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

Do you know what you really need to know to market your business effectively?  If you’re like most women in business, you started your business because you are in love with an idea or a product, and are firmly convinced that everybody else in the world will be just as enamored of the product or service as you are. 

After all, most of us believe that we are savvy buyers, and if we like something, then we believe that every other rational person in the world would like it, too.

Not so fast, Oprah.  That’s not how it works.

Women desiring more than ‘sales’ status, let’s call them: REALTOR® Entrepreneurs – do have some natural advantages in the real estate business.  First of all, real estate is a WOMAN FRIENDLY business.  More REALTORS® are women and most of the homes buying decisions are made by women.

Very often, you are excellent at the soft skills such as communication, connection, empathy, and persuasion.  Those skills are why many women are so successful in sales positions.  But those skills often aren’t enough make a business work in the long term (or even to get it off the ground).

As a marketing coach, I’ve worked with hundreds of women entrepreneurs, and I see the same mistakes being made over and over again by smart capable women who were very successful while working in the corporate world. 

So what’s keeping these women from being spectacularly successful as entrepreneurs?  As much as I hate to admit it, one very important thing standing between most women business owners and success is the failure to understand who really wants what we’re selling.

While this may come as a shock to some of you ladies, there is no product, service, or idea that has ever been developed for sale that appeals to everybody.

Not everybody wants to be thinner, richer, smarter, blonder, sexier, taller, better hydrated, fresher-smelling, chemically enhanced, or more physically fit than they already are.  Not everybody wants a six-step all-natural skin-care regimen, a five-piece poly-cotton wardrobe that can be packed in your handbag for those spontaneous weekend trips to Hawaii or funky costume jewelry ensembles to match every mood and outfit.  And not everybody wants to take advantage of once-in-a-lifetime-ground-floor opportunities, make money from their down-lines, or cash in on the latest investment trends.

The question we need to ask ourselves is this:  Who really wants what you’ve got, and who is ready, willing and able to pay for it?  And finally, who will be thrilled with it?

Once we can identify who is most likely to buy from us, and who is seeking our solution to a specific problem, then all we have to do is let that person know that we exist.  This is much easier, much cheaper, and much faster than trying to sell ourselves to someone who just plain isn’t already ready or willing to buy what we’re selling.

Now, that’s actually pretty good news!  Because marketing to everybody is time-consuming and expensive, and I have yet to meet a REALTOR® entrepreneur who is willing to spend much more than 15% of their annual revenues on marketing.

Of all the many reasons to focus on a specific target market as your ideal client, the one I like best is that really happy clients become your unpaid marketing department.  Seriously, though, by focusing on a certain type of problem/solution for a specific type of client, you enhance your problem-solving skills and get really familiar with that category of issues (and therefore more valuable in the eyes of that client).

Once you are crystal clear about who your clients really are, the key elements of your marketing plan such as your niche, “‘Sound Bites’” or self-introduction, and the tactics you need to use to reach your clients, become so much easier to identify, which in turn helps you determine what you need to do to market yourself effectively.  And of course, marketing to a smaller pool of prospects is easier, quicker, and less expensive than marketing to a huge pool. 

So unless you have an unlimited marketing budget and nothing but time, money, and energy to spend, my advice as your marketing coach is that you focus on the easiest, quickest, and least expensive sale – your ideal client.  That is how you leverage all your natural assets, and make a spectacular success of your business.

Carpe diem,

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The magazine, Fast Company, recently declared that Americans are becoming a nation of “free agents”. They described a generation of consultants and professionals, all selling their services for the length of a project or until a problem is solved. That brings tremendous freedom, and new responsibilities to run our careers as businesses! Unfortunately, many “free agents” have never run a profitable business. The following are my list of critical issues in creating a career/business that will remain profitable for years to come.

1. Customer Benefits. You and your customers must clearly understand the benefits that your services provide. What are the 5 benefits of working with you vs. anyone else in your market place? Can you communicate that clearly? Customers buy benefits.
2. Extra Value. Customers must receive more in value than you charge for your services. Most of us don’t want a “fair” exchange; we want a bargain, the sense that we got extra value for our money. Can you communicate the 5 extra your customers get from you?
3. Superb Service. This means attention to detail. Answering the phone on the first ring, providing an 800 number and 24-hour customer service numbers are examples. L.L. Bean has made a fortune with it’s “no questions” guarantee. Do you have a guarantee?
4. Know your Audience. Who are you 5 best customer types.
5. Location. In the old days, this meant the street address of your shop or store. Now it means getting your marketing messages into your customer’s hands when and where they are receptive. Be certain your website is located at the top of the search engines.
6. Convenience. Customers expect to shop at their convenience, to pay by credit card, to call an 800-number, and to have their questions answered correctly the first time. Make it easy to contact you!
7. Innovation. New is good, newer is better. Customers expect the benefits of the most modern technology. At a minimum, they expect the convenience of email, voice mail, and efax. If there is a faster, better, cheaper and more reliable way to do it, adopt cutting edge techniques before your competition does!
8. Reliability. Consumers assume they can rely on your services. If they are purchasing your time and expertise, they rely on your availability, your advice, your attention to detail, and your follow-through. Durability may be less important in a throwaway age, but consumers demand 100% reliability. Be there for them every single time!
9. Planning. Planning takes on strange twists when a computer chip “generation” lasts 6 months and a website may be “old” in 6 weeks. Planning is the ability to monitor, influence, and profit from change. Planning means having a mission statement and the flexibility to respond instantly when new information allows you to fulfill your mission more effectively. Planning means you control your destiny.
10. Communication. This means instant, 2-way communication between every level and every branch of an enterprise. It means communicating with your vendors and competitors, and working with your customers so they become your most important designers, researchers and customer service experts. It means an “open door” policy and flat organizational models. It means listening is more important than speaking. It means ideas rule the world.

Carpe diem,

If you’re a member of a networking organization, chances are that there is a wonderful opportunity for you to significantly raise your visibility in the group, and to become known, liked and trusted.

And chances are that you haven’t yet taken advantage of this opportunity.

That opportunity is the “Hi, My Name Is…” speech - the five or 10 minutes that each of us are granted upon enrollment in most organizations we join to address the group, introduce ourselves and explain our business in detail.

Although most groups offer these opportunities to their members, too many of us don’t take advantage of them, or if we do, we don’t always exploit the “Hi, My Name Is…” to its full potential, and that opportunity is wasted, for both us as speakers as well as our listening audience.

But it doesn’t have to be wasted time--as a matter of fact, a “Hi, My Name Is…” speech can be a terrific business builder for you if you play your cards right.

First, you need to understand that a “Hi, My Name Is…” speech is NOT a chance to tell your life story or even how you got into your business, however fascinating that may be.

Your time in the “Hi, My Name Is…” Moment is your best chance to explain how you help your clients, and to provide a demonstration of your expertise to your audience. It’s your chance to achieve (in under 10 minutes) what matters most in business: To become known, liked, and trusted (because we all know that people buy from people they know, like and trust).

But how can you do all that in 10 minutes or less? Here are two words to keep in mind regarding your “Hi, My Name Is…” speech: Value and preparation.

Value is the single most important aspect of your speech, and you can easily offer information of real value in just a few minutes. Share tips, advice, explain a procedure, anything! And don’t just TALK about your services and what you offer, SHOW your expertise. (You get bonus points for involving your audience!) 

Once you’ve established the value of the services you’re offering, preparation is key to a successful speech. Here are several things you can do to make the most of your time (before, during and after) in the “Hi, My Name Is…” while you have your audience’s undivided attention:

• Provide an interesting paragraph or two for the press release, newsletter, or other marketing that the organization does for the meeting.
• Bring your own introduction. If you have one prepared, you can be sure that it sets the right tone for your presentation, and it keeps your introducer from having to make something up about you at the last minute. A good introduction will help establish your credibility before you speak, and actually extend your time in front of the audience, since your introduction is all about YOU.
• Look the part. When I did my “Hi, My Name Is…” speech recently, I wanted to make a visual impact and say more about myself than my business suit alone could say, so I wore a big button that simply said “Attract More Clients! Ask Me How.”  (See how that “Sound Bite” keeps coming into the picture?)  Between the content I presented and my handy visual aids, my audience understood immediately what I am about, and what I have to offer.
• Take advantage of the speaker table or other special opportunities offered to “Hi, My Name Is…” speakers. If there’s room (and there usually is for “Hi, My Name Is…” speakers), arrange your table as you would for a trade show, decorating it with information of your real estate services, giveaways, your business cards, and so on.
• Have a sign-up sheet on your table. Remember that this “Hi, My Name Is…” speech is a prospecting activity, so give people a place to sign up for more resources or your newsletter. Here’s another tip: Add a “call me” section so that hot prospects can indicate their interest.
• Include a photo on your one-sheet. A one-sheet is a marketing page that tells who you are, lists a few credentials and/or your services, and quotes happy customers, and so on. But more than that, it is a relationship piece that helps your prospects get to know you. It doesn’t have to be fancy; you can print it out in color on a piece of letterhead, back it with cardboard, and set it up with a small tabletop easel for display.
• Save time in your speech for questions. Organize your speech to share information first, but remember to leave one or two minutes at the end for some quick questions from your audience.
• Invite your audience to sample your services, and/or visit your display table. After the questions, thank your audience, and then mention any special offers or incentives that you have for signing up on your mailing list or setting up a consultation.
• After your “Hi, My Name Is…” speech, you’ve still got work to do. You’ll need to follow up with the people who signed up on your list or requested consultations. Give them a call to set up meetings, and send them whatever materials you promised.
• Don’t forget to thank the person who introduced you, as well as the person who booked your speech.

Because the purpose of networking groups is to establish and develop business networks, one would think that “Hi, My Name Is…” speeches would be highly sought-after opportunities, but it has been my experience that people are often afraid to take center stage.

This fear must be caused by the fear of the “Hi, My Name Is…” itself; it can be intimidating to stand up in front of a group and talk about yourself. It may help reduce that fear to keep in mind that you’re not up there talking about yourself; you’re sharing information of interest and value with your peers.

So please, don’t let fear keep you from taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity to speak. Speaking is a great way to build your own confidence, as well as credibility in the eyes of others in your organization.

Carpe diem,

You can also click on one of the following links to have the mastery coaching blog with helpful life and business tidbits geared to real estate’s elite delivered to your computer,

To subscribe to the mastery coaching blog via email

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