Clients First: The Two Word Miracle

We Owed It to Our Clients

We continued to advertise our clients’ properties even though the prevailing wisdom was that newspapers were dead and the only thing that moved real estate was price. We always believed we owed it to our sellers to maximize their homes’ exposures in hopes of getting top dollar. Did we address price? Absolutely. In a falling market, you must keep your seller competitive or the property will languish unsold. We owed it to our clients to lay it on the line about price, and we did. We called every seller every week. We studied the comparable listings, pendings, and solds for each listing. We examined the showings and called for feedback. We asked for a price reduction, and when the home didn’t sell in two weeks, we asked for another. This was imperative. Our sellers could not afford to chase the market. Our honesty kept our clients loyal. As other agents’ listings expired, unsold, by the hundreds each week, and as hundreds more came on the market overpriced, we were able to sell our listings.

We actually increased our advertising by creating our own publication to showcase our listings. We called it Callaway Country and printed a new issue every three or four months. We created a unique delivery system for the magazine by placing a tube on each signpost. We refilled these tubes every week and showed our sellers how being advertised on 100 posts was better than being advertised on only the post in front of their home.

We invested in a new printer and improved ...