Welcome to the High Performance Agent Podcast.
I'm your host, Tina Beliveau, and I'm an expert in real estate marketing, social media, technology, and systems. I'm here to teach you how to build a sustainable and consistent business that supports your dream life.
Through my repeat, referral, and relationship-driven systems, I've built a team that's sold nearly 2,000 homes over my 20 years in the industry. In this podcast, I keep it real and share exactly what I do, and more importantly, how you can do it too.
If you're ready to scale faster, work smarter, and generate more leads from your sphere, please check out High Performance Agent Academy, my 12-month course packed with plug-and-play systems, done-for-you marketing, and step-by-step strategies.
You get my entire business in a box, plus coaching and personalized support from me every step of the way. Get all the details at tinabelliveau.com.
I'm coming to you today to talk with you about one of my absolute favorite topics, which is the concept of farming.
This episode is a direct response to Diana, who filled out my Ask Me Anything form — which, just a plug for the form, is in the show notes. If you want to ask me something, go for it.
Her question is: “I've been an agent for three months. Does sending postcards work for my farm? Is it worth my money and time? Same question regarding door hangers.”
As soon as I saw this, I was, “Ooh, I got something to say.”
I'm not going to give a disclaimer. There's no wrong way to do anything. There is no exact way to do things in real estate — we all know that — but I just want to say that as I kick this off.
I'm going to walk you through some thought processes and some ideas here.
Where I want to start is the answer to the question: should you farm?
My answer is maybe — and definitely not as the first thing before you've set up other key components of your business.
Could farming work? Yes.
Can it be done? Yes.
Do I recommend it? Not as your starting point.
Generally, it may not even be necessary in your business, or it may not be necessary until you have a really compelling reason to do it.
Also, the market has changed much. Things are starting to even out in Baltimore. We're much more of a balanced market than we were. There's more inventory coming.
One of the things that's been crazy about the concept of farming is that in the last five years, turnover rates have been very low.
If you don't even know what I mean by turnover rate — that is the percentage of homes in a neighborhood or area (whatever area you're picking) that are selling on an annual basis.
Previously, it was considered the gold standard to not farm a neighborhood unless it had at least 5% turnover, ideally more than that.
We have been way below that rate everywhere for an extended period of time. Context-wise, my argument against farming as far as the market is concerned is not nearly as strong as it once was.
But I'll give an example. My neighborhood is not that big. I have 250 homes in my neighborhood.
10% turnover would be 15 homes selling per year — which we never have. 5% would be seven homes selling per year.
We had a few years here where we only had one to two sales per year in my neighborhood. That's a very clear example of what turnover rates look like.
If you're farming a much bigger area, then there are going to be more homes to choose from.
But that brings up this other issue: if you're going to do what I call traditional farming — mailing something to people's properties, whether that's a postcard, pamphlet, or letter — there’s a cost per mailbox.
You can get more business by hitting more homes, but then you just have a higher upfront cost.
I'm not afraid to spend money and invest in my business. There are just a couple of things about farming that are tricky, especially if you're newer and don't have the funds or the environment to stick with something for a really long time.
There are various aspects to print marketing that I think are difficult.
Number one, it's more labor intensive.
If you're me, I want what I send out to be beautiful, nicely branded, and relevant to the people receiving it.
In backstory, I previously farmed a big swath of my area. I was hitting 5,000 addresses monthly, which was very expensive.
There was just a lot of creative work to be, “Alright, if you happen to have a sale in that area, that's great.”
That's where things can really take off — because you have that consistency.
But if you're only selling a house every couple months in that area, then there are months where you're, “Okay, what am I going to share? I'm not going to share someone else's listing. Am I going to do stats? Where’s the design?”
Or you can outsource to a company that will do that for you — and then you're paying even more per piece, which is fine.
In my experience, having other people design stuff for me is never really the product that I love at the end.
Long story longer, I think print marketing can just be a little bit labor intensive. You have to keep up with it.
The thing about marketing — more advertising and prospecting activities — is when you stop doing them, they stop generating results.
There will be some tail to it, but it's not super long. I think that's a really tricky thing.
And again, there's nothing wrong with these things.
But why I don't love them is the long-term maintenance. I am willing to get something up and running for a reasonable period of time, but if I have to be working on postcards 10 years from now to keep my business running, it's less appealing to me.
I'm going to talk more about building things that last as we go through this episode.
And then, the other thing that can be tricky with farming is unless you already have a layup in the neighborhood — maybe you're already doing some business there, or you already know everybody and have many friends, and you know that it's just a matter of time until you start having a lot of action in the neighborhood, or you're on the board and everybody knows you.
If you have a leg up, then you might get results faster. But a lot of the time, it can take 12 to 18 months to get your first transaction — and then on and on from there.
Depending on the average sale price, that could be totally worth it depending on how many homes you're mailing every month, what that cost is to print each piece and mail it, and to design it if you're paying someone to do your design.
Versus, okay, well, 12 months — what's that cost, and how does that compare to the gross commission on one listing?
Again, none of this is wrong. It can make sense as long as you stick with it for a long time, as with anything.
But what's really common with farming or anything where you're putting money out for months and it's not a tiny amount before the results come, it's very easy to quit before you get to that payoff point.
You have to have an iron will.
In my opinion, if you're going to farm, you want to sign up in your mind: “I'm going to do this for 18 months. I'm going to get something out every single month. I am not going to falter.”
Otherwise, I will literally waste all the money that I spent, most likely.
Maybe you'll get a piece of this, but it's very much a long-term strategy.
When people ask me, “Should you farm?” I'm, “Maybe.” I think there are some other things you should do first.
Foundationally, there are things with your sphere and your organic social media that I always recommend agents get in order first, because those foundational pieces are not only what become your bread and butter long term, but when you have those foundational pieces in place, and then add additional streams of leads and new ways to create business, it’s critical to have a foundational group of systems you can plug them into — because that’s where things can really get exponential.
If you’re, “But I really want to farm. What should I do?”
Then I always recommend, if at all possible (unless you’re someone that truly hates the internet and social media — which, if that’s the case, you’re probably not even sitting in this podcast), I really recommend starting with what I call digital farming.
The best way to digitally farm is to build, take over, or co-build a hyper-local Facebook group targeted to the exact area where you want to be doing business.
I have other episodes about this, so I’m not going to get into the weeds, but if you’re hearing some of this for the first time — I’m the admin of a hyper-local Facebook group.
We just hit 10,000 members. I’m gearing up to do a little celebration in there because it’s kind of amazing.
It just happened — I logged in one day and it was at 10,000 and I thought, “How did this happen?”
But I’ll tell you how it happened.
In 2014, I was doing 5,000 addresses every single month, and I was doing that in 2015. I was getting results, but it still felt like a heavy lift with all the creative work.
In 2016, I didn’t have time to oversee it anymore, and I decided to cut it out from my business.
That’s when I stopped my farm — and it’s also because at the time, I had started brokerage building and dropped that from what I was doing.
But what’s so cool is that in 2015, when I was still knee-deep in working and building that niche as my number one thing, I started a Facebook group to complement my physical farm.
That group sat around 200 people for years.
Eventually, at the beginning of COVID, when I was rebooting my business and getting back into production, the group started organically growing — and here we are, five years later.
My team has generated over $15 million in closed volume. I should probably go back and check my stats — I’m sure it’s closer to $20 million this year.
I get new leads in there regularly. It’s my ideal area. It’s right in my backyard.
It’s where my agents on my team like to work. It’s a great average sale price.
And the weird thing about running a group mine is that I’ve become very, very known — which isn’t necessarily my motivation, but as far as brand recognition and credibility, it’s insanely strong.
The more I go around in my little part of my suburb and realize how many people know me from that group, it’s pretty wild.
All of that being said, I can direct you to some resources if you want to learn more about digital farming.
I have a free video training that I’m going to link to in the show notes here. I 100% recommend that if you’re thinking about any form of farming and haven’t decided yet, just get this resource.
There’s a video you can watch and an accompanying workbook. I walk you through how I create a group mine.
The thing I really love about it now is that I’ve shifted completely into maintenance mode.
I’ve figured out how to delegate almost every aspect of it. My VA, bless her heart — she edits my podcast, she does so much to help me — and one of the many things she does is admit new members into the group.
She PMs anyone who answers in the membership questions that they’re thinking about buying or selling a home.
She schedules recurring posts on my behalf. I’m not even generating the content in there anymore.
The group has gotten to a point of having natural momentum.
That’s what I love about building things that can grow with just a little ongoing energy instead of the constant hustle of prospecting, advertising, and making things happen.
That is the story on digital farming.
What I normally recommend to people is to go with that strategy first.
Then, at some point, you may want to revisit your options and maybe add a physical farm.
Ironically, I’ll tell you — our team has just brought back a very, very low-key physical farm.
There’s this subdivision of recently built homes — average sale prices in the 800s, which is definitely above average for our market.
It’s a great price point for our team. We sold a house in there a couple of years back.
We don’t tend to send just listed postcards out, because it falls into my same thought process — a one-time mailing might strike gold, but they just tend to not yield a predictable return on investment.
We don’t normally bother, but occasionally we have a seller who insists.
What happened is we did a postcard at the client’s request. I think we did “Just Listed.”
Then once I did that, I thought, “Well, we might as well do ‘Just Sold’ and let everyone know what happened.”
We’ve gone on to do more business in the neighborhood that’s become a hybrid of word-of-mouth referral, but also because of the postcards.
We have our third property in the subdivision on the market right now.
We only mail in there when we have something to say.
I just keep it very simple. It’s a small neighborhood — it’s around $70 per mailing — so it’s worth it for me.
But I kind of wait for things this to show themselves to me — “Okay, this is now worth the time, energy, creative, and extra coordination.”
Every little extra mini project — I’m always looking at the mental load and creative drain.
I will say, we do have this small micro farm and it’s working really well for me.
That might be something for you to consider.
I do have really cute postcard templates I’ve developed, and that’s the kind of stuff I share with my students in High Performance Agent Academy.
Just a plug for the Academy if you want — if you wish you could just have every single thing that I have and use, there’s not one thing I don’t share in the Academy.
I also create new things for people by request.
That being said, if you insist on farming, I want to give you some tips on traditional farming.
I want you to start with doing your homework — coming back to what I was starting to say at the beginning of this episode.
Here are four things for you to think through.
Number one: Do you have a clear area in mind and a compelling reason to do it?
What is the area? Is it your neighborhood?
Is it somewhere you want to be dominant?
Is it a certain subdivision that you really want to establish yourself in, or a certain price point?
If it’s something a little random or doesn’t have a good rhyme or reason behind it, I would back up and ask yourself — is this really something that I need to do right now?
Or is this something that might make sense to revisit when I have more traction, or something to build off of — such as a listing or two in that area, where you can start to build a reputation?
Sometimes, in my opinion, it’s just a matter of having enough patience to wait for things to show themselves to you — that it’s time.
In the meantime, focus on the things that are tried and true, bread and butter, and “building things that last,” as I like to say.
So number one — have a clear area in mind and a clear reason.
Number two: Figure out what the turnover rate is.
Very simple — you just need to go to your MLS or your tax records and map out whatever area you’re going to go after, or maybe map out a couple.
If you’re choosing between areas, that can be a really good exercise.
Say there are 500 homes in that area — then go back into the MLS and see how many homes have sold in each calendar year for the last couple of years, and calculate your turnover rate.
If you have an area with 500 homes, and five homes sold last year, that means it had a 1% turnover rate.
You might notice that certain areas have better turnover rates — and that generally means there will be more listings there for you.
The number of homes also matters.
There’s a calculus between turnover rate, number of homes, and how much it costs to hit those homes with regular mailings.
I also dive deeper on the data — I look at who sold those listings on the list side and the buy side.
Is there someone who’s super dominant, or is it totally a mix of different people?
I’m not afraid to go up against another agent, but if someone has really established themselves somewhere, it might just be more of an uphill battle and tougher to get your return on investment.
Can it be done? Absolutely.
But I would recommend analyzing a couple of different neighborhoods.
Generally — and this may vary depending on your market — but in my market (Baltimore, Maryland), townhomes tend to have better turnover rates than single-family homes.
They’re a little more transient, often first-time buyers who are more likely to sell and not stay in the house quite as long as a “forever” home.
You might even want to compare townhomes versus single-family homes if they’re neighboring communities.
If you have a blended community, maybe it makes sense to just go after the townhomes and build from there, and then add the single families later if your budget allows.
So do your math on the turnover rate.
Number three: Check the competition.
See if there’s an in — an obvious opportunity.
When I look at data like this, it tends to tell me a story — “Oh, maybe this would make sense.”
Number four: Figure out what the cost will be and do the math on the commitment.
Are you going to do monthly postcards? Quarterly?
I don’t recommend quarterly — maybe every other month — but if you aren’t consistent, you’re not going to see the return.
Figure out: where am I going to design them?
Am I paying for a template?
Am I paying someone to make them for me?
Where am I going to print them?
How am I going to mail them?
Am I going to use a mail house and pay a premium, or print them, have them shipped to me, and slap a postcard or a stamp on them?
Am I going to have my child do that?
Think through all of that.
Figure out what it’s going to cost per mailing — total dollars, as well as your labor and energy.
Then look at what that will be over 18 months.
Look at what that return could be if you’re selling at least a handful of homes per year in that area.
Then you’ve got all your information.
If you decide to proceed — great.
If you’re, “You know what, this doesn’t make sense,” that’s okay too.
That’s kind of where I wanted to take you in this episode — the concept that prospecting and advertising stop working when you stop.
They’re not compounding assets, but they can be in a way.
I think there’s a world where you can use advertising to get your business off the ground in an area, build that brand recognition, and people start to know you.
Then you can probably start mailing a little less — but you really want to have all the foundational systems in place.
That means a functioning CRM with all your people in it, strong email marketing, and a strong organic personal social media presence.
That’s where things can really supercharge.
I recommend focusing on building things that last — that are high-leverage, sustainable, and scalable first — and then getting into advertising and prospecting later, if you can afford to.
Because otherwise, you can just get on this treadmill.
I see this a lot.
I have an episode a few months back in my library about someone who asked on the same Ask Me Anything form whether she should buy internet leads.
And I said, “Well, maybe.”
One of the problems with things Zillow leads is, you know how it is if you’ve ever done them — it’s all about response rate.
You need to answer your phone when it rings, wherever possible.
You run out and show homes to build rapport, and you can close a lot of deals, but you end up being so busy servicing that model of lead that it can be hard to find the time and focus to get your systems in place — the ones that will eventually get you off that treadmill.
It’s very much a chicken-or-the-egg thing to think about.
Some people don’t have the luxury of taking more time to build a database and sphere in a traditional way, and I respect that.
I just recommend you at least reserve some time.
The three things I just want to say:
Number one: Your CRM.
You need a functioning, good CRM that works for you — and everyone you know needs to be in it.
Your past clients, your friends, your family, anyone who supports your business or is open to supporting it. Anyone where you’ve acquired their contact information through reasonable means, and it would be reasonable to contact them about real estate occasionally — that is foundational.
I’ve met with hundreds, if not thousands, of agents who know that their CRM is an issue. It becomes this black hole for your business.
It’s a forever opportunity cost until you resolve it.
That’s why I deal with your CRM in the very first lesson of the Academy — because it just has to be done. You’ve got to eat that frog and get it done.
Number two: You need, in my opinion, really sustainable and effective email marketing.
I love email marketing compared to advertising-type stuff because yes, you do have to put some effort into your email if you’re not going to send people crazy, not-good templates — but it’s very low cost.
It’s generally less time, and the potential is huge. You can communicate with thousands of people at once for, in the case of Flodesk, about $40 a month with an unlimited capacity.
It’s very high ROI — minimal time, money, and effort.
I’m going to be talking a lot more about email in November because Flodesk is getting rid of their unlimited contacts program on Black Friday.
Basically, anybody who gets Flodesk before Thanksgiving can continue with their unlimited plan and be emailing literally thousands or tens of thousands of people without paying more per contact.
If you’re using another email platform, this might be something to look into.
Reach out to me to talk about it — I have a template I use to get people started.
You want your database in order, you want your email list in order, and then I recommend adding in the hyperlocal Facebook group.
You build it once, and it will work for you forever.
You can eventually shift from building mode to maintenance mode — and let me tell you, it is freaking awesome to be in maintenance mode in your business.
Just let your systems work, let that be enough, and enjoy your life. Sit back — which is what I’m getting to do.
The more I sit back and notice how much I’m sitting back, I think, “Holy crap, I worked so long to get here.”
I’m so grateful to be here. And I’d really like to help more people get here because it’s so hard to reach this point in a real estate business — where your lead flow feels consistent, predictable, and sustainable.
Now, is our lead flow as a team still seasonal and crazy at certain times of the year and slower at others? Yes.
But I know, on the whole, generally every year, how much business we’re going to do.
I know my high months, I know my low months, and I keep reserves in my checking account.
I never dip into the red, even if I have a month that on paper isn’t profitable — because I have a real estate team with significant overhead.
I’ve got salaries, contracts, staging storage units, lots of subscriptions — all very intentional.
That is not nothing on a monthly basis.
If I have a really off month in the winter, maybe I’m not making money on paper, but I have a healthy reserve and balance in my checking account.
I plan for it — and it is unreal.
It can be tough to get here, but that’s what I try to help people with in the Academy.
If you’re nodding your head saying, “I want that. I want that sustainability. I’m not exactly sure how to get there, or I’ve been banging my head against the wall trying to figure it out,” I want to invite you to book a Clarity Call with me.
The link to do that is in the show notes. Set up a call and we’ll talk and figure out your best move.
If you aren’t ready to talk with me or aren’t sure if it’s worth your time, at least get on the Academy sales page and take a look.
You can see what it would look like to buy my complete systems and get all of my coaching.
And just a little plug for people who end up being open to a brokerage shift — if you ultimately determine that eXp is a great place for you, when you partner with me at eXp, you actually get the Academy and my forever coaching and mentorship at no cost.
It’s just part of being in my organization.
I’m not here to pitch you on anything you don’t want, but if you’re just looking for options and want to hear the menu of ways to work with me, the best thing to do is hop on a call.
I welcome you to do that.
If you’re just listening and learning and not looking to make any changes, that’s awesome too.
Thank you for being here with me.
Feel free to pop me a question and ask me anything in the form, or shoot me a message on Instagram.
I love when people reach out and say, “I listened to such-and-such episode — here’s what I’m doing,” or, “I have a question.”
Just know that I welcome that, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Thank you for listening to the High Performance Agent Podcast.
Make sure to subscribe or follow so you don’t miss the next one, and check the show notes for links to all of my resources, including my course, High Performance Agent Academy.
Please come say hi on Instagram — you can find me at High Performance Agent.
Talk to you soon.
