Real estate seminars can be used to gain notoriety for a local affiliate or even a real estate company. Through the years, the seminars have been extremely successful for both, but a constant challenge remains -- filing the room.

We consistently hear the horror stories of some speakers who use the platform to sell their products all day or to deliver message that might not have been worth the time invested by the real estate agent. However, when the speaker is great and the speaker is on target, a real estate seminar can be just the ticket to inspire, motivate, recruit, give you instant name recognition, and cement alliances.

Here are the items that I always suggest to our clients on how to fill the room:

1. Make certain you have a passion for changing the lives of the real estate agents who will attend. Make certain that the speaker can customize the talk to the geographical area and the current business conditions.

Be sure that the talk is exciting enough to inspire top producers and add value to their business plans. The speaker's ideas need to be easy to implement so the newer and middle-of-the-road agents will walk away with career-changing tools, also.

2. Decide on a date that will not be competing against any other events. Golf tournaments, board events, and major franchise conventions are all potential items that can drain the "Realtor pool." Make certain there are no sales meetings or property tours. Usually a half day seminar seems to be the best attended, because hard working agents in a tough market find it difficult to block out an entire day. We have found that mornings usually work best for seminars with a schedule of 9 am to 1 pm.

3. Get a great room! The average real estate seminar is somewhere around 250 real estate agents. I have done numerous seminars where there are 1,000, but I've also had a few "clunkers" where only 35 show up! If you follow the items on this checklist, you can expect an attendance of 200 to 300 in average-sized cities. Be sure the room is big enough to accommodate your anticipated attendance, but also make certain that the facility is flexible enough to remove chairs, if needed.

We don't want a lot of empty chairs at the last minute. Even if the total seminar only has 100 people attendance, making the room set for 100 will give the room a full look and help to create an excited energy! Make sure there is enough parking and make sure the venue makes you look good. You don't want a venue that is dark, smelly, or depressing! Please consider the fact that you are going to be attracting Realtors® from around the area (especially when you choose a well-known, national speaker) so choose a venue that is centrally located.

4. Book a great speaker! There are a lot of great speakers who have been speaking for years. Try to book a speaker who has massive experience in buying and selling "in the trenches." Agents respect a practitioner more than someone who is simply filled with theory. Book someone with real-life systems, strategies, and ideas that will help them in buyer and seller lead generation, buyer and seller conversion, marketing, closing systems, and personal wealth building. Once again, a speaker who is world class in each of those items is who you need to lead your seminar.

5. Make sure to feed the top agent's egos by sending them a hand-signed letter. We have some great examples of these letters. When a top agent receives a personalized letter extolling the virtues of being an agent of their status and inviting them personally, you'll find that it will go a long way in exciting them about attending. Be sure to mention that their assistants are welcomed to attend since they will be integral in the implementation of the new ideas learned in the seminar.

6. Try to get the local MLS board involved. You can mention their name on the tickets, flyers, and all other promotional items. A board is very excited about providing value to its membership, especially about the time when dues are due! The board has access to the E-mail lists to every real estate agent in the area, and they can E-mail information about the seminar with links to your website. This support and backing is extremely helpful, and of course, the board would be doing a great service to its membership with an E-mail blast every three to five days. Furthermore, board involvement adds credence and class to any event.

7. Develop great marketing materials. (For samples, go to waltersanford.com ). Make sure that the time, date, venue name, venue address and phone number, directions, contact information, and salient bullet points are all included.

Create a seminar based upon items that are immediately necessary for agents to thrive in the immediate market is something that can be accomplished in a phone conference between you and your speaker. You might also want to mention on the flyers that a continental breakfast and/or coffee will be served. These flyers can be developed from the E-mails and your web page as both of them have virtually identical information.

8. On all E-mails to potential attendees, please be sure to include a link to your sign-up page. The sign-up page can be a page on your website extolling the benefits of attending the seminar including some of the topic highlights, allowing the agents to sign-up by simply clicking a button. This is an easy job completed by your webmaster, and it will allow you to easily get a list of attendees to follow up with before the seminar.

9. Start looking for strategic sponsors who might also gain credibility and recognition by servicing a room of real estate agents.

We have already mentioned the board, but you could also include real estate brokers from major market share offices, lenders, title companies, termite companies, car leasing companies, cellular phone companies, technology companies, home warranty companies, appraisal companies, and others. Each of these might be interested in donating funds toward the cost. More important, you can add to your sales force in promotion of the seminar to obtain an agent's commitment to this career-changing seminar, giving you a "back-up army" in filling the room.

10. You might want to decide if this will be a "pay" or "no pay" event. For an affiliate seeking the agent's business, it has been difficult to get a real estate agent to pay for their attendance. The agents might look at the affiliate as if they are crazy, because the affiliate is trying to solicit their business … yet the agent has to pay to attend the affiliate's seminar. It is a tough sell so if you are an affiliate, your pay day will come when some of the attendees start using your services which the speaker promotes during the seminar. Third-party endorsements are highly effective!

Many events have no ticket price or an extremely small ticket price. The only problem with this format is that many agents have become weary of these seminars thinking they are an all-day sales platform for the speaker. Make sure the speaker has a guarantee that very little time (less than ten minutes during the entire day) is used in promoting any of the speaker's materials. This guarantee could be put on flyers and tickets so the attendees will know that their time will be well-spent, having a head full of ideas rather than sales pitches.

11. For the people who commit to attending, either personally give them or E-mail/mail them a ticket. To the left is a sample of a ticket that was used for one of our seminars:

Good Luck!