Are You a Lender Planning an Event for Real Estate Agents?

Here is an action plan to help you form a “things to do list,” while planning your real estate seminar. Our goal is not only to have the most successful real estate seminar your area has ever seen but also to produce more business for you! We can’t let those low rates from “you know who” hurt any forward momentum in capturing all the business in your town.

Here is a good action plan that was implemented by a mortgage company and has proven to be successful. Rates going up means you have to go after those real estate agents!

1. Call executive officers of all real estate boards involved in the area. Let the officers know your plans to hold an exclusive seminar. Let them know that you will be bringing in a well-known speaker. Ask for their participation and feedback on the date, location, and marketing techniques.

a. Real estate boards will usually market a seminar for free, if they get some credit as a service provider to their members. The marketing techniques used by most real estate boards to promote a seminar are as follows:

1) Broadcast email
2) Broadcast fax
3) Direct mail
4) Advertisements in all board function printings
5) Announcements at all board meeting
6) Announcements at all board functions
7) Stage time for you at board event

b. They should also provide a short list of all top producers, brokers, and managers in that board so that a special promotion program can be aimed at those “high yield” agents through your company. This special promotion may include:

1) VIP mailings (invitations)
2) VIP seating
3) Private lunch with speaker
4) Direct phone calls and visits from your individual loan officers (great for business building)
5) Direct phone calls and visits from your management (also great for business)
6) Email drip system

2. Solidify a date with a local hotel or another reputable meeting facility.

3. Solidify with Sanford Systems the date and time. Ask to make an appointment with Walter to discuss a custom designed topic for the area, market, and demographic. We can also mail out a marketing kit immediately upon request. It has more tools to help you plan a perfect event.

4. Prepare marketing materials that should include a great promotion for the real estate boards to use, flyers for loan officers, and other sponsors to hand out and mail. A one-page information sheet is great. Personal invitations are wonderful, and stickers for agents to place in their “low tech” daily planners really help, too. Don’t forget tickets with a value on them!

5. Think about additional sponsors who would not cause dilution of the sales message but would help defray costs and promote marketing.

6. Invite Walter to a conference call with all loan officers. In this call, it would be good to discuss the marketing options, techniques to form alliances with top producing real estate agents, and follow-up procedures after the seminar to make it the most profitable. He will also help your loan officers overcome any objections they may receive. Walter will also propose methods for getting the top real estate agents’ assistants there, too!

7. Develop a pre- and post- email or direct mailing program to the attendees. This will provide them a few months of follow-up so that the lessons of the seminar are not quickly forgotten and relationships are built.

8. Have Walter record an audio promotion on your IVR system that can be promoted in all marketing materials.

9. Check and approve facilities…once again. The date of the seminar should be confirmed with the facility. The facility should easily handle the expected number of attendees figuring a 20% no-show rate. The facility should be clean, provide a decent meal (if needed), have plenty of parking, be air conditioned, and have audio-visual requirements that allow the attendees to see 10 point print from the back of the room from a projector. It would be very nice to have a house system CD player that would be playing motivational music before and after the seminar.

10. Prepare for a last minute telemarketing blitz. This will remind everyone of the seminar, ask everyone to recommit their attendance, and remind them to bring their assistant and/or friend to the seminar. If they cannot make it, ask for their ticket to be returned so that it may be given to someone else. This builds perceived value!

11. Design your presence at the seminar. This could be a trade show booth or you could prepare handouts including items that differentiate your company and market share. You could also provide note taking material and even a possible discount certificate for their next loan. It would be great for you to have a short talk on the benefits of your company, to handle Walter’s introduction, and to give a short promotion of any other sponsors.

12. Obtain lists of managers and other major decision-makers that Walter Sanford can personally call to talk about how to get whole offices to attend. We love to build you up with pre-appointed conference calls.

You should expect 200 to 600 agents in metropolitan markets. Walter can get commitments from 70% of the room for a loan directed to you in the next 30 days. Your loan officer’s fear of approaching top producers will be diminished because Walter will clear the way for you. He will get the “OK” on each of those commitments to meet with you in writing on the back of their cards.

Let us help you arrange, coordinate, and plan this profitable, relationship-building event. Call me today at 1.800.792.5837.

Sincerely,
Cyndi Hayward
General Manager
Sanford Systems and Strategies