Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast, we're talking with Al Alkhatib from Whitby, Ontario, just in the Greater Toronto area.
Al is just getting started with the Getting Listings program, and he's focused on listings in a particular area in Whitby.
We talked through the whole strategy behind the program, the exact things you need to do to make sure it runs, and why you don't need to make any outbound phone calls for it to work.
This is a great episode, especially if you're thinking, 'How can I get listings without having to make outbound phone calls?'
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep119
Dean: Al?
Al: Yes, hello.
Dean: There he is, how are you?
Al: Good how are you? Is this Dean?
Dean: This is Dean?
Al: How are you Dean?
Dean: I'm excited to chat. I'm very good. Have we got Alex on the phone too?
Al: Yeah, he's calling in. We're not in the same place. We're all home but he should be calling.
Dean: That sounds great. So where are you calling from right now?
Al: Oh, from Toronto.
Dean: Okay, perfect. Yeah. I love Toronto. I miss it. Usually I spend the summers in Toronto and so-
Al: Yeah, with COVID-19 now-
Dean: Yeah, we're kind of banned. Have they opened it back up?
Al: Where are you?
Dean: I'm in Florida.
Al: Oh my gosh. You guys, I feel bad for you.
Dean: Uh huh, exactly.
Al: You have like, sixty thousand cases. I have a friend who just came a month ago from Miami. She's okay but when she left it was a thousand cases a day, now it's like 15 or more in Florida.
Dean: Wow.
Al: I love Florida. I used to live in North Carolina and I used to go to Florida all the time.
Dean:Awesome. Well, tell me about what you guys have going on. Let's get going with some Getting Listings stuff.
Al: Yeah, let me give you a little bit of background. Alex - had been using your system for that last, probably ten years but his problem is, he wasn't really following it from the concept.
Dean: Okay.
Al: He knows that Tony Cassie?
Dean: Kelsey, uh huh. Yes.
Al: Yeah. They used to work together and so we spoke with him and he said all kind of the same. So now, me and Alex are doing the Hall area which is about 2,000 homes. We already have - So we decided to hit that area and use your system with it. My background is in computer science so I'm good in technology and stuff. So, one thing I wanted to see that I don't see in your system when I go through - how do you utilize social media with it; like Facebook, other stuff.
Dean: Yes.
Al: Yeah. Alex was telling that you are also by the book when you have to deliver physically, like papers and the packages themself. Is that still the case of - things like that. We need to work the system the right way, that we get the most results and utilize any new technology. Like for example, the 800 number. I remember - the 800 number calling and leaving a message and capture the cell number. It does still work.
Dean: Yeah, absolutely.
Al: - system.
Dean: Yeah. Using those options, what we find is that there may be as many of 20% of the people that call will use the recorded message. Those will be an additional 20% because what you're doing is you're eliminating any kind of delay. It's often easier for somebody to just dial a number, right now while it's on their mind and they want to get it, rather than having to put everything down and log on to fill out a form. We talk about it as being old school or is that still at work but the reality of it is we still use the telephone everyday. We're still doing this. Just because there's new things doesn't mean we stop with the old things. So, giving people that option, is going to maximize the response.
I look at it this way. If you don't put it on there, we know 100% certainly that nobody is going to call it. Right? But if we put it on there, I know that people are going to call it. So, it's adding to it. I like to do that, in terms of giving people the options. Now, you mentioned social media too. We do use Facebook for these. Now, in the U.S, rules prohibit us from targeting a specific neighborhood and I believe in Canada you can still do that. Right? You can still target down to a specific geographic area? How small can you make your targeting? Do you know? Hello?
Al: Can you hear me?
Dean: There we go, yeah. I can hear you now.
Al: I don't know what happened with my headset.
Dean: Okay. No problem.
Al: Can you hear me now?
Dean: Yes, I can.
Al: Okay, I don't know. Sometimes if I hit it, it mutes. It has weird features.
We can target as specific as one mile radius from any specific address.
Dean: Okay, great. Here's what we did. What you can do, to do that is, you target down to one mile with your whole area in there. Is there a name for the area that you're-
Al: Yes. Actually, the town is called Whitby and it's South Whitby on the lake; it's Whitby Shores.
Dean: Okay, Whitby Shores. What you can do is, put a one mile radius that includes Whitby Shores in the center of it. Then, what we do is, put other circles on the north, south, east and west of it, that we excluded. So you're saying, show the address of everyone in this mile which includes Whitby Shores, and then we overlay on top of that another circle of a one mile radius that the bottom of the circle is at the top of the boundary of Whitby Shores and then the same thing on the left boundary and right boundary and the lower boundary. So you're saying, don't show the addresses in these areas, so that leaves us with just those 2200 homes.
The we run an ad that we use to bump up the response. So, we'll target when the postcards are arriving. So, we'll mail the postcard to go into the area and we know that there'll going to arrive on Tuesday, Wednesday typ of time. Then we will run a Facebook ad on the Tuesday and Wednesday with a video. We've done it with, you know Diane, we did where she would stand in front of the entrance to Whitby Shores and say, Hi, this is Diane Lightsey reporting live from Whitby Shores. You may have seen this postcard arrive in your mailbox offering this report on the July 2020 sales in Whitby Shores. In June, there were this many sales and this many new listings but if you'd like to get the report, just click right here and we'll send you the report.
And that bumped up the response to the postcards, because it mirrors exactly how life kind of works for people. Right? You imagine the postcard arrive and the family is coming home from work. They get the mail, they walk in the door and the kids, the dog, the groceries in their hand and the mail. They see the postcard. They want to get the report but right now they have to put it down, to get dinner ready and get the kids homework and get them in bed. Then nine or 10 o'clock, they get to sit back and watch TV for a little bit. They're watching TV and a commercial comes on, which is the international symbol to grab your phone and start scrolling through social media. Then they see this ad of somebody sitting out front of their neighborhood. They watch it and it reminds them, oh yeah, I wanted to get that. Now all they have to do is push the bottom.
So, that amplifies what happens, results wise. I was so disappointed that the minimum targeting now for the U.S. is 15 miles.
Al: Wow.
Dean: Yeah. You have to run ads that expose everything to 15 miles. You, I would say, have a lot of great opportunity there.
Al: Alex was just trying to call me. I don't know if he's able to get into the call. Should I tell him just to call the same number?
Dean: Yeah. He can just call the same number. That's all he has to do. It'll join him in.
We do those postcards every month. So, you mail in the postcards to the area every month. You are lucky in Canada, again, you have the unaddressed ad mail so very inexpensive to do these. Right, exactly. What's the median price range in Whitby Shores?
Al: Well, for Canada post it's about 12 cents, they call it indirect mail. Twelve cents per household but I think through our company we have a discount. We can get it for as low as nine.
Dean: Yeah, yeah. But what's the, I mean the price range of [-
Al: Oh for homes?
Dean: Yeah.
Al: Okay, the average in Whitby is $724,000.
Dean: Okay, so you're in the $12-15,000 range for commissions. So very inexpensive. You're talking about three or four hundred dollars a month to mail those postcards in there. You've got a $12-15,000 minimum commission when you get one. Right? So, there's a lot of upside on that.
Al: Oh yeah. Our market is good. You know that.
Dean: Yeah, it's just the consistency of it. There's no need to change anything. You continue to mail the same postcard every month and people will respond. The monthly mailings that go out to people are physical mailings that go right to their door that are the newsletter, the cover letter and the monthly update of all of the new listings and new sales that have happened in Whitby Shores, plus some inserts of things you have going on. We have a section called Helping People on the Move, which would be the different people that you are helping, new listing that you get that you could highlight in there. So, all of that, that one single mailing every month is going to be all that you need to do.
I designed the whole system so that it requires no outbound phone calls. Everything that happens-
Al: That's another question I have. I used to be - and I call. I love calling and going on line. So, can we add that to your system at the top of what you're doing. You can just follow up?
Dean: Here's how I would do the follow ups. My whole provocation when doing it was, what would I do if my phone only accepted incoming calls. This is the system for that. You don't have to do that. In most cases, calling people is going to be more of a deterrent than an encouragement. Especially if you're calling them right away. Most people are trying to pounce on them as soon as they get and trying to say, get the listing right now. Right?
What were doing, because of the offer, because of what we're offering people is something that they would be inclined to ask for well before they're going to sell. They want to get this information. They may not be thinking about selling until the fall or maybe even next spring but they want to know and keep their eye on it. They're curious already, what would my house sell for? That's going to be a valuable piece of information as their considering what their next step is or what their plans are. So when they get the report, the way the postcard is designed, it encourages those people because it doesn't sound like their committing to anything. It feels safe to get this. It almost feels like a public service. This report is already done and I can just get them to send me a copy of it. I'm not asking a real estate agent to prepare a CMA for me or to prepare an opinion for me; to go out of their way for me. I'm just asking to get this report.
When you call somebody, it kind of breaks that spell in a way. If you ask for that report and then all of a sudden a real estate agent is calling you. The most inclination would be, oh no, we're not selling right now. They want to nip that in the bud. If they're thinking, we're not going to sell to the spring, oh my gosh, the last thing I want is for this guy hounding me or calling me all the time. So, when you don't do that but you send them information; you're sending a nice letter. You're sending a letter along with the report. We're offering them the things and we're saying, when ever you're ready, here are three ways we can help you so that they know what you can do for them. Then the next month you send them an update of everything that's going on and the next month you do that. There's physical mounting evidence that you're acting on their behalf.
Now after that 60 days, the one phone call that I would say would be a good phone call to make, is if you are also looking for buyers for Whitby Shores and you're showing homes to someone in Whitby Shores. Let's say you responded. I can call you up and say, Hey Al, it's Dean Jackson calling and I'm the one who sent you the Whitby Shores report. I'm showing homes this weekend to a couple from Pickary who's looking for a home up here. I remember looking up your house when I sent you the Whitby Shores report a few months ago. I'm not sure what your plans are but I thought I'd check to see if maybe I can tell them about your house. That's the phone call I would make, not, Hey Al, it's Dean. Did you get the report, did you get a chance to read it? Are you thinking of selling? Not any of that. You are framing in their mind that you are the one who has the buyers. That's the value -
Al: One thing that I heard from Alex, one of the issues he had before and again, he wasn't following the system 100%. He was telling me that I see people that I spend six months or a year sending them packages every month and all of that and then out of no where I see a sign with a different agent listing the house. I haven't talked to them. Is that considered a valid concern, that he sends all these people - and then they use their own agent and you lose the big sale.
Dean: That's going to happen in any case sometimes. What we're looking for is the ones that I don't know if that would be saved by calling them.
Al: Sorry. I said that, either way you want to - area, don't worry about it. It doesn't matter if they use somebody else, you're still doing it. Other people will see you are the expert of the-.
Dean: That's it and more importantly, they will see that. Now, in six months, hopefully you will have had a buyer who's looking in that area. So, then you would have had a reason to reach out to them by email or by phone. You don't have to call. That's part of the thing. I know how the system works when you do follow it. I don't know what happens-
Al: When you don't follow it.
Dean: Right, exactly. I mean, I do know what happens when you don't follow it. Typically, people don't get the results. Now, we showed Tony Kelsey, you mentioned as an example, we've been documenting since September will be a six year case study that we've been doing with Tony. It's up over a million five now in commissions earned at about a 12 or 13 to one return on all of the money that he's spent in doing it. The interesting thing about it was that, he got his first listing five months after his first mailing. All of the equity of this is in the continued communication with them.
Al: Okay, perfect. - also on one of things we're thinking of adding or I don't know if you call it adding, since we are targeting Whitby Shores, we're going to create a Facebook page for it.
Dean: Perfect.
Al: Yeah and just adding videos. Even try to be the - interviewing small businesses; trying to make it like - some other stuff like that.
Dean: That all makes sense. Getting involved in Whitby Shores.
Al: - hopefully you'll put us on there for a case study but we'll try to -. One thing I noticed here, when I go to our dashboard and if I go to postcards, it takes me to a company ProspectPLUS!
Dean: Yeah, I have a partner here in the U.S. who does the actual mailing and addressing for us. So, in Canada, you can use the unaddressed ad mail and Diane can help to get the print ready postcard set up for you.
Al: Yeah. I just want to know how to edit this. Of course, we're going to have to change-
Dean: Yeah, we have a Canva file that you can use to edit. If you just call Diane, she'll help you get that.
Al: I will. Perfect. What else do we have? Landing pages, do we just use the landing pages?
Dean: Oh, the landing pages?
Al: Most of your landing pages are basically you enter the information. Is that all? You don't give them any-
Dean: That's all if takes. That's all it is. This is part of keeping people focused; when you only have one single purpose. We don't want them to go to your regular website where they're going to get lost in all the other stuff that they can look around at. We send them to one place where it's exactly the place where they can get what got them there. Like, they saw this postcard, they want the report, no distractions, nothing but the information.
Al: Would you recommend getting a website. Like, non-branded for the community. [inaudible 00:26:06]
Dean: Really, what you're talking about with the Facebook group might be even better. Facebook, by now, you can have different sections of it. I think that's more interactive.
Al: Okay, I guess that's almost everything that was on my mind. So, basically, just start sticking with the system, creating everything; Diane is there for help if we need anything.
Dean: She really is. Was Alex doing this same area that you were working in?
Al: No, he was doing it in a different city, in a different town. It's next to Whitby - demographic change completely in that area. It became very hard for him to work in that demographic. - specific people and commission cutters and all that. So he decided to come out of that area.
Dean: Okay. That's one system that you've got. Now we can get that in place and you just literally stick with it and that's all you need to do. What is happening with your and has Diane talked to you about your listing multiplier index?
Al: No, we haven't talked about that yet. We need to start on it. Again, - the system. I heard about it from Alex. So what is the listing multiplier?
Dean: One of the things that we look at, is how many transactions does one listing turn into for you with your current system. So when we look at it, every listing that you take has five opportunities for you. You can get the commission for getting the house sold, which is what everybody focuses on but you also have an opportunity to find the buyer for that house. You've also got an opportunity to find a buyer that buys another house even though this one wasn't the one for them. You've got an opportunity to get the next listing in that neighborhood or another listing because of somebody that you met by marketing that one listing. And, you have the opportunity to get a referral from the seller. All of these things for the closing. The way that we go about establishing what your listing multiplier index is, is we look back at your last 10 listings and we see how many transactions on each of those did you get. So, out of a possible 50 points, how many times for each of those 10 listings did you get it sold, find the buyer, find the buyer that bought another house, get another listing, or get a referral from the seller. So, you have a possible 50 points out of those 10 listings. And when we get that number, then we divide that number by ten to get an index. So, most of the time Al, when I do this exercise with people, we look back and they're typically somewhere between eight and 15 points out if 50.
Al: Yeah. Maybe we are even more than that because -. One thing here so far in our market, - today we just - we have our off day on Tuesday. So we have five days or six days. That's something definitely we need to be working on.
Dean: Absolutely. That's the whole thing, just building that awareness. When we did this with Tony, initially he was at 1.2, I think was his listing multiplier index. But now he's over three, so that every time he gets a listing it's worth 3 plus transactions. We have some very simple strategies for that. When we're talking about this, you're talking about a minimum of $12,000 per extra transaction that you can get. So you can see that, if you have 10 listings and you have them all sold that would be $120,000 but if you got all five of those, it would be $600,000. Even though you got 120, you're losing $480,000 at least.
Al: Multiplier.
Dean: Yeah. That's something that we can work through with you as well. Then the other thing that would be kind of in the first of wave of things that you do, typically what we like to do is get people the pick that Getting Listings area, get that set up. If you've already got current listings then we focus on the listing multipliers but we also want to look at your return on relationship, which is the amount of repeat and referral business that you get. I don't know what your business looks like in terms of that. Do you get a lot of repeat and referral business?
Al: Not a lot. There are some specific clients that send me referrals when they can but I cannot say, for example, that I have like 20 or 30% or any percentage of my business coming from that. I cannot count on that because they're random.
Dean: Right. So, that's exactly
Al: I see your point. I cannot tell you, if you asked me the cost of business, I can never include the referral as a part of what I'm expecting. Some years I get a lot. Some years I don't get any.
Dean: Right. So what we try to do is create and orchestrate in a way, for you to get those repeat and referral transactions. So we break it down and we look at, who are, we call this your after unit of your business. These are all the people that are living in a house that you helped them get and all the people that you know and would recognize by name if you saw them at the grocery store, who live in your area. Those are the people that you should be communicating with in a way that whenever they hear a conversation about real estate, they think about you and they introduce you to the person that they had that conversation with. That's what we're trying to orchestrate. We've got a system for that, it starts with a monthly postcard that we mail to your top 150, the people you would recognize by name if you saw them at the grocery store. We call this, the world's most interesting postcard. On the postcard, what we're doing is, programming people that when ever they hear conversations about real estate that they thing about you and they introduce you to the person that they have the conversation with.
We find that the gold standard, what we're looking for from this is that you manage your relationship portfolio for a twenty percent annual yield, meaning that out of 150 people, you should be able to generate 20% of that; 30 transactions from that group of 150 people. Which is pretty great. Do you know how many repeat and referral transactions, would you guess, in the last 12 month?
Al: Not many, three or four probably.
Dean: Okay. So, there you go. That's a big opportunity for you.
Al: Yeah and you do have a system for that?
Dean: We do, yes. All of these things about the listing agent lifestyle we have systems.
Al: So, how are we going to do that? We know the first step, and then the listing multiplier, the referral or the -. How do we set them up? You contact Diane and -.
Dean: Yes. Everything is in the GoGo Agent members area from your dashboard, up into the member blog. That's where everything is.
Al: The information is overwhelming. That's why it's better to have somebody to guide you on where to go.
Dean: That's exactly right. We have what we call our easy button program where Diane can do everything for you. Her team can set it all up for you.
Al: Perfect. That's probably what we're going to do.
Dean: Yeah. Makes sense.
Al: Yeah and I do have another friend of mine who also wanted to get into the system. I'll let her also contact Diane and set up. She wants to have another area.
Dean: That's exactly right.
Al: Your system will be perfect for her personality because she doesn't want to call -
Dean: Right, exactly. That's the whole thing. That's why I designed it like that because most people would prefer not. I used to live in Canada. I started out in Halton Hills in 1988 and I would make 100 cold calls a day. I know about making cold calls. It works but it's such a grind. It's like manual labor. It's like ditch digging in a way and as soon as you stop doing it, it doesn't work. You have to keep doing it. There's no equity in it. It's like renting. As soon as I discovered marketing. As soon as I discovered that I could put words on paper and get people to call me, my whole life changed. That set me off on a whole new trajectory. I never made a cold call since. That's part of the thing. Now I know that I can get people to call me and that's been my mission, to share that with people so that they don't have to make a bunch of cold calls and they can get business.
Al: Perfect. What else do I have left?
Dean: Well what are you doing to find buyers now?
Al: Buyers?
Dean: Yeah.
Al: I'm not a big fan of buyers but - I usually say my best buyers are my sellers. Buyers sometimes like ads on Facebook or -. I don't usual try to promote much to buyers. If they come it's fine but I'd rather focus on listings.
Dean: So yeah. Part of the thing that would be the way that I really think about buyers is, as category buyers. You're starting out with Whitby Shores as a thing but where there's a real opportunity is in being what I call a market maker. What I mean by that is, if you can on one side be generating buyers who are looking for a specific category of listings. So let's say, townhouses for instance, I know you have townhouses in Whitby. So, if you put together a guide to Whitby townhouses, as an example, and you advertise on Facebook, that guide that shows everything about all the different complexes that are available with price ranges and everything like that, you're building this list of townhouse buyers.
Then on the other side, you can do the getting listings postcards and add in the specific townhouse complexes so you're generating listing leads and you've got buyer leads here that when ever your buyers want to start looking at homes, now you can reach out to all of the people that replied to your postcard for the River Run report or whatever the townhouse complex name is. That's the number thing you can bring to a listing presentation. That's your big insurance. No matter what, even if they already have a real estate agent and that agent is their mother or their mother or their cousin or their best friend, if you have a buyer whose going to buy their house, they're going to go with that without even bringing in their other real estate agent.
Al: Yeah. That's true. You mentioned listing presentation. Do you have any specific guidelines for the listening presentation or do you have one. Do you have things to add to my listing presentation? How does that work?
Dean: Yeah. So all of the things are designed to get you into that conversation. We have a forum in GoGo Agent where people will share different things that they're including in their listing presentation. It's such a personal thing that everybody's got their own approach. I go from the place that I'm assuming that if somebody calls you up to say, hey can you come talk to us about selling our house, that you could take it from there. You have a system for that, right?
Al: Exactly. Okay. Well I think I covered everything that was on my mind. So now -
Dean: So much opportunity out.
Al: I know. Especially now with this market and things after COVID-19 - really busy now. In our area, there's a lot of - I will be in touch with Diane and we'll start checking off things. Yeah, we'll go from there and hopefully you'll hear from us some good news.
Dean: I can't wait. Yeah, we'll have you back on the podcast to share the results. I love it.
Al: Very well and I'm really thankful for the opportunity to speak with you and talk about your system. Yeah, we will be in touch. If I need to, I can address any question to Diane and she'll forward to you later on?
Dean: Yeah and I do two calls a month with everybody on GoGo Agent. So, we can come on these call and we can talk about those calls as well.
Al: Sure. Yeah. Definitely, I'll be there.
Dean: Awesome.
Al: Okay, thank you very much Dean and we'll-
Dean: Thanks Al. Okay thanks. Bye, bye.
Al: Have a good day. Bye, bye.
Dean: And there we have it. Another great episode. If you would 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. If you'd like to join our community of people who are applying all of the things we talk about in the Listing Agent Lifestyle, come on over to GoGoAgent.com. It's where we have all the programs, all the tools, everything you need to get listings to multiply your listings, to get referrals, convert leads and to find buyers. You can get a free, truly free, no credit card required trial for 30 days at gogoagent.com. So come on over and I will see you there.