How to help a realtor with no Money

That is a very nice thing you are doing, but be careful because it is a trap.

And no, to be clear, it is not a trap that he is setting for you. Unfortunately, it is one that you may be unknowlingly setting for yourself.

First, if they guy is not interested in spending money on advertising you are going to have an uphill battle trying to get him to pay for your services any time in the future.

Also, if you ever do, since you have already established your value as Zero (by giving it for free) then you are not going to be able to charge a premium for your services.

But worse than that, free clients that are friends or acquaintances are some of the WORST you can ever get. They, for whatever reason, seem to demand/expect more than other clients and take forever to give you feedback or information you need.

Since you said you would build the site, then just do THAT. You can explain to him later on how he can leverage this "brochure" site to start getting more clients and then let him pay before you do any more work for him.

That way, you can still get a good testimonial from him for the work you did and not a poor one for the unrealistic expectations he has that he isn't paying for.

If there is one major thing I regret in this business, it is when I early on tried to get proof by doing freebie work for "friends".

Aside from that, I might let the guy buy me a beer and I would share some of my ideas with him. Then he can hire me (or anyone else) to do it...

but the chances are he will not only expect you to buy him the beer, but he will also expect you to squeeze his lime too.

Good luck,
Scott

echo Scott Voss.

Make sure you monetize the site traffic by having a way for him to collect optins. This is a very fundamental requirement but remains one of the most valuable of anything online.

I wholeheartedly concur. Do nothing more than build the website. I would find a way to get a small monthly maintenance fee out of him for "Platform Updates." Then build a wordpress site and install automatic backup plugin and automatic update plugin. He will either find value in the website or not. He might not keep it, but at least you will have generated a tiny income.

I will no longer do any website work of any kind for anyone I know. I have one friend that I built a free website for, and am doing their hosting, and charging $5 a month. They are not paying their bill to me, so I am giving them one month to call hostgator and buy a year's hosting. If they don't buy a hostgator plan, I will email them the backup and take the site down and they can do it themselves.

When people find out what you do for a living, all of a sudden they find a need surrounding a website. The most I will do for anyone I know in the future is this:

1. Teach them how to clear their cookies on their computer. I send a link to online instructions.
2. give them my affiliate link for godaddy and tell them to set up a free account and call godaddy for help.
3. give them my affiliate link for hostgator and tell them to call hostgator for help.

Then I am done with them. They can hire whoever they want to build their site. But it won't be me. That is the only way to keep a friend once they find out what I do for a living.

Lesson learned.

Make him the website, and then keep going. Unless he's going to give you some referrals, I wouldn't be putting too much time into HIS business. Be careful working with "friends" because those can be the ones to screw you the most. Your time is just as valuable as his, so don't waste it on people who don't appreciate it. I'm willing to be that he wouldn't donate his services to you if he knew he wasn't going to get any money from it.

You'd really be better off by just letting this one go. If you do happen to choose to stick with this project, then you need to be prepared to get taken for a ride. It's coming, and it could wreck your relationship in the end. I'd set some boundaries, for your own sake. Do the website, and then charge for everything else (i.e. content, email lists, newsletters, etc.).

As for ideas on how to promote him to be the go-to guy, take this one.

He should hold a seminar maybe twice a month, or maybe even weekly, to teach people about the home-buying process and other relevant topics.

But, again, if you help him to plan it, charge him for your time.

Thanks everyone.

I'll just do the website and include an optin form. Get his referals and run.

But I can't believe Realtors without advertisng budgets exists. I mean it's such an extremely competitive niche.

Ditto what Scott said.

It's actually a very realistic expectation and very much achievable, in fact there are many case studies and success stories of businesses (including realtors) doing just that.

The mental trap of small business marketing is thinking that "branding or advertising" IS required...not so...

...in fact...proper marketing (done effectively) will generate brand recognition and natural word-of-mouth exposure on its own...but most people don't know how to do it correctly.

In this case it sounds like there are quite a few ways you COULD help this realtor out...but I wouldn't do so unless it was a profitable move in advance for YOUR own business...otherwise you are better off moving to a client that will pay you appropriately for your services.

The question is:

Is the realtor willing to spend money on YOUR marketing solutions...or does he refuse to spend ANY money to market his business?

The answer will make your decision very easy.

Cheers,

~Dexx

Personally, if you are just doing a website as favor, or need some practice, sounds fine to me.

However, as already mentioned. I would not become his 'marketer', unless you like pain.

A 'no spend' realtor could easily drive you nuts, by picking your brain, and assuming that you also have accepted responsibility for his business growth - which would be a big mistake, imo. To me the whole thing would just be about setting limits.
_____
Bruce

I used to be a Realtor...do not even build him a website.

As far as I know, all Brokers furnish a personal realtors/agents website that collects potential customers emails and their information.

All he/she has to to is buy a domain name and forward it to their page.
(short and sweet)

Also, he has an advertising budget (or he would not have become an agent)... if he can get you do to do it for FREE, then he is able to take a 2 week vacation at your expense!

Realtors motto; Location...Location...Location

Your motto: Run...Run...Run

Ok Dexx, I'm curious and you do have a point about whether he is wiling to spend money on my marketing solutions. If he has been in business for 6 years and isn't spending a dime today on advertising or marketing; I'm not sure I would be able to convince him to change his mind.

Could you share 2 or 3 workable solutions that a realtor can use to grow his business by 100% without spending any money on marketing?

I'm a newbie so I don't know much.

Build his website but let him know that he'll need hosting for it but luckily you know an inxpensive hosting plan, then give him your affiliate link for hosting, build his site then inform him that you'll be available for future marketing when his budget allows.

Your realtor person can make anywhere from 3k on a 100,000 house to 15k on a 500,000 house. So yeah he can make it with no website (I know people that have a referral base that is crazy with refferals) but if he chooses not to spend money on advertising then I would not do it.

Marketing idea - have him do a free seminar or something along those lines at the church and give a portion of his profit to the church ? Win-Win ?

In your case, you won't make any money. He is one of those people that is a face to face person and an online lead he would be out of his comfort zone. I talk from experience by working with actual broker office/ real estate teams.