Gainesville, FL

If you’ve heard of the Energizer Bunny, then you have seen the effectiveness of good corporate advertising. Here is the problem the average small business or agent has with this type of advertising. It costs a huge amount of money, and takes a long time to pay off. A lot of small businesses run ads that are like the Bunny Ads. It’s a trap they fall into. Here’s why.

They run ads like that because that is what you are supposed to do. After all, those big companies are successful, right? Yes, maybe they are, but the average small business doesn’t have 6 months to a year, and $2 million dollars, to wait for customers to start coming in the door from their advertising. They need business from their advertising budget quick. The Bunny ads are somewhat effective, but this strategy works for Energizer, not you and me. We need something that pays off right away.

What can you and I do that will pay off fast. Instead of marketing to everyone, we can target people doing business right now. Find the sellers and buyers that are doing a transaction right now, and can be easily converted to work with us. Where to look? How about first time home buyers, renters in certain complexes or areas? Or, FSBOs, Expired Listings, and Pre-Foreclosures. We can market to these people for much less than a big TV or direct mail advertising campaign.

How much does it cost to mail 100 Expired Listings? $50 to $60. How much does it cost to advertise on TV, and maybe show our ad to 100 people selling their home? I don’t know exactly, but I can guarantee you it is more than $50. I’ve heard (although I may be incorrect) that is costs $50 to $75 to buy one TV ad on TV. If you run a lot of ads, it can get expensive fast. That is the reason I like direct mail and targeting Expired Listings. It’s inexpensive, you get a good return on your money, and most important you get that money in your pocket quickly.

By the way, whenever I buy batteries, I always buy Duracell. I thought about and here’s why I think that I do. First, they are the batteries that I’ve seen for sale most of the time. Also, my parents always bought Duracells, which caused me to buy them as well. I think the other thing is that I never believed the Energizer Gambit. The fact that a bunny on TV can keep on jumping around, does not mean they are great batteries. The ad simple was not very believable. There is a huge marketing lesson there. But, that’s for another day.

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Ben & Chris Curry The Short Sale Agent's Advocate

I mentioned recently that I didn’t think the Energizer Battery Ad was very credible. I mentioned that I thought it was a clever gambit, but it didn’t convince me their batteries were better. The fact that a bunny on TV can keep on jumping around, does not mean they are great batteries. The ads fail to give you any evidence of why the bunny is jumping around.

Here is another story that illustrates how crazy some ads are. How many of us haven’t heard the Car Dealership Ads on the radio? I remember when I was a teenager; I went to a park with the family of a friend of mine. Some car guy is on the radio pitching how cheap they sell cars. All of a sudden, my friend’s Dad says, “Why don’t they just give the cars away? Do they really think I’m that stupid?”

This Dad is a computer techie and a very frugal individual. He is the engineer type who we have to explain everything to when we list their home. It’s interesting to see the difference to how he and I perceive the radio ad. He views it as another rip off salesperson. I see it as a salesperson that has gotten carried away trying to outdo his competitors.

Here are some things Energizer could do to make their ads more believable.

1. Emphasize the time. Put a stop watch, and let us see the time progress. I know you can’t cram 30 minutes into a 30 second ad, but you can put a stopwatch. Or, fast forward the time on the screen.

2. Give us a reason why the batteries last longer. Our batteries use Nickel Cadmium (I think that is what the stuff is called that they put in batteries), and the other guys skimp and use Carbonite (I made that up.) The Nickel and the Cadmium interact to produce a powerful chemical reaction.

Here is what we can do to make ourselves more believable/credible to our customers.

1. Back up what we say with specific facts. Don’t say, “I’m the top agent.” Instead say, “In 2008, I sold more single family homes in Alachua County than any other real estate agent.” Then, show them the list of the homes you sold.

There is a guy that sold a product called Fly Cake back in the 50s and 60s. He said that he knew his product killed more flies than any other fly killer product on the market. He actually tested it head to head with the other products. But, no one believed him. What got him over the hurdle was when he hired a notary and had them notarize his claims. That one simple gesture caused his sales to take off. Hmm! Maybe I should get my List of Homes Sold notarized. Sound like an idea?

2. Don’t ever let your promises and hype go into the gray area. If someone thinks you have been dishonest with them before, it will be much harder to get them to believe anything you say in the future. We might think it is something we forgot to do, or ran out of time to do. Unfortunately, human nature causes them to think we are dishonest.

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Ben & Chris Curry The Short Sale Agent's Advocate

If you’ve been in business any amount of time, you know how these people can drive you nuts. I think all of us could sit around all day and just vent about it. But, why don’t we do something to fix it? Buyers are buying, and will jump on a property that is a deal. The other day an agent I know told me that recently, one of his listings had sold in two days. How?

Simple, it was priced right. Even though the house was in bad shape, the price was very competitive (compared to other listings), which caused it to sell. How do we find motivated sellers and get listings priced right to sell? I’m going to go over this question the next few days.

Here’s the first big mistake agents make trying to get listings: Fighting over the price up front. This one mistake alone will often cause the most motivated seller to list with someone else, even if you’re the best agent in the world.

I’ve seen a lot of agents make this mistake. But, why fight a losing battle. When a seller first lists their house, they aren’t realistic about what it takes to sell a house. They think it is the agent, the marketing, open houses, newspaper ads, etc. The agent makes a difference, but open houses and newspaper ads don’t.

When you fight over price when the seller is listing the house for the first time, you’re fighting the wrong battle. It’s like pitching the wrong benefits to the customer. If you have any experience in sales you know what I mean. For example, the other day I bought a phone for my house

I was looking for a 2 line phone for the house that also had a cordless headset. I looked at all this stuff at Radio Shack. Did any of the little Radio Shack Display stickers talk about 2 lines? No. All of Radio Shack’s promotional stickers talked about technical things, and things that were meaningless to me. I looked over all the phones and couldn’t find a 2 line phone. I spent 2-3 minutes looking over all the phones for the 2 line ones.

One of them looked like it might have 2 lines. But, the Radio Shack sticker said “Great Reviews.” Do you think I care about so called “Great Reviews?” No! I was starting to get annoyed when I finally figured it out.

How did I manage to locate the 2 line phones? One of the phones actually had “2 lines” written real small on it. I had finally found what I wanted. The point I make with this story is that you have to be selling what people want to buy. It may not be what they actually need. But, it you try to sell them what they need (but don’t want), they won’t buy it.

This is one of the reasons I like expired listings. But, I’ve even seen people that are still stubborn and overpriced, even after they have expired 2-3 times. Nine times out of ten, expired listings are more realistic, but you still find some nuts every once in a while.

So, when you first meet a seller, pitch on how you will get buyers to their home. Talk about your Marketing Plan of Action, and any other strategies you may have to generate buyers. More importantly you have to be confident in yourself and your abilities. My strategy today is to qualify on motivation versus how well they price the listing upfront. After I get the listing, I’ll have a whole 6 months to get the price where I want it. I’ll go into how I do that in tomorrow’s e-mail.

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Ben & Chris Curry The Short Sale Agent's Advocate

I got an e-mail back from a gal requesting that I send her the common objections again. So today, I am sending you a compilation of common objections and what you have to overcome to list Expired Listings, Pre-Foreclosures, and FSBOs. Each of these listing leads has different hot buttons. They also have different objections as to why they won’t list with you. Or, list with you versus another agent.

Expireds want to know for sure that you can actually get the home sold.

FSBOs want to put the most money in their pocket possible. Why are they going FSBO? To Save the commission, or so they think.

Pre-foreclosures finally decide to sell when they realize they can’t keep the home and they are going to lose it either way. They want to put as much of their equity in their pocket as possible.

How to Handle the Top Expired Objections.

1. We are going to re-list with the same agent we had the home listed with.

Some people ask mean, in your face questions like “why would you do that? They didn’t sell your house did they?”

A better way to handle this objection is to ask them sincerely, “What is causing you to consider re-listing with them?” Then you can get an objection that you can handle without insulting the seller. They may respond “We feel like we owe them the listing because of all the work they did and the advertising they paid for.”

You can reply and point out that the agent probably got calls from other buyers and sellers from their home. They got calls from the sign, the listing on Realtor.com, and also on the ads they ran. “They probably already got paid back for the work they did for you, don’t you think?” When they say yes, then say “You need to do what’s best for you, right? From what I’ve shown you, do you think I can get the home sold?” Great, then let’s get started.

2. Why are you telling me such a low price?

The problem is that you haven’t proved to them that your asking price is reasonable. Go over the comps and actives again. First, show them 3 other completely unrelated listings for sale from your MLS. Show them the best price home, then one 5-10% overpriced, and finally a listing 20-25% overpriced. Ask them which of those homes they would buy based on what you get for your money.

Then, show them their home up against the competition and ask them which they would buy. Another method is to have them go out and drive past the other comparable homes on the market. This works well to show them that theirs is not the only nice home on the market.

3. You haven’t shown my house to any buyers.

I respond by saying, “Yes that’s right. There is a reason why. When I work with a seller, I make a commitment to help them sell their home. That means that I put all of my energy working to sell the listings of the sellers I am working with. And, your home wasn’t one of those, was it?”

This usually does the trick. Think about it. If a buyer calls on a sign and is interested in that property, are you going to show that buyer other listings? No, because you want them to buy your listing. Not only do you make more money, but you do the job you committed to doing for that seller. You have to show the seller this. Your job is to sell your own listings and only other listings when you buyer doesn’t like your own.

How to Handle the Pre-Foreclosure Objections.

The biggest reason a Pre-Foreclosure won’t list with you is because they want to stay in the home. You will get the listing if you happen to be the person in front of them when they do decide to sell. There are so many Pre-Foreclosures out there, and enough of them are deciding to sell at different times that it makes sense to contact them. I have found that anywhere from 10-20% are open to listing at any given time.

Here in Florida the foreclosure process takes 4-6 months, and sometimes as much as a year. I haven’t seen a foreclosure case go faster than 4 months. When I first stared, I got a list of homeowners in foreclosure and started mailing and calling them. I was surprised at how easy it was to list these properties.

Alex Brown called me from a letter I sent him in the mail. I spent over two days writing and re-writing that letter. He called me, I listed the house, and it sold a few months later. The interesting thing is that he was calling me to reduce the price. This was before I knew the importance of price reductions. Another Pre-Foreclosure I listed and sold was Frank McCombs.

Whenever I drive to or from work I will stop by and knock on the door of a foreclosure, expired, or other lead. I knocked on his door because his house was in foreclosure. He didn’t want to sell his house, but he put his mother’s 10 acres on the market. His parents lived with him, and they were going to give him the money to catch up on the payments of his house. We priced the 10 acres very competitively and it sold two weeks later to a buyer off of Realtor.com.

Here is what I have found works best to list the foreclosures. I mail them one week, call them a few days later, and then mail and call again. I got started listing these properties in 2006, when the market first started to slow down. Sellers were reluctant to reduce their price. I had listing of two side by side vacant 5 acre lots that the seller wouldn’t even answer my calls about reducing the price. I knew that I had to find sellers more reasonable and willing to price their home to sell.

How to Handle the Top FSBO Objections

A FSBO has different reasons they don't want to list, versus an expired. The reason an Expireds may not list with you is that they are afraid of being locked into a contract for 6 months. They fear they'll lose 6 months. Contrast this with the FSBO. They don't want to list because they want to put the most money in their pocket possible. Why are they going FSBO? To Save the commission, or so they think.

When you contact or present to a FSBO, everything you do needs to hit their hot button. And that is they want the most money possible. The most effective method I have learned on listing FSBOs is what I call the Smart Seller Program. It's basically an Exclusive Representation Listing with a clause that says if the FSBO sells the house themselves, they don't have to pay a commission.

I have used this to list FSBOs successfully. Here's the logic behind it. A FSBO thinks that a buyer may stumble upon their house and buy it. And, the FSBO will put an extra $10,000 in their pocket. They don't want to list, because they don't want to lose that chance of saving money. Once you list the house, the stop trying to market or sell it within a week or less. Then, it becomes a normal listing just like any other. That's why I use this strategy to list FSBOs. Rather than fighting human nature, I work with it, and profit. Let me give you a few examples of FSBOs I listed using this method.

Brandon Sach was a young guy in college and had his townhouse FSBO. I called him up and he was asking $110,000. He had had a few buyers, but they all thought it was overpriced. That's because they weren't real buyers. I told him I could get $120,000 which would net him the same amount of money, and leave him the option to sell it himself. I listed it for $120,000 (at a 7% commission by the way) and it sold a few weeks later. He pocketed more money, because he got the real, motivated buyers to look at his place. here's another FSBO I listed using this strategy.

Bob Luman had a vacant 5 acre lot for sale. I called him the day after the ad had started running. He was totally fine to list it with an agent. In fact, his brother was an agent in another state. He was also a salesperson himself, so he wasn't against an agent earning a commission. So, he didn't have anything against agents. But, he wanted to at least give FSBO a shot for a few weeks. He told me to call him a few weeks later after he had tried FSBO. I however wasn't open to letting him get called by every other agent in town over the next few weeks. I wanted the listing that day, not a 25% chance at getting it in a few weeks. Here's what happened.

I offered to list it, and give him the option to sell it himself and pay no commission. I reasoned that since his lot was at the end of a road where it would never get any drive by traffic, he wouldn't get much activity from a sign. And, he might as well get more exposure to the buyers working with agents in the meantime. I met him and his wife the next day and listed the lot. It sold 4-5 months later and I got a nice check. And, I didn't let another agent find their way in and get the listing from me.

FSBOs are not a huge market today, but they are still out there. Some are motivated and will have list with an agent. They will be motivated sellers because of a job transfer or other reason. I've included the letters I send to FSBOs and the agreement I used to list the property using this method in my Motivated Seller Gold Mine System.

How to Answer These Objections Before They Come Up In Your Presentation

When you contact or present everything you do needs to hit the hot button of your prospect. Here are a few of the items I do to demonstrate to the expired that I can get their home sold. I have included samples off all of this with my Motivated Seller Gold Mine System.

1. Set them up to listen to me. First, I demonstrate how homes are depreciating here in our local market. The goal is to get them to reality, and also convince them that they don’t need just any agent to sell their home. Some of the things I go over is: how much harder it is for buyers to get financing, the negativity of the media, the drag that the rest of the economy and the drag it has on the housing market, and all the foreclosures their home will have to compete with.

In the meantime I give them the disadvantages of renting out the home, and “waiting” until the market comes back. I want them to sell now. This bout of bad news turns their brain on, and they start thinking about how they can work with the bad circumstances. Guess who’s there to help them out? Me. At that point I go into what I can do to get their home sold.

2. Track Record. Show them a list of homes I have sold. I put this all in a Word Document that I print out and go over with them on the presentation.

3. Show them my marketing plan that I will follow to market and sell their home.

4. How I get buyers. I show them that I do have a list of buyers, and that I will be marketing their home to those buyers.

5. Testimonials. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a testimonial is worth a thousand of my words. I can say all I want about how great I am, but what a satisfied customer says carries a lot more weight.

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Ben & Chris Curry The Short Sale Agent's Advocate

I am a big fan of direct mail. I can leverage my time dramatically by using it. But, here’s where the real leverage comes from. I get a lot more listing appointments when I mail an expired listing (or FSBO or Pre-Foreclosure) and then call that same expired 3-4 days later. My sales letter does the heavy lifting for me. Most people will at least read thru it and see the high points.

Such as: who I am, why they should hire me, and what kind of results I have gotten for other sellers. The best description of my letter is that it is a “Presentation in a Sales Letter.” I have much better success calling a home seller after they have received my letter, versus just cold calling them. The completely cold call approach is what I used to do. And it worked. But, not as well as sending a letter before I call.

I have a nephew that I wanted to get jobs in the afternoon raking leaves from people’s yards. He is a nice kid, and I agreed to help him out. So, I made a deal that I would buy him a bike and a rake when he found his first raking job. I figured if he had the initiative to find a raking job, then he would also have the initiative to get it done and do a good job. But, he told me that he didn’t know what to do to get raking jobs. He needed an introduction to basic sales

I decided to help him out with that. First, I decided to find the most qualified prospects. So, we drove around his neighborhood and looked at all the lawns. I happen to know most of the people in his neighborhood. So, I knew what most of the home owners made for a living, whether or not they had kids, and also if they were the type to do the yard work themselves. We drove around, and came across what I thought was the perfect prospect.

I talked to the wife and she agreed to have him rake the yard for them. And my nephew got his first raking job. Not a bad deal. This is why calling expired listings is not like what most people think of as “Cold Calling.” Most salespeople think of cold calling as when they just call on people to find someone who needs their product. Call 300 people to find 5 that are in the market for your product.

That’s probably why they call it “Prospecting.” You’ve got to sort thru a lot of people to find the gems. But with expired listings, you already know where the gems are. You just have to start mining those gems. It’s like tapping into a vein of pure gold.

Here is what you can do to tap into this gold mine for yourself. If you’ve got my letters then you can mail them to the expired listings. Then, 3-4 days later follow up on them. If you don’t have my letters, then call all the expired listings the first day they expire. I have found that getting appointments is pretty easy. You simply introduce yourself, and ask the seller when they are planning on interviewing agents. This gets my foot in the door most of the time.

I get the phone number from anywho.com and whitepages.com. You can use other websites if you want to. Some people use the Redx as well. Their website is www.theredx.com. Supposedly their software will find the expireds, and their phone numbers. I have my assistant find the seller’s mailing address from the Property Appraiser’s Website. Most websites let you search by property address. Then, they look up the phone number online using that information.

I’ve had some people ask me about the DNC list. I have my methods of handling that, but since I’m not a lawyer I can’t recommend anything to you. You can research it yourself. You can get the DNC list info for a low fee from the government entity or website that administers the list. If someone is not on the list, then by all means call them. If they are on the list, you can knock on their door.

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Ben & Chris Curry The Short Sale Agent's Advocate