Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast we're talking with Miguel Mendez from Colorado.
You've heard me talking about choosing categories, target markets like lakefront homes, townhouses or ocean front condos, something you can use to find buyers without having to have any listings.
It's a subtle change, but it's something that once you really grasp the magic of it, allows you to create a great way to enter a new market even if you don't have any listings yet.
If you can start building a supply of potential buyers, a portfolio of people who are looking for lakefront homes or ocean front homes, you're a long way ahead of your competitors.
When you go and talk to someone about selling their house, you've got an opportunity now to say "I started looking for the buyer for your house 180 days ago". You can show them the type of marketing you've been doing and the list of people you've already generated. People looking for a home just like theirs.
So keep that in mind as you listen in to this conversation with Miguel.
Links:
GoGoAgent.com
Be a Guest
Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep054
Dean: Miguel Mendez from Colorado.
Miguel: Oh my, oh my, how are you Dean?
Dean: I'm good. Is this Miguel Mendez?
Miguel: This is Miguel Mendez.
Dean: The Miguel Mendez?
Miguel: The one and only in this Starbucks right now.
Dean: I was just going to say, “Are you in a train station or is there somewhere quieter you could be or are we there?”
Miguel: This is about the quietest place I can be at the moment. Is it pretty loud on the other end?
Dean: It is a little bit, yeah, but that's okay. I mean we'll deal with it. Can you hear me?
Miguel: Yeah, I can hear you just fine.
Dean: Okay, perfect, so you're in Colorado?
Miguel: I'm in Colorado. I'm in Colorado Springs, which is about an hour 15 minutes south of Denver.
Dean: I know all about it, perfect. I'm excited we got the whole hour here to kind of hatch some evil schemes for you. I love to hear the whole, the origin story here, the Miguel Mendez story, what's been going on and where we are and what we can focus on with you.
Miguel: Okay, origin story, let me see if I can wrap this up pretty quickly for you. I started my first business when I was 18 actually, back in 2008, back before I had the ability to comprehend what a recession was and struggled with that for a little bit. I mean I got it up and running and got to a point, where I had multiple commercial clients, doing like building maintenance. I had nine people working for me. Then, after growing that, moving forward with that I decided like it wasn't a business that really fit my personality. Yeah, so I kind of bounced around, tried different businesses, tried different things with online marketing, tried working with a tech company for a little while. Then, I was actually working for another company, doing water damage, fire damage, restoration when I met somebody in real estate. They convinced me to come over. I got my license a little bit ago and actually just started in June I believe, June or July, I think this July.
Dean: Oh awesome, just getting going. That’s awesome.
Miguel: Yeah, so I've been at this for just a little bit. It's been an interesting road because the beginning of the year, I got in a pretty bad car accident, so got messed up, kind of got hurt. I had to take a job to help pay my medical bills and all that.
Dean: Oh boy.
Miguel: Cracking away at it, seeing things work and it's exciting. It's really cool to see everything that's been going on.
Dean: Well that's awesome, so how did we get connected then? How did you come into our world here?
Miguel: A while ago, I think I came across I Love Marketing. Part of what I did for a while was carpet cleaning.
Dean: Oh nice, okay, so Joe, yeah.
Miguel: Yeah, so I've gotten involved with Joe's program and that's one thing that really helped me to get that first business up and moving. Then, as soon as I started get into real estate, I was just like, “Okay, I know exactly where to go to from the get go.”
Dean: I see. That's great. I love it. Well, so tell me what's been happening so far then? What have you implemented? You’re coming into it from carpet cleaning and having exposure to I Love Marketing and the Joe Polish. I know about direct response and I know you've been with us now, getting everything rolling, so what's been your action plan and what's worked so far? What are you on track with?
Miguel: Yeah, absolutely, so to kind of give you a background, Colorado Springs is a very fast-growing city right now, us and Denver both growing pretty rapidly. There's been a number of others, Colorado Springs has been like the number one city to move to in the country. I mean it's been great for expansion. It's been a really crazy, competitive market as far as real estate. Last time I checked, I think we're somewhere north of 4,000 agents in our state-
Dean: Wow.
Miguel: … and we've got 3,700 listings that we've been carrying the past few years. It was July and August rather this year that was actually the slowest year for the industry for real estate sales in the past like three or four years. I got started right as the market starts to level out, so that's kind of where I was at heading in. Right now, I've got my World's Most Interesting Postcard going out. I've got about 100 names on that and I'm adding to it every month. I implemented the instant open house on two different listings that were my brokers. I've started doing the Getting Listings, but I don't exactly have the money to do they mail us right now, so I converted it to a door hanger. I got that going, so between the door hangers and doing the Facebook ads, I've got 32 fish in my pond as they say.
Dean: Yes, right, right, I like that. Yeah, so good for you. I mean that's on average that's, so June, July, August, September, so you're averaging eight or 10 a month on that. That's good.
Miguel: Yeah, actually I just started the Facebook I think at the beginning of this month. The first month was just like getting up and running, getting my website set up. The first thing I wanted to do was get the World's Most Interesting Postcard. I mean the response has been more because the first month I didn't actually get any new contacts in the system. I mean it's just been really cool to see just like being able to set up the ads, put out the door hangers or whatever it is and then, at the end of the day, just check the system and see the new names.
Dean: It's so much nicer, isn't it? That's what I say to people once you get like a taste of being able to send out postcards, go sit in Starbucks and brainstorm and for an hour and then, go back to the office and see that people have responded to something that you've done without you having to go out and do the manual prospecting and all that kind of stuff. It's so refreshing, right?
Miguel: It really is. I love the World's Most Interesting Postcard because of it because I've been sending that out for about three months now and every month, I hear from somebody just like, “Hey, I got your card,” or people who just love the card.
Dean: See, there's part of the thing like, well that's one of the first things that we look at establishing for people like on a track like that because the first thing is you got to establish where you're going to get listings. If we go straight down the Listing Agent Lifestyle element of getting listings, what you do Miguel, you got to tell those people to be quiet, tell them, just say, “Listen, I'm recording a podcast here.” So disrespectful of them.
Miguel: I’ll make sure to scream at them for sure.
Dean: Yeah, you may have to go into the bathroom stall for us.
Miguel: I could pop out of here. I just won’t have access to my computer, so I'll just have to tell you things from memory if that's all right with you Dean.
Dean: Okay, no problem. It was getting a little bit loud there. Yeah, you're doing all the right moves here. The first thing that we try and get people to establish is what's the area that we're going to have a long term approach to get involved in listings. That's the first step. What area did you choose that you've been focused on with your doors hangings and with the Facebook ads?
Miguel: The area I'm focusing on is called North Wind.
Dean: Okay and so how many homes are in North Wind?
Miguel: It's about 650.
Dean: Okay and so you've got that going for you now in that you know 32 of the people in North Wind are a higher likelihood than the general population to sell their house in the next 12 months, 24 months. You've got that going for you. Have you set up your pin layer map yet, like you can export the data from your GoGoAgent CRM and you can create a Google map layer that drops a pin, where the respondents are, so you know these people are the ones who have raised their hand.
Miguel: Right, so the Google map pins that's something that I haven't done just yet. I've been kind of looking into it. The other thing is since I'm still just getting started, I don't have any buyers on the other side just yet, at least that are ready to go. I didn’t just have any chance to really look at it just yet.
Dean: I got you. That's going to be now a … We start layering all of this stuff on there. You've gone through the most difficult part of getting something going like this is you've chosen the area. You set up your postcard. You formatted your door hangers. You've got the landing page. You've got all of the initial package, including the book and you've got the newsletters and the cover letters. You've got all that stuff prepared. Now, running it takes very little effort to keep it in orbit. You went through the most difficult part of getting everything going, which was all the set up stuff. Now, it'll be a really interesting thing to just watch it expand and keep that going.
Miguel: Yeah, I think so. It's been again just cool to see, just to see the way that it works and be able to kind of hang back and just watch the system do the work for me.
Dean: Now, have you had anybody reach out to you yet from who's responded, whether they were asking a question or asking about a room-by-room review or a pinpoint price analysis or whatever?
Miguel: From the Getting Listings?
Dean: Yes.
Miguel: Not yet.
Dean: Okay and so that's good that everything's percolating here. That's kind of the good thing. Now, what's going to be a nice thing to start layering on top of this is to start thinking about how we can find buyers for those homes without having to have listings. Now, tell me about North Wind. What types of homes are there for that 650?
Miguel: For that one, it's mostly just single family homes, detached. Right now, it's right under the bell curve for the market, like the middle. That's one thing that at some point, I know you had mentioned because there was another community that I targeted first. I was just kind of curious because that first time I got going, the first time I got moving, the response seems so low to begin with. I wasn't sure what it was. I actually tested North Wind first with Facebook ads and that responded really well. As I've been doing the door hangers there, it started moving even more. I don't know what it was about the first community. I'm still putting door hangers. I'm still doing Facebook ads there, but as far as I can tell, the other community, what was it called? That one was Newport Heights. Newport Heights, I think it was just more of a competitive area. There are a lot of other realtors in there. I see a bunch of signs. I saw cards and other door hangers. I'm not going to give up on it because I think long-term, it's going to turn over. I don't know, I just wanted to test against it to see if am I doing something wrong or-
Dean: Yeah, well it's always good like when you're … Ultimately, we're going to layer on lots of different areas as you get going here, but starting, it's always a good idea to start with, pick a nice community with turnover, which usually means just to the left side of the bell curve, where it's people on their way up kind of thing. Then, they may be moving into bigger homes. You've got lots of movement, transitions in there and that's going to help. Is there anything characteristic about those homes that would put them in a sort of a category that we could advertise for buyers for? Like if there are golf course homes or are they lakefront homes or ravine homes or something that would be, something characteristic about those areas that we could start looking for buyers without having to have a particular listing?
Miguel: Yeah, off the top of my head.
Dean: Okay, I mean most people, it's a difficult thing to kind of wrap your mind around initially because you're not used to thinking about advertising something that you don't have a listing on. The most valuable commodity that you can have going into now these listing appointments that you're going to be getting in this area is a buyer. That's the most valuable thing that you could have is somebody who's looking for a house right now in North Wind. A lot of times, part of the thing that we focus on is choosing a category, where you can triangulate both sides, where you can … The perfect example is here in Winter Haven, we've got lots of different options for that and every community has options for this, but here in Winter Haven, we have lakefront homes. There are about 2,000 lakefront homes, which is a good category. We've got golf course homes, so if somebody's looking for a home on the golf course, we've got lots of them to choose from. We've got active adult communities. There are condos. There's all of the different sort of category things that we could start looking for buyers for those particular types of homes.
We would do things like we do the Getting Listings Program for the lakefront homes here in Winter Haven and at the same time, be running homes and land ads and Facebook ads, offering the guide to Winter Haven lakefront house prices, so that anybody looking for a lakefront home would have a handy way to compare all of the different lakes or all of the different townhouse complexes or all of the different golf course communities. Is there anything that kind of that Colorado Springs has that would come to mind that fit that sort of description?
Miguel: On the side of town that I'm working in, maybe there might be like mountain view homes. The area of North Wind, it does have its hills and everything, so there are of course homes that are a little bit lower and other homes that are kind of up on a hill that would have a better view of the mountain.
Dean: Okay, perfect. That is an awesome thing, a view because you can visually depict it. We've done stuff like that in Beaverton actually or Beaver Valley. Is there a beaver something in Colorado?
Miguel: Beaver Creek possibly, yeah.
Dean: Beaver Creek, okay, so I remember that in Beaver Creek mountain view. In the GoGoAgent, in the members area, in the blog, you've probably seen the South Beach or the Cape Ann ads, where if you're looking for an amazing oceanfront condo in South Beach, read this or if you're looking for an amazing oceanfront home in Cape Ann, well this would be the same kind of thing that we could do with this magical view, the view that everybody wants from Colorado Springs there. Do that same thing if you're looking for an amazing mountain view home in Colorado Springs or in North Wind. Do those homes have views, the ones in North Wind?
Miguel: I believe some of them do. It's been very strange as I've gotten into real estate and I started looking at that element more because it's very variant home to home, again like throughout North Wind, it's a hilly kind of area. There's homes that kind of go up towards the top of the hill, there's homes that kind of sink down a little deeper. You can't even really see past your neighbor.
Dean: That's important. This is one of those things, one of the most valuable things you can do right now in a world, where everything is sort of algorithmic searches, where they could … You say anybody could go to any, they can go to realtor.com, they go to Zillow, they could go anywhere, any of the major companies’ portals and search all the homes online. They're all the quantitative sort of, they can look for specific price range or a location or things like that but if you have some knowledge that goes beyond the algorithm, meaning that some of the homes on this side of the hill here have views and some of them don't, but that saves people the time of having to manually kind of look through them themselves. You collectively putting it together, you're doing something that most people are not doing.
It's almost like these, what I recommend or talk about it as like creating the real-estate equivalent of ETFs or exchange-traded funds that they're in SPDR funds that go and take a collection, a bundle of companies with this particular characteristic. It makes it easy that you can get all of that info in one place. If you start looking like what are the things that people would want, if somebody's really just interested, some people in view home with a mountain view that's going to be appealing to them to want to download that view, especially on Facebook when you can really have like aspirational things. You're not putting the picture of the house. You're putting a picture of the view that people want and maybe you're doing it from the back porch or from somebody's house.
I don't know if you saw in the forum the last couple of days, we did something very similar with Zac Pasmanick about the view condos in Midtown and Buckhead in Atlanta that had a picture not of a looking at a high-rise, but looking out from a high-rise because that's the perspective that people want. They're not looking for something they can look up at. They're looking for something they can look out from. When we do this kind of thing for you here, what might work is that idea of doing a search yourself, which may mean having to like do some individual kind of double checking on some of these homes, if you think that these ones have the views that becomes a valuable asset for you because you're doing something that requires a little bit of effort that most realtors would not be willing to do.
They're just going to look for whatever is searchable in the MLS. You know that if you're doing this, if you were to … We did this in Paradise Valley in Arizona that when you look at it that some areas have really great views. We've done it in San Diego, where some homes, even if you're up on the hill, some homes don't have a view, some one side of the street might not have the view, but if you're on the high side of the street, you get the what they call a whitewater view, which is where you can see the breaking tide. That's more valuable than an ocean horizon view.
It's amazing how people know the difference. They know what they want. That might be a really interesting way to find people, who are looking for that type of home, somebody who's attracted to that mountain view. Now, if you know now also then that these are the homes, even if you have a map, like a war room type of map, where you're looking at the map and you can show that these are the ones that have the view like this strip of this street has the great mountain views, but when they turn this corner, it loses or when it dips down into this valley, you don't get the same view. That becomes an asset for you.
Miguel: Right, okay.
Dean: You're kind of building your proprietary knowledge that is a distinction that only you have. The good news is when you do it, those homes are going to have the view next year and the year after and the year after. It's not a temporary thing. Whatever effort while you're new and have time right now is to invest that time in creating these assets that are going to be valuable for you over the long term.
Miguel: Right, okay. I could use the South Beach model essentially to advertise that?
Dean: That's exactly right.
Miguel: Okay.
Dean: Then, when you have people, who are looking for those mountain view homes, now at the same time, we're able to expand out into you know where the mountain view homes are and you could do the Getting Listings postcard, offering just to those homes the report on mountain view house prices. Now, you're identifying the sellers and the buyers. You're able to match them up.
Miguel: Yeah, okay. That gets really in specific right there.
Dean: Yeah and you want to look at it that I'm looking at this for you from a long-term view of building an enduring real estate business here. You're planning on being in real estate for at least the next five years, let's say that those are all going to be really valuable things. When you get all these things established that's going to be a really valuable thing.
Miguel: It is and now that you mention it, like I can see how that can develop in and of itself and kind of snowball on top of itself just looking from-
Dean: Well that's where you start to now, you take the map of the area. You need to take Colorado Springs and you start doing this CAT scan layering of it and you start to see this is where the townhouses are. These are all the townhouse complexes in Colorado Springs. These are all the condo buildings. These are all the gated communities and these are all the active adult communities if you have them or golf course communities if you have those or mountain view homes like you have as a unique distinction. We don't have mountains. Where I am in Florida, I live very close to the highest point in Florida, which is a 182 feet above sea level. When they say, I live on the Lake Wales Ridge, which is like the ridge that goes down the center of Florida, so we are like up here in the high country, I'm probably at a 170 feet above sea level right where I am.
Miguel: Yeah, okay.
Dean: We have lots of lakes and probably more likes than you have.
Miguel: Oh that yeah.
Dean: Yeah, so that's kind of the trade-off. Every market has its unique thing and if you're taking and building, shaping a long-term career, eventually you might even get to all of the things where now you're carving out all the multifamily place, four, six, 12 plexes, all the apartment complexes. You start to look for categorizing everything as something that you could uniquely monopolize.
Miguel: Right, yeah like the multi-family, I haven't even thought about that. The thought hasn't even come across my mind.
Dean: It doesn't for most, right? There's the thing is like when you start thinking and engineering this, the same thing works. I mean if you're doing the Getting Listings Postcards to owners of six to 12 unit apartment complexes, you could show that as the November 2018 report on Colorado Springs multifamily real-estate prices, apartment prices. Those kinds of things that would be valuable for people, who want to keep on top of the things. We've had people do this same thing with commercial real estate, do office space or do industrial space or strip plazas. You start to look at it with your CAT scan perspective and you start to look for where each of the entire real estate market in Colorado Springs is made up of all of these micro markets.
Miguel: Right, okay. One thing I was kind of thinking on as far as like the buyers, so when it comes to advertising like let's say like the mountain view homes guide or the multi-family guide, is there a way to select or an approach that you found valuable for like using like Facebook ads because again I don't have a whole lot of budget for the time being for like big ads and stuff like that.
Dean: Yeah, so one of the things, if you're … I'll just share an idea with you that might be a way around some of that for you is, is there any new construction going on, like individual building, new construction not within a new development kind of thing, but builders who will build a new home on an infill lot or do you know what I'm saying?
Miguel: Yeah, I think I have an idea what you're saying, so instead of an entire new subdivision.
Dean: Yeah, not like that you're buying from a builder, who's selling from a model home that this community kind of thing. I mean like one lot.
Miguel: Right, just like-
Dean: Yeah, if you wanted to build one lot, yeah individual lots, where you could build a custom home.
Miguel: Yeah, we've got that going on here for sure.
Dean: Okay, so one of the things that I did and this would be a really great thing is to find a builder, who would allow you or would love to have you help find buyers, people who want to build homes for him. Now, what you can do is if you take that model home and you go and you look at where are the lots that are available in infill lots or in your communities that have building lots throughout and you can sort of put together that almost kind of like getting a listing or an exclusive sort of arrangement to advertise that new home construction. You start to show and advertise that home along with a list of the available building lots, where this home could be built or a home like this could be built.
Miguel: Okay, so what you're saying is like find a builder to work together with.
Dean: Yes.
Miguel: I can help them to advertise their new constructions, their new builds to get buyers and at the same time while looking for lots that are open that can be used for new construction, okay?
Dean: Yeah because that’s exactly right. There are building lots that are for sale right now that are on the market that you could buy. This builder could build a home on any one of those. You bought this lot, you could come to the builder and have them build that home. Now, so what you could do is that same thing, just the way we do the category ads, like the oceanfront in South Beach or Cape Ann or whatever you could do, new homes.
Miguel: Okay.
Dean: Yeah, we actually did something like that with Zac, where if you're looking for an amazing new home in a mature area or a tree-lined area like in Atlanta, there are old growth neighborhoods that have big trees and all this stuff that that's where people … That's a premium if you can build a new construction house in that area. There are a lot of some tear downs and things like that that go on.
Miguel: Okay, so it'd be possible to even make a guide for new build sites-
Dean: Yes.
Miguel: Where I can even map that out as far as like price ranges?
Dean: That's exactly right.
Miguel: Okay, yeah that would be incredible actually.
Dean: Right, so you just start to organize all of this because now this gives you a way to like get people, who are interested in this because one of the most frustrating things as a new agent is that it's this cycle of you don't have any listings right now. You were doing everything you can to get listings, but that takes a little time to build up, doing it that, so taking this long approach. That now you've got the opportunity to do sort of being a market maker really. That's what it is looking for ways that you can find people who conceptually are looking for mountain view homes or looking for golf course homes or looking for new homes that kind of thing. I would do that by advertising some of the interior things of the homes, not necessarily because they're not built yet, but you start, what does everybody love about the new homes? I mean if you could get like a new construction mountain view home that would be like a home run. If you can start imagining what this would be if this house was available.
The thing that you have as an advantage is if you have vision and creativity, most people don't have that. Most people are just deal with what's right in front of them. If there was a fully built new home on a lot that has an amazing mountain view, you would have people lined up to get to it, but they don't have the vision or the foresight to think about, “I'd really like a new home with a mountain view and I'm going to find a lot and then, find a builder.” That sounds like a lot of work, right?
Miguel: Yeah.
Dean: If you organize all of that that's really a great thing. Where I was going with some of that is that the builder may be willing to partner with you on if they're already doing advertising to find buyers themselves, they may be willing to fund your idea for this.
Miguel: Right, okay. I did have another question, kind of staying on the same subject of finding buyers that could have something that I was looking into as well. I saw that recent post in the forum and I think also on the blog, where Dan is working with the Facebook ad for the USDA homes and that whole guide, the one thing I was wondering about that is with an advertisement like that do you find a variety of buyers or is it a lot of-
Dean: Coffee is on your roof, I didn’t want you to forget.
Miguel: No worries, thank you. Sorry, got interrupted, okay.
Dean: You have coffee on your roof, well it's funny.
Miguel: Yeah, I'm sitting in the car right outside Starbucks now. Yeah, I just wasn't sure of that like the USDA advertised and finds like a variety of buyers or if it's mainly people that just don't have money to buy a home.
Dean: Well, mostly what you get are first-time buyers. A lot of times, people, they ultimately go another direction but that program is a really great program if it's available in the area, where you are. Here, it's funny, but one of the top loan originator in the country for those USDA houses in Bartow, which is the next town over from Winter Haven here. There's a lot of it that happens here in Central Florida. I don't know whether Colorado Springs is too populous, but you're starting to see now that's where financing makes a difference too. We're starting to see that some lenders now are bringing back zero down loans, which can be a really great lead generator for people. When you start that gives you a reason to or an approach, an opportunity to advertise for buyers without having listings. That's what we're really looking for you.
Miguel: Right, yeah.
Dean: If those kind of things, if you start looking at the types of things that are available, like just from a financing standpoint, if those USDA loans are available for you that's an advantage. If the zero down loans are available that's a distinction. If you've got a lender, who is familiar with doing the fix and flip loans or the buy and repair loans, … Not fix and flip, but the buy and then, do the improvements loans, the FHA loan that's a great thing too because it's an opportunity for people to build in equity. They might not know the moves of it, but if you lay it out very sort of easily for them, it's very attractive.
Miguel: Yes. From the sound of it, I can do that with like any loan type, like the FHA have.
Dean: One of the best assets you can have is a lender, who is hip to all of different programs that are available and how to position those, like if you've got because it's a very … When you look at the FHA loan that allows you to buy and then, finance in the improvements that on its own is very technical sounding, but when you put it into plain language, it's an opportunity for people to customize say by home.
Miguel: Yeah, okay.
Dean: If you start doing the things of maybe you research that there are five or six or seven homes that would really fit that opportunity, homes that need and would benefit from cosmetic improvements or minor repair things that really the most rundown house in a nice neighborhood, where there is built in equity if they were to do the improvements and get it up to the top of the range in that market, they will have created some extra equity. Some people that's very attractive to them.
Miguel: Yeah, I'm starting to get a number of ideas now that you mention it. VA is a very big thing here in Colorado Springs as well.
Dean: That’s right.
Miguel: Yeah, we've got a number of bases and thinking is I could put together our guide for VA loans and pretty close to the bases.
Dean: Yes that's exactly right.
Miguel: So I might even just start off with that. I was going to ask about to how to target with like … Well, how to target with FHA and maybe how to target with zero down loans or whatever that is, but I feel like the VA would be that's the closest within reach. I think I’ll just start there.
Dean: Okay, there you go. That's something that you've already got, I'm sure that there are lenders, who are established as that that they know all the ins and outs of that because it's their bread and butter in a place like Colorado Springs.
Miguel: Yeah, okay. I've got somebody that I've gotten, I’ll be giving a call today.
Dean: Cool. Those are all really great opportunities. Now, you're doing the right thing like you've already got your top 100. You're adding to it all the time, so our target is to get you to 150 people. You're on autopilot now, sending out the World's Most Interesting Postcard every month to them, so they're getting programmed to subconsciously be paying attention to the conversations that they hear because each month we're saying a new thing to them, just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about this. You say evidence of it all around, like you were just in Starbucks and you could hear what are people doing in Starbucks all day every day, they're having conversations.
Miguel: Conversations.
Dean: What are the odds that some of those conversations are directly or peripherally about real estate?
Miguel: Yeah.
Dean: Very high and so you multiply that by the 150 people that you know that if we're able to bring that awareness to them, so that when they hear those conversations, you're their first thought. You're already making an impact because you're getting the calls, saying, “Oh, I got your postcard.” You see people and they bring it up, “Oh, I got your postcard that's cute.”
Miguel: Yeah, I get text messages, calls, a bunch of stuff every month of somebody. I figure like you said before, like sometimes it takes two or three times for them to really notice it, to really want to read it. It's awesome, people love it.
Dean: Yes and it's easy. That's my favorite thing is that it's just so easy for you because you get all the benefits, like compared to a newsletter or something, where you have to put a lot of time into, you're ticking all the boxes here. The reason that you would want to do something like that, the whole reason you want to send anything to your top 150 is to get a touch point, so they recognize, “Hey, Miguel sent me something, there's Miguel. Oh yeah, Miguel, oh every single month, your smiling face is coming through, it's easy to consume.” Now, the purpose of it is so that we're using it as insurance that if they directly, the people that you're sending it to have a real-estate need that they're never going to feel like they've fallen out of touch with Miguel.
They feel like every month, “There he is, there he is, there he is.” They're never more than a month away from having your direct phone number right there on there, in front of them. “Oh that reminds me, we should call Miguel to see how much this house over on Mulberry Street is.” That starts the thought about whenever they have a thought about moving themselves, they're not going to … Because you've neglected them or not been in touch with them, they're not going to be as likely to wander into somebody's open house and then, rationalize that they just go with that person because while we really haven't heard from Miguel or I mean we know him, but he's never really been in touch with us or anything.
Now, you're adopting them, you're embracing them, acting as their real estate agent and that's going to be appreciated. Then, the other multiplier of it is whenever they hear other people talking about real estate, they're much more likely to think of you because every single postcard we send them starts out with just a quick note, “In case you hear someone talking about whatever it is,” insert high probability conversation in here. The interesting thing is that the whole formatting of it, the fact that the World's Most Interesting Postcard is made up of interesting facts and interesting things that people might not know that where are they going to bring those up? They're going to bring those up in conversation whatever. People are going to go, you're going to tell them something that is amazing that they didn't know and they're going to go, “Wow that's something.” You're going to get all these squirts of dopamine and you get the accolades and the great thing and “Boy that Miguel is really interesting, he's a great conversationalist.” That now you're going to be looking for each month your supply of stuff to make you an interesting conversationalist.
Miguel: Okay.
Dean: I mean it's like.
Miguel: I didn’t even think about that part of it.
Dean: Right, but that's why you got me Miguel. I think about that stuff. You know don’t have to.
Miguel: Yeah that's right. I'll just stick to doing, which is my strength.
Dean: Oh, it's so right, I love it.
Miguel: Even now that you mentioned that that piece has actually been a point of conversation like as I've seen people just like walking downtown or as a I'm out and about at a restaurant, I'll see, some of they're like, “Hey, I got your card. Oh and I learned this.” It's interesting because it's not the normal, “Hey, how are you doing? I see the stuff you do on Facebook.” They basically know. Yeah, just those little conversation pieces about rain or about chocolate or bees or whatever it is funny.
Dean: Whatever it is, yeah, exactly. Julie Matthews here in Winter Haven, first time we sent it out, she went in to see her nail tech and her nail tech give her a big hug and said, “You just saved me $650.” She said, “Well, what did I do?” She said, “I got your yellow postcard and I got an antique table that had a water ring on it and the postcard said if I put mayonnaise on it, it will take out the ring. I did it and it went away, so I was going to have to have the table resurfaced, was going to cost me $650.” It's all fun, good stuff, all good stuff that comes from it.
Miguel: It is. I know we're coming up close on time here. I did have one question that I was kind of-
Dean: Yeah, tell me.
Miguel: Yeah, so I've been sending out the Market Watch because I do have a handful of buyers. I just don’t-
Dean: Nice.
Miguel: I know you said to put the super signature in there. I've got the super signature in there. I've got the landing pages set up. I was curious the other day, so I asked on the forum and Diane got back to me, if we put the corresponding offers for sellers in our newsletter every month because I noticed that when I download, they're not there.
Dean: Yes, yeah, absolutely you could do that.
Miguel: Okay, so I could do that. It's not like a hard yes or a hard no, just like if I'd like to add those, I can go ahead and throw those on.
Dean: Yeah, of course, yeah. Any of those things, I mean I look at those are suggestions, like those are the ones that we've used that are the proven ones for the buyers, but you could easily put them in for the sellers too or mix-and-match, especially the get a copy of my Get Top Dollar Fast book. That's an easy one to put in or offer any of those reports that you're putting together, all of that.
Miguel: Right, okay, so yeah, again, there you go Dean, helped me to see things from a better perspective. I can even mix and mash and throw the buyer offers and with the cover letters to the sellers.
Dean: Yes that's exactly right.
Miguel: Okay, awesome. Yeah, okay that was simple, thank you.
Dean: It's all very exciting. What's your recap here, what did we learn here, what did we decide today?
Miguel: My recap is now I've got some ideas to really start getting some solid buyers. I've got the World's Most Interesting Postcard. That stuff and going and working the getting listings, the way I'm implementing it that's going well. If I can start getting buyers and start really focusing on doing the Market Maker Monday, then I feel like that's going to really power through. I realize that again with a competitive market here, I see things changing. I know there's going to be some people giving up as it gets more difficult, but I feel like now is the perfect time. I've got the systems that are working. I'm super excited to get this moving and get this going.
Dean: That's awesome. Well, I really enjoyed that. That went fast, didn't it?
Miguel: It did.
Dean: Yeah, it's good. It was nice to get to connect with you. I can't wait to watch it all unfold. You're in a great position here.
Miguel: I think so. I'm so thankful that I'm building my career and I'm starting this business from this point, instead of having to figure this out later on.
Dean: Yeah that's awesome. Hopefully, we'll get to see you in February in Orlando, coming for our GoGoAgent Academy. That would be awesome.
Miguel: Hopefully that would be really cool, get a chance to meet everybody and put some faces to all these voices I've been hearing.
Dean: That's right, exactly. Okay, cool, well, you go back on inside the Starbucks now, warm up your coffee and get all these notes in your journal here while they're fresh, so you can build your action plans.
Miguel: I will. I'll do that for sure.
Dean: Thanks Miguel.
Miguel: All right, thank you so much Dean.
Dean: Talk to you soon, bye.
Miguel: Okay, right, bye.
Dean: There we have it, another great episode. If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can go to ListingAgentLifestyle.com. You can download a copy of the Listing Agent Lifestyle Book, the manifesto that shares everything that we're talking about here. You can be a guest on the show if you'd like to talk about how we can build a listing agent lifestyle plan for your business. Just click on the, “Be a guest,” link at listingagentlifestyle.com. If you’d like to join our community of people, who are applying all of the things we talked about in the Listing Agent Lifestyle, come on over to GoGoAgent.com. That’s where we got all the programs, all the tools, everything you need to get listings to multiply your listings, to get referrals, convert leads and to find buyers. You can get a free, truly free, no credit card required trial for 30 days at gogoagent.com. Come on over and I will see you there.