4 Steps to Goal Setting Success

Dec 26, 2016

Creating Your Own New Normal for 2017

By Todd Robertson

If you’re like a lot of top agents, right about now you’re analyzing everything you did in past twelve months to get you to this point and asking yourself a few questions:

What worked and what didn’t?
Did my actions support my goals?
Did I earn what I’m worth?
Did I take personal responsibility for my success or failures?

By carefully analyzing the past you can discover the elements that you can take into the new year and create
your own new “normal”. In other words – you can advance your game, play at a higher level, and avoid the pitfalls and hurdles you’ve already cleared to excel faster and with hopefully a few less headaches!

As you approach the new year, many of you are in the process of goal setting. Let me share a four step system for goals that is used by some of the top performing entrepreneurs in the world. It’s called the DOME strategy. Here’s what that stands for:

D – Stands for Decide. If you look up one of the definitions of the word decision, you’ll find that it means to “cut off from”. That’s step one for creating your new normal. What things should you cut yourself off from that aren’t working or haven’t
worked for you this year? Whether that be a mindset, a skill, or a system, what can you unplug, cut off, or change up that will increase your success in the new year.
O – Stands for Outstanding. There’s never been a more important time to play at an outstanding level. That means to surround yourself with the best people, strategies, solutions and systems in our industry. Model your choices on those of top producers. Duplicate excellence.
M – Stands for Momentum. Now’s the time to take the stance that what gets scheduled – gets DONE. That’s how you build momentum. By cutting out the things that don’t work. By plugging in new systems and solutions that drive your business in smarter ways. By blocking your time so that you can streamline your processes – as well as schedule those
things that help you create balance.
E – Stands for Tell Everyone. Once you’ve set your goals for the next twelve months, it’s time to tell everyone. If you’re goal is 10 salable listings in your pipeline at all times or to own a geographic farm – tell everyone you know. Put public pressure on yourself to hit those goals. People will help you when you do. They’ll support you. Remind you. Work with you to make them happen. Then commit to doing whatever it takes to make those goals happen.

Next, remember to be BOTH a Hunter and a Farmer. Top agents realize they have to both aggressively prospect as well as create opportunities for lead generation by branding themselves in a geographic farm. In fact, I just spoke with a great new Market Dominator customer, who will finish this year with 100 closings. I asked him why he decided to use the Dominator to brand himself in the markets he’s going after for the new year. He told me it was because he needed to raise the bar. Because he was capable of helping more people than he was currently helping and he was committed to doing that. That’s why he chose to use the 12 x 15 Dominator as his marketing tool. It’s a statement that tells potential sellers in his farm area that he’s serious about marketing. Serious about getting results. Here’s what’s interesting: 90% or more of the agents in your market won’t be willing to make that commitment. Most will continue to do what has always been done and get the results that they’ve always gotten. But some of you? Will step outside the norm to create a new normal. Some of you will raise your standards, raise your skill levels, and raise your commitment. And in the process – you’ll go beyond what’s always been done to develop a career that others will emulate.

Ready to create your new normal and put a plan in place to take 2017 by storm? Go for it. Remember that we’re here if you need anything. Call our team at 866-405.3638! That’s what we do best!

Seven Great Ways to Use Magnetic Calendar Cards

Dec 19, 2016

There are some powerful NEW ways to market yourself and your business in this industry, but you have to hand it to the savvy agents who also don’t discount the tried and true tools. Like Just Listed postcards, Just Sold postcards — and of course – the annual Magnetic Calendar Postcard.

Why use Calendar cards? First, People still love them. It’s the perfect quick-reference for their refrigerator or office cubicle. So you’re providing a resource people need – and that’s ALWAYS a good thing. And secondly? Your brand stays top-of-mind all year around. There’s something to be said for having that kind of stick-with-it branding. Every time your customers reach for something in the refrigerator — your face and brand are right there reminding them who to call if they need anything real estate related.

Here are seven great ways you can use them:

Ask permission to leave a stack of magnetic calendars by registers of your favorite businesses such as area doctors, dentists, restaurants etc., for people to take
Send them with a kind holiday note to current customers and the VIPs in your sphere as a simple thank you gift.
Walk your neighborhood farm and offer one to every homeowner you meet and let them know you are available to answer any real estate questions they might have.
Use a jpg of your calendar on your social media platforms and let folks know that you are sending them out and that if they’d like one of their own, to in-box you and you’re happy to send.
These are perfect when you are attending local festivals, job fairs, and business expos.
Lots of agents are hosting impromptu “Ask Me About Real Estate” events at their local coffee shops, simply by visiting the shop, and putting up a sign. These are great give-aways that people can take with them.
Use them as Open House gifts.

This month, save 10% off any magnetic calendar card with the promo code: ELF10M.

See all thirteen designs here.

As always, we’re here to help. Our marketing team is experienced and well versed in what today’s real estate professionals NEED, WANT and will make their lives and jobs EASIER. If you’re creating your marketing budget for next year and would like some guidance on which tools might work best for you and what that cost would be, call our team today at 866.405.3638 or email us at pmc@prospectsplus.com!

The Listing Multiplier

Nov 21, 2016

An Interview with Marketing Guru Dean Jackson

By Julie Escobar

When you want big marketing ideas with smart research and strategies to back them up, you want to listen to Dean Jackson. With humor and character, Dean not only takes agents OUTSIDE the box, he challenges them to leave the “box” in the dust and look to unconventional, creative strategies that make good solid business sense. So when we heard about his Listing Multiplier – we knew we wanted to share it with all of you.

Q: Dean, I read your awesome white paper on the Multiplier – can you give our readers a little nutshell of what this powerful concept is please?

A: Sure, the big idea here is to have a sense of what you are missing. To start, I ask agents to think of their last ten listings, and score them, one point each for the following opportunities:

Get it sold
Find the buyer
Find the buyer that buys another house
Get another listing from it
Get a referral from the seller

Now you take your number out of 50 for these opportunities. They’ll range from say, 8 out of 50 to 15 out of 50. In some cases, you’re hitting every opportunity, in others, such as a listing expiring, you get zero points. What you get once you’ve done this exercise is a sense of what your current system yields.

Now take that number and divide it by ten – that’s your Listing Multiplier Index. So, say you have a 20 out of 50, divide that by 10 and you get 2. That means your current system yields 2 listings for every listing you take. Now – the objective is to get that HIGHER. Imagine if you could double that or more and turn every listing into three transactions!

Q: Right? That would be awesome. Can you share some ways readers can start to do that?

A: Well yeah. Start with Just Listed postcards. Most of the time agents take the approach of, “I’ll just put it

in the MLS. Right now, listings go fast, so we don’t HAVE to market.” That’s just short-sighted. Instead of looking at what has to be done to “get by”, agents should be looking at using marketing such as Just Listed/Just Sold postcards, InfoBox flyers, single property websites, and instant open house landing pages — all to extend that one commission into many commissionable activities. Listing puts you in the ballgame, then it’s time to hit it out of the park.

Q: Can you explain the Instant Open House Landing page please?

A: Sure, you can learn more at www.gogoagent.com, but the idea is that you set up an instant landing page for the property address, people add their name and email address to download a pdf of all the property information. Then you send a very simple, very conversational, expecting a reply email to those folks, and to buyers that might be interested in the home that says, “Got some people coming by the property at 23 Greystone tomorrow afternoon to see the house. Would you care to join them?”

That’s it. No time, no details – just expecting a yes or no answer. We had one open house where eighteen people showed up at once! That’s letting your marketing do the work – generating buyers, new potential sellers and referrals. Now picture you have five listings, and you do the instant open house for all five – one at noon, one at 2, one at 3:30, 5 and 6:30. How great of a day would that be?

Q: Pretty amazing, I’d say! One thing I know that you talk about with your GoGoAgent members is setting your marketing up in such a way that you’re not having to make those dreaded “cold calls”. Can you expand on that?

A: Nothing I’d ever do would involve cold calls. No one likes to make them and no one likes to get them. I prefer to teach agents to use their email as a better communication tool. Short, conversational emails that make people feel like you are talking directly and specifically to them. That’s leverage-able.

Your postcard marketing as well – put some personality to it. Think of your postcards for what they are – an opportunity to share a message. Not long ago I was in Missouri and I went to the Pony Express Museum. It makes you think, you know? Those young people on the Pony Express risked their lives to deliver a message. Letters and communication were so important that people hired a government employee to take great risks to deliver them. We are still hiring a government employee to deliver our words to someone else – the least we can do is make them interesting! Think about what you would say if you were face-to-face. Differentiate yourself. Give people something that helps them engage.

Q: Any last words for our readers?

A: I would say to really just dive into learning about how to use your Listing Multiplier Index to take your business to incredible levels. When you think about what it would mean to you to take your multiplier from say a 1.1 to a 3.3 for your next ten listings, that would mean 20 extra transactions. If your average commission is $10,000 – that means an additional $200,000 per year. That’s exciting!

Q: I totally agree! I know agents would love to learn more about your creative, collaborative listing and sales ideas. How can they find out more?

A: They can find everything they need at www.gogoagent.com. Thanks!

Need help multiplying your listings? Call our team at 866.405.3638 or visit our site today at www.prospectsplus.com.

Building Your Brand and Business

Nov 14, 2016

With Geographic Farming Done Right

By Julie Escobar

Geographic farming has roared back to the marketing forefront for agents in our industry in ways we haven’t seen in years. Why? Because – when done right – it works.

And what exactly is “done right”? It’s when agents who are committed to consistency step up to make themselves known in a neighborhood in real and meaningful ways – getting out into communities, shaking hands, meeting people, making introductions and making a difference.

To talk about one creative tool for geographic farming, the Market Dominator, I sat down with Dominator Director Todd Robertson to learn a little more about the system, the agents who are using it and what it takes to really make an impact on a market area.

Q: Todd, you work with agents across the country who are growing their market share by doing smart geographic farming. Can you tell us a little about the Market Dominator?

A: Sure! This product evolved out of necessity. Agents around the country were asking for a consistency program that would allow them to truly dominate a neighborhood or piece of geography. After six months of research with our team, we came up with the product for our agents called the Market Dominator, which utilizes Every Door Direct Mail with the USPS. At 12” x 15”, it’s the largest legal size that can be sent through the mail, so it doesn’t get overlooked in the mailbox. The content is created every month by our team of writers, who do an outstanding job of weaving in the eight best practices of direct mail. And agents love it because it’s either 100% done for them or 90%, meaning they can make some changes to the back. And with our national sponsors on board now, we can literally send it for the price of a first-class postcard. The other great thing about it is that it’s a two-year campaign… kind of like joining the gym, your personal trainer makes you go.

Q: We both have been in this industry for a long time, and we both know that marketing alone is not what takes agents to the top of their game. It’s follow up and relationship building. Can you tell us some of the powerful ways Market Dominator members are going above and beyond to support their marketing mailing efforts by connecting with the folks in their farm neighborhoods?

A: In terms of what our best agents are doing supplementing the Market Dominator to increase their success rate in their numbers, we’re seeing them do things like canvassing their farms with door hangers, introducing themselves to everybody in the neighborhood, being consistent in sending out new on the market or Just Listed postcards when they get a listing and holding open houses in their carrier routes and making a splash in the area with signs and balloons on every street, every artery when they do. That way, when the Market Dominator shows up in that mailbox, the homeowners will see it and say, “Oh yeah, that’s Susie. I see her all over the place; she’s the neighborhood specialist.”

Q: We’ve talked about the tremendous opportunity agents have to reach out to the businesses that surround or are in their farm area to build reciprocal referral relationships. Can you share your thoughts on that?

A: Some of our Market Dominator members have given us ideas that we never thought about before that we try to share with our new members. One of them is to go after the local businesses in and/or around that carrier route. It’s really an outstanding strategy, because they can utilize the extra 20 Dominators that we give them each month in a clever way.

One of our great agents up in the Northeast simply takes her 20 and goes to every business where people have to wait, such as a hair salon, oil change shop and restaurants. She said the best was actually auto dealerships. What she would do in auto dealerships is first go in and make an introduction to the general sales manager that goes something like, “Hi, I’m Susie with XYZ Realty. I’m the neighborhood real estate specialist in this area. Would you mind if I leave a couple of these in the lobby of your service department?”

What’s great about that strategy is, number one, she’s prospecting the service manager, who becomes a mover and shaker on her SOI list – meaning she visits every month and has offered to let him or her know if a great listing comes on the market. Think about how most cities have what they call “auto dealership row,” where several dealerships are all on the same street. If you’re like Susie, you go right down that strip and pass out two or three Dominators in each dealership, meet some incredible new people and start establishing relationships in a pretty short period of time.

Number two, she’s leaving valuable content, with her name, face, contact information and calls to action in a place where a lot of people congregate. Think about when you have to have your car serviced, and you’ve had to wait anywhere from an hour to a full day in the guest services lounge. What are most people doing when they’re waiting? They’re looking at their phones or whatever magazines are sitting there, right? Imagine if two or three Market Dominators were sitting there with Ritz Carlton quality, filled with great information for people to peruse. Agents who are utilizing this tiny local business strategy with consistency, who have mastered their presentation skills and aren’t afraid to follow up, could find themselves with anywhere from two to 20 extra closings per year.

Q: What about agents who are afraid to follow up, either in person (door knocking) or on the phone? Any advice for them?

A: Some agents just want to send their marketing out, then sit back and see what happens. In my mind, to be great in real estate you have to be obsessed, or you end up being average. By “obsessed,” I mean you’ve already made a commitment to your neighborhood farm, so why not stretch yourself a little and go make an introduction? One way or another, knowing that you’re simply providing a great service to help these people buy or sell real estate is powerful motivation to meet people.

I also would say if somebody is still afraid or hesitant to follow up, spend a couple days and get so good at your listing presentation, get so great at overcoming objections, so great at your value proposition that you can’t help but have a relaxed sense of confidence. This will do a couple of things for you: It will get you excited to go out and meet people and prospect, which is the one thing most people hate doing (usually because they aren’t as confident in their presentation), and it will force you to fine-tune your skills, which will help you enjoy a long-term career.

Q: Consistency and sticking to a plan is a powerful combination for success in our business. Will you share why making the Dominator part of a consistent marketing plan is a smart strategy?

A: In terms of doing any marketing, consistency has to be part of the plan – whether it’s in real estate marketing, building wealth or getting in shape. The Market Dominator gives agents what they told us for many years they wanted: a two-year campaign. According to the National Association of REALTORS®, if your competition is going to do any marketing, history says they quit after the third contact. Yet we know that most activity doesn’t happen until after the fifth contact. So staying in the game for the duration is vital.

Q: Any last words of advice for our readers?

A: First, I would say that if you’re reading this article or reading our magazines or blogs and looking for real estate strategies and insights, you’ve already separated yourself from the competition. Because for you and me to get great at anything, we must remain a student of life. So I congratulate you on taking that step. Whether it’s the Market Dominator, one of our other great products or you just want to call our home office and brainstorm, our team is always willing to help you find the real estate marketing product that best fits your needs, your market and your area.

Thanks for the information and insight, Todd!

If you’d like to learn more about the Market Dominator System, visit www.prospectsplus.com/dominator, or call Todd directly at 855-383-6646.

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