Lead Generation for Real Estate Agents |Million-Dollar Farming Strategy

[Music] we are live so we are here with my very very special guest kimberly austin couldn't be more honored to have her here so since 2002 kimberly's represented over 600 families with a career volume of more than 300 million dollars in residential sales so she's been you know every award you can imagine number one real estate agent number one i mean there's nothing that she hasn't won yet so we're really excited for excited to have her here with us she's going to be talking to all of us today about how to build a successful farm and how to nurture that farm how to utilize direct mail at a very high level how to build great relationships by doing things inside the community that helps really uh make that farm respond at a much higher level we're also going to ask her a couple of questions about hey what what did you learn that didn't go right you know what what what can we learn from so maybe we don't have to hopefully face that same thing when it comes up so without further ado uh kimberly thank you so much for joining us kimberly tell me a little bit about your real estate journey and how you got to be the top producer you are today well first of all brendan thank you so very much for having me on your uh talk show i i i actually can't feel special so thank you um i will say that it has been an interesting journey i don't think i ever grew up and said hey i think i'm gonna go out and be a realtor today or when i grow up i'm gonna be a realtor um actually it was the opposite when i uh was growing up i thought i wanted to be an attorney and i guess that didn't work out for me i got a management degree and uh decided i wanted to be some kind of entrepreneur i wasn't exactly sure i went to school full time i worked full time and while i was working i worked at a hospital where i did their marketing for them so i was a marketing coordinator for a hospital and i learned a lot about marketing all the while while i was getting a management degree sometime in the late 1990s my husband moved from colorado over to chicago and i found a company where i got into finance i actually negotiated contracts for a living and the finance piece wasn't exactly fun but today negotiating contracts is one of the biggest things that i do in a business and who would have ever thought that that little job that i was working for an international juice box company was something that i'd be doing um lo and behold we moved back to colorado we outgrew our home and we put our house on the market and it was a little challenging i gotta say um as a person who's in their later 20s i relied on a professional to help me and that professional told me my house was a little bit worth a little bit less than what i thought it was worth and at the end of the day she listed it at my price and um the home sold in one day at that moment i thought i should get my license and so here i am 19 years later a real estate agent i love it i love it so yeah we never have any idea like how the journey is going to get us here i've heard on on this podcast every different way teachers health care police officers that the most interesting uh roles can all lead to having a successful real estate career so so one of the things that we really wanted to discuss today and again we want to make sure we're bringing as much value to our audience as we can is how you've really built a very successful real estate farm and how that started what uh so well let's start out with so what is the the area that you currently farm how many doors are we covering and and what does that look like sure thank you um right now i am farming uh an area called central park it was formerly known as stapleton it used to be an airport they um ended up getting rid of the airport and moving it further east and that land was designated for residential homes and commercial space to some degree and um when i moved back from out of state into colorado we moved right into stapleton it was 2008 and um i decided i was going to start becoming a realtor in the area that i lived so if anybody out there is thinking about doing a farm always start with the farm with where you live and so that's exactly what i did i love it so first so so key point number one it always start with where you live or as close to as you possibly can and why do you think i mean do you think you could have done it without because i get a lot of people going hey look britain like i'm running i'm renting a house right i don't even own a home so and where i live my neighbors are sketchy like can i could you have done it without living there of course i think when you're starting a farm one of the biggest things that is important in getting started is making sure that the neighborhood does have turnover so take a look at your mls see what areas are moving and what areas aren't moving because if an area is not moving and you're farming it it may be very challenging to make any sales so if nobody's moving there are no sales to be made and it's going to be a little more challenging no absolutely and to establish turnover rate all we're going to do right kimberlyn you know this is we're going to go back 12 months we're going to see how many whole homes sold in that neighborhood versus how many active homes are active or how many active homes are in that neighborhood so let's say that there was a thousand homes in that neighborhood and uh ten sold in the past year well then we would know that there was about a ten percent turnover rate in that area actually it's not ten percent that'd be five percent if it was a hundred homes it'd be ten percent but you can kind of get the math of what we're talking about there so it's amount of homes divided by how many homes sold in that last 12 month period 100 correct one of the reasons that i started working my own community is i had just moved there i really didn't know anybody i really wanted to learn who the people were in the community who were my neighbors and so i actually started off door knocking i went door to door to introduce myself and to let people know that i was new in the neighborhood and try to find some commonality and it's interesting when you knock on doors obviously it's a little more challenging with covid but when i started knocking on doors back in 2008 when i moved into the community um it was um really in 2008 there weren't a lot of homes that were selling as quickly as they are today so inventory stood on the market a little bit longer but i was in them in the community and wanting to learn who my neighbors were because i also knew that there was a high propensity for me to sell their homes gotcha and that first time door knocking and i know we can talk about covid right now and you you can and cannot do this um i know agents that are out there door knocking every day during covid i mean that's that so let's go back to that first door knocking experience uh were you scared how did you get past it when you walked up to that first door and you were like oh boy because i remember the first time i went door knocking and i was terrified right terrified so talk to me what did you go with somebody were you solo like what was that first experience you never forget your first the very first experience i had was actually in southern california because that's where i learned how to farm and i was um i was like one of the desperate housewives on that famous show i actually bought a big pumpkin it was around thanksgiving time i went on to the mls and i typed in all the information to see who was expired and there was a home that was uh expired that was for sale and then it just didn't sell so it went into the expired area and it turns out that the home was 2.3 million dollars so i thought that's the one i'm going to target so i got a big pumpkin i put my business card on it i parked outside the house i walked up this huge driveway it was a really beautiful home and i got up there i rang the doorbell and i just saw a sign that said no solidus no soliciting i like do i jump in the bushes do i run so i um decided i wasn't gonna wait and solicit the lady and i chickened out and ran back to my car and that's okay right and that's okay no one knows you know what i mean like like i always tell people if you make your first cold call and you blow it just hang up right you make your first door knock and you you screw it up run away just run no one's gonna chase after you right so all right so you got past that one how would you get to so what happened on the next door so what happened was i took the pumpkin back to my managing broker at the time and i stuck the pumpkin on his pumpkin on his desk i'm like this door knocking stuff isn't working what happened well i walked up the door rang the doorbell only to see the no soliciting signs and he said kimberly you're not soliciting i was like oh what do you mean i'm not soliciting of course i am he's like no you're not you're making friends right you don't know anybody go back there take that pumpkin and make friends with this person that lives there wow so that that paradigm shift of i'm trying to sell you stuff or sell get you to sell your house with me to hey i'm new here i'm cool you're cool just wanted to introduce myself by the way i'm i'm an agent you know what do you do so talk what was there a script that you found that worked better um or you were just like hey i'm kimberly here's a pumpkin thank you that's a good question you get into their own brains that it's challenging to have that conversation and so i did take it for heart what was told to me i took the pumpkin back i went back at a little bit of a later time so that there would give them a chance to get home and i walked up with pumpkin i rang the doorbell and the sweet little i mean she was short lady opened the door and i said hi i'm kimberly austin and i live right over there and i pointed in the air in the direction and i said and i'm new here and i don't know very many people so i thought i'd bring you a pumpkin so we could be friends i love it i love it and and she of course didn't didn't yell at you or hit you or hit you with a broom or anything no what what happened she smiled and she's like oh my kimberly people wouldn't come to my door and introduce themselves since the bat back in the 1940s please come in can i offer you some tea and i'm thinking oh my gosh so i sat and i chatted with this cute little lady and i ended up listing her home in our neighborhood it was wonderful i love it i love it so so you started out that way and you said great i'm gonna live here i'm gonna make and meet the neighbors meet the friends then started door knocking talk to me about once you started to establish a long-term strategy for it when did that kick in so it you don't realize you're developing a long-term strategy right your whole goal is to make friends and to get to know as many people as you can you're trying to meet them you want them to be in that network of people that you know so if they know people they can help you so i think if you go out like you are really trying to be helpful and be a friend the business will just follow and that's what it seems like happens so when i listed that house i was able to put my sign in the yard and then i got to do an open house which let me knock on a few more doors and i got to learn to meet those neighbors and so when i'm doing uh the open house for those i ring the doorbell again hi i'm kimberly austin i just wanted to let you know there's going to be a lot of traffic on the street i'm going to be doing an open house today but before we got started i just wanted to see if you wanted to help me pick your next neighbor i could do it but i'd rather have you help me if you can so that's a great script so i would like you to help me pick your new neighbor what are they going to say i hate you no they can't i mean they have to say something like yeah okay how can i help right like that's okay so so perfect if they say how can i help i will say who do you know that you want to be your neighbor you might not think of anybody right now but if you do know somebody now's your chance to help me pick your neighbor right so always coming from value i'm providing value to you okay so gotcha all right so perfect so then then so it kind of as you would say it would just it's steamrolled or it it snowballed right you you you're looking at now so how many doors do we cover now right so as i was doing that i would go 10 to the right 10 to the left i would get the entire neighborhood across 10 to the right 10 to the left and i would go back and forth so i was hitting anywhere and talking to at least 50 people as i was doing the door knocking for the open houses it's always nice to invite the neighbors i would always put together an invitation and it would be a you're invited with a picture of the house that was actually for sale and underneath it it would look like a child's invitation who when where and at the bottom it says now's your chance to help pick your next neighbor who do you want to live in the neighborhood and and kimberly so one of the things we've been talking about is eddm yep okay so what what does that mean and how are you leveraging that amazing tool for you to do this at the highest level so eddm stands for every door direct mail and it is a vehicle that any realtor or any company can use to promote their business you don't have to give them any addresses as a matter of fact they won't take them you give them kimberly who's them who's them thank you the people that you want to market to it's usually a zip code um the you united states postal service will give you areas where they actually drop off mail too and it tells you how many households are in that um area which we call a farm so you pick the farm area and then you can actually toggle and pick the different houses that you want and the post office will actually drop it off in their mailbox anytime you want to and the benefit of expensive yeah i was just going to say the benefit is it's very inexpensive and so you were telling me the other day around 17 to 19 cents a piece is that right about that price yeah it's 17 to 19 cents a piece everyone so that is that is massive um so that includes uh brendan your printing and part of the mail so depending on what you're putting out there and how big your mail is will depend on the amount of money that you're going to get charged so when you're getting started take a small piece because again people don't know who you are until they've seen you a lot of times and it's not a lot of times in the same week it's a lot of times every month consistently every month yep and you're exactly right yeah it's it's not necessarily the the going super wide and going i want to get 10 000 doors once a month it would be better to have four thousand doors three times a month or three thousand doors three times a month because i try to explain people just like um geico commercials right like you know that's that silly little geico because you're like man you see that thing a thousand or or what's your name from progressive right the the fa or whatever name is yeah so it's the same thing that's what we're trying to do is win that mind share for that neighborhood and we're trying to to make sure that we're we're whenever they think of real estate even though they might have a best friend real estate they're still gonna go man that kimberly though she's she's all up in here she must know every so maybe we should at least talk to her because you've gotten a lot of appointments like that right where where you weren't necessarily the number one choice you were kind of the well we wanted to check with you but we already have somebody in mind choice and then you won them over with your amazing presentation tenacity and skill set but you weren't always the first so people think i do male and everybody's going to love me no as a matter of fact it's kind of a love-hate relationship with the community i've been doing it for so many years that people are like all right already stop sending me your mail or they'll say you know what kimberly your mail is so inspirational i'm so glad you sent out so much marketing that when i go to sell my house i'm absolutely gonna call you or people will say take my name off of your your mail list and it's like there's no mail list it's through the post office so yeah there is a left-hand relationship with it but in all reality my goal is to give information that is incredibly helpful to the community and i love that and just for for doing some simple math so let's just take for a second here and do some some baseline calculations so if you had to say in 2020 total amount of homes you sold that you think in some form of fashion or from your farm how many would you say total so brendan i sold 83 houses last year i believe 50 of them were in my farm okay so 50 homes so let's make sure everybody knows that so five zero now let's take the next number which is obviously important is how many doors are you mailing to on a monthly basis and how many times absolutely so if you're just getting started and you're thinking gosh i don't know if i could do this farm thing i don't know if i could be consistent start small start with 500 to 1000 homes and don't go any above and beyond that seriously pick that number of homes and target that number of homes every single month and that's actually how i got started when i came back i didn't have a lot of money to get started um my material that i sent out was on a white piece of paper that i printed through my own printer oh yeah i cut it with my own cutting board and it didn't look the most professional but it was very helpful of what was going on in our community and what i did was i pulled all the stats of the homes that were selling in the neighborhood so that people could get an understanding of what their home could be worth when they go to list or sell their home and of course there's always a call to action right at the bottom of all of my mailings if you're curious to know what your home is worth in today's market please call me so with that and that's very helpful so looking at that going back just a second so for numbers so how many doors how many times a month so i started with a thousand and then i started growing my business and then i started doing 2000 and then i started doing 3 000 and then it got to be a little bit more expensive for me it's like oh my gosh my budget is going way out of proportion so now i'll do three to four thousand at a time and i will do it every other month so that i'm not blowing a ton of money in one month but people are still getting that consistent mailing to their home right but plus you branded over time though so when it was like in the heyday of it when you were earning that mindshare was it monthly was it more than once a month it was absolutely monthly and then on top of it when a home sold i would send out um information about how much the homes are selling for and what theirs might be worth i would call people and say hey i just wanted to let you know that 123 main street sold down the street and that is one of the record sales in our community would you be interested in getting something like that for your home and then it just gives you that option to have that conversation again i started knocking on the doors which meant i got the phone numbers of these people and then it gives me the option to have conversations with them so now kimberly so now it's 3 000 doors every other month but but you don't only just do this you do you know you know pumpkins flags different things i want to come back to that in a second but but so let's just talk about 3 000 so every other month right so 18 000 mailers are going out per year okay as it stands now and you were doing more before but eighteen thousand right now at a cost of let's just say 19 cents right so we're looking at 25 cents depending on what material i'm sending out so if i'm sending out a four-page newsletter it's gonna be a lot different than a postcard love it so let's so 25 cents you think is safe or okay so 19 000 times 25 cents to be safe so you're spending 4 750 a year on this delivery service to reach 19 000 touches they have to touch it and throw it in the trash 19 000 touches for 4 700 which is phenomenal and if we look at that and we say okay 50 homes let's just you know just you know average sales commission of let's just be conservative 12 000 just and i know yours is way higher than that right that's 600 000 right when when we're looking at at gross commission or just revenue for five thousand dollars now i'm not saying that's all you do and i want to come back to this for a second because again just working out the baseline numbers of what we're doing there so return on investment is obviously very key if you're only just doing that one piece so talk to us about the the compliments to your touch program that aren't just bulk eddm mail what is that fantastic so the other thing that i do is i sponsor our uh they're the stapleton mca the master community association they put on a bunch of different events so they allow realtors and other businesses to um bring monies to their community for the benefit of the community so i stood up as one of the top sponsors and that gave me the exposure to put my tents up i get to put a 10 by 10 up and stand at a booth while they're hosting their events every friday night they have a movie in the park and people bring their little ones or maybe have a picnic and a romantic picnic in the park and my tent is there and i'm giving away schwag i buy frisbees and flashlights and backpacks yeah yeah swag one of my biggest swag success events were my beach balls i bought a bunch of beach balls i filled them up and i just hooked them out into the crowd and people were going with my balls back and forth kicking and playing with them and then when i was in the neighborhood going to a listing there would be my ball so it was really really fun and so i think if you can make the most fun of what you're doing and truly try to help the community the community will know if you're just there to sell them or if you really are trying to partake in what is the best benefit for them so the other thing is i um provided them not one but two 10 by 10 tenths for the swim team and so anytime there's a swim meet there's my tents that are logoed of course of course of course so i love it so yeah so so it's it's a i'm all in to this community because i get the question all the time really so how much do you spend in it well i i i spent six months on just listed cards never got a darn thing well no kidding there you know goofball of course you're not this is this is we're coming in and we're we're we're nesting right we're not only nesting we're spreading right we're going to spread through this community and we've got to hit all facets and so how many different because you know that and then you're in probably several of them but people don't realize in every community there's so many different things that are happening there's mommy groups daddy groups you know you know uh sports wrecks wrecks softball things kickballs this thing that thing and all you have to do and not all you got to show up you gotta you go up and sure when you're when you're on those facebook get into the group um partake answer questions the community has questions who is a good painter hey uh joe i see that you're asking for a painter here are the top three painters that i have in my um file i'm also a real estate agent so if you need anything else whether it be an electrician or a plumber please give me a call i'd love to help you right value value value all the time not what you can do for me what can i do for you in the community and in return of course they're going to reciprocate right and and that's that's going to be the biggest thing so so excellent so so looking at is um if you can find a need fill it um yeah and like you said with the swim team there was a need there right yes and and it's a win-win they love you people are going to see you you're helping the community that's that's amazing so so talk to me about what's the biggest success story you've had from the farm so some of i have i've actually had some great success stories um first of all i get to know the community that in itself is just really rewarding right i've seen um little kids that have been born there and they're already going to high school it's just amazing um the mca hosts all these different events they have an egg scramble they have a pancake breakfast at um the fourth of july they have a beer fest and they have a winter welcome and for many many years i've been sponsoring the santa claus who doesn't like santa claus what do you mean what do you mean by sponsor the santa claus like you pay a santa claus put your logo on the back have him run through the neighborhood i'd love that um no so when you are sponsoring for these events you actually get to have your tent there what i decided is i was going to hire a santa claus bring him to the winter welcome put my tent there so that kids could get their pictures and the community lines up to see our dear old guy in the red suit right and instead of saying hey you got to pay this amount of money for your santa claus picture with your cute kid hey come sit with santa i've got the photographer all lined up give me your name your phone number your email i'm going to get these professionally printed and just let me know when you're going to be home and i'll personally drop them off it is time you're there with 280 people that saw santa claus that night you get to make 280 pop buys to give them the most incredible pictures that they've ever wanted in their homes and that's pictures of their kids absolutely yeah memorabilia right you know that's that's the thing that sticks and this year though with covid we you made the the decision i remember us talking about this to not do that correct it crushed me crushed you yeah because it was such a big i mean you were you said you on average were doing three or four deals from it a year i mean that's that's like yeah that's like 30 grand going out the door i mean or more obviously even more so so but you you also have to do you know the right things for the right times right and you knew it wasn't the right move you did the responsible thing you said look you know i'm i'm not gonna go that route so all right so those are huge success stories so let's flip it on its head because you know this was coming so let's talk about what did you learn from some things that didn't maybe go so well so hopefully myself and others don't have to do it so i will say um i have been delivering flags every fourth of july everybody american flag everybody loves american flags so i bought i don't know 100 and i delivered them to my street and what happened was people in the community were outraged that i didn't get them on their streets why did we only put them on this one street well because i lived on it um and i just thought hmm if the community wants these flags well then i'll just buy more next year it's not a big deal and for all the people that complained on social media i just asked them where they lived and i personally delivered them a flag um so and when you say delivered originally did you just stick them in the yard and it was so cool do they did they say were they logoed anywhere not on the flag of course obviously but on the stick or was your phone number on them or because otherwise i'm just like hey someone's random flag out there so i got this really long um uncut paper which was sticky and i put my name my phone number my email and it said happy fourth of july and i had them all printed over at um staples and they physically cut them for me so when the flags came in i stripped them off put them on the flag post and then i walked the houses and i stuck them at the curb and they were two foot flags and so it just looked very patriotic that that year so the following year i thought okay i did 100 i think i'll do 1500 and i'll just walk down the avenues well what do you think happened when you just go down the avenues people are like why didn't you hit the street so people were complaining to the mca saying well you just delivered them to the avenue and they're like we didn't deliver them kimberly austin delivered them and so my name started going out there and i'm not sure was in the most positive way so i decided to do six thousand last year i did six two years ago six thousand and everybody loved them they loved him i got two or three listings from them and then um last year we had coveted and we had some unfortunate things with blm and just some crazy stuff going on in the united states and there was a big controversy about we hope she doesn't trash our neighborhood with these flags i was just like what do i do with this yeah the flag sensitivity the flag sensitivity was at its utmost high at that that time yeah i did um call the mca and said you know give me some direction what do you think i should do they said you know they're such a big hoo-ha about having flags not having flags why don't we just put them down martin luther king and some of the bigger avenues that we still have a flare of patriotism and for those people who don't want them then you're not putting them in their yards we're just doing it for the community and i'm not kidding you brendan people def uh defaced our flags yeah no i remember i remember you telling me this story and i was so uh disgusted by it and and again but uh you know again lessons learned here is is even with that will are we gonna do flags this year i think i'm going to be a lot more sensitive to hearing what the outcry is of the pulse in the economy if people are still up in arms about a certain something i don't want to go out and try to spread good change right because some of those messages were like f you lady you know hope you hope you die like like nasty i mean i'm talking really like stuff that scares you right and and so yeah i can so when i talk about those stories it's not always just just beautiful like yeah i drop off millers and people love me and it's great no it's it's we all learn there's things that again you would have never predicted that you're like look i'm trying to help people get free flags and it's patriotic and and you know all looking at all that and people are freaking out you know there's nothing you can do there so accept learn move on adapt and adjust what people don't realize is it was sweat equity right like it wasn't like i was doing it just to get my name out there yes that's part of it but more importantly it was really just just be very patriotic yeah you took pride in it yeah yeah raise that hand of salute to the people that have served in our country i know you have and so thank you for that and no i just come here well the other real underlying story kimberly and this is the one that i think i want to make sure people understand is how when you just talked us through several of those steps right i had to order the flags go to staples cut it do this wrap it do that i mean this isn't for the faint of heart right like like this took you probably a day two days five days a long time i remember you telling me you're like it's no joke setting up santa not it sounds like it should be easy it's still no joke especially the first time because you have to learn the shortcuts but most people go ugh that's a lot of work direct mail you know everybody asks me this question all the time and i think this is the the beautiful part here is with with you sending 3 000 that are maybe not personal right you're not sitting out so much personal you are still sending out or doing things that provide a personal connection right and those things that provide the personal connection they take time anything takes time so how how long do you think it took to do 6 000 flags from start to finish process order all of that what are we looking at in hours so ordering the flags the flags were two dollars each and so if you do two thousand two dollars each at six thousand flags there's twelve grand on top of it i had to pay administrative people to help me get those onto the post and then i had to walk 6 000 houses that was painful there were five of us me my two 18 year old kids my 14 year old um an assistant we were all out putting flags and i'll tell you there were people that were just the loves of our community oh thank you for putting those out can i have an extra one i love that it was really awesome it does give you a good feeling to do something for the community even though there's a hint well the other the other underlying story there too is you've got it this is a family affair right make the kiddos work the the husband work the wife work the cousins work it is slave labor all the time family you are you are you are out there and you're making this happen oh you you like that nice trip we went on you're dropping off flags right like that that's that's what i'm talking about right oh you like the boat we have yeah you're dropping off flags i'm going to pull up for you um something that i've showed you before yeah but i love this map of all the homes that i've sold in our community and it gives reasons why people should um call me right when you see all those little bubbles the red are the ones that i listed and sold the blue are where i've helped people buy and so if you start racking up different home sales in a specific neighborhood you want the people who live there to know that you are an expert in that community yeah and so so guys pay attention and gals kimberly austin pro tip you get a map right and you drop pins over time of where you've sold homes in that area right and then as you start to show that to people they're going to start to collect over time think how powerful that is on a listing presentation to go yeah i don't know who else you're meeting with but here's the homes that i've sold here right and they can they can barely even there's almost any soon there won't even be any green left on that map right like it's it's getting it's getting to the point that it's it's it's getting pretty filled up that was the one thing i thought was fascinating what's that on top of that when i do my mailers i'm i'm doing a specific zip code and so i will do a flyer that says what's going on in the zip code and then it has information about it it shows what we are selling as far as what's going on keeping people in the know and then doing a nice little write-up at the end giving them something about who i am so that people can understand who i am as a professional in our community and it's a beautiful piece and are you doing that custom yourself or is that outsourced to a company canva canva so everyone yeah canva and again does it take time to make yes yes yes very time consuming but value is if again i talk about this all the time and nothing against people that send out boomerang cards or or basic cards the more basic you send the the motor standard that anyone can if you can click it in one button and order it then so can everyone else so does anyone care so it's got to take some time it's supposed to be difficult to make 600 i mean it was more than that 700 000 from 50 closed home sales i'm just using low numbers to always stay conservative right 700 000 off of 50 closed sales i i mean i would hope you would take some time to do some canva and do some things and walk a thousand homes times six you know children and make them do it and all these things that's the difference when people ask me all the time kimberly i why am i not having the success that i wish i was having it's like because you weren't kimberly austin staying up till midnight one in the morning making silly they're not selling they can stink in flagpoles at one in the morning you weren't the one that was doing it it was hard it was hard and then if you think about life or every july 4th it's got to be 100 degrees out i mean it's always hot to get up at 3 45 in the morning and we start putting our flags out so that we're not like dying from the heat and one lady called me and said kimberly i don't need to sell my house but i just want to let you know my little five-year-old daughter thought that the flag fairy came and landed in our county see that's it though right like like that lady will remember that and then when she talks to somebody and she tells that story she's gonna be like oh we thought the flag fairy came and that you were those flags that kimberly austin dropped off oh my gosh kimberly lawson who's kimberly austin oh she's my realtor oh your realtor doesn't drop off flags no she doesn't do anything in fact she sends me these boomerang cards for five dollars off of a bloomin onion at outback steakhouse that's the difference that's the difference and that's why i love what you do and i think it's you know people could learn so much from that so so a couple of other things i want to make sure we i get i had a lot of questions with with you coming on um on that i want to just piggyback on it so when that lady calls me and tells me something about her lovely daughter the next step is to send a thank you note not just to the mom but to the daughter because you want to make sure that you're showing value and appreciation for their recognition love it yep yep the art of of just the simple kindness again everything you've said today has been value value value thoughtful thoughtful thoughtful not what can stapleton or central park now that they call it can do for me what can i do for them and and and that's that's hard because a lot of people are just going well like you said how do i start and what's you know how how much is it going to cost me and they're so in their head about what they're going to get from it and it and that's that you got to flip it you got to flip it so so that's perfect i wanted to just make one more point about that brendan it was about two years ago i was at an open house and a gentleman came in and i said hi welcome to the open house did the nice little touches about having him come in and at the end of the time when he walked out i said so can i write the offer for you and he said no kimberly we're looking for something a little more modern and we are working with a realtor i said not a problem at all tell me what you're looking for even though he told me he had a realtor tell me what you're looking for tell me who your realtor is and i will call you realtor and tell her what i've got coming on and by the way you'll probably want to buy an infinity home it's a little more modern much more contemporary and more so in your price point so i knew the neighborhood i knew the product and i told him i was going to call his realtor he ended up buying that infinity home and two years later last week he called me to list it there you go and that's actually leading into my next question which is one of the things that people don't understand either is how much you know about the product in that neighborhood and i think it was fascinating when you started rattling off you know this model that model this can this builder that builder i was like wow i i don't know if there's anyone else out there that i i actually know unless they actually built the community that probably knows more so kind of so basically i could go in central park and i could go look at a house and i could be like oh um you know you're on what's up you know whatever street and you could literally be like oh are you in an xyz model or so so talk to me emporia are you on the west side or on the east side i'm on the east side perfect you got to be in a john lang how did you know that well i know the community really well as a matter of fact you're right by the rec center so you're in a really good location and people just are like she already knows my house she knows the neighborhood she knows the builder and if she knows the builder she probably has a buyer that wants this type of home there you go but so how if if i'm if i have lived in my community for three years let's say and not 20 how can i how can i go out and learn that info i know you did a lot of previewing of property right like like how do you learn the product if you just haven't been there 20 years so that's going to that's a really good question so if you're in a newer community it could be in a place like stapleton it might be in highlands ranch if you're in a specific location that has newer builds if you go into the history it'll tell you who the builder is i know the houses by looking at them so i could look at a house and say that's a kb that's a wonderland that's a john lang that's an infinity i can go on and on about the entire community of what houses are where so if somebody says they're going to be selling their infinity home i said the demographic of your buyer is going to probably be somebody that's in a kb possibly a mcstain they're going to be working here and the people are just like wait wow you're the house whisperer the house whisperer i love it no it's but again it's a testament to that's such a again a kimberly austin pro tip is just looking at that and going you can search the builder you can kind of things this and if you drop that in the conversation it's going to be so powerful instead of going oh yeah this is a nice house uh oh good you know you want to be the expert even if you might not be the expert yet but there's so many ways to to secretly be the expert because even ahead of time you could go and figure out where the rec center is i love when i go by your office it's like um a war room and there's maps right you've got maps and and pins and things because if you're staring at an area you're farming you're going to start by almost osmosis you know seeing the right streets name oh that's that name okay so they're uh they're on 4567 is on that street versus that way you can it builds rapport people want to work with someone that that they can trust and to build trust you have to know that they need to know that you know more than they do right that's how you become an expert you don't go to the doctor and be like hey doctor so yeah my stomach hurts i think i'm gonna take some pills what do you think no right you go hey you know you know he's the expert and you ask him and if he was like well i don't know what do you think you're gonna have a problem right like that's gonna be a problem so so that was such a big one that i wanted to to dive into so and it's also important to know that too brendan because if i'm running comparables and i've got a home that's about 2400 square feet and i've got a home that has been built by a specific builder and there's a custom home builder that has that same square footage i don't want to look silly by saying the house is worth less when it should be worth more or flipped gotcha exactly again yeah it's it's to be safe and come from value and make sure that we're protecting in that way so so then looking at the entire uh oh the question i had what is the message that is on we saw the beautiful newsletter what's on what's the message that's on the eddm the the courier mail thing what what is what has worked and what hasn't worked did you find over time are you sending updates on just listed just sold are you sending messages that says sell your home or i'll buy it what's the messaging that's going out to the community i always want to give the community valuable information when i'm saying i just sold this or i'm this great people are like yeah stand in line there's a ton of people that are that great and that have sold houses so what they don't care about how great i am or how many sales i've made they don't they care about what their house is worth and how can i help them protect their best investment and so how can i communicate that to them how can i help them with that type of information when uh stapleton was opening uh the road from denver to aurora some people were a little worried about that okay and so giving them information on that before it actually happened was very helpful for some some folks um it turned out to be a great thing because stanley market became into its inception and a lot of the community appreciates having that great area where they can shop and eat it's been awesome so so most if most if not every piece has been information based so so something about the community the the rex recreation statistics market statistics so you're not you're never once being like look at me look at me look at me it's i started that way i realized i realized oh they don't want my stuff so if i don't have anything of market value that i have i do um send out a just sold or adjust listed but i always make sure that there's a point of information on that sold for the highest price per square foot curious to know what your home could be worth in today's market they'll be like what does that mean yeah gotcha okay so so message matters then building the community connection matters learning the product matters and now the last reason i want to get into in is i really was i always try to save some time for everyone out there is talk up to us about the tech you're using so so what crm are you using we just heard you say canva um what are you using as far as what's what's the tech that makes kimberly austin's machine work right now well it has been a trial and error and i'll tell you i've hit some bumps along the road i've actually chatted with you about that and it's really challenging if you are not organized if you have all of your information in a spreadsheet you're not going to know who to talk to when to talk to or when you talk to them or who's in their family and for many years i used um one crm and it just wasn't getting the value of the reach back when you and i started chatting and working together he said you know kimberly you've got to get a stronger vehicle for that information it's invaluable and i'm like gosh you're kind of right maybe i should look into that so like you had so much data i was like if you don't do it i'm going to do it for you because i was like oh my gosh you're lighting money on fire with the amount of data you had at your fingertips it is it is true and so i'm very grateful to you and the information you've helped me with i did go with boomtown and i have not looked back i am so incredibly grateful for the advice of you know here's the things you could think about boomtown was it for me and i'm able to tag who's in a wonderland who's in a infinity who's in a standard pacific because guess what when i sell that wonderland who am i going to market it to other wonderland homes there you go there you go yeah leveraging yes yeah leveraging the data you know people still don't get it chemically that we're even everything we've talked about all day today every single piece of it was data data data in a different way we're like again you know if you're putting into your crm uh you know she thought that i was the flag fairy then the next time she calls that if she has that woman's phone number next time she calls her and she'll be like hey it's kimberly the flag fairy how you doing oh my god blah blah blah you can't do that in your head there's no way you're going to remember that when you're marketing to six thousand seven thousand eight thousand however many people it's impossible that's where that crm becomes that value okay so we've got canva we've got um boomtown uh talk to me about the other kind of game changer you stepped into last year as far as processing so figuring out where the leads are coming from like did i meet this person at an open house do they call me off the side did they call me from uh my social media i'm getting leads just coming coming coming it's like wait a minute where are you let me find out no putting it in that crm tagging them and making sure that it is on a lead follow-up program or plan and so we are making sure that we're doing a 33-step touch and making sure that we're talking to them at least four times a year sending them information in the mail and just making sure that i have everything that i need to make sure that when that person calls in i know how to help them i absolutely love it and talking about that right one of the things that speaking about leads and how much you have actually coming is is you're looking for help right now and and you you had talked to me a little bit earlier so talk talk to the audience about who are you looking for what open opportunities that they have you have available right now who if i'm if i'm struggling to produce leads or i want to have a farm based business or i want to learn from the best in the biz what what are you looking for and how can people connect with you god bless you i'm telling you um it is hard because as you're a one-man band and you're doing your own real estate it's easy to get this stuff in a database and it gets a little more challenging as you're making all of these different marketing pieces but right now i am as i said i sold over 80 homes last year it's a little more challenging to do it by yourself you have to rely on top professionals we want to grow a team that is delivering exceptional first-class real estate services that means we know if you're on 29th and emporia you're in a john lange or a kb depending on what side of the street you are you want to know who the people are in your community so i'm looking for people that are dedicated to the industry who want to deliver exceptional service and right now i'm looking to grow my administrative staff specifically a transaction coordinator and also a few buyers agents or showing agents if you know a salary is important so those are the types of professionals i'm currently looking to grow i think the opportunity is endless i'm you know right now i've got two people that are in the administrative capacity i've got one buyer agent and we have way more buyers than we we have time and so if you're struggling to um get things rolling and you want to learn how to do things without making too many mistakes because i've already made the mistakes i would love to at least chat with you and see how we could partner i love it and kimberly so when people hear that word transaction coordinator i want to make sure everybody's clear on that i know because i you know with with owning a brokerage and different things i see how many transactions people are doing sometimes it's okay to take a step back from agent to tc to learn the business the right way i was an assistant for a year and a half i i still think without having that it would have been critically it would have been so hard for me not to do it so transaction coordinator you're going to learn this business you're going to be around the best maybe you'll want to stay and do that for a long time and work your way through the operational team and become a general manager or you know run the entire show someday or maybe you'll learn and you'll decide hey you and kimberly will talk you'll go in a couple years from now hey i really want to go into sales again and there's so many different doors but don't think that that just because you're struggling as an agent doesn't mean that you can't learn and have a salary and pay if you have of course talent and skills that kimberly you know needs for you to join and then if you're an agent and you're out there and you're hearing this right now and you're going she's got a machine a lot of teams out there go i got leads they don't have leads they're buying leads right they're trying to find all these things she has built a machine over 20 years that you can stake your name on knowing i'm going to get opportunities if i'm not a goofball because of this machine that she's built and she's going to teach me every step and we didn't even get into talking about how amazing she is on listing presentations i we ran out of time we'll have you back again because i you you one of your you know your favorite stories i i love is just the tenacity in these listing presentations because you just know how much value you bring and it's like if you're not listening with me you're not you're not i'm not leaving and and i'm not saying it's that aggressive but it's semi that aggressive which is how i was and and how i believe you should be but but for for everyone out there you know think about that showing assistant you get paid to open doors and see beautiful homes in a wonderful community you just heard how nice the community is and she obviously doesn't only work that air she works every area i mean she sells the entire front range area um so so where do i reach out and connect with you kimberly how do i how do i get in touch if i'd like to apply if i know somebody that might be interested from a different industry because right we don't care if they're a bartender a candlestick maker they work at the mall they're a bank teller this is an opportunity to become a master at real estate where do i apply if i'm interested absolutely thank you for um asking about that brendan so just to kind of piggyback on some of the things you were saying my current buyer's agent was in a similar situation he was an agent um he was doing well and then he had a dry spell of six months and to keep the bills going it was a little challenging for him and when he came to me he said you know i don't know what i'm doing wrong and so if you don't know what you're doing it's okay i didn't know what i was doing a lot of years ago and just to go through the experience and actually start growing people it's very exciting and we want to make sure that you're challenged and growing professionally so yeah reach out to me my name is again is kimberly austin and i'm at kimberly add another just sold kimberly another just sold we'll have it below in the description we'll have it everywhere everyone will be able to release it we're going live on facebook now obviously this will go out to our entire apple music and spotify and all of the different places where you listen to your podcast but uh so kimberly anything else you would like to share with anyone before we wrap this up anything else that uh you we we can provide service to you thank you for i mean there was so many nuggets in there that it was unbelievable is there anything else that that you want to mention i do want to mention how amazing the information you provide to your people brendan i listen to your podcast all the time and i think that if they're not listening to this they're missing out on those little bitty nuggets even today after 20 years i'm capturing nuggets from other people that i have you have on the podcast and i think that you should always want to continue to increase your knowledge in this business so you can provide exceptional real estate services to your clients so kind well i appreciate that we love having you on we're going to have you back because i'm going to do a whole episode of just talking about listing presentation dominance and i just can't wait to go into that subject uh so again everyone kimberly austin the one and only reach out to her if you're interested in becoming a professional in this industry or if you're if you're a buyer or seller out there looking for one of the best in the business to represent you in any transaction connect with her obviously you know her her whole entire purpose is value and bringing you the best experience kimberly cannot thank you enough uh so for everyone hope this was a value to you i know it was and as always i wish you great success

Channel: Brendan Bartic Real Estate Coaching

Views: 2,030

Rating: 4.9402986 out of 5

Keywords: real estate farming, geographic farming real estate, real estate farming ideas, lead generation, real estate training, For Sale By Owner, lead generation strategy, lead generation cold calling, expired listing, Keller Williams, Remax, Yes Masters, lead generation tutorial, lead generation business, lead generation strategies, lead generation marketing, how to start a lead generation business from scratch, door knocking real estate, brendan bartic

Id: wtTsx4cMOrM

Length: 57min 59sec (3479 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 18 2021