Blog / Prospecting
Jamie Gillies, Perfect Prospecting
While he has only been in the real estate industry for 12 years, Jamie Gillies from The Professionals has packed almost a lifetime’s worth of energy into that time.
Laughing that he has started in real estate five times, Mr Gillies has launched new agencies and new roles – all of which demanded a new prospecting strategy. As a result, he knows what works for him and what doesn’t and is currently implementing his new prospecting program at The Professionals Upper Hutt office, 20 minutes from Wellington, New Zealand.
Always start with prospecting
Mr Gillies’ first role in real estate was in the marketing department creating flyers and letterbox drops for the Upper Hutt office’s prospecting program. He did this while studying at university in the mornings in 1998 and graduated to selling around his classes in 1999. After a stint in the UK as a buyer’s agent for Haart Estate Agents, he moved on to a role with a US investment company running property seminars throughout the country. “That meant I got to travel all around the UK looking at houses and running seminars. I did some training there and they had people walking around with headsets on and high-fiveing each other – it was pretty intense,” Mr Gillies explained.
Coming back to New Zealand in 2004, he decided Upper Hutt was too small after living in London and headed for Auckland. It was here Mr Gillies really got an opportunity to flex his selling muscles. “The market in Auckland was really cranking so I packed a suitcase and flew up there and booked myself into a hotel,” he said, explaining that it turned into a six-month stay.
Mr Gillies became a master agent, selling sections of land all around Auckland. As the properties were so widespread he enlisted the help of other agents to sell them and paid them half of the four per cent commission the investor was paying him. “I managed the sales through that process as a master agency run by one person, but I essentially had sales agents working for me and I sold some by myself through the marketing. We sold about 75, grossing $750,000 in six months,” Mr Gillies said.
Then he was ready to return to Upper Hutt, started at the beginning again but quickly ranked as the top or second salesman in The Professionals’ New Zealand group. “I had to build a new prospecting system to get in the door because we had no presence. I’ve started real estate five times, so I’m pretty good at starting a prospecting system,” he said.
Currently in the building phase of the system, Mr Gillies employs a telemarketer for eight hours a week to “get as many people in the funnel as possible”. This phase also includes letterbox drops and appraisals to build the database. He then offers to mail the owners a monthly market report detailing the houses sold, prices, how the market is going and then follows this up with a call. “I want to have a group of 1500 that receive communication from me and then keep them there until they need to sell. About 80 per cent of my day is spent prospecting.”
“In six months I have built up 1500 people who want to receive my marketing report. I’m always adding people, but my focus is now on touching each of those people. In six months I have gone from not knowing the streets to people knowing me and having a reasonable market presence,” he explained.
Sweetening the deal
On the six-month anniversary of their contact, Mr Gillies gives his prospects a smoke alarm. “That way I get back in front of them after six months; at 12 months they receive an anniversary letter and at 18 months I am dropping off a new battery. Basically this gives me 40- 50 solid, face-to-face contacts. What a great time to get referrals,” he explained, and said he was now following up his first 300 contacts this way. And it’s not just the owners who receive the gifts – when he sees someone with children at a listing presentation he send the kids inexpensive books and stickers.
Adding to the success of his prospecting system, Mr Gillies asks for testimonials from clients to help build his profile. Now he is known in the marketplace, he can pick and choose the properties he wants to sell. “I don’t have to take on everything, but can pick the eyes out of the properties now. I don’t do units or empty homes and I don’t work with
people I don’t like. I don’t want to do $1 million homes, because I don’t sell enough, so I stay around the $400,000 to $650,000 mark, which are mainly secondtime buyers who have a less price-based position because they have sold once before,” he explained.
“I’m trying to build a business model I can give to an agent as a turnkey system,” Mr Gillies said, explaining he works five days a week around his family at The Professionals office and his home office. “I do appointments on Tuesday and Thursday and on Sundays when I do appraisals and open days. On Monday morning I spend time with my five-yearold daughter and two-year-old son and start work at 12pm. I’m trying to make it sustainable because I’ve burnt out a few times,” he added.
“If you are building and running this database right, you will be generating past client referrals like a veteran without having to wait five years,” he said. Based on his standard sale of three-bedroom homes with single garages for around $400,000, Mr Gillies’ average fee is $15,600. Once his prospecting system is completely operational he is aiming to gross $1 million from six sales a month.
Systemising his method
To develop his new prospecting system, Mr Gillies used Mat Steinwede’s Real Estate System which he has listened to and studied, “a few hundred times”. From his research and tried-and-tested techniques, he has developed a fourstage prospecting program:
Stage 1: Preparation (one month) - downloading the data into Complete Data and perfecting his marketing report and listing presentation.
Stage 2: Building (six months) - spending six months building the database and offering appraisals.
Stage 3: Establishing (12-18 months) - doorknocking and getting new leads in the area.
Stage 4: Maintaining (ongoing) - keeping in contact with prospects and dropping some back to quarterly calls.
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