value and build trust so that when they are ready to purchase they are predisposed to working with you!

We would like to invite you to sign up for our Newsletter (and Thrive Followup Emails) – Just sign up to the right!!!

I get this question A LOT! Usually after someone has just told me that they could not possibly have a blog because they do not have time to “mess around” on the computer all day like I do!!! Well I don’t mess around on the computer all day either, I am teaching 3 (count them 3) hour and a half long marketing training classes for realtors today, I have client work to do AND I have a blog post to write for my Thrive Blog…:)

So now you think I am cheating writing about what I am supposed to be doing BUT let me just say it is really easy to find things to write about when you have your ears up and eyes open for topics!!!

As I wrote earlier this week, I use my google reader to check out all kinds of blog posts. A lot of times I will read something that sparks a new blog topic for me. OR I will find something that makes me wicked mad and then blog about that (after letting it season a bit so that it doesn’t sound too snarky).

I also have set up Google Alerts for “client contact”. That gives me even more things that I could write about! I read today about a guy who is using Outlook for his client contact management system. I was VERY excited to see if he had something that I could use to link to. Unfortunately it was pretty sparse so I put it on my list of things to blog about, in way more depth in order to help my readers.

There are a million things to talk about! Keep a list! Then don’t beat yourself up about what you should be writing about. Don’t spend hours agonizing over a post, making sure it is perfect. Don’t worry that your topic is stupid. There is always someone that doesn’t know what you know and who can benefit from your insights.

They say if you read 3 books on something you are an expert. They say that if you study something for a year you are an expert. They say that you should tell people about it on the internet.

First, who the heck are they? And second, they are right about telling other people!

This week I went on a crusade to get my Mega Chick mastermind group to do some Web 2.0 things (adding their profiles to LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. One fabulous realtor (Lori Crawford) was game but did not know how to do it. She was frustrated and so I wrote a post over on Marketing Artfully on how to do it. It took me a little while BUT it will work for lots of my readers.

I also sat down last week with a great company called Ragged Edge which sells bags made of sailcloth. They were focusing on the fact that their products were made of sailcloth, instead of focusing on the fact that their stuff is wicked cool and practical. If you were looking for a gift, would you search for “cool stocking stuffers” or would would you be searching for “sailcloth wallets”? The hour or so that I spent talking to the owners may have changed their business – they just didn’t know HOW TO do something that I knew.

So how does this apply to your business? And if you tell people how to do stuff, won’t they do it themselves and not buy your product?

First off – tell them how to do things that are RELATED to your product or service! I tell people how to post blogs because I don’t do it for anyone else. My business partner Mary Dado over at Business Writing, Ink tells people how to do marketing. BUT she writes blogs for people and if anyone asks me, I just refer them to her and visa-versa.

Second off – tell them EXACTLY how to do it! I love reading how tos and frequently feel that I can do ANYTHING myself – tra la! Then I try it and realize that it is not as easy as it looks! I also find that I can purchase the product, service or the person’s expertise for MUCH less than I can produce it myself. That is called a SALE!

So, if you know how to do something TELL PEOPLE! Don’t hoard your knowledge or hide your light under a bushel (Mary will be SO happy I have two cheesy metaphors in one sentence!)