You guys are stealing all my thunder from my upcoming seminar at the Durham Region of REIN members, but here are a few ideas for giving your tenants thousands of dollars of gifts not just a Christmas, but every month of the year.
First, team up with a few other REIN landlords, there is strength in numbers as you`re about to see.
Now, think of local event tickets: Sporting events (forget about NHL), plays, exhibits, movies, seminars, local high quality music concerts, retail shows. The list is almost endless, every month of the year. These events are almost never sold out, some, like local home shows, will NEVER be sold out. And the promoters know they`ll make a lot of their money selling the ancillary stuff people buy at the event. Like popcorn, or a hotdog, or a T-Shirt, or glass of wine, or books, and so on.
Once they realize they`re not going to sell out every seat in the place, (weeks in advance) they`re more than happy to give away tickets just to get people in the door so they can cash in on the ancillary sales, or just make the crowd look good.
So, for example, approach a movie house and explain to the owner, or the manager, who you are and that you`d like 20 complimentary tickets to a movie running on their slowest night of the week. Or 20 tickets to a junior hockey game that never sells out. Or the local play. Those seats are going to go empty anyway, and the lights, staff and rent have already been paid, so the owner would be out of his or her mind not to give you those tickets. It`s like advertising time in any medium. Once it`s gone, it ain`t ever coming back. So managers must do what they can to maximize the potential. It doesn`t cost them a thing. Have you purchased popcorn and a drink at a movie lately? Zounds!
Once you`ve got $100 or so in tickets (actually, you can get thousands this way) move on to services. Got a dentist in yoiur neighbourhood? What`s their cheapest service? How about a free $80 examination, one only for every member of the family. Unless the dentist has more patients than she knows what to do with, she`ll quickly see the obvious advantage of this. Hey, she`s at the office anyway, she has all the equipment and the staff in place. And she has three hours of unbooked time on Friday afternoon. Some of those freebies are going to turn into long-time customers and that means tens of thousands in future revenue. Chiropractors, naturopaths, lawyers, accountants, they can all offer a high perceived value, no actual cost service to all of your tenants. (I once got the local high school band Christmas concert more than $1,000 in carpet cleaning door prizes this way. He gave away 12 prizes of one free room of carpet cleaning. Just about everyone ended up wanting their whole house cleaned!)
Want some actual gifts? Get the local restaurant to offer a buy one, get one free dinner, or the local garage to give a free oil change (cost of oil is extra). The goal is exactly the same. Give a little and get a long-term customer.
Oh, I could go on!... but I have to make dinner.
You get to give each of your tenants, including spouses and everyone over the age of 18, a gift pack with a legitimate value of more than $1,000 (or more if you want to work at it) Prices are stamped right on the tickets! Imagine how they`d feel if you gave them similar gifts with a value of more than $200 every month!! Total cost to you (actual money) zip!
Cheers,
Steve Manning