We’ve been talking a lot about focusing your efforts on high performance real estate agents this past week or so. All of this sounds great, but the question remains: “Where do I meet high production real estate agents?” Surely we’re not going to ask each agent to tell us how many transactions they’ve closed this past year right?

Here’s how I did it. Two methods were used. The first was a quick phone call to my title rep. I had a great relationship with this company, as most my loans closed here. (I understand this call will not be possible for those of you in Attorney states) A quick 3 minute conversation ensued where I mentioned that I had a great new marketing plan that involved high producer real estate agents, and asked if tehy’d be interested in participating.

The answer was easy for him, as he knew the more real estate agents I did business with, the more likely they were to close at his office. He agreed to help me. The best part of this call was that the help I needed only required about 5 minutes work to provide. I asked the title rep to simply pull up a production report within MLS. All I needed was the results for the top 250 producers.

This list was shot over to me within 10 minutes. I now had access to a list that was worth its weight in platinum, and all it cost me was a phone call. I was now free to spend my time marketing to any agent on this list without fear of wasting my time with someone who had no referrals to share. It was a great feeling.

I already knew that my conversion rate was somewhere around 10 – 12% when marketing to agents, so even on the low end, if I completed my full marketing cycle, I could expect somewhere around 25 – 30 agents to work with. Sounded like wishful thinking at the time, as there’s no way 2 loan officers (My partner and I), much less 1 could handle all the referrals coming from such a large group of high end producers. (The results were better than I anticipated, but we’ll talk more about tha during Loan Officer Unleashed)

I used the list, as the basis of my marketing campaigns for nearly a year. The results were astounding, but as we grew and brought on more loan officers to the team, I needed more agents to include in the marketing efforts, but was unwilling to slow things down by randomly marketing to just anyone.  Here’s where things went low tech. I ran to the local department store and picked up a few copies of the latest real estate publications. Harmon Homes, Land and Homes, Homes Magazine, The Real Estate Book are just a few of the local publications. (Most are national, and should be available to you)

I flipped through the pages looking for signs of success. To put it plainly, I was looking for agents who had lots of listings – haha. I’ve done a fair bit of advertising in these publications myself, and I know that it had cost me around 400.00 per page for just 2 weeks. When I found an agent that had a full page, or even multiple pages filled with listings, chances were good we were looking at a decent performer. (While not fool-proof, it was still a great litmus test of who could afford to advertise on a regular basis – Plus, the more listings an agent has, the more activity – More often than not)

After several hours of flipping through the pages, and looking for “signs of success” I had added anotehr 100+ agents to my list. Of course, in todays market you now have access to other tools that can speed the process. Social networking sites such as Active Rain, groups from LinkedIn, and even visiting the home page of the real estate publications mentined above means you don’t even have to leave your office to perform the research.

But even using the most up to date networking sites come with the same danger we’ve been chatting about all week – Spinning your wheels trying to squeeze loans out of someone who has nothing to give. Keep looking for those “signs of success” no matter which method you use to create your own list of target real estate agents. We’ll go deeper and show you what comes next during Loan Officer Unleashed. See you next week!

Here are some direct links to the publications mentioned above:(Use to search for agents, and view their number of posted listings)

http://www.realestatebook.com

http://www.homes.com

http://www.homesandland.com

Being a loan officer in today’s market seems like a whole different world when compared to just a few years ago. So much is changing, or already has changed. But wouldn’t you agree that most situations can feel so much more simplified when you ask the right questions? For example, let’s say you wanted to get more loans from real estate agents, but things haven’t quite gone as planned.

Loan Officer #1 asks: Why does this always happen to me? How come nothing ever works!?

Loan Officer #2 asks: What were the 2 or 3 three sticking points in this process? What can I do better next time?

I’m sure you’ll agree that the person asking question #1 has no intention of finding an answer. More of a rhetorical question asked out of frustration. Person #2 however is on the right track! See, when you’re marketing to real estate agent there are really only a few things you need to focus on in the beginning, as failure is often the result of the same 2 or3 causes time and time again:

1. You cannot get the agents attention

- This is often due to a lack of value, poorly crafted message, or failure to target

2. You get the agents attention, but are dismissed

- Same as above. You did something right in the beginning, but now you’ve lost the agents interest due to lack of value, or credibility

3. You initially met with the agent, but cannot get loans

- This one can be the most frustrating, as you think you’re getting somewhere only to be stopped dead in your tracks. Typically this is caused because you’ve either lost the agents interest, or they simply have little if anything to refer – Which means you did not target mid – high producers.

You know what’s great about all those situations above? They are all avoidable. For most of us, we can solve 70 – 80% of our realtor marketing problems simply by finding a way to get, and then keep our target real estate agents attention. Think about it… 80% of the battle is getting someone to listen to you in the first place – Regardless of what you sell! Once you get their attention, it’s relatively simple to sell them as long as you have targeted your niche up front.

It’s kind of like selling pizza to a group of people you targeted because  you knew they were hungry and had missed breakfast! Would that be hard to do? Nope… Likewise, if you target your real estate agents up front based on production, you know that your marketing message will be aimed at a  of “doers” not a bunch of time wasters. These types of professionals will be quite interested in the message we’re going to teach you during Loan Officer Unleashed. How nice would it be to have high performance agents looking forward to hearing from you instead of ignoring you… Nice change of pace right?

Imagine how nice it will be to have 95% of your challenges solved right out of the gate!

Problem #1 – Wasting time due to marketing to the wrong people

Problem #2 - Getting and keeping the attention of your target market

So while you eagerly await (Ok, so I’m just assuming you’re eagerly awaiting) Loan Officer Unleashed to begin, it might be a good idea to put some thought into what your sticking point is as you market to realtors. Is it similar to above? Are you finding it difficult to get, or keep the agents attention? Write your sticking points down, and we’ll discuss it during the 5 days. See you there!