Okay, you've acquired all the skills that you need to get business. You are confident and capable and ready to work. There's just one problem: nobody is hiring you because nobody knows about you! While it is important to work on your social media, ads and attending networking events, those things are made a lot easier when you have actually done some business. Enter the cold call.
One of The Least Effective and Intrusive Marketing Techniques
Wait! I don't mean to scare you away. While this heading is true, that doesn't mean that cold calling has no place in your business. Before we get into this, I want to define what a cold call is for those who are unaware. A cold call is when you call someone you are interested in doing business with when you have had no interactions with them whatsoever. In real estate this is often done with FSBOs (for sale by owner properties). An agent will call them up, inform them that they can help them sell their properties faster, with less headache and give them access to all sorts of tools that they wouldn't have otherwise. In my line of work I would call agents that had less than stellar iPhone photos of their listing and explain how I could help them without sounding offensive. This usually resulted in nothing or people who wanted to haggle with me. That is when I tried doing something completely different, something that I call the lukewarm call.
This is Stupid and I Won't Read Further
Then you won't get to learn about the lukewarm call! The lukewarm call has done a lot for my business when I was starting out and it is very simple. The only difference between a cold call and a lukewarm call is that the lukewarm call is slightly warmer (there's more interaction prior to the call). I will give an example using a real estate agent.
You are desperate for leads and these FSBO's are not helping you out at all. Before calling them send an email! Odds are they won't open the email but when you follow up with a call, explaining that you already emailed, the whole process will feel less intrusive. You had just a tiny bit of interaction with this person before calling them, making it a lukewarm call.
Now let's turn up the heat.
You are hosting an open house for a pretty successful listing agent. You will be able to hand out business cards, show off your personality and try to impress some of these buyers. Not everyone at an open house has an agent and you're counting on that. So why not take it a step further and get their number to call them later? In fact, why not get everyone's number to call later so that you can try and drum up referral business, increase the followers on your social media accounts and follow up with everyone with information on the listing? This is a bit warmer than the lukewarm call but can have great effects! At the very least, your name is out there.
If you want to take your real estate marketing to the next level, check out my services and portfolio, and contact me to shoot your listings.
Thanks for reading!
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