Today is Throwback Thursday. Today I want to talk about what it takes to be outstanding in your field when it comes to marketing real estate.
Last Thursday, I mentioned that I started my real estate career in 1976 in Vancouver, Canada. People often ask me how I’ve had such a consistently successful real estate career over 38 years in the business (including 19 years in Scottsdale.)
To be outstanding in your field when it comes to the real estate business is all about effectively marketing both yourself and your listings. It’s really not rocket science.
After all, if you can’t make yourself stand out, then how will people find you among the thousands or tens of thousands of other real estate agents in your market area? And, if you can’t make your listings stand out, how will homebuyers find them, and find them interesting enough to schedule showings that sooner or later result in sales?
To be an effective marketer takes time, creative thinking, and some financial investment.
I have learned to set aside some time every day for thinking about new ideas. Being an innovator and trying new things often requires some amount of financial investment.
For example, in 1996, I had a web site built. No one else in my market was doing it – okay, maybe one or two other people. It was great to be an “early adopter” and for several years, I enjoyed having little to no competition in the online marketing realm in the Scottsdale real estate market.
My unique online strategy and willingness to invest in a new idea made me outstanding in my field.
Another great example throws me back even farther, to 1978. I had reasonable success from the beginning of my career and wanted to make sure that everyone knew me in the 16 square blocks that I worked. (We worked much smaller areas back then because, without computers and a digital MLS system, obtaining market and listing information was slow and cumbersome compared to today.)
One day, in an effort to be creative, innovative and catch people’s attention, I decided to launch a direct mail post card campaign. No one in my marketplace had ever sent postcards before. It was a revolutionary idea and relatively expensive at the time compared to what most real estate agents were spending on marketing back then.
I decided that I wanted to convey to the recipients of my postcard that I was “outstanding in my field.” I had a track record to prove it, but rather than bragging about that, I had a postcard printed with the following picture on the front, and the caption on the back “Don Matheson, Out Standing in his Field.”
1978 postcard picture of Don Matheson “out standing in his field”Get it? (Yes, that is really me.)
I have to admit, that particular postcard was wildly successful, and so was the whole campaign. It showed me that a little out-of-the-box thinking, a little risk and some financial investment go a very long way to making you “stand out” among the competition.
A lot has changed over the years (I have less hair, I don’t weigh 175 lbs), but when it comes to real estate sales, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed: staying ahead of your competition when it comes to marketing yourself and your listings is directly correlated with your level of success as a real estate agent.
