Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast, we're talking with Kathy Cunningham from Indianapolis.
Kathy's a relatively new real estate agent, less than three years, and she has a very interesting situation because she started mailing the Getting Listings postcards but stopped after a few months when it didn't immediately turn into new listings.
Fast forward a couple of months, and all of a sudden, she had three transactions from the Getting Listings people she kept in touch with, so seeing it work, she's started sending the postcards again.
This isn't an uncommon situation, and we had a really great conversation about scaling, and the opportunities for growth.
We covered a lot of ground, and this is going to be a valuable episode for you.
Links:
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep120
Dean: Kathy.
Kathy: Yes, Dean. Hi?
Dean: How are you?
Kathy: I'm excited to be here today. Thanks for including me.
Dean: I'm excited too. Where are you calling from?
Kathy: Well, my office is Avon, Indiana, which is the West side of Indianapolis.
Dean: Okay. Very nice. Now, how long have you been in real estate in Avon?
Kathy: Yeah, so a little bit of background for me. I am kind of a newbie in real estate.
Dean: Oh, nice.
Kathy: Yeah, I stayed home with my children and homeschooled them up until my daughter, my youngest's senior year in 2017. And so three years ago I got my real estate license. So during my first year, I worked on the North side of Indianapolis on a team and I worked on a team for about a year and a half, but I live over closer to Avon, so I just transferred offices and went independent in the Avon office.
Dean: Okay. That's smart to start out on a team, because you get to learn the moves and be around people and see what it's actually like.
Kathy: Yes. And I knew my team leader had a great system in place for just the whole process for the real estate side of things, as far as when things go pending, so very good on training for that.
Dean: Love it. And so now you've been on your own for a year and a half or so?
Kathy: Let's see. I believe since the fall of 2018, so technically about two years if you take a little bit from this year and a little bit from 2018.
Dean: Right.
Kathy: Yeah, so during my first year, I acquired 100% of my business from open houses.
Dean: Smart.
Kathy: And so I did really well with that. The next year, my husband, Scott Cunningham, he's going to be listening to my podcast and is kind of jealous because he's a big fan of yours.
Dean: Oh, that's great. I love that.
Kathy: Yeah, he's the one that suggested I try your system. So in 2018, for five months, I sent out postcards to two different neighborhoods, and that totaled about 1100 homes with the medium home price of $240,000. And the turnover rate was 8% and 9% respectively per neighborhood. So that year, I gained 76 responses from the postcard and ended up having one transaction, but we had to mutually released because of a job situation. But the same person came back the next year and bought and sold with me, so it was just a matter of time. I'm shaking my head going, what was I thinking? But the next year, I didn't do anything.
Dean: Now, what postcards were you sending? The getting listings postcards or different?
Kathy: Yes. Yes. When I say postcards, I mean your postcard for-
Dean: My postcards? Okay, great.
Kathy: Yeah. Yeah. So they got the free monthly report. And so the 76 responses then were my lists that I would send a monthly market review to.
Dean: Smart.
Kathy: Yeah. And so I thought you'd find this interesting, so I thought, oh, I'm going to save money, I'm not going to send these postcards out the next hear. I know. That's what I'm shaking my head about like, why did I do that? But I still sent the market review to them, the monthly people on my list, and I ended up with three transactions from them. So I thought-
Dean: This is the whole-
Kathy: ... this is working.
Dean: Well, it does. This is the thing that I look at, and I'm so happy that you're willing to share that, about what happened. So let's break it down because I want ... You know yourself. Now, this podcast, we've had people listening, listening, listening for a long time and maybe not trying it yet, or people who've been in the same situation as you did. How many months did you mail, did you say?
Kathy: So I did five months then.
Dean: Okay. So let's just stop right there for a second. So the five months, five months in a row?
Kathy: Yeah.
Dean: You were doing it every month. Okay. I can share with you how many people go through this emotional journey with this, okay?
Kathy: Okay.
Dean: They hear and they feel like, "Okay, I keep hearing about people having really great results with this, I should do it," and they send out the postcards. And the first month that you send them, it's really exciting because you actually get people to respond, and that's the thing that most people are not used to. They usually will send out postcards and nothing will happen kind of thing, but here you are, now you're getting more response than you've ever gotten from a postcard and you feel like, "Oh, this is great." And then nobody lists their house yet. Then you mail the next month and you get slightly fewer responses, and the next month, maybe slightly fewer. But then it balances out, so the five months, you're starting to, every time you mail them, you get some response, but it's not the same response that you got the first time. And if you get to five months and nobody's listed their house yet, you get this feeling of, "Okay, I don't know whether this is going to ... Maybe I should choose another area or maybe I should try something else."
Kathy: Yeah, you start to question, "Am I doing something wrong?"
Dean: "Maybe it just doesn't work in my area," right? But the good news is that you kept mailing the newsletters to the people who responded. And that's the thing, five months, six months is a real precarious position for this because it feels like you've been doing it for a long time, but the reality is that only the oldest person who responded, only the first month's respondees have even been in for six months.
Kathy: That's true. That's true.
Dean: And so most of them are new, right?
Kathy: Right.
Dean: And so all of the thing that you're doing there is, you're uncovering the equity of this. You're uncovering people who are more likely than the general population to sell their house in the next one to two years kind of thing.
Kathy: Right. Right. And the neat thing was too then, in 2019, when I stopped sending the postcards, but I was still sending the mailing, and I ended up with those three transactions, they were from two people, and those two, both of them were like, "Oh yeah, I just pour over those reports every time you mail them to me." And that just lifted, inspired me. I'm like, "This is working. At least some people like it."
Dean: So here's the thing, if you look at it, this is-
Kathy: And when they're mailed in a Manila envelope, I know that they're going to be opening that, it's not something they're just tossing away.
Dean: Right. Yes. So if you look at this, I don't know whether you've seen the infographics that we use for, September will mark the sixth year of a case study with Tony Kalsi in Toronto. And we've been mailing every month for six years now, coming up, and looking at the total ROI on what he's been doing. So over that ... Well, the last numbers I have are for the five year period, but over that five years, he had spent $108,000, I think, so on the postcards of the newsletters every month, and had made over 1,250,000 now, which was a 12 point something times ROI. And so now coming up on the sixth year, it's over 1,500,000, and you realize that the real ... The funny thing about your five months mailing is that it took Tony ... Tony got his first transaction after five months. And then from there, he's gone on to do over a million dollars.
Kathy: Yeah, that's exciting.
Dean: But the reality-
Kathy: I started this ... Go ahead.
Dean: I was just going to say, the amazing thing is that he's done 23 transactions with people who responded in the first year. So he still gets people ... Like in 2019, that was the five year thing, and he had responses from people, he had listings or transactions with people who had responded in every year that he had been doing it 2013, '14, '15, '16, '17, '18. And it was amazing that sometimes they're ready to go kind of in the first 90 days, but sometimes it was up to five years. So the value that you have is you have this asset now of those 76 people that you're continuing to, so your ROI on, you spent money to mail, you sent about 1000 or 1100 postcards each month for the-
Kathy: Yeah, I figured out my net profit from this, because now I did start this back up the past two months, I've sent out postcards as well, so I counted that in my costs, and my net profit was almost $12,000.
Dean: That's awesome. I love that.
Kathy: Yeah. And it's like it's pushing me forward to, I got to really expand on this.
Dean: Well, this is the thing, that's what Tony did and Chuck Charlton and Ron Reed, the way that you want to look at it is that once you mailed those first five months, and then when you got your first transaction, already, that was more than what you'd spent on previous. So you already had profit there. And the way we think about that is that now you're playing with house money, you're self-sustaining, right?
Kathy: Exactly.
Dean: So it's like, all you put up was the seed money to get that first transaction.
Kathy: Yeah, it's supporting itself.
Dean: So that's exciting. Yes. And that's where then you want to start looking at expanding it, where you start with those-
Kathy: Well, your point about the whole 23 responding in the first year, I had a message from somebody who just recently signed up, and he said, "I just wanted to ..." What did he say? "... confess that I only requested your report because I'm refinancing and need to know how much my house is kind of worth," and I said, "Oh, that's fine. I have no qualms with that." And I said, "You can stay on the list and keep getting the mailings," and he's like, "That's great." So that guy, and he did say when he'll be ready to sell, he'll keep me in mind.
Dean: Of course, and that's the great thing, is that you now ... this is what we talk about is that now you're building your reputation in those people's minds. You're acting as their real estate agent, right?
Kathy: Right.
Dean: Acting as their advisor. And there's nothing like this physical mounting evidence of this arrival of your package every month that is stacking everything in your favor. This is what's the great thing about being part of a society, is that there are rules for society. And the way that most people kind of interact with us is genetically wired into us that if somebody does a favor for you, if they do something for you, you kind of are obliged to them, right?
Kathy: Right.
Dean: You feel like it would be unconscionable for somebody to ... now that you have been every month dutifully sending them updates, giving them valuable information, it would seem unreasonable for somebody now to call a stranger or somebody else to come and sell their house, which you've been-
Kathy: Yes. And if they had an agent already that they were in a relationship with that was providing value, they wouldn't have called or contacted me.
Dean: That's exactly it. You're providing them more value than their incumbent realtor. When you think about it, even the realtor that got them in the house, if it was five years ago, they're probably not even in any contact with them.
Kathy: Right. They probably can't remember their name.
Dean: Exactly. And that's part of it. So I love it. So that's a great thing. Tell me about the area that you chose.
Kathy: Yeah, so like I said, now I live in the town North of my office where it's kind of all blended together, but it's called Brownsburg. And Brownsburg has about 26,000 in population. These two neighborhoods in Brownsburg, like I said, total 1100 homes, they've got a turnover rate of about 8%, 9%, but the median home is price is 240 in the area.
Dean: Is that high or low for the area? I'm not familiar with the prices in Indiana.
Kathy: Yeah. That's about an average. That's right in the middle. We've got homes in the hundreds and then homes in the 300s, and a few scattered, the fours and fives. They don't go too much over five. So yeah, so we're right in the middle. And my question, I guess, for you would be, I've got this going and then I'm going to keep sending them the postcards every month. I'm sold on that now. But now I want to learn how to take it to the next level. Do I expand and go into a couple of more neighborhoods?
Dean: I like this. Yes. Okay, so let's talk about that. So are these named areas or gated communities or planned communities over there?
Kathy: We're all subdivisions. So these are two subdivision that I'm sending to right now and I've got a few more-
Dean: Okay. And you're calling them by name?
Kathy: Yes.
Dean: What's the name of one of the subdivisions?
Kathy: One is Williamsburg Villages.
Dean: Okay. So you're sending out the July report on Williamsburg Villages house prices?
Kathy: Right.
Dean: Okay. And then the other subdivision. Okay. So you're very specific on that. Now, let's talk about something that is a really great way to think about expanding this. Tell me about Avon or about your area there. What would be a category of homes or the type of homes that you have there? Is there anything like lakefront homes or golf course homes or townhomes or is there anything-
Kathy: Yeah. We're mostly just a bunch of contemporary style homes and neighborhoods that have little ponds that they've got to have for ... But we have a few golf courses here and there, and I wondered about the golf course homes, but there's a handful of those in kind of the area here. We're just kind of like a small town next to the big city so yeah.
Dean: I got it, yeah. How many of those small towns are around the big city? So Indianapolis is how far away from you?
Kathy: Oh, right to the heart of Indianapolis would take me 30 minute drive.
Dean: Okay. And do people commute from Avon or what was the name of the area, the other area you said?
Kathy: Yes. They did pre-COVID-19.
Dean: Right. Exactly. But that's what I'm saying, is there's an opportunity for you, is the migration that people can come out to the suburbs now because they don't need to be in the city per se.
Kathy: Yeah, and a lot of those are trying to figure out working from home.
Dean: How many of those towns would be around Indianapolis?
Kathy: Let's see. One, two, three, eight.
Dean: So there's eight main suburbs of Indianapolis?
Kathy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dean: Got you. Okay. And so what I look at is that, part of the thing, what you really want to look at is, I'm always looking for the horoscope effect, where people will say, "Oh, that's me." Like Williamsburg Villages, that people see that and they recognize, "Oh, that's me. So this is significant to me." How many more subdivisions would there be that would be a few hundred homes or bigger kind of thing?
Kathy: Yeah. In just Brownsburg, I found ... I just did this yesterday, where I looked up for the past year how many homes sold in different neighborhoods, and there are about ... Where's my clipper on that? There's about three or four homes that had about a 10% turnover rate. They had about 500. That seems to be the biggest subdivisions, between 500 and 600 at the most homes.
Dean: That's awesome. And so I would start looking at those and start adding those on too, so that you are certainly in a great situation there that you're picking the act of popular subdivisions, but you start looking out, like Tony started out with 2,500 homes, and now he's up to 20,000 homes. But you got to think about it that you're scaling with profits, it's scaling itself that way, and you're thinking about reinvesting that. And the asset, I get people to take a mindset of this, that it's, I want you to switch the thinking from an expense-based approach to farming or marketing and take a capital investment mindset. Meaning that I don't look at it as the expense of mailing the postcards, I look at it as the investment in finding those 76 people. The 76 people are the asset that is going to yield for years. And so that's the way that we think about it, that no matter what, you've got an asset of those 76 that has already resulted in three or four transactions from that -.
Kathy: So would you say that as long as you are having a positive net profit, then that is a worthy location?
Dean: Yeah, because I look at it more than ... The net profit way of looking at it is the timeframe of it is what causes people to go into fear or into, I wonder if this is working kind of thing. But it's more looking as if you're buying mutual funds and you are continuing to get a bigger and bigger stake in the mutual fund. So you're contributing, you go 76 shares, let's call it, 76, and then you go to 176 and you go to 276, but as you're going, the next 76 that you add to this portfolio, and you're nurturing that with your monthly mailings to them, then as you're adding the next 76, it's people from the first 76 that are popping out, just like you felt, right?
Kathy: Yes.
Dean: You stopped, there's a trailing value in the 76. So that's the asset. And I look at that as a annual yield sort of thing, and an overall yield, rather than any timeframe-phased profits.
Kathy: Yeah. That's great. Would say then that to try to ... In my mind, I'm thinking how to think ahead as far as what the results would be. I thought, oh, if I'm getting a one to 32 ratio of clients per mailing recipients, can I project that?
Dean: Well, it's going to work out even higher than that. It's going to over time work out even further than that. So what Tony and I did at five years was we went back to all the people who had responded in year one, and he had 150, I believe, people respond in year one to his postcards, okay?
Kathy: Okay.
Dean: And we went back and looked and we found out how many of those people actually sold their house over this five year period. And there were 44. 44 of them actually sold their house in that five year period with or without Tony, and he got 23 of them. So he had a 15% overall conversion of the people who came in. So that's a pretty good benchmark kind of looking at it long-term.
Kathy: Yeah. Do you think that's typical then for people that use this system?
Dean: Well, I think this is the thing, the only thing is, it's much more likely the things that are certainties are that some of those people who respond are going to sell. Now, we went back and actually looked at it and saw the numbers, so 44 of them did sell, and he got over half of the ones who did sell. Now, the reason that he got that is because he continued to be in contact with these. Also, he's the number one agent in all of the areas where he's mailing because of the consistency of it, because he's getting these listings in these areas. And then next, I feel like if you were to outline all of these homes, these subdivisions, that you could look to expand out as your investment account allows, and look at that.
The greatest thing about being an entrepreneur, and being a real estate agent as being an entrepreneur, because you're in the results economy, you are rewarded for your efforts and you can have a control over your income and your effort, and so having your own business is a wonderful way to build financial security. What we in one the Listing Agent Lifestyle [inaudible 00:30:12] is financial piece. And there's got to be some interesting things in knowing that you've got an opportunity. If you compare it to investing in mutual funds or in a share, the top, tippy, tippy top mutual funds consistently over time are in the 16% or 18% return on investment each year. So you look at that and you look at what you're already getting in terms of the amount of money that you've spent, if you were to compare, if you had invested the money that you invested in the postcards and newsletters into a mutual fund, compared to the ROI that you're getting from investing in the assets of future home sellers, that by the way, is competition-proof.
You're silently building this list of people who are future home sellers. And by doing it that way, if you just look at it, when you said a $12,000 net profit, how much have you sped so far? Do you have a sense?
Kathy: Yes. So this includes mailings and postage along with postcard, I spent 5,700.
Dean: Okay. So you spent 5,700 and you generated how much in gross revenue?
Kathy: 17,575. And the postcards totaled seven months. Seven months of sending out the postcards.
Dean: And how many responses do you have total now?
Kathy: I've got 76.
Dean: Okay. So the 76 was over the seven months, right? Yeah.
Kathy: Yeah. And I want to double that for the year.
Dean: That's awesome. Good. So when you look at that-
Kathy: I looked at how many per month I received, and they're averaging about 10 additional right now.
Dean: Yeah, I was just going to say. Right. Which is perfect. So it's stable, and that's about right. So you look at that, you just almost exactly tripled the investment in terms of the 5,700 has yielded three times. And how long has it been since the first mailing?
Kathy: Well, the first mailing was back in 2018.
Dean: Yeah. In the fall or when?
Kathy: I think that was in March, the spring time possibly.
Dean: Okay. So in two years. So two years?
Kathy: Yes.
Dean: Yeah. Got it. Okay. And so that's an interesting timeframe. I wish I could do the math quicker to figure out what the actual ROI on that is compared to the ... Because all the while, that investment that you're making is also tax-deductible, right?
Kathy: Oh, yeah.
Dean: Right? As you're investing, instead of keeping that money that you've got, if you kept the $5,700 or you put that $5,700 in a mutual fund, you would have first of all had to pay tax on the 5,700, so you would've had less to invest in the mutual fund. But this way, you get to invest the whole 5,700, reduce your taxable income by 5,700, and it's a great way to keep growing. So that's the way to think about it. Certainly you would've had the best performing mutual fund in history with this return that you've gotten in two years, right?
Kathy: Yeah. But the value, there's still all these relationships. So I just started the mailings back up these past two months, and out of the blue, I received a phone call this past weekend from a man who is friends with somebody on my mailing list. And matter of fact, his friend was sitting in the room while I was talking to him on the phone and he's like, "Tell her, I get those mailings every month."
Dean: Oh, that's great. You see?
Kathy: Yeah. So now I have a buyer that I'm looking for. I'm kind of on trial. So if I do get with this guy, I'm pretty solid with the guy that referred him.
Dean: That's the whole point. So that's awesome. So when you start looking at it that ... So the getting listings course that you're on, this track that you're on, I think you're on the right track, and I think expand as you. And rather than look at it as raising your expenses, look at it as increasing your investment in it. And that changes the way that you think about it, because you might be willing to invest more money than you would in sort of thinking about it as raising your expenses. So you think about-
Kathy: Exactly. That's why I didn't mail them out the whole year because I was thinking of it as an expense.
Dean: Yes. But -, so now you know-
Kathy: Now I know.
Dean: ... that there's a great opportunity for you to expand at whatever pace you're comfortable. So if you look at it that, if you could get up to ... if you're at 1100, if there's room for you to aspire to go to 5,000 homes, that's going to be the same, everything's going to fall into place the same way.
Kathy: Yes. Yeah, that's the thing. I'm just kind of small potatoes now and I really want to grow this into-
Dean: It's a great way to grow. Now, here's the other thing, so I'm happy to see that that's happening for you. I'm going to keep on top of this and we will do a field report for our GoGo Agent members to see the way this is playing out. So that'll be great. Now, the next thing that we talk about, the next leverage opportunity for you of course is your listing multiplier index. Have you done any calculations or figured out what your listing multiplier index is?
Kathy: No. Because all I did was focus on the mailings, I really didn't. My husband's the one that introduced me to you, so now I'm really going through your GoGo Agent website and trying to ... You've got a wealth of information on there, I'm just overwhelmed with it right now, like where do I go? Point me in the right direction?
Dean: Yeah, I get it. And it keeps building, that's the thing, right? Yeah, I get that. So in a nutshell, what we want to look at is that we want to now get as much as we possibly can out of each of these listings that you're taking. And the idea is that we've got five opportunities that come with each of those listings. We've got the opportunity to get it sold through the MLS or somebody sells it to find the buyer yourself, to find a buyer who buys another property, maybe not that one. Could get another listing, maybe the buyer has a house to sell, or you get another listing in the neighborhood and get a referral from the seller. And so each listing comes with those five opportunities. And the game that we play is to see, how many points can you get per listing that you take? And so the way we calculate your index is to look back at the last 10 listings that you've had and calculate up how many of those points you got and divide it by 10. So if you didn't get any of the extra transactions, but all of your listings sold, that would be, you got 10 points out of those 10 listings and your listing multiplier index would be 1.0 right? Now, by focusing on it and by doing some of the simple strategies that we talked about, our GoGo Agent members, many of them are over three on their listing multiplier index. So that means that every listing you take is worth three or more transactions. And that's a multiplier for your investment.
Kathy: I like that.
Dean: ... in getting listings, right?
Kathy: Yeah.
Dean: That's all the money. Because then you know that every listing that you get turns into the seed of multiple transactions.
Kathy: And I was doing that more organically through open houses for the listings. I would capture a buyer that needs to sell and it's just domino effect. But I love the fact that you've got some concrete numbers to put as your goal, something to strive for and make it more of a conscious effort instead of a reaction to whatever happens.
Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right.
Kathy: Yeah, that's great.
Dean: So we've got things like your instant open house landing page and the info box flyers that we use and the just-listed and just-sold cards and the story pads and so many strategies that we have to really take a very sort of specifically strategic approach to each listing, with the goal of maximizing everything that you get out of that.
Kathy: And I would assume that your strategic approaches, just knowing your personality, you have tested those-
Dean: Oh, of course. Yeah. That's the whole-
Kathy: ... and knows the success factors behind all of them.
Dean: Yes. That's exactly right.
Kathy: And I remember you commenting on somebody's podcast I was listening to about how should we target certain homes that the owner's been in for so many years, five to seven years, and they might be more prone to sell at that point. But I remember your response was you just never know when they're going to be more prone to sell at any time.
Dean: You don't, yeah. That's the truth. But it's like, I look at it that I am I think about as a buy and hold value investor in a neighborhood over time, rather than trying to be a day trading speculator, trying to pick the ones who maybe are going to sell episodically. So that's really the approach, is I know that over time, this is the winning, winning, winning strategy. So if you're planning on being in real estate for five years or more, that it only makes sense to ... the fact is that those neighborhoods that are the most desirable or the ones that everybody's choosing now, those are going to be the neighborhoods over the next five years, so why not?
The goal is to be a known commodity to the people who are most likely to sell. And it's more important that you know who they are than that they know who you are. And that's the thing, is where most people go off track with their farming efforts, or they're trying to get listings like that is that they're trying to get famous in the neighborhood and they're trying to set personal promotion things that are all about Kathy and the top realtor and call Kathy and start packing and all those kind of things, right? That doesn't get you any intelligence. It's more valuable for you to know who are the people who are thinking about selling than-
Kathy: Just like fishing.
Dean: That's exactly right.
Kathy: You got to know where the fish are.
Dean: It's like having a GPS. It's like having your GPS with the fish, right?
Kathy: Right. And the fish don't care who you are, they just want the worm.
Dean: That's right. That's exactly right. Oh, that's so funny. So I think that if we start formally measuring your listing multiplier index, that's going to be a cool thing. Do you have any listings right now?
Kathy: I don't. I took a break with this whole COVID thing just for the health and safety of my family and just trying to figure things out. But the nice thing about your system was I was still doing something. I felt like I'm still alive, I'm still working my business, even when I'm taking a break.
Dean: You're right. Exactly.
Kathy: So I'm just kind of starting back up and getting started again. So I don't have any listings at this time.
Dean: Right. Got it. And so now the game starts when the next listing that you get that you start strategically thinking about, what am I going to do to find the buyer myself, and what am I going to do to maybe get the next listing in the neighborhood, or to get a referral from the seller? You start thinking these things and you have specific strategies, specific things that you do to effect that outcome and hope that somebody sells.
Kathy: Right. Well, I love that. I have this time right now to ramp up to that and I can be as prepared as possible for when I do get a listing. And on that note, I have been listening to your podcasts where you've been mentioning about the Market Maker Monday, and I'd love to hear a little more about that.
Dean: Okay, perfect. So one of the things that would be very valuable for us in that conversation is to talk about your top 150 first of all. Do you have a list of the 150 people that if you saw them at the grocery store, you'd recognize them by name and you'd stop and have a conversation with them?
Kathy: I'm starting to gather that list. I have a CRM, and I remember you saying that, and I started to go through that and got sidetracked. I need to make that my first priority.
Dean: Well, it's certainly a thing, because one of the things that we look at, if we look at your last 12 months or your last year in business, how many transactions did you do that were repeat or referral transactions?
Kathy: There was I believe a handful of them. I'd have to-
Dean: That's okay. Part of what we're looking for is to, first of all, measure it, right? To be aware of it. To say that it's a real thing. We call this the after unit of your business. So we're imagining that this relationship part of your business is a key business unit that you have. And so you have 150 relationships with people who you know by name and they're right in you area. Some of them, these would be the ones that, first of all, everybody that's in a house that you helped them get should be on that list, all of your clients, your friends, your extended family, the people that you interact with recreationally or so, your neighbors, the businesses that you frequent, the people that you know like that. Anybody that when you walk in, they go, "Hey Kathy?" or you stop and have a context for the relationship with them, those people are the key people that whatever they have a real estate need, first thing is that we would hope that they would consider you.
And so we've got to keep that in mind, but then also, whenever they hear someone talking about real estate, that they would also think of you and refer you. So we want to solidify that top 150. So when you get that in place, the tool that we have in place to do the communicating with them is what we call the world's most interesting postcard. And each month, we mail that postcard, and on the back of the postcard is a referral orchestrating message that's timed for different times of the market, times of the year, wherever the conversation might be going. So over the year, we'll cycle through a message of just a quick note, in case you hear someone talking about buying their first home or buying a bigger home or being relocated or moving out of town or buying an investment property or selling their house or building a house, all the possible things that you could alert people to kind of stay aware of. And if they hear somebody for those things, we're giving them a reason to contact you.
Now, one of the things that we do with that top 150 is we create a Google map layer where you import that data into a Google map and drop a pin on the map where each of your top 150 live. So visually, you can see where everybody is. And what Market Maker Monday is about is that every week we make it a habit to, whoever you've got in the car this week, or you're going to see about selling their house this week, that we are looking for opportunities to orchestrate referrals. And the other layer that we want to have also is all of the people who've responded to your postcards. What was the name of the one neighborhood that you said?
Kathy: Williamsburg Villages.
Dean: Okay. So Williamsburg Villages. If you've got a buyer who you're going to show homes in Williamsburg Villages, the thing that you would do is you would go to your Google map layer and you zoom in on Williamsburg Villages, and you realize that I know three people who live in Williamsburg Villages, right? Three of your top 150 are in there. And you could send an email to them and say, "Hi Nancy, I'm showing houses this week in Williamsburg Villages. I've got a couple from Indianapolis that are looking for a home in the area. There's only a couple for sale right now or have you heard anybody talking about selling? We may be able to match them up with this couple from Indianapolis."
You see how simple that is? Where you're sending a very specific message to one person, and it may be that they were just in a conversation with their neighbors who are having their third kid and they're deciding that they're going to move up to a bigger house now. And then they say, "Oh, well, I was just talking to Paul and Kim and they're thinking about selling." Now you're into creating these market opportunities that you have, because you've got this buyer who's looking in there.
Now, whenever you're showing those houses in there, let's say that you also look at that pin and you've got 76 people in there who responded, you could send an email to the ones who have a house just like what they're looking for and say, "Hi, Mark, I'm showing houses this week in Williamsburg Villages and I remember looking up your house online when I sent you the Williamsburg report a few months ago. I'm not sure what your plans are, but I thought I would check in and see if maybe I could tell them about your house." You see how nice and that is a really polite and sincere and real message that you're sending to people rather than calling them up and say, "Hey, it's Kathy, are you getting the newsletter? Are you enjoying? Is there anything I can help you with?" When really what you're saying is, "Are you ready to list your house yet?"
Kathy: Yeah. Yeah. Awkward.
Dean: And everybody knows it. That's what's going on, right?
Kathy: Yeah.
Dean: But when you're sending them an email and saying that, one of two things is going to happen. They're going to say, "As a matter of fact, we were just talking about it. Yes, bring them by." Or they'll say, "Oh, no, no, no, we're not going to be selling probably until next spring, but thank you for thinking of us." And now when they-
Kathy: "We'll keep our ears open.."
Dean: Absolutely. When they do think of selling, "Well, we better call Kathy because she's always got buyers." It's just cementing your opportunity.
Kathy: Yes. That's an extra touch to them as well, just instead of the awkward, "Hey."
Dean: Yes. Exactly. Which is really why you're calling, and they know why you're calling.
Kathy: Yeah. And you're calling at the level of the relationship that you're in. Yeah, I think that's the awkward part. If you calling trying to dig into their lives a little bit, but-
Dean: Nobody likes to get those calls and nobody likes to make them.
Kathy: ... "Who are you again?"
Dean: Yes, exactly. That's why the physical evidence that you're doing these things is amazing. How many people are in your office by the way, Kathy?
Kathy: How many are here? Oh, goodness.
Dean: How many agents?
Kathy: Yeah. I guess ... I'm terrible with numbers, 20. There's two floors and-
Dean: Wow. So you look at the thing, what would be amazing, and we're doing this with a lot of offices is, imagine installing that culture of Market Maker Monday within the office where every Monday we've created a landing page that somebody can coordinate where, here's the way we're doing the case study audit is that every Monday at 9:00 AM, an email goes out to everybody or a text reminding them about Market Maker Monday. And they've got until 11:00 AM to go to the Market Maker Monday landing page and enter in just in the form any buyers that they're working with that are actually looking at properties this week, or any sellers that they're going to see about listing this week. And so at 1:00, somebody compiles the Market Maker hot sheets, and everybody gets that, so that you imagine ...
We just had a situation on our last GoGo Agent call that one of our members in Las Vegas, they did that. And he sent out a Market Maker email to somebody that he knew about a buyer that one of his colleagues had. And that ended up, he got to list the house and the other agent brought the buyer and they sold it. And now he's working to help the sellers find a new house. So imagine the impact of that over 50 weeks is tremendous, right?
Kathy: Right. Yeah, I actually was talking with one of our managing brokers here about that, and so Kyle, this is for you, you can listen in.
Dean: That's great. Oh, that's great.
Kathy: So yeah, I couldn't connect the dots as far as, how does that all work as far as a group of us.
Dean: But for individual, you want to demonstrate the habit yourself, because you're going to find that there's ... We have a whole thread in the GoGo Agent forum, if you go into the members area in the forum, one of the forum topics is Market Maker Monday. And seeing all of the examples, all the stories of people who've sent out these Market Maker emails and gotten the results, it's great to see.
Kathy: So what I thought too was something along those lines, where in our emails from our office, there might be a certain agent who is having trouble finding something for their buyer, so they put in their criteria to just get the word out to us. And I thought, well, okay, I could go look to see what area that is, what neighborhoods would be more suitable for that, and then just kind of post out there on my Facebook page or something, "Hey, does anybody know anybody that lives in my neighborhood?"
Dean: Right. That's exactly right.
Kathy: And then just kind of see what happens that way. Now, the thing I wouldn't have as much clout in is, I just know this person from Facebook and now I'm going to contact this friend of theirs in the neighborhood. And I feel like a lot of people in neighborhoods are getting postcards maybe once a month saying, "Hey, we've got a buyer that would love to buy your house."
Dean: Yeah. I get it. So that's why the thing that has to be absolute about it is to the integrity of it. That's why I say if you're going to do it as a group, everybody in the group has to absolutely know that the only person that qualifies for this is someone that you're actually showing houses to this week, that you've got an appointment with them. They're going out. Not that, "Hey, I've got these buyers who might be looking for this," like pie in the sky. I'm talking about I'm showing the houses this week.
Kathy: Yeah. They're serious.
Dean: Yes. It has to be that level of intent.
Kathy: Yeah. I guess one of my fears is that they don't like the house and then the seller goes, "Oh, you just made that all up just trying to get my listing."
Dean: Exactly. That's the whole point. That's the whole point. That's why it would be smart to follow up with people and say, "Hey, just wanted to let you know, thanks for reaching out. They did find the house in there," wherever it was, just to close the loop on that. That's the thing, you have to know and be in integrity with that, because that's the risk that you're taking, right? Is that people will think, "Oh, they didn't really have a buyer."
Kathy: Yeah. That's good to close the loop. Even, instead of just saying, they're not interested in your house, but to actually follow up and say, "They liked your house, but this didn't quite work and they did end up getting something else."
Dean: That's right. Exactly.
Kathy: Whatever. To tell them we really are on the up and up on this.
Dean: That's it. Well, Kathy, you said it all. You've covered a lot of ground.
Kathy: I know. I've had a lot of questions, I've been just starting to go down this path of learning everything I can on your website, and I know you have a lot more we didn't cover.
Dean: I know. Yeah. That's the whole point is that it's not a race and you're going to be in business for some time. And so you're going just consistently look with a forward intention of growing and maximizing along the way. So I think that's a thing and you can go as fast as you want. If you've got extra savings or money that is invested in other places, if you have money in CDs or in things like that that you've saved, this is a safe haven for money, and you start thinking about it as investment capital for your business, not expenses that you have to make sure your expenses are less than your income.
Kathy: Right. That's a great way to look at it. It's exciting.
Dean: So what's your big takeaway? What's your action items here from what we've shared?
Kathy: Yeah. To look into those couple more neighborhoods to start farming with the monthly report postcard, that's step one. And along with that, start working on my top 150 list to get the Market Maker, which I feel like might even be even more urgent because I can potentially get a client sooner with the Market Maker.
Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right.
Kathy: Yeah. So those are my top two takeaways, my focus.
Dean: I love it. I love it. And then just any time, we do our GoGo Agent member calls every month, so you've got the opportunity to come on those as well and keep it going and you can ask any questions or I can help you in any way.
Kathy: Great. Thank you so much.
Dean: This has been delightful. That was great. You have so much potential, I'm excited to watch it all unfold.
Kathy: I am too. Give a shout-out to my husband, Scott, for me, please.
Dean: Scott, thank you for introducing us. She's delightful. This is going to be great. So I look forward to it.
Kathy: Great. Thank you.
Dean: Thank you. I'll talk to you soon.
Kathy: Okay. Bye-bye.
Dean: Bye. And there we have it, another great episode. And if you'd like to continue the conversation, you can go to listingagentlifestyle.com, you can download a copy of the Listing Agent Lifestyle book, the manifesto that shares everything that we're talking about here, and you can be a guest on the show if you'd like to talk about how we can build a listing agent lifestyle plan for your business. Just click on the Be a Guest link at listingagentlifestyle.com. And if you'd like to join our community of people who are applying all of the things we talk about in the Listing Agent Lifestyle, come on over to gogoagent.com. So we've got all the programs, all the tools, everything you need to get listings, to multiply your listings, to get referrals, convert leads and to find buyers. And you can get a free, truly-free, no credit card required trial for 30 days at gogoagent.com. So come on over and I will see you there.