Is Door Knocking Still Effective?

According to an August Straw Poll in a Real Estate Business Bulletin, 47.5 percent of agents believe that door knocking is not effective.

Trainer, Peter Gilchrist, was quoted as saying that the last type of person a home owner wanted knocking uninvited at their front door was an agent. “I’d rather have Mormons knock on my door“, he was reported to say.

Now let me tell you about Adam Horth, who in August 2012 listed 35 properties in the Ipswich QLD area, 14 of which came from door knocking.

People that say door knocking is dead either haven’t knocked on many, or they have a terrible door knocking presentation. Either they did not speak to enough people, or they did so incompetently. For such people door knocking is dead. For the rest, it’s alive and well.

Adam developed the prospecting HABIT early in his career. He commenced his career as a HomeFINDER – a fulltime prospector. All he did was prospect, and then hand his leads over to winning team members, who turned them into listings and then into sales.

In his first year as a HomeFINDER, the fees from sales that came off Adam’s leads were approximately $450,000 (gross average fee around $9,000). In his second year Adam’s fees grew to $720,000 – this is not a misprint. Average listings per month: 15. Highest number of listings in a single month: 26.  Adam told me that 60 percent of his prospecting was at doors.

A salesperson with the prospecting habit is rare. Adam carried this habit over into his Sales career. In his first year as a salesperson, he produced just over $475,000. From there Adam grew to be one of the best salespeople in the industry.

Today Adam is the principal of his own agency. And just so you don’t say, “There you go – all the good ones leave!“, Adam’s partners are the two leaders that gave him his start in real estate. They still all work together.

So here’s Adam, in an area where nobody knows him. What does an accomplished prospector who wants to build business do? Goes out and knocks on doors. Lots of doors. And he gets lots of listings.

The ratios haven’t changed. Speak to around 100 potential sellers and you will get listings. Meet as many as possible face-to-face and you will create a great impression.

These days everybody is raving about Social Media, but you should know that it has its limitations.
I see agents spending huge amounts of time playing with facebook and Twitter, when instead they should be out door knocking.

What’s the point spending hours on Twitter when you only have ten followers? A huge amount of agents spend huge amounts of time trying to get their ‘message’ to bugger-all followers! This is dumb.

Try this: go out and knock on 1,000 doors. Ask the Bill Nasby question: “Thanks for your time. I’m a real estate agent looking for work. When are you planning on moving?”

Do that, and then tell me if door knocking isn’t effective.