How I Met Your MOFIR

During a shift, an effective lead generator will make offers that motivated buyers or sellers will respond to right away. You’ll need to think outside of the box if you want to get your unfair share of responses. You’ll need to master the MOFIR—the art of Making Offers for Immediate Response.

MOFIRs are the hyper-focused execution of the two basic principles of lead generation marketing. As explained in SHIFT, “the first principle of lead generation is that your message must match your market” (p. 58). This means that what attracted people during a hot market won’t have the same stickiness in one that has slowed down. The second principle of lead generation messaging is that “your message must make an offer in order to get a response” (p. 60).

You can make an offer that leads to a direct response, or an indirect response.

From p. 60 of SHIFT

The difference between the two is that direct offers provide a path to immediate business, in that they are about buying and selling. And indirect offers are generally about services that you offer which will build relationships with people and open the door to them possibly doing business with you in the future.

Whether you are putting forth an indirect or direct offer, you should always call someone to immediate action. You want people to respond now. To accomplish this, you need a MOFIR.

Make Your MOFIR

Not all MOFIRs are equal—in results or in scale. But the process of creating one generally follows a tried-and-true process. According to our interviews and research, there are essentially four steps to creating a MOFIR:

1. Research the market.

Messaging is built on the proven idea that people will contact you if there is some direct benefit to them. The opportunity to get something they want or need drives their contact.

Talk to buyers and sellers in your market and identify the top three problems they have. These problems are your opportunities.

Most successful MOFIRs are targeted at sellers’ needs (as MREA reminds us, if you control the listings you control your local real estate market), but not always. During the competitive sellers’ market from 2020-2022, we saw new offerings that addressed sellers’ fears of being unable to find a new home to move into after selling.

To get started on your MOFIR, ask yourself and your sphere, “What is the biggest challenge that buyers and sellers face in this market?”

2. Figure out a path to solving the problem.

Based on your market research, what can your business do to solve the problem?

This could be a simple solution, such as adding a new service to your offerings. Or it could be a system. Likely it will be a solution that only works at scale because of a system that your business has figured out.

For example, Greg Hague’s Scottsdale, AZ, team created the “72 Sold” MOFIR in 2018. This program took a seller’s problem (“I want someone to buy my house quickly for top-dollar!”) and created a system that upended the traditional home-buying process, dramatically reducing the amount of time the listing stayed on the market. Rather than allowing buyers to tour and put in offers over weeks, Hague’s system only had the listing public and accepting offers over the course of a weekend.

You also don’t need to solve this problem by yourself. Simply being able to be the origin of the solution can be enough. As Austin, TX, agent Tim Heyl advises, “Look for partners to solve other pain points, but be the connector to that solution. This adds to your unique value proposition without detracting from your core competency or distracting you and your team from what matters most to drive the business forward.”

3. Package the system/solution you came up with.

If your MOFIR is successful, you’ll need to be able to deliver your offering—both quickly and at scale.

Often, once a MOFIR debuts in a market, there will be a lot of imitators. While others may be able to parrot the message you’ve crafted, chances are it will take them valuable time to figure out the systems that make it work. If you need help documenting the system so that it can be duplicated, refer to The Systems Documentation Model of the Millionaire Real Estate Agent on page 244 of MREA.

4. Market your message.

When you are sharing your MOFIR, you should be clear and concise. State clearly what the problem is and how your business solves it.

For example, agent Sarah Reynolds in the Washington, DC, area debuted a program that allows their business to pay the difference between list price and sold price for their sellers. This “Sold at Listing Price” program is clearly and concisely stated in the team’s marketing materials with the powerful statement that “Your Price is Our Promise!”

Work And Re-Work Your MOFIR

Remember the first principle of messaging: it must match the market. This means that you can’t be married to your MOFIR. Don’t let your success at promoting a MOFIR in the moment blind you. You must be prepared to abandon a MOFIR that no longer serves your sphere and head back to the drawing board to create new offerings as the market evolves.

Your services will change as both the market and the needs of your clients change. By staying in touch with your sphere, you’ll be able to introduce and retire offerings and stay ahead of the market.

What are the biggest problems that you’re seeing in your market? What questions do you have about direct or indirect offers? Let us know on our KellerINK Facebook page! And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for additional research and models.