Agents fail to use their business card as a marketing tool

We spend thousands of dollars on marketing and prospecting trying to stay ahead of the competition.  We blog regularly, invest in custom IDX systems, send out monthly direct mail, slap our pictures on bus benches and shopping carts all to find new customers or clients.  These marketing and prospecting efforts are not cheap and require time to create and develop. 

All the while we keep tucked safely away in our pockets a simple business tool that if used this regularly, the return would no doubt be much better than any other marketing or prospecting source. 

The business card.

Too many agents only hand out their business card to a customer they have met through a different form of marketing or prospecting.  We give our card to our buyers when we first meet them at an open house or when we have them meet us for the first time in office to view houses.  We give our cards to sellers who have called us to list their home immediately upon entering the home as a way to introduce ourselves. 

An agent would increase his or her business if they just handed a business card to everyone they meet through the course of a day/week/month, REGULARLY.  Handing out your business card regularly is one of the most effective, inexpensive forms of marketing/prospecting available to any type of sales person and has been successfully used for years. 

Real estate sales is about meeting and talking to people.  We meet so many people during our day to day lives that if we only made a habit of handing each and everyone of them a business card it would surely result in more real estate referrals and more real estate closings.

Try it.  The suggestion we use in my company is for agents to start with passing out 10 cards a day.  When you think of all the people you come across while buying gas, buying bagels for breakfast, at lunch, at the doctor’s office, at the drugstore, at the post office, you will find that handing out 10 cards will not be that hard of a task. 

Start passing out cards today and continue to regularly pass them out and you will be on your way to a successful real estate career.