Annette,

That is a loaded question.  What works for others may not work for you.  I really depends on what you want, where you are going and how you are going to go about it based on your marketplace.  I noticed that you advertised your stats on your profile, and from those I am assuming you are doing very well.  So if I were you, I would repeat what got you there over and over again, and stay open to new ideas...I would strenghten what works.  A

For me #1 is always to build my business by referral. After that, it really depends on your market. For example, in mine expireds are few and far between... so not worth investing a lot of time in them. You might want to think about farming other neighborhoods than just your own.

I work by referral only.  My past clients send me their family and friends and neighbors.  Spoil your past clients, it will really pay off.

I have farmed the community I live, work and play in and it has been very good to me! I keep in touch with my clients so have lots of repeat business and referrals..it all goes hand in hand!

Start with a great attitude and market to the folks you've already worked with. Get out and meet new people. Word of mouth is your best advertising.

Everyone is in a different market and prefers to serve different types of clientele for different types of transations.  What works in one situation may not work in a different situation or market.  Pick one or two ideas and work on those ideas for a reasonable period of time.  Perform testing and try different approaches.  At a later time, try another idea.

If you haven't already done one of Brian Buffini or Joe Stumpf's classes on referrals, they really helped my a lot.  Stumpf did an entire afternoon on what a quality real estate practice looks like - what do you need to do to become referrable?  It was totally awesome.

What works for me is my Active Rain blog. A mix of stories, lessons, market reports and entertainment gets the phone ringing every week. 

 Good Monday morning Annette. I do like your question. A lot of agents farm a particular neighborhood and work it to the max

Good morning Annette. I spend two hours per day doing blogging and social media. That investment in time brings me a great return.

Be a productive member of the community 

A good website and built in blog is my goal for near future.

p.s. Do not try to do everything and be everywhere. 

Referrals first, from friends and definately past clients.  Expired are a great sourse of new clients.

ActiveRain will be my priority for 2016.  There are so many members here in the Rain that have the opportunities to dramatically increase their referral business.  I want to help and feel that in doing so, it will also increase my referral business.

Outbound referrals are easy money.

Farming, FSBO, SEO/past client and open house

work your butt off...do what method u like best.. keep doing it. most people give up when they dont see results in a bit... or if they get busy, they slack off... and you would be surprised to see if your area has smaller new home builders...my new agent will do appx 6 mil next year just with me because of her  hard work

Set yourself a budget per week to go out and about in your community. Purchase something from each of the small local businesses. Engage in easy conversation with the people that work there and the owners. Talk the businesses up, do blogs featuring the businesses (add photos), post about them on Facebook, etc.    

Different things work for different agents in different markets. Test, test, and test according to your advertising budget.

 Hi Annette Coker  Nice to see someone from my old neighborhood! I went to Briarcliff High Class of '87 and have many, many friends in the Lakeside area. 

I definitely recommend that you organize and touch your sphere at least once per month. I use postcards but I also take a past customer to lunch every other week or so. 

Second, I would consider Zillow and Trulia but only purchase mobile leads. 

Finally, you need to prospect for listings. Just Listed / Sold postcards are good but can be costly and time consuming. Use them but be consistent and farm a specific neighborhood.

I also use a home valuation web site for listing leads and it works really well. I use https://www.homevalueleads.com/ --- I like house values for three reasons --- It is cheap, effective and easy to use. I set it up and did slight customizations in less than an hour... I think I pay $50 per month for the site .. It provides customers with an instant valuation. I run it continuously on Fb using ppc and drilling down to target just home owners.

Good luck to you in 2016 and beyond. 

I will definitely contact you should any of my friends or family needs assistance.

Annette Coker Get back to basics. That always works.

Does your FARM have it's own NextDoor.com site ???????????

Referrals from our clients and colleagues has always been our one winning way to bring in new business. 

Annette,
Move up in price. Work with more expensive sellers and buyers. You may do fewer deals but still make more money.

Focus.  

If you blog, content, content, content using your voice! Let your future clients read, watch, or hear what makes you the Realtor to use, versus ALL the others in your market!

Hope that its an incredible 2016 for you!

Michael

Michael Thacker - Louisville Realtor

I do both online and offline marketing....and at a certain point, you don't know exactly where your business is coming from .....it's all integrated....

Actually Annette this aspect of your business, which I call 'Attraction' is not the most important. In regards to attraction you should pick no more that 3 and become the Level 5, the Expert at those disciplines.

Where I would begin, not with a new agent but a seasoned agent, is establishing if the foundation is solid. Upon the eight foundational principles everything else depends.  Such as 'Vision," "Commitment to be best-self," "goals and milestones," etc.

THEN you evaluate how your business will be fed. There are many options, but the top ones are, Public Speaking, Internet. Social Media, Joint Venture, Affiliate, SEO, advertising, networking, creating authority articles and of course the gold standard of, referrals.

Each of these has precise implementation disciplines. Unfortunately, all of these appear as 'shiny things' to real estate agents and they make the fatal mistake of completing a miserable job at all of them when they should focus on no more than three.

My advise would be to amp up your referral system and energize your direct response campaigns. 

#3 would be to follow the path of Michael the inspector. Create for yourself a lead generation program to generate referral, not lead generation, income.

You have received some very good answers above.

Pick the top three things that made you successful and expand on them.

Send out regular uniquely sized post cards to your farm area. commit to at least a 6 month marketing program. All it takes is one listing and the expense has more than paid for itself.

I agree with Michael. 

Online and client referrals works for us.  Stay in touch with your data base.