Special Reports – FREE Offers That Compel Your Prospects To Show Themselves To You

 

Using one of the best offers available to all real estate businesses to demonstrate your expertise and help get more clients

Introduction

Writing special reports is one of my favorite and most used Lead Generation Tools.

So what is a special report?

A special report is a step-by-step list of guidelines produced by a specialist for the benefit of the reader. The aim is to instruct the reader on how to achieve a certain objective, or to avoid a certain problem. A special report can be from 1 page to fifty or sixty pages long in length.

Special reports offer several excellent benefits…

• They are a quick way to establish yourself as the expert in your line of business. When selling real estate services it is imperative the prospect sees you as an expert or they won’t even consider using you

• Very few people running real estate businesses have yet to grasp the concept of special reports. Consequently if you start to write them you’ll gain a significant advantage in your market

• Special reports give your prospects (and clients) valuable beneficial information. It is a very giving process. Because you are the person providing this information you are seen to be generous. You will be “paid” back many times over with new clients

• Perhaps the greatest advantage of special reports is their ability to seek out good prospects for you. Used as an offer, special reports will be requested by people who are ready to buy your services. As a result they are excellent for lead generation

• Special reports act as another way of “tangiblizing” your service(s). The fact that your special report is a “product” helps prospects see the value of the service you’re selling them

• Special reports can be used in a number of excellent ways…

1. For example, you can issue a press release highlighting the fact that the special report is available. Make special note of the best points and mention how people can get hold of it. Send your special report to the editor of the magazine or newspaper along with your press release

2. Use as an incentive in your advertising

3. You can also use special reports as seminar handouts, additions to information kits about your company, turn them into published articles, or incorporate selections of them into your brochure

4. More recently special reports are excellent to give away on your web site. You can either get people to request you send the report, or allow them to download it from your site

• Once your special report is written, you can use it forever. You just need to update it every so often. Special reports are timeless Lead Generation Tools, which will continue to work for you, generating leads and helping you convert them into clients

Are there any disadvantages? Just one…

• Special reports take time to write. When you’re already busy it’s hard to find several minutes spare time, never mind several hours. I often write my reports over a weekend.

Okay so now we accept special reports are essential for you, how do you go about writing one?…

Writing special reports – a proven 8 stage process

STAGE 1 – What specific subject are you going to write about

To decide on your subject matter for your special report ask yourself the following two questions…

• What information relating to my service would be useful for my prospects and clients to read about?

Here are some good examples…

1. Tax Breaks for Homeowners
2. Real Estate Investing
3. How to Get the Best Price for Your Home
4. How to Sell Your House Quickly
5. 10 Easy Ways to Give Your House Curb Appeal

Believe me it is very easy to think of dozens of subject areas for your area of expertise. If you are struggling to come up with anything yourself, have a brainstorming session with a colleague or as many colleagues as possible.

• The key question to ask yourself when you’re deciding on the subject matter is this, “Would this information be helpful to someone in my niche market who couldn’t care less about me and who might not ever buy my services.” If the answer is “yes” then you’re heading in the right direction.

Having decided on your subject, you now need to move to the most important part of your special report…

STAGE 2 – Decide on the title for your special report

The title of your report is the one thing that grabs your prospect’s attention. It is exactly the same as a headline in a sales letter. If the reader dismisses your title – that’s it you’ve lost them – you won’t get a response. Your title can be the difference between success and failure – it’s that important.

Follow the guidelines for creating successful headlines contained in Lead Generation Tool 1. You can’t go wrong if you follow these rules.

STAGE 3 – Break your subject down into well defined sections

To make the task of writing your report less daunting, break it down into small sections. For example, you’ll notice through all my materials I use STEPS or STAGES – just like I’m doing here. This makes it very easy to put your report together. An added benefit of doing this is that you can use each section as a tip sheet (see Lead Generation Tool 6).

STAGE 4 – Be personal and conversational

Just like your sales letters your report should be written how you talk, as well as being personal. Use “you,” “your,” and “I.”

Remember only one person will be reading your report at any one time, so it’s important they get the feeling you are talking to them on a one-to-one level.

STAGE 5 – Don’t use jargon

This will be the death of you – well your report anyway! If you have to use jargon you can, but always clarify what you mean. Assume your prospect knows nothing about your subject and you won’t go far wrong.

 

STAGE 6 – Leave the last page for the following…
Other information sources, books, tapes, workshops etc. More importantly include details about your own services and how the prospect can acquire them.
Include your UPB, other benefits, risk reversal, and a couple of testimonials.

• Here’s how to write the last paragraph…

“Now that you know what’s possible, you need someone with the expertise to put all the pieces together. Let us start working on your solution today. Call me on… and you can get into a new house immediately.”

• Another effective way to round off the report is to write a third person “bio” that motivates people to call…

“Brian’s passion is creating the Ultimate tools and success systems to help any real estate agent achieve a high level of success in their real estate business while maintaining proper life balance. To this end, Brian started and continues to develop Brian Rodgers Seminars, Inc. BR Seminars is a company dedicated to creating, developing, testing and delivering revolutionary marketing systems to real estate agents and brokers across North America. Through his very personal service he…. For more information, call … or write to him at …”

STAGE 7 – Create the front sheet of your report

You must include the following details on the front of your report…

• The special report title
• Name, address, and contact details of your real estate business
• Space to personalize the report to the person requesting the information
• Copyright notice. For example…

© Copyright ABC Services Ltd

Although I recommend you offer your reports for free, you should put a price in the top right hand corner of the front page to add value to the report. Do however make it realistic. For a free report no less than $7.97 no more than $39.97!

You can print the front of your special report on your letterhead, on 60lb quality paper, or even get special front sheets printed (this isn’t necessary)

STAGE 8 – Print and bind your special report

It is best to print the report yourself when you need copies. If you start distributing high volumes of the report you should consider getting it printed locally.

Because you are giving information to people, the presentation of the special report is important but not crucial. The quality of information far outweighs the look and feel of the report. Having said this use a binding system (comb binding, wire binding, thermal binding etc) to add a professional look feel to your special report.

To be effective your special report must…

1. Be based on what your reader wishes to achieve
2. Take into account why he or she wishes to achieve it
3. Consider the difficulties standing in the way of the prospect
4. Provide clear, factual and up to date information
5. Offer valuable information that’s immediately useful including any supporting data
6. Be complete and thorough. Don’t be frightened about giving too much information away. If you are not sure about how much information to give away – give more rather than less!

How to use your special report for lead generation

At the beginning of this report I mentioned the number one reason why I’m so fond of special reports especially for real estate businesses – they’re excellent for lead generation.

There are 2 proven methods that have never failed to generate dozens of quality leads…

Using (1) sales letters and (2) ads

Offer your special report to your prospects in your sales letter and/or ad.
The crucial thing to remember here is that your number one objective is to get the prospect to send off for your special report. Your letter and ad should be written to fulfill this objective – and only this objective.

The key then is to send your special report out with a sales letter, which is written to achieve another objective bringing the prospect closer to buying your service.

In many cases this objective will be to get an appointment. However it does depend on the service you sell.