Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast we're wrapping up the final installment of our summer series on 10 Money Getting Ideas for your real estate business with number nine, Multiplying Your Listings, and number 10, Becoming a Productivity Ninja.
There's going to be some really great ideas here. I really work a lot on this idea of Multiplying Your Listings. If you've got listings right now and you're the only one with that listing, then you've got an opportunity that's amazing right now.
You've got not just the opportunity to get that listing sold, but you've got an opportunity to find the buyer for that house. You've got the opportunity to find a buyer who buys another house if they don't buy this one. You've got the opportunity to get the next listing in that neighborhood, and you've got the opportunity to get a referral from the seller before the end of the transaction.
There is so, so much opportunity to leverage what you're doing.
You're going to enjoy this episode.
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep088
Dean: Hello, welcome to the Listing Agent Lifestyle. My name's Dean Jackson, and today we're wrapping up the final installment of our summer series on 10 money-getting ideas for your real estate business. We are wrapping up with number nine, which is multiplying your listings, and number 10, which is becoming a productivity ninja. There's going to be some really great ideas here. I've really taken to working a lot on this idea of multiplying your listings.
If you've got listings right now, and you are the only one with that listing, you've got an opportunity that is amazing right now. You've got not just the opportunity to get that listing sold on the MLS, but you've got an opportunity to find the buyer for that house, and you've got the opportunity to find a buyer who buys another house because of that one. You've got the opportunity to get the next listing in that neighborhood, and you've got the opportunity to get a referral from the seller before the end of the transaction. So much opportunity to leverage what you're doing. I think that you are going to enjoy this episode. Here we go.
Let's talk about number nine. Number nine is multiply your listings. This, I think, is maybe one of the most opportunities that people have, that I think people look at their listings and, so often, the thought is, let's get it on the market, put a sign up. Let's get an MLS, and hopefully somebody will buy it really quickly. You get excited when a listing sells quickly, but don't seem to be disappointed that you missed out on the five other transactions that you could've done if it didn't sel
That, most of the time, I talk about it in terms of there's two types of objectives. There's the core objective of let's get the house sold. Let's get the seller the top price that we can get them, and avoid any hassles that are happening along the way.
That's the core objective, and everybody's going to be happy with that, and you get half the commission, and the buying agent gets half the commission. But, when you look at the strategic objectives that you could reach as a result of having that listing, that are only available to you because you have that listing, it dwarfs what just getting that listing sold could be. Because, for every listing that you get, you've got the opportunity to find the buyer for that house yourself. You've got an opportunity to find a buyer who buys another house. You've got the opportunity to get the next listing in that neighborhood. The next, one of the neighbors of that.
You've got the opportunity to get a referral from, while you're going through that transaction, because you're in constant contact with them. You're doing all of the things that are deepening that relationship with them. You're talking about real estate. They're going to be aware of it, hyper aware of real estate, and be in contact with people who are conversation about real estate that you will have the opportunity to train them to think about you, and to introduce you into that conversation when they do hear those conversations.
Until you do something to make those things happen, nothing is going to happen. You miss those opportunities. It's a perishable opportunity that's only available while you have that listing, and because you have that listing, it's only available to you. You've really got the opportunity to do it, or not do it.
We talk about some of the things that go into just the easiest things that you can do to raise your chances that you're going to reach one, at least, of those extra objectives. We do things like the just-listed parts, of mailing out the postcard that says, "Do you know what your neighbors at 22 Graystone did last night? It may come as a surprise, but they've been plotting for a long time," and tell that whole story about that they've listed their house on the market.
Now, we created a program called Getting Listings Sold, and have all kinds of data that we were able to test that postcard versus standard just listed postcard, and that postcard gets three times as many calls as the just listed postcard, because it's telling a story or something interesting about that. We're attracted to that. Those neighbors around there, that's a great opportunity to set the stage, that there's an opportunity that somebody will know somebody who wants to buy in that neighborhood. Or somebody who might be thinking about selling their house, so is going to be really paying attention to what's going on with their neighbor's house while it's on the market. There's lots of upside for doing something like that.
Then the infobox flyers. Do the infobox flyers in a way that's generating leads, where you're putting the lead generators on the back of those. We've got our version of that with the report for house prices, and then your website, and add where they can go and search all of the homes. On the front, just a picture of the house with the free recorded message information, or the dot com. We have, with the 24hourhousetours.com/whateveryoucallit, or getting the domain name 22graystone.com for the property, which is really a great thing.
All you want that infobox flyer to do is be something that they take away with them, and it's a reminder to take the next step. We're not trying to sell the house to them on the infobox flyer. We're not trying to list all of the features of the house, and put all of the pictures of the house on the flyer. We're doing it in a way to bring them to [inaudible 00:07:17] that has all of the pictures on it, so that while they're [inaudible 00:07:21], they can click through to search other properties, or get the free report for [inaudible 00:07:27], or get the free report for sellers. Something that they can [inaudible 00:07:33] their contact information. So you're generating leads with that.
When we look at the opportunity there, people calling and listening to the free recorded message, where they can leave their information, all we're looking for is to connect with somebody. We're just looking for somebody to ask for something, so that we're generating those leads. They may not be a buyer for that house, but they might be a buyer for another house. Having those infobox flyers is a very inexpensive way of getting the word out about that, along with having the single property website, and the free recorded message.
Another strategy that we use are little lead generation cards for your sellers, where it's got pictures of their property with the URL, and the free recorded information, so that when they are out and about, and they hear people talking about real estate, they can give them their little business cards that have all the information about their property, that people can go and seek.
Part of that strategy for getting referrals from the seller, is to recruit them, to get them on board with helping to find the buyer. There's lots of great evidence that supports that. They are, when they show all of the sources for where buyers come from, 18% of the time, from direct or indirect referrals. Meaning someone who knows someone who knows someone.
The sellers would fall into that category, as they're going through the process of selling their house, everywhere they turn now, they're going to [inaudible 00:09:26] hyper awareness of real estate conversations, because they're in the process of selling their house. Now, everybody is talking about it, because their reticular activator has been turned on to notice that.
I remember the first time that I did this. I had this conversation with sellers where I would do feedback for sellers every week. I would call and have a phone conversation with them and say, "Here's all the showings we had this week. This is the feedback we got. Here's what's happened in the market. There's a new house down the street that came on the market, or this one's sold, or this is the showings that we've got lined up for the weekend, and we've got the ad coming out." Give them the update, and then I asked the question, "And how did you do?" Then I was just quiet, just didn't say anything. The first time, you could hear that, "What now? How did I do?" "Well, with the lead-generating cards that I gave you. How many people did you find that were looking for a house?"
They were scrambling for it. But then you only had to do that one time, because the next time you have the conversation, and you end it, "How did you do?", They'll say, "Well, Susie from the office, she was talking about buying a house. I gave her some of the cards. Now, she's not right for our house, but she might be looking for something."
They're on the ball now, because you're doing all this stuff and you've shown them that if you don't do your part, we're missing out on this 18%, we're missing out on all of the potential buyers. You get them involved in that way. Now ... That was before Facebook, and before it was really easy for them to work. But how easy is it for them to put up something on Facebook, and send people to the single property website that you have set up for their property? Easy, right? That's the kind of thing that we're talking about. Zach.
Zach: Part of my commission structure with my sellers is, I offer a 2% reduction in the fee if they help find the buyer. Sellers love it. They just love it. Only five ever found the buyer, but they already knew the buyer to listing it. But they appreciated the discount. I think this, giving cards, is going to find a lot more buyers for me.
Dean: Absolutely. I saw the smile on your face. I could Zach ... The gleam in your eye when you would ask somebody how did you do?
Dean: Yeah, that's right.
Dean: Yeah, you'd love that.
Zach: Because it doesn't happen, that's why - This happened five times and those five sellers already knew the buyer and they probably weren't going to list with me anyway. They were just trying to figure out how the process works. That's my offer.
Dean: Well, It'll be interesting, because I think you'll do this strategy. I'd love to hear what happens. That'd be great. How many of you can see yourself doing something like that? It's so easy to set those up. Over here.
Speaker:
We do send them the link to their flyer and virtual tour to post on their Facebook account.
Dean: Perfect.
Speaker: I don't know how many do it, but I could see them posting something that drives that traffic back to me.
Dean: Yeah, that's all you want is to get them send it back to you. Tom, what were you going to say?
Tom: You have a program set up to get those business cards-
Dean: Yeah. Well, in the United States we do, we have gettinglistingssold.com. Where it gets all the data, all the MLSs. It automatically creates all of this stuff from the MLS info. You go to the website and it's already got the just listed and just sold card and the single property site and the lead generation cards and the Craigslist, all that stuff automated. Right, the paperless thing. Yeah. But it would be cool, that kind of data ... I don't know whether anybody in Canada has access to all of that. That's the whole thing. It's expensive to pay a bill-
Zach: You can still purchase those, I think they're Avery cards, or they're business-
Dean: Yeah, it's an easy thing to-
Zach: Do it yourself.
Dean: Yeah. It's pretty easy thing to set up the templates for.
Speaker: In my market, when you put the house up for sale, you don't get to have weekly updates. If you put a house, it goes away. How would you do that in a coming soon type so that you don't-
Dean: One of the other things, now this is something that is one of the strategies that's going to fit for some people and not fit for others of doing a preview open house for the neighbors as a cocktail hour type of thing. We got wine and cheese at six o'clock on a Thursday where people from the neighborhood can come by and you only invite the 50 people right around that house. That's the only people that it's open to. It's not open to the public, it's just for the neighbors. Hang on, let's get the mic and you tell what happened because I'll tell you something. Sorry, what was your experience in doing that?
Speaker: I have just had fun with that, because I was talking to Glenn about that. I did have people come in and say that they have a card with them and then you look around and you're like. But everybody talks about it and it does end up that the neighbor picks their neighbor. They know somebody who wants to live in the area.
Dean: How many times have you done that?
Speaker: I've done it twice now.
Dean: What's the best thing that's happened from doing it? How many people came? How many did you invite?
Speaker: Most people I've had, the one was, there was not enough people. There was like five people look. The other one was 20 because it was like husband and wife, husband and wife and stuff like that. But they just [inaudible 00:15:44] Now, I think that's why my listings have gotten all over the place now is because somebody talks to somebody, talks to somebody and then, yeah. They're all referrals. Everything has been referral business.
Dean: Absolutely. Yes. Has anybody else done anything like that? Zach, do you have?
Zach: I did a cocktail party or wine and cheese is what it was on one evening. But the issue was it was the first Wednesday night after the time change, so it already was dark, which slowed the traffic, but it was still pretty good. But we've done Sunday open houses, 2:00 to 5:00 with the neighbor exclusive preview from 1:00 to 2:00 It's just getting more neighbors in.
Dean: Mm-hmm (affirmative) there you go. Has anybody else tried that? Barry? Okay.
Barry: We've done it a few times, but they were in neighborhoods that we weren't interested in working, but we just did it because we had a very nice relationship with the sellers and they were close to their neighbors and they were moving and they were sad to move. It worked out. It was good feelings all the way around. But what we ended up with was a bounce in the infection that we had from the seller, a couple of times. We're doing another one in two weeks for the house that's down the road from where we've lived for 35 years. That's going to be fun because we're going to know everyone and we are intent on specializing in our neighborhood.
The other thing that we've done is that the property is not going to go be going into the MLS for another two weeks. We've got some construction work and a few things. But the for sale sign went up three days ago with property specific URL, property address, a short video, which is three exterior photos saying more photos coming soon, with the dates and times for the open house and then a coming soon sign hanging from the for sale sign, in the yard arm sign in the front yard with a QR code.
Our thinking there was that people are going to go by with a smartphone. There's no nothing in the sign that says how much it's going to be selling for, if we don't have an infobox flyer up yet. But the price will of course be on the website. We're thinking, in this market where there are very few listings, we're hoping to get a buyer to call us directly. Thinking that they'll have an upper hand in terms of buying the property. I'll let everybody know how that works out.
Dean: Well that's great.
Barry: But what we're planning on doing at the neighborhood open house, we will do the look what your neighbors have done postcard and pull out all the stops. You can do that when the commission's 25 grand.
Dean: Right. Exactly. But the part of the thing is that what you just said, there's very interesting, I wanted to talk about that. That a lot of times the decision process that people have when they're saying, well you can do that when the commission is 25,000. Because even though in striving for the additional 25,000 that you could get if you find a buyer who buys another one or you get the next listing in there, the mindset is still that these things are an expense that is attributed to that one listing side commission that you get, and people ... Yeah, but it's not about that at all. It's about unlocking the opportunity to get the five other commissions for finding the buyer, finding another buyer, getting the next listing, getting a referral. It's like unlocking that. Pretty interesting, just the dynamic. Yeah, Amy.
Amy: A question about those open houses that you're doing, are you doing them prior to listing? Are you sending out postcards to the neighbors saying this house is going to be listed and we want to have a pre-listing open house for your neighbors? It's not on the market yet. You haven't put the sign up yet. You have to have it listed before you invite neighbors over to it for a cocktail party?
Speaker: Well, that's what I'm doing only because-
Dean: Part of what Glenn has been doing, Glen McQueenie in Toronto, they slow the actual listing. They'll do the thing but not have any showings until the following Monday so that they at least the Thursday open house.
Speaker: You have a listing agreement. Everything's signed. No showings until Friday. But you have the neighborhood come in Thursday night.
Amy: Got it.
Speaker: It's amazing. It really is, and fun too.
Dean: Mm-hmm (affirmative) How many people could see themselves doing that strategy? It's worth testing. It's worth doing a fun thing. I guess the fear is, well, will anybody come? But they do. They do come, they want to come. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
The other thing is thinking like a for sale by owner in a way. One of the best mindsets you can have if you're going to find the buyer is to treat it like what would you do if you were the for sale by owner? Knowing what you know about where to find buyers and where to do all of that? Doing things like placing Craigslist ads? Well, think about, what do you have available to attract those buyers? You've got an asset of the attention of thousands of people who get your weekly market watch email that every time you get a new listing, if you put that in your market watch to let them and direct them over to that, that you're featuring that property. Or even if you're going to get a new listing that you do at ahead of going there. Your say, not yet on the market, coming soon and talk about that house. If that's what you're looking for let me know and I'll get you all the details first before anybody else.
That's the kind of thing that you have the opportunity to do. Then the just sold cards when you get to when the property sells. Going out, instead of just saying just sold of sending the card that says your neighbors, the Jackson's got exactly what they deserved and it can happen to you next. That kind of thing is just so much more engaging than just a just sold. Always using the direct response. We've been testing now on the just listed cards on the back of the just listed card is sending the actual getting listings postcard on the back side of the just listed card.
If you're sending into Cypresswood for instance, you just list a property. You're sending to the neighbors around it. But on the backside of the card would be the free January or February, 2013 report on Cypresswood house prices. It doesn't matter if you're farming it or not. It's going into wherever you're sending that wherever you're sending that, that's going to be a great motivator for people.
Just an additional, you're using that leveraging what you're doing there. Okay. Number 10 is about becoming a productivity ninja. Because how many of you have an idea from today so far? Yeah, maybe a couple of you. Part of the thing is you realize very quickly that when you start hearing ideas and you start seeing potential and you've got your bigger vision and you've got all these things that you want to start implementing and you realize that the currency that new things work on is time. That coming up with an idea, agreeing with an idea, getting excited about an idea, those are all shape shifting activities. It's much easier to envision something and to get excited about something than it is to actually implement it. Because that has to be done in real time.
Just becoming aware of how you manage your time and how you manage the projects that you're working on. I talk a lot about strategic coach, I talk a lot about Dan Sullivan. To me, I think as entrepreneurs, the very best time management system or approach for that is his approach of the entrepreneurial time system, which basically, he has a program called, How The Best Get Better. It outlines the entrepreneurial time system of free days, focus days and buffer days.
He essentially got that from observing the highest paid people, athletes and entertainers who have a different time system than the bureaucratic time system. They have performance days or game days, days where they're on and they're doing. Then they have time where they are completely off. Where there's no game, no performance. Those are free days away from that. They have buffer days, which would be preparation days, rehearsal days, practice days, all of those kinds of things.
Taking that approach and looking at how you look at your time. If we're all in the same situation where the goal is to have more or the same amount of money with less time, meaning more time, more free time. That's really what we're focused on. So often, especially in real estate and as an entrepreneur, you get in a situation where there's no such thing as really completely free time. Where it's all of this gray area of buffer time that you get to be free from something as long as you've got your pager or your cell phone with you and your available or you're checking on things.
The best thing is if you have some free time that you can go to your kid's soccer game or go to a movie and not have to return an urgent phone call, that feels like a win. But it feels like you've got away with it, rather than it was by design. And that was the intention of that.
His focus is really on being aware of that, and setting up things so that you use the buffer days in preparation for having truly free days and having truly productive focus days, so that you've got those opportunities.
Now, the gateway to all of that is the buffer day. That's the day where you're working on things, where you're implementing these types of things that we're talking about so that you can set up systems that you can delegate, where you can imagine the scenario where the whole business is operating without your involvement. I love Richard Branson was on, I Love Marketing and talked about, how do you run 300 companies or grow a multibillion dollar brand? His immediate answer was, well really you have to stop doing everything. You can't do anything. You have to be somebody who finds and hires great people who know what to do and you have to be willing to get out of the way.
That really is about answering that question, what? What is it that you want to do? You get to be the architect, you get to set up the system the way that you want it, but you do it in a way that you're going to set it up so that other people are doing your wishes. That they're doing things the way that you would want them to be done. That's part of what you would do on buffer days. I've found that so often. The thing that blocks us from getting anything done is that even when we block off the time to do something, we're not fully prepared to focus during that time, because we constantly keep getting interrupted by whatever it is; by email, by the internet, by the telephone, by other people. If we even clear all of those things out, we get interrupted by our thoughts. That you sit down to do something. As soon as you get still, immediately your mind goes, oh, I forgot to call- oh, I better do this. Or you get hijacked of that time that you have there.
I've struggled with that. I've had ADD and just in the six or eight months I've really been using medication for that and talking with my friend Ned Hallowell, who just happens to be the world's leading authority on EDD. Setting up structure makes things work smoother. I've had conversations with him where I look at, so for me today is a focus day. This is what I do. These are the highest value type of days that I have and I don't have a problem focusing on a day like this, because there's so much structure built up around it.
You guys, you had this marked on your calendar, you've flown from California, from Atlanta, from all over to come to this. We've marked the day on the calendar. I told you we were going to start at nine o'clock and there's ... It's like what, Ned calls like a bobsled run. There's so much structure in it. You get in at the top starting at nine o'clock and you get in and you slide and here it is 5:30 and I've been focused this whole time.
Where the challenge comes is in setting up that kind of structure on days where it's not inherently built into it. None of you have a problem focusing when you're on a listing appointment, or when you're with a buyer and you're showing homes. You're able to focus for two hours or three hours or an hour and a half or whatever it is, you're able to focus during that time.
Part of it is being able to set up the structures, set up the mechanisms that can help you keep that on the rails. To set up that bobsled run or otherwise you end up, like Ned says, if you don't have that structure, you can wander through days like a toddler at a picnic. Just wondering the whatever is interesting to you at the time. When he said that, that visual for me was just so perfect. You can just imagine going, oh, swings, and oh, cookies. Whatever is exciting to them at the time is what you tend to move towards. There's so much stuff that happens like that.
I shared with Ned that I've always had to create these work arounds that are strategies that allow me to focus. But I've found that they really work incredibly well. I'm an observer and journaler, and I was thinking about is it true that I'm unable to focus? I thought, I can play golf. I have no problem playing golf. That takes four hours or four and a half hours. So, I started looking at what are the inherent things in playing golf that could be transferable? I came up with this little acronym for GOLF where G is a goal. When I decided I'm going to play, I've set up that that's the goal. I'm going to go play golf. I put it on the calendar. When I do that, I've made a decision that if I'm going to play golf, that means I'm not going to the movies or I'm not going to write that article or I'm not going to record that podcast. I've decided the one thing I'm going to do in that time is I'm going to play golf.
So, G is for goal. O is for optimal environment. The golf course is the optimal environment to play golf. It's set up specifically for the task. You start on the first hole and you get that one done and then there's a little arrow pointing you over to the second hole and you go and you do that one, and 18 holes later, you're done. It's set up specifically to keep you on task. There's some momentum of it, which could in essence metaphorically be your prioritized list of tasks that you're going to do one at a time. Because when you go to play golf, you're not starting driving the ball on the first fairway and then hitting it over to the third hole and then playing willy nilly. You're playing the specific holes, you're staying on task. It's a pretty structured way to do it.
Then the L stands for limited distractions. That there are ... GOLF, G-O-L-F. No, G is the goal. O is optimal environment. L is for limited distractions and F is a fixed timeframe. You set that up and that's something that creates a structure that makes it easy to focus and get things done. I started then blocking off time in my calendar to play golf. What that meant was that I would create those conditions applied to any type of project that I wanted to do. That's how I've been able to do things like create the project [inaudible 00:35:04] program, create the getting listings program, all those things that don't have any inherent structure in them, I have to wrangle myself and get myself to sit down and focus to do those things. That's how I've been able to do it, by focusing on creating those kind of environments for myself to proactively work on things.
When I look at it, that when I set aside that time, I would set aside two hour blocks and I would pick what I'm going to do in that time. I'd have the goal going into it, because I would find if you set up the time and you go into the office and you don't have a crystal clear picture of specifically what you're going to work on, you waste time, because then you start spinning.
I created an optimal environment, my evil scheme hatchery where there's no telephone, there's no email. People don't come up and distract me. There's even a sign that says no one gets in to see the wizard. No one, not know how. Who got me that sign? Did you get me in that sign? The put up on the thing going into the door. I've got a focus room that's behind two locked doors. I can get up there and be completely isolated.
But if I've eliminated the telephone and people and the internet and my thoughts are not organized, that can throw you off too. The very first thing that I decided to do with my, what I call the 50 minute focus finder, is to take a yellow pad and spend the first 50 minutes getting all of the thoughts that I have, all the projects that I want to get done, all the things that I'm on in time, debt on, the things that I'm already behind on, the things that I owe, that I need to clean up, that I need to do urgently right now, or the things with some deadline or consequences to them. Get them all out on paper. You'd be amazed if you just spend 50 minutes doing that, how much you can get out on paper and how complete that list will seem.
You're going to go and you're going to find for the first 10 minutes, the thoughts are going to come as fast as you can write them. But in that 10 minutes, you're going to feel like you're done, but you're not. You're not done yet. Because now you start thinking about the proactive things, the things that you want to do, the things that you've come here and gotten ideas that you want to implement. Those are the things that you'll be able to get out on paper now, and be able to look at them and prioritize them and see what is the value of this one if I got this out into the world? And pick one of them and focus on implementing that one first.
That's why, I was very conscious, when I picked these 10 breakthrough ideas here, that I was very conscious of what I'd see them as the biggest priority. The things that are going to make the biggest difference.