Face it. Nobody wants to be sold to. Especially by a “real estate” agent touting for new listings.FootInDoor

But if you’re in sales, unless you can consistently get in front of good quality prospects, you’ll starve.

This is how a local sales agent, Steven, got through and made a friend.

The story was related to me by a friend, Jenny Cartwright.

Just before Father’s Day Jenny received a postcard with a “Win $500 by telling us why your Dad is the best”.

Her younger son immediately filled it in and sent it off. The older resisted stating, “It will just be an excuse for the real estate agent to keep ringing or mailing us because they will want us to give our phone number and email.”

Jenny’s response? “Send it in anyway, you can always unsubscribe.” He did, but missed the submission deadline.

Sure enough, older son was right. 9:30am Saturday Steven rang and politely said he’d loved the submission, but unfortunately her son hadn’t won as it was late. That was it for the conversation.

30 minutes later, he rang again asking for Jenny’s younger son. Tim had won the second prize, a bottle of Moet & Chandon Champagne for Dad and he’d like to deliver it personally.

Everyone was home when Steven arrived. They found him extremely personable and liked him. While chatting with them Steven found out if Jenny might be thinking of selling and gave her tips on how to raise the value when they did.

In Jenny’s words, “It was a win/win all round and guess who we will be contacting when we want to sell?”

Couple of lessons here.

You have to build a list of possible prospects you can keep in touch with over time.

Steven was willing to invest in a $500 main prize and a few bottles of Champagne to get a foot in the door.

And if you’re thinking, that’s a lot of money, think of the possible return.

An agent’s commission in Sydney is around 2% to 2.5% on average. So on an average $1.5M home in her area he’d stand to make around $37,500.

Not a bad investment on his part.

Using this method he got to know some of the locals and start building a relationship. Which is likely to be far more effective than generic advertising which can cost far more, for much lower returns.

What could you do in your business to get a foot in the door?

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