Tags
drip campaigns that work, email marketing, mayaREguru, real estate, REALTOR, truth in real estate
I knew that would get your attention, but you know if you’ve met me or seen me speak at any events I will say it and I include myself, so don’t get all offended… you know I am bringing the truth and the love. Stick with me, I have wisdom and income info you will WANT and need to check out, I guarantee it!
I don’t often talk about my real estate business lately, but when I do – it’s because something amazing has happened.
Many of you out there might know me and know I had been working to transition back to my prior life in web development/project management, in the process I ended up working for a long time real estate industry friend (and overall good dude) Dan Stewart at Happy Grasshopper.
I will admit, I never used HG when I was my most active in real estate sales. HG came on the scene as I was phasing out to agent training and leadership roles, so I missed the boat. I had plenty of friends who used it (religiously, and totally fanatics) and I often heard of all the successes. Well – you guys know me, I am the “put your money where your mouth is” kinda gal, so I finally did get a Happy Grasshopper account. Guess what? HOLY MOLY! The results… well, let me give you the background.
Covid and the Real Estate Industry
Last Spring, as the pandemic reared its rather brutal head, we saw agents freaking out all over the place that their businesses would curl up and die. I mean, come on guys – you have to admit a REALTOR is a skittish creature but we should ALL be planning well enough that a 30 day period of uncertainty shouldn’t freak us out that much (but we ALL neglect the “activities” we should be doing, hang on – I have a solution for you in a few paragraphs).
Well Dan, and the team here at HG, put our heads together on a zoom call (or twenty), with my Love Birds chirping in the background (relevant point ya’ll, I promise) and came up with a solution we knew would be awesome.
So, you all know I preach we need to work our contacts, nurture our databases – and that’s what HG is ALL about so the alignment here for me works REALLY well. If you are not doing the activities (as my first Broker – and mentor – Gene Millman used to ask when I popped my head into his office complaining about some aspect of the business – miss ya Gene! Love to you and Lisa!),
“Maya, are you doing the activities?” to which I had to say (ok actually think, not say, he knew I wasn’t…) “No, Gene, I am not… on it!” and I was back on track. It’s a hard question and even more difficult to admit when we are failing in some area. Ok so maybe I didn’t say on it, and maybe I drove Gene crazy because 29 or 30 year old me was “un-coachable” but he taught me SOOOOO much!
You Live or Die by your Database in Real Estate
The best planning will only deliver results if we act on those plans. I know this, I’ve lived it. I’ve been obsessed with studying the behavior of the real estate professional, so much so I re-entered college. I spent the last few years studying behavioral and social sciences at Penn State so I can better understand how to help agents and adult learners overcome the difficulties of implementation and related (details are for another post). So, here’s the truth, we want the simple easy way to do anything.
You KNOW what you have to do, but do you know why you need to do it? Do you know how to implement it? The first step in any new process or plan is the hardest, to push into the unknown to not know what the results will be is a deterrent. That leads to procrastination and lack of scheduling discipline. The two most difficult tasks for a majority of real estate agents?
- saying no to protect your schedule and business development activities, and
- actually doing those activities to keep your business running and your pipeline full.
Why is this relevant? It’s coming…
Back to those zoom meetings with my loud parrots in the background. The team at Happy Grasshopper came up with a new affordable product alternative for agents. We wanted to figure out how we could help in those days of complete uncertainty and speculation. As clients asked to cancel, or defer billing – we needed to be able to help them. So Chirp™ was born. Get it? My birds were chirping and annoying, and the product name is… oh nevermind…
If you want to learn about Chirp™, then check this out, I am not going to tell you what and why, I am going to tell you about the results I got when I used it, they were amazing.
I am busy, full-time work, two teens homeschooling via zoom due to the pandemic, five classes at Penn State and a household or people and pets, so I neglect my database like so many of us. Let me be clear, I don’t have a literal database, I have contact lists on multiple spreadsheets collected from all over the place over the last 20 years.
I signed up for Chirp™, uploaded a spreadsheet which I had merged to include only my past clients and my SOI – the people that know me as the snarky Maya, or mayaREguru, because the messages are more personality and conversation than annoying real estate “Set your clock back!” or “Want to know what your house is worth?” (who REALLY wants to get those, and I see you- those of you who have me on your mailing lists, you need to stop sending those – I only read what Jeremy Blanton sends me, or Andrew Pikoff, and you know what – they both use Happy Grasshopper – ironic right? Since I read their stuff before I worked here!).
I sent my first email in mid-December to a whopping 25 people (now I am up to 41). Yup that’s all. It was a test send. You want to know the results? I had a 76% open rate (check out the top image to see the visual proof). I had three clients email me back to reply to my conversational email (they had no idea it was a “mass message”) and three contacted me about listing their homes. So far two of those have closed and I have enjoyed some nice referral fees.
Seriously, I have not had results like this from an email drip campaign since 2004 when I used the old JustListed.com product called “Market Leader” – they had this amazing campaign and people replied. I used to look for something comparable about they shifted, and you can ask my friend Alex Lange, I have gone on and on about how effective that was. I used to pay $450/month for my Market Leader account (it had a few leads with it), but you know what Chirp™ costs? $47 a month (or less if your Broker has a partner account).
Let me put it this way, I sent a single email to 25 people and so far I have received over $10,000 in referral fees in under 3 months (and one more closes next week). Want to find out if Chirp™ can help you? Take this assessment and I promise you won’t regret it. And WHEN you sign up because you read this blog, I will even get the set-up fee returned to you IF you do the following two requirements:
- Sign up for Chirp™ before April 30, 2021.
- Send at least two emails in the first 30 days.
- Show me the results and the two emails via screenshot.
- I will have your account credited with the equivalent of the setup free in free service (typically that is one-month added to the end of your first year).
You’ve got to send me a screen shot, and after you sign up just hit me up here with a comment, or on Twitter at @mayaREguru and I will hook you up. I guarantee it. But you’ve gotta send TWO emails because I KNOW you’ll get results.
Ready to take the “mayaREguru challenge,” or are you too much of a chicken?
P.S. Want more proof? Check out what Randall Martin at CB&A in Houston has to say about the results he got with it, $2mil in listing opps from a single emails!!