Everybody needs an Erin, and Jake Palmer thanks his lucky stars he found her. She?s the person who winds him up every morning so he can bounce down the street and make money.
Palmer is one of those Realtors? who ?gets? it: It takes money to make money. Enter his full-time assistant, whom he calls his manager, Erin. ?She sends me out 
every day, making sure I don?t have ice cream on my face and tells me if I need a haircut. I?m just the mascot ? she runs the business. I have no business running a business,? Palmer says.
Jake Palmer, listing and selling real estate in his hometown of Saint John, New Brunswick in Canada, was a French/history major in college who went on to an IT career with the local telephone company. ?I managed the online presence for the telephone company.?
In 2008, what Palmer thought was a pretty secure gig turned into a nightmare of insecurity. ?They started laying people off. There were several rounds of layoffs and, to tell you the truth, by the time they got to me, I was ready. It was just so stressful to not know if I was next.? It didn?t help the stress factor that his wife was expecting their first child.
Before the hammer fell, Palmer ?started exploring other avenues,? he explains. Since he was a soon-to-be graduate of the school of ?nothing-in-life-is-truly-secure,? he chose real estate. He got his license the day before his daughter was born, sold a house a week and a half later and went on to close two deals a month during his first year.
?I was going after it hard because, to me, there were no other options. I wasn?t going back to IT and I had a new baby at home,? he said. While his sphere of influence contributed a lot to his success that first year, it was an old-fashioned real estate lead generation technique that eventually helped him survive. ?Good old banging on doors, three to four days a week, for four or five hours a day,? Palmer said.
With almost five years in real estate under his belt, Palmer has refined both his lead generation techniques and how he markets himself. He gives a lot of the credit for this to Erin. ?One of the luckiest breaks I?ve had was hiring her. My production increased immediately and it also evened out. Instead of six transactions one month and then three the next, my production got more consistent, to where I can now plan on five or six transactions every month,? Palmer explains.
When I asked Palmer if he has a business plan he sent me a photo of it. ?I sit down right after Christmas and chart out how many leads I need to get me to the number of transactions that will bring in the amount of money I want to make the following year.?
He then divides the wall in front of his desk into columns ? one for each month. In each column he plasters colored sticky notes. Red notes signify deals needed. When he gets a deal, the red note is replaced with a yellow. When that deal closes, he rips off the yellow and replaces it with a blue sticky note. At any given time Palmer can look at his wall and instantly see where he stands in his business.
?When I?m at my desk, it?s haunting me, I can?t miss it,? he claims. While it may seem a bit unorthodox, this method has allowed him to reach his goals consistently, every year.
Palmer derives most of his business from referrals and sign calls. But wait ? these aren?t your traditional real estate signs.
?I listed this great little house and it sold within a few days. I triumphantly posted a sold sign and got the family to pose for pictures in front of it. I even set their kid on top of the sign. Three weeks before closing the buyer backed out. Suddenly, I have to take the sold sign down and start marketing this house again. The house got lost; we weren?t getting any activity. Buyers just assumed there must be something wrong with it,? Palmer explains.
?The owners and I kicked around ideas,? Palmer continues, ?like throwing a party, even putting a counter on the house, counting down the days it?s been on the market, such as ??200 days! 300 days!??
He recalled a funny sign rider he had used once: ?Indoor Plumbing!? and suggested using it on this house. The homeowners ran with the idea. The sign created so much interest that people would stop in front of the client?s home just to have their photo snapped next to the sign rider.
That?s when Palmer discovered what has become his marketing motto: ?If we break the mold on what people expect, people will pay attention.?
The ?Indoor Plumbing? rider came down after a week and ?Not Haunted? took its place. ?That one, honestly, within three days was all over the Internet,? Palmer claims. ?The homeowners and I agreed that every week we?d change the rider,? and they had a blast brainstorming each subsequent rider. It got to the point that people were driving by just to see what the current week?s rider said. ?The house went from being a stigmatized property to one that was being shown consistently,? explains Palmer.
That marketing ploy has also led to additional listings from homeowners who want similar sign riders. ?I listed a house that the homeowners? claimed was truly haunted. They wanted a rider on the for-sale sign that said, ?Haunted!?
Palmer is at that point in his career where he is looking for work-life balance and has decided to more carefully consider which clients he works with. ?When I size up buyers, trying to decide if I will take them on as clients or refer them to another agent, I look at their expectations and how much time I?ll need to spend with them,? explains Palmer. He typically refers those clients with unrealistic expectations, or that promise to be a time suck, to other agents. Does it work?
?I?ve got two kids,? he continues. ?I?m working less, spending more time with them, and my business is up 30 to 40 percent from last year.?
I asked Palmer about his social media strategy. ?My social media strategy is that I don?t have a strategy,? he explains. He adheres to what he calls ?unmarketing,? the title of a book he read.
?Stop bombarding people with marketing stuff and let them meet you as a person first, then a Realtor?,? he explains. ?So many real estate agents post every new listing on Facebook. Who cares? New listings don?t give anyone an idea of who you are. Nobody cares that you?re doing an open house on Sunday. But if I post a picture of an apartment I showed yesterday, where the toilet is black inside and there?s a sock floating in it, people are interested.? And interested Facebook friends share interesting posts.
Palmer loves old stuff. He lives in a 137-year-old home and drives classic cars. He really likes old stuff, though, when the stuff is broken. ?I like a challenge, especially a mechanical challenge, so I can take things apart and put them back together,? he says. That, and his family, keeps Palmer pretty busy when he isn?t working.
Asked for his ?key to success? in the real estate business, Palmer replies: ?Ah, man, it?s?hard to say. A lot of my situation is luck ? I?ve been really, really lucky.
?You have to have success as your goal,? Palmer continues. ?You have to approach real estate as a profession. Get educated and have a level of commitment. I was committed because failure was not an option. I had a daughter who was born the day after I started in real estate,? he adds.
?So, I guess that?s the key: If you want to be successful in real estate, have your first born enter the world the day after you get your license.?
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