Entry by Mollie Wasserman

Consulting and Expireds

  9 Comments

Has anyone used their consulting skills in working with expireds? I haven't myself, but it seems to me that this would be a great group to prospect with using our consulting tools.

If someone has worked with expireds, please comment on this post.

Irregardless, if there is enough interest, we could schedule a webinar to brainstorm ideas. If you have an interest, please respond to this post. If there is enough interest, I'll schdule a webinar.

Mollie

9 Comments

Hi Mollie,
I haven't marketed directly to Expireds, yet, but I've had great success working with clients whose property expired.

The most recent was a client whose home had been on the market for almost a year with a decent amount of showings but not offers and very little feedback provided.

I showed him how consulting works, made some recommendations on improvements, staging and pricing. At this point he was frustrated by the lack of results and very open to suggestions. He completed the work, we staged the home and slightly adjusted the price, created custom fliers and had two offers in 12 days. We're currently scheduled to close on or b4 1/15.

At least half of my clients in the last year have been expireds. At that stage, they want some new ideas and a fresh approach. Consulting is good medicine at that point. The barriers are down with expireds vs an owner just entering the market.

Brent

Now that I think about it, somebody could run with the doctor analogy to market to expireds. "The Real Estate Doctor-We can fix what ails you. Diagnose your problem and provide a targeted prescription" and on and on.

Brent

Brent - LOVE that analogy - Real Estate Medic - resuscitate your listing - (especially like your "diagnose" and "prescription" approach!!) Great ideas!

Mollie - Another YouTube????

This afternoon I was talking with Dina - she is very interested in ideas to prospect to expireds. As we were talking, I was thinking that it could be really cool if we could develop an email campaign to folks that have given up.

Just like unemployment figures are skewed because many unemployed just stop trying, there's probably a lot of business out there with folks who don't think they can sell their home because they don't know of the options we provide.

Again, if there's enough interest, I'd love to schedule a webinar. We could all work on a marketing idea and could then see each person's idea on their own computer using the webinar software. Can you imagine...we could have a whole campaign if we put good ideas together.

Anyone out there interested? I know Dina is but anyone else?

Mollie

I've just spent the past hour or so looking for good medical graphics. While I like the email campaign idea, the first challenge would be getting email addresses in a timely manner (I know not all expireds relist right away...or do ANYTHING right away for that matter...but many do). So I was thinking sort of "multi-prong" approach...

  • Post card sent as soon as listing expireds (or collected from whatever backlog)
  • Toll free hotline info on the postcard in attempts to gather phone number and reduce do-not-call exposure
  • Links to info on website with "calls to action" and response form included requiring valid email address (to email them an item of value...perhaps a Seller Needs Analysis to help begin the "diagnosis"??)
  • Frankly, I suspect that an Expired Campaign and and FSBO campaign could be virtually identical...in both cases they've tried thus far unsuccessfully to get their home sold.

    Thoughts?

    I like the toll free hotline idea Judi. Again, you could use the medical analogy like Ask A Nurse, etc. Good point on the Expired and FSBO campaign similarities. They would be the same. Same frustrations and solutions.

    For what's it worth, the social networking sites like Flickr, You Tube, BlipTV, Facebook, My Space, Twitter, etc. would be great places for a consulting presence and all of the related marketing messages. My wife got started on Facebook a few months ago and her "community" has grown a HUGE amount. People talking about everything.

    We're going to be using social networking sites alot in 2009. Note that some sites limit the use of business marketing messages (BlipTV for example) but they're still out there and a great way to reach large numbers people.

    My .02 would be to find ways to use these new marketing methods. Consulting is bold and new. I want to "wrap" my new message with a new approach, a new look and a new experience. I've even seen a Facebook plug in for moveable type blogs. Lots of potential out there.

    Brent

    I agree that social networking opportunities are growning....several ACREs are doing great things in that arena. Many networks have limitations on business promotion. I think (and I'm definitely no expert on this) that it's not much different that joining any other "group". It's about relationships, developing trust & credibility, then letting them know what you do and ways you help people. With these social networks, too, we have to be cautious about making our participation about "us"...first we give.

    Happy New Year Fellow ACREs!

    If you are thinking about ordering ACRE cards from Color For Real Estate (www.CFRE.com), they are running a 20% off sale that ends at midnight Friday (tomorrow, Jan. 9).
    You won't see that sale on the website, but if you put in remarks "20% best customer discount" they will take the 20% off for you.

    If you're a new customer, you can get a 20% discount anytime.

    I'm not affiliated in any way with CFRE, but I did get an email from them about the sale and wanted to pass it along!

    If anyone has any experience with the cards, I'd love to hear about it. I would like to start targeting FSBOs and expireds via consulting.

    Thanks!

    Kim

    I think that prospecting to expireds is a wonderful idea and I've done it for years. Unless they are ridiculously overpriced, they are generally motivated Sellers who might be just a tad frustrated with real estate agents.

    When you go into a listing presentation with a Consulting mindset, you are able to connect better with the Seller and speak much more openly and honestly.

    In terms of marketing to expireds, I generally download expired listings daily and should be able to do a mailing in a very short period. This could be especially important for those Sellers who are on the "Do Not Call" registry.

    Laurie

    This page contains a single entry by Mollie Wasserman published on January 4, 2009 2:52 PM.

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