What do you feel are the best 2 or 3 systems to get listings?

An email I received last week:

Hi Russell,

Good to hear about your new association with AgentGenius. We all need your stuff.

We can’t afford a Radio or TV marketing campaign, so I would appreciate your thoughts on…

Other than Radio/TV, what do you feel are the best 2 or 3 systems to get listings?

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Other than marketing my listings, what is the next most effective method of attracting buyers?

Thanks for your help.

Raymond

Good news, it is a short list.  There are precisely two ways to get business: marketing or prospecting.  All methods of getting business fall into one of those two categories.  If the question on how to get business includes, "We can’t afford….." then for now skip the marketing part.  Prospecting is your answer.

Prospect for listings.  Buyers are almost never "looking for an agent", they are looking for a house.  So, prospect for listings.  Emulate top agents.  Almost all long-term top agents are listers.  To get a closed escrow you must first have an open escrow.  To get an open escrow you’ll need a listing.  To get a salable listing you will have to have gone on several listing appointments.  To get a listing appointment you will have to have leads.

Therefore, you are in the lead generation business.  Full time.  If you are going to succeed that is the business you are in all the time.  You are not in any other business.  Just getting leads.  Get enough leads and you don’t really have "unsolvable problems" in your business.  Don’t get enough leads and all you have are "unsolvable problems".  Your main dollar productive activity is getting leads.  Time spent working on getting leads is time well spent.  Invested, if you will.  Time spent on most other stuff is quite possibly wasted time. 

There can be a real charm to deliberate nonsense.  It can raise a person’s tone and get them out of a bad mood – it can do a lot of good things, it can change lives for the better.  Laughing, joking, having fun, creating and spreading a "spirit of play" can be one of the most joyous experiences in life.  Do it often.  But if not knowingly and causatively "playing" please don’t pretend that the mindless time wasting activities that most real estate agents spend their days working on are productive.  Are you causatively playing?  Cool.  Otherwise, if you don’t physically have a buyer to show a house to or are in the process of physically writing a contract, or on your way to see someone to do just that or to take a listing – prospect.  Get leads.  Get more leads.  The number of leads that you actually need is far far more than you even think it is – you need more than that.  Lots more.  Work on that. 

I found the following here:  You don’t need a life plan. You don’t need motivation, self-confidence, peer support or even luck. All you need is the willingness to take the next most obvious step—then repeat the process again and again, regardless of how you feel. Try it. Happiness comes from seeing the results of your efforts. You don’t need it before you start.

In response to your question, "Other than marketing my listings, what is the next most effective method of attracting buyers?"  My answer?  Market someone else’s listings.  This is what is done with an IDX search.  If you want more to market via the various listing propagation sites, borrow them.  Ask other agents if you can advertise their listings.  Buyers are looking for houses.  Get lots of houses on those various sites.  Hundreds is the correct order of magnitude. 

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Something I am just delighted to be able to announce is that the Realtor Success Series is finally compiled and there for anyone to see and use.  Even I personally had no idea I already had that much content available.  I hope you like it.  More to come.