A short time ago, I included a chart prepared by Dan Kennedy in one of my Master Marketer reports. Dan included this chart in one of his newsletters and asked the question I used as the title of this post. Well, I thought I would share what I wrote for my Master Marketer members on my blog.
Here is Dan’s chart:
(click on the chart to enlarge)
This chart is for an information marketing business and Dan was asking the reader of his newsletter to compare his or her information marketing business to the one highlighted in this chart. The lesson he was trying to teach was that your business always has more opportunity. In fact, this is what he wrote about this chart…
“Given that a customer is harder and costlier to obtain, optimizing the value of each customer is more critical than ever. One approach to that: the most complete business, with every possible income category covered.”
Well the same lesson applies to every business, including yours. You could easily make a similar chart for your real estate business.
The average agent focuses all of their time and attention on selling more homes. This is fine and dandy, but ignores many very profitable products and services that could be sold to your database of prospects and clients. As an example, I’ve included the chart I used to build my real estate business below:
(Click on the chart to enlarge)
Notice that these products and services were sold to people in my existing database and this is what makes them so profitable. There is minimal advertising expense, because you already have a relationship with the person. You don’t have to run lead generation advertisements for these products and services.
If you study both charts, you’ll see that my chart is basically they same as Dan’s chart. I took many of his ideas and implemented them in my real estate business. The done-for-you services offered were property management and tenant placement services.
For tenant placement, we would simply fill one of our client’s vacancies with a tenant. Once the tenant moved in, our service was complete and the investor managed the home going forward on their own. This service wasn’t super profitable on it’s own, but it did help us sell a lot more homes. The reason why is because some of our investors didn’t want to fill their homes and they also didn’t want to pay for full property management. This service gave them exactly what they wanted and allowed us to increase our home sales and generate additional revenue, both at the same time.
My recommendation for you is to create a similar chart for your business. Obviously my business was engineered for investors and each opportunity we pursued was focused on the investing niche. Your business is different and your chart would also be different. Block some time to make YOUR chart.
Print out your chart and keep it on your desk. Make sure you look at it every day. The reason why is because it’s important to “see” what your building. Otherwise, you’ll get distracted and will never have a complete business. Also in your day-to-day travels keep an eye out for great people that might help you launch one of the new services listed in YOUR chart. You don’t have to be the one doing all of the work. Your job is to have the vision and to find others to help you create your vision!
NOTE: If you do decide to offer new products and services to your database, please discuss your plans with a qualified attorney and make sure that you follow all disclosure requirements mandated by your board and your Division of Real Estate.
