Consistency is absolutely key.  Consistency will trump all other factors.  Rule of thumb is 1 x week for the first 10 weeks then every 10 days until you have 35% market share or more.  Only then can you go to 2 x a month.  With that said, I will tell you that in our media planning with clients we stack the mail to reflect the coming trends in production.  For example, we do less mailing in November and December (1 piece each) and save the extra pieces for February and March which is 6-8 weeks before the busy listing season. It’s a game of impressions a year and keeping top of mind. Anything less is a waste of money. 

Branding will save you money.  If you are going to take on a direct mail campaign to a geographic farm or target market it will save you thousands of dollars to pay someone to help brand yourself well.  Every piece should fit together and be easily recognizable as yours.  Every message should have a consistent thread that ties back into your brand and tagline.  Good marketing campaigns don’t start from scratch every time you send something out, they build on the previous messages and tie into the future ones.

  Budget before you get started.  Budget for a year at a time.  We encourage clients to take 15-20% of their gross commissions and put them into their marketing budgets if they are wanting to grow (10% if they want to maintain).  Out of the money that comes in, we allocate and take on mail campaigns is 12 month intervals. Only take on the amount of houses that you can dedicate and be consistent for a 12 month period.  It is better to have a smaller number of homes and do it right than run out of marketing funds or cut corners.

Purpose is essential.  Ask yourself what it is you are trying to accomplish with each piece.  Every piece should have a reason and clear and distinguishable benefit to the recipient.  Every card needs to be written from the “what’s in it for them” perspective.  If you are sending out cards to try and get the phone to ring, every card should have a reason and call to action to do so.  Plan your campaigns a year at a time, not only will they make more sense and tie together with your branding better, but you will see a much better return on investment with a focused campaign.

Automate everything.  Once you have your year planned out, send the camera ready files to the printer with your schedule and credit card.  Let them handle the printing, addressing and mailing and charge your card as they go.  The less interaction you have with the process the less opportunity for unnecessary delays and to mess it up. 

“The skill sets for individuals to achieve excellence may differ, but the mindset is the same.”

We help agents, brokers and companies develop values based businesses.  We firmly believe that to achieve long term success and venture into the elusive significant, you need to create a business that stands on principle and shared values.  We help clients discover and articulate their values and strengths to develop a strong and profitable marketing plan that attracts people who care about the same things the client cares about and truly appreciates the clients strengths.  Prospecting methods are all build and tailored around the client’s individual personality.  And we walk out the execution of the business plan with them to ensure everything is bundled up to contribute to their business’ overall culture and brand.

Every client is different, there are no cookie cutter business plans when you come from a values based proposition.  Every client’s history, skill set and background varies and so every business takes on a identity of its own.  We aren’t interested in giving one map to success, we are interested in working with clients to provide THEIR map to success and significance.   

Mindset through is shared and similar.  There is a world of difference in mindset between those that casually play with this business as a hobby,  those that treat it as a job or career and those that approach it like a business.  Not only do the results vary wildly, but they actually think differently.  As a real estate professional, you can and should work on your skill sets, but nothing will bring you better and faster results than working on your mindset.

I am not an advocate for very many outside products or services.  One, there are millions of them out there and two, I am very, very picky as to which ones I endorse and put my name behind.  But every once in a while, something comes across that is so innovative and spectacular that I feel compelled to put it out there.

Everyone is familiar with the FICO score.  It’s a predictive analytic that helps financial institutions guess who will pay their bills and who is more likely to default.  Imagine if we could have something similar to help us market or prospect more effectively by only focusing on those who are most likely to move in the next 6 months.

Now we can.  There is a group who had 3 PhDs working 24 month to create the Predictive Analytic algorithms.  By leveraging over 255 different variables they can generate a prospecting list ranked from most likely to least likely to sell in next 6 months.

I was skeptical, but looking at the data and results it became evident that you could cut 80% of your marketing budget and accurately predict almost half of the sales increasing your return on investment 235%.  For those who were slightly more savvy, they multiplied their market reach  5x and used the same marketing dollars they already allocated and they were able to increase their business exponentially.

There is a cost to the service, but it is amazingly affordable and is exclusive to you.  As I talked to the guys, we brainstormed for a few minutes and found at least two dozen ways to make a list like this pay off in spades.  If you want more info, shoot me an email to chris@mastery-coaching.com and I’ll send you over an info packet.

With thousands of real estate licensees leaving the industry, there is a fantastic window of opportunity for those who are the real estate professionals.

Why not offer to “buy” the business from those who are leaving. A few of our coaching clients are employing this and are having fantastic results by asking those folks who are leaving the industry the question – “Do you want to sell your business?”

It works like this, you ask the FL (Fleeing Licensee) to send a hand-off letter to their sphere of influence who they have been working for the last couple of years.

The letter explains how they are going back to their previous career and appreciate all the support they have received, and how they have found a real estate professional who is unbelievably talented and will give them amazing service and that you are the recommended choice for their future real estate needs.

You then absorb them into your “VIP” SOI program and continue the warm relationship.

As the transactions come in, you will offer to pay a referral fee for the first year to the referring licensee, the second year it is ½ of the first year’s fee and the third it is ½ of the prior year’s fee. You have created a win-win for both your business as well as given some value to those jumping out of the business (and may even push some of them over the edge who are just thinking about it).

Secrets to Successful Branding – The Law of the Word

If, we, as the real estate community really understood the concept of branding and its importance, we would save a fortune by cutting the misplaced dollars we are spending in the name of “getting their name out there.”

Most of us are re-treads – people who fell into this business and came from some other background. In 15 years of asking, I’ve only found one person who grew up wanting to be a real estate agent (and she is no longer in the business). I can’t tell you how many people I’ve interviewed as a Broker that said the reason they wanted to be an agent was because they liked houses and people. If that is the sole reason they are here my advice to them has been – “Don’t get started in this business because in 6 months you will hate them both.”

Those that make it in this industry in today’s world are those that approach it with an amount of business prowess. Unfortunately, that isn’t taught in the “learn everything you need to know to become successful in real estate in two weeks” class. So, we throw the newbies to the vultures (vendors who sell BS products that do nothing but line the pockets of the vendors and serve as filler our nation’s dumps). We let them sling mud on a wall and see what sticks and hope against hope that they will be one of the very few fortunate ones who will survive the first three years.

Over time, those that emerge as mega agents realize that to truly win in this you must realize that it is a business not a career (and there is a major difference) and start learning how to become the “RainMaker.” Although we have dozens of proprietary campaigns to generate more leads, from time to time, we need to strip back to the basics and dive into the philosophy to align ourselves with the right thinking to launch our business to the next level. This week, it’s all about how to brand effectively so that you may maximize your ROI in any marketing or advertising program your engage in. From Al Ries, a master of marketing and branding in the retail sector, we take the lessons and apply the fundamentals to our real estate businesses.

In Branding , There is the Law of the Word

There is a limited amount of real estate in our consumer’s active memory. The lion’s share of the space going to the things that weighs most heavily on their mind. Because this resource is precious and limited your brand should strive to own a single word or concept in the eyes of the consumer. You are not competing with other agents; you are competing against every other professional and service industry. You have an advantage because real estate and the client’s home equity can be leveraged as an important value on a constant basis with spikes of interest as it comes time to move. But you must keep the importance on the consumer’s top of mind with all the other competing interests vying for attention.

You want to establish yourself as the expert and go-to person for real estate regardless of where they are in the buying or selling process. Become their resource and contact. Ideally, you want to get to the point where when your perfect client drives past a competitor’s sign, they think of you.