The following is a true story. A friend of mine listed her house for sale and then, after a week or so, called me for advice.

Her agent had sent links to three home tours that he had prepared - sounds great, but none of the tours told anything about the special features of their property - or the benefits of those special features. On top of that, the listings stated that she had a pasture and a barn. She said she wished she'd known that all these years - she'd have bought a horse!

My advice was to list all the features of her home and then write a benefit statement for each. When she was done, send it to her Realtor and ask him to incorporate it into her home tours. She did that, and - nothing. Not even a response.

I asked how she had found this wonderful turkey, and the following is the letter she sent in reply. I've removed names to protect both her privacy, and the guilty Realtors.

"We had 3 Realtors come out and he seemed the best of the 3.

The first lady told us she'd be out on a certain day. We were working on our R.V. and when we took a break we found a card stuffed in the front door. My husband called her and she said no one answered the door. He asked her if she looked around. She said yes. He said "Did you see us working down below on the R.V.?" She said "Oh, was that you?" Duh? Drove all the way out to leave a card. She said she wouldn't be able to come back out again until the next week because she was flying somewhere for a few days and she would call when she got back in town.

The second one made an appointment for 8 am. My husband called him at 10 to find out where he was. He said he was running late and hadn't been around a phone to call us. Funny, because we reached him right away at his office.

He made a second appointment and was an hour late. When he got there he looked around a little, but
spent most of the time telling us all his health problems.

The one we chose was the third one and he made a lot of promises that he has yet to deliver on. He had a good sales pitch and managed to have us sign a listing. Then he seems to have quit other than trying to sell us a repair insurance thing and having his wife come out and tell us how to put out 'colorful bars of soap'.

I looked at the listing today. I still have a barn so I really need to find it and get my horse. No sense in it going to waste."

Since this is a small town, my friend probably just picked up the phone book, so I don't know if they did any self-marketing. But if they did, agents #1 and #2 blew it before they ever got started. From their behavior, anyone would assume that they didn't even want a listing.

Agent #3 did market himself in person when he got there - but now has completely dropped the ball. My friend's husband is not one to mince words, so I would hate to be that guy when they manage to contact him. His ears will definitely burn.

The market here has cooled, so unless this guy wakes up, the listing will expire. You can be sure that my friends will not re-list with him, but they will tell other people about his lack of service.

The message here is as old as marketing: If you want to succeed, under-promise and over-deliver.

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