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Transcript

GeoFarming

Beatty: This is the Get Sellers Calling You marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael.  For simple to do, proven marketing strategies focused exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com.  Now, let’s begin our next session of Get Sellers Calling You.

Caroline: Hi everyone.  This is Caroline Springer and welcome to the next sessions of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael.  Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and he’s one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field.  Today, we are going to continue with our topic of geographic farming.  Last week we were talking about the 10 low cost ways to touch your geographic farm and we’re going to continue on with that today.  Just a reminder for those of you that are on our live call, we have the lines muted, but will open up for questions and answers with Beatty at the end of the call.  So, welcome, Beatty.

Beatty: Well, thank you.  It’s good to be back.

Caroline: I’m very excited and interested to continue on, I know this has been a lot of calls in our series on geographic farming has been really informational.  I know I learned a lot and I’m sure that our listeners feel the same way.  Last week we started on 10 low cost ways to touch the farm which I know is something that you’re really passionate about and have a lot of advice and success stories on.  I’m very interested to hear the rest of your suggestions for 10 low cost ways.

Beatty: Well good.  I’m kind of excited to share some of them and we talked on 3 of them last week, and so we’ve got about 7 more to go or possibly 8, depending on if I add any new ones that I think about as we go along.  The great thing about all this is that there’s just so many ways to touch your farm successfully that it almost doesn’t matter what you do.  I say almost.  Sometimes it actually does, but in general when you’re doing geographic farming, there’s really 3 things that you do if you want to get listings there.  There may be more than 3 ways, so let me just back up and say, if you are to start geographic farming, what you do to get the most results out of it.  One of the things you want to do, we haven’t talked about this at all, so this is kind of a bonus thing.  Maybe we’ll do a call more specifically around this idea.  If you’re going to do a geographic farm, you ought to be an expert in that locality.  That subdivision, that neighborhood, whatever it is.  If you are not out there actually previewing all of the sales coming on the market, all the listings that are on the market, I mean, and walking through and understanding what each home has, what it’s priced, what you like about it, what you don’t, so you can talk knowledgably about it, then you’re really not an expert in that area.  I want to share a story.  One of our clients, we started working with him in a geographic farm.  He’d just started in this farm.  Never marketed there before.  One of the things that he did, is he did these best practices.  One of those best practices is for every listing that was on the market, he went and visited.  Where he was, you actually contact the homeowner and come out and take a look.  In his environment it was okay.  It was listed by another agent, but he could contact the homeowner and say, hey, I just want to come out and look at your home.  They would always ask why.  He would say because I focus here.  I know every home on the market.  I know what’s going on and I make it a practice to walk through every home.  That way as I have buyers, I can tell them exactly what’s on the market.  I can tell them what’s best for them based on what they want.  When I have a listing, I know exactly what it should be priced at and that’s how I do my business.  They’re always impressed.  He would walk through the home and he would leave a notecard with suggestions.  What he liked.  What he didn’t like.  Things that he would suggest that they do to improve the salability of their home.  Here’s what’s really cool.  He goes out and does that simply to know what’s on the market.  At the same time, we’re mailing postcards into that community and he starts getting listings right off the bat from expireds that didn’t sell.  They were so impressed with him that they gave him the listing and he sold it.  One of the things that you can do, and again, all we’re talking about is touching them.  Making sure you go out and you meet the people.  Make sure that they see you all the time.  Make sure that they trust you.  If you are actually going through and looking at the homes and leaving a little note about things they could do to improve the salability of their home, you know, hey, I think you ought to take out the gold fixtures and put in iron fixtures, anything like that, then that makes you more of the expert.  They start to trust you and you might actually pick up some expired sales along the way.  That’s kind of a free bonus.  But let’s get back to touches in general.  These low cost thing that you can do.  Last week, I think, Caroline, we talked about doing Facebook marketing, doing door knocking, and doing what I call an ice cream give away or a cupcake give away down at the park.  Let’s talk about something else we can do.  We want to add as much value into someone’s life as possible.  One thing you can do is you can give away 2 for 1 coupons.  You can add this into the mix with what you do with door knocking.  You could add this into the mix when you do a cupcake give away.  You could add this into the mix simply by hiring some teenagers to go out and place this on every door in the neighborhood.  The idea is this, if you will get these coupon books.  Caroline, have you and Wes ever gotten these coupon books?  You pay like $15 or $20 and it’s a great big book.  You go through it and you’ve got all these restaurants and other retail places, and they’re 2 for 1 or half off or things like that.  Have you ever gotten one of those coupon books?

Caroline: I have and since our son was born, I feel like I’ve definitely frequented it a lot more.

Beatty: I’ll bet.

Caroline: Having a baby now, having to cut costs, I’ve definitely looked at those recently.

Beatty: Let me give you a little secret.  Watch this.  Did you know that every one of those retail stores and restaurants pay money so they could put their coupon in that book.  Did you know that?

Caroline: I figured that just because it is free advertising.  There were definitely a few places that we frequented that we didn’t beforehand.  We probably wouldn’t without the coupon.  I figured that, but that’s my confirmation.

Beatty: They pay to be in there.  Now, you, as an individual can tap into that.  Let’s say that you wanted to target Garden Heights community, where ever that neighborhood might be.  You go through that coupon book and you say, what’s some nice restaurants near here?  You go, oh, here’s a nice restaurant, let’s call it ABC Café and in that coupon book, they have a 2 for 1 coupon.  Buy one entrée get another one free.  Then, what you can do is you can contact ABC Café and say, hey, I’m a real estate agent.  I’m marketing into Garden Heights neighborhood which is right in the area you serve and I would like to promote your restaurant.  I see you’ve got these 2 for 1 coupons in this booklet.  Will you give me some 2 for 1 coupons or will you give me the ability to create a 2 for 1 coupon with your permission and let me get it out to every homeowner in Garden Heights?  What do you think that restaurant would do?  Do you think they would say yes?

Caroline: Absolutely.  It’s free advertising for them.

Beatty: That’s right.  It’s totally free.  They don’t even have to pay for it this time.  Now, you can add great value to those homeowners that comes from you by saying, hey, I worked out a special deal and I would like to give you a benefit.  ABC Café will give you 1 entrée for any entrée that you purchase as long as you present them this coupon that shows my name and information.  You have your coupon with your name and photo and stuff and we will call this The Caroline Springer Special.  People go, wow, this is really great.  Thank you, Caroline.  You’ve now added a value to them.  You even put in that little note, whether it’s a door hanger or a letter that you send out or put it on a postcard, say, stick this on your refrigerator until you are ready to use it.  What that does is that it keeps your value, your face, your name, your brand always in front of them, facing them with this great benefit that they get simply because you were there.  Isn’t that a cool way of doing it?  Isn’t that a cool touch?

Caroline: I think that’s a great idea.  I know that’s something that myself, as a homeowner, would appreciate and I would definitely remember because I’ve never experienced or had anybody do that for me before.  That’s something that would make a realtor stand out, I think.   

Beatty: It definitely would.  You used the perfect term.  We touched on this on one of our calls a while back on sphere of influence, but the question is, when you do a touch, what type of touch is most important?  In other words, are all touches the same or do some touches have greater value?  What this touch does, you said, it’s something of value.  Something that you appreciate and when you can do a touch that your recipient appreciates, what that means is you go up in those little brownie points in their minds.  Not all touches are the same. Just because you do a touch and it shows your name in front of them, that’s great, but if you can do a touch that keeps your name in front of them with appreciation, you get even more bang for the buck. This is something you can do and it’s real easy, real low cost and especially if you just want to get out to the whole neighborhood.  You hire a couple of teenagers and say, I’m going to pay you X number of dollars to get this out to everyone in the neighborhood.  So they hop on their bikes or they hop in their car and they get it out for you because for them, it’s great money.  For you, it’s almost nothing. That’s a low cost touch.  That’s number 4 that we talked about.  Number 5 touch is what I call a BBQ in the park social.  This is similar to what we touched on last week where you have a giveaway.  Like a cupcake or ice cream give away and you do it down at the park.  This is going to be similar to that except it’s more of a BYOB, bring your own beef, okay, beef or hotdogs or whatever and we’re just going to go grill out.  You coordinate a social in the park where everyone just grills out.  They come out for Saturday lunch or Saturday early dinner.  If you want, you could actually put hotdogs and burgers on the grill and give them away.  Do another social event especially if the area you’re targeting has some sort of a park or common area that people can go to.  That would be Number 5. 

Similar to that, but different, sometimes you have a neighborhood that doesn’t really have a common area for everyone to congregate in.  Like one of the areas we lived in, we had like 350 homes but yet there were no common areas.  It was just residential, beautifully manicured lawns and everything else.  It was a subdivision, so you had 2 entrances and then all of the inside streets.  What we would do, is we would take a side street that didn’t have a lot of traffic and we would block it off on both ends and we would have a street social.  If you don’t have a common space, create one out of a low traffic road and block it off.  Obviously, you will need to get permission from the police or someplace and announce it throughout the neighborhood.  Put up flyers.  Put up street signs.  Say, hey, we’re doing a band and hotdog social on this street at this time.  Just coordinate something.  Bring in a DJ, bring in a band.  You can get these DJ’s that just play the music and they bring their own speakers and stuff and it doesn’t cost much money.  Bring something for the kids.  Maybe one of those fun photo booths that people can hop in and take funny photos or anything like that.  Make another big deal because here’s what happens.  The more you can coordinate getting the neighbors together, the more it becomes a fun activity that they really appreciate.  The more they appreciate it and you are in the middle of all of it, then the more they appreciate you.  Back to what you’re talking about, Caroline, with the 2 for 1 coupon, it’s something you would appreciate.  It’s the same thing with all these other little touches.   If you can make them appreciate it, then it raises the value that you have in their eyes.  Make sense?

Caroline: Absolutely.  I was just thinking how much I wish that somebody would do that for my neighborhood.

Beatty: All right, real estate agents.  Listen up.  We will give your address so that those in your area will start to create that social.  I’m teasing.  Wouldn’t that be fun?   You bring your kids.  Let’s take this a step further.  Coordinate these activities.  You have a social on the street.  You have Easter, a big Easter egg hunt over at someone’s house.  For Fourth of July, coordinate the fire truck to come over and bring a bunch of streamers and maybe bring the ice cream truck again.  Have the fire truck and turn on the sirens and what happens is all of the kids in the neighborhood congregate there.  All of the moms come and congregate and a lot of the dads and it’s a perfect opportunity to keep your name in front of them with value and then the other thing that starts to happen when you do this is you become known as the local real estate expert because it’s you that’s coordinating everything.  If there’s not a phone directory in that neighborhood.  Make one.  Go door to door say, hey, I’m putting together a phone directory for everyone.  I think it would be a great idea so you know who your neighbors are.  You know their kids, you know their phone number, their email address and make the community a real community.  You coordinate a director and it will cost you probably a couple of dollars per home, but that directory is carrying your brand.  It stay with them all the time.  They’re always using it.  These are things that the agent that dominated our community, she did all of these things and it was amazing.  She had almost every listing that came on the market in that community because she was always there.  These aren’t tough things to do.  They’re just things that you have to plan and execute on.  Pretty cool idea, isn’t it?

Caroline: I love these things. I think there all low cost and really easy too and fun.  It’s not like this is something that anybody would not enjoy this.  I think this is a great idea.  I love all this.

Beatty: Cool.  Because it’s fun, most real estate agents are on this profile, that’s the I’s which are the influencers.  On the other profile, they’re called sanguine.  They are people that just like to have fun.  They like to be with people.  These are things that you can really drive on and enjoy the process of being an agent.  It’s really cool.   That’s actually a bonus.  That would be Number 7 if we were counting that one.  Let’s talk about another one I call the Athletic Schedule.  Here in the South, football, SEC football is king.  You go up north a little bit, in to probably the Kentucky area and basketball probably becomes king.  You go a little bit farther north and hockey becomes king.  You go somewhere else and maybe it’s the pro teams.  Where ever you are, in most cases, there’s at least one or two athletic events that are like the big deal.  We’ve all talked about this, but I want to talk about the importance of it.  That’s the athletic calendar that you stick on the refrigerator.  First off, Caroline, do you and Wes, by chance, do you ever stick one of those athletic calendars on your refrigerator?

Caroline: We don’t, but we probably aren’t a typical family.  My husband watches a lot more basketball than most.  I do know that we live in the South and that’s a big, big thing so I know lots of people that would.

Beatty: Yeah, and lots of people definitely do.  I was talking to a realtor and that she puts out these athletic schedules, in this case, it’s the SEC football schedule.  She says that she gets more business, that’s her Number 1 marketing method in terms of return on investment.  Here’s what happens.  You’ll spend a couple of dollars dropping it in the mail and getting it to that homeowner, printing, mailing and all that stuff, a couple of dollars, but for that couple of dollars it stays on that refrigerator 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all season long.  You can’t put a price tag on that little $2 investment to keep you always in front of someone.  That one thing by itself isn’t going to totally take your business to a new level, but when you put that in the mix with everything else, what’s happening is you’re always in front of them and these are low cost things that you can do.  It’s not much money, but you’re always in front of them and because you’re always in front of them, they always remember you.  Number 1 reason an agent gets a phone call from a homeowner is simply because that homeowner remembered to call them.  If you can stay in front of them so that they remember you, you’ve got the game won.  That’s actually 8 if you add in the bonus thing I just gave you.  This will be Number 9, which is the refrigerator magnet clip.  Let me explain this because I found this really fascinating.  I went to the NAR convention a few years ago.  One of the large mortgage companies were giving away magnet clips that you put on the refrigerator.  Let me ask you, Caroline, is your refrigerator steel where you can put magnets on it or is it stainless steel where magnets don’t hold?

Caroline: The front is stainless steel, but the sides are steel.  I can put magnets on the side.

Beatty: Great, and do you put magnets on the side?

Caroline: I do.

Beatty: Okay, I’ll be you do.  Stainless brings in a little bit of a different challenge, but we’ll talk about that.  For the majority of refrigerators out there that most people have, they’re made out of just the regular metal that the magnet will hold to.  What these things are that we picked up are refrigerator magnet clips.  Think about this.  I know in our house, this was always a challenge especially with kids.  Trying to find another magnet to put that other piece of paper on to hang it on the refrigerator.  Do you know what I mean, Caroline?

Caroline: Yes, I do.

Beatty: What do you do?  You’ve got these little flimsy magnets and you’ve got 2 or 3 pieces of paper stuck underneath them.  They fall off and then you’ve got another list that you try to put up there and it slides out.  Everything falls off because the magnets are typically pretty weak.  What these magnet clips are, is that they will hold really tightly to the refrigerator but now they’ve got like an alligator clip.  You can put pieces of paper there.  You can put several sheets of paper if you want.  You can put an entire notepad.  It will hold it there and it’s not going to drop it.  What I found happened with us is for 3 years, these were my wife’s favorite things on the refrigerator because they held.  They held anything and it didn’t drop it and allowed her to organize all of things on the refrigerator with these.  Imagine now you get those refrigerator magnet clips and you get them branded with your name, photo and phone number on it.  You spend the money one time and year over year it stays on the refrigerator because it adds value.  That’s the key with all of these.  If the touch adds value, then it’s going to drive business to you.  So, that would be Number 9, I think if my list is correct.  Fantastic. 

We’re going to be able to get through this entire list on this call and then we’ll be able to move into our next session on this on next week’s call.  I have 3 more things.  They’re all pretty quick.  One is a cool idea.  I think it has its place, but you can take this idea and make it work in almost any place.  I picked up this one from one of the real estate coaches and it’s a branded ice cream scoop.  This coach was sharing how popular it was.  They did it for a real estate agent that sold lake property.  They would come to buy a vacation home at the lake, they would come down, you know at the lake you’re always down there on the Fourth of July, you’re always down there on Memorial Day.  You’re always out and you’re having crowds of people and you’re having party food of which ice cream is part of it.  She created a branded ice cream scoop for her agent who is over there and people loved it.  They held onto it year over year because it was a good scoop but every time they’re scooping out ice cream, they’re seeing that agent’s information.  Maybe it’s an ice cream scoop for you.  Maybe it’s something else that you put in the kitchen.  Maybe it’s a great cutting board.  Maybe it’s a great knife holder.  Maybe it’s anything like that.  Where you can make it really nice and not look too commercially so where that homeowner is going to love it and use it and when they love and use it, you’re always there.  Does that make sense?  If you were to think off the top of your head, Caroline, what things in your kitchen do you think would be low cost that someone could brand and if they gave you something for your kitchen you’d probably hold onto it?  Any ideas?

Caroline: I was just trying to think because I don’t know the cost of some of those things, but I’m sure these days, especially if you’re mass ordering, you could get pretty low cost.  Maybe like a pizza cutter, or an ice cream scoop or a knife or a lemon zester.  Just something that people use frequently but not to where they might have their favorite knife.  This would be something that they would still keep.  They wouldn’t just toss it because they already have one they love.

Beatty: Right.

Caroline: I think that would be a good idea.  Maybe if you cook or your wife cooks or husband cooks, whoever, just ask them what’s something quick and easy that you think could be a good idea that people use frequently, but wouldn’t mind having a second one.  Those are my first thoughts.

Beatty: I think all of those are great ideas.  The whole idea is think of what you can do and you can find these things online all over the place that are inexpensive, that you can buy a bunch in volume, get branded to you.  Whether you hand them out en mass or you hand them out periodically as you’re door knocking or anything like that, it’s another touch that adds value.  The last 2 things and then we’ll be able to wrap this up.  By the way, I don’t know if you heard all the crickets in the background.  I was outside on our deck.  I just came back inside because the noise actually got kind of deafening.  It’s kind of fun but deafening, nonetheless.  These are more things you do within the community.  You will recognize that a lot of these low cost things to touch your farm are going to be community things where you’re part of the community and people recognize you as being part of that community.  The Number 10 or 11 or 12 because we added a couple along the way that wasn’t on my list, would be a neighborhood garage sale.  This is something where you promote it.  Find a location or 2 houses next to each other or maybe where their driveways are connected and say, let’s do a garage sale.  Let’s make it a party.  Come over.  We’re going to have a garage sale.  We’re going to invite folks.  Now, you’re helping people get rid of the junk in their house.  You might even say, hey, if you’re thinking about selling your home, this is a perfect time to get rid of a lot of clutter that you need to get rid of so the home is going to show well.  This might mean that you schedule the garage sale at the beginning of the listing season, before people actually get their homes on the market.  Schedule it as an easy way for people to clean out their home and get it ready for going on the market.  As people come and want to participate in the garage sale, just ask them, hey, are you wanting to get rid of stuff or are you guys thinking about putting your home on the market?  You can inquire at that point and find out what’s going on and pick up some extra listings fairly easily.  The final one is similar, but do something that shows your compassion, like maybe a clothes drive for homeless people.  Right now, homelessness is increasing dramatically and it’s becoming more and more of an issue in a lot of communities.  Why not do something compassionate and put out a clothing drive.  Just say, hey, we’re going to do a clothing drive.  Here’s all you need to do.  If you want to participate in it, then simply, maybe give them a yellow flag or yellow sticker that they stick on their front door, put the clothes in a bag and we’ll come by and pick them up.  They’ll be tax deductible because they’re all going to be picked up by, let’s call it The Salvation Army, or anything like that.  You’re coordinating this special drive specifically for the homeless, it becomes a tax deduction.  It becomes another touch that you can maybe hire a bunch of teenagers to go out and put door hangers and stuff in a community.  It’s all branded to you.  You’re involved with it.  If you’ve done the Facebook community page that we talked about, you’re promoting it on that.  Now, what they see is they see you as a compassionate leader within the community, really helping people out and people love to do business with those that they feel they can really trust and that really has their heart in the right place.  Those are the different things that you can do, low cost ways, to touch your farm.  Isn’t it cool?

Caroline: I love all of those ideas.  I’m not a realtor and I kind of want to just go do some of those because they sound just like good ideas like a neighborhood garage sale and a clothes drive for the homeless and a big get together.  I love them all.  It’s definitely not something common.  It’s not something people run into every day and they will definitely remember and tuck that realtors name away after they’ve participated in something like that.  Those are great ideas.  I think we are about out of time.  I’m glad we made it through those.  We made it through our 10 plus low cost ways to touch a geographic farm.  We’re about out of time and need to wrap up.  Beatty, thank you so much for your time and expertise.  I think this really was a great call.  I know I already feel all warm and fuzzy thinking about all of these ideas so I’m sure our listeners do to.  Before we close out the call, do you have anything else you’d like to share, Beatty?

Beatty: Well, of course, I like to put an unabashed plug for what we do which is AgentDominator.net.  If you want help building your business and doing geographic farming, targeting your personal list and we actually guarantee your sales or we refund your money, then check us out over at AgentDominator.net and we’d love to talk with you.  

Caroline: Thank you Beatty, again.  For those of you that are on the live call, if you have questions that you’d like to ask Beatty, just hold on and as soon as we wrap up our recording, we’ll go into a short question and answers time.  That’s all we have for today.  Thank again and thank you, Beatty, for sharing.

Beatty: Well, thank you, Caroline.  Have a great day.

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