Market Conditions

What will work in an up market might not be effective in a slow market. Most of us are seeing lots of FSBOs and fewer expireds. Once again, the common sense approach pays the dividends.

If I were out there selling real estate today, I would be a FSBO machine. Perhaps I'd call myself the FSBO-ater. Look out, Arnold… Why FSBOs? Because they are ready and willing, have the motivation and we know they want to sell. To me, that's the winning ticket to more transactions. If the market were slow, I'd use the same philosophy and pursue the expireds. Think about the market and know where the needs are, what sellers are struggling with, who are the buyers, where they are coming from and what you can do to take advantage of both. Why swim upstream and end up with the same fate as most salmon, when you can be the Black Widow spider and wipe out the competition? It's all a matter of taking the path of least resistance.

What's Been Done and Local Custom

As my dear friend Floyd Wickman always says, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing day in and day out and expecting a different outcome.”

If you are not tracking the effectiveness of marketing efforts you undertake, you are muddling around in the insanity zone. Why would anyone want to invest more money in something that may not have been cost effective in the first place?

That may seem like a no-brainer, yet I hear many agents say that they do not know how much business they got from this or that marketing effort. How do you find out? Duh? Ask! How did you hear about me? Where did you get my name? Who referred you? Where did you see the ad? You get the idea. Statistics bear out the sad news that 80% of an agent's marketing budget is spent on 15% return. The only way to turn that around is to be clear about what is getting you the downstream business.

Local custom is about differentiating yourself from the pack. If many of the successful agents in your area mail holiday cards, perhaps you might decide to mail “Happy Fall” cards or do an electronic greeting through www.americangreetings.com. The cards are free and the assortment is wonderful. Of course, this is another reason to get the e-mail address. People love the cards and it's not your same old same old.

If lots of people hand out pumpkins at Halloween, perhaps you might give out candy or caramel apples. Not only will you make the kids happy, but dentists will love you, too.

Organize a block-wide tag sale. You provide the newspaper ad and be sure that everyone knows all the details. They do the rest. It's a great reason to go door to door and hand out tag sale signs.

The list of possibilities goes on and on. The successful agent knows that in real estate it's far better to be almond-brittle crunch ice cream and not plain old vanilla. Standing out and going the extra mile have always been important traits in successful agents. With the Internet a part of the real estate environment, we are more challenged than ever to prove that we are the solution to whatever problem they may have. Some automated cyber-agent, with canned solutions and about as much warmth as a glazier will never bring to the table what we bring and do it all with caring and integrity. That's why I love real estate and always will. I'm not going any place, except up.

How about you?