Reader Q&A: How New Agents Can Break Into Real Estate on a Shoestring Budget

Mike asks:
I am new to the business, and I have about $2500 to spend on getting my name out there. Where do you get the most bang for your buck in marketing?

Thanks for your question, Mike. It’s a question I get pretty regularly from new agents who are trying to break into real estate, so I wanted to take a few minutes to answer the question.

Unfortunately, while I wish I could give you the one trick that will bring a flood of clients and cash in the door, marketing just doesn’t work that way. There is no magic bullet when it comes to growing your business. I wish there was, but the reality is that you are entering a difficult market and need to overcome quite a few obstacles before your marketing will start to work.

1. You have a minimal budget. When it comes to advertising, $2500 is a drop in the bucket. It’s incredibly easy to blow through that running a few ads, sending a few postcards, or putting up and marketing a website - and even if you do those things, there’s no guarantee you’ll get results.
   
   
2. You mention the purpose of advertising is to “get your name out.” As long as this is your purpose, you’ll most likely blow through your marketing budget and not get the results you are looking for. The fundamental secret most agents miss is that your marketing should not be about you, the services you provide, or all the things you will do to help your prospect. Instead, you must focus on your prospect and your prospect’s problem. In other words, it’s not about what you do, but what your prospect gets - what are their biggest concerns and how can you address those concerns in your marketing?
   
   
3. You have minimal experience and, therefore, credibility. Even if you were to create a highly successful advertising campaign, you will still have a difficult time getting clients because they’ll perceive you as a risky choice. Why should they choose a brand new agent with little or no experience when there are many other more-experienced agents out there who are hungry for their business?
   
   
4. What makes you the best choice? Even if you had years of experience, the question every prospect has on their mind is, “why should I hire you over all the other agents out there?” In other words, “what makes you uniquely qualified to handle my specific problems?”
   
   

Now, I’m not saying these things to get you down or imply that you can’t break into the business and have a successful real estate career. You absolutely can, but to do so, you’ll need to be strategic - and thrifty - with how you prospect for clients and make sure you adequately address points three and four.

There are five fundamental principles you’ll need to include in your marketing campaign so that you start getting prospects to call you then have the follow through to turn those prospects into paying clients. I’ll go into a bit more detail over the course of the next few days but for now, those five principles are:

1. Build trust and credibility
2. Create education-based marketing materials
3. Promote those educational marketing materials, not yourself
4. Build a database of prospects and follow up
5. Create a network of referral partners
6. Bonus: How To Get The Most Bang for Your $2500 Marketing Budget - aka how I’d spend a $2500 marketing budget

Tomorrow I’ll address how to build trust and credibility as a new agent.