What are you up to?
Here’s the problem: you’re not getting through enough doors, so you’re not getting the opportunities you need to show vendors and landlords you’re the best.
Seeing surprise boards go up? At properties you’re not even getting chance to value?
Running low on stock means you’re operating from a position of fear – you feel you need to drop your fees to compete and attract new instructions. The problem is, it’s a downward spiral and trying to increase your fees again later can be really tricky.
And then there are the online agents, and the ‘sell-for-a-fiver’ agents. Vendors think they can do it without you, so why should they pay 1.5%, or even 1%?
Maybe you’re doing some canvassing here, and some door knocking there. Perhaps you have tried print advertising, and even some Rightmove Premium features. But it’s all a bit haphazard, and because of this, new enquiries come in fits and starts.
I was talking to a young, dynamic agent in London, who told me that they canvas “when it’s quiet”. But that’s too late! He’s just creating an unmanageable cycle:
Are you up for a challenge?
I want you to take a long, honest look at your current marketing. Write a list of all your current marketing activities, and give yourself a rating out of 5 for each one. For example, if you think your website is pretty good, but your social media is patchy at best, you might want to rate yourself 4 for your website (probably some room for improvement) and 2 for social media (we need a plan).
I like to plot these scores in a kind of pie chart, like this:
I’ve divided this one into eight, but you may have fewer sections, or perhaps more. Creating a visual representation of your current marketing allows you to easily see where the gaps are. And each gap is an opportunity!
Rate your activities
Now’s the time for honesty – rate your marketing activities out of 5, and total the scores up. I use this scoreboard:
Take the total score, and multiply it by 2.5, and you’ll have a percentage. Something like this:
Keeping score of lead sources
Rating your marketing activities is a great start to getting your lead generation on autopilot, but you also need to know how your activities are working for you. I want you to ask every person who answers the phone in your business to make a log of where new leads come from. The simplest way is to just ask them to keep a tally, like this:
These figures won’t show the whole story, but they may surprise you. When I ran this test in a small agency in Northumberland, the owner was pretty sure she knew what to expect: that most of her new market appraisal enquiries came from her local advertising. What she actually discovered was that her blog was a great source of leads, and social media was much higher than she’d thought. Of course, the actual trigger that motivates a seller to actually pick up the phone and call to book an appointment with you, may be only the last in a series of touch points they have had with your company: maybe they saw a for sale board, asked a friend for a recommendation, walked by your office on their way to work, and saw a print advert. This just means that your marketing activities need to be consistent, and varied. However, the actual motivating communication to make that call to your office is what we’re looking for here. What’s the last thing they saw before picking up the phone?
Why you need a system
If you just approach your marketing in a haphazard way, canvassing when you’re quiet, cutting the budget when you’re not, your leads will never be there when you need them. You’ll constantly be running on an exhausting treadmill of realising you have no market appraisals in the diary, doing a big marketing push, dealing with the rush of leads and market appraisals, getting them all on the market, then realising you have no more market appraisals booked in – again.
Marketing can be overwhelming.
In larger companies, there is usually someone responsible for all the company’s marketing activities. When you’re an independent, that person is often you; the owner or manager of the business. Whereas only a couple of decades ago, your primary role would have been to manage the company, now lead generation is your most important focus.
I can help!
I’m launching a brand new signature programme next month: the DREAM System. It stands for Dynamic Results Estate Agent Marketing, and it works like a DREAM!
I’m going to show you in detail the exact steps to get your lead generation on autopilot, and know precisely the specific marketing activities you need to do for the next few months, and even years. I’ll also demonstrate how you can outsource the vast majority of these activities, and your options for doing this effectively and inexpensively. I’m also going to show you how to calculate the cost of acquiring a new client, and the return on investment you can expect.
If you’re interested to know more, all you have to do is complete this very short application form and if I think it’s a good fit for you, we can have a chat on the phone when I’ll give you the nitty gritty.
Sound like a plan? Great! Here’s the link to the short application form.https://samashdown.wufoo.com/forms/book-a-call-with-sam/
Don’t worry – at this stage it’s only to get some basic information from you before we get on a call – no strings!
Really looking forward to chatting to you.
Sam
What to read next :How Social Media can help you Win Instructions
What to do next: Sign up to my Supertips – 1000s of agents already have! http://www.samashdown.co.uk/supertips
Speak to Sam: If you’d like to know how you can get through more doors, and win every instruction you want, drop me a line at sam@home-truths.co.uk and we can arrange a chat.
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