Late last night I received THIS from a form filled out on my website:
I read about Russell starting Realtor Training, I would like to know if he can set up an automated program for me to follow and use here in Victoria Bc. I sold 11 million dollars worth of real Estate in 2006, I would like to double that over the next 12 months or more. Cheers, hope to hear from you soon!
And this one, where the question is:
I would like to know if anyone has a great listing generation system that works, day in and day out. My goal is to gross $600,000 over the next 12 months. I know this is a big topic. I am keen to to see what you respond with.
Both questions are basically the same – how can I easily NET about 500k a year. Please send me the answer. Thanks!
There are a number of things you can do to generate leads. The effective things require either your time or your money. For example, I use radio and TV advertising to generate lots of “come list me” calls. It is very expensive. Last year I paid over 600k just for my media ads. You can start with less – when I started, the first year on radio I paid about 20k. The next year about 40k. Geographic farms are a common way to generate leads. Some agents buy them from companies. Working one’s sphere of influence is another common lead generation method – contacting a “known database”. One way or the other you will spend time, money or both to generate leads.
To go big one must do one of these two things: prospect effectively or market yourself effectively. Pick one.
Do I plan to ever attempt to put together some sort of package of “steps” – kind of a one-size-fits-all to provide to other agents? No. You can get one here if you are interested in such useless crap. Is there a way to become really successful in real estate with a small amount of effort? It can look that way sometimes but I don’t believe it ever actually happens.
The component parts of getting listings are:
1. Prospecting OR marketing (or both).
2. The listing presentation
3. Closing techniques
The most important one – by far – is # 2, the presentation. If you have a fantastic presentation you will always be quite willing to prospect and / or market yourself. Any serious unwillingness to prospect or market yourself stems directly from having a weak or non-existent listing presentation. Any agent who needs to rely on “closing techniques” to obtain listings also has a pretty weak presentation.
Is it going to take a long time to get a really good presentation put together? It will take at least 30 presentations just to get your “sea legs”. Agents who only list their friends, family and buyers who already trusted them do not know how to list They think they do and many of the ideas they have formed about “how it is done” will only work well if the seller happens to be a friend, family or a happy buyer. Now if you can generate enough repeat and referral business that you’re satisfied – you’ve got a great job; dealing only with people you like and (relatively) low expenses too. Refining and improving your listing presentation is something that should only stop when you stop. I am still fine tuning ours – and we went on over 1,100 face to face interviews last year (took 612 listings).
Do you need a listing presentation booklet that you leave with them? Yes. Do you need a pre-listing package that they receive prior to your arrival? Yes. Do you need to know multiple answers to every possible objection they might have to listing their property with you? Yes. Do you need to know how to establish the correct selling price of a home and be willing to not take the listing if the seller won’t list it at that price? Yes.
Are there four main and vital points in the paragraph above? Yes. Am I going to address each of those points now? No. But those things are what you need to become skilled at if you want to net a half million a year or more from listing. Life is improved on a gradient – usually a little better then a little better. You can make a wonderful income while you are learning. You can make a lot more once you’ve learned it. What anyone who wants to become a good lister would need to address first is their listing presentation. I believe it is foolish to waste much money on advertising for seller leads before one has learned what to say when the phone rings. If you would be taking that call on your cell phone while you are out showing properties then the calls stand an excellent chance of being butchered even if you knew what to say.
The place to start is to look over what would be your “Ideal Scene”. If you could make your business ANY way you wanted – really – what would it look like? Flesh that out. What would the individual stats be? Not just the gross income but how many closings would you have (your current average price sale), how many listings would it take to get that many closings? What would be your percentage of buyers? What percent would be listings sold? If this seems like too much “work” look over what reasons you have for NOT wanting to achieve it. Get rid of those.
If it seems like I’ve ignored the main questions – I really haven’t. I promise to take up the four main and vital points in our future video and audio that will all be available. But sitting behind any of that making a damn bit of difference would be your complete willingness to create a great listing presentation and to work out the specific details mentioned in the paragraph above.