How Many Homes Should You Farm?

Farming is a long term commitment. So you need to choose accordingly. It’s important that you start with an area you can maintain over the long run. Choose an area based on the time and energy you have available. You also need to set your farming number goal according to how actively you plan to door knock. 

The goal of your first area is to help you build up resources. In the beginning, you are trading your time and energy to gain contacts and money. Your resources are limited at first and you’ll want to think about your materials budget. The materials you use have a cost. How much material can you print with the dollars you have? When you build up your game resources, you can leverage your gained resources to help you farm larger areas. You can start to mail materials while still maintaining the first areas. I’ll talk more about how to use and create your materials in the Module 5 - Materials. 

I suggest starting with a smaller area and gradually adding areas as you improve your skills and advance in the game. If you choose an area that is too big, you may get discouraged. You want to make sure you can consistently follow up with prospects and regularly nurture them. 

A small, manageable area also creates a sense of accomplishment. I suggest starting with a grouping of 400-800 houses. You should know your entire farming area in one month. If you align your game to the goal we discussed earlier in this module, you would be able to cover an area of 400 houses in one month.  That is 100 doors each week. If you are more ambitious, you can knock at more than 100 homes in a week and set a larger target area. You can adjust your area size to fit how many homes you plan to knock in a month. Remember, the aim is to touch each door once every month. 

I also want to point out that you can target a neighborhood even if it has more homes than your monthly door goal. What you can do is cut the area into it half or quarters. These smaller sections can be your target. I call these “zones” on my map. As you build your game, you can begin knocking more zones in the neighborhood.  I have included a downloadable worksheet to help you zone and target neighbourhoods.  

Once you’ve established yourself in your area and have more resources, you can automate the area with mailed marketing. You can still go back and knock on your hottest leads. I also suggest knocking each door in the area every three months while you are maintaining it. However, once you service your area well, it starts growing on its own. People start calling you and you get referrals. 

Once that starts happening, you can pick up a secondary farming area. You can farm more than one area when you have good systems set up. You can run an audit on one area. You can mail another area. And you can actively knock in another area. You set them all up and have them on rotation. For example, you would never mail an area for 12 months. Instead, you would pick a zone based on your budget, and rotate mailing. One way or another, each area gets “touched” regularly and you can hit many more doors. You want to make sure you connect with each of your farmed areas four to six times a year. Basically, you want to connect at least once every quarter. You want anyone in your farmed zone to keep you top of mind when they're thinking about making a housing change. 

It’s time for another ACTION STEP!  After this video, I want you to identify your available time, energy and money budget. Then calculate the number of houses in your target neighborhood. The goal is to learn if your target area matches your resource budget. The downloadable worksheet will help you with your budgeting and calculations. This exercise will help you set realistic farming goals that match your target area choice. 

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