Lead generation tips when you have no SOI

[BaltimoreAgent]

Hi. I posted this on the Ask an Agent Thread but maybe I'll get more responses here since this is where most of the chatting happens.

Hello all! I recently just moved to my area and don't really know too many people here, so I really don't have a SOI. I've passed my licensing exam - YAY!! and will now be shopping for brokers.

So I understand what I really need to find is a broker that generates leads, good training, and a good mentoring program. However, after reading tons and tons of posts here, I am understanding that the leads that the broker gets me will be the one's I luckily get if I do floor duty. Well, for me that wouldn't be enough. It'll be just too slow. I don't want to get leads by luck. I want to get them ... period!

My question now is how do all of you (with no SOI) generate your leads with great success? I'd love to get marketing tips, tactics, tricks - you name it, anything! Web presence, face to face, advertising gimmicks - anything! Love out of the box ideas too and won't mind doing those as well.

Thanks in advance!

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

build a good web site to start

[AaronSOLD]

LOL. That was what I was going to say.

Opens are a good way to start. Also, you do have a SOI... church, political group, kids, former coworkers, etc... you have SOMETHING. This is a difficult job to hit the ground running... if you expect to be a knockout salesman the first year you may be expecting a little too much. This is not an overnight success story... but dedication and good focus can make it very profitable.

[Dan Connolly]

In the meantime there are three things you can do:
1) work fsbo's (for sale by owners)
2) work expired listings
3) find an agent in your office who wants their houses held open on Sunday and hold some open houses. You will meet buyers and sellers. Educate yourself on the other homes in the area, especially those that cost less than the one you are sitting in, and try to find a buyer. You won't have to do this for your whole career but its a good way to start.

[Dallas Broker]

if you are wanting a steady stream of leads, find a small brokerage that has a good website and excellent lead generating system already in place. These are usually the companies that are looking for buyer agents in their first year. You may have to comprimise on split, but this will ultimately allow you to gain the experience and knowledge necessary(not to mention funds) to gradually push you into becoming more indepedent and secure a more reasonable commission split. There are quite a few small brokerages that have a good lead generating system in place and are specifically looking for newly licensed agent's(50/50 or 40/60 split) that will put in the 15 hour days necessary to work and convert the leads supplied to them.

I would suggest placing the most emphasis on broker selection.

As previously mentioned, a good website is without mention the most important marketing tool you can work on in the background. Whatever route you choose, be sure to keep your focus on establishing yourself, your company, and your website as a authority in your market. May take months to years, but well worth the effort in the end.

[Eric Blackwell]

Baltimore;

Since you are new to the area, you are going to need to take some massive action quick, here are a couple of ideas...FWIW, I totally agree about getting to an office that gens leads for you. Ideally they have good listing tools where you can emphasize the office's strength until you have strength of your own.

1) Take on some open houses from busy agents.

2) Fire up an REW blog and start posting it is FREE and is the fastest way to natural search engine exposure out there. (see the blogging section)

And if you think I am kidding about the blogging thing, google up Louisville condominiums and see where my REW blog ranks. (We have already attracted buyers via the blog) It's a beautiful thing..

Get some closings under your belt and then get a kick butt site and go for the full blown SEO thing

Best;

Eric

[Sam Dodd]

Here is my advise,

If you were just starting out as an unproven unskilled tradesman how much would you expect to make? Probally not a lot because you dont have the skills or the training yet. Well you are starting out and you are unskilled and unproven. So don't expect to make a ton of money your first year.
Also you can generate your own leads rather quickly what I would do is set up a website sort of like justlisted.com where you registar, but what I would do different is I would make them registar then I would put them on your local MLS.
This should provide you a steady and not to expensive source of leads. As for finding a broker that will hand you enough leads to survive I just wouldnt expect it. You may have better luck becoming a buyers agent for an established agent. For training I would look into Keller Williams as they do a ton of training with there new agents.

[JennSellsFast]

Start your website NOW, you have an SOI, you just don't know it yet. Make your sphere of influence EVERYONE you come into contact with on a day-to-day basis. It works, I promise!

[Real Estate Ron]

Spend some money and do postcard mailings to get buyer leads. This is the fastest way to get leads right now. Others might disagree with me, but mailing out postcards is much easier and quicker than calling upon FSBO's and Expired Listings. Every broker goes after the "SAME EXACT" FSBO's and Expired Listings. You want to work smart. The money right now is with the buyers. Buyer leads is what you need. And doing postcard mailings is the best way to get these leads. Forget about FSBO's and Expired Listings. Listings will come little by little with time once you start getting buyers and closing sales with these buyers. Let the other brokers in your area kill themselves in order to get FSBO's and Expired Listings. Once you get buyer leads and start selling them homes, your name will get out there and you will be able to get FSBO's and Expired Listings a lot easier than the other brokers in your area. It will take time (a few years), but the real estate business is not a "get rich quick" type of business. You need to work at it.
Networking is another method which will get you listings and buyers. Lots of brokers who I know that do a combination of marketing (postcard mailings) and networking are successful in this business. You've got to start small with some sort of advertising budget and grow from there. If you don't spend any money on marketing yourself and your business and in networking, you will have a very hard time making it in the real estate business. There are a dime a dozen of real estate brokers out there and most of them are starving right now.

[RonnieG]

... Buyer leads is what you need. And doing postcard mailings is the best way to get these leads.

Huh? I agree with the first part, but after spending many thousands on postcard mailings, for sellers and buyers, my ROI calculations told me that each postcard response cost me about $80 in cards and postage, and one out of 15 of those would end up working with me, for a per transaction cost of $1200. On the other hand, internet PPC buyer leads cost me about $20 per lead, and while fewer of those will work with me, about one out of 25, the per transaction cost is still only $500., less than 1/2 of what the postcard per transaction costs were. Plus, once PPC campaigns are set up and tuned, there is minimal ongoing maintenance and they run continuously, while postcard mailings take constant effort to target appropriate recipients, sometimes with single-use mailing lists, and to constantly be acquiring, labeling and mailing the cards. Or, you pay a mailing service to do all of it, and pay 70% more per card than doing it yourself. All of this is local market dependent, of course, but to make a blanket statement that postcards is the best way to get leads just doesn't fly, when NAR stats say over 70% of buyers these days go to the internet to do their research and find an agent.

Sorry RER, but it is not me disagreeing with you, it is the numbers.