Written exclusively for the real estate professional, How To Farm Successfully By Phone tells you how to cultivate your farm area, and increase your listings and sales by applying proven telemarketing techniques. It also includes DO NOT CALL Registry guidelines. You'll learn how to create and maintain your farm phone directory; make the telephone work for you; know what to say in those first critical 15 seconds; write winning farm phone scripts; overcome the 6 most common objections in real estate sales; turn in-coming callers into clients; and keep in touch with your past and future clients by phone. Plus the book includes over 20 sample farm scripts to help get you started! Truly, How To Farm Successfully By Phone is a perfect reference source for first-timers and "old pro's alike. In today's competitive real estate sales market, the key to getting ahead and staying ahead is targeting your professional services. And that's what real estate farming is all about. This book is the most complete, comprehensive volume of how to farm by phone. Written exclusively for real estate professionals, How To Farm Successfully By Phone teaches you how to cultivate your farm area, and increase your listings, sales and commissions! Step by step, this book explains how you can apply proven telemarketing principles to your real estate farm. You'll learn how to create and maintain your farm phone list; make the telephone work for you; know what to say in those first critical 15 seconds!; write winning farm phone scripts; overcome the 6 most common objections in real estate; turn incoming callers into your clients; keep in touch with your past and future clients by phone. This new book, and its companion, How To Farm Successfully By Mail, is a complete guide for real estate farming in the 90's. Deborah Johnson, Ph.D. is a free-lance journalist and writer in Southern California. Her extensive list of television writing credits includes HBO's "Comic Relief", the critically acclaimed "Celebrate America," and the "National Easter Seal Telethon." She has also written hundreds of direct-mail appeals and print ads. Her journalism credits include Woman's World, California Living, Fund Raising Management, Los Angeles Herald Examiner and Los Angeles Daily News. Co-author of 2,001 Winnings Ads For Real Estate and How To Farm Successfully By Mail, and the winner of two ECHO awards from the Direct Marketing Association, Dr. Johnson has taught at Stanford, Santa Clara and Chapman Universities. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University. Steve Kennedy is a California real estate broker and trainer. A member of the Real Estate Educators Association, he is the author of eight other books on real estate including 2,001 Winning Ads For Real Estate and How To Farm Successfully By Mail. A former ad agency copywriter and creative director, he has directed telemarketing, direct mail and print advertising campaigns for real estate firms and other small businesses nationwide. Mr. Kennedy's writing credits include Real Estate Today, Adweek, Los Angeles Herald Examiner and Direct Marketing. He has an M.B.A. in Marketing from California State University, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in Business Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Introduction How To Farm Successfully By Phone is a unique contribution to the field of real estate sales. It takes basic, proven telemarketing principles and applies them to one of the most challenging tasks facing any real estate agent. While "prospecting" or "farming" is the key to long-term real estate success, it is difficult. You have to build up an immunity to rejection and at the same time, maintain a high degree of self-confidence and enthusiasm. The challenge is multiplied over the phone, where contacts are person-to-person and rejection can be felt more deeply. This book is designed to help you reduce the possibility of rejection, as it presents a series of offers that will enhance your professional standing and cultivate the contacts you need for success. Less "sales-oriented" than other materials on the market, How To Farm Successfully By Phone is packed with simple, creative ways of approaching prospects. The goal is not to close a sale with every call, but to establish and maintain the relationships that will lead people to contact you when they're ready to sell or buy. When people in your farm think of real estate, you want them to think of you. A companion to How To Farm Successfully By Mail, this book contains many of the same offers packaged for a different media. This provides you with the flexibility of deciding whether to present an offer on the phone, by mail or both. Or you can split your farm in half and test a mail offer against a phone offer. For some offers, the phone may work best. For others, mail will be preferred. The biggest advantage of direct marketing is its immediate, measurable results. You never have to guess if an offer is a success. How To Farm Successfu