The Farming Formula That Works

Subtle skills, big results.

Welcome to the Ninja Selling Podcast. Hey everyone, it's your good friend Eric Thompson. This is the Ninja Sewing Podcast. Hey, thank you so much for listening. We always appreciate it. We have a great episode lined up for you today. I'm here in person. with a very special person. It is Ninja Extraordinaire. Hope George is here with us today. So Hope, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Eric. I am so excited to be here.

We are excited to have you here. It's it's exciting to be here with you in person. Everyone should know we are recording this during a ninja installation. We're on lunch break. We're taking the advantage to get to know hope. And uh everyone should know right up front where we're headed, the question we're gonna answer.

How do you farm? How do you have an effective farming program? Most importantly, how do you farm like a ninja and get ninja-like results? Hope is a farmer extraordinaire. She farms like a ninja. She gets incredible results. We're going to hear all about that. Hope first. Help us get to know you a little bit better. Tell us the company you're with, where you live, tell us about your family.

Great. Yeah, I'm happy to do that. So I'm Hope and I'm the team leader of Hope George Real Estate. We are in the Richmond, Virginia market. So that's home to me, born and bred in central Virginia. And my team is under the brokerage called Real Broker, which is a North American brokerage. Is going into my ninth year as a licensee. Really exciting things are happening. And I have been married to one husband for thirty two years. So it's working out so far.

Congratulations on that. That maybe we'll do another episode on how to stay married for thirty Exactly. It's cause I married the right guy. He puts up with all of my vision and shenanigans and all that fun stuff. But we have two children. twenty-five and twenty-two. Our son David is twenty-five and he is an amazing individual. He is high functioning on the autism spectrum.

And he was really m one of my big whys on why I came into real estate because I needed that flexibility to look after him. But he's doing great. He has a associate's degree. He drives. He has a job. He goes three days a week and works in the public. And so we're just so proud of him. And our daughter, Morgan, is twenty two. She is a respiratory therapist. So she has a bachelor's degree in that.

She's working in ICU, she's saving lives. So if you remember back during COVID, all the people on ventilators and all that, that's what she does. So really hard work for her, but she's passionate about healing and helping. So we're just so proud of them. And then we're poodle people because my husband's allergic to pet hair.

So we've got a standard poodle, Elsie, and we've got this little devil named Penny and she's this little eleven pound red one and like she bites me every day. So really we call her El Diablo. She's the little devil. So yeah, that's a little bit about me and where I'm coming from. Amazing. And you have education in your background. Before real estate you were an an educator. Yes, I was in the nineties. I'm showing my age. I was a high school English and drama teacher.

did that for four years and I knew at year two that I could not hang out backstage with fourteen year olds for the rest of my life. So I immediately went to grad school, got a master's degree in administration. I have the best, most supportive husband because two weeks after I graduated I started my doctoral program and he was just right behind me with it. That's when we were having our babies and it took a village, definitely. But I became a medal school principal.

And I became a part-time college professor and my mom, we were her caregivers for eight years. Before she passed. So couldn't hold the keys to a middle school anymore. It was just not flexible enough. So I came into real estate. Yeah, you're just amazing. And I love it.

Yeah, clearly you love it. You're getting amazing results. So let's talk about that so that we have all of this in context. You had a really good year last year. You had a year where you earned eight hundred and eighty thousand in gross commissions. Bravo.

And we're celebrating that. And a big portion of that, 60% of that production came from farming. Yeah. The reason why I was excited to have this interview with you today when I learned about your farming success is because it's a common question that we get. How do I farm like a ninja? People know they're to focus on relationships and and of course we start with our sphere.

And people start to be curious about well, how how would I farm? How would I do it like a ninja? How do I make it work? I've tried before. It didn't work. I invested some money. I gave up. And people need a formula. And I think you have found a formula. So we're gonna go through that. So Like I said, sixty percent of your business last year was from farming, which equates to twenty eight transactions. So d tell us about the areas where you farm. Okay.

Okay, so I live in the Richmond, Virginia area. I live in the suburbs. Okay. I call it cul de sacca stale. So because we're all in cul-de-sac, we all had minivans, you know, and that's home for me. So my poor husband, he's a country boy, but he married a girl from the HOA, right? So I've got him in the HOA neighborhood. So what I did was I first

looked at what farm may already be choosing me. And so what I did, and that's kind of backwards, but what I mean by that is I looked at my production over the past, let's say, four to five years. And this is when I started this process about three and a half years ago. Plotted everything like on a Google map, my closings. And I wanted to see where I already had some fertile ground. Are there clusters on my past production map?

Where do I know people? What is a warmer neighborhood? So that's where I started my process was what did I already have, rather than just, you know, randomly picking something that I thought would pay me well. So that was the first thing that I did because I needed that evidence of success so that I could go back to that client. Maybe they're a buyer and they still live there and they could be an in for me on Facebook groups or HOA events or things like that. So

That was a little backwards, but I'm a little strange like that. But that's what I did. But I knew I had evidence of success in those areas because I had already listed or helped a buyer in those neighborhoods. So of course proximity is a big deal. So it needed to be near me within seven to ten minutes drive. So that when I had the lead I could immediately respond, drop off a brand kit.

proximity was really important to me. Currently I have two farms that I am the number one agent for the past two years. So my signs are everywhere. I go places and people say, You're doing great, Hope. Your signs are everywhere. And I'm like, thank you, thank you. You know, but I never want anybody to think I can't handle the business. Then I've got some other more like statistical things.

By the way, real quick, if people heard you say brand kit and then they said, Wait, what's that? What's a brand kit? We'll get to that. There's something special and unique out about these areas where you farm in terms of some specific people who live there. Tell us about that because it would we believe this is part of the formula. So tell us that And it definitely is. So I also looked not only at my transactions and that plot on that map.

But I looked at where did I have internal connections already, such as my own neighborhood. My own neighborhood is small, Eric. It's like 229 homes with very low turnover, maybe 5%. But I live there and it's a good price point. The farm that has really paid me is a neighborhood called Wood Lake in central Virginia. It's about a 40-year-old neighborhood. I own a rental property in the neighborhood. My father has lived there with my stepmom for about 25 years.

So he's in the community. I have a relationship by owning a property. So I know the HOA rules. I know the schedule. I know how the pools work, the lake works. Also, I found that other agents weren't farming there. I think they all want the highest of the high end. And this neighborhood has some of those waterfronts.

But most homes there are like 450 to 500,000. So I found that to be fertile ground, but the connection was key. And a lot of people from my church live in there. So I did have some natural ninja type connections. But it was two thousand homes. So that was a big commitment. And we could talk about that when we talk about finances. Yeah. But yeah, that's how I kind of started my farming selection.

Got it. And and so what we want people to walk away with after this podcast is a formula. Step one of the formula is to pick an area that you have a natural affinity to. So you know personal neighborhood certainly fits.

You you have friends or family that live in a neighborhood. You have rentals in a neighborhood. You used to live in that in that neighborhood. You want to live in that neighborhood. You've done lots of business in that neighborhood. Find somewhere that where you have an affinity is step one. Tell us about step two, which gets to kind of the math and the science of this. Tell us about that hope. Yes. So this is kind of where the nuts and bolts come in, right? Because I am

a frugal person. Like I'm very frugal. So that's just a thing in my life. I want to be debt-free. I'm very frugal. So I find it a huge commitment for me to make that financial investment in my business. So in order for me to do it, it had to make sense. What I did was I created this basically matrix of a spreadsheet and I took some different stats these

Target neighborhood. So what I did was I selected three to five candidates first. And I looked at the ninja things. Where do I have relationships? Where do my friends live? Where have I lived? Do I own something in there? Do I know the restaurants in there? That type of thing. So I chose, I think, between three and five of those. And then I started to narrow down selection. And how I did that.

is I kinda did it backwards again. I think I do a lot of things backwards, but I decided what my budget would be, okay, for this commitment because I did know that if you start and then you stop without results. You fail. Right. And that's expensive. It's expensive. So my analogy was when I was getting my master's and my doctorate in education back in the day.

didn't have the money to pay for that tuition and it was quite expensive. And so that was my motivation to study and finish, because I knew if I was going to spend 42 grand on a student loan, I was coming away with results and getting a degree. I was not just gonna walk away with a bill. So if you can think like that when you think about farming, that may help you stay motivated.

Because sometimes you feel like you're feeding a slot machine. It's like a thousand dollars, a thousand dollars or three hundred dollars, three hundred dollars. And I just had to tell myself to stay in it. I think honestly that was harder than the strategy was the wherewithal to just stay in it until it started bearing some fruit. I looked at my budget. I looked at

mm potential return on investment. So I told myself that my goal in year one was to have one, maybe two transactions. I was trying to figure out a break-even analysis mathematically. Okay. I didn't want to waste my money and not be able to reimburse myself. Okay. So I compared what I thought the average sale would look like for me commission-wise after expenses. And then, you know, if I could get one to two, could I break even with that? And that's how I set my budget.

and set my goals and chose my farm. My matrix were the turnover rate. And you can even look that up on the internet. Okay. Me If it's less than 5% turnover rate, that's really not workable. Five to seven is like my own little neighborhood farm. Because I live right there, resident of that neighborhood, I get it. Okay, but nobody ever leaves.

So that was hard. But if there is a listing, I'm getting it. Right. Today I am. But then eight to twelve percent, you're definitely fertile. You can get in there if that turnover rate is there. So And then I got a little deeper with analysis. I I hope it's okay if I keep going. Please too. This gets really deep. This is really good. And so step two of the formula.

is to do the math. Yeah. Set your budget. The turnover rate is a big deal. Nationally, people should know it it's it's about five percent nationally. Okay. So you said eight to twelve percent. So then d you know, that's essentially double. Uh on the national average. And so that that's a place to go to consider, but you're gonna add another layer to this, which is also really important. Yes. So I've got a couple other things that I added to my matrix. And this is just stuff I just figured out.

uh on my own, mainly motivated by my frugality because I didn't want to waste my money. So I'm like, what else can I do to try to have evidence based decisions, right? In selecting this farm. Because once I go in, like I'm in, I'm not coming out. So there's a whole other story about that. But okay, so turnover rate, my return on investment, median price. Then what I did was I looked at not only the past. 12 months of sales to look at turnover rate, but I looked also at the past 24 months.

Because what I wanted to know is if the two years ago versus one year ago, are we selling more? Are we selling less in that neighborhood? Or is it flat? And is there a reason why people are selling more, less, or flat? Because I know the communities. you know, I don't know everybody's cities, but if you have a big employer leaving, that could increase a lot of listings. That may be a good or a bad thing. You know your market. That's your decision to make. But I did compare a two year stat

To a one year stat year over year. Okay. So that was a piece. The other thing I did was to assess my competition. And this is really, really important because if you've got another ninja type person out there, they are owning their neighborhood, their farm, if they're doing something similar. If they are the mayor of that HOA already, like that is not your place. Don't waste your money. I was not tech savvy enough to figure out how to do this with tech. So I remember

Printing out all the sales from the MLS in this 2000 unit community. And I looked up all of it and I just handed. ticked it off on my notepad, my largest farm, Wood Lake, where my dad lives, and where I have a rental. The year that I was doing the research that year, there were 156 sales, and no single agent had more than three. It was all over the place. It was a lot of one-hit wonders. And when I saw that, Eric, I'm like

Oh, definitely I can go in here and dominate. Like I can dominate this neighborhood. 156 and nobody had more than three. And maybe it was only it may have only been two agents. that had three. And I'm like, Oh, it's on, I'm coming. Yeah, it's game on. Where you had the turnover rate. Well it's starting with first y you had the affinity.

Yes. To the community. Yes. Which mean means you had relationships there. And now you you're seeing that that the math works, the turnover rate. Yes. You're seeing it's it's wide open for competition. Checks the boxes. It's game on. Okay, so now it's game on. Mm-hmm. What do you do now? D walk us through your farming. What do the two thousand people in this farm receive? Okay.

So this is a multi-leveled system. I will do my best to kind of break it down in a way that makes sense. to those who aren't kind of deep in it like I am. So The first thing is I have a custom eight page, it's almost like I'm a full color, glossy, 80-pound gloss text is what I order from my printer. And it opens like a book and it has eight pages. Okay. The back of it is always a community calendar for the month.

And I do it based on the HOA website, the public library, calendar, the school, sports, home games, things like that. Very community focused. And then at the bottom of that back cover, I always feature a local charity or some kind of nonprofit event because that's near and dear to my heart. So if you support a charity or you want to, you know, help with coats for kids, whatever, shoe drive, something in your area, that's a great place to give them some free.

space and let them be published to your farm area. So that's the back cover. Front cover is a nice touchy feely little intro paragraph, a picture of me, my brand, that type of thing. But the inside is where I ninja fied it. Okay. So I did art and science on the inside. Sound familiar? It does. Yeah, we have to mix art and science in our flow. Yes, so I do a market update. So for example, pages two, three, four, and five are market updates for you can do it a couple ways.

So with this two thousand unit big farm, I would do three bedroom homes, condo townhouses, four bedroom homes, five plus bedroom homes. Correct. So the past sixty days or whatever. So if we were looking at it, w would we see, for instance, a half a page dedicated to two bedrooms and then the bottom half of that page dedicated to three bedrooms and we're seeing a graph or an infographic or something like that.

Yes. So I actually go we use Matrix as our MLS platform in Richmond. And so I have a way where I just pull these stats up. And I only pull the solds, the closed, okay? And then I just do a screenshot of those categories. And the categories are street address, number of beds, number of bats, days on market, closed price.

Just very basic information. And then at the top and bottom of each of those pages, there's some brand information. A QR code to a lead magnet, form or my website, my phone number. Something like that, but the grand majority of those pages are the science piece. Okay. I go on these listing appointments. People have stacks of these magazines. They are tracking the square foot price in that neighborhood. They are they are paying attention to this stuff, especially people

who have lived in that community a long time. And I'm working a lot with those downsizers at this point. That's just kind of a sub-niche for me. Then the art part, I always have something, and this is normally page six. And it's something out of something in my brand kit, like a page out of my seller guide, a page out of my marketing plan. So maybe it's curb appeal tips or something evergreen to real estate, common HOA violations.

you know, yard sale dates coming up that are approved by the neighborhood, those types of things. That's the art piece. And then I always put two coupons of a local business or one of my vendors on page seven, which is the inside back cover. And people love food. So I always make sure there's a food coupon in there. And then usually I feature one of my vendors, like a plumber, landscaper, my pest control company. And for me, I do that for them.

It is a service for me. Now you could charge, but I'm not in the business of selling an ad and a magazine. I just want to give to my community. Sure. So I will pick some small businesses, local restaurants, and I'll put a coupon in for them. Not only blesses that But it makes people every month they page to that coupon, even if they're not raising their hand to sell real estate.

They are looking through that and finding that coupon. You want pizza or tacos or a free donut or whatever. So that is something that I do for them. So do you see the combination of art and science? Yeah, it's very clear. The combination of art and science. We haven't said yet how often you deliver this magazine. Okay.

So this newsletter or magazine is once monthly. It's always delivered the first week of each month. And this is one thing that they get from me monthly. The second thing they get will be 15 days later in the form of a postcard. Okay. Okay. So my farms have mailboxes at each home and we have these newspaper slots beneath the mailboxes.

And there's actually a couple of ladies in my community that have a flyer delivery service certain weeks for certain neighborhoods on a monthly rotation. So I just hired it out, leveraged out to them and they would come to my porch, pick up the print material, and I would pay them, you know, whatever, four or five hundred dollars to go and make this part of their delivery round. So that's what I did. Now I don't have them anymore because I brought my dad out of retirement and now he's my runner.

So he has our old 20-year-old Honda Accord and he's zooming through the neighborhood every month, uh, doing these flyers. It keeps him busy in retirement. So yeah, that's the first thing they get and it's once a month. So let me know if you want to hear about the postcard.

Yeah, tell us about the postcard. Okay, so the second thing they get from me But it's my sub niche. Okay. And that's because of my frugality, again, my budget. I was not able to invest in two thousand postcards a month. on a sustainable basis. So what I did was I went on to the site called RPR, if you've heard of that. There are other resources as well, but you can get up to 2,000 mailing labels a month for free, at least in my RPR membership through my NLS.

What I did, Eric, it's very scientific. I drew a map on RPR, like a polygon map of Woodlake, let's say those two thousand homes, and then I filtered by owner occupied. And I filter because I don't want to do rentals. And then I filtered by length of ownership. And they've got categories at the bottom of the screen, zero to five years, five to ten years, ten to fifteen years, fifteen to twenty, twenty plus. So I started with 20 plus.

And then I kept clicking until I kind of my stomach hurt about the budget. And that's where I decided, okay, we're gonna do 10 years plus in this neighborhood. Now, I don't know if you've heard of EDDM, that is everydoor direct mail. That's a postcard strategy. I do not use that because the QR codes that go to my lead magnet, which is a what's your homeworth form. that QR code on an EDDM product. That's the most affordable way to do this. But

If somebody scans it, you don't know if they scanned it unless they actually fill out the entire form and submit it. And guys, that is very rare. Do not expect a bunch of people to fill the form out. It just, it's very rare. So I have a vendor that I partner with and they have a dynamic QR code that will match person, let's say I sent one to your house, Eric. If you scan your postcard that's addressed to you at your house,

My phone gets an immediate update that Eric at 123 Main Street just scanned your postcard, whether or not you filled the form out. So now Even though you didn't finish, now I got you and I deliver a brand kit within twenty four hours and then I start you on like an eight and eight postcard campaign. So I told you this is No, you you get scientific. You're very strategic. This is like ninja farming here.

So now is a good time to tell us about the brand kit. Yes. So you have a brand kit, someone shows interest by scanning the QR code. Now they're gonna receive a a brand kit. What is that? Okay, so my brand kit is a box. It's a full color glossy box. Some people call it a pizza box, but it's not as big as a pizza. But it houses a lot of my materials. I have high quality printed buyer's guide, seller's guide, a marketing plan.

I even created a downsizing guide called From Clutter to Clarity, a guide to your best move yet. And it is a specific like another magazine on how to downsize. Even with local resources to places that will come pick up furniture to donate and and all of that. So I wrote a little magazine or a book about that. In there if they've lived in the home more than twenty years. We also have samples of my work.

So a sample listing brochure, a sample listing information booklet, like something I would put on your kitchen table when I'm listing your property. I also have some swag in there, like a can koozie. a refrigerator magnet of the calendar for the year, one little magnet and it's got my logo and my face on it. A grocery notepad with my logo and my face that's magnetic to go on the fridge. I'm always trying to be on your fridge.

I wanna live in your house. Yeah. And then I go on these listing appointments, like I see the box. They have all the things. So I've already won before I've arrived at it. So it's really great. So how many of these brand kits are you delivering on a monthly basis? I would say usually between twenty-three and thirty. Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. So especially when I first started, because one of the

one of the formats of the postcards that I use actually pulls in a Google Street View photo of your house. Okay. And then I can say, hello, Eric, what's your home worth? And those words will be customized on top of the photo of the front of your house that is Yes. So you're looking at that like how did she get a picture of my house? And it says hello Eric. So that is a big attention getter. Now you can't wear it out or it's not special anymore. But I'll send that about two to three times a year.

And I cycle through some other, you know, kind of hook interesting types of postcards, but that is my number one response guess. And when I send those out, I always know when they've been delivered because my phone is like ping, ping, ping, and I'm getting all these leads. And then my dad is in the accord and there he goes. There he goes. Delivering the kit.

People are wondering if they can hire your dad. So maybe we'll talk to him and see if he's willing to expand his services outside of Richmond, right? Okay. So if you're keeping track in this formula. Part three of the formula would be have a flow system for these people that's art and science. Now another component of flow is live flow. So tell us how you weave in live flow. Tell us how you're able to get face to face with these people in the farm.

Okay, so most of them are not going to fill your form out. So all you have is a name and an address. You don't have an email. you don't have a phone number. Okay, so that's hard. We're we're a little trapped when we don't have that information. But if they have scanned, or let's say if you have scanned my postcard, in my CRM, I have uh programmed some automations to send me messages.

to send you a handwritten note. So if you scanned, you get a brand kit within 24 hours and it's in my notifications to go ahead and send you a handwritten note. Hey, we dropped off a box of resources recently. Let me know if you have questions. Happy to help you. Very friendly, not salesy, just hey, drop something off, wanted to make sure you got it. I'm here for you. Yes, and I do pop my business card in there, okay?

So that is if someone is not giving me any info. You just scan the card and then you ran away. And that's the majority of the time. Now, when people do fill it out, sometimes they'll fill out only their email. Mm, rarely I'll get email and phone. Only if they're really raising their hand high, they will give me all of that information. So with email. Um, you know, it's hard for me to call on email, but I will use I like a video text.

through a program like Bomb Bomb or Big View B I G V U or even my CRM does it where I can record on my phone. Hey Eric. Thanks so much for reaching out. I dropped off resources to your porch. Love to get together soon. See how I can learn more about you and your situation. I've got Tuesday at two.

Thursday at ten AM. Let me know which is better for you. And then I can send a video message. If I have your phone number, I can call you. But a lot of times people will only give email. Sure. You know, they don't know me except just my picture. Yeah.

Help. D it does. Also if you talk about the events. So we do two charitable events in the community a year. So for example, remember how I talked about the bottom of page eight having like a promo for a charity? Let's say it's the food bank in my community. I feature them a lot. I may do a pre-summer food drive and I'll do it in the parking lot of the donut shop that's within that community because I know the guy. His name is Tony.

And I'm like, hey, Tony, you know, on on June twelfth, can I come with my car and collect food? He's like, yeah. And then I give people a coupon if they bring me a bag of food. They get to go in, I buy them a donut from Tony, keeps a tab for me and I pay out the tab at the end of the morning. So we've done that event and I do promote that on my newsletter.

and on my postcard. So I do invest a good amount of money on that charity event promo through the postcard. It has nothing to do with real estate, but it's just me helping the food bank. or whatever charitable organization that I'm helping. So we like to do two of those a year to be visible.

I've done where I've sponsored officially, like been the sponsor of the Easter egg hunt, where about three hundred kids come out for the Easter bunny and do the egg hunt and they have a dog show. So I've done that too. and brought kids from my church and they f do face painting and we have a prize and a raffle for some lead collection. So that's how I'm trying to be that face in that neighborhood. Yeah. So it's really a multi media approach. It is. Print.

Yeah and postcard and then face to face and then I put them into my eight and eight and then they end up in my 12 month nurture or my twelve month free.

Got it. So the last part of the formula is to find ways to be face to face. And what we find. That's the component that most often is overlooked, missed. Okay. People don't and so kind of a stereotypical thing that we see is that when we hear about someone's farming plan that didn't work out They tried it for X amount of months and they had the mail going, but they never had the face-to-face component.

And so it didn't work. And so you are clearly committed to your autoflow program and all the pieces of value that they get in the mail and you're finding ways to get live with them. Yes. What's your budget? Uh and even think per household if you wanna. Yeah, so my budget, I would say it's about$2 per household per month.

So the postcard for the system I use, it is a full price stamp to be able to get that dynamic QR code. I'm not able to get those discount postage rates because it's custom printed for each home. And then I have a wonderful partnership with a printer and I've used him for so many years. He gives me a great deal. But that eight page newsletter is a lot more affordable. than most mailers. So that I can tell you that has been the magic sauce because that art and science and the quality of it.

People call me more than I call them at this point. My phone rings every month. I have a predictable pipeline of listings in these farms. People call me and say, I see you everywhere. You are the one that knows about Woodlake. You are the one I want to talk to. And it's true I do because I sell more in there now than anybody. But at first I sold like two houses in there. Just your commitment to put this together and to do that research and assemble it all.

That process makes you incredibly educated on the community. Yeah. And just d thinking about your budget, I know what happened is that people as they were driving or wherever they are l listening to the podcast, they they just did the math in their head. And they said, Well, wait a minute, that's four thousand dollars a month. That's close to fifty thousand dollars a year and it turned into for you last year twenty eight transactions. Oh easily.

You you are you're frugal and you're you are investment minded. You are willing to invest when there's a return on your investment. You're doing things to increase the odds of there being a return. And so you're willing to make that investment to have the return come back to you.

But you know, let me give some of you some encouragement here because that's not how not everybody can just start that, right? Like we don't have the resources for that. And I get that. So remember how I talked about the RPR and the number of years lived? in a home, that's how I reduced from two thousand postcards a month to about six hundred. Okay. So it took my price down for postcards to about five or six hundred.

So that mitigated that cost some. The other thing I was going to let you know is in hindsight, I probably never should have started with a 2000 unit. Neighborhood. I should have started with maybe two to fifty units, just so that it wasn't so hard to stick with it when it got. hard. Yeah, because you almost quit. You told me that story. I think you said you were eight months in.

It was eight months in before I even got the first face to face listing appointment. Eight months. I almost died. I mean, the cheap person in me is like. I can't take this anymore. I was feeding the slot machine and would not hit. Right. But then I'll never again. His name is Bob and his cat's name was Buster. Bob and Buster hired me. I sold his house for like$4.25. And I went absolutely bananas with the marketing on that.

I didn't care if I made a dollar on that. I put a whole big postcard out in the neighborhood again for that select list that it was listed. Then when it got under contract, when it sold, I sent out handwritten or hand addressed invitations to his whole street. to an open house like all the things. So when you do get that listing, Eric, leverage it. Do everything you can to draw attention to the listing. Spend the money, do the staging, get a professional deep clean, like

Do it 110% so that when the nosy neighbors come, you are the one with excellence. And then that's your standard. the and you do that for all of your clients in your farm. I do spend the most money on my farm listings than anybody else because that's what helps me get the next listing. Absolutely. Right. So so that's that's been it. Bob and Buster. Yeah, they got me started. Thanks, Bob and Buster.

Okay, let's finish with this. What is ninja meant to you? How has ninja helped you in your life, in your business? Yeah, so Ninja I have loved and I I started by listening to the Audible book. A lender friend of mine told me about the flow chapter in the book, so I bought the book.

And then I'm like, you know what? I need to listen to it because I'm in the car all the time. So I put it on repeat, on audible. And so I can probably recite certain things that Larry says in the Audible version. But what Ninja has done for me is allowed me to keep the service based relationship part of the business that I love so much and nurture that completely. but then take my scaling efforts with farming

and bring those people into my world, you know? So now those people are my sphere and they're now they're in my world. They're in my community. They're in my real estate family. But I think the other thing that really helped me with ninja is I started the farming first and I would get the listing appointment and I couldn't convert. So I was doing telling and selling and I didn't realize that until I read Ninja and listened to Audible and went to installation a couple of years ago.

I'm like, man, I blew it because I've made it the hope show. I haven't made it about the client. And so that 16-step seller process makes it all about the client, takes the pressure off. And not everybody hires me and there are different reasons for that. I don't do discount and things like that. But I mean, I'm converting these. Many times they cancel their other appointments and we just move forward. So that's what Ninja has done. It's kept my nurturing.

allowed people to come into my world when they're from my farm, but then converting has been huge. With the process. Yes, the conversion. I mean, that's where the money comes from, right? Absolutely. And that's how I pay for all of it. So hope hope that's helpful. Very helpful. Cool. Hope this whole podcast has been very helpful. Extraordinary. Cool. It's Hope George from Richmond, Virginia. Thank you so much.

Welcome. I'm so excited to have helped and shared and like I said Start smaller than I did because I almost died. Yeah, d but just start with something. Yeah. But you know, eight hundred and eighty G CI last year. I can't complain about that. Complain. A spiral. This stuff works. This stuff works. As always, we look forward to seeing you on the n next podcast. Take care. If you enjoyed this episode, visit us at the Ninja Selling Podcast.

To learn more about NinjaSelling classes and coaching, to get you started or further your On the Ninja Path. Thank you for joining us. Now go.