Expanding Customer Purchases
A Realtor’s expected resell cycle is five years. So they can’t very well send monthly mailings trying to sell the customer. They can however, educate
their customers about the recent sales activity – people love to know what the neighbors house sold for. The Realtor can also provide tips on
organizing their garage, growing a greener lawn, refinancing when appropriate, and so on.
Compelling Incentives
A Realtor could offer “Free Home Preparation” which includes up to $1,000 in painting, gardening, carpeting and other improvements to maximize the
home value. This achieves three things:
1. It acts as a huge value add over the competition
2. It keeps the commission at it’s full amount
3. It improves the appearance of the home and therefore makes it easier to sell
Of course a Realtor would need to check the laws in their area before making such an offer.
If she previously sent mailings to 1,000 homes in her targeted area every month costing her say $500 per month or $6,000 per year, and if she
converts 1% of these to clients, she gets 10 in a year – each costs $600. Make Sense? It cost her $6,000 to do the mailings and she got 10
customers costing $600 each. Let’s assume that her average commission including representing the sellers when they buy a local home, is $5,000
per family. So on 10 homes that result from the mailings she earns $50,000 in revenue less the $6,000 in mailing = $44,000 in profit.
If the $1,000 home improvement campaign increased her mailing success to just 2%, she now gets 20 clients in that same year. The mailings still
cost $6,000, plus the home improvements costs say $700 each (as she gets volume discounts) or another $14,000. This means that she earns
gross revenues of $5,000 * 20 clients or $100,000. Less the $14,000 for the bonus and $6,000 for the mailing = $80,000 in profit. And let me ask
you a question – Do you think that she would only double her response if she made such a compelling offer?
Educational Seminars
One real estate agent put on educational-based seminars and saw over 300% increase in his number of leads. He used an 8-step selling process
and he didn't give up after the first attempt. Included were broadcast faxes, emails, phone calls, newsletters, office liaisons who contacted everyone
in their office.
You can also write (or have ghost-written) an educational booklet that will set the buying criteria in your favor and make you the only logical choice.
Offer it free to those who come into your office, or put it on your website.
Risk-Reversal
When working with a buyer, offer to sell their home for free if they were unhappy with their purchase within the first 6 months. Take this offer to
bankers and it should impress them enough to recommend you to their clients.
Testimonials
Write to your happy clients and ask for testimonials. Give them a template they can use and offer a small gift if they can complete it and get it back to
you by a certain date. Take the best testimonials and put them on your website, or use them in a sales letter.
Laser Marketing
Send a direct response letter to your customer list. Make sure you include all the elements of a good sales letter (see mindmap). Include your
testimonials and your risk-reversal. Make sure you use your letter to educate and not just sell. If your list is large enough, send out a couple types of
letters to a small percentage of the list and see which letter performs the best. Send the winning letter to the remainder of your group. If you mail the
winning letter again after 2 weeks to the exact same list (except for the ones who responded positively), you should expect a 50% response
compared to the first mailing.
Other
If you have a particular specialty that is not common in this industry, approach other real estate agents or groups and suggest that they out-source
that particular action to you. Show them the benefits of having you do it, one of which is that they can focus on their core business. If you have idle
employees working for you, this could become pure profit.
Database Development
When you run an open house, place a receptionist at the door and make people sign in. This provides additional security, but also shows the
seriousness of their intent. Some people will turn away right there, but it is better to deal with the serious buyers only. An interesting side note is that
your other listings will soar, because neighbors who come to see the house will remember the added touch and will want the same for their showing
when they are ready to sell.
Customer Satisfaction
Run workshops with your staff and get their ideas for ways to improve on the customer experience. Go through the steps to implementation (see the
mindmap) to make sure that the best ideas are cemented in.
Realtor
ProfitDriver 1: Get More Leads
ProfitDriver 2: Get More Meaningful Communications
ProfitDriver 3: Get More Appointments Set and Kept
ProfitDriver 4: Initial Close Rate, Follow up Close Rate, Down-sell Close Rate
ProfitDriver 5: Average Price, Add-on Purchases through Up-sell and Cross-sell
ProfitDriver 6: Get More to Reactivate
ProfitDriver 7: Get More Frequent Purchases
ProfitDriver 8: Get More Prod/Serv Sold -- Yours and Others
ProfitDriver 9: Get More Client Retention
ProfitDriver 10: Get More Referrals, Convert More Referrals
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