The problem is that many real estate agents send out very similar types of mailings, like:

• Recipe of the month – how is this relevant to selling real estate?
• Just sold – Whoopee! One picture of the home next to a huge picture of the proud agent who wants to do the same for me. (Imagine how much more compelling these would be if they showed a picture of the agent’s happy client rather than the agent and offered a glowing testimonial.)
• Generic – A photo and logo along with some vague tagline about being “honest” and “professional” or that this agent can “find my dream home.”
• Free Home Analysis – Slightly better than the first 3 but what agent doesn’t offer this? It’s not enough to set you apart from everyone else.

Even worse, I’ve received mailings that are printed crooked or are difficult to read or are downright baffling to figure out the intended pun or cutesy cartoon. These campaigns do nothing to set you apart from everyone else. They aren’t focused on a target market. They don’t have a compelling offer that would persuade people to contact you. And they don’t make the case for why you are different than all the other agents out there.

For agents looking to increase their mailing’s response rates, Lois Geller provides a refreshing, step-by-step guide to real estate marketing using proven direct marketing techniques in her book, Sold! Direct Marketing for the Real Estate Pro. If you aren’t familiar with the term “direct marketing,” she defines it as

“a measurable method of selling products and services, generating leads and developing mutually profitable relationships with carefully targeted prospects and good customers.”

This is in direct contract to the way most real estate agents market their services. Most real estate agents:

• Try to reach “anyone who will buy my services” rather than picking a highly targeted audience
• Only want to talk with those ready to buy or sell now, rather than developing a database of future prospects who have raised their hands and said they were thinking about it
• Focus on “getting their name out there” in front of new prospects rather than regularly keeping in touch with contacts and past clients
• Have no idea how effective their marketing campaign is because they don’t have a system in place to measure the results

In short, they waste a lot of money on very ineffective promotions.

In her 12-chapter book, Geller explains the main tenets of a great direct marketing campaign so agents can learn to use this powerful marketing technique and get more responses and sales for their marketing dollars. The 4 pillars of a successful campaign include:

1. A target audience – In direct marketing, having the right list is crucial to your marketing success. The best list you can use is your own list of all the people who have contacted you or that you’ve done business with. If you don’t have one of these yet, you can use a list broker to rent a highly targeted list. As those people respond to your mailings, you can add them to your company’s list and market to them directly. Keep in mind that a bad list can kill your marketing campaign but a good list is only half the battle.
2. A compelling offer – Your offer is just as important as your mailing list. Your offer should be unique, believable, and get people to take some type of action. It’s usually not enough to offer a “free home evaluation” or tell people to “call you for a consultation” – every other agent says that, so it’s just the “same old thing” to your prospects. Instead, you must focus on ways you can add significant value to your prospect’s life if they respond. That might mean giving entering them in a contest drawing if they refer someone to you, providing them with free moving boxes if they buy or sell with you, or providing them with an extensive “free relocation packet” that includes great information on the local community if they call your office.
3. Great creative – Your marketing piece has about a second to grab your prospect’s attention before they toss it into the trash. If your mailing doesn’t look professional or tell the reader “what’s the benefit to me to read this?” then you’ve wasted your money.
4. The ability to test and measure results – If you don’t measure your marketing, how will you know if it works? Every mailing you send should have a promotional code on it so you can tell which piece your prospect is responding to and keep track of things like how many responses you get and how many directly lead to sales.

Note the order in which I provided those tips – your mailing list comes first. Most agents do it backwards by coming up with the creative and offer first and then go looking for a mailing list. Yet if you don’t know who you are marketing to, how can you give them a compelling offer that will capture their attention? In short, you can’t. Focus on who you want to target first – then, learn everything you can about that audience including what would capture their attention and provide significant value. Once you know that, creating a compelling offer and creative that gets responses is far easier.

Geller also includes a chapter on how direct marketing applies to advertising and provides plenty of great examples of postcards, letters and advertisements that get responses vs ones that don’t. Each chapter ends with a worksheet so you can put the chapter ideas into practice immediately. The book also includes a glossary of direct marketing terms and a resource directory.

Geller’s book is a great introduction to direct marketing for both new and experienced real estate agents. Those already familiar with direct marketing will likely pick up a few new ideas to put into practice. If you do any type of promotional mailings – or want to start and aren’t sure how – pick up this highly recommended book.

Tom Hopkins has been the go-to sales guru since he took his real estate business from earning $42 a month during his first 6 months to selling more than $14 million in real estate over the next five years – and that was back in the 1960s.

In this updated edition of Mastering the Art of Selling Real Estate, Hopkins provides his model for how to succeed in the real estate business.
The book is broken into 2 sections: becoming a listing champion and your selling real estate career. There are 29 chapters and a recommendations section for continued training.

The first thing you’ll notice when you read Hopkins’ book is that he strongly believes his model is the only “professional” model for selling real estate. He explains

“A professional salesperson is a person who earns more money than the average salesperson. If you are not earning two to three times more income than the average real estate salesperson, you are not as professional as you could be. If you are unwilling to make the changes necessary to achieve this level of professionalism, you should consider getting a job where someone pays you a salary.”

That translates to an ego-driven and outdated model for selling throughout the course of this book.

Hopkins starts out with the harsh reality that the average listing agent doesn’t make enough to stay in business. It’s up to you to take control of your business and get the outside training you need. Hopkins goes through the nitty gritty of why sellers often price their homes too high, how to win listing presentations, and overcoming objections. He also encourages agents to keep your seller’s best interests in mind rather than charge in for the opportunity to make a quick buck.

Yet, Hopkins’ fiduciary statements seem superficial when compared with his techniques, which can only be described as aggressive, high pressure and at points, down right manipulative. For instance, he encourages agents to write on the listing form during the presentation as a way of taking notes and when sellers have objections to handing over keys to their property, he pulls out his box, places their key inside and shows how secure it is. That way, the key stays in the lock box and he’s more likely to get the listing. The philosophy is that you always get a bunch of little “yes’s” – to questions only an idiot would answer “no” to – before you get the listing.

“Learn all the closes, all the responses, all the leading questions word for world. I hope you’re not telling yourself right now that you don’t need to do that. When I first started taking training I did that. I said, “Those words are not me,” even when a great sales person gave ma a script that had been proven over and over again to work. Fortunately, I didn’t fight him long. Instead, I learned his words so well that they became me.”

Hopkins also pushes the boundaries of ethics during his FSBO techniques. For instance, when FSBOs have made it clear that they don’t want agents to call, Hopkins calls them up and tells them he might be interesting in becoming a principal. He responds

“Now, are you telling the truth when you say that you could become a principal? Certainly. If their home is worth $180,000 and these people happen to be asking $136,950, you’d rapidly become a principal, wouldn’t you? Probably, depending on their circumstances. You wouldn’t take advantage of them, but if their situation dictates they must move immediately, this could be a wonderful opportunity for you.”

Hopkins assures his readers that what they are doing is in their clients’ best interest, and throughout the book, he stresses that “professionals” approach sales through his methodology to great success.

Admittedly, Hopkins offers great advice in many of his chapters, but the tone of the book reminds me of the proverbial sleazy used car salesman. What he essentially says is that the only way to be a professional is to subtly manipulate people by using his techniques. There doesn’t seem to be any genuine concern for his clients’ best interests. Instead, you say and do what you feel is in your best interest, rather than your clients’. You obviously know better than them, so you might as well make decisions for them.

Sales theory has come a long way since the 1960s, so it amazes me that these techniques are still being taught. People today have more information at their finger tips. They want someone they can trust to advise them and work in their best interests. If you start your relationship with manipulative techniques, you’ll find building rapport with your clients to be difficult down the road. And unhappy clients will make your life miserable.

Perhaps Hopkins’ idea of “professional” worked back in the 60s, but today, very few of his techniques and closings would be considered that. Today, when we think of professionals, we think of consultants, doctors, dentists, attorneys, and financial advisors who know that if they use manipulation on their clients, they will face stiff penalties. Sometimes this means being publicly rebuked, getting kicked out of their professional organizations, or even facing malpractice and/or criminal charges. In other cases, this means they lose a client – and unhappy ex-clients tend to be vocal ex-clients. They can quickly and easily spread their discontent throughout the internet.

That said, Hopkins obviously knows his stuff when it comes to the process of selling real estate, so the book is worth reading for numerous valuable tips. Those who feel uncomfortable with his sales tactics should consider picking up Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling, which offers a much more “professional” and modern day approach to selling.

In Your First Year In Real Estate, author Dirk Zeller, CEO of Real Estate Champions offers a game plan for new agents to navigate the pitfalls of the real estate business.

When the book was published back in 2001, there were 730,000 Realtors. (Today, there are almost 1.5 million and at least 2 million licensed real estate agents.) The median income was $43,500 for all Realtors while the median income for brokers or broker associates was $63,100.

Zeller starts with the basics – selecting the right company, time management and organization, building relationships with managers and coworkers, sales skills (meaning learning how to cold call), doing listing appointments and setting goals.

Zeller takes an extremely pessimistic view of building client relationships. He says there are 4 types of clients: terrific clients who respect who you are and what you do, no clue clients who refuse to face the fact that their homes are worth less than they think, information only clients who want to use you for your expertise but won’t buy, and the distrust everyone clients who believe everyone is out to get them. By breaking prospects into these categories, Zeller completely ignores the stages of the buying process.

Zeller also mentions that agents have 3 strikes against them.

1. Clients make unreasonable requests – like asking them to show “listings at any time of day or night, even if they have no serious intentions of buying”
2. 24 hour access – agents make themselves available 24/7 so clients believe
3. Haphazard work habits – agents must treat their careers with respect rather than showing up when they feel like it

I’d say these “strikes” are really symptoms of two deeper problems:

1. Real estate agents have a poor understanding of how to run a successful business. They worry about being all things to everyone while they struggle to scrape together enough money to pay the bills each month. They get so consumed with the day-to-day activities that things like paperwork get pushed off until later. And rarely do they spend time strategically thinking about and planning how to grow their business.
2. Real estate agents are horrible at managing client expectations. If they’d stop treating clients as the enemy and start working with clients to educate them and form partnerships based on the clients’ specific problems, these issues wouldn’t be so prominent.

Zeller also focuses on cold calling as the primary activity of prospecting. While he admits that few people like to make cold calls, he’s a big proponent of using scripts and maintaining momentum. To him, prospecting = sales, so you need to sell, sell, sell. This is one of the biggest problems I have with books on real estate marketing – and sales in general. Sales isn’t about pitching to prospects. It isn’t about reading from a script. It’s about genuinely listening to prospects’ concerns and tailoring your offerings to their needs. If you can’t do that – if you offer a one size fits all solution – you’ll never differentiate yourself from other agents.

Also, prospects and clients know when you’re using a sales script – your voice completely changes and you’re focused on what you’ll say next rather than what your prospect’s concerns. Many new sales models – like Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling – have been proven to be more effective than simply memorizing scripts, yet virtually all real estate books continue to fuel the myths that in order to sell, you need to follow the scripts.

In another example, Zeller observes that “FSBOs can be uncomfortable for real estate agents to work with. They can often be extremely rude and inconsiderate.” No kidding. From the FSBO’s perspective, it’s pretty obvious that you are trying to sell them something – the negative belief that they’ll never sell their home themselves. Do you react kindly to the credit card telemarketer who interrupts your dinner? Now, imagine if they tried telling you that there was no way you’d be able to pay your bills without it. Wouldn’t that irritate you?

I was also disappointed that the book didn’t go into marketing techniques like choosing a niche market and focusing on how to meaningfully differentiate yourself from your competition.

On a good note, Zeller is quick to dispel the myth that sales volume means an agent is the best of the best. I’ve never understood why agents are so quick to say they sold $15 million last year. You never hear other professionals say that – what doctor says they did $12 million in surgeries last year? It changes the focus from client centric to agent centric, meaning that good professionals sell their services by explaining what benefits and return on investment their clients got from working with them. If a consultant helped a business grow by 50% in 9 months, that’s client-focused. If a consultant brags how much he billed the company to do so, that’s company-focused. With real estate, the grand total of how much you sold doesn’t say anything about the results you’ve gotten for your clients (ie you consistently sell homes at 10% above asking price) or how satisfied they were with working with you.

While this book has some merits – like how agents should choose a firm to work for – it still perpetuates agent-focused selling rather than customer-focus marketing.

The book is laid out in 12 chapters with 2 appendices: state realtor associations and additional reading, and a glossary. It’s a good starting point for new agents, but it probably won’t answer all your questions.

After branching out on their own, entrepreneurs of every field soon realize that there are two major components to succeeding in business. The first is doing what you do well. For real estate, that’s the nitty gritty details that go into making a transaction successful. The second, which most people overlook, is the business component – keeping the books up to date, marketing yourself, and managing your time wisely. This book focuses on that incredibly important second component.

Let me start by saying that I’m not a big fan of most real estate books. The vast majority I’ve read focus on outdated and/or manipulative sales practices or hype up how quickly you can make zillions of dollars. Thankfully, this book isn’t one of them.

Instead, Cook relays a number of tips that any new agent would be wise to heed. The first is that there are no shortcuts – that if you want to succeed, you’ll need to work hard. Yes, there are stories of people who stumbled upon big deals during their first few weeks on the job but there are far more stories about people who didn’t get paid for upwards of 9 months after kicking off their career.

The secret to success is preparation and this book gives it to you straight. You’re going to be running a business, which means you need resources and a supply of cash not only to live off of until you get your first paycheck but also to pay for all the expenses that come with starting out on your own.

You’re also going to be working long hours – an informal study quoted in the book found that the average new agent works 6.27 days per week and 7.85 hours per day – so you’ll need to make sure your family understands that you’ll be putting in long hours for little pay.

And, of course, competition is fierce. Sometimes, you’ll be working with your colleagues against competitors. Sometimes, you’ll be working with your competitors against colleagues. Sometimes, buyers won’t understand how agents work and will sign a deal without you.

Where do you find clients? Cook gives a number of tips. He advocates marketing yourself rather than your firm, suggests you create a database from your sphere of influence asap, and provides stories from agents on what marketing tactics worked best for them. Still, you can’t go wrong with networking. It’s better to get out and talk to people than sit alone in your office.

Cook’s tone is realistic but positive. His purpose is to debunk the hype surrounding the “get rich quick in real estate” mentality while encouraging those that are willing to put in the work. The book is also big picture focused. While Cook does provide some details in each chapter, most are starting points rather than detail focused essays. The result is a quick paced book that doesn’t become bogged down in the details or overwhelm its readers.

Cook uses interviews with agents to emphasize many of his points. Most chapters include interviews and tips from successful agents on how they handle tough issues like marketing best practices, defending commissions, and working with family and friends.

Overall, this is a great book for those considering real estate careers and new agents looking to make a successful start.