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 Marketing Training Module
How
Easy Target Marketing Helped Me
Earn $188,000 My First Year
  
Canada's transaction leader reveals how focused marketing can yield spectacular results. Terry Paranych created a flyer, a FSBO and an Expired campaign in his first month in the real estate business. These systems have enabled him to close more than 400 transactions annually.
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Adding Three Programs
Will Work Wonders
I encourage all new
agents to implement at least three things their first year in the real
estate business. I did the flyers, expired listings and FSBOs. That's
what I did at the outset, and it worked wonders.
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When I first started
in real estate in 1992, I created a very simple business plan. I wanted
to implement three simple systems the first year:
- A flyer. I determined
I was going to send out 50,000 flyers once a month for the first 12
months in the business. My first flyers were a bit inexperienced, but
eventually I landed on a great headline that simply stated that if prospective
sellers wanted to sell their house fast and for top dollar, they could
call me for a free market evaluation.
- A FSBO package.
- An expired program.
I decided that if
I simply wrote about benefits and results to these prospects, I could
publish the same book for both audiences with just a different cover or
headline. The services and benefits of my brand of marketing came into
play to neatly finish the two books.
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| FSBO
and Expired Programs Drive Flyer Content |
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What is it that FSBOs
and expireds have in common?
- They both were
excited about the prospect of selling their home and spent time and
effort getting it in ship-shape form.
- After putting
their house on the market, they experienced an initial flux of traffic
that convinced them their property was "hot" and that only the best
offer would be accepted.
- Just a few weeks
later - and with no offers going to contract (normally because of price
issues) - the FSBO or expired begins moving to a new frame of mind -
the defensive stage. Meanwhile, agents are badgering them - FSBOs by
agents who want to list their home, and expireds by their listing agent
who wants to drop the price again.
- After about a
month of being a FSBO and a single day after becoming an expired listing,
each prospect is good and ready for a common-sense solution and alternative.
Where did that leave
the flyers? In
great shape, as many of the unspoken issues and objections that FSBOs
and expireds are thinking became some of Terry's best headlines on his
general flyer mailouts. After devoting six months to writing, testing
and tweaking his flyers, he just transferred condensed copy of his FSBO
and expired pre-list books to his flyers.
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| Flyers:
Just Get Started |
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I didn't know where
to begin mailing my flyers, so I started in the area I grew up in - about
50,000 homes. I was going to start mailing flyers to about 5,000 homes.
Then I thought, "I'm going to attack this. I'm going to go after all 50,000."
In Canada, we have a
different sort of mailing delivery system that doesn't require postage.
Had I been in the states, I would have had to consider bulk mailing costs
or flyer delivery costs with my production costs. (At 50,000, a flyer delivery
service will be much more effective and efficient.)
The printing of 50,000
flyers is really very nominal. As I found out later at the printer's,
doubling or quadrupling your order raises your total price only slightly.
You're paying for film and placement and initial ink no matter if you
run 100 flyers or 100,000. As long as you're running one flyer, you're
paying for all of the technical. After that, it's just paper costs.
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It's also important
to know about "gang printing." Many printers who advertise the fact that
they print flyers will place 8 or 10 "up" a single page. If you only go
in with one flyer to print, they're charging you for that placement whether
they get another 8 or 9 jobs to run with it or whether it runs completely
alone and wastes all the rest of that paper. If you go in with 6 or 8
completed flyers done in the same 2, 3 or 4 colors, you can "gang" them
on one sheet, thus saving enormous costs overall.
But the most important
fact is this: It doesn't matter if you start with 250, 500, 1,000, 5,000
or 10,000 flyers - as long as you start and have a plan.
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Augmenting Flyers
with Phone Prospecting for Expireds and FSBOs
 While
the flyers were mailed on a monthly basis to my geographic farm, I called
every expired and FSBO. My first month in the business, I earned $18,000.
After only 12 months in the business, I had earned $188,732. And guess
what? I sold 66 houses. By implementing these three simple systems, I
was able to accomplish a great deal as a rookie agent.
Once I had the sellers'
flyers under my belt, I then went after buyers. After all, in most suburban
neighborhoods, you can expect about a 20-30% move rate every year. This
time I sat down and thought about where the buyer is and what his or her
mindset and fears may be when thinking of moving up or out of the current
neighborhood they're in. What did I have that they needed? I had sellers,
of course. As time went on, I had so many sellers that I was quite sure
just about any buyer out there could easily find a home in the listings
I myself carried.
And that's how I
wrote my buyer's flyer. I simply wrote about what I was already doing
- matching buyer criteria to homes in the MLS - particularly those I had
listed myself.
Remember, it's not
about you. It's all about them and how you're taking care of their needs
as their Realtor.
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