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Here is the best-kept secret about finding new listing leads.

Most agents know what to do when a customer fills out a CMA request on his website (or calls to ask for one). The problem is that those are few and far between. Right? Right. Another concern is that most sellers who ask you for a home valuation also ask several other agents at the same time.

Why do you think that you always seem to be competing with other agents on listing presentations, anyway? Here’s why. We all use the same two age-old favorite and often touted sources of seller leads: FSBO (for sale by owner) sellers and expired listings.

Just like the CMA requests, the problem with both FSBOs and expireds is the fact that you’ll be competing for those listings with the hungriest and most aggressive agents in your market. Have you noticed? I sure have.

And while both FSBO’s and expireds are good sources for listings, those properties tend to be tougher to sell, either because the seller is unrealistic or because the property has been stigmatized by having been on the market since well before you get to list it. That makes typical listing leads lower quality and harder to win. Not a great combination.

I like getting my seller leads from a place where nobody else is looking: from buyer leads! What?! That’s right – from my buyer leads! Let me explain. According to the National Association of REALTORS, first-time homebuyers account for 40% of all real estate purchases.

That 40% number has held constant for years and shows no indication of changing any time soon, although last year with the government sponsored first time home buyer incentives, it did spike up to 47%, but as soon as the program ended, so did the spike. One thing is for certain: none of these first-time homebuyers are listing leads!

Another 23% of homebuyers are looking for investments, while 13% are purchasing vacation homes. Of the investment properties, some are bought to “flip,” while others are bought to hold and rent. The same is true of vacation home sales: many are bought to hold, while many others are step-up purchases, resulting in potential listings as well.

That being said, the best numbers from the NAR tell us that 52% of all buyers are also selling – some in the same markets as their new purchases and some in other markets – so more than half of the buyer leads that you get will also be sellers.

Here’s the little-known secret that will give you the first, and hopefully only, shot at those sellers: Buyer leads almost always find a replacement home before thinking of selling.

As professionals we understand that this is not in the correct order, but our clients typically get it backwards. The human psyche is hard-wired with a security need. We don’t quit our job until we line up another. We don’t sell our car until we find the new one. The same is true with real estate.

The key to generating an unending supply of fresh listing leads is to generate lots of buyer leads and then find the half who are selling too. In most of those cases, you have the opportunity to list a home without anyone else’s knowing it’s going to be on the market. What a huge advantage!

So over half of the buyers will either have a home for you to list or – better yet – have a listing lead you can refer to an agent in another market, giving you a referral fee with very little work involved! No picked-over expireds. No FSBOs that know it all. Just an endless supply of new inbound seller leads with no competition.

And having that endless supply of inbound listing leads is the key to becoming the dominant listing agent in your market. Now I’m going to share an added benefit of generating your own inbound customers.

Never worry about violating the “do not call” regulations again.

In March of 2005, the FCC imposed a $770,000 fine on a Phoenix, Arizona, mortgage company for violating the Federal Do-Not-Call Law. The FCC alleged that Dynasty Mortgage made 70 calls to 50 homes in Arizona and California between March 2, 2004, and January 20, 2005. A fine of $11,000 per incident was imposed on 70 separate counts, and the company was given only 30 days to pay the fine.

Curtis White, Dynasty’s president, said that his company had extensive systems in place to try to ensure that any do-not-call numbers were not called. However, some calls may have been made mistakenly because of a “flaw in the system,” and the company is now working to fix the problem.

If this example doesn’t make you think twice about cold calling, nothing will! I can remember many days of cold calling when I would make more than 70 calls! It would be easy to violate the DNC laws accidentally by calling homes that “showed” to be “okay” on the latest list (which may have been out of date at the time of your calls). And $11,000 is a huge marketing cost to incur accidentally.

So how can you be certain that this kind of disaster never happens to you? By making only prospecting calls to inbound leads! How can you do that? With lead capture gateway technology, every lead is permission-based. By this, I mean that the lead has first contacted you and given you his phone number and, with it, implied consent to market to him.

The Federal Do-Not-Call Law is very clear on the fact that, in such instances, there’s a three-month window of exemption from the date of inquiry. And your innocence is very easy to prove if you have a time-and-date stamped inquiry on file for each lead. Inbound Internet leads are the safest of all leads to call – period.

So how safe is your marketing? Do you have efficient lead capture on your website? If you don’t, the first step to becoming a dominant real estate agent is having too many customers. You really have to start there. Everything else is second to that.

Today, the lead vendors and national real estate companies are spending lots of money tapping the Internet, and if you’re going to compete with them, you’re going to have to have technology that places you on the same level with them.

What’s next? In the next chapter, we’ll start discussing the actual listing presentation that I used to list 114 homes in a single year – all at 8% or more! What’s the key to building your credibility as a listing agent?

How can you go up against the top agents in your market and come out with the listing? How can you be totally confident walking into every single listing presentation? How can you make your presentation different from every other agent’s in your market?

All these questions will be answered in the next chapter, so you won’t want to miss it. In the meantime, work on getting your technology and your advertising in place. There’s never going to be a better time to start than right now.

Design Presentation Folders for the Long Term

Professionally designed presentation folders offer a unique advantage over many other forms of advertisement because, often, customers or clients keep them and use them over and over again, which keeps your company name out there, reaching farther and wider audiences than you initially planned for.

Choose Quality Presentation folders

For most forms of print advertising, such as business cards, postcards, brochures, and the like, you can shop around and often, get by with the most affordable price and no one will know the difference. However, presentation folders need to be not only attractive, but strong and sturdy as well, even if you don’t put much in them. Let me illustrate: Recently, a friend of mine began house hunting. She initially looked at a mobile home park but then changed her mind and decided to stick with traditional housing. Everywhere she goes, she takes the presentation folder from the first place she looked – the mobile home park. Just the other day, over lunch, she was showing me listings she had printed from the Internet and had organized in her presentation folder. Even though the mobile home park did not get her business, they have no idea how much free advertising they’re gaining because of my friend.

I’ve done it myself. I’ve used presentation folders that I’ve received from job training sessions for years afterwards to keep papers organized. There are countless uses for these little gems and if your logo and business name is affixed prominently on the outside, your advertising budget may not take quite as big a punch when you consider the long-term effects of the folders.

Design With the Eco Conscious in Mind

There’s a growing segment of the population that will reuse almost anything until there’s nothing left of it simply to prevent as much trash as possible from ending up in the landfills. This group reuses aluminum foil, envelopes, and makes scratch pads out of used calendar pages. People used to laugh at them but as more of the country and more products become environmentally friendly, fewer people laugh. That means more people are reusing presentation folders instead of throwing them away. That means more people will see your company name and while it may not cause a rush of business, it will serve as another avenue to keep your name in the minds of the public.

Keep this in mind next time you order presentation folders for a team meeting or to present to clients. Chances are, many more people will see them than you originally thought.