How do you talk to yourself?  No really, when no one else is around how do you find yourself communicating with the person in the mirror?  Do you wake up and great yourself with a celebratory round of applause or do you stumble into the bathroom rub your eyes and bemoan how the scale is not cooperating and it “looks like it’s going to be ‘one of those’ days?”

I won’t try and impress you with my extensive knowledge of Neuro-Linguistic Programming or the importance of the root word of “Logos” in the Original Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament.   What I will say, is that despite my understanding of how it works, I know that what we say and how we say it are really important. 

I don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of the internal combustible engine of my car, but I have become fairly proficient at turning it on and getting to where I need to go.  Words and how we use them are just as important.  Now, please don’t hear me say you need to lie to yourself, that is delusional and they have medication for people who live in fantasy worlds.  But do hear me say that you need to really watch the negativity that is not constructive and productive.  Do hear me say that you need to see yourself in a better light.  Do hear me say that you, despite your faults, should be celebrated because, if nothing else, you bear the fingerprint of God. 

Tomorrow set the alarm to go off with a CD full of applause, welcome yourself in the mirror and be thankful for another day, and relish every moment that you are alive.  Walk out your front door ready to Seize the Day and watch how your world will change for the better.

	It’s all about being Sticky
	Two words: Sticky content. Sticky content is information (web site content) that makes people stick around and return for more. Examples are how-to articles, tips and tricks, beginner’s guides, and any other free information that your clients and prospective clients would find of value. Keep in mind that the more content you have, the stickier your site is. Sticky is good for at least three reasons: It gives your visitors a reason to come back again and again; it gives your visitors a reason to tell others about your site; and it demonstrates your expertise for people who are interested in your services. With good content, you will be able to gather leads, acquire names for your mailing list, as well as offer good reasons for your visitors to tell their friends and colleagues about you.
	PS. Have you seen our individual agent and team program that combines coaching, advanced marketing strategies with hundreds of pieces of personalized print ready marketing collateral,  specialized training, and all the tools you need to get into the top 1% of agents nationwide? Check out  YourRECoach.com for more the details.
	Recommended Reading –
	Copyright 2007-2010 – Mastery-Coaching.com and Chris Pollinger – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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

If you are one of the 10’s of thousands of REALTORS to already create a Facebook profile, you may be enjoying networking with your old high school friends, family and industry colleagues.  Facebook can be addictingly fun, and can take up an enormous amount of time in your day if you let it, but is it working for you as a prospecting tool?  Are you making money from the time that you invest ‘playing’ on Facebook.

Since NAR studies show that 74% of an agent’s business will on average come from there sphere-of-influence (SOI), we at the Professional Realty Council (PRC) teach our agents ways to increase their personal (SOI) and mine it for more profitable business opportunities.  One of our methods is to maximize Social Media as a prospecting tool.  There are many things that you can do with Social Media, but here is one of the easiest ways to turn Facebook into a zero cost yet highly profitable money machine:

First, ask all of your clients in your initial interview what social media they participate in and how often.  This should become as automatic as getting their cell phone number and email address – it’s that important!  For this example, let’s assume that they are on Facebook.  You need to sell the next line, but sound excited and let them know that you are big on Facebook and ask if it would be okay to send them a Friend Request.  They’ll say sure and now you are on your way.

You might wonder what the big deal is since they are ALREADY your client, right?  Well, here’s the magic.  Think of Facebook as a Rolodex on steroids.  If you use any kind of address book, either on paper, Outlook, or Top Producer, etc., the address book is a static file that you use to look up information.  You also need to update it with changes as they occur (Plaxo members excluded.)  Also, it’s a linear relationship between you and your contact, and is only of value if you reach out and make a connection via phone, snail mail, email, or in person.  Facebook, on the other hand, is an ACTIVE address book.  It automatically updates contact info in real time, you get a constant stream of everything that is being shared as important to your contacts, AND you get exponential access to all of the people that are important in THEIR lives.  All at your fingertips.  All for FREE.

Your second step then becomes once your Friend Request is accepted, you can view their entire Friend list (Depending on individual privacy settings, you may have access to this without even Friending them.)  When you are actively working with a client, or just completed a transaction, your relationship will be at it’s highest point with your client.  Now is the best time to send a Friend Request to all of their friends.  You can do this with or without permission from your client, and with or without a personal message attached to the Friend Request.  It’s important here to NOT sound like a REALTOR or salesperson, but rather just a friend wanting to network.

For each request you send, one of three things will happen: 1) They will see that you have a mutual friend and just accept you, 2) They will ignore you, or 3) They will contact your client to see if you are a good person to Friend with.  Of course, your client LOVES you right about now so they’ll only say good things about you.  Also, the more of their friends that accept your request, the more mutual friends will be displayed – creating a bigger bond of trust as mutual friends are regarded as personal endorsements.

You can see how this can quickly and exponentially build your SOI by leveraging the goodwill that you have with your current clients.  The larger your Friend List, the more opportunities that you will have to receive warm leads.  In another blog post, we’ll talk about content to drip on them via your Status Updates/Live Feed that will build your reputation as the GO TO resource for real estate in your community.

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,

Two words: Sticky content.

Sticky content is information (web site content) that makes people stick around and return for more. Examples are how-to articles, tips and tricks, beginner’s guides, and any other free information that your clients and prospective clients would find of value.

Keep in mind that the more content you have, the stickier your site is. Sticky is good for at least three reasons: It gives your visitors a reason to come back again and again; it gives your visitors a reason to tell others about your site; and it demonstrates your expertise for people who are interested in your services.

With good content, you will be able to gather leads, acquire names for your mailing list, as well as offer good reasons for your visitors to tell their friends and colleagues about you.

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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More and more we as an industry have distilled ourselves into the lowest common denominator. You see it on the plethora of real estate agent’s websites – “we work with buyers and sellers, investors, renters, those thinking about any of the above now or might be thinking about any of them in the future”, in one or more cities, counties and God forbid, states.  In fact, truth be known, most of the agents you know would work with almost anyone who would fog a mirror. 

I understand why people do this, they come from a place of scarcity and fear.  I mean, what if I lost the opportunity to close one sale, another opportunity may never come along again.   Most of the industry has never figured out the lead generation and rainmaking piece of their real estate business so every prospect is treated like it is gold.  Trust me, your attitude changes when you go from getting the random one new lead a week to having a steady flow of 100 a week. 

The problem is this – if we never focus, we never really get good at anything.  We become a jack of all trades and a master of none.  Being an expert is much more than declaring yourself one on your latest postcard.  It is really knowing the community you live and work in.  Not only where the schools are, but who the teachers are.  Who local business owners are, where the best places are for a romantic dinner out.  When are the best community activities and what are the future plans at city hall.  Much less how much Mr. Steven’s house down the street sold for.

Establishing value and creating a business that is worth having demands we get to the point where we can outshine every other agent in our area in something and the only way to get good at one thing is to give up holding on to the many things. 

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

To subscribe to the mastery coaching blog via RSS reader