Building My Real Estate Empire

Time to unload and have a “Brain Dump”!

To design any good marketing plan, it simply comes down to having a bunch of ideas (the more the better) and taking the time to first organize, and then to prioritize them. 

In my last marketing tip, I spoke of how important marketing is but how it always seems to get put off, or put on the “do later” (aka: the never get done) list. Well, it’s time to change that!

The “Brain Dump”

Find, make, and then schedule the time to have 1 hour, (a solid hour) all to yourself. No noise, no distractions, no interruptions, just you, a pad of paper and a pen. And yes, I mean a pad of paper and a pen, no computer!

What you want to do at this step is sit for an entire hour (yes stay there the whole hour even if you run out of ideas) writing down every marketing idea that comes to mind. Remember, you have not completed this step until you have been thinking for an entire hour! If you get stuck, ask yourself questions to help bring out more ideas. Ask things like… “What can I do to attract more customers?”… “What marketing ideas have I seen other companies use?”… And so on.   

At this point, just write down all the ideas. Don’t judge or try to analyze them, and understand upfront that some ideas will be better than others. For now just get them all down on paper. Next, we will sort the ideas by organizing them.

Organize those ideas and thoughts

Now that you have taken an entire hour to write down every idea that you could think of it is time to organize all the ideas and thoughts. I like to have categories for the ideas such as; Newspaper, Direct Mail, Radio, Television, Realtor, Buyer and Seller Marketing etc. Simply put, create main categories and then write down each idea and thought under the appropriate categories.

Prioritize those ideas and thoughts

Next, it is time to prioritize the ideas that you now have in each of the categories. Number each of them starting with #1 as the highest priority, then #2 etc. until they are all numbered and prioritized.   

If your list seems to have too many ideas, something you can do is list two sub-categories under each category, one titled ”now” and the other “later”. This is an easy way to shorten the list very quickly to make it easier to work with. When prioritizing if you use the “now” and “later” sub-categories, for the time being only focus on the “now” items.

Once you have completed prioritizing all of your items, you can now enter the items into a spread sheet on your computer for easier prioritizing, sorting and editing later on.     

Things to keep in mind when prioritizing your ideas

• There is no perfect plan, just get started and adjust later
• Consider all money and time restraints when prioritizing the items 
• What you think is a good idea now, may become a bad idea after you try it 
• Just get started, schedule individual items and make time for their completion   

You can make this exercise as simple or complicated as you want it to be. However, the whole purpose is simply to get the ideas out and down on paper, get your juices flowing, and to just get started. You can always change your mind on things and fine tune them later.  

As an added bonus, a few other things happen when you get everything down on paper. 1) It makes things more real and you become more committed to the ideas. 2) It frees up “space” and removes clutter from the mind which stimulates new thoughts and ideas. 3) And as a side effect it can act as a stress reliever. 

Although this outline has been geared towards marketing activities, these techniques can also be used for organizing and prioritizing other things such as To Do lists, work flow, poject mnagement” and a wide variety of other things.  

Give it a try!

Eric Foster
www.BuildingMyRealEstateEmpire.com