The chicken + egg story of Real Estate Sales

Real Estate is a sales game where first you need to source the stock to sell, then you sell the stock, and then you get paid!

The only real way to make any money in real estate sales is to successfully list and successfully sell property.

To generate seller leads and win listing opportunities in your local marketplace, your marketplace needs to be aware that you are an active and available real estate agent in the marketplace.

It all sounds very simple and very obvious, and that’s because it is.

To successfully list property for sale – first, the local marketplace must know you!

The first year to 18 months of real estate sales is what makes or breaks most people’s careers who enter the industry. It is a common statistic that 87% of all real estate agents fail within the first year.

As a local and active real estate agent I would say the statistic is a fair approximation of the local real estate sales industry. Every year we see so many hopeful agents, complete their sales representative course and enter the industry full of beans just to fall flat on their face within around 6-8 months; possibly they spend another 6-8 months moping about the marketplace, doing wishy-washy business, and eventually having to leave the industry due to the financial constraints of not earning enough or not earning consistently in their role.

I could write forever about how these real estate agents get themselves into this predicament, however, for today’s post, we are going to focus on exactly how not to get yourself into the predicament of falling completely flat on your face in your career as a local real estate agent!

What is letterbox dropping and why does it work?

As we just covered, to be successful in the role of real estate sales you simply must have the right stock to sell in your marketplace and you must sell it effectively.

When the local population observe you listing and successfully selling the right property in the local marketplace, you build a reputation with them as an active and effective agent in their local marketplace. They see you get the job done. So, in simple terms, when they need the job done - of listing and selling their property successfully – then they will call you.

That my friends is the simple magic sauce of becoming a successful local real estate agent in the marketplace.

As you continue to establish yourself as a leading local real estate agent in your marketplace, you will find that simply by successfully listing the right property in your marketplace and then selling it effectively, that this activity becomes an incredibly powerful profile marketing asset for you. Local potential sellers in your marketplace will proactively reach out to you. This means you will have entered the stage of your real estate sales career that you are now attracting more seller leads and great listing opportunities as opposed to hunting for them.

Proactive local real estate agents can reach this stage in their sales career within a 6–12-month period and continue to solidify this position over an 18–24-month period. As a real estate agent in the early and growth stages of your career, your primary focus needs to be locked on to generating seller leads and listing the right property for sale!

Bring it to the people.

One of the surest tried and tested methods of introducing any new business or local service to a marketplace is to letterbox drop marketing material to that marketplace.

In the simplest terms, Letterbox Dropping is the activity of dropping a Real Estate Flyer (also known as a pamphlet, brochure, leaflet, or flier) into the letterboxes/post boxes of the homes in your local marketplace.

Many, many, many real estate agents, and local businesses waste a lot of money and time by going about this task in completely the wrong way.

They spend a small fortune on designers and printers without really thinking out the message they are intending on delivering to the marketplace. Next, they have one, two maybe three real estate flyer drops carried out, to too large a marketplace. They expect the phone to ring off the hook – no one calls – they give up!

In today’s blog post, I am going to detail for you exactly how to successfully real estate flyer drop to your local marketplace. The plan and guidance I lay out for you here are not only based on my own current and successful experience as a leading local real estate agent, it is also drawing on 12 years of experience I gained working in our family business; our family business owned local newspapers, we also owned the distribution company that delivered the free newspapers through the doors of the local community, our business also offered a service to the local business owners to deliver Letterbox Dropping material to the local marketplace. 

So, when I tell you I know how to make delivering flyers work for your real estate career I got this covered from every angle!

• I’m a leading local top listing + top selling agent.
• I studied marketing and spent 12 years selling advertising to local business owners.
• I have the raw and firsthand evidence, from my own business and hundreds of other local businesses on how to successfully grow your local business through flyer dropping.

Ok so let’s get into it.

Get the Message right!

Now that you have committed to bringing your business and services to the people - what do you tell them?

When it comes to dealing with salespeople the only thing your audience wants to know is

• Can you effectively do the job?
• Do you offer a safe place to do business? In other words, are you trustworthy?

Anything else you try to communicate to your local marketplace is just white noise! It will dilute the important message and the local marketplace of potential sellers simply just do not care.

If you’re newer to the industry or in the growth stage of your career you might be breaking into a cold sweat thinking ‘oh jeeze how can I confidently portray these 2 messages to my marketplace and how can I even compete with the strong agents in my marketplace that are broadcasting this message by simply transacting in the marketplace?!’

Ok stay calm and stay with me! Its just like learning to drive - we were all once learner drivers – and in no time at all, we all became pro’s whizzing about the place in our first little car…well breaking into or growing your awareness in the local marketplace is exactly the same.

You just got to show up and show up consistently until you become a familiar face and name in your local marketplace! Let’s look at how you do that…

The 4 best real estate flyer types for real estate agents are as follows:

• A testimonial style real estate flyer.
• A just sold style real estate flyer.
• A just listed style real estate flyer.
• A ‘I won this award’ style real estate flyer.

Why do these 4 styles of real estate flyers work best to generate seller leads? 

The underlying message in each of these real estate flyer types are:

• I can you effectively do the job.
• I offer you a safe place to do business. I am trustworthy.

What content should your real estate flyer material include?

• A single and clear strong selling message.
• Image of the agent
• Contact details of agent

And the secret sauce – consistency of distribution!!

Next, we will run through my Top 8 Tips to ensure your real estate flyer dropping results in consistent seller leads received.

1.  First and foremost; Make sure you are real estate flyer dropping to the RIGHT marketplace.

What do I mean by the RIGHT marketplace? I mean a marketplace that makes MONEY. I mean a marketplace that is consistently listing and selling property. A common mistake by local agents is they jump into a marketplace without first ascertaining the potentiality of the consistency in earning capacity in that marketplace.

This mistake is so common. It is so frustrating to me, because we have good agents out there, putting in the hours, doing the hard miles, however, they’re getting nowhere fast – simply because they are in the wrong marketplace!

I cover this issue and exactly how to ascertain if your marketplace is lucrative enough to grow a business in LESSON 2 of my FREE eCourse: 3 Things all Top Agents Know + Do to WIN at Real Estate Sales; if you want to know if your marketplace makes money, or how to find the right lucrative marketplace for your business, go ahead and sign up to that Free course HERE

2.  Real estate flyer layout and Message

Common real estate flyer layouts will include the agent’s photo, a snappy sales phrase, along the lines of ‘now serving your area’ or ‘listing and selling in your area’ or ‘call now for a FREE market update’

Often the real estate flyer will also include a nice property photo, the company logo and the agents contact details.

Now, to be fair, there is nothing terribly wrong with this real estate flyer, other than the fact the property owner has most likely received a thousand of the same over the years. And they’re likely to think, ‘’ugh here is another real estate agent – I wonder how long this one will last?’’

If you want to last in real estate sales you need to stand out from the crowd of mediocre, you need to show up, show up consistently and you need to be effective in the marketplace.

In my own real estate business, I predominantly focus on testimonial marketing.

What other people say about you is an incredibly strong selling message. Consider the beginning of today’s post:

When it comes to dealing with salespeople the only thing your audience wants to know is

• Can you effectively do the job?
• Do you offer a safe place to do business? In other words, are you trustworthy?

Using a testimonial as your main selling message on you letterbox dropping material answers YES to both questions.

Let’s look at the meaning of the word testimonial.

testimonial

noun

a formal statement testifying to someone's character and qualifications.

People believe what other people say about you. Good and Bad.

For my brand-new agents out there, do not panic, whichever agency/company/brokerage you’re working under is likely to have company testimonials or reviews, in the early stages of your career use these as your marketing message. The message being implied is this real estate company has great reviews, therefor their team members must also be very good.

For my real estate agents reading this that have been in the role for a while and do have a number of successful listings and sales under their belt. Its crucial you now make it your business to request testimonials from those previous clients. Testimonials are one of the most powerful marketing assets you can engage in your business.

To really understand the power of testimonials, ratings and reviews, watch this 4-min video on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcloa1U6TE4&t=2s In this video I explain exactly how I use testimonials, ratings + reviews to WIN business on the daily.

How often + how many real estate flyer's should you letterbox drop?

In my opinion the maximum number of properties any one agent should have as their farm area is around 4000 properties in a marketplace that is showing a consistent turnover of a minimum of 5% (meaning the marketplace is seeing 200 properties a year successfully sell). For more on this and why it’s the key to your success as a real estate agent - take my free course.

Here is the thing though, to deliver real estate flyers to 4000 houses consistently is too expensive if you are a newer agent or an agent who is breaking into a marketplace. Too expensive to deliver to and too expensive to print. Consistency is the secret sauce to get the most out of a letterbox dropping exercise. A top tip is to target a section of 2000 properties and focus on consistently letterbox dropping to those same 2000 properties. Consistently delivering to 2000 properties is affordable and do-able.

Consistency is the secret sauce.

The biggest mistake many local real estate agents make is printing a bunch of real estate flyers, deliver the entire marketplace once, nothing happens, so they decide, ok I’ll give it one more go; a month later, they go through the exact same process, deliver the entire marketplace of 4000 houses one more time …. And nothing! No phone calls, no emails, nothing, complete crickets!

Following this unsatisfying experience, they decide letterbox dropping is an expensive waste of time and money.

To letterbox drop effectively so the exercise results in many and consistent seller leads and listing opportunities, first you need to build up awareness of your business in the marketplace, once you have established awareness of your business in the marketplace, then you frequently reinforce the sales message.

• I can you effectively do the job.
• I offer you a safe place to do business. I am trustworthy.

With this is mind, what is the letterbox dropping frequency for your marketplace?

Stage 1: Deliver the letterbox material to the 2000 properties every week for 12 weeks. There is a common understanding in the world of marketing called the “advertising rule of 7”. It explains a consumer needs to see your advert a minimum of 7 times before they will take any reaction on it.

You may be thinking, but Gayle, if I have 4000 properties, shouldn’t I do the first set of 2000 properties this week and next week do the second set of 2000?

No (but also yes) Let me explain; why No? Consistency in your work is key especially when working to a plan to build awareness of your service and business to a local marketplace.

The key to becoming a successful local real estate agent is to be seen to list and to successfully sell your listings - that’s it! Once the local population starts recognizing you as a local listing agent and they see you successfully selling the property you list - they will call you! It’s the biggest hack of all time for your profile marketing! The best profile marketing you will ever do for yourself is simply your job – listing and selling houses.

That’s why I teach the first 12-18 months of getting your career off the ground or breaking into a local marketplace is simply the hardest work you’ll ever have to do on your profile marketing.

Let’s revert to why you should only focus on the first 2000 properties; if you diligently follow a plan of consistently marketing to these 2000 properties, you will gain seller leads and listing opportunities, and you will successfully list properties, if you’re consistent in your plan, you will list properties regularly.

This market activity of listing properties for sale in the local marketplace will attract the other local property owners to you – simply by your activity of listing and selling in their local marketplace.

A side note here, if the following is the case, which is why I did also answer ‘No (but also yes)’ to the question above; if you have the money and manpower behind you to consistently deliver 4000 properties – then go for it - just make sure you can service the incoming inquiry that builds up as you diligently target your marketplace.

Ok let’s clearly breakout the best letterbox delivery schedule for real estate agents:

Stage 1: Deliver half your marketplace every week for 12-weeks (a minimum of 2000 properties)

Stage 2: In the following 12-week period, deliver your letterbox every second week.

Stage 3: Ongoing; letterbox drops your marketplace monthly.

Be strategic as to what exactly you deliver to your marketplace.

At the beginning of this blog post, we laid out the 4 best types of letterbox dropping material as

The 4 best real estate flyer types you can have are as follows:

• A testimonial style real estate flyer.
• A just sold style real estate flyer.
• A just listed style real estate flyer.
• A ‘I won this award’ style real estate flyer.

So, if you’re following along with my winning letterbox material and distribution strategy, the strategy which I successfully use in my own business to consistently gain seller leads and listing opportunities – you now understand the power of testimonial style real estate flyers.

The question is should you switch it up?

Again, the answer is both yes, and, no 😊

When you are arranging for your real estate flyers to be printed, it is best to bulk print as it is more cost-effective. It’s also important to print both sides of your letterbox material; this will ensure your message is displayed no matter which way the real estate flyer is laying. 

A good thing to know is that in general, your printer will not charge you any extra for different layout designs in your bulk print. To give you an example, in my business, I usually print 30,000 real estate flyers at any one time, my 30,000 real estate flyers consist of 5 different layouts. Go here to download the current real estate flyer material I use in my real estate business

For local advertising to work – the message needs to be consistent.

If you only have 1 testimonial at this stage in your career – then you will focus on that message; however, you can switch up the layout of the letterbox dropping material to keep the message fresh. Another option, if you only have 1 testimonial or review at this stage, you may decide to add a real estate flyer layout that includes the testimonial, ratings, and reviews of the agency/brokerage/office under which you work. Consistency in your message is key.

Add to your message with proof of your activity within the local marketplace.

As you track along in your first 12-week stage of letterbox dropping, its very likely by about week 6 or 7 you will win a listing opportunity.

The most strategic move you can make now is to switch up the letterbox dropping material, for a letter, advising the same 2000 property owners, that, you have just listed the property for sale, and that you are currently carrying out free-market updates for the local properties owners and to give you a call to schedule their appointment.

Do this each time you either list or sell a property, for the entire 2000 properties.

Let me reiterate WHY you are doing this.

What do our local homeowners want to know before they engage with you to potentially list their property for sale?

When it comes to dealing with salespeople the only thing your audience wants to know is

• Can you effectively do the job?
• Do you offer a safe place to do business? In other words, are you trustworthy?

By backing up our testimonial style real estate flyer with positive news stories that you are actively listing property for sale in the marketplace, you are reinforcing the message:

• You can effectively do the job.
• You do offer a safe place to do business. I am trustworthy.

Be consistent and patient.

It is highly likely you will deliver your letterbox material for a good 4-6 weeks before you get a single call from a prospect; we have covered the reason for this above already. It’s important to remember, that people THINK about selling their property for a very long time before they actually mentally commit to selling their property. Receiving your letterbox material consistently in their letterbox, and it consistently communicating a positive message, may well be the trigger that the property owner needs to engage a listing agent.

Another factor to keep in mind is people sell their properties for all kinds of reasons, and in many, many cases, whether the person is ready to sell or not, the trigger can be pulled for them!

Let me give you a few examples to consider; a person may gain a job promotion that requires them to move; or maybe they lose their job, and the mortgage is too much of a burden. Maybe a relationship comes together, and a couple decides to consolidate their assets, maybe a relationship falls apart and a property needs to be sold, maybe a surprise pregnancy means apartment living won't work … my point being, there is any number of reasons whether an individual is ready or not, the trigger gets pulled and property needs to get sold.

My advice to you here is, never presume to know whether or not a potential seller will call you with an opportunity to sell their property! If you’re out there, in the right marketplace and you’re making yourself known and available - the potential sellers will call you!!

Be consistent, be patient, be motivated and I guarantee you will get more seller leads and listing opportunities and WIN successful listings within a matter of weeks if you follow the below bold + powerful action plan.

The below bold step is exactly how I earned my first listings in my own marketplace.

To add a little weight behind how powerful a sales tactic this is for the local real estate agent that is willing to channel his or her inner bold winner, I will share with you that when I carried out this technique I had literally just immigrated to the country; I did not know a single person, I did not have a single contact to help me! I had my real estate sales registration and placement in a local real estate company, that’s it! My point is, if I can do it from the absolute ground up - so can you my friend!

What is this sales tactic I employed?

Follow this process, – deliver your 2000 letterbox dropping material weekly for 2 consecutive weeks, and then from week 3 (obviously you continue the letterbox material every week for 12 weeks); you start door knocking those 2000 houses!!

When you door knock  - you explain to the homeowner, that you’re sure they would have received the letterbox material in their letterbox over the last number of weeks, and as it so happens, you had a couple of bookings by the local residents to give a detailed market update on their property and you were wondering if the homeowner (whom you’re speaking to) would also like a detailed market update on their property.

And that my friends, is where you find the path paved with GOLD!

I have a YouTube podcast on exactly how to WIN at door-knocking, you can also download my door-knocking scripts + letterbox material – watch it here https://youtu.be/FnuKjq5O7eM

Also, I have a top-selling eCourse ‘WIN the Listing’; this course will teach you how to create ‘Market Updates and Listing Presentations’ that will close the deal every time! Go here to learn more: https://www.how-to-sell-50-properties-in-12-months.com/winthelisting

Another alternative to this bold sales tactic, for the real estate agents that are committed to winning but it just cuts against them to door knock, is to carry out the following process:

Deliver the real estate flyers to the 2000 properties weekly, yourself!

I did this for the first 18 months of my real estate sales career, and it was incredibly rewarding to my career and growth as the local real estate agent for my marketplace and here is why:

• I got to know every single property in that group of 2000 properties.
• I consistently delivered my letterbox dropping material on Tuesday + Wednesday mornings – this resulted in the local homeowners getting used to seeing me in person, regularly, in the local marketplace. They started to say hello and talk to me as I did my delivery rounds.
• I noticed changes, houses being done up, gardens being tended, new developments coming on board. Each one of these changes signaled a potential listing opportunity.
• Local homeowners noticed my work ethic and commitment and simply gave me their listings based on this energy.

A quick side note here, if you market into a hilly area or an area where the properties are too far spread out - personal letterbox dropping could take too much energy and time. In this case, it would serve you better to hire a person or team to deliver your letterbox material.

Another quick side note, this time on delivery costs; delivery costs can become blown out - so you will need to be smart.

Get 3 quotes from the local letterbox delivery services. Often these companies will have special offers to entice you on board and seasonal pricing offers. Make sure to ask them what offers they have in place when you are requesting their quote. Ask your local post service for a quote also, they often can give quite affordable quotes as they are delivering the area anyway.

My favorite way to hire a letterbox delivery service, especially when the budget is tight is to use platforms such as Airtasker.com and taskrabbit.com.

NEXT is an example of how you post such a task on either of these platforms.

AIRTASKER / TASKRABBIT TASK POSTING WORDING

Hi There

I have 500 real estate flyers that require delivery to a local suburb.

This suburb will best suit a delivery person on a small scooter.

This task would ideally suit a ‘uber eats delivery or similar’ person.

Upon completion of the task – please provide a walking map of the delivery route to verify completion of the task so funds may be released.

The opportunity for this to be ongoing is available for the right person

Payment offered: $XX