I would say that 99 per cent of agents do not run a geo farm. But you should, even if it’s only a tiny patch.
Let’s call it a geo garden!
It’s good to start small. Just make sure your geo garden is expandable because you’re probably going to want a full-fledged farm once you start reaping the harvest.
There are numerous factors to consider when you choose a location for your geo farm/garden, but one of the most important is this: you like the vibe! You feel an affinity to the area. You like the local businesses, the type of predominant homes and, most importantly, you like the people who like those homes.
There are numerous benefits to running a geo farm/garden – aside from the obvious (more moolah). One of the most important is the opportunity to practice and improve your skills.
For example, I became a pricing expert in my first year of business. I could price any property in my farm extremely accurately, more so than any agent, even if they had 20 years more experience than me.
But here’s the key point: I quickly realized that my pricing skills had transcended my farm. I was now a highly skilled pricing expert. Period.
Being a pricing expert is a critically important skill that gave me a distinct advantage over my competitors for my entire career. I earned this skill through concentrated practice in my geo farm.
I believe that a geo farm/garden to a Realtor is like the driving range and putting green to a professional golfer. A golfer doesn’t get better by merely smacking 500 golf balls a day. They try new things. They experiment. They think about cause and effect. Tiger Woods didn’t pay for any of his trophies. He earned them. Mostly on the putting green and the driving range.
It’s the same for you in your geo farm.
I learned waaaaaaay more than pricing on my geo farm. It was like a microcosm of my business. It’s where I honed all my skills. Such as how to communicate more effectively, for example. How to hold an open house. How to follow up. How to market myself.
It’s easier to hone your skills in your geo farm because that’s where you already have the most confidence. Earned confidence makes everything easier.
By the way, you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on advertising in your geo farm.
You can spend money on flyers and bus benches if you want to. But your paid marketing efforts are secondary to:
- Becoming the area expert
- Making it known that you’re the area expert.
If you want to achieve massive success in real estate, make the decision to stop being “good enough” and do something about it. Becoming the go-to area expert in your geo farm is one way to differentiate yourself from the 99 per cent of “good enough” agents in your market.
After Ted Greenhough’s first year as a Realtor, he earned between $590,000-$865,000 every year for 12 consecutive years, all as an individual agent, without ever once making a cold call, reciting a canned script or doing any other “salesy” stuff. Now he runs Agent Skills, an online learning program for agents across North America.
