So, you have a Profile set-up on Facebook and you’ve become Friends with many of your old classmates, family, closest friends and a few colleagues.  You may have even learned how to leverage your current or recent client’s Friend Lists to tap into their Sphere-of-Influence (SOI) to expand your own.   Now you might be wondering what do you need to say to turn all of these people into clients without boring or offending them?  The long and short answer is to BE YOURSELF, and this is going to naturally vary for each person.

First and foremost you need to keep in mind that Social Media is best served for SOCIAL relationship building.  It IS NOT a business advertising platform, but if you play the game by the ‘rules’, Social Media can be much more effective than the most expensive advertisement.  Since 74% of your business will on average come from your SOI, we at the Professional Realty Council (PRC) specialize in helping our selected member agents build their SOI in cost effective ways that positions them as the GO TO person for real estate related services in their market area.  We feel that Social Media is the most effective means of communicating and networking in real time on a large scale.  Yes, nothing beats person-to-person contact, but your time limits will prevent you from reaching enough people to be highly effective from a MARKETING standpoint.  (To learn more about PRC, please visit www.PRCStandards.net )

With this in mind, let’s get back to what content you will provide.  Through our surveys of top agents participating in Social Media, we have found that the 80%-20% rule applies.  You will want about 80% of your contact to be personal and social, and about 20% to be business related, or roughly 4 out of 5 posts should have nothing to do with the fact that you are a REALTOR.  The 80% should be about you, your family, your hopes, your dreams, your hobbies, and within reason your political and religious views.  BE YOURSELF, and DO NOT be afraid to be POLARIZING.  If you try to be everything to everybody, you are going to come across as being dull and forgettable.  If you want to keep your life private, then Social Media probably isn’t for you.  You may also want to re-think sales as your career choice.  People want to be in your Social Network because you add character, intelligence, humor and value to the collective stream of social consciousness.  If you have strong political or religious views, so long as you do not personally attack someone with differing views, you will gain Friends and Followers who share those views.  Yes, you may lose some of those who do not share the same beliefs, but the net gain of passionate followers will always outweigh the losses.  BE YOURSELF, comment on what is happening in your community, or with your children, or grandchildren, or charities, or on what is in the news.  BE ORIGINAL.  While it’s okay to on occasion copy someone else’s post (with credit being given), don’t make it a habit.  Attach photos to your albums or Flickr account, and/or videos from YouTube.  Use your smart phone to upload status updates and content as you participate:  meetings, sporting events, visits to exciting places, gatherings with friends, etc.  The idea is to let people know who the REAL YOU is.  Trust me, you will attract the like-minded people that you’ll want to become better acquainted with.

The other most important thing to do is PARTICIPATE in what others on your Live Feed are saying and doing.  On Facebook it is very easy to add a comment after someone’s Status Update to engage them in conversation.  Be positive and supportive.  Be likable.  Ask lot’s of open-ended questions.  Your comments will not only be seen by the person who wrote the original comment, but by their ENTIRE Friend List.  You can also send private messages to get to know someone better or comment on more sensative postings.  Show that YOU CARE about them.  Respond to comments that Friends add to your posts.  You want to keep the conversations moving forward.  Even if only a few people are involved in the conversation, many others will be reading the back-and-forth.

For the other 20% you want to just mix in enough content about your business to gently remind people that you are a professional and the GO TO resource for real estate information in your area.  Talk about how you helped a recent client, post links to newsworthy articles about the real estate market in your area, share classes, seminars or other educational opportunities that you’ve had or offer.  Talk about why a new listing is special or why you enjoy working with the client.  Remember, the idea is not to sell a house today, but to build long-term relationships where people in your SOI trust you enough to call you WHEN they have a need for your services.  This is no different than how you’ve positioned yourself to your SOI in the past, just with Social Media you are now able to leverage relationships much faster, in greater depth, and for FREE.  My only caution is that you manage your time wisely so that you don’t spend too much time in this one area of marketing.

I’d love to hear what Social Media prospecting techniques have worked for you.  In my next installment I’ll talk about using Twitter and Facebook in conjunction with your personal blog to reach an even wider audience.

Dennis Rosvall is the Broker/Owner or PRC Access Realty in Scottsdale, Arizona and can be reached at www.Facebook.com/DennisRosvall or www.Twitter.com/UberRealtyGuy

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”— Leonardo da Vinci

            Despite being in the so-called “Information Age”, we’re confused now more than ever.  Life has become increasingly complex, and your career is no exception.  We aim to operate from the “K.I.S.S.” principle which implies that we must become stupid, or dumb ourselves down, in order to cope and adapt.  However, “K.I.S.S.” actually stands for “Keep It Short and Simple”.  The term originated with Kelly Johnson, the brilliant Lockheed engineer who oversaw the development of the Lockheed Skunk Works (Area 51) and over 40 different aircraft.  He knew that in the pursuit of simplicity, we must not become simple ourselves.  Being an engineer, he was also very aware of The Law of Entropy which states that any system will deteriorate over time unless it is injected with a) a new energy source and b) a template for the organization of the new energy.  If there’s any principle which affirms the need for outside counsel, this is it.  The Entropy Law applies to all things, including organizations, infrastructure, and relationships.

            At Mastery Coaching we’ve not only witnessed the effects of the Entropy Law, we’ve experienced it.  We’re here to tell you that Entropy can’t be avoided, no matter what your market share is, or how solid your foundation may be.  It can look like a marriage heading towards stagnation, a small business becoming bloated as it grows, or an agent failing to adapt to a new market.  Our clients who’ve adopted the new energy/template approach were the only ones who were able to pull out of a dive or even stay the course without losing steam.  So what’s the answer to avoiding the inevitable slowdown of our business and increasing level of friction in life?  What does “new energy” and a template to focus and deploy that energy look like?

            “New energy” is something which serves as fuel for you to continue towards your goals.  An example would be hiring a great personal assistant.  The first thing I invested in after my first escrow, was an able and intelligent assistant.  We recommend posting an ad on the “job board” of your local college’s website.  College students tend to be tech savvy, flexible in their outlook, and can work odd hours.  New energy doesn’t have to be acquisitional in nature.  It can be trimming cost by reducing overhead or adopting a healthier lifestyle by eating right and working out more (a very effective and efficient method of energy cultivation).  New energy is not rushing out and buying the latest gadget the moment it come out (it’ll be full of bugs and frustration anyway).  It’s also not assuming an adrenalized lifestyle fueled by stress, caffeine, or working even more hours doing the same thing.  At the end of the day, the point of new energy is to fuel your course of action and, to ensure that you’re in integrity with your goals.

            A template is nothing more than forethought applied to moments of serendipity.  Communication: Know what to say before you have to say it.  Writing an effective and emotionally evocative cover letter is critical to putting a human face on your client’s offer.  Yet we’ve seen so many agents produce obviously scripted or boring letters, or worse yet, no letter at all.  Mastery Coaching can provide very effective and proven cover letters for offers (as well as requests for repairs).  All we need is a quick brief on the situation and you’ll have a “leg up” on the competition as well as the seller’s emotions.  A template could also be a plan for your staff.  I had a wonderful assistant for over two years.  However, there were frequent moments of frustration and friction because I would often fail to produce a hard schedule for her the moment she walked in.  I was so busy putting together escrows that she was on the business end of “seagull management” (swoop in, provide droppings in the form of drive-by taskers, and swoop out).  Income: So you made an extra couple thousand dollars this month?  Great!  Know in advance which bills you’ll apply your windfall to.  And when it comes to energy, by far the most powerful form is time.  Unless you’re God (in which case you’ll probably have no need for Mastery Coaching), you can’t make it, buy it, or even find more of it.  So when a client cancels at the last minute, know in advance how you’ll be spending that free time.  And ladies and gentlemen, we know that free time discovered during the work day is applied towards your work.  We’ve already established that how you spend your free time is indicative of your maturity level.  Use it wisely.  Free time is like Tofu.  It assumes the flavor of whatever you mix it with.  If you waste it, that flavor will leave a nasty aftertaste that’ll be difficult to get rid of.

            Let us help you with the level of creativity needed to ensure that your offers rise above those of your competitors.  Let us help you discover who you want to be and where you want to go.  Ultimately the answers lie within you, but the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  Our templates ensure that you stay straight on the road to victory vs. bounce off the guardrails of life.  Our methods for creating and obtaining energy will ensure that when you bounce off a guardrail, you’ll have enough fuel to recover from a spinout and get back on track.  The staff at Mastery Coaching understands Entropy.  We’ve been through it, but we’ve developed the experience to excel in the face of it and, we’d be remiss if we failed to share our methods and coping skills.  It’s ok where you are, you’re just too good to stay there.  Refuse to be “stupid” to make your dreams come true.  Be simple in your values, but not in your outlook.  Albert Einstein perhaps said it best; “Things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.”.  If your infrastructure and the systems within it can be simplified, so will your life.  We want your income streams to be free of pollution and unnecessary obstacles so that you can enjoy what simplicity is supposed to offer: love, life, and purpose.

          Systems.  The Holy Grail of any business owner, salesperson, or individual who desires a more simple life.  Systems enable us to get out from behind our desks and do what we do best, namely, connect with others, engage prospects, and take care of clients.  But how effective are your systems?  Is there a central authority or framework which manages them?  Ladies and gentlemen, systems must be subdued, controlled, and coordinated.  Your systems are here to serve you, not to occupy your time in maintaining them.  All of us have a few aces up our sleeves, which by themselves get results (a particular script, your website, your mailers, etc.).  But without an overall plan for maximizing the potential of each one, you’ll wind up having a stable of one-trick ponies vs. a herd of stallions.  Which one would you rather ride into battle on?

          What we need is infrastructure which is defined as “An underlying base or foundation especially for an organization or system”  Usually, the term infrastructure applies to a country’s roads, airports, energy sources, sewage systems, communications, etc.  However the term also applies to the connectivity of systems in the fields of IT, national defense, buildings, or anything else which contains multiple parts marshaled towards a common purpose.  Without a solid foundation from which to operate , your business will be subject to the ebb and flow of the market, and therefore, so will your emotions.  Indeed, what separates the good agents from the great agents are the ones who develop a sound infrastructure to fall back on when markets change or their personal lives are dealt a crushing blow.  So where do you stand?  Sit back and grade your infrastructure along 4 lines:  Synergy, Simplicity, Synchronicity, and Stability.  This article will address the principle of Synergy.

          Synergy is defined as “when different entities cooperate advantageously for a final outcome”.  Ancient rope makers discovered that when you weave two strands of fiber together, what results is a strand double the strength of one. However, three strands woven together produce a strand ten times the strength of one by itself.  The symbol of Ancient Rome was a bundle of sticks tied together because snapping a twig over your knee is one thing, snapping a fistful of twigs over your knee is quite another.  There is strength in numbers, but in order to have your strength expand exponentially, your systems have to pointing in the same direction, not merely operating parallel to one another.  In short, your infrastructure should resemble steel cable, not building blocks.

          What made the Romans great and allowed them to expand beyond the borders of Italy was the synergy of their infrastructure.  Without its’ amazing road system, the Roman army couldn’t have been deployed quickly throughout the empire to quell revolts.  However, revolts were uncommon because shortly after a city was conquered, the first thing to show up after the soldiers left were Roman engineers. People who had to dig their own toilets suddenly had running water which would carry away their waste, nourish crops, and easily proved hydration (vs. walking back and forth from a well).  Suddenly, commerce, trade, and travel were much simpler and safer.  As a result mere villages within the empire became cities almost overnight. 

          So what does synergy look like for today’s salesperson?  First of all, your systems must compliment one another.  If you have an assistant, he or she must enable you to be at more than one place at a time.  They should have the intelligence and common sense to be able to handle incoming leads, or soothe angry customers until you can address the issue.  If you’ve invested in having an awesome website, spend the money to have a professional photographer to display your listings on it. Synergy also demands structure.  You must have a schedule.  Resist the urge to interrupt what you’re doing to jump on a new lead.  Give yourself 15 minutes in between tasks to regroup mentally before the next one.  If you can do something within two minutes, do it immediately.  Work out first thing in the a.m.  Master the morning, master the day.

          At Mastery Coaching we know that a team has to be on the same page, or you’ll have a bunch of individuals doing their best but feeling alone.  Your systems are no different and require someone from the outside to critique their value and assist you in making a “team” out of your systems.  Mike Tyson had a wonderfully integrated system of combinations and defensive skills.  When he chose to rely on his lunging left hook and uppercut, he lost to a 40 to 1 underdog who had a 12” reach advantage and a jab like a telephone pole.  Don’t be that guy or gal.  You’re not lazy.  You haven’t forgotten what made you great to begin with, and you’re certainly not a 40 to 1 underdog.  But you have to stop relying on your power shots and one-trick ponies to carry the day.  Don’t focus on your faults, but keep them in check by ensuring that they’re woven into your strengths.  If you can do that, your Achilles heel(s) will disappear, and you will conquer.