There’s always something to howl about.

Slugging Away. One E-mail Address At A Time

I’m on a quest to find 75 San Diego real estate agents.  I need 75 agents, to give me permission, to e-mail them weekly.  I told you about my plan to secure those permissions and I thought I’d update you as I get results.

Bill Lyons agreed to do a joint marketing deal with me but I haven’t taken him up on that yet.  I’ve been scrambling around with year-end stuff, and I took a holiday trip to Arizona, but I’ll do something with Bill next year. For now, I’m focused on the SDAR Officers’ Installation and Dinner as a magnet.

I held a drawing at the Downtown San Diego caravan.  Thirty agents gave me their cards and Debbie Neuman won the tickets.  This works pretty well because while she is a quality agent, with established lending relationships, she’ll sit at my table that night.  This will be a good chance to get to know her and pitch ourselves as her “number two lender” (I’m not proud).    The challenge with the thirty “new” contacts has been securing permission to e-mail them..  I have spoken with ten agents thus far and only five agreed to receive my newsletter.  I do have a drawing scheduled at the La Jolla REBA, next week. and those folks know me better.  I guess if I have 25-30 permissions, by next Friday, I can celebrate the fact that I have achieved one-third of my goal.

That means I’m going to have to grit it out for the final fifty permissions.  I’m going to start the “open house plan” after the first of the year.  The plan is to visit open houses and drop off a “care basket”, filled with snacks.  Agents get hungry at open houses so this is what I’ll give them:

A couple of bottles of water, three bags of snacks, and a couple of oranges (or apples, or bananas).

I’ll assemble them in my newly delivered TANSTAAFL lunch bags.  I ordered these from 4imprint.com and 100 of them cost me less than $300.

I had my name, website, and phone number imprinted on them, along with the word TANSTAAFL.  The idea is that I can call later and play on the “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” idea and secure permission to email them.

The front pouch holds 20-25 business cards in it.  Agents can hand these to buyers,

I don’t LOVE the lunch bags.  They aren’t the best quality and I doubt they’ll be brought to the beach.  Agents could use them to keep a lunch and water cold so I’m hoping they keep these for future open houses.  Notwithstanding, I’ll spend $3-5 to be memorable to an agent and these bags are bright.  I think they make a cool statement too.  I’m pretty sure they will remember who I am when I call to follow-up.

Retail selling is a grind.  I’m always looking for short cuts, to make my marketing efforts scalable, but sometimes the one-off selling situation cements the relationship more easily than large numbers.  As always, your feedback and suggestions are appreciated.