Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle, we're talking with Gus Nystrom, a realtor from Raleigh, North Carolina.
Gus has been with us at GoGoAgent.com for some time now and he's got some really cool things he's working on.
We had a really great, well-rounded conversation talking about all elements of multiplying his listings including using the getting listings program and the world's most interesting postcard in his after unit. So many opportunities to build this listing centric approach to your business.
We cover a lot and you're going to really enjoy this conversation.
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep013
Dean: Gus Nystrom.
Gus: Dean Jackson. What's going on buddy?
Dean: How are you?
Gus: I'm fantastic. How about you?
Dean: I'm fantastic. It's good to talk to you.
Gus: Yeah. Great to talk to you. I look forward to seeing you next week.
Dean: That's right. Yes. I'm excited about that. Welcome to the Listing Agent Lifestyle. Have you been listening to the episodes?
Gus: Oh, most definitely. I think everyone.
Dean: We're having fun this is really a good thing. I'm excited that we're into now the mode of planning and working on setting things up for people. So I'm excited to do that with you.
Gus: It feels like we're, we're skimming the onion and ticking off some layers here and digging a little bit deeper.
Dean: Exactly. So why don't you kind of set the stage here a little bit and tell the Gus Nystrom story so far. Then talk about what's a, what's working and maybe see what we can do to build on it as we go forward here.
Gus: Absolutely. So I got my license back in 05. I'm in the Raleigh market so I'm just outside of Raleigh, in a town of roughly 25,000. Back on 05, 06, and 07 things were, things were hopping to say the least.
Dean: I remember.
Gus: Then 2009, things fell off the cliff a little bit. I was at a point where in order to provide for my family, I had to step away from real estate and dabble a little bit, part-time. That's challenging when you're working full-time elsewhere. I worked outside of real estate for about three years from 09 to 2012, and got back into real estate full-time in the fall of 2012. Since then, it's just been gang busters and moving forward because we've seen the market in our area, it was about the time I got back in, in fall of 2012 where things really started to change. Then of course we've seen a big change in the last year and a half, two years with the amount of buyers that are out there and the lack of supply. Supply and demand is on our side.
Dean: Cool. So what's, what have you been implementing of all the things that we talked about, what's been your focus here?
Gus: What I started with is, I'm on a team environment so she does a lot of new construction so it was starting off and piggybacking on those listings, and one with the Infobox flyers and the Instant Open House. With our new construction, if we look at the Raleigh market we're covering a vast area. It sounds like that's the same theme for a lot of the agents that are in big markets that work in, outside of the big city. Then some of the smaller cities in the surrounding area, so being a lot of my focus was initially starting off with the Infobox flyers and the Instant Open House.
Then gradually trends transitioned into utilizing my past clients and my sphere after the GoGo Academy last year I went back and just fine tuned. That sphere list I have. So I'm mailing out, this has been going on probably about seven, eight months with utilizing the world's most interesting postcard and send that out to about a 140. Out of that 140 some of those are out-of-state people, friends, family that I send it to. It's a mix where it's past clients and sphere, but they're dotted throughout the region, in a let's call it a 40 mile radius. That has been slowly taking off. I sent out my postcard last month and got an email from, from my past clients. It said, "Hey, I might be looking to move. I saw that you have the, how to get your home ready in a weekend for 200 bucks." I said, "Great."
Dean: Right. Right. I love it.
Gus: I've got to get that from Diane. It's getting those pieces together to front load this because I know the front-loading work on the front end makes it easier on the back end.
Dean: Yes, it really does. I mean that's part of the thing. You went through the toughest part, which was your ... Deciding who the 140 are. Getting them all set up and then getting everything in motion to get your first postcard out. Have you measured, do you measure your ... What we call your return on relationship you'd like for your after unit? How many, how many transactions these 140 people generate for you?
Gus: Last year it fell at about 10%, about eight to 10%. I know there's growth opportunity there as well.
Dean: That's interesting. So that's before or after you started sending the, the world's most interesting postcard because that's what we want to get.
Gus: It was of a mix. I'd say half of that. Because I had some good friends who listed their homes and sold them. So I think without the postcard I was going to help them anyway.
Dean: Of course.
Gus: It was also staying top of mind for months.
Dean: Yeah, that's the interesting thing about this is that you are ... That's exactly what you're doing, right? You're getting all of the benefit of a newsletter in terms of if you look at why we even do anything with people who are your past clients or people who are ... Even that language, right? The way that people refer to it as your past clients.
Gus: Yeah.
Dean: Like they're kind of dead to you. Right? But yeah, I think about it as homes under management. If somebody's living in the house that you helped them get, you are the incumbent realtor. You're the one that is, you're the one that helps them get there. So there's everybody, if you look at all the NAR exit surveys, they all want to do business with the people that helped them. 84% or something crazy like that, say they will, but then when you actually look at it, less than 25% of the people actually do, do business with the realtor that helped them buy the house. It's because they don't keep in contact. They don't, they lose touch with them and or something happens or it just happens kind of spur the moment. They ended up listing with the realtor that sold them the house that they've stumbled into an open house on or whatever it is. Right?
Gus: Yeah, 100%.
Dean: They don't feel bad about it because the realtor had never had any effort to keep in touch with them anyway.
Gus: No doubt.
Dean: When you look at it, it's like if you're checking the boxes of making an impression that here comes, here's Gus that he's keeping in touch with us. You're doing that, but you're also doing it in an entertaining, easy to consume way, but then you're also planting those referral seeds. You're planting something that with the suggestion of just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about selling their house this spring, even your clients say that, right? Like you say, then give me a call or text me and I'll get you a copy of our How to Make Your House Show Like a Model Home in One Weekend for less than $200. You get that call and then you're like, "Oh, I don't have that yet. Better Call Diane. "
Gus: Exactly.
Dean: We have, it's all there for you. It's all there, so you're fine.
Gus: I have. To me that step of you're staying in touch with them, which is step one. But then when somebody reaches out that's like raise their hands and saying, "Hey, I'm going to need some assistance here."
Dean: Exactly.
Gus: Now you've got them back to where you had them when we first worked with them.
Dean: Exactly. Right. It's so, great. So congratulations. I think we're gonna see that. What I'd be interested to see is the pure numbers from before and after. Because what often happens is that, just like you said, you had that one situation you described where the guy called specifically about what you were mentioning on the postcard. But what often happens is that it's not, it's very rare that it's that overt. That it's exactly what you said on the postcard is the reason that they called, it's more often that you just, at the end of the year you've noticed that your referrals are up by 20, 30, 50% just because you're keeping in touch with everybody. You're presencing that.
Gus: Yeah, I think that.
Dean: I had a really. Go ahead.
Gus: I was going to say that I think that staying on top of mind when they see that name over and over again. It's the patience level. We as real estate agents, our patience level and trying to wait for things is not that good. I think.
Dean: I have to agree about that.
Gus: I understand the patience level.
Dean: Go ahead.
Gus: I was going to say that staying on that top of mind when they see that name over and over again, it's the patience level. And we use real estate agents are patience level ... And trying to wait for things is not that good.
Dean: I have to agree about that.
Gus: I understand the patience level.
Dean: Well I had something happen just recently that was really, I'll say alarming because it was really like, it had me gasp a little bit. Because I'm always hyper vigilant and I'm always aware when marketing or something is working on me because I'm so consciously ... I'm involved in it every day. Somebody in our, in our GoGo group had on the forum asked about whether anybody knows a place where they could get carpet installed same day because they had a closing the next day and it was an issue andt needed to be done right away.
What happened to me was startling because my mind without my permission can immediately started singing the Empire flooring jingle. It started going 800-588-2300, Empire. I realized that they for 20 plus years have smuggled that into my brain without my permission. I know it was waiting there and embedded just for the moment somebody triggered it with, "Do you know where to get same day carpet?" I think that the same things happen when we're saying we're, we've got those patterns that we're using. Like we do with the world's most interesting postcard, where we say, "Just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about this." Then we expand on it. So we're conditioning them that when they hear someone talking about anything related to real estate, they will immediately think of us. So that's, that's a big, that's a big win. I'm excited to see what happens there. Then are you doing anything else cool in your after unit or what else are you working on there?
Gus: That's the majority of the after unit with past clients and sphere. Occasionally keep them updated. Anybody that's in my town, and that's really where I'm looking to dominate because obviously the place where I live. There's nobody that has the lion's share of the market.
Dean: That's awesome.
Gus: In my town. So you know-
Dean: Have you set up your Google map layer with your clients?
Gus: No. I have not set that up and I think part of that is, I want to key in ... My goal is to ramp up getting listings in my town and my sphere and my past clients. There's a lot of those out of 120 there may be 25, 30 that are in the town that I'm in. So I think I rely on my mind too much. I know where they're at.
Dean: Exactly.
Gus: I've heard you talk about that and that tool and everybody that has used it has raved about it. I think the ease of use and having it right there.
Dean: It's such a visual thing. If I can just get people. I mean you know it, you see at every Monday in GoGo agent. I'm always driving this market maker Monday because if I can get that habit ingrained, it's like the biggest impact for you. So that's cool. It'll be neat once you start running, getting listings that you'll see it unfold too. That's great. Have you chosen your area or how far along are you on?
Gus: I am at the point where ... I'm a numbers kind of guy. I like to sit there and delve and look. I pulled up ... So basically my median price, if I look at the bell curve is 280. I know what we talked about last year at the Academy and I've heard through, a number of the calls are taking that left side of the curve. Are you familiar with that?
Dean: Yeah.
Gus: It's one, the inventory levels are extremely low. Two, those sellers are most likely going to be buyers. Three, you can establish long-term relationships because most of those buyers in that price point, are younger buyers that are going to be looking for the bigger home.
Dean: Yeah, they may have bigger homes.
Gus: Exactly. They may have a mom or a dad that needs to be here because we find that as well in this area. It's a recruiting thing where they recruit their aunts, uncles and cousins moved down here. I think they get a kickback or something.
Dean: That's funny.
Gus: What I found was when I did my research, I tried to look at everything on here is subdivisions and the subdivisions range from 80 homes up to the largest ones, probably about 300. Averaging out at about 190 homes in each subdivision. I come up with about 19 different subdivisions and that totals up to about 3,600 homes total.
Dean: Okay.
Gus: So where I'm at right now is I pulled up and I did some stat work and looking at the average prices because some of them spill over. When I'm at the top, you know how the average price is 265. Well some of those are going to spill over to the 280 number because it's a subdivision. So what I found was I looked at the turnover rates as well. I know that one of the things you emphasized was, not just the turnover rate, but where are you going to maximize your dollars. The way I understood the maximizing the dollars, it's probably going to be more on the right side of the curve just because the inventory numbers may be lower, but obviously we're going to yield more per commission numbers.
Dean: Part of the thinking was that on that side of the ... On the rising side of the bell curve ... You hit it on the head for, I think as a foundational part of your Getting Listings program. That you've got homes that are appealing to first time buyers, so there's a lot of that. Then you've got that those people are likely to move up. Just like you said, you're setting yourself up for generational wins. You're setting yourself up so that you can establish that market as you’re ... If you're controlling the transitional neighborhood, that's really a great thing. Then once on that foundation, then I do love to go up to the far end of the bell curve, right? Go Up to the, the one that's the most desirable things because you hit it on the head.
But the reality is it costs the same amount of money to mail the postcards to the most expensive homes, as it does to mail to the least expensive homes. That's why I always skipped the least expensive, go to the one step above that and go up to the top then. When you established that too, the way that we know now looking at adding in all of the listing multipliers that we talk about. It just had so much great thing. So you mentioned that the Infobox flyers and all that stuff, have you've been calculating your listing multiplier index for keeping track of that?
Gus: Yeah, I looked at my last 10 and I'm dead on, 1.0. I know that there's tremendous room for growth there. I think one of the other advantages we have or I have out here is, we are finding a lot more of the coming soon listings where we can pre-market the property. If I have Infobox flyers out there, I can gather up, because that information ... It's not online, they can't go view the home and the pictures. So I am their source. I think if I can do that, a week, two weeks ahead of enlisting, I may be able to gather buyers as well from that, whether it's that home or not.
Dean: Yes. That's exactly right. Right, and neighbors. That's the thing that ends up happening, right? The neighbors are watching what you're doing with the House that you've got listed right now too. I'm excited. I mean this could be a really cool potential. When you look at when we talked to, the two guys who I know that are the most, going down that path right now are Tony Kalsi and then Ron Reid.
Gus: Yes.
Dean: They're both either ... Tony is up over three, Ron's approaching three on his listing multiplier index. I'm excited to see next week when we all get together to see what the ... Who's the clubhouse leader sort of thing in listing multipliers. So-
Gus: I think I'm looking at ... One of the other things I have focused on and started to utilize was the just listed, just sold cards. One of the questions I had is, if I'm getting just a random listing a town, two towns over. At that point is it best for me to go ahead and just get the domain name of the subdivision to maybe start promoting that as well?
Dean: It depends what you're focused on. I like to look at bringing everything to a center. If you're saying ... If it's two towns over that may be an outlier for you. Whereas if you're looking at the ... "You're going to start running the getting listings program in a specific town, knowing that there's 3,600 homes there. Then when you add in the more expensive ones or what would be the top end like here in Winter Haven? We have lakefront homes or Kenny and KayBan with the ocean front homes. What do you have there that would be like the premium?
Gus: We're right on the fringe of an adjoining city with a golf course and that would probably be it. It probably is not all that many, but your price points are probably going to be ranging from 700 up to maybe 1.2.
Dean: How many would there be?
Gus: I'm going to say, you know, if we're looking at just golf course homes, so the whole sub-divisions probably, I don't know. Let's say six, 700 or so golf course homes, I don't know, 200.
Dean: So when you look at that ... What I always look for is, is there something that can be like a unifier? A category? When you look at whether it's a lakefront, do you have lakes up there or?
Gus: No.
Dean: No. Okay.
Gus: In our town, it's really single family homes. There's a couple, maybe 60 town-homes. No condos. It's, it's kind of a bedroom community where people are commuting to work. It's a growing area where 15 years ago there were 12,000 people. Now there's 25,000 plus.
Dean: Wow. Right on, what community are you actually in? What's the name of the?
Gus: It's a Fuquay-Varina. It's about 20 minutes south of Raleigh.
Dean: Okay. Perfect. I think where you're looking at then is right in that middle of a market ... How many homes are there altogether?
Gus: Well, if I ran the numbers at the 280 number and there were 3,600 on the top end, I don't know. Maybe we push up to 7,000 plus, 8,000.
Dean: Yeah right. That's something, that might be a nice thing to aspire to, is to go take the whole area. That's what both Tony and Chuck Charlton, that's the way, that they stair stepped it. Starting out with, with a thousand or a couple of thousand and then bumping it up and Tony is up over 20,000 now. But yes-
Gus: That's incredible. You get that at minimum 20,000 cards.
Dean: When you start looking at it and you see the ROI infographic that we did with Tony. You start to see that it's all, house money when you get up, when you start getting it rolling. That's pretty cool. You just keep self-sustaining that way.
Gus: Yeah. I mean it's house money, but it's also you. If you are concentrating in that one area. That old adage of, "If I can just get the phone to ring on my side, I don't have to leave if I can pull it up that high."
Dean: Right, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. But that's kind of cool.
Gus: So we-
Dean: Yeah. I would really want to focus on those, on getting that rolling. Getting your, picking the one area. How many homes we start with? Can you start with a thousand or would you start with-
Gus: Probably 500 to 1,000, which will probably end up being four neighborhoods roughly. At that point, is it best to start on the ones with the highest turnover rate or pick the ones with the most amount of homes?
Dean: Well, I look at this now as we're going long-term with it, right? So I'd pick the ones that are, if you can say most desirable of those right now. Just knowing that within three or six months that you're gonna aim to get to all of them. Just focus on it that way. I look, it was funny because, you know, we always get this where we'll have ... We constantly have new people coming into GoGo Agent and they want to get started with getting listings and then they want to ... Everybody wants to kind of game the system in a way. Try and, they want to shortcut it or just pick these areas or just pick the homes that they have only been, they've already been living in them for five years or whatever it is.
It finally dawned on me the other day, I don't know whether you saw that post I put in the forum of ... It's the difference between day trading and buy and hold. That's really what we're looking at. If you're looking at even Tony's chart, what's constantly amazing to me is, he mailed five months before he got his first listing sold. But he's gone on to sell homes for 15 of the people who responded between September and February, those five months. 15 of them have gone on to sell their house over the next 4 years. Rather than trying to like cherry pick or do something like that.
Sometimes you just have to be prepared that it takes a little bit to get that first one. But as long as the responses are coming in, you are building up the asset of all of the people. That's what's really going to be that the most valuable thing. Sometimes it happens quickly. Just like with Ron Reid, he got the first listing before his free trial of GoGo Agent was even up. And Chuck Charlton got his first listing before the original Getting Listings class was even over. Sometimes you just never know ... But over the long term, we know that the ROI is always there. I haven't seen a single of those charts where it's not a multiple, multiple of the investment.
Gus: Yeah. I think that you put a little bit of money and time and sit on the front and reap the rewards on the back end. It's just that patience level and I've done it before. I think every agent is guilty of doing something short term and then you're three feet from gold and then you move on and then you're mining diamonds elsewhere.
Dean: That's it. Exactly. What else has been going on for you? What else have you been focused on are working on?
Gus: I've been focusing on ... With our team environment, I've been trying to spend a little bit more time at open houses because one, I've had luck with them in the past. I know that it seems to be those buyers that come through, whether it's not home or another one, I have the ability to build that rapport right in front of him. I think at that point it's, I want to take these names rather than taking them and then sending something once, twice, five times and then just falling off the face of the earth. Those people aren't going to be ready. I mean, you talk about the Zillow leads and the Realtor.com leads, they're not going to be ready right now. It's implementing a system like the Buyer Watch to keep them updated on what's going on in the market. That's one thing that I've been focusing on as well that had been doing as of late since we have a pretty good amount of the marketing budget is spent on print advertising in national magazines that are driving people out there. There's potential to meet and greet.
Dean: Well that's great. How many would you say that you have right now? How many names and email addresses do you have of people who would be perspective buyers?
Gus: I'm going to say probably two to 300, and that's total. I mean that's everything from online leads to everything else.
Dean: People who come to an open house-
Gus: Just in general.
Dean: Everybody, yeah.
Gus: Yeah.
Dean: Well that's a really good foundation. That's a nice start. Have you got your MarketWatch email that you're sending out already or are you looking to start something like that?
Gus: I've been sending out a MarketWatch email but it's not fine-tuned with a super signature-
Dean: Option.
Gus: It's referred to as the, you know, here's the listings, you know, a weekly-
Dean: Oh, the automated, automated updates. Yeah, yeah.
Gus: Exactly.
Dean: Here's the property data for February 14th, right.
Gus: What I'll do is we've got a new software program that or company's using so trying to utilize that and it's finding a similar property that they may be looking for and trying to email them directly on that particular property and trying to leave it as an open-ended question to get some response.
Dean: I think there's room for that, because you can certainly be a market maker like that, but there's also really room for you to, at least weekly send out a MarketWatch that has some personality to it, you know?
Gus: Correct.
Dean: That's what I would say about these automated things, what they don't have is, I call it your personality not included. They're drone data, you know?
Gus: Yeah, anybody can do it.
Dean: It doesn't take very much. You see the samples of the way that we've been doing them in GoGo Agent, it's essentially very blocks of it where you basically ... You have the little, I call it the masthead at the top where you say MarketWatch and then you put the name of the area and the date. I always put the weather for the date and then you put the salutation and have a little bit of what I call, post chat. Where you're just mentioning something about what's going on, like that there's a real person here. So you're saying-
Gus: Yeah.
Dean: Hey, we got a busy week this week, I've been showing out, I've been working with a couple from Atlanta so I've seen everything in the whatever price range and I really liked this one. So that you know there's a real person, and it doesn't have to be too much. It's just literally a couple of sentences about what's going on. Even what's in the news if you said something about that about rates or about something that's going on. Just to warm people to the fact that you're a person and then just saying, "Then we've got 130 new homes this week and here's the links" and link to different price ranges for them. Then, highlight one of your next steps. We always talk about the next steps like your cookies for the buyers of being a daily tour of homes, or a home buyer workshop, or a free Home Loan report and that really is a very easy way to just keep people on the loop. In the loop, and if you don't have ... Do you do home buyer workshops, or-
Gus: No, I have not. Now that I think I about I don't even know if there's really any agents in my area that are really doing them extensively. There's obviously opportunity there for that.
Dean: Yeah, such a cool thing, especially when you look at the holistic view of everything that we're trying to do here for you. You've got the front of the bell curve, this median, the opening part of the market. You're going to be definitely attractive to the first time buyers and that's going to be a big plus. Do you know, are you in an area where ... Is there any USDA eligible areas where you are?
Gus: 100% yes.
Dean: Yeah, perfect. You're going to love this, at the Academy next week I've got a whole ... I hired a writer to do a USDA guide for us, for ... We're just starting the Facebook tests for that right now so this could be perfect timing-
Gus: Yeah, fabulous.
Dean: For you.
Gus: I've been surprised that buyers I even talk to, they don't realize that there is that ability.
Dean: Nobody knows, nobody knows.
Gus: Yeah, it's just the raw assumption that yeah, well everybody knows that you can ... That there's more than three program, right? No, they don't know.
Dean: Yeah, no they don't know.
Gus: They buy homes a couple of times in their life, maybe especially a first time home buyer. I've run that on the Infobox flyers where it's the bedroom count the square footage. Then 100% financing available thinking that, hoping that you get some more draw out of it. I haven't really seen a difference yet, but I want to test it with some different titles and just play around with it. Because I think that there's potential for that and I'm really excited to hear about this next week.
Dean: Yeah, you'll see that. It's going to be fun.
Gus: On the info box flyers are you ... If I'm marketing to, it's in the neighborhood, I get a listing on the back end at that point. Because I know neighbors love flyers more than anybody. At that point putting on the back of ... Basically the getting listings postcard, where you turn it around and find out your home value and go to this website. The subdivision HousePrices.com or HomeValues.com.
Dean: Yeah, we've done both. The simplest thing ... The great thing about the Infobox flyers is that those buyers are in the market buyers, right? They're the ones that are out because you think about what has to happen for them to get there. They're out driving around the neighborhood and they're in the market and enough that they're going to stop the car, go pick up an Infobox flyer, go to your Instant Open House site, leave their name and their email address. That's a real value. Like I think the ... When I was talking with Chuck Charlton on the Our Listing Agent Lifestyle episode. We talked about that, but you'd pay more money for those leads if you could get Infobox flyer leads because those are people that are very different than ones who just click the button on the website.
Gus: Yeah, 100% in your costs to your prospect potentially is a lot less than what you're paying for online leads that big conglomerate companies can put out more money to get.
Dean: That's exactly right. Yeah, it might cost five bucks to put out 100 Infobox flyers, right? Depending on what kind of ... If you're getting them printed somewhere for five cents each, even less maybe. It's just such a great thing. We've been doing less is more on those, on the Infobox flyers, but we've also been testing and have done for years on the back, the Getting Listings, ones and now we'll add is eligible, the Zero Down, guide as well.
Gus: Yeah, absolutely. When you have a Getting Listings followup, somebody inquires about the property and they get sent. I have it set up where Diana's walkway through the auto-responders and getting that set up so it's automatic. Then at that point, how many emails ... I've got it set up where there's basically three emails being sent out after in a seven to 10 day period. What is anything done after that, other than setting them up on the Buyer MarketWatch?
Dean: On MarketWatch yeah everybody. That's the thing is everybody gets MarketWatch. That's it, so that every buyer, no matter where they come from, whether it's from the open house or whether it's Facebook or whether it's Infobox flyer. That's your flagship weekly communication that's going to be there for everybody. Everybody gets funneled into that. Then of course the auto-responder messages that we use are specifically for the people who come in from different sources. They come in from an Infobox flyer.
We have the instant message that sends them the information on the property, plus a link to where they could go and search properties on the website or kind of an introduction email. Then the couple of days later we send the short message to them saying, "Hey Gus, I've got some people coming to look at the house this weekend. Would you like to come? Would you like to join us?" That gets so many of the people engaged. It's amazing, right? You end up with people that if you're generating a lot of leads from there, it's a cool thing to do an open showing where you end up with multiple people at the house on Saturday at 2 PM, it's kind of a cool.
Gus: Yeah, it feels like it's the psychology of, "I'm not setting up a show with you. I'm just letting me know that I'm going to be here." It's a little bit less or a buyer is going to be a little bit apprehensive, so maybe they'll reply to you or go look at the home.
Dean: Right, that's half the thing. That's why when we do things like you mentioned the super signature, right? So when we do things below the PS of the email. We just essentially are leading to the next step, making it super easy for people to get started. Because they're thinking ... It's all in anticipation of what they're going to want to do, right? So when you think about a buyer, what's going to trigger it for them? They might be one of three different motivations. Some people, what's going to trigger them is they're just going to want to go out and look at homes. Then you've got some people who they don't even know about the process yet, so they would like to get educated about the process. Then some people they want to get their money handled first, right? And everybody's different.
Not everybody is motivated in the same way. If we know that those are the three basics, then we can now craft offers that make it seem like we're not going out of our way for them. People are afraid to ... They're afraid to commit themselves to something or obligate themselves. That's why when we go into a retail store, "Can I help you?" "No thanks. I'm just looking." It's the same reason that when you ask somebody if they'd like a cup of coffee at your house, they'll say, "Well, are you having one or having one? If you're having one, but I don't want you to go out of your way for me." That's why we used language like that where we can say to people, plus whenever you're ready, here are three ways we can help you. One, join us for a daily tour of homes. We do tours at 10 AM and 1 PM. We click to a landing page that we set up. You've seen the tour of homes, landing page on GoGo.
Gus: Yes.
Dean: We've linked to that, they can pick the day and the time and that's really essentially saying, "Hey, I want to go look at homes." But it seems like such an easy way. I can't stress enough the, the difference in the mindset of that than expecting them to take the initiative and ask you to show them homes.
Gus: No, and I think that's where they just fall upon the agent who they run into like you say at an open house and go, "Well you're a body. I guess you're the person, I'll just go with you."
Dean: Exactly. Yes. Then the other ... That's the ones who want to look at homes. The ones who want to get educated. Then we say, "Join us for a Home-Buyer workshop. We do home buyer workshops on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at the library or the first Tuesday of the month, whatever it is. Invite people to come to your next Home Buyer workshop, which you can also fill by the way with, with Facebook ads. We have that as a landing page for the ... For you to use. Then the Home Loan report. Now we talked about people wanting to find out about the money side of it.
Then we just say that those people, "Get a free Home Loan report." We just explain that every month we monitor hundreds of different loan programs to find the best, lowest down-payment loans, lowest interest loans, lowest total cost loans, and we put all our findings together in a free home loan report. That makes it easy for people to start the ball rolling on getting their money right, as opposed to just beating them that we've got to get you pre-approved. We got to get you pre-approved. Have you been pre-approved? Nobody wants that. Nobody wants to put their approval on the line.
Gus: Yeah because then it's again, psychological of, "Am I good enough for this?"
Dean: Right. So the way we set that up, not that I'm going to be on the other side of the desk evaluating and approval of you. It's like I'm going to be over here on the same side of the desk with you and together we're going to approve of one of these mortgage options that you have. It just changes the whole dynamic of it, right? That people feel ... Everybody likes to select rather than be selected.
Gus: Everybody likes to buy, they don't like to be sold.
Dean: Isn't it funny?
Gus: Yeah, the human element of it is, is beyond just pure logic. It's all logical
Dean: Even shows like the Bachelor or the Bachelorette or whatever those shows on TV. It's that same thing, all those girls fighting over the guy, but that would never happen in real life. The whole thing changes were there in real life then they're batting the guys away. It's kind of, it's amazing just the dynamics of it all.
Gus: Yeah. Obviously with those buyers, that's ... I'm hoping to get a lot of the buyers from ... I view the Listing Multiplier as an automatic. I mean it's, it's where you can essentially 2X, 3X your business. I think would that follow up then with your auto-responders then when they say, "Hey, I want the Instant Open House." They get it. How many are you sending out? Is it two, three? I know that the first one is an open house-
Dean: It's always been when somebody raises their hand, then it's about really connecting with them one to one. It's not auto-responders, then. If somebody asks for the Tour of Homes. Then they're going to get a personal email or text from you saying, "Hey, I'm here to set up your tour." That's an easy thing to engage with people now. If they don't engage, if they then disappear or whatever, then you've got the main thing of your weekly MarketWatch is going back around.
Gus: We have been getting that.
Dean: Yeah, we have a whole seven step connection process that we use to connect with people on when they raised their hand to that level.
Gus: With one particular buyer that asks for that listing. Then I've got it set up with a second email being, "Hey, I'm meeting some folks next week or whatever day would you like to join us?" Then after that I may include, are you looking for zero down payment loans? Then that's really where I leave it for those Infobox flyers leads.
Dean: That's it. That's all it is.
Gus: That it.
Dean: Because what you're looking for is where ... The whole idea of this is that we're looking for what we call five star prospects, right?
Gus: Correct.
Dean: For a five star prospect, if you remember, is somebody who is willing to engage in a dialogue, they're friendly and cooperative. They know what they want, they know when they want it and they'd like us to help them. When somebody responds for something, that means they're willing to engage in the dialogue. When you reply back to them and now they're willing to respond back and forth, that means that they are friendly and cooperative, so all of our communication then is about what is it that they want? Do we know what they want? More importantly, do they know what they want?
If they don't know what they want, then everything is about trying to help them understand what they want so that you get a sense of what it is. Then we move on to when are they ready? Now if somebody starts to engage and then they stop engaging or they say, "No." That they can't join you or they don't want to join you for that help, it's OK. Rather than trying to continue to push that, we just continue with the weekly MarketWatch can. Then whenever they're ready, they jumped back out. We set it up so that approximately every 60 or 90 days or more, we send a nine word email just saying, "Hey, are you still, are you still looking for a house in Georgetown?"
Gus: Yes.
Dean: Have you ever sent one of those messages yet?
Gus: Yes. I've gone through different periods where I dig through 10, 20 leads at a time and then email those out. I haven't had much response on them, but at that point, they don't reply back or do anything. You're just keeping up with the weekly MarketWatch.
Dean: Right, exactly. Then when they're ready, then they pop out. It's the most relaxing thing ever. It's kind of like ... We've talked about it with Chuck Charlton. It's like they jump in the boat whenever they're ready.
Gus: That was classic video.
Dean: It's so exciting to see that. That's exactly what happens. There's your ... All of the people on that list are like the fish that you've stocked in the pond and you ... The boat is your weekly MarketWatch and the light is the offers. The super signature saying whenever you're ready take the daily tour. We've got the Home Buyer workshop, we've got the thing, or if you don't do a Home Buyer workshop, maybe you mix in, find out how much your house is worth just in case you're getting people who have a house to sell as well.
Gus: Absolutely. Especially in that price point I'm looking at. Then with those buyers coming on the boat, that's part of what I look at part two ... Getting listings is what I'm ramping up getting ready to here beginning of March, I've got everything in place. Then at what point do you create the Buyer's Guide? I mean, are you looking at a month in two months in? Because we want to triangulate the market.
Dean: Yeah, you know it. I want to do it as soon as you can. I mean, as you're ready. I mean, that's the thing, when you're looking, you want to start generating more buyers than you need because that's ultimately going to help you get more listings. Everything that we're doing. That's one of the whole things about the Listing Agent Lifestyle, is taking this listing centric approach. So even the buyers that we're generating are strategically being generated so that they help us get more listings, but also buy the listings that we already have.
Gus: No doubt. No doubt. So with that Buyer Guide. The way I look at it is, if I am on the left side of the curve ... For that first Buyer Guide, do I call it a First Time Home Buyer guide or a Guide to Homes Under 280,000?
Dean: I think for you, part of your Buyer Guide is really ... Because you're in a smaller suburban market, right?
Gus: Yeah.
Dean: Like a satellite of rally kind of thing. That there's enough of a segmentation. Is it the kind of thing that since you're 20 minutes from Raleigh, do people live there and work in Raleigh? Is that-
Gus: A lot of people commute into ITP, the Research Triangle Park? That's 45 minutes.
Dean: Perfect.
Gus: That's why I said bedroom community.
Dean: Yeah. So I think for you, I mean that's the way, that's exactly what I had with Carlton Hills. When I first did the guide to Carlton Hills. So for you people thinking about that area, it's only 12,000 homes or whatever it is, or maybe 10,000 homes. That you can have the guide to all of those. What was the name of the place again?
Gus: Fuquay-Varina.
Dean: Fuquay-Varina. Yeah, that's a mouthful, isn't it?
Gus: Yes. Exactly.
Dean: Fuquay-Varina. When you look at that you're putting that together as somebody thinking, "Well I wonder what that Fuquay-Varina is all about? This is your chance to ... They're starting to come out there and they're wondering what do you get for your money there? That's what this guide is, is to give them an overview of everything available.
Gus: That's where there's 50 subdivisions, handpicked, 30 of them in all price points.
Dean: Price points, what you'd basically ... If somebody was looking, they want to know ... Almost think about it as what's the minimum price that you have for a condo or a starter?
Gus: I'd say 150, 175, in that range.
Dean: So from 150 and then on the other end of that you've got, a million plus if you've got a few of those homes. Then what would be ... So you're basically showing people in essence what do you get for 150, what can you get for 200? What do you get for 250, 300, 500, 750? So you get a sense that this is kind of what you're dealing with. The thing about it is that it's not meant to be the definitive guide, right? Like you're not going to be able to ... You're not worried that you're representing every single thing, but you're giving people a sense because the most important thing is that you have the guide and that people asked for it. Then once they ask for it, you're going to send them the guide. Plus all of the homes that are available right now anyway, right? So to get a sense of what's available, but then you're also sending them the list.
Gus: Then-
Dean: Then they get the MarketWatch every week.
Gus: Then trying to build that conversation of finding out what range they are in.
Dean: Yep, that's exactly right. So that's why when somebody asks for it, I'm always a big believer in when somebody responds to something that we reach out to them with a conversation. I imagine that, that opt-in page is like a portal to your office. As soon as they press submit, they're right there. They popped their head in your door in your office and say, "Hey, I'm here about the guide. I'm here about the price guide." What would you say in that conversation? That's what we're looking at the model.
Gus: Okay. Perfect. All right. Excellent, I was going over, I had a whole list of notes and one of those was about the finding buyers and where those are going to be coming from. Then with my software program ... We get, we pay for Facebook leads. I'm super curious to find out what you're going to be delving into next week about Facebook.
Dean: How much are you paying for your Facebook leads right now?
Gus: I think they're doing like a set program of like 250 and I don't know how many that's bringing in. But for me on average I'm probably, we're getting probably 15 to 20 a week that are coming in and they're usually just tagging. They're promoting a property and then people are hitting on it and then viewing that one property. I've got the emails and if they're inquiring there's obviously some form of interest whether it's for that-
Dean: Of course.
Gus: or another house in the area.
Dean: Right, exactly.
Gus: When I'm setting up the MarketWatch, are you utilizing the, the GoGo CRM to send out those emails?
Dean: Of course.
Gus: Then including the link or just using, we use Gmail for everything.
Dean: You would use, I use the GoGo Agent auto-responder to send out a broadcaster, so you can send it out to everybody at once, personalize it with their name. Then you get all the stats of how many people opened it, who clicked on what. You're using some intelligence there to see who's paying attention, you know? Then when they respond, then we use the Gmail to have those conversations with them.
Gus: Okay. If I have buyers that are in eight different surrounding towns, just personalize it for that town and send it out to all those leads at once, kind of like a mass?
Dean: That's exactly right. If they're all individuals. Yes it does. Yeah. They're all individually sent.
Gus: Okay.
Dean: Then every email that you get from me. Yeah, every email you get from me comes from that same program.
Gus: Okay. Then you are basically, it’s taking the next step with the CRM and utilizing the flags and the sources to be able to see-
Dean: That's exactly right.
Gus: I've just started playing with it and kind of moving people around in different areas. I can see where that can be a super time-saver with flags and everything.
Dean: Absolutely.
Gus: Wow.
Dean: Cool.
Gus: Alright, we've got a lot to work with here.
Dean: That's so great. I'm excited. I'm excited to see everybody next week too. So that'll be a fun-
Gus: Yeah, it sounds like it.
Dean: Internet together.
Gus: I have no doubt.
Dean: If you don't walk away with any knowledge, then that's your problem.
Gus: That's right. I can't wait to see the beat down, the battle to see who the Listing Multiplier.
Dean: Absolutely.
Gus: I mean just from a marketing prowess, I would say I'm a big personal development guy that they call Earl Nightingale the dean of development, I'll call you the Dean of marketing.
Dean: Okay great. Well I will look forward to seeing you on Thursday night.
Gus: Yes, I will be there with bells on and I greatly appreciate your time and all the knowledge that you share with them, with everybody. You provide a large amount of value for everyone in. I'm already appreciative. Thank you.
Dean: Thanks Gus. I'll see you next week.
Gus: All right. I'll see you next week Dean. Bye.
Dean: Bye. There we have it, so much great stuff there. I like to see what's going on. It's going to be very exciting to see what happens with Gus's business over the next 12 months here as we really dive in and start putting everything together. If you'd like to continue that conversation here, you can go to ListingAgentLifestyle.com. You can download a copy of the Listing Agent Lifestyle book that outlines all the elements of the Listing Agent Lifestyle. You can be a guest on the show. Just click on the Be a Guest link and we can do some business planning for you.
If you'd like to be a part of the community we're building of all of the agents who are applying all the Listing Agent Lifestyle principles and programs you can go to, GoGoagent.com. You'll have access to all the programs we talked about for getting listings, for multiplying your listings, for finding buyers, for converting leads, and getting referrals. Free trial, 30 days, no credit card required. GoGoAgent.com. Come on in. See what we're all about. Say Hi, and I think you're gonna like it. I'll talk to you next week. Bye.