Posts Tagged ‘farming isn't dead’

FIND Tip #5 - Tracking Your Farm Results

Jul 14, 2008 Marketing

This is the final post in our series Farming Isn’t Dead.

Our final post in the series Farming Isn’t Dead (FIND for short) is all about tracking your farming efforts and progress to make sure that your farming efforts are profitable. Half the battle to successful farming is using techniques that work, and the only way to know if your technique is working is if you keep track of what you do and the results that came from your farming efforts.

There are many easy ways to keep track of your farming efforts. For the not-so-technological a simple notebook listing the date, what you did, and what responses came from it will work just fine. For those who love computers, there is Microsoft Excel or even Open Office, a free open source program that allows you to create spreadsheets to help you track your farm. You will want to write EVERYTHING that you do related to your farm. Keeping track of what your spend, who called you, and when will make it much easier to improve over the course of your farming.

Another thing you can do after you farm consistently for a few months is conduct a neighborhood Survey. After you’ve spent some time farming and the neighborhood residents are comfortable with you and know who you are, you could go door to door asking them to answer a few simple questions to help you serve them better. These questions will depend on what your motivation is and what promotions you’ve decided to execute, but could range anything from, “What would you like to see more of in our monthly newsletter?” to “When will you be thinking of selling your home?” You could opt to mail a survey, but even with return cards it is likely you will not receive as good of a response as you would by going door to door.

Now that you have a few ideas on how to track your farm, every few months you will want to take into consideration the number of listings and referrals you’ve gained from your farming efforts. If you are getting a referral or listing or call from your farm once or more a month, then your efforts are paying off, but you’ll want to continue to improve your efforts by targeting things your farm will find useful to increase this number. If after 6 months you haven’t had a single listing, but the cobrokes in your area do have listings in your farm, then you seriously need to reconsider what you are doing. Are you too pushy? Not consistent enough? Does the cobroke firm offer something you don’t but should?

Keeping track of everything related to your farming efforts and tracking your real estate farm will ensure that you only spend money on things that work, stay within budget, and will save you time by being organized.

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FIND Tip #1: Choosing a Farm

Jun 9, 2008 Marketing

This post is the first in our series Farming is Not Dead. (Farming IS Not Dead=FIND)

Choosing the right area to farm can be the most crucial decision of them all. You do not want to be stuck putting in a lot of effort, time, and cost into an area that does not have a high turnover rate or is already over saturated with real estate agent marketing material.

Here a few things to do to help you find the right neighborhood to farm:

1. Choose a price range: The primary goal of a farm is to earn more in commission. You will need to decide which price range will result in the most commissions for you. Many agents think they would fare better with only high end listings. However, if high end listings do not turn over as fast as low or mid end listings, you may be cutting yourself short.

2. Research, research, research: Once you’ve settled on a price range, it’s time to choose the neighborhood that best meets your farming needs. Ideally you will want a neighborhood that regularly has 3 or more houses for sale in it each month. Every market will vary, but the more active a neighborhood is, the more likely you will see business. Go through your multi-list and scan for neighborhoods that seem the most popular and have regular sales.

3. Consider oversaturation: Chances are, there are already 3 or 4 agents trying to farm the neighborhood you’ve chosen. You can have a confidential meeting with your office manager to see if anyone else is farming that area, or if you have a friend in that neighborhood ask them what kind of real estate mail they receive. If you’re faced with choosing between neighborhoods, you may fare better overall choosing the one that receives less attention from the real estate community.

4. Accessibility: Will you be able to walk through the neighborhood? Do you know people who live in the neighborhood? Being able to meet the residents face to face will significantly increase your farming success.

These 4 tips should help you easily decide on the right neighborhood for you. If you’re still stumped, don’t be afraid to ask your office manager for suggestions. Our next post in the FIND series will cover creating a plan for sucessful farming.

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Farming Isn’t Dead - How to Farm in Real Estate

Jun 6, 2008 Marketing

Many real estate agents are familiar with the concept of farming, but aren’t sure how to effectively farm in real estate successfully. The term “farming” in real estate usually refers to a geographic location an agent markets to regularly and reaps the benefits of more listings and referrals. Like a real farm, agents must work hard to plant the seeds and foster the growth of their farm in order to harvest the crops (clients) later down the road. Many people believe farming for real estate agents is useless, and even might say it’s “dead”.

Of course farming isn’t dead. In fact now may be one of the best times ever to consider real estate farming because so few of agents actively farm a neighborhood and now more than ever do we appreciate real human contact with others.

When done effectively, real estate farming by real estate agents can bring years of profitable real estate business. Unfortunately many agents start out farming and soon give up. Most real estate farmers start off with one major mistake: they market passively. They think all they need to do is send out a few postcards once a month and calls should be pouring in. Of course, it rarely works this way.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be talking about tips on farming with results. Since so many agents believe it’s “dead” - there are many opportunities to sneak in there and take over underserved neighborhoods in your area.

Here are some of the topics we’ll be covering in our Farming Isn’t Dead (FIND) Series:

Choosing a Farm: What neighborhoods will give you the best results? View FIND Tip #1
Creating a Plan: Without a plan, you might as well NOT farm. We’ll discuss what plans work - and which ones fail. View FIND Tip #2
Introducing Yourself to Your Farm: Sometimes the hardest part is just finding the nerve to knock on the door.
Promotional Ideas: Farms need sunlight and water to grow. What will you use as your sunlight and water? View Find Tip#3
Keeping Your Farm: Once the real estate farm is growing, it’s important to make sure you maintain it to produce year after year. View Find Tip #4
Tracking Your Results: We’ll show you an easy way to track your real estate farming costs and success to help you make your farming in real estate more profitable year after year. View Find Tip #5

If you don’t want to miss our future farming for real estate agent posts in our FIND series, you may want to consider subscribing Via Email to have real estate advice and tips delivered straight to your email inbox.

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