How to Generate Geo-Farm Leads on a Budget

By: Sharran Srivatsaa

How to Generate Geo-Farm Leads on a Budget

In my last article "How to Build a Geo-Farm on a Budget" we talked about the first five steps to farm on a budget.

As I mentioned, the number one thing that starts to happen when agents begin to have success in a geographical area, or they realize that they can't keep driving around the city to scale their business, is they start to think about geographic farming.

And the first thing that agents realize, either when they launch into a new farm, or when they start one from scratch, is that the initial investment outlay that goes into creating a farm seems daunting and expensive.

So, I want to share with you how to generate leads on a budget.

1. Know All the Vendors That Service the Community

Get to know the:

  • Handymen
  • Landscapers
  • Gardeners
  • Maintenance Team

Have a relationship with every single member in that community. If there's a house under construction, or someone's working the landscape, know who they are, and what they do, and maybe they'll refer you to someone else. Having a deep relationship with those vendors is extremely important because that is what really ties you into that community, especially when you're farming on a budget.

2. Have a Digital Strategy: $5 Facebook Ad

Make sure this digital strategy overlays your traditional walking-around strategy. So here it is; the digital strategy is $5 a day on Facebook. You can either do a boost, or a dark post ad, where you take the house, sitting in the center of the neighborhood, and make it the target point, then do the radius around it. Have a one to a two-mile radius, so that the ad gets served to your community daily. And you have to keep running it, for $5 a day. $5 is the investment; there is no other way to do it!

Don't worry about what to put on the ad. I'd start with something as simple as, branding, using your picture, and have it say, "Sharran sells Newport Beach!" or, "Sharran sells Shady Canyon!", etc., obviously with your name, and targeted place; as long as they see your name, your picture, and the name of their community, you automatically win.

You don't have to link to anything. You could link to an article, or whatever you want (if it's relevant), but your name, picture, and the community name need to be in that ad, so they can start to see the connection between those three components.

3. Ask Every Listing Agent for Open Houses in the Community

Regardless of if they're in network marketing or not, just ask. It could be off hours, or you could say, "Hey, I'm seeing a lot of traffic between 5 PM and 8 PM, on Wednesday evening, and I'm happy to hold this open for you. I'll give you a referral fee for the leads that I get." Whatever it is. Having the ability to hold those homes open, regardless of whether they are listings or not, is extremely crucial.

If I were a listing agent on a farm, and you told me you were going to hold my listing open, two or three days extra, and it wasn't occupied, or already staged, I would allow it, especially if you told me that you were going to give me 25% of any lead that you picked up. Now you get a chance to work the community for free; you get a chance to put up your signs; and who cares if you have to give a referral fee to that agent, because you're buying your way into that farm, with your work ethic and effort.

This even applies to the out-of-area agents; if you happen to see one that you're unfamiliar with in the marketplace, then this is the time to say you'll hold all their homes open. Because getting your signs up there, is the number-one way to build a brand, and community specialist brand, as fast as possible.

4. Know the Stats of the Community

There is no way around this. Build a cheat-sheet for yourself that tells you the:

  • Total number of homes
  • Average sale
  • Price over the last three years
  • Velocity or turnover
  • How many different floor plans exist
  • How many are single family
  • How many are condos
  • How many are owner-occupied / how many are not
  • What the general trend currently is
  • The sales price to list price ratio
  • Active days on market
  • Price per square foot

All of these things may seem overwhelming right now, but as soon as you have them written down on your cheat-sheet, and you look over it every day while you're walking the farm, it's starts to become part of you; part of your DNA, and understanding, and part of your overall knowledge base of the farm. This is where things become interesting, exciting and your knowledge of the community starts to shine.

5. Talk About It

Anywhere you go, if community 'ABC' is your farm and area of expertise, if it's what you're focusing on, then introduce yourself with it! "Hi my name is _, and I work with company _. I specialize in community 'ABC.'" It may be in your office, or during meetings, or talking to a client; it doesn't matter because you can tweak that pitch, but if you're really serious about focusing on farming (not "gardening", which is casual), so you can produce the crop, the results that you really want, you've got to go pro. Meaning, you have to start saying that that is the area you focus on.

So anywhere you go, and whatever you do, you've got to show that you're branding yourself as the community expert. And everyone you speak to also needs to know you're the expert.

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I want to hear how this process worked for you - you can find me on Instagram to share your results at @SharranSrivatsaa.

Sharran Srivatsaa is the CEO of Kingston Lane, a push-button technology execution platform for real estate. Most recently, Sharran grew Teles Properties by 10x in 5 years and led its acquisition to Douglas Elliman.

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