Many aspiring real estate agents are not aware of the risks involved. They see and hear many stories of success and they want to share in the apparent wealth. Yes, there is money to be made in real estate but you need guts and cash flow.
- You’ll need between three and six months worth of cash to see you through. Because it takes time to sell a home and get the commission.
- Then you need all the training you can get; you need to study and pass your local real estate exams, you need all the official certificates and then you need marketing training.
When we decided to relocated from Pretoria to Simon’s Town, 1500 km away, we were lucky because my wife is a real estate agent and we had a lot of marketing experience. But the risk is higher when you move to a new town and you start your own non branded real estate agency.
It was going to be four months before we move to Simon’s Town and we were eager to start. We knew that we had no track record and no relationships. And we needed to turn it into our advantage. But how?
We decided to share our expertise with the people in Simon’s Town. Therefore we wanted to be seen as real estate experts….even before we arrived.
But how?
This is what we did even before we left for Simon’s Town:
- We got an address list of all the residents in Simon’s Town.
- Before we decided on the list we identified the niche we wanted to work in and we had three hundred properties that met our criteria.
- We used the white pages to locate their phone numbers.
- We wrote out a call script to use when we phone these residents.
- We made a list of all the possible objections and had answers ready for each.
- When then started phoning and invited homeowners to subscribe to our free bi-weekly newsletter.
- We investigated the Simon’s Town real estate market and started writing articles.
But you may say, “A newsletter, 300 pages, 25 weeks of the year?” Well, not really. Because there’s a cheaper alternative; we decided on a website (or rather a blog) and we integrated the e-newsletter with the blog. It was easier and cheaper than what we thought.
Our way is cheap and very effective option for three reasons:
- An e-newsletter is virtually free and it is easy and free for homeowners to forward the newsletter to friends.
- It created web presences for our business. It helped when people searched the web for property - as you may know most buyers search on the internet today.
- To create a blog today is as easy as using MS Word.
Now you may object to an e-newsletter:
You may say that you get so many junk mail that you never even look at all the emails. And you are correct. All I can share with you is that more than 80% of my community opens my mail and many respond to my news. People I have never met are talking to me. They get involved and tell me that I am doing great work. [If you share quality content they will read it]
Ok. Let’s get back to the results:
- We phoned more than 200 people and 95% of them subscribed to our newsletter. The other 5% did not have e-mail access. Amazing. Some even asked if they need to pay for it.
- Within three months we were known in Simon’s Town while we were not even living there.
- When we arrived we joined all the associations and groups we could. At one of the functions a lady introduced herself to me asking me questions and as she walked away I wanted to give her a business card. She said that she doesn’t need it. She knows everything about me. Then the penny dropped. She is one of my newsletter readers.
- Within two months after our arrival we sold one of the most expensive homes in Simon’s Town and it’s getting better everyday.
- Today we don’t need to phone anyone to subscribe. They either find us on the web or friends tell them about our newsletter.
- Getting a sole mandate is not an issue because people on our newsletter database trust us.
Homeowners phone me up to say they want to meet with me; they want to meet the face behind the newsletter even though they are not on the market to sell…..yet.
There are so many lessons to learn from this experience but I will try and summarize a few:
- If you are new to real estate consider a way to create a bond with your potential listing area.
- You can even do it while you have your old and boring job.
- Create an easy manageable database of your listing area. This is where you can utilize the integrated newsletter database to collect names, suburbs, telephone numbers and email address.
- Get permission to educate your listing area and potential buyers. This means that you should not sell your services. No! You should sell your trustworthiness and expertise. Many real estate agents think the web is a place to sell properties. This is ok. But it’s not good enough. You need to show your own personal soul and a real estate blog allows you to do it.
- You need to define your listing area. This is the niche you want to work in. This is the place where you want to cultivate relationships. This is not the 10 000 pamphlet-drop- area used by traditional real estate agents.
- Join as many groups you can and even start your own business to business network meeting.
If you want to be a success today you need to cultivate your listing area cheaply, regularly and effectively.
Have fun
Johan Horak
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