Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast we've got a continuation of a segment from our GoGoAgent Academy that we held earlier this year in Orlando, and it’s the perfect follow-up to our episode with Cyndee Haydon last week.
In that show we talked about listing multipliers and today we have a whole segment from the academy talking about all the things you can do to get the most out of every listing that you take.
We had some great concepts and some great conversations, especially about the winning and losing stories present when we take a new listing and some strategies for using Craigslist, even in 2018!
It’s all built around sending people to a very simple next step. Something like our Instant Open House landing pages in the GoGoAgent.com tool
So listen in. There are some great multipliers you can use here.
Links:
GoGoAgent.com
Be a Guest
Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep020
Dean: Welcome back. I had a thought about getting listings before we move on that my action items for people would be to just get that role. Really just don't ... You don't need to try and reinvent anything or do it. It's a baseline thing that you're going to do for the long term and it's got the element of the longer you're doing it, the more profitable it is. Just get it going and then, you're measuring your cumulative ROI because I'm a believer, everything has metrics that we can guide by. You're looking at it and seeing what is the direction of where we're going with this. Are we improving? Are we getting the right outcome? How are we doing compared to other people? That kind of thing. Response rates on individual days or turnover rates of market places or things like that, I'm not all interested or concerned in those.
If you are buying a CD with one year maturity date, the other thing you're worried is that's your locked in return in the year. Whereas, if you're buying the stock and then, it goes down the next. "Oh, no. It's down." Then next day it's up. "Whoa, it's up." It's all these things. You're chasing the market. I remember Warren Buffet would always describe Mr. Market as your completely irrational neighbor who one day is full of doom and gloom. He'll sell everything for a very low price. Then, the next day, he's all happy and excited and he won't let go of anything.
That's the way we have to look at it is just realize that the long term, the meta level of it is that it's directionally going up into the right. That's what we're really looking for, all those things. That the maturity date, if you think about those cohorts of the months that you're mailing as ... Because even when you've been doing it for a year, you say to yourself, "Okay, I've been doing it for a year," but the reality is only the first people who responded to the postcards have been in for a full year. Everybody else is less than that. The majority have been less than six months. Yeah, three years, perfect.
Yeah, it's great, so funny. It helps that when it's there, there's something about that it's just at the right time that they were ... Yeah. As soon as they have the thought what's my house worth or they're thinking about moving. Now, they remember, "Where's that postcard?" There it is. You're never more than 30 days away from it.
Speaker 3: If from a day trading aspect, if you had within that niche vertical, like your specific neighborhood. Let's say that that specific neighborhood was 2000 houses. If you had ... because there's different companies especially being at Silicon Valley. There's companies that try and market you like we've got an algorithm to predict who the next most likely moves are.
Dean: Yeah. There's lots of that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: If you could get one of those, let's say, obviously, you're not going to market to all 2000 anyways.
Dean: Why wouldn't you?
Speaker 3: Well, eventually I would but I mean to start, you probably don't want me biting off 2000.
Dean: Right. Well, I would say for starters, whatever people have that comfort level with.
Speaker 3: You're okay with 2000 if I could own it?
Dean: I would be absolutely comfortable with that because I know. I've seen it now for 12 years, I know exactly what happens. I've seen it play out. It's a blue chip. It's not something that is ... The only people that I've seen not have the results are the people who abandon as soon as they get to the point where it's three months and the response has gone down. Then, they bail and go to another neighborhood. I've never seen the people who buy and hold not have the result.
Speaker 3: Okay. I was just wondering like if you'd be better to ... If I was starting small, to try and do more targeted one to started eventually getting to the whole 2000. If I can go 2000, I just go 2000.
Dean: Yeah. I think that there are companies like that. Jim knows those offers. Guy's in Sarasota where have the same kind of thing, smart algorithms. If you look at what indications are like what the indicators are of people and they go by how long people have been in the home and what the average lengths of things. If you look at 100% of all the homes that's sold in the last 12 months, you would find just as many people outside of that algorithm as you would inside of it. We're going to go over and I'll get to meet these guys there and go through the thing. I think that what we're creating is an algorithmic indicator in a way.
If you mail out the postcard and people respond to this report on the neighborhood, that over the course of two months there are very highly likely grouped to sell their house. I'd love to see how. I agree with it. If there could be some intelligent way around it that it would be a good thing. I'm set to go with Jim to meet these guys and explore it. I'm always looking for the thing. I look at this as the ... we got the control that I know that this way is like a great ROI.
Okay. Now, the next element that we want to talk about is multiplying your listings. That's the second element. We've been talking about this idea of your listing multiplier index. The listing multiplier index just as a quick refresher is what you can expect that your current system yields whenever you get a listing, the number of transactions. The way we calculate it is we look back at your last 10 listings. We give you one point for each of these outcomes that are open for us when we think of listing.
We've got the opportunity to get five points per listing, where the listing got sold is one point. You found the buyer for that listing. You double end it. That's another point. You find a buyer that buys another house but you met them through the marketing you're doing for your current listing. They came to an open house. They responded to your infobox flyer, whatever it is. You found a buyer who bought another home. You've got another listing in the neighborhood or from a buyer, who or from you met somebody who came in to that house and they ended up listing their house with you.
You got a referral from the seller. Five opportunities that are virtually competition proof and only yours because you have this listing. Nobody else has that same opportunity. When you look back at it, historically we can calculate for your last 10 listings. How many points did you get out of a 50 possible scenario so, five times 10, 50. When I present that to people for the first time in a group, what I typically find is that we are somewhere between eight and 15 points out of a possible 50 is what people end up getting the first time we're presented with this.
Now, sometimes, even just the awareness of a metric like this builds momentum and the next few listings that people get ends up then all of a sudden, they're focused a little more on doing some of these listing multipliers.
Speaker 3: Sold in one day.
Dean: Yeah, exactly, sold in one day. When we look at it, that's really the thing is that for years what people would always say to me ... We had, in partnership with Prospects Plus, we had a program called Getting Listing Sold. So many people would say, "Well, our market's really hot and I price them right." I don't have to do just listed cards and I don't have to do infobox flyers. Or I don't have to do open houses or advertise my listings. They're saying it with a sense of arrogance that, "Yeah, all my listing sell in a week." When point out that what's really happening is they're losing so much money by doing that.
Then we say that if each transaction side is worth $7,000, there's a potential of $350,000 if you got 50 points out of the last 10 listings. If you got one point for each along the way, so you got 10 of that, you ended up making $70,000 but you end up losing, what's the math on that, $280,000. When I present that to people, that's great but really, you're losing $280,000. It's a whole different mindset when you start looking at it like that. It's perishable. You'll never have that opportunity again because when the listing's sold, now it's gone. While it's here, you're the only one that has that opportunity.
It's our responsibility to maximize on that. To maximize that and that's really a staple of this listing agent lifestyle is taking this approach of maximizing the listings that you get right now and raising your index. The way that we calculate your index is we take that number that you got out of 50 and we divide it by 10 to give you an index. Like a golf handicap or a bowling average. You're saying now, if you got 15 points out of 50 possible points on the last 10, your listing multiplier index is 1.5. That means that with your current system, every time you get a listing, it's likely to be worth 1.5 transactions.
Now, by focusing on it, we found that people can get up over three on the average listing multiplier index. We're looking at ... When you look at if you get to 3.5, that's real dollars extra money that you're getting every time you take a listing. It's very low cost to do these things. We look at the baseline things at the very minimum. We've got all the tools available for you at the very least put up a instant open house landing page with a infobox flyer and the property PDF, and set up the autoresponder to ask people if they like to go and look at the house. If you just set that up, or have somebody set that up for you, it's amazing what can happen with that. When you look at the infobox alone, just the cost of doing it is virtually nothing.
Yet the return on it is amazing. When you look at it, what happens you've got ... Let's say it cost you $5 to put 100 infobox flyers into your infobox there. It's nothing because when you look at the market value of a lead, you look at the market value of ... there's a market place now for leads everywhere. What's have you guys seen as the going rate for leads right now if you were going to buy Zillow leads or buy leads from an online provider who's got some insight.
Speaker 3: We were just doing the pay-per-click, driving traffic to a BoomTown type site but it wasn't BoomTown. In my area, the cost probably was high compared to others. We were at about like 35 bucks per lead.
Dean: You look at that. That's about right. That's when you're doing it yourself. You're paying that money to get it. Who else has some experience or this that we can use?
Cyndee: Totally varies. On the one hand, I can tell you I think we paid Mark Zuckerberg's mortgage on Facebook Ads, so a lead that none converted. I'm like well, that, not good. Zillow, we have a week zip code just to be premiere agent. I would say that actually when I do the math, the leads come out. Really closer to $30 to $100 depending on what the volume is. It's pretty pricey.
Dean: Yeah, I've heard about $60.
Cyndee: Again, so ...
Dean: $30 to $100.
Cyndee: If you're using something like HomeLight for leads, then, you're talking 25% to 30% referral fee.
Dean: Yeah, there's the other thing. When we look at this, that you're talking about on the market rate. I mean 25% for a referral these days is a bargain. Most people are up in the 35 and sometimes even 40% or 42% of I've seen for relocation, referrals and all the paper work and the hassles, stuff that comes with that. You're looking at that probably in the 30 to 35% range. What's the Dave Ramsey charging now for their ELP referrals? No, okay. He fired Zach. That's not up to their standards. Can you hand Zach the mic.
Zach: Because I refuse to pay $3,000 for his new introductory coaching on how to convert a lead. They fired me, which is okay because I made so much more money after the fact that I did beforehand because I was doing great lead followup.
Dean: There you go.
Zach: In Zillow, we're paying anywhere from $70 to $120.
Dean: For a lead?
Zach: For a lead in my zip codes. The other thing is is I do spend 10,500 a month and the Zillow leads are the best leads in my opinion besides the Jackson leads. The Zillow leads are chasing us down where AdWords and Yahoo ...
Dean: Yeah. This is what I wanted to give you is I'm putting in perspective here what the value of an infobox flyer lead. You're going to spend $5 for paper to put 100 infobox flyers into your infobox. You're maybe going to spend ... How long does it take right now to set up the whole thing for somebody over the new listing? About $50 or $60 total of easy money. $60 plus the $5 for the paper to put your infobox thing. Now, when you look at it, that one lead from an infobox flyer like that is ... They've got to be in value on the chain of motivation pretty high. When you think about the context of what has to happen for you to get that lead?
They're driving around the neighborhood. They see that house. They get out of their car. They go pick up the infobox flyer, they come back. They go to the website. They voluntarily leave their contact information. That's a pretty motivated person. If you look at those, I'm anxious to hear anybody who's using the infoboxes to see what kind of numbers you're getting but I've seen people like Tony getting 10, 15, 20 leads from infobox. You look at the value ...
Zach: Is that a week, or a month, or what?
Dean: Per listing. You put it out. Put out the infobox and generate those leads. It's pretty high ROI for what you get. Considering, it's high leverage. It fits with abundant time and joy. You don't have to do anything. You say, "Hey, Dianne, here's my new listing." Everything unfolds for you. All of a sudden then, you get the landing pages already set up, the domain name's registered. The infobox flyers done. The property PDF is done. The autoresponder is programed to do all of the ... send a message to everybody and flag where they came from. Now, you know what they're interested in. It's like such a no brainer.
Zach: Do you use the 800 number as well as the infobox?
Dean: Yeah. We use the text function of the voice touch now. We don't use the 800 on the infobox flyer. We'll use the local number that you get and say on the infobox flyer, it'll say for pictures of the information, go to 22graystone.com or text your email address to 555-1212.
Zach: So you don't use the 800 right or on the sign anymore?
Dean: No.
Zach: Did you ever?
Dean: We used to.
Zach: Sometimes I get my vendors to do it,
Dean: Right, right. We've used all kinds of things. That's so funny. The whole purpose of the infobox thing is that somebody will take the infobox flyers. They've got a token of this now. Then, they'd have to be crazy to have walk all the way up there. Pick the infobox flyer and then, not go to want to get the information. If they go to the website, they'd have to crazy not to now get the information. It's all just anchoring to you're in the right place.
Zach: Are you saying that you'd never had the 800 number writer?
Dean: I have in the past, we have.
Zach: Okay, all right. I just did the announcement that that was over.
Dean: Well, no, my thing Zach ... This is the thing. This is where ... We've got the functionality for doing an audio tour but where I run into the things and I've said it before. My challenge is to get to the things that you're likely to do. Not even that you're likely to do, that you will do. I know that what you will do is ... I could easily get you to do is say, "Hey, I got a new listing. Here's a link to it." If you just have to email a link and everything else can happen. I'll use Barb as the example because ... Here's the thing. Here's the thing is that ... No, no. Here's what I was going to say about Barb. This is the Barb Bohan experience, the experiment.
I set up everything for ... Barb, we set up the ... She was literally one of the first people and I share this with Barb that I look at it and I say, "Would Barb Bohan do this?" No, literally, it's the absolute truth of what I see.
Barb: It is true. It is true.
Dean: I'm creating things in my mind to say, "Would Barb Bohan do this?" Yeah, what would Barb do? Exactly. When I look at it, we set up everything. I have to reel in ... I love to do amazing things and to do complex things that what you could do. The difficulty is to get you to actually do what I just did. If you did some of the things that I did, it would be amazing but I've spent 25 years, or not that but over 20 years since 1995 when I started teaching other people how to do the things that I was doing in my business. It's been this constant, I'll call it beating of my head against the wall of seeing why people don't do what I know they could do.
That I had to reel that down to what could I do where I can get it to a point where I know they'll at least do this. I know that they'll at least answer the phone if somebody says, "Can you come over and see me about selling my house?" I have to set up everything about getting listing, so that I can make that happen so that this Chester voicemail shows up without you having to make any outbound phone calls. Could we improve the conversion rate if we added telephone followup and going to visit people, and doing all these things.
Maybe we could if you were Zig Ziglar was managing these leads, I have faith that Zig could be with these people, have a relationship with them and convert more than you're converting right now. Now, you're not Zig Ziglar. That's the reality that there's ... I have to back this down to how can I make it so that it works in spite of you. Listen, I say that with an unblemished record of love for you. There's nobody who loves you more than me. That is the truth. When I look at this now, I had this vision of well we can create these beautiful PDFs and tell the story of the listing, and you've heard me talk about this idea of telling the truth about what's going on.
I've shown you the I need to sell these last six home sights in the next 30 days. I'm willing to sell them for 33% below their current appraised value and tell the story of that. I've shown you how to do that but it's an up hill battle to think that is Barb Bohan going to write that and lay it out, and do it just the way?
Barb: No.
Dean: No. I've come to that conclusion that no matter ... I keep wheeling it out. I keep wheeling it out and so look at this. This is great. Everybody agrees. They go, "Yes, that's great." Then, we'll come back next year. Who did one of the info ads? Nobody. Then ...
Barb: I do them.
Dean: Perfect.
Barb: Because Dianne does.
Dean: Yes. Now, when I look at the infobox flyer, I want to strip things down to what is the essence of what's making this work. What's the thing that if we just strip this down to ... What's the active ingredient in this that gets somebody to do it. The fact that there's an infobox flyer puts you in the top 10% of all, I'm being probably optimistic, the 10%, the top 5% of all listings. When I drove around in Winter Haven, it took me 22 signs before I found an infobox.
The first one that I found was empty. Then, the next one that I found was just the MLS listing printout, crooked in black and white on the thing, and yeah, wet. It's good but that's the reality. I think just having one puts you up there in the first place. I had this vision that we could say that you could go to the website or you can call the 800 number for an audio tour. I thought that this brochure that we put together with all the pictures, very nice. Then, we had the thing with the audio image and everything, the audio tour. I did all of that. We got all that up. I send it over to Barb and then, I said, "Now, Barb all you have to do is this."
Barb: Who had three contracts that day that you sent over.
Dean: That's the world. I was waiting, and waiting, and waiting for Barb now to record. All we had to do is record this audio to her. It didn't happen so then, I thought, "Well, that's not going to make the boat go faster." In terms of the fact that there's no audio tour on the thing isn't going to limit people from calling. Let's just switch it to ... Let's put the pictures and information, and email your ... Text your email address to this number. All we're focused on doing is getting them to raise their hands. We're turning an invisible prospect into a visible prospect.
Barb: You'd be very proud of me. Before I left Annapolis, I went and stuffed all my infoboxes.
Dean: Good. I like that.
Barb: Yes. I would say that it is that easy. Dianne will do it. All you have to do is send her the listing, tell her the highlights, and I go by the URLs from GoDaddy. Then, send those off to you.
Dean: Perfect.
Barb: The other thing too is I have a social media person who does that for me.
Dean: Yes.
Barb: So that you get the same result.
Dean: Now, everything that you're doing, that's the point is that everything you're doing. When you got that core flagship asset of the instant open house landing page and the property PDF that everything now is about driving people to that place whether it's infoboxes, whether it's in your emails that you're sending out, whether it's on Facebook, whether it's in your print ads, whether it's on Craigslist ads. Whatever you're doing, everything leads to that place. We've established that the market value of these is at least $50 for that type of a lead. If you get 10 of them, you've got a $500 worth of value for $5 or $65 if you have Dianne do the whole thing for you. Yeah, Zach, the mic.
Zach: Where is the procedures in GoGo client?
Dean: In GoGoAgent.
Zach: Agent, okay. It's all there, very clear and easy to understand?
Dean: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Dean, you asked a question about what kind of leads you were getting off of using the open house flyer. I just pulled up a listing here, which is a listing that I did for a friend. It was listed in late December and it closed a couple weeks ago. It's basically on the market for 30 days. From that, I got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 off of the yard sign, leads.
Dean: Yeah. We've got an asset value of $550 if you say those leads are worth $50 if you were to buy them. That's what you've got.
Speaker 4: I know we talked about this before on the calls and stuff but I did not use an infobox flyer, I used the URL on the bottom of the sign. The URL was dubdub2503glen.info. People just go and they want the information. It's just a GoGo landing page. When they put their information in, they get instantly an information that they want. They also get kicked into autoresponder for buyers and for that property.
Dean: Yes. Perfect. Now, everybody goes into market watch. That's the whole all pads lead to that. This is part of our ... it's doing double duty because it's helping us find buyers potentially for that house but also for just other things.
Speaker 4: Most of the time, it's not the right house for them. I did nothing for that. Literally, I open up GoGoAgent and they're in there.
Dean: Yeah. It's pretty cool right. Wake up and there are some leads in there. I like it. How about over here? Just tried some ...
Speaker 5: I've done this pretty exclusively too and any time there's a walkable neighborhood, I've been able to track it back to sellers in that neighborhood also pulling in. People that live in that neighborhood. Once I figured that one out and I've got some handouts too. Any time that I'm doing an open house, I'll have a door hanger so I'll have the infobox flyer and then on the back, the post card. Basically, a bigger version of it. Then, I'll have a runner go to door-to-door on that. I've noticed a pretty good increase from this one.
Dean: That's great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, couple things.
Dean: Do you know how many leads do you think you've generated from infobox?
Speaker 5: It's over 100 for all the listings that I've done. The response rate from those leads versus like a getting listing leads or less, they sometimes opt out, things of that nature. You don't get as much data. Obviously, once you get over 10, 15, 20, you start to see the value of it.
Dean: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: Then, I'm also on a leadership role with my brokerage so I've tried it on a couple other agents. A lot of times, they'll say, "Well, those don't work." They'll say, "Oh, we've tried that. That didn't work for us." I'll say, "Well, let me just try mine. See what happens." You can have the leads. I'll even send them to you. Just run the test for me and I'll have the same kind of result, six, seven at a time.
Dean: Yeah, that's perfect. It's just such a no brainer for job one when you get a new listing that immediately, the first thing is get that instant open house set up. Get the infobox flyer. Extra credit, doing things like getting a writer that you can put on the sign. Exactly you saying we've mostly replaced the phone number writer with the dotcom writer, the website writer. Putting 22graystone.com as the writer on there as opposed to the phone number. It doesn't matter. You can use dot info. Dot infos cost about $3 or $4, yeah.
Audience: Aat GoDaddy or HostGators.
Dean: Mic, mic. Okay. Good, yeah.
Speaker 6: I ran these through and put the open house and on the back is the postcard.
Dean: Look at that. Very fancy. Extra credit. See there's a guy that goes above and beyond.
Speaker 6: I'll ask if will Barb do that? If the answer is yes, then it's how can I actually do that a little better?
Dean: No, she wouldn't do that. She could ask Dianne to do it. Instant open house include pictures, virtual 3D tour, the property details, 5266 Blackberry or just text your email address. That is the simplest ... I mean that's a good looking infobox flyer right. It's simple. It's the minimum effect of those. It's got all of the good stuff, all the things that you would need. It's perfect. I love it. No. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Question. For the record, we're not allowed to have infoboxes.
Dean: Of course, you're not.
Speaker 6: Because I put one up on one and Dianne did it for me. This was a couple years ago and I was thoroughly thrown on the carpet. Yeah, the company won't allow it. The company won't allow it.
Audience: You get sign writer?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I put a sign writer up of the domain name on it. Yeah, yeah, I do that.
Dean: You're allowed to have the instant open house. You're allowed to have the landing page.
Speaker 6: I have a landing page though for each one, yes.
Dean: Okay, no infobox.
Speaker 6: No infobox. No.
Dean: Those work.
Speaker 6: I don't know. I don't know. I forgot my question.
Audience: Did you do assignment?
Dean: You started out we're not allowed to have infobox, then we piled on.
Speaker 6: It was about coming soon. Coming soon, we haven't started talking about that yet.
Dean: No, this would be the place right now.
Speaker 6: My team, as to the pluses ...
Dean: I mean you're in the right section at the right time.
Speaker 6: It's the listings. Who does it benefit? All the things that we're talking about here really are about selling us, not selling the house.
Dean: Yeah. They're not about selling you at all. None of these things we're talking about are about selling you. All these things are about turning at the baseline thing. It's turning an invisible prospect into a visible prospect by offering the information that they want in spite of you.
Speaker 6: Okay, okay, okay. Never mind. Never mind. Never mind.
Dean: Yeah. There's nothing about it. It's not about you.
Speaker 6: It doesn't have to do with selling ... it's using the house, which is fine because there's five different ways that the house, the listing can make us money.
Dean: Yeah, right.
Speaker 6: It's using the house to make us ... to give the buyer or the seller, or the prospect more information. It's a vehicle. Without the listing, we can't do any of this stuff. We can't. We need the listing, all right.
Dean: Yes, that's right. That's why the first element of the listing as your lifestyle is again, listings.
Speaker 6: Is to send the postcards. Right, get listings, right. It all circles back, I love that. I like that. The coming soon, and I'd love to hear some thoughts on that. We don't do that. We're allowed to do that but I haven't written down my thoughts yet as to who it really benefits? Who does it piss off? I'm sure ... I know that I've had buyers say ... They said coming soon on that and then, I try and set up a showing for them and they won't show it to us. It's made my buyer cranky. Who's it helping? Who's it hurting? I think it's totally agent-oriented. I don't think it's a good idea. That's my initial reaction to it. What I'd love to hear.
Dean: Okay, we'll go here.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'll piggyback on my coming soon. In our market in Raleigh, we were finding that the coming soon is very strong. We are finding agents who had gone out and obtained domain names just for coming soon listings. They're going out and then promoting the properties two weeks in advance and obtaining, if a buyer wants to look at the pictures, they have to get their email address. Now, they have a list of buyers somewhere to what the program's set. We're running here and I think for the buyers, they feel like in going to this domain to get this information that they have the advantage. Obviously, as agents we're like, "That's a really good idea. How come I didn't think about that." I think as agents, some of the agents get upset that the fact that there is an area where you can basically, you're getting leads through this coming soon website.
They're in the system and our multiple listings here but you can list it and it says, temporary no showings. You could run that for three weeks, four weeks. Then, you just have to state when the showings are to begin. At that point, then you can go out and market the property. You just can't show the property. What better way to get leads and names.
Audience: Is this indicated so it's already on there and Zillow?
Speaker 7: No. It is not.
Audience: Just local, okay.
Speaker 7: Correct, it's all local. This agent goes out and buys the domain name. Then, obviously, on their main website and it goes out and promotes it, and obtains leads that way. Of course, as agents, it's ...
Dean: Smart.
Speaker 7: The status listed is withdrawn and then, hyphened temporary showings or temporarily no showings. Then, it must list the date when the showings will be available.
Dean: There you go. Yeah, it's a smart move. Cindy.
Cyndee: I belong to the mid Florida MLS. We have about 47,000 realtors from one coast to the other and down. What we have is something called an MLS waiver. You fill that out and it says the day that which it's going to go in the MLS. You have something that may never go on the MLS. That's between the seller and the agent what that is. We put typically in for when you sign the listing and for me, regardless just to do the things we're going to talk about take a couple weeks. Like Dean said, if you know it's going to fast, then we leverage the front end to do all those things for the listing. We typically, because we choose not to don't typically sell it.
We don't typically show it but there is no restriction not to show it, absolutely not. The only thing we have is that if you do not have a waiver in because the waiver says that the seller signs that they know they're not getting MLS exposure. If you do have a waiver in, it's automatic $500 fine. I've definitely used that time to generate interest, opportunity, get the marketing and we'll talk about other things we do. That's how our listing multipliers hire because you couldn't have a neighborhood open house if you're like it's over.
Dean: Do you use the coming soon sign?
Cyndee: On the coming soon, I tend to use social media more myself because I actually tend to use a strategy of having a private ... I actually invite the neighbors for a private open house. Then, back it into the public open house back to back. The whole point is its hard to have a private open house if you're putting up your sign and doing all that. To me, I think it's a little disingenuous, whereas the neighbor's like, "Wow! You guys really ... " We actually write a letter about why the people are moving, all that stuff. Yeah, but to do all that, it goes back to Dean. As long as I'm doing all that, without the sign, then, it really is like you're letting us know early.
If you put the sign out, it's like you didn't really let us know early. You're just kind of ... We try to be authentic to stick with that. Then, I usually do the neighborhood open house for an hour. Then, I go right into a public open house. From that, I'll put signs in the street whatever. I'll send my husband out like, "Go put the signs out now," kind of thing. They come across each other so the neighbors are seeing also that you're driving traffic when it gets to that point.
Dean: That's awesome. What's your listing multiplier index?
Cyndee: It's about 3.3.
Dean: Okay.
Cyndee: Really, you wrote that article. I saw it on Facebook. It literally change my life because was when you said agents by nature, they'll have 10 listings. They sell them. They made 50 grand. They're so proud of themselves. They sold it in one day. They could've done five more and that's $250,000. I just know for me personally, it's a lot harder to get a listing than to leverage a listing.
Dean: Yes, amen.
Cyndee: I look at that time as like this ability to just be totally immersed and like, "What can I do?" Again, meeting the neighbors is the perfect time. It's all that stuff. Just like I said, that week or two, it's all in. Then, you know it and this market's changed but in this market, it's going to be gone. That's how we do it.
Dean: Great, love it. What are you up to? What's your listing multiplier index now?
Speaker 8: Well, see what happen was ...
Dean: See what happen was ...
Audience: Well, what happen is ...
Speaker 8: The good thing about an index is one rolls off when anyone comes on. I had a four roll off and a zero roll on. Yeah. I went backwards but I'm sitting at 2.5, which is still money in the bank as far as I'm concerned. With the coming soon, ours is similar, imposed a $5,000 fine on the agent and the broker. A lot of brokers are saying, "Well, we'll just going to pass it on the agent." A $10,000 fine if they try to show it, which just obviously created a lot of fear of don't show these homes. Like you had said, there's a lot of marketing beforehand too.
Dean: That's awesome. I like it. Cool. Who else just for interest as an awareness of their listing multiplier index? Okay good. I want to ... Let's do a tally around the room here. I'd love to see that. Just so we get a range. Okay, so you got yours ...
Audience: Yeah, my LMI is 1.0.
Dean: 1.0, okay.
Audience: 1.0.
Audience: 1.75.
Dean: Well, well. That's an improvement.
Audience: 2.5.
Dean: 2.5, 3.3.
Audience: I have no idea.
Dean: I have no idea. No idea. I'm going to put NI.
Barb: I'm going to have to guess.
Dean: Yeah. This is okay..
Barb: Is it okay?
Dean: This is the first time you've heard this concept.
Barb: You're right, right. I've sold all of my listings.
Dean: You're at least one.
Barb: I'm at least one.
Dean: Can you think back on any of the ...
Barb: Well, I really avoid buyers. I like listings. I wouldn't promote that part of it. I also got referrals. Maybe another couple out of that.
Dean: Okay, so let's call it 1.2. That's a perfect. It's a good baseline. The awareness of that is something, isn't it. Just seeing if this is the first time you're hearing about that concept. You're going to notice that the next time we have this conversation, you're going to at least have that sense of okay, there's something going on here.
Speaker 4: I might be margin like 1.1, 1.2 but I'm just going to go with one because that's for sure.
Dean: Okay.
Audience: 1.3.
Audience: I'm not paying attention because I just got my head down working. We've got a lot of repeat and resells buyer or seller, two-sided but no real referrals or whatever.
Audience: One.
Dean: Zach
Zach: Based on the fact that ...
Dean: Well, what happened was ... I just got so many listings, so many people. It's so hard to calculate. That's what I'm saying.
Zach: Based on the fact that 64.73% of all statistics were made up on the spot, I would say two to three, maybe four.
Audience: 1.0.
Dean: He's brand new.
Audience: 1.0, yeah, one. Undefined.
Dean: Undefined. Well, new again. This is the whole thing. When you look at it that it's really interesting that it doesn't take too much that when you start looking at this that the people who have more than 1.5 or whatever are also the people who are doing the infobox flyers and concentrating on this, doing something around it consciously looking at how to improve that number. Tony, I know is up over. Chuck and Melissa are focused on this and getting up in that area too. I look at it that, if we just had an awareness of what the opportunity is and got 100% compliance on the next 10 listings that they all had the infobox or had the instant open house landing page, and the infobox flyer that that alone could make a difference.
Then, you look at all the other things. That core asset, we can use in all the other things. Like in Facebook Ads, Facebook posts from your seller, posting up on their Facebook wall just the infobox, JPEG, when we do the infobox flyer, all you really need to do is put that as a picture on the Facebook post and let your clients post it on their wall. That's the easiest possible thing to do. Give them your cell. I'm just going to brainstorm some ideas for you. Things that you can do with this is take that JPEG of the open house infobox flyer and text it to your clients, so that they have it with them if they hear or see anybody who is talking about real estate that they can just text them the infobox flyer, which has all the information that we need. Just to drive people to the landing page, to the instant open house landing page.
Same thing when they just post it on their Facebook wall or hand-select some of the people in their friends list to broadcast a message to them saying, "Hey, we're selling our house. Here's the information about it. If you hear anybody talking about looking for a house, please forward this on to them." Just that kind of thing where now it becomes everything you can do to build that awareness to get that message all from that one asset of that one infobox flyer. We don't have to reinvent everything. You don't have to now recreate something for Facebook or for Instagram or for ... You've got that asset. There's so many different ways to just distribute it now.
Even running Craigslist ads to, even though you can't put links in there, you can still say for more pictures and details go to 22graystone.com. People will copy and go to that site. I think people got spoiled when we could hyperlink things in Craigslist. It was such a high volume lead generator that we had for a lot of times. That got a lot of people through the toughest times. When we went in 2009 when everything was all short sales and bank owns, when we did bank owned weekly, some people thrived on that.
It was an interesting thing. No matter what, we're adaptable. We get in focus where the market is but is anybody using Craigslist now for lead gen? Yeah. What's the report from the field on Craigslist? Zach, what's your best practice right now. What's the ... Can you get the mic?
Zach: It does work. I have a VA in the Philippines that will do it for $7 an hour. One of the things that we've done is we bought a ad writing program to add a lot of sizzle to the ads versus the same old three bedroom, two bath. It is working ... The amount of leads, I don't know if the amount of leads that I'm getting ...
Dean: What is a typical ad? What's your format that you're using?
Zach: Well, we were using BoomTown, the autoposter to BoomTown but the ads don't sound great. They come out of the remarks. We've even changed the remarks in the LMS to something that's a lot more sizzle because those remarks now are all over internet versus before for the purpose of the agent. We include a lot of pictures. We include cut and paste to go the website. There's lots ...
Dean: Do you track traffic?
Zach: We don't because see all my traffic goes into BoomTown and goes out. It's just too difficult to do that. I don't really know. Sometimes they just call in the office. We don't really track. That's why I can't do the multiplier even though I feel like it's pretty high.
Dean: You got the Jenga puzzle model. That's the just pile everything that you're doing on and then, ... We don't know, if you pull one out, which one is holding the whole thing together. You've got this beautiful tower.
Zach: Right. Yeah. When we send out just those postcards, just sell postcards, when we ask them, "Well, why did you clean it?" What cost you to call us? It's all the stuff you sent us. I don't know whether it's the home price report postcard or whether it's the open house postcard or what postcard. It's like, "Well, can you look at the postcard and tell me." Well, I don't have the postcard anymore. I just don't get them all the time.
Dean: Yeah, exactly. That's perfect. Can I have that mic here. I'll take the mic so we can hear from ... I know you guys had some Craigslist stuff that you're doing. Who's doing it? You're doing it? I hear the state of the union on Craigslist here.
Speaker 9: I just post the simple ad driving folks to the website. When I started doing different last year's because I did one to track it. I did one and just send folks straight to the flyer. I buy three email addresses for every listing.
Dean: Three domain names, yeah.
Speaker 9: Right, yeah, domain names. I'll buy one just for the infobox flyer and I'll buy one for Craigslist. I'll advertise in the print magazine, so I'll buy one for the print magazine.
Dean: Smart.
Speaker 9: Then, Diane creates me three pages and then, they're automatically mark so it keeps track of ... Somebody comes from Craigslist, I at least know that they're from Craigslist.
Dean: Which is super easy for us to do. copy that page. You guys can copy landing pages. They could copy this one. They could copy this one, so you got three separate ones that you can send a different domain to each one and set up the same ... Trigger the same auto responders.
Speaker 9: That's what I do. Like we had mentioned before. The leads that come in, they're shorter information but the whole goal is just to be populating the market watch list with people.
Dean: Yeah. Do you have any sense of the numbers from Craigslist of what you're ...
Speaker 9: I can after our next break.
Dean: Okay, perfect. Anything, we love that.
Speaker 9: I should've brought my laptop with me because I have all net where I can search it out.
Dean: Okay, just a sense. I'm trying to a get sense of how viable it is. Dean, I know you were talking about you do some thing.
Speaker 9: Yeah. We were doing our response rate from Craigslist. We drop every listing every day and not getting inquiries. About a week ago, I reduced the number of photos from the 24 down to three. Also, got rid of the price, put a dollar on. Then when people would go to the Craigslist page to look at it, it would say what the house for pricing and more information, click here. I'd put the URL. Now, the backend of my GoGoAgent account's blowing up because I'm getting so many, many leads. When I had the price on before and the landing, I wasn't getting any inquiries. Now, at least people are opting in. I don't know if they're getting mad at me but there's a lot of traffic now.
Dean: Perfect.
Speaker 9: Now, we'll start reaching out to them when I figure out how to do that market watch. I'm here to learn.
Dean: There we go. Yeah, yeah. That's next step. $1.
Audience: $1, top left.
Dean: Ron.
Ron: Yeah. Nothing that I wouldn't be able to add on listings but there is another section called services where you can have real estate services where I put the home owner port to pinpoint price now. It's just room by room review, gotten a few off that as well.
Dean: That's nice.
Ron: It's good little behind the scenes.
Dean: Yeah, yeah. It's good. I wondered if anybody goes to that real estate services section but that's good.
Audience: Not much competition. That's for sure.
Dean: Right, exactly.
Speaker 10: What we found is like the bottom feeders are who's responding. In fact, I got an email today from somebody off Craigslist that says, "I'll offer 85,000 for that house cash." These are the kinds of Craigslist.
Dean: Investors looking for a deal.
Speaker 10: Yeah. That's a switch probably in the past year, year and a half. It used to be viable and now, it just seems to be bottom feeders.
Dean: Okay. Zach.
Zach: Another great thing too on Craigslist is at the bottom of the ad that we also serve the following areas. List about 20 areas because people do search by areas here. Our ad will show up even though it's not in the area that they're searching for.
Dean: Part of the thing that I'm really interested in testing is testing these category things. Almost like doing the daily tour. I know the rules around Craigslist right now are that you have to advertise a specific property that you can't advertise for a list of properties or for a category or something like you used to be able to do. You can certainly tie it to one listing and what I might be interested in testing is having one listing that you're marketing around, that you're advertising and have all the information about that, and have that link to the specific landing page for that one.
Also, testing that we have our daily tour landing page to test if you had that category, that listing and saying open daily, 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM. Same kind of thing as the daily tours thing where people could go and come on that landing page, and pick the day and time. Almost like a daily tour type of thing where you're mentioning just like you said, Zach, we also talk about these but if you say we've been working on the USDA program. If we say that there are 37 homes like this one that you can buy with zero down payment, we're still fundamentally advertising that one property and it's open at 10:00 AM or 1:00 PM.
Then, when they respond, now we've got the opportunity to email them with all of the info about all the other properties. Send them the ad that you wanted to be able to send them to place in Craigslist. It's almost like a buffer in between it. I think that could have some legs. I've been playing around with the different, with layouts and stuff like the default layout now is the photo gallery layout. It used to be the line item was the layout like the default layout was the line things. Now, I think that the same things you get like essentially 35 characters per line and you get two lines to put your headline on that.
I was looking at playing around with those things where you got Winter Haven-zero down and then, open 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM daily. The only job of the headline of course is to get them to click on that ad. Then, when they go in to see the pictures and have the explanation all about that property and go to this address to get info on that particular property. Then, when they're there, talk about there's 37 homes and offer the free ... the book. We have a whole book now on the USDA program. I'll talk about that when we talk about finding buyers. That I think for your listings to be able to say open daily, 10:00 AM, 1:00 PM is a really ... It's a different thing than what people might used to see on this.
Speaker 10: Does a Craigslist story count if it's two years old?
Dean: That's fine.
Speaker 10: It's all I got. I did a FSBO two years ago and I was able to put lots of pictures but I didn't have a website. We got about four, five really interesting people calling and a gal bought it within a couple weeks. It was in Washington.
Dean: Wow! Very interesting.
Speaker 10: The old fashion way.
Dean: Yeah.
Zach: Well, if you do the ads, I'll run the test for you because it would be very easy for me to do as many as you want to try.
Dean: I want you to track it though.
Zach: I will track it. We won't feed into BoomTown. I'll just put my cellphone number on it.
Dean: Okay. Good. Cool.
Zach: Well, I get all the Zillow leads come directly to me. I've only had two today and so, I could do a better job creating the appointment than anyone on my team.
Dean: I got you.
Zach: I could do a Zillow. I could do a Craigslist.
Dean: This would be good thing to test I think. See what else is available there. Okay, what else are you guys doing in this category of multiplying your listings. Baseline thing is the instant open house and then, all the myriad of ways that you can drive people to that, so that they leave their name and email. You've got the lead for that. That's really about finding the buyer there. Now, what are we doing about the neighbors and about being in that neighborhood. Cindy mentioned about the neighbor preview open house. Can you talk a little bit about what your process is for that? There's your microphone right there.
Cyndee: We write a letter about why they're selling for every one and we always ... We tell the seller ...
Dean: You lost Barb.
Cyndee: Oh, man. Here's the deal Barb. There's only about five things so you just shake it up. When someone's getting divorce, they're relocating. Someone's dying, they're relocating. There's a few things that you just put it in a positive note because the bottom line is every house we have, what's the first thing the buyer wants to know? Why are they selling? We tell people that ... That's the question everybody wants to know and everybody's for something that's going to take the advantage to the buyer side. They're getting divorced or they lost their job. I said, "Here's the story we're going to tell and you're going to feel more comfortable when you go to get your mail or you see somebody on the street and all that stuff."
Interestingly, I found that it's also a good conversation with the neighbors. What we do is we just ... The letter's written in their name. They sign it. I'm happy to share. It just says that we'd like to invite you to stop by. We'll have an open such and such. Whether they're there or not, we do it. Then, the neighbors come and they say, "You know, we never know why people move. Signs go up and you never even know." That was such a nice touch. The conversation and the comfort level of getting into conversation feels a little more human to people. They've said, "It just felt nice." Then, they said, "You wrote it didn't you?" I said well, again we help people through this process.
The first question a buyer's going to want to know is why. Making sure that we're presenting everything and for the sellers is yes, we do help them. Again, it just starts that conversation. I will also say and I don't know why. You might want to take a look at it but listings to leads, open house sign in sheet, it's super simple but we get over 90% compliance. People fill it out but it has something ... it has three questions. If you put down the real information and so there's some simplicity and brilliance there, I haven't copied it but I would look at it. It's just super simple.
I put them on a clipboard. I have a couple of rounds, so I said, "Hey, could you just give the seller some feedback, whatever." I always make it about the seller, not about me. It's like, could you help out the seller? People do it. We just get a lot of information. Again, it's pretty legit. Again, I'm super ... Barb, you'll like this. The people at lunch learned I have no domestic skills. I tell Dunkin' Donuts, I'm like, "I need a box of decaf. I need a box of caff. You give me all the cups, sugar, all that ready to go. I'll pick it up." I'll get a case of water, boom, to go. Keeping it simple.
Then, I think with your idea to is we're always prepared with the market report. It's like, we could keep you up. People come and they'll say, "Oh, how's the market or what's going on in the neighborhood or whatever." Being prepared for that and just saying, "Oh, we have a report." People like to stay up to date just to know. Those kind of things help.
Dean: One of the great things that you can offer to the neighbors, the sellers when they're walking around is if you'd like I can email you a copy of the CMA, the comps that we used for the property, the neighborhood ... that's like something ... You don't have it printed off to give to them, you get permission to email it to them. Now, you're in an email dialogue with the neighbors as well. The neighbors are like a really high value thing because you are right now the incumbent neighborhood specialist. You're the one.
As far as they're concerned, the 20 homes right around it, you're that neighborhood specialist. It's important that you leverage that opportunity to get to know who they are. That's good.
Cyndee: I think again, when we got that mindset, to think about how could you leverage more. We show up in that who's saying that from a service, my mindset with an open house is never that I'm going to sell the house to somebody that's walking through. That's not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to have as many conversations that plant seeds, to be able to further conversation. Even our demeanor, I think makes people feel comfortable. It's not like it's from service. Even the wording of being can you help the seller out but it's very much ... it's not pushy. It's just almost concierge but they think, that would be nice to have somebody working like that.
I think that I don't know the statistics but I've heard the population has 80% . I think those people are little overwhelmed with pushy people. It shuts them down. For 80% of the people, I think that we've experience, they just feel comfortable asking some questions and just like, "Yeah, I'd be happy to get that for you, whatever. Then, one of the things that we do and I don't know Barb if you do this but we do help stage a house and prepare. We talk about how we help people. Even if you paid somebody to do it, how we make the house look its best. Focusing on that. People go we can easily help you even if it's a number of questions. What's the best paint color, whatever. We've had quite a few people say, "Yeah, I'd love for you to stop by." Again, it's those tiptoe things of just I'm curious or I'm thinking about painting. Could you just come tell me?
Dean: Yeah. That's where having things like that room by room review, and having the pinpoint price analysis and having the silent market. All those things are fantastic. That really makes it easy. We talk about and we hear people say, "People will ... We want people to know you, like you, trust you. That's the thing but most of the time, people read that or interpret it as one thing, know you, like you, trust you. That there's not as much. I think it's an important thing to really rest on each of those that there's something valuable about going from somebody who doesn't know you to know you.
Then, like you. Then, trust you. Rather than trying to rush right into know you, like you, trust you. Job one is that let's turn an invisible prospect into a visible prospect. Now, they know us. Then, we're demonstrating over time. They're not a pushy salesperson. They're not just trying to get me to move or to list their house with them now. I like them. Then, they get to trust you when you're offering them things that whenever they're ready. That's why all those ... The keywords that we use in that whenever you are ready. Here are three way that we can help you. I'm not in a hurry.
Cyndee: Right, absolutely.
Dean: I'm going to be here whenever you're ready. Not going at it from the time's now. The market's really hot. Prices are ... Who knows that's going to happen to prices. Better get out now or ... or the buyers, you're saying to the buyers. Prices are on the rise.
Cyndee: Well, I also find that neighbor open house can be a good time for them to be able to introduce you to their neighbors and talk about how you helped them prepare. Most people when they're selling or afraid, they're overwhelmed. Just knowing that whether again, each of us in our way is going to guide them whether we hire someone to help them do it. When those people can talk about their experience and they're like, "Oh." Those things have helped make introductions. Then, also when they can see the difference in the house and the see the difference in ... Again, it's just another opportunity for them to tell people they know about what their experience has been. What is that feel like? There was something else I didn't tell you but I lost it.
Dean: I think that is important enough.
Cyndee: I think it all starts with mindset. The whole point is just the mindset and that every time ... I know what I was going to tell you. We tend to do our open houses for the neighbors on Saturday morning around 10:00. We do it because people are getting out of the house. Getting them back, they missed ... Everybody's still up and getting out. People can stop by quickly, whereas if I get later, they don't really tend to do it. Usually, I go 10 to 11 for the neighbor open house. They just stop by for some coffee, just easy simple. Then, the next hour if we're going to open it up. That seems to work well for us.
Dean: Most people are done garage saling. They sell right in to the 11:00 hour for the open houses.
Cyndee: Right, right. Sometimes, like I said these people will see something or they'll have seen it somewhere ... When someone was asking, sometimes we'll put it in the MLS the day of the private open house, the morning kind of thing as we're doing it. Then, put open house. Then, people will show up and again, just trying to leverage that movement where people see that you're a market maker. People are coming.
Dean: That's the thing. You're taking this strategic approach to it where I can imagine especially using this coming soon period of the time where you get to strategize with the sellers. One of the things that I think would be very valuable thing is to set up after you've listed the property and you've had the chance to put the infobox flyer together and the instant open house, and all those things. To get together with the seller for a strategy session where you're going to show them the things that you're doing and enlist them in helping out with the process. Where if you came in with an 11 by 17 printed out satellite view of the immediate 20 neighbors and then, another page with the neighborhood itself stretched out and you're laying this out on the thing, and asking ... Putting sticky notes or having something with them that one of the things we're going reach is there's a good chance that one of your immediate neighbors knows somebody who wants to be in the neighborhood.
They love to spread the word. Just like you were saying about the story. When you're saying it, you're absolutely right that the first thing that people want to know is why are they selling? There is a going to be a story for that. There's going to be the story that's going on that they're making up or that's spreading, or it's going to be a story that you control the narrative. You get out in front of this. It's so better to have a winning story than a losing story.
We've talked about that that winning stories are we got the job promotion and we're moving to Poughkeepsie and we got to be there by the end of next month. That's a winning story. We don't have to sell. We're not giving it away. If they want it, they're going to pay our price for it. Those are losing stories. Those are stories that are not ... I say winning is like letting the buyers feel like they're winning, even though they're going to end up paying the same amount of money or more than if they felt like you were winning.
You let them feel like they're winning. You get that narrative. What is the right story? How do we tell that? Then, you get the map and you're laying out and finding out who do the neighbors have a personal relationship with. Who do they know? Then, let's send a personal message from the seller to let those people know what's coming. Hey, Nancy. Who's been their friend in the bridge club or whatever. They have no idea that they're going to sell but I wanted to let you know before you see the signs what's happening. We got the promotion. We're moving out to the Poughkeepsie. We got to be there by the end of the month. The sign's going to go up on the weekend.
Here's all the information in case you hear anybody talking about it. To have that individual conversation with however many people, if you just take the immediate 20, the eye line when you're standing at the end of the driveway, typically the ones that you could see their driveway from your driveway are the ones that you have the highest likelihood of knowing by name. If you know the neighbors by name that that's going to be somebody that will take a personal approach. Then, we're going to back out and look at your whole street because you have an affinity for the street that you live on. Even though when you just drive by and you nod to them, you've no idea who they are but you recognize, "Oh, yeah, they lived at that street."
The just listed card for the neighborhood and the street are letting the immediate neighbors know what's going on. Then, that opens up the opportunity for you to build a relationship with those people before anything really even happens. Invite them to the preview open house. Getting the sellers involved in this process, identifying specifically by name the people that if they saw them on the street, they would recognize them and have a conversation with them. They go, "Oh, you're selling." The people would be surprise to see that this is coming. Let's preempt it and let them feel like an insider.
Do it in a way that it doesn't feel like a marketing piece that we put together for the neighborhood. Let's send a personal Facebook message or a note to Nancy and let her know what's going on before she gets surprise by it.
Cyndee: Let me just tell you one quick story. I mean just to put in perspective. I had a 80-year-old woman whose husband had passed. The condo that she was in was just eating away at her savings. She want to downsize. That's a last message you want to really have on the street. She was really stressed about it also. We talked about it. We got it ready and we said, "Well, we'll just let people know that the kids have grown and now's the time that you want to downsize, travel and just while you're healthy go do all the things that have been on your bucket list."
What was interesting, she lived in a highrise condo. They all go to get their mail together. They all go to do this. Before that, she was really quiet, embarrassed, almost like not wanting people know she's selling because she knew why she was selling. By giving her that winning story, she was telling people. She's like, "I'm going to have everybody over on Saturday." Then the other thing I found that's really important for me is to tell the seller that it doesn't really matter who shows up. 100% it doesn't matter because we already mailed it out. They know when they're talking, and looking, and thinking of who they know because they think sometimes, people think it's like throwing a party, will anybody come to my birthday party, they get pressure.
Really, it's important to make sure that they know that our job is done by them getting the information. We hope they can make it. They may have conflict but the stories, so when people ask, they're going to be like, "Oh, we've loved her here. She's going to travel. We're looking ... " I think putting people at ease has been important to them not resisting the idea or feeling insecure about who, or feeling pressure. That thing that was one of those you just learn as you experience what people's fear about it is. Letting them know that was really important for me.
Dean: Love it. That's awesome.
Speaker 10: Hey, Dean. I've got a question around this thing that you just said. I put story into the just listed card and I used your format announcing the open house for the first weekend that it's really on the market. You just said the letter is better than the marketing piece.
Dean: Well, not just ... Nancy, who has a person relationship with the seller gets a nice letter to let them know or a Facebook message, or an email, or some personal correspondence from the seller to let them know what's going on. Then, they get the postcard on the thing. It's not a total surprise to them. They feel like, "Oh, yeah. I knew about that." I'm an insider. That's what we really want. Yeah, let's go down to John.
Speaker 10: I just wanted to make a comment that I think it's such a great idea. That idea to me I've never heard of it, never occurred to me but I think the biggest power of what you're doing when you do that letter is you are positioning yourself as the insider. You're so different than every other realtors, almost like you're her sister or something. You're taking in people like, "Oh, wow! She is the agent that's on the insider of the neighborhood. She's got the inside story." I just wanted to say, I think that's so cool. I'm definitely doing that from now on. I think it's so cool.
Cyndee: I'm happy to show the letter. I mean there's not that many stories. I'll share it with Dianne.
Speaker 10: Let's do a ...
Cyndee: Then, you guys could have four dropdowns. Pick the one where they're relocating. Pick the one that ... These are ideas for divorce, debt, and whatever. Then, it's just not that hard. There is a segment in there that says, "We had to pick a realtor and we chose Cindy and Jack because they're going to guide us through it."
Speaker 10: There's the thing.
Cyndee: Then, at the end we usually go and they made this website because you might know somebody. Here's a sneak peek. There's a link to the ... Then, they're getting that same thing. Then, you can track how many people open it whether they showed up or not.
Dean: That's it.
Dean: Yeah, you could. You would, yeah. Not only could but would. Cindy, let's ... There's so much to this that let's do a listing agent lifestyle podcast episode about this too. That would be great. She got on the list already.
Audience: April 12.
Dean: Okay, awesome. Got you. Yeah, yeah. Dianne's my recruiter for ... Anybody, you're all welcome to be on the listing agent lifestyle podcast. We got to spend an hour and work through, talk about exactly what would be the next steps for you. I think that's the thing that everybody finds value in is hearing that I'm thinking about that same thing. Everybody feels comforted in numbers.
Speaker 10: If I could piggyback on this idea. We put together a letter talking about the same type of story just focusing on a different target group. The focus that we've taken is we asked people to recognize who they know and we actually ask for their Christmas list. We attempt to send the letter to their circle of influence to outline everything you've talked about. Why they're moving, why they have chosen us, and to get their buy in on sharing it with the people that they're already associated with. On the last two appointments, they have agreed to provide us that. We've got this template letter that shows what the story looks like. We help them build that.
Then, the intention is that once they sell, we'll also provide them with their removing cards that they send ... That we will facilitate sending back out to their Christmas list. Showing the success of going from selling to having sold.
Dean: Are Christmas list still a thing? I wonder some people do send Christmas cards but I think the ... Not in Cloudlandia. In Cloudlandia, on the strategy call, it's on the screen with their Facebook friends list or on paper when you've printed out all of their Facebook friends. We're highlighting the ones that live locally. You can say let's send a message to them. Let them know and they can post up on their thing and post up on your .... That's strategy session. There's probably five or six things that we could accomplish in that strategy session with them. That would really go a long way to both finding the buyer, maybe getting another listing but we'd all calculate as getting a referral from the seller. Yeah. Especially when you're using that coming soon kind of situation.
It gives you control too that you can always start your process where you pick a date that the listing launches on a Friday and the open house is on the Saturday. The first showings are leading up to that. That everything gears towards that Saturday launch. It's a winning strategy. It's good. Yeah.
Speaker 10: Which is so much power in what you had just mentioned of them knowing about it before the sign goes up. That specific thing.
Dean: That makes sense to the sellers too. It makes sense that they want to treat their friends with respect and not ... It addresses their need. What's it going to be like when you run into your neighbor or when you're going out for the mailbox. Or you see them at Piggly Wiggly, what's going to happen? Yes. They feel bonded by it. Yeah. They don't know or care that there were a dozen people that got that same message or 20 people. We're talking about that you wrote the message and sent it as if it's only going to you. That's what really makes that kind of thing work. Sellers will be all 100% buying to that because they want to do that. Then, they may be influencers themselves. Are they on Instagram? Perfect, let's put this up. Put up the infobox flyer on your Instagram. Everything, we want you to get the most money. We want to expose it to everybody.
Cyndee: When you were speaking though, I was thinking about like on a checklist of going, "I haven't really done that but look at your sellers, social media." When you're having a strategy session, hey we see ... This would be good places or here's our checklist where you know ...
Dean: The checklist is like I said the immediate neighbors. Then, the street and then, the neighborhood. If you're showing those things, here's how we reach those three things but then, who do you know personally that lives in these. You've printed out their ... Most real people only have 153 friends on Facebook anyway where anything's not an entrepreneur or for some business reason has thousands of friends that they're most likely the average on Facebook if 153. It's an interesting thing that if you've got them right there to make it easy, you've got the aerial shot of the neighborhood.
You've got the printout of their 150 friends with a highlighter. You can say, "Which ones are local?" We can send this message to them. We'll send this message to the neighbors and you got the calendar to show the launch build up. We'll do this and we've got ... Here's the infobox flyers that's going to go up tonight. All that stuff leading up. They're going to get excited because there's stuff happening. Wheels are in motion.
Cyndee: When you were talking about the coming soon, one of the biggest things I've learned in this market, how many people have had somebody question, what am I paying you to do. You can put a sign in the ground that's going to sell like this. What I've experience is by doing this front end work, I'm able to sell my value. It didn't just happen. It happened but we had a whole plan that we did. We talk about it's like a movie going to Dean's purpose. We go our purpose is that we roll out the red carpet and it's a blockbuster. Then, it cost you a lot of money. All the things we do is to make it look easy. It's like "Woo hoo, then we celebrate and go."
Dean: We had a whisper campaign. We need to get you out on the press. We need to leak. We need to get some leaks out here that this has happen. You're taking that whole ... That's the great thing. It's so cool. We're going to recruit influencers, all our friends. See how many of them we can get to post it on their Facebook page. That's really a ... When you're letting them in on the behind scenes, how you create a blockbuster. That's a going to a intriguing thing for them. Well, I could talk about multiplying listings all day but I want to talk about everything.
We use that as the highlights I think out of that. The takeaways are first of all, let's pay attention to your listing multiplier index. There's not a single reason in the world that you are listing multiplier index should not be three or better. There's no reason that it can't be. It takes a little bit of pre-planning, a little bit of commitment to doing the things that move that needle. We've got a system to help you make it all happen. Again, trying to be just what's the minimum thing that can happen. Now, this strategy session and the things that I'm talking about with the seller is one of those things that goes to what you could do.
These are going to be the things that get people into the four range and get you up at the highest level. If you're going to be on the listing multiplier Olympic team, that's what's really going to happen there. To get you at that level requires some skill. I'm happy to hear and here to help you go as faster, as far as you want to go with that. Let's do this. We'll take a quick break. Let's do 12 minutes and get back in here. Then, we'll talk about getting referrals.
There we have it. That was another long episode, a whole segment from the GoGoAgent Academy. I want to really plant that seed for you that every time you take a listing, you've got perishable opportunity to multiply that listing. You've got opportunities that will never come again. That only you have their competition proof, there are things that you get the opportunity to take advantage of because you have that listing. I hope that this has inspired you to not just hope to price it right and put it in the MLS and sell it as fast as you can. To start thinking strategically about really leveraging it.
It's like we said in the session that a lot of work to get the listing and makes sense to get as much as you can out of every listing that you get. I'm going to encourage you to really look at your listing multiplier index and see where you can raise your game there. What would it be worth to you if every time you got a listing, you had three transactions instead of one transaction. There you go. If you want to continue the conversation here, you can go to listingagentlifestyle.com. Click on the Be a Guest button and we can talk about and brainstorm some ideas for your business. You can also download a copy of the Listing Agent Lifestyle book. Then, come on over to gogoagent.com. You can get access to all the tools and all the programs, and everything that we talk about to implement the listing agent lifestyle. That's it for this week. I'll talk to you next time.