Cold calling sucks! Seriously it's the worst - I know because I myself used to spend hours getting hung up on by FSBO's and Expireds (and I have to say I was pretty good at it).
Just about every real estate coach out there will tout the value and importance of cold calling to grow your business which is why we do it. Still, I hated every second of it and I am willing to bet you do to. Good news: you can quit cold calling and start making more money, working less hours. The best part of all? Clients are going to start chasing you instead of the other way around.
I'm not saying that you won't make any money with cold calling FSBOs and Expireds, all I am saying is that you don't have to work that hard and deal with rude people to make a lot of money in real estate. That's not why you decided to become an agent is it?
What I want you to start doing instead is start working smart instead of working hard. Start implementing passive prospecting techniques like creating targeted real estate content in order to attract your customers.
Content marketing leaders experience 7.8 times more site traffic than non-leaders.*
If you enjoy writing, then creating your own real estate content to harness your customer base will be a rewarding outlet (and still take less time than cold calling). However, if researching, writing, illustrating, and marketing the kinds of content it takes to capture customers isn't your cup of tea, you can always hire a real estate content writer like me.
Already have a real estate blog? I would LOVE to check it out!!! Please comment below so that I can see the awesome work you're doing!!
I don't care how you decide to go about using real estate content marketing for passive prospecting, all that matters is that you start doing it consistently. Face it, cold calling is out-dated, expensive, exhaustive, un-targeted marketing that makes you look desperate, sleazy, and worst of all, people hate you for it. Content marketing however, is a proven way of cultivating and refining qualified leads on your website.
Why is carefully planned real estate content more valuable than cold calling? Because while you can effectively generate real estate content for free, or inexpensively, cold calling actually costs you a lot of money - especially when it works! Let's take a minute and actually do the math to figure out how much cold calling is actually costing you:
Let's say your savvy cold calling phone skills and kick-ass listing presentation land you a $200,000 listing. Congrats - but before you start counting your $12,000 commission as pure profit, let's take a closer look at what you will actually be making after you pay for all of your expenses:
Cold Calling Lists & Dialer: $2,500
Professional Listing Photos: $250
Direct Mailing Listing Campaign: $1,000
Sign Post: $40
Digital Marketing Ads: $50
Newspaper Ads: $300
Open House Catering: $200
Lock Box: $50
Open House Marketing & Materials: $500
Estimated Total Expenses: $4,890 (Pssst...That's more than 30% of your commission - yikes!)
Okay so now your commission is an estimated $7,110. Still sounds like a pretty sweet payday right? Well, lets not forget that you also need to pay a portion of that to your broker. Based on national averages that means you're down another $500, so you're really down to $6,610.
Now are you ready for your jaw to really drop?
According to the NAR, the average real estate agent spends more than 100 hours working on every listing!!!*
I'll give you a second to catch your breath after that one.
So given that average, plus the amount of time it took you to actually get the listing, let's take another look at what you're actually making per hour here:
$6,610 / 120 = $55.08 per hour
Now I know that $55 per hour isn't peanuts by any means. But you're also never going to get rich that way. And don't pretend for a second that when you got your real estate license you didn't spend hours daydreaming about what it would be like to become a Mega Agent and get mega rich! We both know you did - we all do! Besides do you really want to spend 120 hours to make a measly $6,600? Yeah I didn't think so....
As you can see, cold calling is actually costing you a large potion of your commission every single time. Not to mention that it can be a serious
What you can do instead is spend a much smaller amount of time and money by investing your efforts into curating creative and powerful real estate content that works for you 24/7 - forever! That's exactly what your marketing should be doing. When it comes to your marketing efforts, I want you to be able to "set it and forget it".
Want my tips on how to create powerful real estate content that works for you so you don't have to work for customers? Follow this blog.
Already have a real estate blog? I would LOVE to check it out!!! Please comment below so that I can see the awesome work you're doing!!
