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I am re-reading Gary Keller’s Millionaire Real Estate Agent looking to improve Lead Generation.

Starting on P. 314 “Snapshots” of 16 actual agents who had at least $1.0 million in Gross Commission Income (GCI) in CY2001.Thirteen of them discuss “Lead Generation” – what they do /don’t do to generate leads. Most do direct mail around their listings and sales, some mail to their farm. A couple of them never advertise in commercial newspapers or those home magazines but publish their own full color newspapers - one ($1.9 mil GCI) with 22,000 circulation at a cost of $7,000 per month. The other ($1.5 mil GCI) bulk mails to 50,000 – 75,000 households. Conversely another one ($1.8 mil GCI) takes out 10 – 20 pages in the home magazines and a full page ad every Sunday in the local paper. She also does 300 just-listed & just-sold post cards but no other direct mail. BTW, Lyon & Associates, one of the big companies in the Sacramento area just announced a drastic reduction in their Sacramento Bee advertising, estimated to be a $1.0 million hit on the Bee’s revenue. Lyon will concentrate that money improving their position on the Internet.

Another millionaire agent ($4.0 mil GCI) does NO advertising, NO direct mail and NO farming. She has a call/contact schedule and 70% repeats and referrals. Another ($2.5 mil GCI) has “never made a cold call, never knocked on a door”. Finally another ($1.4 mil GCI) stopped doing ads in Home Magazines and the Yellow Pages. His business still grew and he saved $40,000.  He does a monthly newsletter to his sphere (3,000) and to 12,000 address farm area. He also does 200-400 postcard around his sales.

Here is what DuPriest does:

1.  Postcards 200-300 for newly-listed & newly-solds.

2.  Postcards in the form of an invitation to open houses (Don’t do very many of those)

3. My sphere has about 1400 people, 1100 of which are on e-mail. I send my monthly template newsletter to those. In addition I subscribe to a couple of R.E. advisory/reporting periodicals and send those from time to time. We are constantly adding new contacts to this list. Remarkably I get very few “Unsubscribes”, maybe averaging 3-5 a month.

4. Within my sphere is a second “Local Sphere” of contacts in Northern California and Northern Nevada of about 500 (400 e-mailer) who get a notice of ALL new listings and sales in addition to the newsletter through the main Sphere list. Three or four times a year we snail-mail to all of our non-emailers. Usually printed copies of the newsletter. In each of these snail-mails we try to encourage them to provide emails but haven’t had a lot of success in that area.

5. I do not do printed advertising. Been there, done that many times – zero, zip, nada.

6. I have never done a good job of regular & consistent phone calls to past clients and prospects. I am getting ready to change that because in this market I need more leads.

So, my motive for doing this long-winded thing is hopefully to start a dialog on what the rest of YOU do to generate leads. I am used to doing 20 - 40 transactions and I am only at 11 so far this year. I remember we did a similar effort on this list on Selling in a Down Market and it was most helpful.

C’mon folks, let’s hear..

 John F. DuPriest e-Pro Certified Internet Expert
Direct: 916/933-2185, Fax: 916/663-9366
E-mail: John@DuPriest.com  Website: www.DuPriest.com

So, my motive for doing this long-winded thing is hopefully to start a dialog on what the rest of YOU do to generate leads. I am used to doing 20 - 40 transactions and I am only at 11 so far this year. I remember we did a similar effort on this list on Selling in a Down Market and it was most helpful.

Hi John

I am a new member of this community.  Just like you I am having a "bad" August.  Most of my leads are from referrals, open houses and opportunity time.  To date, I have not had a sale in my "sphere".  I am working my "farm" as hard as I can.  Early next month, I am hosting a flea market to get my name out there.  My very next project is the web site.  By the way, who did you with to set up your web site?

Suzanne C Kelly

Weichert Realtors - Haverford

354 W. Lancaster Avenue

Haverford, Pa. 19041

Office 610-649-4300

Fax 610-649-5333

Cell 215-432-0883