I looked back and so far this year I'm averaging 5 referral requests per month. By referral request I mean one of my graduates or industry contacts asking me "Who do you know in (fill in the city) that is a Wickman grad I can trust to send a referral to?" When I was an active Realtor, I'd ask that question all the time but in the last five years the way I'd find that person has changed dramatically.
Go back five years and ask me for a referral to an agent in Las Vegas and I'd most likely connect you with a Realtor named Debbie. I met her once at a convention and every month since that I'd received her monthly newsletter which was basically just a local market update. She occupied that spot in my mind, the spot of "agent in Vegas" and so she got the referrals. I'm sure each month she sent out thousands of those newsletters in her local market and probably up to a thousand across the country to other Realtors. And when I say every month, I mean every month - without exception. Getting her newsletter so consistently basically forced me to get my own referral marketing out the door with matching regularity.
If you've been doing something like this, keep it up for sure. But if you can't afford to start a large mailing campaign right now, don't sweat it. I don't think you really have too these days to get the same result. Ask me now for an agent referral and I'm first going to try to find my own graduate and if I don't have any, I'll see if others in my company do. But what if you were to ask me for a referral to an agent in Texas or Oklahoma? That's no small request given the hundreds upon hundreds of Realtors I've personally trained just in those two states. In fact, even if I've done just one class in a city, that's still a lot of great people from which to choose. How in the world can I pick when I so deeply care about every single one of those grads?! A couple of weeks ago the "how" became very clear to me because I actually did have to pick someone.


