Hello and welcome to the Marketing Monday.com live podcast. My name is Dean Jackson and today we’re going to talk about how to turn your sold listing into your next listing and it really begins right when you take the new listing.

There’s a great opportunity for you to leverage your efforts with listings even more than you can leverage your effort with buyers because it’s such a visible thing when you take a listing. So we’re going to talk about here’s eight things that you can do right from the moment you get a new listing all the way to when that listing is sold to maybe even get the listing right around either the listing that you just sold or to get referrals from the sellers who you just helped sell their house.

1. It starts with sending out a just listed card.

Now a few weeks ago I gave you a sample of a just listed card that you can download and you can send out and you probably noticed that it’s a little bit different than what typical just listed cards look like.

My whole philosophy around the way you communicate to the neighbours of a listing is to communicate to them just like you would if you were to go and knock on their doors, to go up and visit with them in person. So when you go up and the headline on our just listed card is ‘Do you know what your neighbours at 22 Greystone did last night, it may come as a surprise to you but they’ve been plotting for a long time’ and that’s kind of an attention getting headline.

It looks very different than typical just listed where you’re just sending out a card that says “just listed” and there’s not really any other kind of information on there.

This is way for you to differentiate yourself from what most other people are doing.

See just listed cards have been around for a very long time and a lot of people are very used to seeing the standard just listed so it kind of becomes invisible and this is your opportunity to stand out a little bit and be different than what other people are doing in a conversation way and you’re certainly going to get their attention so it all starts with that very first impression that they have of you.

Let’s imagine that our universe that we’re trying to influence is the 100 homeowners right around that listing that you just took. Now those people are the ones who are going to be the most interested in what’s going on around them. They’re going to be the most invested in what’s happening in the neighbour so they’re going to have this desire to see what the houses are selling for in their neighbourhood…especially if they’re going to be selling their own house. If they’re going to be selling their own house it’s going to be amplified their interest in this so they’re watching not only to see what’s going on in the neighbourhood but they’re also watching you to see what you do differently than what other real estate agents do. So this is your opportunity to really shine especially to those 100 people.

2. Use infobox flyers.

Infobox flyers are a fantastic way to get information into the hands of people who are driving by the home who are interested enough to stop and get out of their car and walk up to the box and take one of your flyers. So don’t take that lightly. You might have this idea that well those info box flyers get taken by nosey neighbours and that’s absolutely true… but some of those nosey neighbours are likely to be future sellers. So, one of the things that we’ve always done is using the info box flyers, and the back of the info box flyer specifically, to make offers that would be interesting to sellers.

“Find out how much your River Oaks home is worth for free over the phone” or some such offer that’s going to let people who are living in River Oaks, if that’s where your new listing is, or the name of the subdivision where your listing is, know that you’ve got information that would be valuable to them.

So the info box flyers you’re not only speaking to the buyers or the potential buyers for that home but you’re speaking to the potential future sellers so we want to make some offers that would be appealing to those people as well.

3. “Preview” open houses.

Now in the just listed card that I offered for you to download two weeks ago you have the option of putting in there an invitation to a preview open house on Sunday at 2.00pm on Saturday at 2.00pm and you know it’s a good idea to invite the neighbours, the immediate neighbours around, to come and see the house because they may know somebody who’s looking for a house in the neighbourhood or they may be looking to see what the competition is going to be or what their house would be compared to the one that you’ve got for sale. So it’s a great opportunity for you meet the people from those 100 homes right around your new listing.

4. use a single property website.

One of the greatest things that you can do to showcase a new listing is to create a web page that uses the address of the property as the domain name. So if I were listing 22 Greystone Crescent as a new listing I would use 22Greystone.com as my domain name for that particular listing and that’s great way for people to remember what the URL is.

They’ll remember to go to that when they get back home or when they get back to their computer so they can look on line and go and take a look at that. Now with QR codes and with cell phones you don’t even have to wait for that to happen, people can just scan a QR code and go right to a website all about that property. And so using single property websites is a great way to find buyers but it’s also a great way to impress the future sellers right around that listing.

5. Use voicemail hotlines.

One of the greatest things that you can do is make sure that any time you’re offering information you give people the option of calling and listening to a free recorded message to get all of the information that they are looking for and you will be able to tell who they are, by their telephone number and their name on your caller ID and you can see who’s been calling about your property.

You can choose to call them back or you could choose to not call them back but that’s a valuable way to get information into the hands of buyers and into the ears of the people who live in those 100 homes who might be curious about how you are going about marketing the property.

You’ve got to keep in mind that everything you’re doing is being monitored and being observed by those 100 people because in the back of their mind they’re thinking that you might be a candidate to sell their house… so the more you can do to impress them the better you’ll be.

6. put a notice on your seller’s Facebook page

This is great if your sellers are on Facebook, which most people are, and they want to get involved in helping to find a buyer…the good news is that the people on their Facebook page even if they’re not going to buy the home are the people that they would be most likely to refer you to if they were to refer to you somebody. So the friends of your sellers are going to be observing as well so if you’ve got a way to put a link from say a picture gallery onto your seller’s website they’d be more than happy to do that on your seller’s Facebook page and will link people to your single property website specifically for that property. So they’re getting to come and see the kind of exposure that you’re giving their home.

7. use a just sold card.

[click image to download the Microsoft Word Doc]

Now similar to our just listed card this is a card that is very sort of newsworthy style and I put up a copy of the card here for you to download as a Word document so you can customize it and use it yourself. But here’s what it says,

‘Your neighbours the Smiths got exactly what they deserved and it could happen to you next.

You might be surprised when you find out.

You may remember that less than sixty days ago your neighbours the Smiths put their house on the market with John Adams of ABC Realty. Well they got what they deserved, a buyer for their beautiful home. The home was on the market only 47 days and they got the price they wanted. They’ll be moving on the 14^th. The Smiths are really excited about their move and they’re looking forward to moving into their new four bedroom colonial home in River Oaks just in time for the New Year. John’s prepared a special report called The Ten Dumbest Mistakes Smart People Make when Buying or Selling a Home. In this report he addresses some of the most costly mistakes he’s seen people make over the years and it gives them insightful tips on how to make sure you avoid them.

If you’re going to be selling your house in the next six to twelve months this report could save you thousands of dollars and help you sell your house much faster. To receive a free copy call 1800 twenty-four hours for a twenty-four hour free recorded message’.

Now that postcard is something that you can use right around the property that you just sold.

You wouldn’t want to send probably more than 100 of those cards or if you’re in a small community with a planned community maybe up to 200 or 250 homes that would make sense especially if it’s a named planned community because everybody in there would be interested to see what the neighbours got for their house or they’re going to be interested to see how that sale came about. So you’re speaking to the people who could potentially be the next sellers in that neighbourhood.

8. send a letter from the sellers to the neighbors.

Now one of the greatest things that you can do is send a testimonial letter or a letter that tells the story of what happened from the sellers’ perspective. Now this takes a little bit of creative effort. It takes a little bit of understanding of how to get the story into words and to send that out to the neighbours but it’s worth taking the time and it’s worth the effort because nothing is as valuable as somebody else saying how great you are and giving you their highest recommendation.

So there’s the eight things that you can do to really get a great opportunity to turn your listing into not only your next listing but when you get that next listing starting that whole cycle again and turning that listing into even more listings.

So there’s some great tips for you. Download that postcard and if you look back in the archives you can see the just listed card that’s available for you to download as well and you’ll have the complete set.

Let me know how it works out for you. If you have any questions about this process leave them in the comments and I’ll make sure and comment back.

That’s it for this week. Tune in next time. We’ll talk about even more ways to get listings, find buyers and convert leads.