Whats the Purpose of Advertising

Sometimes I have been called “ The King of Cheap Advertising “. My competitors often remark how Spartan my ads seem. (They are normally not more than 3 or 5 lines in length.)  In fact a Large ad for me would be a whole 6 lines. I have even written many ads that were only 2 lines long. How do you keep your Seller’s happy with ads like that, they ask?. If only they new. Do you know?

                                            What’s the Purpose of Advertising ?

The Old man had worked for the OREGONIAN Newspaper in the real estate advertising department for most of his life. He went on to say “ I recognize many of you who have signed up for this class in advance by the poor examples you have submitted to the paper for us to publish. You guys and gals just don’t get it. ” That was soon to change.

The Old man went on to explain how we should look at advertising as if we were looking through the eyes of an unemployed worker who half heartedly is searching through the help wanted section.

You first must thing like the consumer. Contrary to popular belief they are not there to find anything. In fact just the opposite is true. Let me demonstrate how the average consumer reads the classifieds. ” Nope I aint no brain Surgeon so I cant do that, I don’t have a college degree so I cant do that, I sure don’t have over 10 years of experience so that wont work for me either. ” And so it goes with those many Buyers who are afraid of finding the right house as well. ” Nope not enough bedrooms, Nope to small of garage. Nope not my kind of neighborhood.”

You need to stop giving your Buyers the ammunition to shoot your AD down. “So what kind of ad will work you say?” I’m glad you asked he answered before anyone could say a thing. Try something like this.

Caption :  ” Owners Sad.”

Body : Their Loss can be your gain. Be sure to call Herb today for this Charming home with Spacious rooms and a Great yard. ( Add the Price and Contact info and your done.

Here are some additional Captions ;

• Big Ugly House   ( for fixers )
• Call Now or Kick Yourself In the Morning
• Anthony Renaldo Smithe once Slept Here ( use any name of a previous owner )

“Obviously”, the Old man said “ the Caption is there to draw attention.“ You cant sell anyone anything who wont stop long enough to hear your message.

When it comes to the Body be a little vague. Build a story or emotion. Stop telling all of the details. Use descriptive phrases to make your point. Let’s say your listing is a Bungalow home with hardwood floors and French Doors  etc.

Here is an example for the body :

The moment you step into the sun-filled room you can feel the warmth sweep over you. Your pace quickens as you pass over gleaming hardwood floors, past the shimmering glass panels of the French doors until your standing on the edge of a SECRET GARDEN.

I left the seminar Full of ideas. I couldn’t wait to get back and employ my new found techniques. That weekend my first ad debuted. I went with the Owner’s Sad headline.  I had tried on multiple occasions to sell this house without success. My previous ad attempts had pulled in about the normal response rate, 3-5 calls.

The ad was set for Sunday. I received my first call on Friday afternoon from the Typesetter at the Newspaper who was placing my ad. By Monday Morning I had received over 75 calls. By Wednesday I had a backlog of 125 Buyer’s who had responded to the Owners Sad ad.

What truly amazed me then and still amazes me today is that People will make up the Story if you don’t tell them. In my Owners Sad ad people were sharing there sympathy’s with the Seller for their Catastrophic Illness, or loss of a Loved one. Some people even were wondering about the Divorce. How they ever come up with those ideas from my little ad I will never know. What I do know is, What’s The Purpose of Advertising!

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Failure What do YOU Mean Failure!

You thought about it long and hard then one day you took the Plunge. You took the schooling, did all the tests, and then finaly Bam! You got your Real Estate License.

As you look around surveying the other agents, ever notice how some people it seems are just naturals. They come out of the gate swinging and never look back. Then there are some people who make up that group or the 80% failure rate in the first 2 years. Oops! Did no one ever tell you that? Yikes sorry about that, but it’s true.

In fact I would be willing to bet that if you take into consideration all of the people who attempt to get there licence but never go through with it the failure rate is probably up around 95%. So how can we keep you out of it?

Probably the greatest thing that any one can do is to sit down and write out a business plan and goal. This also works well for the agent who is not happy with their production, or is doing okay but just wants to take it up another notch.

But before you can start to do the business plan there is something more important than that. Something that is so key to this entire problem that if you don’t get this you really have no chance at success. What is it?

It is simply understanding what this business is. What are the primary elements and how must they be implemented.

• First and Foremost Real Estate is a People business. It is built on the relationships that we establish through the Sale, Purchase, Rental or Lease of Real Property. We are not only Real Estate Sales People, rather we are relationship developing people whose product is Real Property.

When First licensed I have seen this played out over and over again. The new agent comes into the office asking how do they get to work with the buyers. There are as many different policies as there are different answers to this question. I submit to you though what I would consider to be the best approach for not only the company but also the agents longevity.

• NO AGENT should be allowed to work with any Buyer until they have a listing for sale. Unless you work for a company that only represents Buyers. Most of us do not. The reasoning behind this is that the office telephone rings because of listings. We do not live in a Country where the listings are a secret. Buyer’s do not have to call up and ask if we know of any house’s for sale. They can see them by the signs in front of them.
• By allowing an agent to share in the incoming telephone calls without themselves contributing any thing to make the phone ring, it is a slap in the face to those who have worked so hard. Now if an agent is to busy to work the leads and chooses to refer or higher an agent as a buyers agent then that is a different matter.
• By Forcing the No Buyers till you have a Listing rule, you create more product. Agents understand what the true nature of the business is like and every one wins.

I have worked pretty much the same way for most of my career. I have always tried to be the Agent that I would want to work with.

No high pressure sales techniques. You call we discuss. If we can’t do business we will part friends.

    Herb Hamilton is a Real Estate Broker with RE/MAX Preferred Inc. Realtors working in Portland Oregon

                              ” A Real Estate Transaction with Herb is one YOU will Profit from “

Herb Hamilton is a Real Estate Broker with RE/MAX Preferred Inc. Realtors working in Portland Oregon