The Alternative to Hard Selling
On Real Estate Radio USA Friday, we discussed the hard sell ethos of the real estate professional. Like all sales people, everybody is generally trained to sell the same way. In the beginning, self promotion to gain exposure is natural... note the steps taken towards building a career:
- First, gain social recognition that one is a real estate professional
- Apprentice with a brokerage or team
- Contact friends and family for referrals
- Participate in social activities - tours, open houses
- Start farming - email/mail drip marketing campaign
- After six months, now what?
- Get coaching from Ferry, Buffini, etal
- Teaches tactics to continually maintain contact with your contact database
- Buy leads - cold call
- Gain social recognition that one is a real estate professional
- Apprentice with a brokerage or team
- Start
a blog and notify your friends and family that you're tracking the real
estate market in your city. Don't pester them about referrals, that is
implicitly understood.
- Participate in social activities - tours, open houses. Don't sell yourself, just point new leads to your blog.
- Start farming - email/mail drip marketing campaign - market with your blog
- Participate in responding to consumer inquiries on Trulia Voices and other consumer to agent Web 2.0 applications.
- After six months, now what?
- After
six months of following the real estate market and writing it all down
on your blog, you are much smarter and better prepared than your peers.
- Get coaching from Ferry, Buffini, etal
- Instead
of trying to aggressively maintain contact with your database, use the
coaching methods to gain further trust and develop relationships with
your (hopefully) burgeoning blog readership. Your readership is your
network.
- Cold call only to gain an understanding of the sales process. Once understood, avoid cold calling, it's inefficient.
The principal behind blog and Web 2.0 lead generation is your readership will find you when they are ready to commit to a real estate agent. This is efficient. The old way of continually chasing contacts to develop relationships takes too much relationship capital - it's hit or miss, and inefficient... let them come to you.
Pat - nice summary. The agent who subscribes to these principles needs to understand the the concept of the "geographic" farm does not directly apply. In its place is the "blog" or "online" farm with no geographic limits or boundaries.
As you point out, this is a far more efficient way (cost and time) to help/inform people with far higher value to the prospect.
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Pat - nice summary. The agent who subscribes to these principles needs to understand the the concept of the "geographic" farm does not directly apply. In its place is the "blog" or "online" farm with no geographic limits or boundaries.
As you point out, this is a far more efficient way (cost and time) to help/inform people with far higher value to the prospect.
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Pat
Thanks for this.
Here are a few more links in the same vein.
"Max says don't be pushy" by Mike Farmer
http://blog.homegain.com/Relationship-Building-Real-Estate-Max-Says-Do-Not-Be-Pushy
"Leads are People Too", by Jay Thompson
http://blog.homegain.com/leads-are-people-too
"I am Not a Lead" video from the 1000Watt Blog
http://www.1000wattblog.com/2008/01/i-am-not-a-lead.html
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There are also two books by Frank J. Rumbauskas on the topic:
-"Never Cold Call Again: Achieve Sales Greatness without Cold Calling"
-"Selling Sucks: How to Stop Selling and Get Prospects to Buy"
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Nice points but I would have to disagree with waiting six months for the Buffini training. The primary backbone of Buffini is cultivating your relationships and sphere of influence the Right Way to begin with.
Too often, new agents are taught by corporate training to farm their sphere of influence with a bunch of salesy stuff -- which seems to be more of a way for some of the bigger franchises to get some free branding exposure because I think we all know just how effective some of these mailing campaigns really are.
I would also suggest that new agents learn the concepts of Response Generated Marketing such as marketing techniques that Jay Abraham teaches.
My wife became a Buffini Mentor two years ago... I wish we would have fully applied all of the concepts ten years ago -- but then again, I might not be on the internet right now following your great blog!
As they say in any business... keeping customers you already know (happy) that trust you is a lot easier then getting new customers.
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Most real estate agents do take about six months after starting to realize that Buffini and other coaching training will help them... it takes time for the new real estate agent to acclimate themselves with their new career.
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Boy I love finding posts that think like I do... I'm on the same path/groove with your post and will need coaching soon, and will look for direction in your blogs about coaching/coaches.
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Pat, Important advice, success today and tomorrow will require 2.0 and social media strategies/savvy. I agree with 90% of your red stuff. We track and our board (HAR) has surveyed how clients picked their agents. Between 60-77% choose a Realtor personally known to them or referred to them by a friend. Staying in close touch with your personal network/data base (friends/family/past clients) is smart leverage...the key as you point out, don't drone on asking from referrals. Provide relevant lifestyle/real estate information/expertise, become viewed as the go-to person for everything, referrals will follow. People choose Realtors they trust and know. Also, I think you're on the money, attraction is 10X better than chasing and talking to strangers. Nice post
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Insightful post Pat.
But... we all know blogging isn't for everyone. It requires more than a Word press subscription.
You need to be able to write. And have an opinion. And then master the art of combining the two.
You need to know how to market yourself. And blog. And built a brand to a point where its perceived to be credible because it is.
I know we all know this but all too often we leave that part out of the advice. And as a result we are creating this army of agent bloggers going public despite their shortcomings and inabilities. They not only cultivate no business for themselves, they muck up the Internet with their cyberbloggage.
There is a ton of static on the web. Search results filled with agent blogs that are not serving anyones best interest.
So what else can an agent who can't or shouldn't blog do? Can we unearth other opportunities for them? Are there any?
Has real estate as a practice come to a place where you either must have honed and gifted communication skills and talents for writing, reporting and marketing, an aptitude for technology and a willingness to be socially interactive or if not, well, there's always title.
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Does anyone enjoy cold calling?... I guess some. Now to forward this to my sales manager and explain you really can create leads and develop new business by having clients come to you!
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I should caution that blogging and using Web 2.0 to develop a marketing position takes incubation time (say, 6 months) before being effective. However, I believe it's time far better spent than spending the same time cold call because each article you produce and each Web 2.0 contact you make expands your network, readership and followers, while cold calling doesn't and can be counter-productive with the ill will some consumers feel towards cold callers (I certainly do if the cold call has no context beyond they want something from me).
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As Paul Francis wrote, Buffini is not about cold calling. We all have a sphere of influence, even a new agent does, and Brian Buffini's whole system has to do with warm calling. Farming? Nope, not in the traditional sense. Cold Calls? Nope. We talk with our clients, friends and sphere monthly. We always ask for a referral. We talk about how we work, which is offering service. Real Estate is a service business after all. We mentor, we teach, and we practice it, too.
I watch new agents get introduced to Brian Buffini's 100 Days to Greatness system and if they work it, they succeed. He gives tools to use and systems to set up.
Please don't group what Buffini does with what Mike Ferry does. Buffini and Company coaches agents with full-time coaches who work only for his company and are trained in coaching. Mike Ferry uses agents who are part-time coaches and aren't trained. Big difference.
I vote for Buffini. It's been the best money I've ever spent on my business and in this challenging market, we need to be smart in what we do. Blogging is part of what I do, but not 100%.
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Good points Lenore, someone (perhaps a coaching program addict who has attended all of them) needs to write a comparative review on these coaching programs.
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Great post, I read it last week but forgot to share my opinion. Basically, I think you've done an excellent job of expressing how 99.9% of salespeople should approach each of their sales. Suggesting to new agents to try and become an adviser before pushing the sell is great advice... and advice I hope many follow!
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