YouTuber and real estate coach Tom Ferry has revealed his top four ‘no-brainer’ hacks to generate listings, which focus on convincing homeowners to show their intent to sell.
The #TomFerryShow on YouTube aims to provide agents around the world with new strategies and motivation for their business ventures.
The US-based real estate coach communicated with other industry leaders back in 2018 to deliver the top four tips for successful listings.
1. Handwritten letters
“The first thing is an absolute no brainer,” Tom Ferry says.
Tom says to “leverage one of your buyers”. This should be somebody who is qualified, ready to go and committed to buy, someone who has previously written an offer but didn’t get accepted.
“You leverage one of your buyers – who is absolutely committed to buy wants to buy, qualified, ready to go, approved, written an offer but didn’t get accepted.
“Step one, what you’re going to do is identify the neighbourhood they most want to buy in,” Tom says.
Step two is handwriting and hand-stamping a letter with no company logo.
Tom suggests choosing a small cream-coloured envelope and use a stamp with a birthday or wedding cake on it.
“That baby’s gonna get opened and that’s 90 per cent of the game – just getting your message to the right target audience,” Tom says.
“So we select our list, these are the homes I want to mail it to. We’re going to deliver it hand-addressed and hand-stamped so they’re opening it up thinking, ‘oh my goodness, what wedding have I been invited to’ or ‘who is having a birthday?’.
“They get a letter saying, you know, ‘dear neighbour, I’m representing a client who is interested in buying your home’. The more specifics you give them – four bedroom, three bathrooms – the better.”
Tom suggests to pull at the reader’s heartstrings a little, letting the reader know the client has the cash or was approved by the bank but they recently lost out on a home they really wanted.
He suggests writing something alone the lines of ‘we’ve identified your property as the ideal home for them.
“Now here’s the hook, you ready?” Tom asks the video audience. He suggests writing, “‘would you consider a one-day listing?'”
“Can I remind you we live in an on-demand environment? You go to Netflix, you want to watch it right now. You go to Amazon, you want it right now. There is a percentage of customers out there that don’t want to sign in the yard, but they’ve had thoughts of selling. This is a way to hook that person in and get in the door to have a conversation.”
Tom believes asking the homeowner “would you consider a one-day listing just for my buyer to see it?” will result in “sitting back and letting the phone ring”.
2. Using Instagram polls
Tom says using Instagram stories is the key to this hack.
“We’re going to use the live polling option on Instagram stories. You’re going to ask this question: ‘Are you living in your dream home now?’ Use the polling tab where it says yes or no and let them select yes or no,” he says.
“People love polls. You see action on those all the time. Then they go to the next one it it says ‘have you thought of selling in the past few years?’ Yes or no?”
“This is probably something you’ll run maybe every quarter because it’s that good and that simple.”
3. Business card trick
Jason Pantana, who runs Tom’s Marketing Edge event, offered this solution.
“One of the things out clients are doing right now, they’re taking a business card and a little sticky note. They write down ‘call me about your house’.”
The business card should be placed right near the door or even leaned on the door knob.
“You do this to 100 homes, when they call you, what do you do? ‘Hey, thanks so much for calling. I’m actually representing a buyer right now who desperately wants to live in your neighbourhood. I just had to reach out for my customer. Have you had any thought of selling?'”
“Some will be excited, some won’t care. Some, this is just the trigger they needed because they’ve been thinking about selling their home.”
4. Voicemail with a difference
Tom recommends a company called Sly Broadcast. It appears to be US-based but there does seem to be an international option.
“It allows you to record a voicemail and send it to people right to their voicemail,” Tom explains.
Tom recalled a client who said in the pre-recorded voicemail, “I’m representing an all cash buyer who would like a home in your neighbourhood. We just missed out on another opportunity down the street from you. Would you call me today?”
Tom says this client sent the same message out to 10,000 people at once and received 172 phone calls back in the first 24 hours.
Tom also shared an alternative script for the voicemail: “Hey, it’s Tom Ferry. I’m representing a buyer right now. And I gotta tell ya. They are a wonderful couple. They’re desperate to live in your community. And we’ve already actually written an offer. They got beat out by an investor but they’re a nice family that want to live in your neighbourhood. I’m just asking, if you’ve had any thoughts of selling, could you please give me a call now?”
Tom says a key to it sounded authentic is to not sound like you’re reading off a script, explaining it shouldn’t sound “perfect”.
