Dear Friend,

This week we’re going to talk about how “Triangles” can make you rich.
A few Marketing Mondays ago, I was making a comparison between Siegfried and Roy vs. The Blue Man Group.

I was writing about the importance of not building your business around YOU, but instead, building it around a system that can work with or without you.

Roy’s incident just amplifies the importance of being prepared for ANY event, and I’m hoping you get the message.

I told you last week, that I would talk about getting more listings this month…and I will…but I think it’s important to talk about some of the misconceptions that most people have about getting listings.

First of all, having listings will NOT make you a more successful real estate agent….only SOLD listings count.

Second, getting “famous” in a farm area does not equal getting “Rich” as a listing agent.

Here’s the evolution that most agents go through to some extent throughout their career.

As a new agent…it’s all about finding some buyers to work with. Holding open houses, doing floor time, getting your feet wet.

All of that stuff is about self-esteem. “I better work with some buyers just to get some experience” and then, as they get busy and realize how hard it is to actually find buyers to work with, the next level becomes…I’m going to move on and become a “listing agent”.

So what happens?

Something very similar to this sequence:

Phase 1. I need to create a “Personal Brand”

An agent gets to observing and sees that it appears the most successful agents in the market have a slogan, and full color super-deluxe postcards, brochures, billboards and image ads.

They further deduce that must be what makes them successful.

So, they crack open their piggy bank, empty all the money they have and take it to the “full-color-super-deluxe-image-building-specialists” and give it all to them to create a one of a kind personal promotion package.

3 months later, after spending weeks agonizing over the decision of which picture of me conveys a better image…the skydiving picture or the picture of me on a horse?
The proofs are in and… It looks great!

They approve of everything, and then find out that it’s going to take a few thousand more to get the stuff actually printed…the big fee was only for designing the stuff.
Oh…well, I’ve gone this far…I can’t stop now.

I’ll just use my “power-line” from the bank to get things started.

Phase 2. I need to get my name “out there”

Armed with the matching brochures, the postcards, the website and the letterhead…it’s time to start spreading the word!

Oh, those “big” postcards cost MORE to send out?

Ok…well, let’s go for it! If I just get 3 transactions, it will “more than pay for itself”
“Repetition is the key!”

“You’ve got to get your image out there consistently over time…that’s the only way you’ll ever get that important “top-of-mind” awareness.”

So they spend, and send the postcards, buy the billboards, run the ads…and it works.
Sort of.

“Someone in the grocery store recognized me! — and I wasn’t even “dressed up”!”
“At church, Mrs. Nelander told me my brochure was lovely.”

That’s sort of encouraging…for a while…until…

Phase 3. “Hey, wait a minute…I’m spending more than I’m making!”

I better put a “hold” on this stuff until I get some money coming in. Those postcards aren’t dated, I can wait a little while, it will probably work better in the spring market anyway…now that I’ve planted the seeds.

I’ve seen that scenario too many times.

The sad thing is, there is some truth to image advertising.

The most successful agents “appear” to be successful because of the advertising they do, and they seem to be all over town with the billboards, the full-page ads, the postcards, the bus-benchs, the for-sale signs…they must have 30 listings!

All of the money they spend, and the image advertising they do creates a big stir and they get business because of it, but many times they are spending as much or more than they are making at the end of the year.

And the saddest part of it is…even if it does work, they’ve created a business that is so dependent on them, they couldn’t stop it if they wanted to.

It becomes like a big “Jenga” puzzle with all the pieces stacked on top of each other to create this business tower, and you can never tell which piece you remove will cause the whole tower to collapse.

Is it the billboards? The postcards? You can never tell.

As someone once said…”I know HALF the money I spend on advertising isn’t working…I just don’t know WHICH half!”

I realize it may seem a bit harsh…but every word of it is true. I speak to dozens of people every year who are in one of those 3 phases.

The saddest stage to see someone in, is at the end of phase 1, when they’ve already spent the money, got their proofs and have put in the order at the printer.

Those people are committed. There is nothing you can do to stop them…and when I see them again the next year…they always say “I wish I had listened.”

Anyway…go ahead and do it if you want. I’m just here to tell you there’s another way.
If the objective is to get listings, the first step needs to be to decide what kind of listings.

Want to know what the best answer to that question is?

The kind of listings you ALREADY have a buyer for.

That’s the best kind of listing.

You can sell it yourself, in less than 24 hours, without even putting the house on the market…and help the sellers find their new house.

Want to know how to make that happen?

I’m going to tell you right now.

Start thinking in Triangles.

That’s right…triangles.

Your objective is to create as many closed loop marketing triangles as you can…with YOU in the middle.

Here’s what I mean.

In every transaction, there are three people involved.

The seller, the buyer, and the agent (YOU).

The best way to be successful in real estate is to work at creating these closed triangles where YOU are the connection between the buyer and the seller.

The first step to do this is to narrow your focus to a very easy to manage segment of the market.

Let’s say Townhouses.

If you’re in a town of more than 25,000 people, you are in an area where there are probably lots of townhouses.

It doesn’t have to be townhouses, it can be a small master planned community, it can be lakefront homes, it can be historical homes…whatever.

I’m not saying you have to limit yourself to one market segment forever. It’s just that when you’re spending money on lead generation…you need to do it one target market at a time.

Let’s use townhouses as an example.

In Georgetown, where we live for the summer, there are probably somewhere around 2000 townhouses in a dozen or more distinct complexes.

Some are freehold, some are condo, some have garages, some are on the river…there are lots of different kinds of townhouses, and some are in small complexes you might not even find in a casual drive around town.

Right now, there are people who are looking for a townhouse to buy in Georgetown, and there is probably even someone who is going to buy a townhouse THIS weekend.
Now, normally, I would not have any way of finding that townhouse buyer unless I had a townhouse listing.

But…I’ve got a plan.

What if I could develop a way to find townhouse buyers without having townhouse listings…and then use those buyers to actually find listings I could sell immediately?
My favorite kind!

Here’s how it works…we’re going to put together a simple “Guide To Georgetown Townhouse Prices” — and use it to create the first side of our townhouse triangle.
It doesn’t have to be anything too elaborate. Maybe a couple of pictures of each complex to show what kinds of townhouses are available, a little information about each of the complexes like number of units, square footage, amenities and price range.
You could include a locator map to show where the complexes are located…and some basic information about Georgetown.

Total time to put together? Maybe 8 hours total.

Total cost? Maybe a 20-page guide might cost $1 to put together in sets of 25 – 50 at a time at Kinkos.

Now, once you have the guide together, it’s time to start getting in front of the townhouse buyers that are already in motion looking for a townhouse in Georgetown.

How?

By thinking like a townhouse buyer.

Where would you look if you were looking for a townhouse?

What about the classifieds?

Do you think you might look under Towhomes and condos for sale?
What if you saw an ad that said:
——————————————-
Georgetown — Free Guide to Georgetown
Townhouse prices. Pictures and profiles of
communities, price ranges and locator map.
Free recorded message 1-800-123-4567 x 101
——————————————-
It works…and  every one who calls will be interested in the same thing.

Townhouses.

You’ll be collecting names and addresses and contact info for prospects without even doing anything.

Before we move on, I want to talk a little about free recorded messages.

You’ll notice that most of the things I talk about in these podcasts involve lead generation using free recorded messages.

There are a couple of major reasons for this. First, it is the lowest barrier of resistance type of offer we can make to a prospect.

They don’t have to talk to anyone right now if they don’t want to…but they can still call and get the info.

Result? at least 3 times and possibly 10 times as many people will call on the same ad if they can call a recorded message to get it compared to “call and speak to Dean today.”
Second, it frees you up from being tied to the cell phone or the pager to answer calls at all hours. Anyone can call and listen to your recorded message right now…while you’re going something else…like golfing, reading your favorite newsletter over a cup of coffee at Starbucks, or working with other people to find them a townhouse!

The purpose of these Marketing Monday Podcasts, is to give you information you can use…and provide you with the tools you need to apply it.

You can get a toll-free voicemail service with 100 mailboxes and 5 levels of tracking extensions for less than $40 a month including 250 minutes of 800# usage.
go to: MoneyMakingVoiceMail.com and order the Adtrakker 250 program for $39.70 a month.

That will be the perfect system to get you started.

Ok…so you’ve got your guide together, you’ve got your 800# set up…and you’ve got your classified ad. The whole thing should cost you less than a hundred dollars to set up, and you could be running the ad this Sunday.

You WILL get calls, and you will be building up the first side of your Townhouse profit triangle.

Next, when you talk with the people who call, you’ll be looking for the 5-star prospects. The ones you have the best chance of working with.

With some 5-Star townhouse prospects, you can now go and get to work on the other side of your triangle.

How?
By putting together another simple report for Townhouse owners…and offering this report to them for free in an inexpensive black and white non-super-deluxe postcard sent to townhouse owners.

Now you’re building the other side of the Townhouse profit triangle.

You’ll be building a list of the most likely people to SELL their townhouse in the next 3 to 6 months, and you can let them know about your townhouse buyers whenever you have a buyer for their style of townhouse.

Simple. Elegant. Inexpensive. Profitable like crazy.

No “image” required.

It’s almost funny how profitable this is, and how quickly it can be set up.
Compared to the thought, effort, expense and time that goes in to setting up a typical personal promotion campaign, you could be doing townhouse transactions in less than 30 days — and be on your way to “owning” the townhouse market.

And guess what townhouse owners do when they sell?  They buy bigger homes.

So guess what you’ve got?

The beginnings of another profit triangle for moving townhouse buyers into 3 bedroom detached homes.

Want to know another way to find listings?

Here’s the secret…attract them as BUYERS first.

There is nothing stopping you from advertising information about house prices in Georgetown South, and using the same model we just went through for finding buyers and listings there too.

One market segment at a time.

Without an “image”, and while building an asset you can pass on to someone else to handle if you ever had to…or wanted to…take some time off from the business.
I hope this gives you a different way to think about getting listings…without having to spend a fortune.

It’s just a simple program…but often, simple is just what the doctor ordered!
If you’ll let me — I can help you put together a turn-key system for setting up these profit triangles.

You just decide which half of the triangle you’d like to start with.

if you’d like to start with buyers…go to FindingBuyers.com

If you’d like to start with sellers….go to GettingListings.com

I’ve already done the work for you and set up turn-key systems you can have up and running before next week’s Marketing Monday!

Let me know how it works out for you…

PS – Next week, you won’t want to miss — I’m going to talk about the most important things you can do now to make sure you’re getting the absolute most out of your website marketing.