Today the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast we're talking with Craig Wallace from Long Beach, California, and what a great conversation we had!
Craig has been focused for the last few months on implementing all the things that we talked about in the Listing Agent Lifestyle
He's an active member of our GoGo community and has been running our getting listings program. The great news... he's got two listings for the work he's done, one of which he was able to double end.
He's got lots of opportunity and we talked about many of the strategies he can implement right now as he's building on the foundation he's already laying.
I think you're really going to get a lot of action items out of this episode.
Links:
GoGoAgent.com
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep050
Dean: Craig Wallace.
Craig: Dean Jackson, so nice to talk to you.
Dean: Wow, I'm excited.
Craig: Me too, thank you.
Dean: Remind me Craig where you are.
Craig: I am in Long Beach, California.
Dean: Long Beach, right, okay, I knew you were in California. Welcome, I mean this is going to be a fun call. We've got the whole hour. We're recording already.
Craig: Great.
Dean: I want to hear the Craig Wallace story. This has been pretty fast, you're an action taker. You got stuff rolling, so I want to hear everything that's been going on.
Craig: Well, I was excited. I stumbled across your system when you were on a different podcast I was listening to and it just clicked for me.
Dean: Oh perfect.
Craig: I went, signed up and then, it took a while to figure out how to get everything moving and going. I've got a farm that I've been working in for a while, like three years, four years and have had a little bit of success there, but not a lot. I'm going against a couple of entrenched agents that have been around for a long time.
Dean: That’s good. They're not going to know what hit them.
Craig: Well, maybe we should back up. I've been a real estate appraiser for over 15 years and then, I got tired of that when the market declined. I've always wanted to be an agent. Then, became an agent four years ago. That was like the next logical step for me. In my farm here in Long Beach, been working that but I just wanted something else. I knew I needed something different. Then, when I heard the podcast with you on it and I went and researched you and everything clicked.
Dean: Perfect choice.
Craig: Then, I took that and I remember you talking about oil wells and all that good stuff and I just-
Dean: Right, right.
Craig: I said, “Okay, my farm is such a high-priced area, value is about a million dollars.” Then, I said, “Okay, I need to get something in a couple different price ranges and to get some house money going.” I went and found two condo complexes kind of close by, both in different price ranges. One is between 200,000 and 350,000. Another one is between 350,000 and 500,000. Started marketing to both of those. The one complex has 217 units in there. I think I started in maybe March or April or maybe even a little after that.
Dean: Yeah, it sounds likes it isn’t even been that long
Craig: It hasn't been and then, I ended up getting response to the mailer to the cards going out. I think it might have been my second mailing. I got a guy that called and said, “Hey, I requested the packet, I don’t have it yet.” I'm like, “I haven’t put it in the mail yet.”
Dean: Oh boy.
Craig: It was within like two days, I had to make it up, get it, get it packed. I sent him everything electronically, emailed it to him. He got the package. He's like, “Great, we want to list our condo.”
Dean: That's awesome.
Craig: He was an out of town owner.
Dean: You know what's so funny is those are the things that happened, so I’ll kind of fill in the blanks here a little bit, but you're talking about you mailed the getting listings postcards that we have in GoGo Agent.
Craig: Yes.
Dean: We first started doing this, it's funny how things happened this way. You've probably been watching on the blog, we've been doing this with Diane in my office here, so we can record actually, document everything that happens. When I first started documenting this stuff, I spent a year, maybe in 2011 I think it was that we did. We spent a year running what we call the before unit and the after unit for a realtor here. We chose lakefront homes as one of area that we were going to do the Getting Listings program. We were running everything from our office. We mailed out the postcards, offering the report on lakefront house prices. This guy called up, got the report, then called, left a message on Julie's voice mail, saying, “Hey, I got your postcard, I got your package, it looks like you're serious about selling some house, we want you to come over and list our house.” Not, “We want you to come over and tell us what it's worth or talk about it.”
The invitation was, “We want you to come and list our house.” It's really amazing when you start taking that kind of proactive like informational sort of service approach to things that people will pursue you. They jump in the boat when they're ready, rather than what everybody's kind of afraid of is that they're going to fill out information and then, somebody's going to pounce on them and hound them and call them and try and get them to list their house right now. Yeah, so it's a whole different world.
I'm very excited. That happens, we just did it with Diane here in Ruby Lake. She didn't end up listing the house yet, but the guy called very early on and said, “I really like what you're doing, I want you to come over and kind of give me some advice on what we need to do.”
Craig: Yes, exactly.
Dean: Yeah, so that's awesome.
Craig: I like that it's a no-pressure and that's what appealed to me.
Dean: You went over. You listed two in there so far?
Craig: Yes, I have listed two. On that first one, their daughter had lived there. She was moving out. They bought it. It was a condo complex close to Cal State, Long Beach and so lot of parents buy units for their kids, so there's that over there. She had graduated already and stayed there for two years. She was moving back up to Central Valley. It wasn't even ready to put on the market, but I posted it on a housing blog or housing a website on Facebook for Cal State, Long Beach, got a call within a day from somebody interested in buying it.
Dean: Perfect.
Craig: I didn't even have it in the MLS. I haven't even taken pictures yet. Worked out a deal, got it into escrow.
Dean: Oh that's great, so you sold it yourself, perfect.
Craig: Yes, yes.
Dean: I like that.
Craig: Then, like a couple of weeks after that one, I get an email from somebody else that says, “The highlight was listing.” It's another lady in the complex that has a two-bedroom and wants to list that one.
Dean: That's awesome, so you went over?
Craig: That was all couple of back and forth in that, got it all done, have that on the market. It's been a little tough because of the price range that they want. We're plugging away.
Dean: Well, now you're on your way to being the specialist. You're going to be the thing or whatever.
Craig: The Park Ocean.
Dean: The Park Ocean.
Craig: They call it Park Ocean.
Dean: You're the king of Park Ocean. That's going to be great.
Craig: I spend a lot of time over there, walking around.
Dean: Yeah, well, so congratulations because that's everything now, you've gone through the mechanics of this here and you look at it now that you're already in a situation, where in Park Ocean and even in that other complex, you're playing with house money on that one now, right?
Craig: 217 in the Park Ocean complex.
Dean: 217 units in there and you've got a really great … Let's just do the math on this here right now, like if you, to do that for a whole year, it's going to be less than 2500 bucks or no, maybe a little bit more, but that's $3,000 to do the whole year for that. You already have made more than that just on these first two.
Craig: Exactly.
Dean: Yeah, congratulations, so that's exciting. Now, are you parlaying that out into expanding into other areas, like to keep that one on autopilot now?
Craig: Yes, the other complex that I'm going into that I've been mailing for the same amount of time that's 460 units over there. That's a little tougher. I've got, one, two, three, four, five … I probably got about 18 people that have replied already.
Dean: Yeah, perfect.
Craig: I'm mailing them every month. They're getting the updates and since I've started, beginning of the year has been 24 sales in that complex. There's one agent, who lives there. He's the HOA President. He seems to get a lot obviously, but he's only had five in the last year. There's another agent that's had three, so the rest are up for grabs.
Dean: That's perfect.
Craig: I know that's just going to be a matter of consistency and time.
Dean: Okay and then, what is that? That's the townhouse complex too?
Craig: Yeah that's another big complex over here.
Dean: Are there other townhouse complexes?
Craig: There are some sporadically. Long Beach is such a mix of everything, ocean front, bay front, high-rises, everything, so it's all over the map. There's some other ones I've identified and I'm keeping an eye on. I'm going to start going into some other ones because I think the turnover is faster in some of those. Rather than like my farm, it's a completely different ballgame.
Dean: Right, are there different models of the townhome in there or are they all the same or are there different floor plans?
Craig: No, they're pretty much either studios, one bedrooms or two bedrooms.
Dean: Okay, studio, one-bedroom, a two bedroom and this is the interesting thing, where it is going to be really valuable for you now is to start triangulating this. You've got right now and one thing I would recommend for you is doing a Google map with pins to show where the people are, like if you had a map of the complex kind of thing. You know that the people who've responded are in a studio or a one-bedroom or a two-bedroom or whatever. You've got this secret inventory now of these 18 people that you said have responded in that one complex and however many in the other. That's an asset that you have right now. What is going to give you a leg up on any of the other ones that are coming up is if you've got the buyers, so one of the very best things that you can do right now is to start thinking about how can I find buyers for townhouses in Long Beach or is this a particular area of Long Beach ?
Craig: That is called east Long Beach.
Dean: Okay and so when you look at that is there a collection of other townhouses you could put together as a category guide? Like if you were saying instead of depending on having a listing to find the buyers, you can always advertise for a category or a complex because that's where what's really going to help. The thing that we did with the lakefront homes here and what we do this everywhere is looking for the buyers without depending on having the listings. If you're running ads, looking for people who are looking for townhouses and they're opting in for your guide to the two townhouses, it gives people overviews on the different townhouse complexes and the different things, the number of units and basic information that people who would be considering or looking for townhouses would love to know, amenities, all of that kind of stuff. That you don't have to have a listing to advertise something like that. That's going to be a big advantage for you. While we were doing the lakefront listing program, we're mailing, finding all these people of lakefront homes, who want to sell their homes, we were also running in Homes & Land Magazine and online, looking for offering the guide to Winter Haven lakefront house prices.
That was a big win because we would be able to find people, who were looking for lakefront homes before we even had listings. That gives you a big advantage now in going back to those townhouse people. If you show somebody, for instance that Park Ocean townhouse complex, if you show them that they decide, “Oh Park Ocean that looks like a nice one.” You know that there are three for sale in there right now, but you also have 18 people who raised their hand that they may be the next ones to put their house on the market. You're able to reach out to them and say, “Hey, I'm showing townhouses this week.” Now, you're really solidifying your position in their mind as the Park Ocean specialist.
Craig: Yeah, I think the thing that's good is it's very close to the university, it's close to the VA Hospital. That's the draw. Both of these complexes that I'm mailing to, parents buy them for their kids because they don't want to pay … I mean they're paying rent, they're like, “Why am I paying so much in rent? I could own something.”
Dean: Maybe that's the kind of thing that the student… You've got a market that's unique to, not every area has like college market type of thing for it. That could be a target market that you could attract as well.
Craig: Yes, I like that idea. I'm going to put together the guide to condos and houses over here. The one thing I wanted to ask you about is now-
Dean: Sure.
Craig: … I'm getting traction on this. Then, I know you've talked with like, I've listened so many times with, you talk about all that and I know it's just a matter of time. In my first farm, the one where I live and market to, there’s, call it 800 homes.
Dean: Okay, yeah.
Craig: Yeah, so there's 800 homes and like I said, the price range is about a million dollars. I had last 35 sales year-to-date in there. I had one off market that never even went to MLS and that range. Out of the 35, the one agent who has been here a while, she's got six. Another guy's got four and then, two and then, it just splits from there. I've kind of broke it down too and tell me this is wrong, I was thinking, “Okay, I'm mailing to everybody that's bought since up to the year 2000 because they got some equities.” I'm not mailing everybody.
Dean: Why not?
Craig: It's a good question. I don't know why.
Dean: Like of the 35 sales last year, how many would you have missed by mailing to who you're only mailing to?
Craig: The light bulb just went off when you said that. That's the only stat I haven't looked at.
Dean: Right, okay, interesting.
Craig: Yeah, I've looked at everything else. I've analyzed them all, but I haven't looked and see which ones fall into that category. It's a good question. Yeah, I need to go back and look at that.
Dean: Listen, my neighbor … I had a guy … I'll tell you what, I live in a really nice neighborhood in here. The guy, the house right across the street from me, sold, this was less than two years ago. The house sold. The guy put a bunch of money, did up all nice and then, he sold it again and it's gone. He made millions of dollars with Bitcoin and sold his house and bought a beach house.
Craig: Got you.
Dean: You never know what's happening. These people, I wouldn't say that equity is never like, you can't kind of rule people out or prognosticate what's actually going to happen because you never know. I mean even though real estate, because you're trying to hedge the market there, I'd say when you're trying to dominate long term a market, you go 100% into it.
Craig: Got you.
Dean: How many have you been mailing the getting listings postcards into this area as well or are you mailing something else, what?
Craig: Yes, I’ve been mailing in there and out of that I've got, let me switch screens here, hold on a second, two, three, four.
Dean: Were you mailing stuff in there before you came with us through though GoGo Agent or-
Craig: I've got eight responses from people there. No, I wasn't mailing. I was doing the typical stuff. I was door knocking. I was just doing dropping some stuff and then, I also do every year, I do it. I sponsor a community cleanup, where I buy a big dumpster. On a Saturday and everybody comes and cleans up their garages and whatnot. I'm out and always out talking and doing that. It wasn't a planned attack.
Dean: Okay, right, so now we've got sort of a planned attack. How many times have you mailed in there so far? How long have you been doing this?
Craig: I've been mailing in there since April.
Dean: Okay and so, look at this. We've got this asset now of eight responses and how many of the 800 are you mailing to?
Craig: I think it's three 307 to 325.
Dean: Okay, so yeah, I wouldn't rule those other people out. I’d take the whole neighborhood. Do it like that. Is it a named community, is it gated community, oh yeah.
Craig: It's a named neighborhood, Alamitos Heights.
Dean: Alamitos Heights, okay and has it got a front entrance?
Craig: No, it's just a neighborhood section within Long Beach.
Dean: Okay, is there any more?
Craig: It got some boundaries, I mean it's everybody knows the boundaries of where it's at, Pacific Coast Highway.
Dean: Is there nowhere with a sign that says Alamitos Heights?
Craig: No.
Dean: No, okay and is there any recognizable icon in like that's my neighborhood or I live there.
Craig: People know that there's one of the parks Marina Vista Park and the Colorado Lagoon, so they know it's right there. Those are kind of the two things.
Dean: Part of the thing, what we have been doing to amplify things like this is we've been doing in addition to the mailings, really micro targeted Facebook campaigns. We can target in just to the 800 homes in Alamitos Heights and exclude everything else. Now, you've got this digital way to do this. We've been with Diane in the ones we were doing in Lake Ashton and Cypresswood and Ruby Lake. I don't know whether you saw on the GoGo Agent blog the videos that we did with Diane standing out front of the gate.
Craig: Yes, I did see that yes.
Dean: Yeah, so those have been a nice amplifier. The last two months, we've done those and we target, we time the video to run that when the postcards are arriving. She's standing out front and saying, “Hi it's Diane reporting live from Lake Ashton and you probably by now you've seen this postcard arrive in your mailbox or this sign through your newsfeed,” talking about how you can get this report. She's holding up the report that she's offering on the Lake Ashton house prices. Then, she gives them a quick summary of what's been happening and to just click the Learn More button to get the report. It's been an amplifier and the funny thing is she's doing two neighborhoods or three neighborhoods, but two big ones, Lake Ashton and Cypresswood, which are both golf course communities. One is an active adult community.
She went over yesterday to see the developer at Lake Ashton, they're building out. Still, there are some new homes available that you can still buy in that area, so they want to close that out. She was over there, getting all the information on that. They're very receptive. I mean all you have to do is they want you to help them. They want the realtors to help them. All you have to do is introduce somebody and you get 3% just for registering them. They take it from there. They do all the stuff. She went over to see him, went on the tour, saw all the models and they've got some in process or you could build custom.
She walks in and he happens to live in Cypresswood. She walks in and he's like, “You look familiar.” Then, this thing and he goes, “You're the girl with the videos from Cypresswood.” She's done that two months in a row, but now she's the girl with the video, Cypresswood.
Craig: To give it a little bit more credibility, she's known now and then, people have seen this in their mailbox with the girl.
Dean: Yes and so now, you've got that opportunity too to add some dimension to what you're doing. I would immediately do exactly that for you when your postcards are arriving next. My prescription for you would be don't try and just cherry-pick the ones in there.
Craig: Got you.
Dean: Go with everybody. Then, let's do a video like that, like even if you're walking. You live in there too, you said?
Craig: Oh yes.
Dean: Okay, so there's the thing, maybe you're even doing that. What's like the neighborhood vibe in there?
Craig: Lot of families.
Dean: Lot of families, is there you have sidewalks and stuff, you could walk down-
Craig: Sidewalks, trees, golf course at one end, little public golf course and then, the park at the other end, a marine stadium.
Dean: Perfect.
Craig: And what not.
Dean: There you go, so if you're walking, even if you did a little walk and talk through the thing and you're saying, “This is Craig Wallace reporting live from Alamitos Heights and here's … Same model, same exact script that we did.
Craig: Sure.
Dean: Now that adds some depth to your this is Craig Wallace. Now, it adds some depth to that. Now, you're a real person.
Craig: Yes, I'm a video guy, so I've already done videos before. I'm not afraid of getting it front of the camera.
Dean: It's so cheap. I mean that's the thing. If you're good at it, like Diane is really good. I was shocked actually at how good it was. No, I mean she's very personable, what I mean, it was like full-on news reporter kind of like really good, totally comfortable in front of the camera and just talking to you. I think you probably have that same capability.
Craig: Now, tale ending on to that too is I'm seeing because the appraiser side of me is more of the pessimistic side than the realtor side. I'm seeing a shift in the market.
Dean: Sure, da da da.
Craig: Yes, I run my graphs. When I send out my reports to everybody, I'm a big believer in graphs. I've done them for years. I graph all the way back to like 2000 and I showed the ups and the downs. People can see and they're like, “Wow that really shows me where we're at.” We're leveling out, we're going down the other side. We've peaked and so, we're shifting, things are taking longer. I want to kind of get ready for that. How can I parlay everything, all the tools to really, is it just keep consistent with what we do?
Dean: Yeah, keep consistent because there's never a period even when the bottom falls out, there's never a period, where no houses are selling.
Craig: True.
Dean: The market always survives, the market always shifts. What was really interesting is when the bottom falls out, I had one of the greatest successes that we've ever had when in 2009. When Obama came into office right after his inauguration, the first thing they did was they created this tax credit for homebuyers. I created this whole program around the tax credit. We were advertising this tax credit guide and had a whole system for finding people, who were interested in getting free money from the government to buy a house. The other thing that we did at that time was bank owned weekly that there were so many bank owned homes coming on that we would run ads that were totally focused on finding buyers, who want bank owned homes because that's where they felt they could get deals. Don't ever worry about what's coming because there's always going to be a way. Even if prices fall again, it's like a second chance for people, For some buyers, it's now a chance for them to get back in the market. I mean I know in Long Beach, they're probably people who would love to get in the market, but things have just gotten out of your hand.
Craig: Yes, a lot of people.
Dean: If the houses ever go on sale again, then they will buy them up. Don't ever worry about that. There’s always going to be a market.
Craig: It sounds like really focus on maybe creating an Alamitos Heights buyer's guide or-
Dean: Yes.
Craig: … or something and then, doing that and talking about the different homes and whatnot, why it's so great to live here and have all that ready to go or maybe branch that out to a little wider audience, maybe Long Beach in general.
Dean: Well, I think you want to niche. The best way to think about your market is to start taking this CAT-scan perspective, where you're chopping up the map of Long Beach into its different parts. If you're saying, “These are all the townhouses, these are the oceanfront homes or ocean view home …” Do you have ocean view homes? I don't know where Long Beach is flat or …
Craig: Oh yeah, there’s her homes on the peninsula that face the ocean. There's homes that face Alamitos Bay. There's Naples Island. It's such a mix, yeah.
Dean: Are the ocean view homes a really popular thing?
Craig: Actually, people like to be more on the bay side than the ocean side. They like to be on the bay side because the wind blows and it blows all the sand and they can't open the windows.
Dean: It's good to know. Did you see the concepts that we've been using for like the ultra-high-end markets, where like the Cape Anne oceanfront and the South Beach oceanfront, where on the blog in the members area in GoGgo Agent, we have that ad format of … If you're looking for an amazing oceanfront condo in South Beach, read this with the big iconic picture of the ocean view. We did the same thing, oceanfront in Cape Anne and view homes in Paradise Valley. If I were looking for like going all the way to the kind of end of the bell curve for you with the price range, as I imagine that those are probably some of the highest priced homes.
Craig: Yes.
Dean: I think if you start to say, even if you're starting with the buyers, if you're looking at an opportunity to go with find buyers for those oceanfront or bay view homes that would be a great win for you. Then, at the same time, hand selecting. It's funny actually, the episode of the Listing Agent Lifestyle that's going up either I think right before we talked about selecting the homes that have mountain views, we were talking about in Colorado Springs. The same kind of thing, where if you take the time to just kind of look and on the map, identify which are the homes that have the ocean for one, bay for the other views or bay front, I mean do you have homes on the bay as well?
Craig: Yes.
Dean: You start to think about those kind of things and you hand build those lists that you've got … If you have this now approach of doing the Getting Listings program on just the bay front homes or the bay view homes, now you're totally triangulating. I look at this as like you're slowly building and everything is building on top of each other. We're never like moving from one thing to the next. It's like moving next in addition to that. Like you started out in the right thing because those townhouses that seems like the place for that first-time buyers could afford or that this student housing could be. You've got two different types of buyers to find that's going to support your townhouse listing area. The same thing, all we're looking for is doing that same thing with Alamitos Heights and with now the bay view homes or bay FRONT or ocean view or oceanfront or are there golf course communities like houses on golf courses?
Craig: No, there's a couple-
Dean: No.
Craig: …of public courses here, but they just might back up to it or something, but it's not really a … It's more broken into because it's such a large city that it's just different, all the different neighborhoods. Alamitos Heights, etc.
Dean: That’s the thing.
Craig: Belmont Heights, it's just different school districts.
Dean: Yeah, so you start mapping out all of those. You start to see where those people are. You've also then got the opportunity to do any other type of market segmentation. Condos could be another one. Do you have condos in the market too?
Craig: Yeah, they're mixed in all over. There's different complexes spread throughout of all different.
Dean: Are there luxury condos?
Craig: There's a Long Ocean Boulevard, heading to downtown there's high-rises that are in there that are hundreds of units, going up 30 floors.
Dean: That's perfect, so those kinds of things when you start to really look at this, you've got the algorithm. You know the model now. You're learning it and you are seeing it play out in the townhouses. Now, you're just taking that same model and replicating it for the different target audiences.
Craig: Yeah that was my… Go ahead.
Dean: No, you go ahead.
Craig: My thought process always was to get some different oil wells going at different price points because which ones are turning over more quickly versus the ones like my farm. That's the long-term play in my farm. I know that's not going to pop right away. That's going to be a year or more down the road.
Dean: I that the middle of the market in your area, like if you were to look at the bell curve of all the sales prices distributed in Long Beach, where would a million dollars fall on the bell curve?
Craig: Pretty much in the average in the east side, so to east side, Belmont Heights and what not. When you get to Naples Island, you're a million three and up because of you're on the island and easy to go up to 6 million, but over here in the surrounding neighborhoods, Belmont Shore, Belmont Heights, Belmont Park, Alamitos Heights, you're anywhere from a fixer at 850,000 up to the high of a million seven, which is an ultra-fixed up redone house.
Dean: Nice.
Craig: It's kind of in the middle that's the range throughout, there.
Dean: That might be a place, where the person in the townhouse might be moving up to that maybe they started out in the townhouse and then, they're moving up to a detached house in this area.
Craig: Yes.
Dean: Good, so I'm a hundred percent confident, we don't need to invent anything. We've already done it. We've been proven this model for 12 years. You're in the right system, doing it and I'd say to continue doing that but if we go down and look at the other elements here of the Listing Agent Lifestyle, we would go and talk about your listing multiplier index and getting multiple transactions from each of the listings that you take. How is that going? Would you say you're more of a listing agent or a buyer agent?
Craig: I think in the past, it was just a little combination of both, but now after following the program and listening for so long, like when I got that first listening in the Park Ocean complex, I instantly was thinking, “Okay, where can I get the buyer for this and how can I get my multiplier up?” When I got the buyer for it, I was really excited. I'm like, “Okay, I'm starting from, all my stats now from when I started GoGo Agent.” If I looked at that maybe I'm a two.
Dean: Because you double ended, that’s good.
Craig: Yeah because I’ve only had one, so I'm two right now and I'm kind of excited and maybe I'm trying to find the other one to consistently hit two and hopefully make that into a three.
Dean: That's awesome. Then, let's talk about the one that you've got on the market right now then.
Craig: Okay.
Dean: Do you have your instant open house set up with that?
Craig: On the website, no, I don't have an instant open house website. I can't put a sign out front because it's a complex. It's really just advertising on maybe Facebook or through the MLS. Tough to do an open house because there's no parking out front, so it makes it very difficult that way to drive traffic. I'm having difficulty with the seller on the price.
Dean: I got you. Well, this is really an interesting thing that the … One thing that we're experimenting with might be a good test for you is since you can't use the a sign, you can micro-target. Again, we've been doing some really cool things with Facebook right now. This is kind of some innovation stuff here is if you … This Park Ocean townhouse complex, I imagine because it's a complex, it has a sign and an entrance to it.
Craig: Yeah, there’s a main entry to it and it's yeah.
Dean: Okay, so and is it on a fairly traveled road?
Craig: Oh, it's on Pacific Coast Highway, very busy.
Dean: Okay, so here's the thing then is that … Here's how you can have a digital sign without having a sign is we can set up a micro target area zone, a ring-fence kind of around this complex and across that street. We get in that thing there and then, one of the targeting options that we've been using is people, who are passing through that area, so if somebody comes into or like you can target people who just people who live there, which I would also recommend. That's what we've been doing with the … That's where you would do the video and that's where you would do the online stuff. You could do a Park Ocean report video that would only be shown to the people who live in Park Ocean. Then, the other targeting thing that we use is people, who are in that area, so anybody who drives through that area there, you have the equivalent of a sign. We would use the instant open house model for that of showing them.
Craig: Oh, I see what you're saying.
Dean: Right, so you can't have the sign, but it shows up on their newsfeed because our phones, this is what's so like the evil and wonderful about Facebook is that they track you because they get everybody to download the app and messenger and that's so they know where you are at all times. As soon as you pass through that it's constantly pushing data back and forth. It knows where you are. If you as you pass through that area, you become an audience now for this app that it can show the app specifically to as if you're showing it to everybody the drives by the complex.
Craig: Is that something in their ad manager settings, just setting up, so when somebody drives through or is it just automatically do it or do I have to put like a retargeting code in there or something or I mean I know-
Dean: It's not a retargeting code. It's part of their thing. We can do the whole thing for you. It's easier for that.
Craig: Probably, yeah, yeah.
Dean: I've been advocate for you to not do anything, should never be asking the question how, just be asking the question-
Craig: Who?
Dean: … who can do that, right? We can do it, so don't worry about that. What you need to be pursuing and be paying attention to that's why we do the GoGo Agent calls and we got the forum and stuff. We're just making you aware of what is possible, what is the thing you're-
Craig: Got it.
Dean: … looking for. You say, “I want to do that.” You understand immediately that the value of that of being able to have a sign in a place, where you can't have a sign by the picture of the building showing up in somebody's newsfeed as they're driving by because there's going to be some, greater than zero number of people, who drive by that complex and say, “I'd love to live in there, I wonder if there's anything for sale in there.”
Craig: Yes.
Dean: Here it is, so now that's what I'm saying is so we follow this approach sometimes on things like that that sometimes the best way to sell a horse is with the sign that says, “Horse for sale.” If you've got a horse for sale, you've got a Park Ocean townhouse, if they're driving by and wondering, if in there and here comes this ad in their newsfeed, “Park Ocean town house for sale.”
Craig: Got you.
Dean: Right that's how the whole thing-
Craig: Okay, so Diane can help me with that?
Dean: Yep.
Craig: I'm in, sold.
Dean: Yes, exactly. That's the whole thing, that's funny, but that's the kind of thinking that you want to have now, of thinking just, “I don't need to get bogged down into how do I do that,” because it's like writing a blank check with your time that you don't even know how long it's going to take that figure something like that out. It's better to use some money to have it done.
Craig: I'm in, sold.
Dean: Okay, now, since that's your only listing right now?
Craig: Yes.
Dean: Okay, so that's going to be a way now. The other thing is have you done or do you do any open house on that?
Craig: I do periodically, like I was saying, it's kind of difficult because there's just limited parking and parking on the front. Then if, they got to park across the street, they're running across four lanes of busy traffic. It's not the greatest you know.
Dean: Part of the thing, what you might want to look at is doing, schedule things. If you're saying that's why when we get people to, I would do in that sign in that thing, offering a daily tour of Park Ocean townhouses. Are there other townhouses for sale in there?
Craig: Right now, there's two others, yes, a studio and a one-bedroom, yeah.
Dean: Right, so I would look at that and see, since you're doing that geo-targeting ad that there's an opportunity there that you're going to be finding people, who are looking and interested in townhouses and to have somebody, just offer it out there, the daily tour of Park Ocean townhouse and then, we've got it set up. We have one of the landing pages in your landing page area that's the tour of homes. You can put the big picture of the Park Ocean complex in there and the daily tour with the drop-down menu, so people can pick the day and the time. It's not scheduling anything on your calendar. It's somebody filling in a form, you'll get notified by email right away when it happens or by text. You can connect with them and it's like making an appointment, but having this tour of poems sounds less threatening, right?
Craig: Yes.
Dean: It sounds like it's already happening.
Craig: Yeah, if I had something every day between 5:00 and 6:00, where we have a tour set up of this is.
Dean: It doesn't matter. This is part of the thing is like you don't have to do anything unless and until-
Craig: Right, until you get somebody.
Dean: Where somebody signs up. That's the thing, you just say the daily tour if you can say whatever times because is there anything… When you look at the priority of things that you could be doing with your time, how do you prioritize that? What do you prioritize as the highest value thing that Craig Wallace could be doing with his time?
Craig: Oh my gosh, when you say it that way, I mean to me it's doing things that are going to make sales.
Dean: Okay, but here's the thing, let's look at it, let’s itemize it. The most valuable thing that you could do is be negotiating a contract.
Craig: Right.
Dean: Right with somebody who wants to buy a house, you're working on negotiating actively a contract to get them that house, right?
Craig: Yes.
Dean: The next thing would be sitting down and talking with somebody, who's about to list their house.
Craig: Yes.
Dean: Getting the listing would be the highest value thing that you could do after that. The next thing would be the precursor to making an offer is being on tour with somebody who's looking for a house to buy.
Craig: Right, getting the buyers and showing them around, yes.
Dean: Yeah that's the thing, right, so actually showing a buyer, having a buyer in your car or at your side, opening the door to tour a house that they could potentially buy today. Those are the big three. There's nothing higher than those three. Those are the only three moneymakers. Everything else is either in support of or to setup those three things.
Craig: Right, everything else makes you think you're really busy.
Dean: Exactly, so that's why when I say to people, you put out this idea that when we say that people are… I want to make sure that people understand the concept of offering a daily tour of homes is not saying that you're going to be sitting there every day at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock or 10 o'clock and 1 o'clock or whatever. You're basically saying, if somebody called you and said, “Can you show me that townhouse tomorrow?” You would move things around. Everything else in your schedule is movable aside from your family things or the things that you value even higher than negotiating contracts and getting listings. If you have some non-negotiable things that are family first, then that makes it easy for you. In your business activities, can you think of a higher value business activity than-
Craig: No.
Dean: … negotiating a contract, sitting on a listing appointment or showing a buyer a house that they might buy today?
Craig: That's the whole point of GoGo Agent is to do those three activities.
Dean: That's exactly right. Everything else literally can be done by somebody else or can be done by you after those other three things. Your whole goal is to get yourself only doing those three things.
Craig: I'm ready.
Dean: There we go.
Craig: As we're sitting here talking, I just sent Diane an email.
Dean: That’s so funny. I love it.
Craig: I said, “How can we do this, I need to set up a Facebook ad, let's go.”
Dean: Right, so because if we go through, you're getting listings, you're locked in I'm sure of that. The listing multipliers were on our way. Then, getting referrals is the third thing here. What's happening with your top 150?
Craig: I have a 148 or pretty close.
Dean: Good for you.
Craig: Those go out religiously. It goes out within the second week of every month.
Dean: Okay, so you're already up and going, so they're getting the world's most interesting postcard every month.
Craig: Yeah, those go out consistently.
Dean: Good for you.
Craig: That's my most consistent thing I've done. That was the first thing I did.
Dean: Perfect and it's the easiest thing to get going, exactly.
Craig: I wish it would be even set up easier to where Prospects Plus would just send it out for me automatically every month.
Dean: You know what that's actually coming. That's what they've been working on in very diligently to roll out for the New Year that we can schedule the whole thing, so you don't have to do anything. It'll just happen automatically, which is great.
Craig: Okay, yeah. The only thing is every month, I do sit down, I update the new postcard that's going out, boom, off it goes.
Dean: That’s it.
Craig: Don’t even thing. It takes me 10 minutes now.
Dean: That's exactly right, perfect. What's been happening with that? Have you focused on your after unit and your referrals in your business over the last three or four years, like is that a pillar of your business or is this kind of a new approach?
Craig: It hasn’t, I've gotten some referrals. It hasn't been a big pillar. It's something that I know in the last six months, this whole system forced me to reanalyze everything and that's the area that needs, like an untapped potential and I know that's one of the bigger ones that can be very profitable.
Dean: That's cool, like did you set up? What I would look for if I were kind of like analyzing your business here to go to look forward is I'd be looking at calculating your return on relationship. If we look at in the twelve months, if we take this prior to you sending out the world's most interesting postcard and getting your top 150 together, in the 12 months previous to that how many repeat and referral transactions did you do in that 12-month period?
Craig: One repeat and one referral that gave me that off-market property that was … Or a client that we ended up getting that property for and that was a 1.45 million.
Dean: You had a nice monetary out come in your after unit, but just lower volume; two out of 150 is less than a 1% return on relationship. What we're looking for is to get you into a situation, where we can get a 20% return on relationship. That's where are like the top people. When you start looking at some of these things like Chuck Charlton and looking at the percentage of the referrals, we're looking to get you up on that. I'm excited. Have you gotten any referrals yet from your top 150 since you've been doing it or are they noticing it?
Craig: No, yeah, I haven't gotten anything yet. A couple of weeks after listening to one of your other shows, I kind of like reached out to a few friends, I'm like, “Are you getting my postcard?” I just wanted to make sure it was actually going up and they said, “Oh yes, yeah, we are.”
Dean: Awesome.
Craig: I talked to one other person and he's like, “Oh yeah, read all the time.”
Dean: That's great, so that's a lock. Then, you're on autopilot here and that's going to kick in for you and make an impact. That's really like the lowest cost, highest yield way that you can improve your business. I'm excited about that. That way, you get this whole opportunity. We've done the Google map layer, dropping a pin on all of your top 150.
Craig: Not on my top 150, I did it for my farm. No, I haven't done it for my top 150.
Dean: Okay and that's another good layer to have because that allows you to do market-maker Monday stuff, where you start to think every week, who are you showing, what's going on, who is affected this week or who could you reach out to and identify them on the map really quickly.
Craig: Right that's a good point. I didn't do that. I was trying to think, “What else is there with the top 150 to do to get them to give them that nudge?” I was putting it on the map and then, sending them to market maker.
Dean: Yes, got to focus.
Craig: Okay, good.
Dean: This is all very exciting.
Craig: I'm excited.
Dean: Yeah, this is all very exciting, you got to-
Craig: I have another good friend of mine, an agent that's coming over next week and he wants to sit down and I'm going to show him the whole system and he's excited.
Dean: Oh great, cool. Well, we're building a really cool community, happy to have you as part of it.
Craig: I hope to get out there for the event in February.
Dean: That would be awesome, yeah, February 22nd, 23rd. Yeah, it's going to be great. Time is flying by, would be awesome to have you. That's where it's cool where you get to meet the other guys, meet other people, who are doing all the stuff. I say guys, meaning peeps.
Craig: Exactly everybody.
Dean: All the other peeps, yeah, yeah everybody. I'm very excited about that. Awesome, well.
Craig: Well, I'm excited. I'm glad we got to talk.
Dean: Yeah, so what’s your takeaway here?
Craig: My takeaway is the micro targeting right now and doing that with the video for both things, like since I can't do much of the open house stuff, but having that ad set up for the Park Ocean and then, doing it from my other farm, like here we are and really micro target that. Those are the two things that I want to do immediately.
Dean: Yes, I love it, very cool. All right my friend-
Craig: Thank you.
Dean: Well, I'm glad, I'll probably go into the office, Diane will tell me, “I just got an email from Craig.” That's funny. That's awesome.
Craig: Exactly. All right Dean, thank you so much.
Dean: Okay, I'll talk to you soon, thanks Greg.
Craig: Bye bye.
Dean: Bye.
There we have it, another great episode, so many action items there. I mean so many things that Craig’s got underway. He's already focused on an active part of the market in the town houses. He's having success right there. He's anchored in the middle part of his market and then, the strategies that we talked about for approaching the high end of this market I think are really going to give him a well-rounded approach to Long Beach. I think that's going to make a big impact there. Then, the opportunity really in his after unit of getting referrals with the people, who already know him and like him that's really a big opportunity that's going to blossom over the next coming months here as he starts seeing the results from being in contact with people and programming them to send referrals. That's really what the joy of the world's most interesting postcard is is that each month, we're programming your clients to notice conversations about real estate, to think about you and introduce you to the people that they're having those conversations with. I'm anxious to see the impact that this can have on Craig's business over the next year.
Love for you to come, be a part of what we've got going on at gogoagent.com. You can come on over and take a free trial, 30 days, come on in, no credit card required. You get to see everything, meet everybody, try things, get to download and set up some landing pages. We can walk you through whatever the need that you're focused on for your business right now in implementing this Listing Agent Lifestyle approach for you.
That's it for this week. Come on over to gogoagent.com. If you want to download a copy of the Listing Agent Lifestyle book, you can go to listingagentlifestyle.com. If you'd like to be a guest on the show, click on the “Be a guest,” link. Tell me a little bit about your business and maybe we can get together and brainstorm a plan for you. That's it for this week. Have a great week. I'll talk to you next time.