April’s first Keeping It Real Training offered by Real Geeks and hosted by Greg Harrelson and Frank Klesitz explored direct mail strategies for lead generation in affluent real estate markets. Featuring Brett Jennings, a real estate agent and team leader in the Silicon Valley, this episode provides direct answers to the question, “How can I generate seller listings now?”
Establishing credibility through sending direct mail to property owners and following up with phone calls, targeting mapped school areas, and circle dialing were all ways Jennings suggested staying in front of sellers. “All will sell at some point,” he said.
Recalling the words of his mentor Tony Robbins, “Wealth exists in the gap between ideas and their implementation,” Jennings explained that exploring that gap has been the key to his success. He sells real estate in a very affluent area, Silicon Valley, and has found that consistency as a team effort has allowed for predictable results. He targets an area of at least 2,000 homes and defines it by school district boundaries in his MLS. Using Remine or Realist, he then downloads the contact details of those homeowners and sends hand addressed, stamped letters to each. He mails one to himself so he knows when the letters are received. After they’ve been received, typically 3-5 days later, his team begins calling as follow up. This technique has allowed Jennings and his team to secure listings in a low inventory market.
Jennings said the direct mail campaign works alongside his digital efforts. Every lead also is set up to receive a monthly Corefact postcard, monthly e-market report, and he has seller alerts set up for his CRM, showing pending and sold homes within 2 blocks of the property owners’ address. In addition Jennings uses HomeBot for his entire SOI and reports a 70% open rate using that tool. Jennings said his focus is to become known in a variety of ways. “Not just digital, but do digital and print to make you unforgettable,” he said.
These techniques alone are not the cause of Jennings GCI jumping from $3.9 million to $12 million, however. He had a plan to scale and said he only did that through hiring a “rockin' admin,” scaling lead generation, scaling to 50 quality agents, and scaling quality support.
Listing Realtors Property Resource (RPR) as another tool, Jennings, Harrelson and Klesik discussed how this could be used to print out market updates for all buyers and send personal messages congratulating them on their increases in home values. The note could also provide the “most universal offer to sellers” which is the idea that you have a buyer. Jennings suggested leveraging your most committed buyers by finding out from the agents on the team who the buyers are and what types of homes they need.
As you mail to your farm areas, Jennings advised to intentionally choose a hand written font, even on the envelope. He explained that using a service such as Addressable, which uses a real robot pen to write addresses, can achieve a 50% open rate for mailings. Jennings then shared that his team accentuates results with mail and a followup call in a 3 tap system, “either call, mail, call or mail, call, mail,” he said. He also recommended using a short url for zoom to make it easy for people to get on a video call, such as zoom.name.com.
Jennings acknowledged that this approach is large scale and cost-prohibitive for soome, but encouraged agents to look for partnerships on the mailing. He suggested including a 2nd page with a referral to a financial advisor offering a seller tax implications webinar, and having them cover a portion of the postage.
Explaining that letter frequency mattered due to message fatigue, Jennings said that in his market, “the ideal cadence is every 3-4 months,” and explained that this way, “if you call behind the list, you may get advance news of seller plans so you can add them to CRM.” Harrelson and Klesitz agreed, with Harrelson adding, “Never do direct mail unless you're willing to prospect behind it.”
Harrelson spoke from experience saying he’s found that sellers take a letter and “put it in a property folder to access in 6 months,” and encouraged agents to do multiple things, as Jennings does, not only direct mail. Speaking of Jennings, Harrelson said agents needed to be more like him, "He's not a dabbler. He's a doer, he's a get-it- doner. He goes deep." Klesitz suggested more tools for agents to use if they need to find buyers, explaining that institutional buyers are available through multiple companies, including Offerpad, and Opendoor. Klesitz also mentioned Homelight as a trade-in way to access equity and then sell the property as an "Exclusive Partner."
In wrapping up this episode of Keeping It Real, Klesitz mentioned his “Magical Seller’s Email” and offered it to agents. He recommended personalizing it and emailing the letter to an entire database as a way to get conversations started. Download it here.
This Keeping It Real episode shows you best practices for staying in front of potential home sellers.
Utilizing these concepts and tools with your Real Geeks CRM is sure to increase your seller leads and grow conversion in 2021. Let us know what works for you and reach out if you have techniques you’d like to share in Real Geeks training. We’d love to have you on LIVE event!
This Keeping it Real got deep into “The Optimal Economic Structure for a Small Real Estate Team w/ Anthwon Thomas.” Hosted by Greg Harrelson and Frank Klesitz, the episode talks about the realities of agent splits, staff compensation structure, marketing budget percentage, and setting up an overall economic model when planning for a small team. More importantly, you’ll be inspired as you hear the passion, commitment, and joy evident in Thomas and Harrelson as each shares the journey of becoming a leader.
As a passionate entrepreneur seeking a life in real estate, Thomas spent hours preparing for his career as an agent, but more importantly as someone who could lead a team. In the beginning it was just him, but from the day he hired his assistant, he knew he would be a success. He knew it, because he could see it. Thomas had prepared by watching hundreds of hours of training ahead of time, in the form of Keeping it Real episodes and related Real Geeks training. This coaching helped Thomas internalize the message, “Whether I was going to fail or succeed, it was a win for me,” Thomas said.
Klesitz and Harrelson were amazed at his drive, and Harrelson recognized it as a key to Thomas’ success. Harrelson says: “Anthwon minimized his risk by maximizing his learning,” he said. Thomas attributes his success to his supportive wife and the knowledge gained as he internalized the role plays shared in those video trainings. I had to have focus and the belief that I was a winner, and a competitor,” he said.Thomas went on to explain that success is about working smart, “It’s not about how intelligent you are, it’s about how many times you were being intelligent,” he shared.
With a business based in Lafayette, Indiana, Thomas shows that “you can still be profitable in any market” as his small team consisting of three sales agents, a director of operations, closing coordinator and virtual assistant generated 120 deals last year in a market with a median sales price under $200,000. Thomas himself is no longer closing deals, and instead serves in a management role, helping his agents stay focused on prospecting and closing deals.
Part of Thomas’ success lies in keeping costs low (marketing budget was $53,000) and morale and expectations high. His company has published standards for work efficiency and production for their agents which include:
Thomas finds that his system provides clarity, incentivizes, and works well for his motivated team, and shared that the agents hold one another accountable. “When we bring agents on the team,” he explained, “We future pace them… We let them know what to expect.” Believing that the amount of contacts you have per day will be the number of closings you have per year, Thomas provided insight into why his system works. Even knowing this, Thomas felt building systems and processes was the value he could best contribute in his business, so left transactions to his agents.
Impressed by Thomas’ system, training, and team, Harrelson and Klesitz discussed how approaches may be different, but that success happens with consistency. Harrelson shared that his team approach is unlike Thomas’ in some ways. For instance, Harrelson requires no minimum sales standard, but guides individual agents based on their own goals. “My job is to help them accomplish what they want to do,” Harrelson said. Harrelson encouraged agents seeking to grow a team to make their first hire an assistant and suggested they convert 50% of time saved into lead generation time. When growing their businesses, Harrelson and Thomas took different approaches. Thomas reinvested his time into building a business. Harrelson reinvested his time into listings. “Both of us probably did it right, based on our vision of the model,” Harrelson said.
Thomas explained that he didn’t do everything perfectly in the beginning. Talking about his failures, Thomas acknowledged, “Even though I sold homes, I didn’t lead correctly. The first agent I brought on didn’t stay with us long. I needed to prove myself a little more and make sure I was gliding, not grinding, everyday.” He realized he had to be more of a team player and changed his process so he could deliver more value and add more support, Thomas explained saying, “At that point things started taking off.” Harrelson agreed, “I’m a big believer in leading by example,” he said. Harrelson shared that he doesn’t have his own office, though he does make use of a conference room, because his goal is to build and teach his team. “I want to be with agents,” Harrelson said, talking about his leadership style.
“The reality is if I need to sell a home today, I can,” Thomas said, adding that his role and value is in building out “a strong bench of great players” to contribute to the team’s success. Thomas believes in accountability. He shared that his son checked in with him everyday when he was getting started at building his business with the question “Dad, did you follow or execute on your obligations today?”
Explaining that leading a team is about feeling led, Harrelson said, “Let your passion and your heart take precedence in your decision. The economics will magically disappear.” A true leader puts in the effort required to see the dream through, Harrelson explained as he shared a story about ditch digging. “It’s not about being a resource,” Harrelson said, “It’s about being resourceful.”
If you’re planning to grow your team in 2021, or anytime in the future, you’ll want to watch this amazing episode. Internalize these practical tips and insights to ease your transition and have you seeing success from the start!