Hello there. Welcome back to Mike Ferry TV. Tony Smith here with you, speaker and coach for the Mike Ferry sales organization. Thrilled to spend a little time with you here again on Mike Ferry TV. We are on the week of September 23rd. Okay, so everything in the world seems to be about how do I market myself? How do I brand myself? How do I put that recognition out to the world? That seems to be the hot topic these days. We have always had this belief at Mike Ferry’s office that there is a way to market yourself without going broke. Okay, so I wrote down this whole series of of rules that you might consider to not go broke. Now, don’t mistake the simplicity of these for the effectiveness. They are very simple rules of how to market yourself. But if you understand it like we do, you will recognize that marketing yourself is not as big of a deal as everybody seems to make it these days. So, let’s just go through this thought process with me.

1) Figure out how to take salable listings

First thing I would ask you to do is figure out how to take salable listings. Okay. Figure out how to take salable listings. Now you have to understand that the more signs you have in the ground, the more sold signs that go on those signs. By the way, are you putting sold signs on? Might be a good idea if the market shifts a bit, right? So the more signs you have in the ground is basically free advertising, isn’t it? It doesn’t cost much to do that. If I have a challenge with taking a salable listing, a major part of my cost or the cost of marketing myself is already been taken away. So, do you know how to take a salable listing? Right? You think about it. This is your product. So, if I own any other kind of business, I have a product that I have to sell. My listings or my product. So, take a salable listing.

2) Get it sold

Look at two. Get it sold. Okay, sounds simple enough. And of course, that’s what we want to do is get our listings sold. We’re coming out of a window of time that’s selling your listings for the last several, several years was not an issue, right? Throw a price on it. Put it in the MLS, put a sign up and bang it sold and resold and sold again. Right. But the truth is, the market is shifting a little bit. Some parts of the country, the days on market has gone up. The number of listings on the market is starting to rise, the number of Expired and canceled listings is starting to grow. So getting your listings sold is not quite as easy as it used to be. So you may have to consider price reductions system stronger communication with your seller. Stronger initial pricing with the listings you take. I wrote down if you have a listing for six months that does not sell, it’s almost always because of the price. Learn the sales skills to price it right. Learn the sales skills to price it right. Do you need to spend a little time right now on your presentation and understanding pricing?

3) Tell the world what I did

Okay, look at three how to market yourself without going broke. Look at three. Tell the world what you did. So now I’ve taken a sellable listing. I’ve gotten it sold. And then I tell the world what I did. Okay, now this is usually where it breaks down. This is usually where somebody has a challenge. Do you tell all your great past clients and Center of Influence about the listings you’re taking and the listings you’re selling? Do you call around that listing when you take that listing and tell all the neighbors? Do you then call around that listing again when you sell it and tell all the neighbors what you did? Right. If you think about this, tell people what happened to your listing and how long, how you made it happen. Tell people what you did, how you made it happen. That message is marketing yourself. If I don’t have listings, I don’t have anything to sell. I don’t have anything to tell anybody about. Okay, but if you go ahead and tell the world what you did, then look at for take more listings because of your success. Really, if you have a listing and if you think about this, if you have a listing, you have a customer. And if you have that customer, there’s a window of time that you have that customer’s eyes and ears, and that customer probably knows other people that are buying or selling real estate.

4) Ask for referrals

So, if you have a customer and you do a great job of servicing that customer, and then you ask for referrals like we recommend. Ask for referrals. At the time you take the listing, ask for referrals again. When you put it into contract, ask for referrals again. When you’ve removed all the contingencies and it’s looking good. And then ask for referrals again. Of course, when it closes escrow, um, when you have a file, you obviously have a lot of other people. You’ve got service providers, lenders and title and escrow and handymen and repair people and sign guys and all of these things. Aren’t those all opportunities to tell people what you’re doing to ask for referrals? You can maximize taking more listings because of that file. But if I just get locked into closing the deal and all I do is get locked into the challenges that come with the listing and a sale, I don’t maximize the exposure I could have. I don’t market myself. Look what I wrote down here. It’s amazing how for sale and sold signs can be a motivating factor in somebody’s life. You know, the house across the street goes up for sale.They ask around and find out what it’s selling for, and then they see it sell in a month and close escrow and a new family move in. Motivating. Are we taking advantage of it?

5) Know what the market is doing

Look at five. Price and motivation are key factors. One of the fastest ways you can market yourself beyond competition without spending a lot of money is know what the market’s doing. Understand the market stats. What’s happening in your community? How many properties are listing? What are the sales doing? What are prices doing? Days on market. If you can understand in detail what the market’s doing and you can present that to the public, it is in essence marketing your expertise, isn’t it? I wrote Down Under here pre-qualify in depth not only for the prospect’s motivation to sell, but also the price they want to list for. Price and motivation are key factors. I’ve always had this belief. We are in essence, seeking motivation of people. That’s our job. If we’re a strong listing agent, if we’re a strong buyer’s agent, our job, in essence, is finding motivated people. That’s our job, okay? Our job is not convincing unmotivated people to be motivated. Our job is to go out and find the motivated ones. If we spend the majority of our time looking for somebody who has a strong need, a strong desire to do something, we are marketing ourselves at a high level. Price and motivation.

6) Start a prospecting program immediately

Look at six. Start a prospecting program immediately. One of the fastest ways you can market yourself without going broke is on that telephone or at that door. So how would you grade yourself on your prospecting program? If I ask you to spell out in detail in writing what is my prospecting program? How much could you write? Could you write a full page? Could you write two pages if you had to describe it in detail? Start a prospecting program. It’s free advertising. Okay. If you talk to 20 or 30 people a day, five days a week, and you have a strong, powerful dialog and a strong script that is marketing at a pretty high level.

7) Use the MLS statistics

Okay, look at seven. Use the MLS statistics. Okay. We talked about it a minute ago. One way to market yourself without a lot of expense is once again understanding the MLS statistics. How much time are you spending understanding what the market’s doing. There’s a lost art. It’s called previewing property. Maybe you could go out and start previewing some homes. Start getting a stronger understanding of the neighborhoods you work in. If you really dive into the MLS stats and you talk to people about them, very, very strong promotion.

8) Monitor your market on a monthly basis

Look at eight. Monitor your market on a monthly basis. Monitor your market on a monthly basis. Find out what’s selling, what’s not and what trends are taking place. Report these findings to sellers and how it affects price.If you do a great job with understanding the market and you present that to your database, and you talk to all of your past clients and all of your center of influence, and you present the market conditions, it is a form of advertising. Easy to ask for a referral if you provide good information.

9) Tell the seller the truth

Look at nine. Tell the seller the truth. Okay, one of the fastest, strongest ways to market yourself and get the stellar reputation that you want in your community is to tell the seller the truth. Okay. We’ve lived for years here at MFO with this very simple thought. Show up, pay attention, tell the truth and don’t be attached to the outcome. In essence, that’s been Mike Ferry. He shows up. He pays attention to everything. He’s always willing to tell you the truth, even if you don’t like it. And he’s not attached to the outcome. Think about how that relates to marketing. The world will say, oh, listen, you know, you’ve got to talk to Tony. He’s going to tell you the truth. Okay? He’s going to be forward with you whether you like it or not. And he gets the job done. Isn’t that what you want to be presented into your market? I think so. Okay. And then look at ten. Use proven dialogs. One of the fastest ways to market yourself without spending a lot of money is to use. I’ll just put it this way. Use the Mike Ferry scripts. Okay. The Mike Ferry sales scripts. We have designed these scripts for a reason. They work. So use proven dialogs. If you go out and communicate effectively with the public consistently, the word gets out that you’re good at what you do. I wrote down, we are not going to list your home at list price. We’re going to list it at sale price. Does that make sense, Mr. Seller? Think about some of the dialogs that you use today. Boy, if you could take one big step forward to using our proven dialogs, and you could learn to do that at a very consistent, high-level basis. Free advertising.

Okay, I wrote down a couple of other thoughts. One of the most the fastest, strongest marketing tools you can have in the world that doesn’t cost a dime is learning to have a big smile on your face with a lot of energy and enthusiasm in every situation that you’re in. If you can be out there with a strong, positive attitude, a big smile on your face, a lot of energy and enthusiasm, it’s some of the most free marketing you can possibly put to the world. Why? Because the world wants more of that and it’s very attractive to people.

So, these are a few thoughts of how you can go out and market yourself without spending a ton of money. Pay attention to these thoughts. Thanks for your time.