Marketing Prowess

Kathy Toth
The Kathy Toth Team
Real Estate One
Years in real estate: 18
Years as a team: 14
Region Served: Ann Arbor, Michigan

When and why was the team formed?
The team was originally formed to give our customers better service. We had a very hot market and I needed help trying to make sure all of my clients were taken care of. Also my children were young at the time and when they came home from school I had someone taking care of them so that I would be available to my customers. But that didn’t make sense to me after a while, so I hired a buyers agent so she could handle the business when my kids were home and I could stay with my kids. The team grew from there.

How do you promote your team?
Everything we do is the team. It’s all about them. In all of our photos we try to get everyone in the picture. We are like a real estate practice and I am the managing partner.

How do you market the advantages of the agent team concept over working with an individual agent?
A solo agent is responsible for absolutely everything. That means if the solo agent is out with a buyer the rest of his or her business comes to a halt. But with my team the client gets extra service. And most importantly, if I am working on a listing appointment and a client calls the office and says their sign is down, the call goes to our client-care person who has it put back up. This would never happen this way with a solo agent.

How do you brand your team?
I went to an outside consultant for branding. On everything that goes out from the office we want consumers to look at our colors and know us and know our images. They are all uniform and consistent.

How do you balance print and online marketing?
I have an MBA so I track everything. Many years ago I took a hard look at my print advertising. I was spending $41,000 a year on print and but I wasn’t getting closings from this print advertising. I have found that the reality is I don’t get any business from print so we have really diminished our print media because it’s just not effective.

Forty-five percent of our buyer business comes from online. Twenty-five to thirty percent of our seller business comes from online. Then of my whole business, almost 50% comes from past clients and referrals. So we spend our money on our past clients with appreciation parties and we ask for referrals. After closings, we also encourage referrals. We send out anniversary cards throughout the year as well as value added mailings, market updates, tips on housing ideas and articles like, “How do you get oil stains off the floor of your garage?” These are the things that bring us new business.

What are some of your most effective promotional ideas?
House Hunters TV has had me on twice and so we have milked the heck out of that. There are 12,000 people in my database so each person on our team made calls to10 people a day to make connections asking if they knew someone who wanted to be on House Hunters. Then we have a “love it or leave it” policy. If you don’t love it after 90 days, we will market it for free and sell it for you. I have also aligned myself with a short-sales expert. We have been doing that since February of ‘06. There are so many good ways of profiting from this market. We do a class. I speak at groups. I speak at the Lyons club. We have a full time stager, a distressed sales page. And I do a radio show.

Success Strategies
What is your best competitive advantage?
I buy houses for cash under my “Your Home Sold Guaranteed Program.” It is a home selling system that turns your listing into a guaranteed sale at a price acceptable to you in days instead of weeks or months. My Web page for this program is www.866ownthis.com and because of it and the way it’s structured I have people who only shop our listings.

Our team is different because: We put the client in the center of the transaction and surround them with very competent people. We are also very proactive communicating everything.

Our team culture is…focus on the positive and focus on the solution 100% of the time.

I reward the team by…rewarding each person on the team with what they like individually. Then as a team, two weeks ago, I took them to the MGM Casino and gave them cash. One buyer’s agent won $2,000 on a slot machine. We have fun. We do lots of things like this. Rewarding the team helps keep them positive.

What is your philosophy for a successful life in real estate? You must have a healthy balance between life and work. And then the team success starts with the leader and I have to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Lesley Geary

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