Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle Podcast, we're talking with Todd Martin from North of Dallas, and we had a great discussion about the idea of dominating a specific category, and using the Getting Listings program to look at the opportunity you have to triangulate and be a market maker.
Todd has chosen golf course homes, and you'll hear in the call why that's such a great category. But in truth, there are lots of great categories; townhouses, condos, lakefront homes, oceanfront homes, or whatever category you can think of and give a name too, that people would recognize.
As we're talking about applying the ideas to golf course communities, just remember you can replace everything we're saying about golf course's and replace it with the category you choose, because the ideas here are the key to really maximizing the investment you make in dominating an area for the longterm.
A lot of ideas in this episode.
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep110
Dean: Todd.
Todd: Yes, hello.
Dean: How are you?
Todd: I'm doing okay.
Dean: Just okay. Let's see what we can do about that.
Todd: Yeah.
Dean: We have the whole hour here to talk about your business and I'd love to hear what's happening and what you'd love to focus on.
Todd: At this point I've sent out three months to my farm of the Getting Listings postcard.
Dean: Okay.
Todd: And I've had, I think I'm up to 10 responses to that.
Dean: Okay. Where are you? Let's walk through the process of the market that you chose, the area, that kind of thing. Tell me how it's all came to be here.
Todd: All right, well after listening to... I've probably listened to almost all the podcasts by now.
Dean: That's great.
Todd: I'm trying to go with the certain quality of the area, like whether it's a townhouse or whatever, and I'm picking golf course houses.
Dean: Okay, I love that. I like that already. The thing I love about those kind of things, and you've heard me talk about it on the podcast is that it's a category that you can find... It's very helpful that you can find buyers for this category as well, and the people who own those golf course homes, they know that. They know they have a golf course home, so it's got that sort of horoscope effect too, right, where they go, "Hey, that's me."
So golf course homes, where in the country are you by the way?
Todd: Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Dean: Okay.
Todd: But I'm very extremely far north Fort Worth. I'm actually really close to the Texas Motor Speedway.
Dean: Oh, wow. Okay.
Todd: I'm so far north Fort Worth that I'm actually in the next county, which is actually kind of funny.
Dean: Okay. That's so funny. Okay, so now tell me about the area that you chose then.
Todd: So the area that I'm actually sending postcards to is the one that's actually right across from the speedway. It's called the Fairways of Champion Circle.
Dean: Okay. Fairways of Champion Circle. And tell me about that. How many homes are in there and what's the price range and the turnover?
Todd: The home count is probably around 500-ish. I'm sending out 500 postcards.
Dean: Okay.
Todd: And the turnover, I believe is... There's two halves. One half of it, the turnover is 9%, the other half is 6%. The older half is lower.
Dean: Okay.
Todd: One of the issues, I guess, with the areas as far as listings is that it's still being built, so there's still new construction.
Dean: New construction. Okay. Will they cooperate by the way? Do they pay realtors, the builders?
Todd: Yeah. They seem to be pretty good about that around here.
Dean: Okay. So you can introduce the buyer and get paid. So that's fine. Don't mind that at all. So 500 with a roughly 7, 8% turnover rate blended would say?
Todd: Yeah, somewhere around in there. The 6% side is bigger, so it's got a little more weight, so yeah probably maybe seven on average.
Dean: How many homes in the last 12 months sold in there?
Todd: Last one I sent out, I think it was 100. No it wouldn't have been that high.
Dean: 100 homes sold in there? No, no, no. So if we've got 500 homes, and we've got somewhere 7% turnover rate, that's up 35 homes sold in the last 12 months.
Todd: Yeah, that's...
Dean: Is that right?
Todd: Unless it's changed since the last time I looked at it.
Dean: That's okay. I mean, it's not going to change. It is what it is the last 12 months. The sold ones are the sold ones. That's how we're going to calculate that. So if it was 7%, that means 35 homes, and that sounds reasonable, like right around what you would expect out of a 500-home subdivision.
And those 35 homes, what's the price range in there? What's the median price or the range of prices there?
Todd: 250 to 350-ish.
Dean: Okay.
Todd: Kind of an average.
Dean: Yeah. How much does that equate to in the average commission check for you, for the listing side of a transaction there?
Todd: I mean, we'd like to get 3% all the time.
Dean: Okay. So in the 7 or 8,000 range in that? Is that about right? 9,000?
Todd: Yeah. Seven or eight by the time I get my cut of it.
Dean: Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Let's call it 8,000 times 35 is... What is that? Can't do math without our calculators now. That's crazy, right? But 260,000 or 270,000 let's say. So 35 times 8,000 is 280,000 total yield from that area on the listing side, right? That's how we'd look at this is what's up for grabs here. So we've mail, you said, three times so far, and you've gotten 10 or 11 responses so far?
Todd: Yup. Pretty much up to 10 and I actually had a listing appointment with one person and they're just waiting for the right house to come up for sale. They want to downsize.
Dean: Okay, good. So that's great. So you're on your way here, and the way that I'd look at this, like right now you basically, and I know it sounds... The thing that you want to put it in perspective of is that there's 35 people in the next 12 months that are going to sell their house, right? That's how those numbers basically work out. And that right now after three months, you've generated about a third of what that expected number would be.
The only people that we're talking to, the only people that matter here are these 35 that are going to sell, so it's not something that we would expect you mailing to 500 homes to have more leads than that, right? Now if you put zeroes on it and you were mailing to 5,000 homes and you have 100 that you're right in perspective. You're right in the realm here of what we're talking about, and you've gotten one listing appointment.
But I always like to make sure, just to kind of quality check that things that are happening here for exactness. So when you say that we're mailing the Getting Listings postcard, are you mailing them exactly the way that we have them laid out or are there any changes to it?
Todd: I don't believe I changed anything other than maybe to customize it.
Dean: Okay. So if I were to put it in the lineup against the prototype, you wouldn't be able to tell it apart? You wouldn't be able to... So it's yellow, you've got the same headline and body copy. What's the picture that you're using on the front side of the card?
Todd: Yeah, I've got the picture of the entryway to the area.
Dean: Entryway. Perfect. Then on the back side?
Todd: Yeah, the only branding it has is I put my name and company on the return address.
Dean: Perfect.
Todd: There is one thing that I did change.
Dean: Okay what's that?
Todd: To save me a little bit of money on this first run, instead of October, I just have this month's.
Dean: Okay. This month.
Todd: That's the only wording that I changed.
Dean: Okay. All right.
Todd: Yeah.
Dean: All right, so that's a slight difference, but you're getting responses, and you've gotten a listing appointment, so we're not even broken it. The thing about the standard, the way we do it with the current one sounds, you know, January 2020 sounds a little different than this month's, but just the way our minds work, that it sounds like officially current and we're talking about data. So that's okay.
But when you get going or when you ramp up here, I would love to see you don't test the month on the thing. So how did that save you money by the way?
Todd: Bulk print 2500 in a row.
Dean: Oh, gotcha, gotcha. Okay.
Todd: Okay, fair enough.
Dean: So now the on track though in terms of continuing to mail, continuing to nurture now these 10 that you've got out of 35 potential that are going to move in the next 12 months, that's all we're looking for. The reason of this, the purpose for doing these cards like this is it's not to convince people to list with you, that's not the purpose of the card. The purpose of the card is to get the people who are going to sell their house to raise their hand. And we're doing it in a way that makes it totally safe for them because the market data, the report that you're offering gives them a way to get the information they want without it feeling like they're getting subjective data.
Your opinion of the value of their house is different than the market data of the golf course community house prices, and so that gives people... And it sounds like it's already done, like you don't have to come over and look at their house to get that. They got this and now they can look at it and get the lay of the land. And as soon as they respond for it, it's done its job and now we're trying to educate them and motivate them so that when it is time to sell that of course they're going to choose you, right, that there's no other choice for them to make, because you're the one who's going out of your way for them, and you're sending them the updated information.
So are you mailing the newsletters to these 10 people?
Todd: Yup, I've been sending them out the beginning of the month as they sign up.
Dean: Yup. So you are on track. I think that's awesome. So I would say there's nothing you need to change about that. You need to just stay the course with that. The people that you've already spoke with, you're keeping your eye out to help them find the house that they're going to move down to?
Todd: Right, yeah, we're just having trouble finding something of the quality that they're accustomed to at a lower price. I can't seem to find anything under two and a quarter for them to downsize to, and their target is closer to two, so we're almost there.
Dean: Yeah, perfect. But you're pretty confident that they'll either find that or maybe they need to raise their price just a little bit?
Todd: Yeah, they just want to pay it off when they buy it, so that's their budget for right now.
Dean: Okay, good. So that's good.
Todd: The longer we wait, the more mortgage they pay, so that number will keep increasing as we go.
Dean: Yeah. Love it. And they want to stay kind of in the same community?
Todd: Looking dow in the road a bit. They've got some family.
Dean: Okay, cool. So that, just stay in touch working on that. Now the best thing that we can do for the golf course communities is to now step one layer up here and start to think in the big picture of this. So in your way north Fort North other county area, how many golf course communities are there up there?
Todd: Yeah, as soon as I get some house money to play with, I believe I've got about a dozen different golf courses that I would be willing to expand to.
Dean: Okay. So when you start that process now, this will be a good thing to look at starting to build your system for finding golf course buyers, right? So when you look at the market there, anybody who's looking for a golf course community is going to consider different ones. There'll be different communities all pretty tightly banded there, many options for them. But it's a great category because somebody who's looking for a golf course community, that's what they want, right, golf is part of their life.
They want that or they've got this idealized version of being on the golf course in their backyard looking out over the golf course. It's a great place. Golf courses are a beautiful environment, and that whole country club lifestyle of driving your golf cart around and going up to the club house. It's a great place for kids, a great lifestyle.
Todd: Even the communities around here that surround it, they drive golf carts around even though they're not on the golf course. It's kind of funny.
Dean: That's what I mean. It's like such a great thing. Golf course community living is great. So we want to kind of go with that, that's cool.
Todd: Most of that effort, I was just going to say, I've actually been running Facebook ads and I've been working on my Google Adwords. I've kind of set some of those up with a pretty low click price, but I think I've got about seven responses on the signing buyer side, and four of them, well no, three of them actually I set up with a portal so that they're getting a weekly update on the houses that are coming on the market and what's sold.
Dean: I like it. So this is the kind of thing now that you've got, what would be really great for you is to now start building that list aside. How much are you getting the leads for right now on Facebook?
Todd: If you want to count what I've spent versus how many actual leads, I've been spending probably 100 bucks a month. I've got two different areas that I'm sending out. My other golf course area, which I'm not sending postcards to, I'm just doing Google Adwords and some Facebooks, I've gotten eight responses and two of them I'm sending weekly updates to.
But I spent 100 bucks on Facebook, and I probably spend, I don't know I haven't looked at my Google Adwords, I'm a little scared sometimes. The first month I spent 150 or 200 because I got a free gift of 150 I think, so I spent a lot right at the beginning and then cut it back down. I think I'm spending about 50 a month on that, Google Adwords. Is I'm spending 150 bucks on those, and I'm not getting a lot back from it yet.
Dean: Yeah, the Adwords is a tougher game right now just because there's so much deep pocket competition for that. So Facebook is a good place for that, especially if you can get all of those golf course communities within a radius. Would all fit within a 15-mile radius?
Todd: All those golf courses? The 12 of them might be a little bigger area than that, not a ton. 20 miles maybe.
Dean: Yeah, whatever it is, if you're calling it, how do you describe the area? Do you call it North... How do you describe it so that people know what you're talking about if people ask, if you tell people where you live or where they're looking, how do they describe it?
Todd: That's kind of one of the dilemmas I'm having at least when I'm brainstorming this up is how we tend to describe this area other than just Far North Fort Worth.
Dean: Far North Fort Worth. Maybe that's good. That's the thing.
Todd: I think that's the official name of the area.
Dean: Far North Fort Worth, okay. So that's good, yeah, yeah. Part of the thing is whenever I think about things like that, people describe Far North meaning that far in a good way is that it's far away from the heart of Fort Worth kind of thing. How far is it? How far north is it?
Todd: Miles or traffic?
Dean: Yeah, whatever is... yeah.
Todd: It'd probably take you 45 minutes to drive into downtown Fort Worth, but I don't know if it's even 20 miles.
Dean: I gotcha. Perfect. So is it one of those things where... Are the prices higher in Fort Worth, compared to Far North?
Todd: No, because one of the cities up this way, two of the cities that are really big are Southlake and Westlake, the Vaquero Golf Course is private gated.
Dean: Well you guys are really creative out there in Texas.
Todd: Very expensive houses in that area.
Dean: They're really creative with the names of things, right, Southlake, Westlake, Far North.
Todd: Yeah, there's a Northlake too.
Dean: There's an even further north. That's what you should get ahead, jump on that bandwagon, go even further north Fort Worth.
Todd: One of the cities up there was named after one of the satellite communication companies, they paid them all, gave them all free satellite TV, I believe.
Dean: I love it. That's so funny. That's cool.
Todd: So yeah, I want to talk about the Facebook, maybe some ad ideas or things like that too.
Dean: So what is your current ad? What I'm using or saying that would be a good idea for you is to put together a guide to Far North Fort Worth golf course communities, and have it in one directory, like an informative guide for people who are looking to compare the different communities, sort of get the lay of the land. Start them to think if you want to be in a golf course community, and you want to be in Far North Fort Worth, then this is the guide, that it's got the 12 golf course communities, it's got the information about what you get for the money in those, what the memberships are, anything that somebody considers a golf course community would love to have. And you're trying to create it as the gold mine of information that they would feel happy that they stumbled on, you know?
Todd: Yeah, I've created those two guides for the two separate golf course areas that I'm kind of marketing too right now, but I really like the idea of eventually doing that full guide to all the golf courses up here.
Dean: Right, like I think that's what you want to do, is you want to do the... Not narrowing yourself on that situation to just that community. I think it's going to be good for you from a buyer standpoint to have the category and then gradually build out those individual ones, because that's what you can highlight in your weekly golf course market watch.
Todd: Right.
Dean: Then you can start building out those things. The most attractive thing that you could do for someone looking for a golf course community is have the guide, the definitive kind of guide for the category. Anybody looking at any of those golf course communities would say, "Oh yeah, I want to get this." That was it opens up the opportunity for you to different carousel ads that show the different communities or a map that shows dropped pins on where the communities are with a cover of the guide, you know?
Todd: Yeah. The big stumbling block on this so far is naming it. What is really this area or how do I...
Dean: I think you go with what people call it, the Far North Fort Worth golf course community guide.
Todd: What would you google though? If you didn't live around here you wouldn't know about that.
Dean: I'm not worried about them googling it. That's not the thing. I would put aside the Adwords for right now and focus on the Facebook side of this for now.
Todd: All right. What would be the way someone would look for a golf course on Facebook?
Dean: They're not. You're going through the... That's part of the way that the Facebook algorithm works to find the people who are most likely to respond to something like that. So you'd let them find it for you. So if you put together the guide, and you've got the cover of the guide and... You can test different images, but either a golf course-related image or a map with pins that show the different areas, but the headline describing what the guide is, that if you're looking for an amazing golf course property in Far North Fort Worth, then here's the guide.
It's got info about all 12 golf communities in Far North with pictures and price ranges and profiles, golf course info. All that stuff that would be a great starting point. You're not trying to convince them to buy a house right now. You're just trying to create something that anybody who's thinking about a golf course community would definitely want, you know?
Todd: Yeah. Sorry I was just wondering what area would I... because I don't know who's going to be looking, is it just this 20-mile radius that they'll be looking to go to another golf course or is this a nationwide thing?
Dean: No, no, not-
Todd: A lot of people are moving from California and stuff like that to here.
Dean: I got it. So two different audiences that you have access to on Facebook are the people who live in this radius, so when you run a Facebook ad, you target a 20-mile radius around the center of wherever would be the midpoint between the two farthest golf communities kind of thing.
Todd: Right.
Dean: Whatever would be that area. Then within that you can target people who live there, who live already within that 20-mile radius, 20-mile zone, and then the other target group that you have is people who are in this area but don't live there, people who live more than 100 miles away from that area. So people who are coming from different places, that they're there now.
It used to be that we could target specific golf course communities, like narrow it down to ring sense just that, but Facebook has now made it so the minimum is you can only target a 15-mile radius and you can't deselect any particular demographic info.
Todd: On that issue, has anybody tried uploading the custom audience and buying the list of names and addresses of all the people in the subdivision, and then using that as a custom audience to run a Facebook ad?
Dean: Yes. Now that's the one way that people are making some progress on that, but I don't know what the... Do you have that available that you can get that? Because it's not so much the people in those golf course communities that we're trying to attract with this, it's the people who want to live in those golf course communities.
Todd: Yeah, that's what I was thinking. That would work for getting listings, but not for finding buyers.
Dean: That's exactly right. So you're doing the things, you're laying the foundation here with your starting with the 500, and you got to stick with that, and get that first transaction. Is your market a spring-based market like a lot of the country? Is it busier in the spring than in the summer and end of the year?
Todd: Yeah, I think because the climate here's a little warmer, we have a longer market.
Dean: Yeah, right.
Todd: But January and February are usually pretty dead.
Dean: Right.
Todd: Other stuff's still going on with relocations and stuff, but it's a little more dead here.
Dean: Right. And then it all straddles the second quarter basically is the big quarter.
Todd: Spring and summer is really good. Into the fall is good too.
Dean: Yeah. So you're perfectly poised here in that you started before Christmas, so you've already got a head start now of 10 people out of the 35 that we're looking for, the 35 that are going to sell. You're already in conversation with one of them, and if you continue this path, this is going to look really good for you coming into the spring here.
And as you continue to mail the postcards, you'll be continuing to add people. And as it's on people's minds you may even see that you get a few more responses in March and April than you've been getting in November, December, January. But the good news is that if you are able to now start supplementing and finding the buyers for this, that that's going to be the catalyst for all of it. That's the opportunity to disrupt the disruptors, is that you can essentially become a market maker in the golf course communities, which is going to be as convenient or easy for people as the iBuyers.
But that's because if you've got a buyer who's now... Let's play this out. Put the guide together. You're running Facebook ads, generating leads. We fast forward, you've got people in your buyer leads that you've generated that are getting a weekly email from you that in that email we've got a super signature that always ends with, "Plus whenever you're ready here are three ways I can help you. Join us for a daily tour of golf course communities."
And that, if people click on that to join you and say, "Hey, I'd like to go on a tour of golf course communities," that now is someone who's moving into the buying phase. Then you talk with them and it turns out that the communities they want to go and look at is the one that you've been mailing the postcards to and you're able to say to people, you're able to send an email to all the people that you've been mailing in newsletters to and say, "Hey, I'm showing houses in..." whatever the name of the community is, "this weekend, or this Tuesday, and I remember looking up your house online when I sent you the report on the golf course on the prices, and I'm not sure what your plans are, but I thought I'd check in and see if I could tell them about your house. It might be a perfect match."
Now that is a way that you'll be able to engage with people in a way that is, an easy way for them to take advantage of stuff, you know?
Todd: Yeah, I'm actually chomping at the bit to make that first phone call when I can [crosstalk 00:39:06].
Dean: Exactly. Yeah. And that's the great thing because that phone call is so much better than any other phone call you could make, you know?
Todd: Yup. At what point though should I maybe contact some of these buyers that I have signed up for the finding buyers part? After they've filled out the web form? I'm thinking if I send them the nine-word email out, I don't know.
Dean: Yeah, you want to engage with them. So what you might want to look at engaging, because all we're looking to see is are they willing to engage in a dialogue. So if you're sending out... What would be a good conversation to start with them, when they ask for the... Tell me about the ads that you've been running? So how did you get these hundred? What have they responded for?
Todd: The finding buyers ones?
Dean: Yeah.
Todd: I think most of them probably came in through the Google Adwords, then they're just sent to my landing page to fill out the finding buyers form on the landing page.
Dean: Okay. What is that offer then? Walk me through the whole thing. What would be the key word that they searched to see your ad? How are you framing it?
I'm at my computer, but typing in Fort Worth golf course communities, or are they typing in a particular name of the community, which would be a good key word that you'd be looking for.
Todd: So yeah, I've got the Fairways Home Guide as my URL.
Dean: Okay. So that's the one that you are running right now that you've got the... That's the one that you're doing the Getting Listing postcards in right now, the Fairways. What was the name of the community again? The Fairways of...
Todd: Champion Circle.
Dean: Champion Circle. Okay great. We have a place here in Florida called Champions Gate, so it's similar. But Champion Circle I guess matches up with the speedway, right.
Todd: Exactly.
Dean: Now I see. See what they did there? You see what they did?
Todd: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Clever group.
Dean: Yes, very clever right there. Okay, so that, and then what is the next step in that process? What did they click on, like what key word are you bidding on for your ad to show up?
Todd: Really any of those words, like fairways, golf course homes, and things like that.
Dean: Okay. But all related to fairways, right. Then they see your ad. What's the offer in your ad, because there's three things that have to all sync up here. You have to correctly get the key word so that it's the right key word that you're bidding on to get them to see your ad, and then the ad is the next thing. What's the language on the ad that they see?
Todd: Oh, I really didn't change your landing page at all. To get your free Fairways of Champion Circle Homes Guide simply fill out the form below and we'll send it to you right away.
Dean: Okay, perfect. Good. But the ad that they see on Adwords that gets them there, what does that ad say?
Todd: Oh geez, it's been so long since I set this up, I can't remember what it says.
Dean: I got you. Okay. It sounds like you've got the elements together in terms of that people are going all the way through, and they are filling out the thing, so you've proven that there is that demand. Now, the neat thing is that that's a pretty nichey, you're getting a very specific buyer in that.
Todd: Right.
Dean: So you're getting a very specific person because you're narrowing it down to these 500 homes, right?
Todd: Right.
Dean: That's what people are responding too. So what I was saying, and the reason that I was suggesting expanding it up one layer is that if the Golf Course Guide, which would include all of them, there's a good chance that if somebody's considering Champion Circe, what would be the two or three comparable communities that might be in that conversation?
Todd: Right, yeah. Kind of got a nice gamut of the Fairways being the least expensive kind of homes, and then at least the other three or four that I know of that I've kind of researched a bit, like the one in Southlake, those range from like 500,000 up to a mil and a half.
Dean: Yes.
Todd: Then the Vaquero homes are probably closer to a mil and up.
Dean: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Todd: Then there's this other golf course across the lake called Tour 18, and it's like all these famous holes from different golf courses.
Dean: Right, right. Oh yeah, yeah, we've got one of those in Orlando too.
Todd: So I want to get at least those four going, once I get some, like I said, house money to play with, I want to add those into the mix.
Dean: Okay. So part of the thing is by advertising and looking for the category buyers, you've also got the opportunity that that, the Fairways of Champion Circle is a subset of that bigger category, right?
Todd: Right.
Dean: So you've got buyers you may be able to introduce them to these other communities, so you're kind of thinking ahead to where you're going to expand with this. Because I look at it as even though you're starting with that Champions, with that one neighborhood, your vision of course is to dominate the category of golf course communities in Far North Fort Worth.
Todd: Right.
Dean: Yeah. I think that that would be, you might gt more exposure that way. Now you're going to appeal to everybody that's in the area looking for a golf course community. And Facebook is really actually very good at finding your right audience. They want to take your money too. They want you to be successful. They want to partner with you and say, "Listen, we'll do our best to match you up with the right people who want this," because that's how they're going to get paid is to keep you advertising for a long time. It doesn't make sense in their... yeah.
Todd: My Google Adword, those things are going out to the whole country just because I know there's so many companies moving here.
Dean: Well, and how many fairways are there too? That's the thing. I think from a jump starting position that I would definitely be focused on capturing the local market or at least the market people that maybe are not local, but they're already here looking, you know?
Todd: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dean: Because that second target group that I was mentioning that you could target the people who are in the area, they're in this 20 miles, but they don't live here, those might be people who are in the process of relocating, you know?
Todd: Right.
Dean: Yeah. I think that's a big piece right there. So I think the action that I would recommend for you is putting together your minimum viable golf course communities guide.
Todd: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dean: Include all 12 of the ones. And you need a nice looking cover and graphic of the book because that whole thing, all of this stuff hinges on getting the attention of the person so that they know immediately, "I definitely want this," if they're looking for a golf course community.
Todd: Yup, and this is something I've been kind of harboring in the back of my mind as far as the Finding Buyers thing, because that's kind of been the more difficult from a marketing standpoint to me how to find the buyers for this.
Dean: Right.
Todd: Just because DFW's so huge and I can't just do an every golf course in the area. That's just too much. That's just too big.
Dean: Right.
Todd: So I'm trying to figure out how to narrow that down.
Dean: Yeah, you start with the buyers and then that's your calling card that as you go into, because then every time you get a buyer who's looking in a particular area, then you've got an opportunity to leverage that buyer into finding a listing in that neighborhood, you know?
Todd: Right.
Dean: Yeah. So I think you're right on track there. It's all great to watch unfold. It's just now a matter of get your first one under your belt and just smartly think about expanding in the right way.
Todd: Yup, this is... Well, like you said, it's kind of a long-term game. I'm going to keep chugging away a step at a time.
Dean: Yeah. Now, what's going on with the other things that you've got going on? Have you put your top 150 together?
Todd: I think I'm up to 12 of my top 150.
Dean: Okay. That's got to be the next step. How long have you been in real estate?
Todd: Well, I've had my license over a year, but due to some health issues and stuff in the family, like last summer I didn't do really anything.
Dean: Right.
Todd: So really this fall I just got started with this.
Dean: Okay. Have you lived in the area for a while?
Todd: Yeah, and that's another problem. We've only been here a few years now, so I haven't had a chance to meet too many people. Within the last year though I joined the Rotary Club so I'm meeting some people there, and looks like I'm going to get elected to the board of directors of my HOA soon.
Dean: Look at you. That's great.
Todd: That'll be kind of a third community-
Dean: Taking over.
Todd: Yeah.
Dean: Del Boca Vista, phase three. Yeah, you need to get everybody a tip calculator to swing the vote in your favor. Are you a Seinfeld fan?
Todd: A little bit. I haven't really spent a lot of time watching.
Dean: That was the episode where Kramer moved down to Del Boca Vista to be with Jerry's parents, and he was running for the condo board president.
It was a funny episode. He bought everybody tip calculators to sway the vote. Very funny. Yeah, so that's a good thing if you know people in your community. You ought to start building this list, yeah, the Rotary's a good place to start that to anybody that if you saw them at the grocery store you'd recognize them by name and stop and have a conversation with them, that's the person that needs to be in your top 150 right now. And when you start building that list, you know?
Todd: I'm going to have to work on my memory though. I forget my kids' names sometimes.
Dean: Yeah, well a good place to start is with your Facebook, like if you just go through and look at the friends that you have on Facebook, and anybody that's local that is an adult and is in that area, that would be a good candidate for you. We just want to get those people thinking about you. You want to sort of adopt them into the situation that you're treating them as... You're going to adopt them as if they had a real estate need, that they would hope they would call you, which is going to be a big thing.
So even if it's 50 people, stretch yourself to get to that, but start with whatever you've got rather than putting it off to wait till you get to 150.
Todd: Right. Yeah, I've been doing the Getting Listings postcard as a Facebook ad in my community. My community's about 800 homes.
Dean: Okay.
Todd: I've got one response out of that that I've been mailing to.
Dean: Nice.
Todd: I don't think I've been doing that as often.
Dean: Right. Yeah. I think everything's going to be on track here. It's just getting everything up and running is a... It's like launching a rocket into space. It's just all the energy and the fuel and the cost of getting it up there is the most expensive and time consuming, but getting it into orbit, once it's in orbit it's easier to maintain, you know?
Todd: Right.
Dean: But the good news is you've got time right now. That's the main thing you have going for you. So rather than using that time to... You want to start using it to build these assets which would be document to putting your guide together for the townhouses. You've got a chance to build an asset, or the golf course communities, you've got an asset that's going to be a really strong foundation for you.
Todd: Yeah, these guides seem like... I don't know, I haven't talked to any of the people that have got them yet, but I would imagine that all the information that's in there is definitely helpful.
Dean: Yeah, and that's it. It doesn't have to be a crazy... You're not doing a full research project. It's not the definitive guide to each of these communities where every little detail about it. To start out with, it can be the minimum viable guide, which would be, "This is a map. Here's where they are. This is the name of the community. Here's some pictures of what it looks like. Here's the types of homes that you get. This is the price range. Here's some info about the golf course."
That's really the top line info that you could put together, and it might be just like a two-page spread for each of the communities, and there you've got a 24, 28-page guide that is valuable to people. And the good news is that's going to have a shelf life, because it's not dated information. It's, "This is what's happening in here." Or, "This is where the golf course communities are." Five years from now, those are still going to be the golf course communities.
Todd: Right, hopefully.
Dean: Yeah, so you've got a lot of legs on that as a project. I like it. So what's your takeaway here? How did this all kind of land?
Todd: Well, I definitely love the idea of the big golf course guide. That's something, like I said, I had been thinking about too and it's just gathering all the information and figuring out exactly how to market that. I like the Far North Fort Worth thing, but I'm afraid that people out of the area wouldn't know what that's called so I'm going to have to -.
Dean: Doesn't matter. You're not trying to convince anybody to move there. You're looking for the people who know that that's where they want to be. So the people who know, know. Doesn't matter about the other ones.
Todd: Right. Mm-hmm (affirmative). And as long as Fort Worth's in there, that'll get some attention, and if it's not the right part that they want, then they can just go away.
Dean: That's right. That's exactly right. I like it.
Todd: Yup, and once I get some more house money, then I can start sending more Getting Listings postcards and it should just snowball from that I believe.
Dean: I like the way you roll. That's good. Those are all good thoughts. So yeah, I think you are completely on track and I can't wait to watch it all unfold here. Did you listen to the podcast with Dylan last week? I think it's up right now.
Todd: I don't think I listened to that one yet.
Dean: Okay. We had almost exactly this conversation about Las Vegas, so it's good to... if you want to listen to that one too, anything that we didn't talk about would be covered in there too.
Todd: Yup, that's the next one on my list.
Dean: Awesome. All right, well thank you so much for coming on. I always love to brainstorm and hatch some evil schemes. I appreciate your openness and love to watch what you've got going on.
Todd: All right, great. Well I thank you for all the ideas, and got to get this moving I guess.
Dean: Awesome. Thanks, Todd.
Todd: All right, thank you.
Dean: Talk to you later.
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