Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast we're going to talk about something that you can put into action right now... literally today, and preferably every week for the rest of your career.
This is the one thing that can have the lowest cost, highest yield return in your business, and we call it being a market maker.
There are many opportunities available to you here, but if I could instill one habit in you, it would be to get into the Market Maker Monday habit where every week on Monday, you take a moment and think to yourself, who am I working with right now? Who am I going to show homes to this week? Who am I going to see about selling their home this week?, and then think to yourself, who do I know, who are my clients, or who are the people in my sphere that live immediately near those places I'm already going to?
You're able to, with this simple email strategy we're going to talk about, be able to turn that thought into a referral getting opportunity.
You're really going to enjoy this episode.
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep086
Dean Jack: Hello, and welcome to The Listing Agent Lifestyle Podcast. My name is Dean Jackson, and on this episode, we're going to talk about something that you can put into action right now, like literally today and preferably every week for the rest of your career. This is the one thing that can have the lowest cost, highest yield thing that you can do in your business and we call it thinking about being a market maker. And I think you're going to look and see all the opportunities that are available to you here, but if I could instill one habit in you, it would be to get into the market maker Monday habit, where every week on Monday you just take a second and think to yourself, "Who am I working with right now? Who am I going to show homes to this week?" Or, "Who am I going to see about selling their home this week?" Then, think to yourself, "Who do I know or who are my clients or who are the people in my sphere that live immediately near to those places that I'm going already today?" And you're able to whip this simple email strategy that we're going to talk about, be able to turn that into a referral-getting opportunity. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. Here we go.
Number seven is be a market maker. Now, when you start doing what we're talking about with getting listings and you're doing the things with your website, you've got these pool of buyers and you've got this pool of sellers and now here you're in an opportunity to be a market maker. You're in a position where you know who the buyers are, you know who the sellers are. You've got this whole opportunity to create this whole underground market that really gives you a huge competitive advantage over anybody else. You know? And if you start looking for buyers before you have the listings, that's going to be a huge head start.
If you... you've heard me talk about triangulation, about looking for specific sellers over here, looking for specific buyers on this side and it's like the Molson beer ads where they had that dual advertising technology. They ran an ad in Cosmo magazine that was appealing to women that this good-looking guy in a sweater with some puppies and you know the little things that...the cross section of kindness and whatever else. And his beer, Molson. It was just this image ad of this dream guy in the pages of Cosmo and they ran that ad so that they could run an ad in the men's magazines that said "Hundreds of thousands of women pre-programmed for your convenience.” And they showed a picture of the ad and said, “While you're reading this ad, hundreds of thousands of women across the country are reading an entirely different ad designed to program them to be attracted to men who drink Molson beer.” And it had a picture of the ad, an illustration of a woman in a bar looking at him and looking at his beer. And it was this whole thing of their dual advertising technology.
And so when you start thinking about it, you've got that opportunity just like what we did with the lakefront homes that you know... we're running the getting listings program for lakefront homes in Winter Haven and in Homes & Land magazine and in Craigslist, we're running ads for the guide to lakefront houses looking for buyers. So we've got these people coming in on one side interested in lakefront homes. We've got all these people coming in on the other side who have lakefront homes to sell. And then, about April of last year we got an e-mail from a gentleman from Stuart, a little further south here in Florida, said he had sold his house and he was coming up to Winter Haven. And was looking for a lakefront house and he was looking for this and this and this. And he was hoping to spend about $375,000. And then, literally within an hour of getting that e-mail, we got an e-mail from a woman who said, "we've been getting your reports and we have a house on Lake Ruby and it's got this and this and this. And we'd like to find out what its worth. We're thinking it's probably $375,000."
And it was just like so crazy that that circumstance collided at just that time. And so, we had the idea of sending an e-mail to everybody who had responded in January for the postcard. So we sent out a message that said "Hey, we just got off the phone with a gentlemen from Stuart whose looking for a lakefront house. I remember looking up your house online when we sent you the lakefront report a couple of moments ago and it seems like your house might be right in their range. I don't know what your plans are, but I thought I'd send you an e-mail and see if we could tell them about your house.” So we sent out 27 of those or 32 of those and had 27 responses within 24 hours of people like, “yeah, yeah.” Some people were calling into the office to have Julie come over and see them because they wanted to sell their house. But, it had been 90 days since they had asked for a report.
So, that's now the standard 90 day message. You think or notice what you have, who do you have that you're working with, you think about who has a house just like that, and you introduce the opportunity to them. So, that's what you have the opportunity to be as a market maker. You've got that opportunity because you have the both sides of it. Most other realtors are waiting until they list the house with them to start finding a buyer. So, you start showing these... we had this page in Chuck's listing presentation that illustrated this concept that most people are coming in when they're talking about selling your house. They're saying, “well, when we list your house we'll do this and this and this.” So, the starting point is once we get your house listed, then we'll start marketing the listing.
And Chuck's whole approach and what your approach could be the same way is that we started looking for the buyer for your house 180 days ago. And here's the list of all of the people we have that are looking for lakefront homes and they'll be the first ones that we tell about this. You've got this... it's hard to compete with that. For anybody else, they're going to start from scratch; meanwhile, you've got already all of these buyers because you didn't wait for them to list their house with you to start finding a buyer. You took it on yourself to go out and find people who are looking for lakefront homes.
So there's lots of opportunities for you to find those triangulations. So, typically it's good if they're something that is a contextual grouping like lakefront homes, or condos, or town homes, or 55+ communities, or golf course homes, or waterfront. Any of those things because that's something that a buyer would specifically be looking for or a big planned community like Georgetown South where there's 2500 homes. And people are specifically looking for Georgetown South. So you can run ads in parallel that are looking for buyers and you're looking for sellers.
But, being a market maker like that is really...it takes just a little bit of engineering on the front end to start building that into your process. Any time you're doing getting listings, any time that somebody responds you could set up a Google Map with pins to show all of the people who have responded; so that, when you're generating buyer leads or any time you're going to show lakefront homes you automatically go to that as your secret inventory. And you're saying "Hey Tom, I'm showing lakefront houses just down the street from you and I remember looking up your house online when we sent you the lakefront report. I'm not sure what your plans are, but I thought maybe I'd send you and email, see if we could tell them about your house.” And that's kind of stimulating activity, stimulating people who have been on getting those newsletters for 90 days or more. Or, you could even bump it right up to the front end when somebody responds, you could immediately send them that e-mail and say, "Hey, I just saw that you responded. I'm showing houses this weekend to somebody who's looking for a lakefront house.” And maybe get in the door that way, kind of quicker because you've got a buyer. That's the most compelling thing to any seller. That's what they're looking for is somebody to buy their house with the least amount of hassle.
What are you guys thinking about this triangulation idea? Or, how that might work for you?
Speaker: website is searchhomesinMyrtleBeach.com. So, Myrtle Beach is a pretty big market, but it's specific to that area. But, the area that I sent in the postcard for getting listings was in Surfside Beach, which is right where my office is at. And I mean it's a good neighborhood east, close to the ocean, and higher priced homes. So, I don't quite have the...at least from my website that I'm running all the time from the bigger area, the smaller, I guess triangulation that you're talking about. But-
Dean: See, I would imagine that even in Myrtle Beach the opportunities would be oceanfront, that somebody is specifically only interested in oceanfront. There might be people who are only interested in golf course communities. There might be people who are only interested in condos or...yeah
Speaker: Yeah and I've thought about that, but I guess my thing is where I'm at right now...and for instance, Surfside Beach is an area where people would specifically request, just for the lifestyle and that particular area.
Dean: And tell me about Surfside Beach. Is it a town? Is it a-
Speaker: Yeah, it's its own town. Just south of Myrtle Beach.
Dean: Okay, what's the population?
Speaker: That I don't remember off the top of my head full time. But it's a smaller-
Dean: How many homes would there be in there?
Speaker: Well, the ones I'm mailing what we would call east of 17 which is about eight blocks to the ocean-
Dean: To the ocean?
Speaker: There was about 2,000.
Dean: About 2,000?
Speaker: Homes. Now there's also a bunch of condos, but I didn't mail the condos.
Dean: But, that's a good size market that. That's a great opportunity for triangulation. And, so you start looking at that. You've got the boundaries around it. There's those 2,000 homes and you know how many of them sell and you really have the opportunity to be a market maker in that kind of a small community and-
Speaker: And I understand that, but what I don't have I guess is the one piece of the triangle which is generating the buyers specifically for that market. I'm generating the buyers on a what would be a little bit of a larger scale in the Myrtle Beach area.
Dean: So part of that, that's what we do with those. We don't do the Google ad words for lakefront. We don't do it for specific things. We do Craigslist ads for lakefront and you can do Craigslist ads for Surfside Village. Is that what it's called?
Speaker: Beach.
Dean: Beach. Surfside Beach. The Craigslist ads would be the perfect thing for that or the local Homes & Land or whatever that publication that the guy would...whatever one that would be in that area. Because, you're saying some people that's the area they want right?
Speaker: Sure.
Dean: And we would do a half page ad on the lakefront house prices for our buyers. So, you could do that same thing for Surfside Beach.
Speaker: See, and I guess my thing is I've-.
Dean: What's the prices in there?
Speaker: The average is 250-
Dean: Okay, yeah. So, there's plenty of room there. So how much is a half page in Homes & Land there? 265 you said?
Speaker: Yeah, I think I'm paying 265.
Dean: Okay, so $3,000 or $3,500 for the ye...again this is how I think about this, right is that I look at it...if I ran that every single month for a year and I'm running the postcards to the 2,000 homes every single month for a year, I'm going to have probably $11,000 total invested in the whole thing. And so, when you look at that what's the average commission in there that you would-
Speaker: You're in the seven plus range.
Dean: Right, so your second transaction your...you know a pretty great return on the investment if you think about it from traditional what [inaudible 00:14:48] would do. And not even counting what happens in the second year and what happens from the leverage of listing this one and turning that into the next one or finding the buyer who buys another one. There's so much potential in that. That's the way I look at these things and you totally have that opportunity to be...once you get a real foothold in an area like that, it often builds its own momentum. It's like what you know Procter and Gamble, the reason that they spend the value of being the number one brand in a marketplace is a premium of about 28%. The number one brand out performs by that much of a margin.
Speaker: Well, that's my I guess my question or my question was I'm not doing any advertising specifically, but my guide does have... the way my guide is set up it has the different areas of Myrtle Beach.
Dean: The whole point of it is that those people who live there, they identify with that's where I live and they know that house prices here are different than they are two miles up the beach. They know that this is what's going on there. Buyers who want to buy in there, that's specifically where they want to buy. It's like it's the difference between doing specific horoscope readings. If you're looking in the horoscopes you go right to yours. You got right to Taurus. That's what I go to and I don't honestly even know what... I couldn't name the other signs. I know some of them, but I couldn't name them all because I don't care. I'm selfish.
Speaker: So, the ad that I have running in the Homes & Land right now is basically and ad advertising my guide to Myrtle Beach house prices which does have a subsection of Surfside because they are all close. Surfside is just five minutes south, ten minutes south of Myrtle Beach.
Dean: But in that situation-
Speaker: So should I just change my ad to use Surfside?
Dean: Well, I would use one of your reference pages. You know, your landing pages in your site for that specific neighborhood. You've already... is it one of the sub-neighborhoods already in your-
Speaker: Yeah.
Dean: So, I would get another domain name and point it right to that. You've got your search Myrtle Beach homes and I would get a search Surfside Beach homes and point it right to that page on your site, because it's tracked in your get response account that you know where they came from.
Speaker: Okay, so I could... I'm not putting all that together. So, I mean... I am putting part of it together. And i know that you guys gave us some other opt in pages or whatever to put out there. So you're talking about using one of those pages-
Dean: Mm-hmm (affirmative). For-
Speaker: To where they initially come in there-
Dean: Yes.
Speaker: And then they're just forwarded to-
Dean: That's one of the sub-
Speaker: That's what you guys do with the lake homes, I believe because I went on there and looked.
Dean: That's exactly right. That's exactly what we do. So if that's one of the sub-areas, it should...am I right in saying that? It should already be set up as a... it's already set up. So all you...okay-
Speaker: So I just need to go buy a new-
Dean: You see that action right there? You just get a URL and point it to that page and now you've got one that's specifically for... It's like having... yeah.
Speaker: I remember looking at those, but I didn't know exactly with getting everything else up and going and-
Dean: So, that's the thing. So, having a contained area like that where you have the ability to be a market maker it's such a higher...it's more like yeah-
Speaker: Well, it definitely is easier because I'm matching people up.
Dean: The interest and intensity. Well, and it's like that. It's easier too in so many ways. It's easier because it's all self-contained and it's not broad. And it's narrow enough that you could conceivable dominate it. And, that's the whole mindset when you start looking at that is what would it take to really just take that over. And it goes back to that whole thing about what they say in radio advertising you know the choice is reach or frequency meaning do you want to go broad or do you want to go saturate a particular area. And the difference is do you want to convince 100% of the people 10% of the way or do you want to 10% of the people 100% of the way. That's really what you want, yeah.
Speaker: So, with what I would send them... So I would... Like I said right now I'm advertising get your guide Myrtle Beach prices. So, I would change that to Surfside Beach?
Dean: Yes.
Speaker: And then-
Dean: Well you could in addition. You look at them as little oil wells. That's just the thing.
Speaker: Or add it
Dean: Once you set up an oil rig... Imagine that you've gone through the effort of actually setting up an oil rig and you've got it pumping oil and it's working. You're not going to pick up the whole rig from that productive well and go dig a new one over here. You keep that one going and go start another one.
Speaker: Well that gets back to I don't know if the first one, when we were talking about it with that one, if it's actually working and I know that it eventually will. Okay, so I just go to get the couple hoops to jump through.
Dean: And if you are mailing into that Surfside Beach, you want to make sure that you're mailing to their actually address rather than to the property because I imagine that's there's a lot of-
Speaker: No, yeah. I have to get all of mine off of the tax returns.
Dean: We get responses from all over New York and wherever, Michigan, wherever everybody-
Speaker: And most of them are out of town. Not most of them, a lot of them are.
Dean: Seeing in February a postcard arrive with a picture of the beach when they have 20 inches of snow, that's like, it's going to stand out in their mailbox.
Speaker: I get listings to Washington Park. Well, it's pretty wide range of homes from $400,000 to $2 million and so, I always have a buyer because I have an investor that I work with that scrapes and builds or pops or flips every time. But, when I get the list, I sort of eliminate, well this house. But, I should just send that e-mail to them every time.
Dean: Experiment with it.
Speaker: Because, technically I do have a buyer. It might not be a good match for him, but then that might get me more listings. And the truth is with only 7,000 for sale and we're selling 4,000 a month, I know somebody in my office has a buyer for that listing every single time.
Dean: That's the whole point.
Speaker: So like-
Dean: That's the kind of thinking that you want.
Speaker: So, if I just started, like I just sent my first one if January, can I go home now-
Dean: Why wouldn't you?
Speaker: And send them this e-mail that says-
Dean: Why wouldn't you if you have a buyer? That's the thing. That's where... The neighborhood mailing that we did... Julie's working with an investor buyer who's buying up everything. So, the sellers all they're concerned about is they just want one. They don't care that they're buying a bunch of homes; so, you act and talk about it like a buyer for their home.
Speaker: And so, how often would I send that e-mail to... Let's say I send out the e-mail and say, “I've got a buyer that... I don't know what your plans are. Could I show your home?” Or-
Dean: Part of the thing is realizing when is the highest probability, When's the best time to send it. So, you've got this tool. You've got this arrow in your quiver... Is that what you call it? Yeah. So, you don't want to sometimes do something that you don't have to do right now. When you look at it in the next one right after the break, we're going to talk about the conversion process and the math on that. But, some of those people are going to be selling their house and all it takes is that you send them the package. They read the letter, they call you up, and say, “Hey, I got your postcard. I got your package. It looks like you're serious about selling some homes. I'd love to have you come out and list our house.” That'll happen some of the time. So, I'd rather let that happen and then, if it doesn't happen in that first 30 days or whatever then send the message. But, if you wait until 90 days, that's kind of where we've shown the gestation period. It's a higher probability that they're going to list between 90 days and six months than in the first 90 days. So, using that to-
Speaker: So, maybe wait another 60 days?
Dean: I would certainly do it with all the people that you mailed 90 days ago.
Speaker: But I just started January 1st-
Dean: You just started? Okay, so-
Speaker: So I've only got 30 days going on because my next mailing goes out on Monday.
Dean: So, maybe insert it in your get top dollar newsletter. You know in the helping people on the move-
Speaker: That's going to go out on Wednesday when I get back. I can put that in my top dollar newsletter that just says I have a buyer who's looking for a home in Wash Park. I don't know what your plans are. Blah, blah, blah.
Dean: Well, you don't need to be that personal on the thing. Sometimes if you've got that environment of that sheet of what you've got, the buyers you're working with, that's going to be enough for that. And, you want to save the personal stuff for actually personal communication. So, you say that same-
Speaker: You lost me on that one. Sorry.
Dean: Okay. You want to save the personal e-mail for when you're sending out that personal e-mail. If you're putting it in your get top dollar newsletter, you don't try to make it seem like they're the only one getting it. You put it in an environment called helping people on the move. Here's the people that we're working with right now and what they're looking for. So you're saying it's there and now they're calling you because hey my house is like that rather than you doing it as an individual message. You get it now?
Speaker: So, make sort of a separate-
Dean: Yes.
Speaker: Piece of paper that goes in my top dollar mailing that now goes out to these people that responded in January that says here are the buyers I'm working with right now?
Dean: That's right.
Speaker: And, just leave it at that?
Dean: That's right.
Speaker: Joe is looking for a.
Dean: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: Tom is looking for a.
Dean: Right. Perfect. It's all right there in the getting listings in the members area. There's 12 of them. Yeah. It's all there, Tom. It's all there.
Okay, so just to tie together this market maker thought that that thought is transferable to a lot of different things. I really like this idea, we're just getting started with it, of creating these little maps with the pins cause she's showing where this sort of hidden inventory is and presenting it as it brings an awareness to it that if you are showing homes in a particular area, you want to be able to look, we talked about it, not with your top 100, with your clients, with the people who know you, like you, trust you, but you also want to think about it with any of the leads that you're generating, anybody who's responded for your guide or for your getting listings mailings, anybody there that you have as a lead that has identified themselves.
There's also an opportunity to think about it for expired listings as well, using that as a kind of a silent inventory. When you start adding that, any time you go through that process of noticing what you're doing, what you're activity is, what you could use some help with, and thinking who do I know, who is a lead, who has expired in that same thing. It's just adding that one little thought loop to your process on a weekly basis that is going to bear fruit. You just got so many more opportunities to match people up. Talk about creating value for a seller and a buyer especially. I was talking with Audrey about... I forget who was saying that the inventory levels are so low and often in areas where inventory levels are low, it's when one does come on, there's competing offers and the hound dog pack is all over them. But, if you've got the opportunity for a buyer to know about a house that's not yet on the market, they're going to feel so great about getting an unhindered shot at that.
That's the whole point. That's what this is about. When you're a market maker, you really have that opportunity to get a lot of leverage and talk about being able to put the first sign you put in the neighborhood is this sign instead of a for sale sign. That's pretty interesting.
And there we have it, another great episode. And, 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, and 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 and if you'd like to join our community of people who are applying all the things we talk about in the Listing Agent Lifestyle, come on over to gogoagent.com. It's where we've got all the programs, all the tools, everything you need to get listings to, to multiply your listings, to get referrals, convert leads, and to find buyers. And, you can get a free, truly free no credit card required trial for 30 days at gogoagent.com. So come on over and, I will see you there.