#22 (Step 3): House List Cultivation System 7: Top 20% Power Player Systems™

Step #3: How To CULTIVATE Your House List For Endless New Clients, Referrals and Repeat Business. . .

Today I want to share a little “marketing secret” with you.

It’s something very, very few agents understand.  And knowing it can deliver you more clients in a month than you now get in 6-months…or even a year…while spending less time, less energy and less money in your business.

Here’s the “secret” in a nutshell:

Do you remember the “Real Estate Success Pyramid™” I revealed to you back in article 14?

Well…if you took a look at that pyramid, you’d notice a very small area at the top with a red star.  Do you know WHY I put that red star at the top of the pyramid?

Because…once you start using the systems I am teaching you here…you’re going to realize that the area with the red star represents…

The MOST VALUABLE ASSET of
Your Real Estate Business

That little area represents a small, yet brutally-profitable group of people who are “hyper-responsive” at sending you referrals, word of mouth and repeat business.

I call these people – your “Top 20% Power Players.”

Without a doubt, THESE people are the most valuable asset in your practice – even greater than your general House List.

How valuable?

Agents tell me that harvesting these 20% produces up to 80% of their business (yes, it’s the old 80-20 rule).  But most agents forget about these people.  Most agents either never identify them, or never acknowledge their importance to the agents’ success.

And as a result…they harvest only a small fraction of the business they could get from these folks.

But that won’t be the case with you – at least not any longer.

Today I’m going to share with you FOUR systems for acknowledging your “Top 20% Power Players™” in your practice.  You’re going to get pro-active about your relationship with these folks.

And in doing so, you’ll automatically harvest more and more referrals and new clients year after year – the easy way.

Each of these systems will be what I call “TIME” systems – so you’ll manage them with your “monthly” contact checklists (if you don’t know what I’m talking about here, go back and read article 15 – it just might save your practice!).

Top 20% System #1: Your Inner-Circle System™

Did you know that people like to be treated as “special”?

They love to be treated like VIP’s.  They love to stand-out as a cut-above the rest.  They love to see their name in print.  Napoleon Bonaparte once said…

“My Life Changed the Day I Realized that
A Man Will DIE for a Blue Ribbon…”

It’s amazing what people will do for recognition – just ask Mary Kay.  And that’s just one reason why you should create a very special “Inner Circle Club” to your real estate practice.

Your inner circle club is your unique way of recognizing people who support your business…and reinforcing their behavior by making them feel SPECIAL.

After all, they are the most important people in your business – the crème de la crème of your House List.  And you don’t need to spend much money in the process.

So HOW do you create your own “Inner Circle Club”?

It’s actually quite easy.  The first step in the process is to simply LIST OUT all the “special privileges and status” for those who send you referrals and support your business.

Remember, your goal is to make them feel special.

I’ve created a short letter below you can send to anyone who sends you referrals.  You’ll notice it outlines a few examples and benefits of your “Inner Circle Club”…and you’ll want to customize it (that means add services unique to you) for YOUR practice…

Remember, if you want to continue the process of getting more and more referrals from your “Top 20% Power Players”, you must specially acknowledge them.

Top 20% System #2:  Inner-Circle Special Event System™

Want to make a positive impression with your “Top 20% Inner Circle” as a group?

Think about holding one of these events once or twice a year…

1. A special wine or beer tasting party.  Just locate one of your favorite distributors or retail stores, and they’ll set it all up for you.
2. A special seminar or workshop.  You name the topic, but make sure it’s something people would really value: Investments, tax saving strategies, and special topics.
3. Hold a fashion show with a local high-end boutique.
4. Create a family picnic once a year for your inner circle members
5. Have an annual Comedy Club outing.  Simply go to a local comedy club in your area, and book a night when great performers will be appearing.  Often you can book a weeknight and get discount rates.
6. Hold a Christmas Party.
7. Hold a Sports Clinic if you find many of your clients like a certain sport: Power walking, running, cycling, etc.
8. Hold an Art Show with a local gallery.  This is very classy way to meet with many network members at once.  Consider holding a Wine Tasting with your art show.
9. Every year, buy 5 or 6 sets of tickets to your local opera or theater group.  Then, for each performance, give away a set of tickets to someone special.  If you buy 5 sets of tickets with 8 shows apiece, you’ll have enough tickets to send 40 people to a show.
10. Coordinate a New Automobile Preview with a local high-end or exotic auto dealership (BMW, Lexis, Mercedes, Infinity, Porsche, Ferrari, etc).  They’ll be ecstatic you’re promoting their cars, and will gladly participate with your inner circle network.

Couldn’t you do any of these with your Top 20% Power Players, spending very little money in the process?

On the next page I’ve reproduced an invitation to a Comedy Club Party that was paid for entirely by service suppliers (mortgage lenders, appraisers, title companies), and netted over $20,000 in direct business less than 30 days after the event – and keeps pulling business…because real estate is about RELATIONSHIPS!

Here’s the inside of the invite…

Top 20% System #3:  The “Unexpected Gift System™

Here’s a system that plays off the “Perennial Post Premium” you learned about in article 19 (after-sale systems).

But in this case, you’re sending a special, small gift certificate to your Power Players when they’re not expecting it.

Here’s what you do…

Just go out to a local retail store – coffee house, florist, etc. – and ask them for a very special price to send a sample of their product to special members of your House List.

Remember, there’s new business in this strategy for the retailer, so they should be more than willing to give you a special deal.  Again, this is a very inexpensive, yet “touching” way to make a positive impression.

You will get incredible feedback when you take this small, yet personal gesture with your Top 20% Power Players.

Here’s an example of simply giving out a gift certificate for 2 Free Coffees at a specialty coffee shop (note: the other side of the card would have the coffee house locations, phone number, etc.)

Top 20% System #4:  Your “Personal Call System”

This system sounds alarmingly simple, yet, not long ago, I read about a $71-millon dollar producer who uses this method as a dominant marketing system in her practice.

I frequently talk about spending 70% of your time cultivating the top 20% of your network.  That’s because people who generally refer once to you will refer again and again if you build the relationship.

That’s where your Personal Call System with your Top 20% Inner Circle Club can really pay off.  Here are a few tips for creating your personal call system…

1. Take the number of Top 20% Power Players you have and divide it by 25.  That will give you (roughly) the number of members you need to call each week to speak with each one TWICE a year.  For example, if you have 200 inner circle members, you need to call 8 each week to speak with them all every 6 months.  If you want to speak with each one at least quarterly, take your membership and divide it by 12 – to get the number you need to call weekly (in this example, that would be 16 people called each week).
2. Create a special schedule and set aside time one day a week to make your calls.  It will only take you about 20 minutes a week if you have a lot of Top 20% people – that’s hardly a sacrifice to get more referrals, right?
3. You need always have a reason for calling.  So make one.  It could be an invite to lunch.  It could be a great article reprint you found.  Or, best yet, you should know about the profession and hobbies of your inner circle members.  Why not find a topic about their favorite sport, and call to send an article reprint.  Or get them a gift certificate to a local hobby or sports shop.  Either way, you need to communicate with them.  Some agents don’t call, but send something, as I mentioned above.
4. Continue to build upon your relationship momentum.  Over time, it will be like calling your friend.  You’ll never want for something to say, or a reason for calling.

If it works for a $71 million producer, it’ll work for you too.  How ’bout it?

Today’s Action Plan:

You work hard.  Prospecting, previewing, listing, showing and selling can really take their toll.

That’s why you need to get the very most out of every relationship you create in your practice.  And no relationship has the ability to translate into raw commissions than that of your 20% Power Players.

What I’ve covered here is not difficult.  If you simply implement 2 of the systems you learned here, AND use them consistently – you’ll be lightyears ahead of other agents who mostly 1) don’t even “prioritize” their house list – so they don’t even know they have “Power Players”, and 2) do nothing to uniquely reward their Power Players…and thus multiply the volume of business they could be getting.

So that’s your goal: 2 of the systems here.  Just do them…and do them consistently.

Coming Up Next…

We’ve just completed the very last of the 7 Essential House List Cultivation™ systems.

These are the main systems for getting your House List actively sending you new clients, referrals, word of mouth and repeat business.  And they’re the same secrets to lasting success in real estate.

Do you remember the 7 systems?

They are…

1. WOW Your Client Systems™  (Article 16)
2. Calendar Contact Systems™  (Article 17)
3. Transaction Referral Programming Systems™  (Article 18)
4. After Sale Systems™  (Article 19)
5. Life Event Contact Systems™  (Article 20)
6. Referral Reward Systems™  (Article 21)
7. Top 20% Power Player Systems™  (Article 22)

Congratulations.  You’ve made it.  This concludes Step #3 in PART II of our “Endless Clients” System (if you’d like to see the 4-Step Process we’re detailing, see “Article 8”).

But we’re not finished yet.

In Step #4, I’m going to share with you a number of revelations and marketing strategies to accelerate your production to Critical Mass™.

Do you remember Critical Mass™ from Article 5?

This is where you take everything you’ve implemented up to this point and accelerate it into an automatic, ever-growing $7-Figure production.

We’ll begin Step #4 with my next article titled, “The Secret Psychology of Belonging.”  This one idea will help differentiate you from other agents by deepening your relationship with your House List.

And that makes all the difference in the world.

So keep an eye-out for my next article, coming in just a few days…