All successful real estate agents/brokers share many common attributes and this is what makes them successful.  When I teach new Realtors how to get started in real estate brokerage I tell them “Look at other successful agents and follow the habits that make them successful.” Successful agents aren’t better than you are; they just do things that need to be done to get the business. Here is a tip, the things that you don’t like to do: cold call, seek out people whose house has recently expired in the MLS, talk to FSBOs and convert them to listings. They provably don’t like to do either, but that’s what makes them successful.

If you talk to successful Realtors here is what they will say that makes them successful:

HABIT #1: Invest Money in Advertising. You must get your name into the public. “Top-of-mind” mentality is what it takes to get people to call you before the call your competitor. The average agent spends 10% of every commission dollar to new business. On every deal you close, you should place 10% into a marketing account and never touch that money for ANYTHING other marketing yourself.

HABIT #2: Use Multiple Sources for Advertising. Know where to spend your advertising money. Print, web, radio etc. are just a few ways to make you know. It may take some time to determine the best method of advertising for you, your client and your properties.

HABIT #3: Track Your Results of Your Efforts. “Know from where your leads come” is the mantra you should be chanting when you spend your marketing dollar. Knowing where each dollar went and what it produced is more important, if not more than the marketing itself. Spending money that brings ZERO leads is worse than spending no money to get the same ZERO leads.

HABIT #4: Set Clear Sales, Listing and Production Goals. Becoming a success at any area of your life is only determined by you as person and no one else; however, for you to recognize that success you must compare to a preconceived notion of success, i.e. goals. Annual income, total number of properties sold, dollar value to total properties sold, respect by your peers etc. are all commons ways to measure success in the Realtor world.  To make this comparison you must know what your end points are to be. Setting goals is the biggest predictor of success in ANY field, as determined by most all success people you talk too.

HABIT #5: Keep Up with New Technology. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, blogging, etc are words that didn’t even exist five years ago. As more communication channels emerge, there are more avenues to market your properties and yourself than ever. New technology to get more information, much quicker and with better consistency to your client is being created everyday. Keeping up with what’s current and hot is a tough job, but necessary to make the smart consumer happier and more comfortable with you as a whole. 

HABIT #6: Stand Out from the Crowd. When consumers are asked to asked name a real estate company, over 75% could name at least 3 major companies in there area. However, all consumers stated that they were working with their particular Realtor for some specific reason, either strength in knowledge of the area, “recognize”ability in their market or a leader is a specific “niche” market. In all cases, it was due to that particular agent stood out as being the one to go to. You need to become that “go to” person. Make yourself a celebrity in your field for some reason: knowledge, expertise, dedication, etc.

Those are the key habits-ones with a proven impact in producing a successful Realtor. In challenging times like these, knowing you can adopt simple and proven techniques to succeed is strong and reassuring.

As a licensed real estate instructor I often tell my class that real estate is only about 20 – 25% real estate and the rest is marketing, networking and selling yourself and your listings to other people. This comes as quite a shock too many new students as the peer over their books and wonder what planet from which I have come.  “Yes” I nod a second time, knowing everything in the “big book of real estate” means very little if you can’t sell the property, tell anyone about or even get people to know it exists.

Therefore, I ALWAYS make sure my students know that marketing properties in a successful manner is the paramount key to becoming a very profitable Realtor. So I decided to sit down and list my favorite 20 ways to market properties “for sale.”  Feel free to steal any of these methods you want, email me with others that may be your favorite. My email is raymond@realestatemonkey.com. Really, feel free to email me, what kind of guy would give his email out if he didn’t expect to get a few answers.

• Multiple Listing Service (MLS) – this is the “Holy Grail” of marketing properties ‘For Sale’ in any city in the United States. All licensed Realtors will use this method; however, the bad thing is some Realtors think this is the “only” method of marketing. They simply place their listings in the MLS and wait for other, much better, Realtors to sell the listing for them.

• Flyer Box – This is a great way for people who have an interest in a property to take some information with them as the drive past your listing. You don’t know how many people call me and ask about a property I have listed and then forget the address, price or street name. By having a box full of flyers will allow that potential Buyer to remember that property and make that important “showing” call to the agent.

• Yard Sign – If the MLS is the “Holy Grail,” then this is a close second for all Realtor marketing. Yes the yard sign can play a very important part in attracting attention to passers-by and thus create more exposure which translates to a Buyer. I am a big advocate of bright colors and simple designs with only one point of contact. Having a website is great, but don’t confuse people as they pass your listing by making them look at two different phone numbers, your email address and a company website. <KISS>

• Radio Advertisements – As a local celebrity and real estate radio-talk show host, I love radio ads for homes.  Most of the time you have a very pin-point audience listening to my show and therefore people in the biz, Investors, Buyers and Sellers alike listening. A dedicated commercial for 1 specific house can be a great to reach thousands, if not tens-of-thousands of people at one shot.

• Television Advertisements – Very similar to the radio ad method as long as the commercial is played during a show that will have a specific demographic watching the show.

• Newspaper Advertisements – Once again the same theory as the two prior, only in a print version of the commercial.  I must admit that newspaper advertising is quickly becoming one of my least favorite methods due to the rising costs and diminishing response I have seen over the last three to five years.

• Direct Mail – This method of marketing is a very good way to target a specific audience of potential Buyers when you are marketing a certain type of house. Example: if you were marketing a “first-time” home buyer type of house, a direct mailer to an apartment complex nearby would be an excellent way of find that one Buyer you want.

• Dedicated Websites – The low cost of website domain names and hosting in today’s world make it a very viable marketing method to buy, build and market an entire website dedicated to only one property. The inherently great thing about real estate is the uniqueness of each physical address which allows for only one virtual web address. Simply put, the domain address that corresponds to the physical address should always be available. Example: if you are marketing 1234 Smith Street Anytown USA, you should almost always be able to get www.1234smithstreet.com as a domain name. The paramount factor with this concept is the fact that virtual addresses have UNLIMITED space to place pictures, maps, local restaurant information, school information, neighborhood information, surveys and much, much more without any added cost.

• Airplane “Puller” – Don’t laugh. This is by far my most efficient method of marketing real estate to date. I have used and airplane “puller” one time and sold the house based upon that ad. 100 percent success rate, I challenge anybody to find a better success rate that that.  Of course, I used this during a very, very large public gathering of people during a local festival that was attended by hundreds of thousands of spectators. You could say it was the biggest spectacle in racing (Hint hint)

• Flyers & “Pull” Tabs – Reverting back to my childhood days of lemonade stands, apartment hunting and used cars for sale; I am reminded that “good ole” flyers work wonders. Placing them on everything that isn’t moving is a cleaver, and cheap, way to get the word out about the house.  Another trick to make the flyer last a little longer is to create “pull” tabs. This is where you place your phone number at the bottom on pre-cut little strips so that someone can just rip your number off versus taking the entire flyer with them. As an added trick, always tear one tab off yourself, this appears that someone else is already interested and you know, people always want what other people want.

• Open House – Boring. But workable. Open houses are one of the oldest and most ingrained ways to market a house. This is one of the first activities that a new agent learns to do outside of the office.

• “Sandwich” Board Advertisements – This is a great comical attention getter that usually works in conjunction with another marketing techniques. Example: when having an open house, use a your favorite or not-so-favorite brother, friend, neighbor to don a “sandwich” board and help point the way to the promised land for those potential Buyers looking for your open house.

• Free Real Estate Websites – In this day and age of technology the world is getting smaller and smaller. Realtors are now noticing the fact that in some cases, houses are being bought by people NOT living in the area: investors, military, job transfers etc. There are numerous real estate websites and “classified” sites that allow real estate ads that can be used to market your property, both free and pay sites as well.

• Direct Emails – The advent of the email address has been one of the best inventions this century and the other edge of the sword says it has also been the worst invention. Instant communication between parties has been a boon to business and people needing a “now” answer; however, this has led to the “spamming” of unwanted advertisements virtually 24/7 to your inbox. Using this mass marketing system combined with the “now” touch allows for Realtors to send hundreds and thousands of communiqué with the push of just one button. I must warn you that too many people may see this type of communication as “spam” and therefore might disregard your email altogether.  That is why I advocate an opt-in method of acquiring email addresses. Whether its via you own website you collect or buying emails from a broker.

• Neighborhood 2×10 Walk – This is one of top methods that always produces one viewing of my listing every time. This is a simple strategy that requires the Realtor to walk the street of his listing and speak directly to the neighbors 5 houses in each direction on both sides of the street.  Most people know at least one person in the process of buying a house and would love to have their friend move close to them and therefore buy your listing

• “Garage” Sale Advertising – This is a sneaky method that has worked for me before but also has produced some irate passers-by. Place a “garage” sale ad in the garage sale section of the local newspaper (usually cheaper than the open house section) and when people stop by to check out the sale, you provide an ad hoc open house or private viewing for them. Seldom do the people stopping by ever buy the house; however, they can become advocates of your house to their friends and family.

• Local Business Partnership – Becoming a partner with a local business that will allow you to advertise in the store in some fashion. A great method is pizza delivery companies will allow (not free of course) you to create a small flyer and they will place that flyer on the pizza box top when they deliver a pizza. Dry cleaners usually have a bulletin board that you can place your flyer (this one is usually free). There are many, many ways to make deals with most every service company in your area. Creativity is the key.

• Newspaper Inserts – Unlike traditional newspaper advertising contained within the newspaper itself, this method is external to the newspaper and is actually a separate flyer that gets wrapped up inside the newspaper when they are delivered to a neighborhood.

• HOA Advertisements – Most home owner associations (HOA) create and distribute a newsletter or flyer to all of their houses in a given area. These people are always looking for small advertisers to help defray the cost of the newsletter and thus the home owners in general. You could even foot the entire bill of a newsletter in exchange for a full page ad on the inside if you so choose.

• Thrift/“Penny Saver” Paper – Like to general populous newspaper, these are print newspaper that are geared to a certain locale of a city. A South/North/West/East side newspaper or neighborhood newspaper often run at much less cost due to their delivery size and therefore have less expensive ad rates to the consumer advertiser.

“Able to leap tall building is a single bound, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, Up in the sky…it’s a bird…it’s a plane…its Superman.” Well not literally, but you can be the real estate equivalent of Superman by taking to heart these 5 key concepts. If you want your career to soar to new heights and outpace your competition by a mile, then I suggest you implement these 5 key concepts NOW! As you know, the paramount issue to surviving as a Realtor is being the first name that anyone thinks about, mentions or recommends when talking about real estate. The key is very simple…you need to be that name. The task on the other hand, is a bit more problematic. If you want to stay ahead of the curve and your competition, I believe there are five key concepts that you must excel and conquer to become the “Super Realtor.”

1) Be visible. Becoming visible is a function of the amount of exposure to your client base. Making yourself a common name is crucial to any advertising campaign, look at any national brand of anything and you’ll understand what I mean. Every action you do, should in some part be designed to increase your exposure to your clients, whether it is volunteering for a local charity, writing an article in your local newsletter, or just plain advertising your company in the newspaper. Increasing your exposure to create a “top-of-mind” awareness in your clients’ mind is the paramount concept to becoming a Super Realtor.

2) Be educated. Being able to both understand your market and talk about your market is very important when speaking with your client. Knowing the important issues that face your client, like days-on-market, average selling price, requirements for lenders, etc. will benefit you by gaining your clients’ trust and respect. There are many specialized designations within the real estate world, and obtaining higher education you are able to benefit your clients and dominate your market.

3) Be the expert. Prove your mastery of your market by writing about it, speaking about it and teaching about it. Writing an article for a local newspaper, company flyer or newsletter is an excellent way to prove your knowledge and instill confidence in your clients. Supplement other people’s articles with podcasts, videocasts and webinars about related topics. Blog about your industry, produce podcasts, videocasts, interviews, predictions, solutions, reports, ebooks. Teaching has amazing benefits: it solidifies your knowledge of a topic and gives you instant credibility as “the expert” in your field. If you don’t have the opportunity to teach, then consider answering questions on sites like Linked Answers or Yahoo Questions.

4) Be Focused. Concentrating in just one area of the real estate market is one of the best ways to move to the head of the class. Choosing a niche market to excel can be beneficial in many ways. By narrowing down your market and concentrating in one area it is much easier to be visible, get educated and become the expert.

5) Be persistent. It’s easy to be good when the market is easy, but hard to be good when the market is hard. So says most every Realtor you and I know. Going the extra mile to remain constant and diligent in the tough market is key to surviving. However, the bright side is that once the “market” turns again, you are better suited to make even bigger strides in your domination of the local market.