Do you know the number one thing that you need to start doing today to bring in business tomorrow?

This is the same for pretty much any business, but mostly, this is really powerful for service based businesses, so real estate, mortgage lenders, insurance builders, etc.

And I’m speaking to mostly real estate agent, but if you are in the service business, you need to start doing this today.

And I’m going to walk you through this and I’m going to give you an insane list that I have gathered together of different ways and ideas to facilitate this for you and that’s what we are going to talk about today.

I’m really excited. Today, I’m going to talk about the number one thing you should be doing to bring in business but I’m not just going to tell you.

So what is the number one thing that you need to be doing starting today?

When I say “start today,” I mean you start and essentially you will never finish. You need to do this every single day, same time every day, well, every work day. You need to rest on some days.

What Do You Think It Is?

I mean, some of you may have already got the notes already so no cheating but what do you think is the number one thing you should be doing everyday?

It’s actually very, very simple, but at the same time, we don’t do it.

Do you know what it is?

The #1 Tool

It is to send “handwritten” notes. You need to send out cards.

Now, let me explain this, a couple of things. I need to tell you exactly what we did in our real estate business, how we used the tools and how we morphed and transitioned and how I’m using it in Leads And Leverage, etc.

To start this all out with, I currently use SendOutCards. I’ve been using SendOutCards for almost ten year and I started out doing handwritten notes.

I had a stack of cards, in fact, it’s right here behind me. I still have massive stacks of cards because my stationary addiction is real. And I still buy real cards so I still have to use real cards.

But, I would literally have a stack of cards on my desk. I would go in the morning and I would just randomly, I would make myself find ten people to send cards to.

I just keep a little list on a yellow pad, red pen, keep it on there so that I knew as I wrote down who I sent cards to, I didn’t like send them a card four days later for the same thing.  

Because after ten, twenty, thirty cards, you forget who’ve you sent cards to.

So here’s the thing with this- you need to send cards. And there are so many different ways.  I’m going to give you again a boatload of resources.

Now, I still send out handwritten cards. I also mostly now, because you all are not right here local to me. I really like the ability to use SendOutCards and I’m going to give you the link to do this so that you can do it because if you are not a SendOutCards member, and if you sign up under me, I’m giving free gifts to everybody who signs up under me.

Now here’s what I did. I started by just sending handwritten notes. We were also heavy, heavy expired prospectors, so we had a lot of our listings were expired listings. So what we would do is we would send mail. I never made a phone call and I never did an in-person delivery with expireds ever. I only ever did direct mail. They called us, period.

That’s what I did. I was leveraging time, I was doing so many I was like “I’m not going to, I don’t have time. We had a lot of listings and we were growing the business so I did all direct mail.

So initially we had our own direct mail process for expireds, but then, after I had been using SendOutCards for awhile I went “why don’t I just put this all inside of SendOutCards?” because I was actually did calculate the costs and I was like “you know it’s costing me a $1 something for this.

I’m just going to use this in here.” So I set it up for automatic and it was really amazing. It was actually gift…like cards so they actually got cards from us, which was better than what we were sending before. That was that.

A Couple Of Key Things

But here’s the thing, you do it consistently. And here’s a couple of key things to this.

Number one

Do not be that smarmy, show your chest hair, gold jewelry salesperson and everytime you send a card like a Labor Day or a Thanksgiving card you ask for business.

Don’t flipping do that. You are not, unless you are like one of those people, don’t do that.

If you actually want them to open your cards and open your notes you need to send to send them stuff, for them.

Absolutely, you can send sales pitches, but they need to be seperate from the holiday greetings, and they need to also be one out of every four or five things you send them so that they’re not turned off to opening what you are giving them.

This is key. This is absolutely key.

So you need to give people cards and letters. You need to send it and there are so many ideas and I don’t even know if all of these ideas got on there but here’s the thing right now this needs to be a top priority.

This should be the #1 thing, the very first thing, the absolute first thing you do you do the minute that you sit down at your desk, absolutely.

So we did it for our business. That’s what we did.

I sent it to past referrals. Now, that’s both people who have given us referrals as individuals, customers and agents. Always. I would send it. I would make sure that once a month, I would send those. That’s what I loved about SendOutCards.

I could automate that process. I could put my own message in and automate that process.

I would do it to agents- every time I went to a conference or an expo and I would get cards, their business cards, guess what they got from me? SendOutCards!

And not just once. Not just once. I would set them up to get something from me especially agents from out of town about every six weeks. I would set that up like that.

Why?

Because I wanted to stay in connection and I did not just say Hey, I’d like your referrals!” I actually had a reason for sending, and a reason to give them value in stuff. I would find things that I thought you know this is a good resource for agents. This is a this, this is a whatever.

This is the thing- whatever you are going to use,whether you use something like SendOutCards or you do your own note cards like I said I do a combination of both still.

I still do a combination of both because I again I am a stationery addict. I’m incapable of walking in a store and not coming out without something like a journal, post-its or note cards. There seriously needs to be a stationery anonymous group for people like me.

So I do both. I have both of those.  Here’s the thing- you need to be sending… Just do a yellow tablet, red pen, and keep it on your desk and keep a stack of cards there. Or set up SendOutCards. Or do both.

I want you to make sure that you send it to all your past referrals. You need to send it to agents that you’ve met over the last twelve months.

You need to do the back-to-school pictures that are on Facebook. People putting out their back-to-school pictures. Put those on cards like one on the front of a card and send it to the person because then they could put that on their fridge.

Who actually prints pictures anymore? Most of us don’t!

That’s really an amazing, valuable thing that you can do for them. You could do that in a regular card if you just want to print it and send that or with SendOutCards. You could put it on the front of a card. You could do that either way.

You need to do birthdays. And I’m not talking go say Happy Birthday on their page. I’m not talking say do a video. Yeah, sure, go ahead do a video.

You should but I would also send them a card for their birthday. If they went out and celebrated on their birthday like on Facebook I would send a picture of that using SendOutCards.  If you want to send it ahead of time, send a card wishing them a Happy Birthday.

So what I do right now because I did that for my clients and stuff, what I do right now for my members every single week, I check to and see everybody who has a birthday coming up so I’m usually about ten days ahead. So I check once a week for everybody who has a birthday coming up.

I send them a birthday card and a two-pack of the SendOutCards brownies. Now the SendOutCards brownies are freaking insane. I’m allergic to wheat so I cannot have them. I did have them before and they are so good, they are so good. I send those out to everybody who is a member for their birthday.

I like doing that. That’s what I have fun doing so you need to do this. People like getting this.

Also for people who used to be members or people who, some of you have maybe bought one of the courses but not the membership, etc. I still send out birthday cards to you all. Because why?

Because I like to. It’s that you don’t need to just do this for your clients, You need to do this for everybody. You need to just send it out for homeowner anniversaries.

You need to…this is a really great one, when people go on vacations or experiences and they share their insane amount of pictures on their albums, you can go into SendOutCards and you can create a tri-fold card, so it’s a decent sized tri-fold card and you can put a smattering of their pictures on the front, on the back, everywhere and just say “it looks like you had a good time! Thought you might like these as a remembrance.”

Something super easy, and nice and friendly that you can do.

And you send it to them, because they probably haven’t gotten their vacation pictures printed yet. Do that. People like that.

And here’s the thing- if you sign up for SendOutCards and you join under the $97/month…I think it’s the Premium membership.

All of these cards that I’m telling you, all of these random, not scheduled cards they are all free. The card is free, the postage is free because you are sending stuff as it happens. It’s a really a huge benefit of SendOutCards.

Now, everyone you meet up with- if you meet somebody at a coffee shop, if you run in somebody somewhere or wherever, take a picture, take a selfie with them, and send them a card, saying “Hey it was nice to see you! Nice to connect with you!” Do that!

Number two

Use Punchbowl.com. I forgot to post this link, so I will be sure to send this to you, but use Punchbowl.com for random “day ideas.”

And what I mean by that is like National Dog Day. Did anybody hear about that this last couple days?  All those people posting pictures of their dogs…

Dude, dude, I’ve got boys in the house if you can’t tell, but dude, you need to take their picture of their pet, of their dog, turn it into a card and send it to them! Yeah totally free, takes no time and is super easy to do!

Time Block

You need to set up your calendar to time block sending cards. You can do it daily first thing or you can do it send a certain amount of cards. You can do it every single week. You can team up with local businesses, coffee shops, frozen yogurt places, food trucks and send out cards with special coupons in them to your database. So many things.

Outsource It

So here’s the thing- once you start getting busy, you’re probably going to toss aside this ritual and you can’t do that. Once you have set up a ritual or a system you need to outsource it and so this is what I do.

For the birthdays I picked the cards that I like. I picked what I wanted to say so I gave our team several different things that I wanted to say in the birthday cards and told them what I wanted sent.

So now, I actually have a team member that checks the birthdays so they check all the birthdays that are coming up and then they send them, based on what I said and the cards I picked, etc. They send them for me, right?

That’s outsourcing but it’s still my voice. I still wrote it and it’s still me doing that.

When we have wins in our membership, people who are opening brokerages or getting a certain number of leads or heck, doing their first Facebook Live, we’re sending those.

And we have it set up so that my team keeps track of them and then they say once a week “Okay what do you want to say on each of these cards?”

They already know the cards that I want to send. I just quickly type what I want to say to them and they send it out for me. So, that’s outsourcing. It’s still my voice. I still know it’s coming to the people. I still want it done but I set up the process for them so that it’s outsourced.

Build Relationships

So as you grow, you need to make sure that you have a way to continue to do these touches with people and really this is building relationships. This is making friends, this is growing your business.

And it is so important and it’s really important that you do this with your fellow real estate agents – watch your colleagues and congratulate them and help them, etc, etc.

Every single thing. You want to make sure that you do that.

People Like Note Cards and Gift Cards

You also need to make sure that you are sending out cards. You have to send out cards. You can’t just start this and then stop. This needs to be important to you.

People like note cards and gift cards.

Now I just started the birthday stuff out to members in May, yeah, I started in May, because I was like “Why am I not doing this? I mean like “I have no idea!” I had just been doing birthday cards but I was like I need to do more so I decided to up my game and started doing more.

We also do random appreciation things so when people do random stuff like something big, they achieved something big we send them gifts.

All this kind of stuff so you know you can watch on Facebook milestones in people’s lives. Just do that.

Don’t get lost in the tunnel that is Facebook but make sure that you have something set up. Use what I gave you as trigger points.

Get a yellow pad and a red pen and keep a stack of cards next to there. Put a time block on your daily schedule or on your weekly schedule to check.

So I have my team doing the set stuff and I have still have my weekly schedule set. It’s Wednesday mornings that I go in and I look and see what else I can send cards to.

My goal, my goal, I want to be at where I’m sending five hundred cards a month. That’s where I want to be at. And I think we’re at like right around 150-200. I want to send that many individual cards. This is not my group stuff. This is not my campaign stuff.   

You can do so many different things! But you want to give people a real card, real, in their hands, tangible. People like that. At Christmas, send Christmas cards, etc.

Words To The Rescue

The $97 a month you can send unlimited amounts of free cards. These are for the random ones where you have to do it every single day. You can’t schedule it. They can’t be like all your Christmas cards that you’re going to say the same thing to everybody. So this is all different.

Reconnect With People

I’m working on upping my card game so I am actually going back to looking at my Facebook, the people that I’m connected with that are not my clients or prospects but maybe that they’re people that I know because I’ve met them in the industry and not real estate industry but in the online business industry.

Those people are going to start getting cards from me too because I need to send more.

I need to develop more relationships.

This is how important this is like it is key and I think so many of these businesses, vendors that are selling you stuff that you pay for every single month you’re not getting any human touch from it.

None and so that’s why I think it’s one of the reasons why we are all into the shiny objects syndrome because we bounce around all the time.   

But, just think about this- if you, as a real estate agent, if you are not giving your people, the people that you want to stay in touch with, the people you want to use  your business services, if you are not giving them any human connection with you, is it any wonder why they might actually even it it’s a family member or a friend, is it any wonder they might actually use someone else for their real estate business? Like seriously.

It’s so mind numbingly obvious to me why because we are not actually trying to have a relationship with them. We are banking on the fact that “oh, they are my sister-in-law or my cousin or my pastor or whatever. They know I’m in real estate.”

If you are not working on a relationship, you don’t have a relationship. You have a “I know them but if you’re not actually working on that relationship you don’t have one.

You need to be sending cards. You need to be giving people a reason to want to stay in a relationship with you. Seriously, you do.

Send cards. Use SendOutCards if you’ve got it. Use my link if you want it but send cards.

This truly is the number one thing every single person should be doing, starting from before they get into real estate and never stopping.

This is like the number one key.

Leveraging Facebook

And you can leverage Facebook for this. That is what’s so great about Facebook.

Facebook’s got this great little announcement thing that every single person that you’re a friend with, it tells you that their birthdays are coming up, In fact you can see upcoming birthdays for the next several weeks or months.

You can’t see mine though because mine is actually turned off. Some people do turn off their birthdays. I turned mine off on Facebook because I don’t like five hundred “Happy Birthday” things on my feed. I just don’t. But that is me personally. That is me alone. I don’t know that there is anybody else that is like that, about that like me.  

So just assume pretty much everyone else has got their birthday put into Facebook and it’s available for you to see so definitely use it.

Questions and Discussion

Jimmy says: 

If we don’t ask for business with SendOutCards, do we brand the card with our businesses?

On the back of the card absolutely you should brand the card.

Absolutely, absolutely.  

When I send cards that are meant for birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, fun stuff, not sales stuff right? When I send cards like that, my information is always on the back, absolutely.

But, on the inside, I don’t say “Christina Ethridge LeadsAndLeverage.com.” I don’t do that. I just sign it  “Christina.” They can see on the return address and on the back who I am and what it is. I want them to realize that my focus is them not everything else. That is huge!

Graduation for their kids! Yes absolutely. You know what? Also, this is a big one. Oh I need to do this. I need to send this off but people who are sending off their kids to college.

So we have a few friends that their kids are like we’re in we’re in by Washington State. So we’re in North Idaho.

We have a few friends whose kids are going to college in Manhattan. That’s a big distance! And they’re showing pictures and I’m going to take some of those pictures and put them on cards. That’s a big one. We have some, it doesn’t matter what the distance is. You should be sending it.

Home closings- yes!  People who do nice things, yes! The nice thing could be as simple as just mentioning something. I mean like really take advantage of this kind of stuff and it could be just be saying “Thanks for being cheerful. It could be whatever and send it.

So if you set yourself up with the requirements that you must send ten cards before you can do everything else like literally, you set that boundary for you, you are going to come up with some really creative ideas and ways to send cards which is where the book “Words to the Rescue” is really nice to have on hand because you’re going to go “Oh my gosh I don’t know what to say.”

Somebody is going to be on Facebook and you’re going to be looking on Facebook going okay they said they were sick. I’m going to send them a get well card. Okay they said they were stressed so I’m going to send them a I don’t know a “I’m voting for you” or “I’m with you” card. Okay they said someone died, I’m going to send them a sympathy card.

Jimmy says: 

Thank you cards, birthday cards,holidays, open house attendees.

Yes  you can do that and actually what I would do for an open house attendee; let’s take it a notch on this. Another idea  for an open house attendee. Give them, don’t sell them, give them a resource.

Like in the card itself, give them a resource and say “You came to the open house, but I wanted to actually give you a resource.” With SendOutCards you could use an entire letter sized card. You could actually send open house attendees a checklist template or something like that so when they go to other open houses, they can compare houses like their favorite things that they liked, didn’t like, etc.

You can totally do that and just say “Hey you were at the open house today and I just thought if you like going to open houses and you’re looking this might come in handy for you.” That’s contextual. That would work.

One year purchase anniversary, absolutely, vendors, yes! So you could send it to….I would send it to vendors especially if you have relationships with lender or inspectors.

I would even send cards, treats and stuff to your county assessor or to wherever you go to get your driver’s license.

I mean dude, those people at the DMV, you might want to actually take something into them but you know they don’t get a lot of love over there.

They just don’t. Take some treats into them. You know do that.

Do DMV, do the vehicle licensing, do driver licensing.  Ours are in two different offices. Take it to escrow companies. All kinds of things. You know anything.

You can do so many different things to just build relationships in places where people do not even think about it and when you do something like the DMV you can go ahead and mail it if you want to but if you get individual people’s  information, mail them cards.Thank them.

If you go to the DMV; I’m going to use that example, and say you get your license renewed, go ahead and send a card to the DMV to attention to that person, and just say “Thanks for making something that takes so long just so much more pleasant or if they were happy, if they were pleasant or if they were just really nice and helpful, whatever, say that.

Do that.

Just know that you don’t like standing in line at the DMV…well look at them. Their butts and their feet are planted to one place all day dealing with you all grumps that  have had to wait in line to an hour to an hour and a half or two hours or three hours, whatever it is.

Just think about it from their end. Send them cards, send them cards, send them treats, send them all kinds of stuff! Banks,stores, everything.

Find out individual people and do it. .Do it to the whole group of them. It doesn’t matter.

Home repair, lawn mowing places, all of those kind of places.  HVAC, everything; send cards.

So I sent you a billion and one ideas and reasons, etc. 

If you signed up for SendOutCards so if you sign up like I was saying and you use my link, I’m going to be sending out copies of “Words to the Rescue,” as a free gift and it’s actually going to come from my home here, because I bought a whole bunch of these to give out.

Thank you so much for joining me today, as always and again, if you are wanting all kinds of ideas, I will be answering your questions in future Facebook Lives.