Free rental truck...good marketing idea!
I was eating lunch recently at the beach, when I spotted this truck from the restaurant’s window.
It was Fred Durlacher of Vanguard GMAC Real Estate’s truck purporting “Work with Fred and use this truck for free.”
I, as I’m sure many others have, visited his Web site Fredshouses.com to find out what it was all about.
Durlacher has been marketing with his truck for about six months.
“The response has been very positive,” said Durlacher. “I have people I haven’t talked to in 20 to 25 years from school call as they are driving behind me just to say they think the truck is cool and to say hello. In listing presentations, I let the sellers know that while the truck is being driven around town, buyers are constantly visiting my Web site where there is a place where the buyer can view my listings and all listings on the MLS. Since almost 87 percent of all new home buyers go to the Internet first this is a great way to get them to contact me if they see something they like.
The truck provides a small but important piece of my marketing and service program.”
Durlacher said many clients have taken advantage of his free truck offer.
“The only clients who haven’t taken advantage of the truck are the ones who are moving out of town or want to store their things in a portable storage unit that the companies pick up and drop off for them,” he said.
What’s the criteria for them to use the truck?
“You must buy or sell a house with me,” said Durlacher. “You need to have a clean driving record for the insurance company to allow you to drive the truck. I fill up the truck with gas prior to anyone using it and ask that the gas be replaced when returned. The big benefits are that buyer and sellers save on the costs of renting the truck, insurance costs and mileage charges. They can use the truck for multiple days if it is available.”
Though he offers the truck, he does not help with the manual labor of moving.
“Most people are just happy to use the truck,” he said. “This has been a good year as I have already made some sales as a direct result of the truck’s advertising along with a lot of my past customers referring their friends and family. If my business continues as scheduled this should be my best year in real estate and based on current market conditions I think doing the extras has really paid off.”
Durlacher has been with Vanguard/GMAC Real Estate for almost four years.
He holds both a real estate and mortgage brokers license and has been working in one or the other industry for over 15 years.
“In 1995 I worked a few years as a Realtor in Indianapolis, Indiana with my twin brother Ted at Re/Max Select with the slogan ‘Win with the twins’,” said Durlacher. “While building a very successful real estate business that Ted continued, I realized that I missed living in Jacksonville and my wife Natalie and I wanted to start a family so we moved back after two years. I was about to continue with real estate in Jacksonville when I was approached by a nationwide lender where I worked for the next several years as a sales manager and then moved to another company as operations manager. While the mortgage industry was rewarding I started to work with Realtors to promote a mortgage program that allowed them to provide both mortgage financing and sales assistance throughout the buying process. That experience made me realize what I had been missing on the real estate side of the business and decided to get back into real estate.”
Durlacher said he decided to get back into real estate because he enjoys the idea that you can control the level of service that you want to provide to a customer or client.
“I interviewed several companies before deciding what I thought was a good fit and a company that offered support but treated you as an independent contractor,” he said. “I stopped the interview process after spending a couple of hours with Pete Dalton, broker owner of Vanguard GMAC Real Estate. No other owner took the time to meet me or explain their company’s vision.”
He said he’s done very well at Vanguard/GMAC Real Estate and is happy with his choice.
Helping newcomers
The Amelia Island/Nassau County Association of Realtors has come up with an interesting way to help new members of their organization.
The association started the Realtor Rep program to mentor new agents.
“We were saw an opportunity to help new agents learn more about our association, what it offers its members and show them the ins and outs and how the organization is structured,” said Tina Scrudato of Century 21 John T. Ferreira and Son and incoming president of the association. “Each month we have a current member volunteer as a Realtor Rep to meet and greet new members at the monthly luncheon and answer any questions they may have about our organization. For example, they tell them about an upcoming educational event or a community service event.”
Lila Keim is the chair of the Communication Committee and oversees the volunteers.
The Realtor Reps serve as liaisons between the new inductees and the current members of the organization. Their function is to invite new members to the monthly association luncheon and meeting, meet and greet newly-inducted members and to acclimate the new members to the Amelia Island Nassau County Association of Realtors.
“The purpose of the Realtor Rep program is to retain and increase membership, attendance, and participation at general meetings, educational events, service projects and social opportunities,” said Keim. “The program is voluntary and assignments are done on a monthly basis.
“We’d like to obtain volunteers for 2008 and organize and educate them early in the process,” said Keim. “It is not very time consuming and is an easy way to get involved with the association.”
Scrudato said the program has gone well, but that she would like to be even better next year.
“We had a nice group of volunteers for Realtor Rep, but we would like to improve the program next year to make it more visible to the new members,” said Scrudato. “We are going to revisit the program when we review strategic plan.”
Scrudato said the organization has been working on the Realtor Rep program for years and finally implemented it this year.
“We wanted to make sure that the Realtor Rep serves only as a person who can provide guidance about our organization,” said Scrudato. “The Realtor Rep should not get involved in any activities that a broker is responsible for. The first step is keeping a program like this simple and seeking volunteers who are personable and knowledgeable about the organization.
Top item from the Realtor Builder Tradeshow
Though there were a lot of pens, notepads and other useful marketing items given out at this year’s event, we decided to only choose one item as the best item given out. Specialty Engravings and Awards gave out a very handy gadget, which I’m sure many picked up and will use for years to come. It is a pair of pliers, a screwdriver, knife, ruler, bottle opener and more, all in one.
Congratulations to
...Lyndsay Morgan of Escape Title and Financial Services on her marriage to Jason Proly of Starkey and Associates.
...Diana Dilallo of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage on her marriage to Michael Tarzia, an insurance agent with Liberty Mutual.