Aug
20
The 3 Best Social Media Ideas for Improving Your Sales You’ll Ever Read
Filed Under Networking, Real Estate Blogs, Real Estate Prospecting Ideas, Social Media | 1 Comment
Leads are like molecules. They’re a billion of them, but all so small and insignificant you don’t even pay attention to them.
Leads are like molecules in another way, too. Without molecules, you wouldn’t exist. Same is true for leads.
But maybe you don’t have a billion leads coming in. Would you like a billion leads over a years time? If so, one way to get there is by doing lots of microprospecting.
What’s microprospecting? Just another way of saying “prospect small, and often.”
Microprospecting is sending a personal email to a satisfied client. Crossing the street to meet a stranger. Microprospecting works in the digital world to, like social media.
You can fill your macro funnel with leads by laying hundreds of small social media prospecting lines. And the cool part? Is doesn’t take a lot of time.
In the case of social media, here are the 3 best–and fastest–things you can do everyday that are guaranteed to grow your pipeline.
The Best Blogging Idea You’ll Ever Read
The most obvious choice here is to start a blog. If you haven’t a blog yet, it’s imperative you get one now.
What can you do daily on a blog that will improve your sales? Write short, meaningful posts on the state of your local market.
But I have a much better idea.
Write short, meaningful posts about people in your community. Become a local journalist.
Every time you are in the car, on the phone or in a meeting with someone, find out something interesting about them. And then ask them if you can blog about them. Keep a notepad and build up a pool of stories.
Once you start posting these stories, email the person to let them know. Then they tell all their friends and family. Pretty soon you’ll have a large swath of people eyeing your blog to see if they made it on there yet.
In fact, you do this good enough, and strangers will go out of their way to meet you, hoping you “interview” them.
Why is this effective? Because people like to see themselves in print.
I got this idea from the book Made to Stick, where Dan and Chris Heath tell the story of a city newspaper that had a readership rate over 100%.
What was the secret to the newspaper’s success? The editor summed it up in three words: names, names, names. He and his reporters focused on the people of the town–not the events.
You should do the same.
The Best Recommendation Idea You’ll Ever Read
The next best social media idea is to give people recommendations. But not just any old recommendation.
How can you do that? Join LinkedIn if you haven’t already and search out people you’ve worked with in some capacity. Then, recommend them.
But say something positive and unique about that person. Unique is key. Zero in on something about that person that makes them stand out. Give the recommendation teeth.
I’ve given several recommendations where people have returned with “wow…that really pops out of the page.”
You can learn how to write a good LinkedIn recommendation. It’s really easy and involves a 15 minute investment.
Give one recommendation a day for 30 days and you’ve made 30 people smile. Hopefully you’ll get 30 recommendations in return. That’s not always the case, but 20–even 10–is better than none.
The Best One Night Stand You’ll Ever Have–and the Only One You’ll Ever Have
This goes without saying, but to make the best use of social media, you have to be social. Like Dustin Wax at Stepcase Lifehack said:
Building relationships starts with a friend request or invite — it doesn’t end there. Get to know the people you are connected with. Answer their questions, send them a link or piece of information now and again, and read their profiles.
But if you look at social media as a one-night stand–you’re doomed for failure.
You’ve got to love people. Everything about them. Like Leo at Zen Habits–who I swear doesn’t have a bad bone in his body. He is truly interested in everybody.
[Just follow him on Twitter to see what I mean.]
When you fall over yourself to get to know people–one person at a time–becoming popular is inevitable. And that means you have to spend more than one night with them.
The 90 Day Social Media Challenge
Social media is out there to help you. And it’s perfect for what you want to do–generate leads. Where else can you have access to millions of people in the matter of a few clicks?
So, my challenge to you is this: for the next 90 days try and do these three simple social media ideas everyday.
At the most it should take you an hour and a half. But that hour and a half maybe your best time investment as your social network grows exponentially.
Disclaimer
By the end of that 90 days you won’t have a billion leads. Probably not a million. Or even a thousand. But a hundred isn’t far-fetched.
And if you have one hundred new leads, and got just one lead from each person, your leads just doubled without you having to do anything.
That’s the beauty of compound marketing.
Aug
11
Sick of Failure? The Seven Natural Laws of Real Estate Prospecting
Filed Under Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Prospecting Ideas | Leave a Comment
Tired of dealing with snobbish buyers? Getting walked all over? Losing? If so, what you need to do is create some competition using the same principles farmers use to grow crops. Let me explain.
Prospecting is essential to success in real estate. It’s a key ingredient that will help you earn and get paid the amounts of money you want to make each year.
Yet, so many agents disregard, forget, ignore or flat out neglect prospecting. That’s bad. Especially in this market.
What you need to do–instead of settling for whatever rolls in from the front desk–is create an arena of competition. That is, you must get buyers competing with each other for a home. That means, you must get a lot of buyers bidding for the same home.
How do you do that? Prospect, prospect, prospect. Even though that sounds easy, it won’t happen over night. You have to sow today, to reap tomorrow. Any farmer will tell you that. It’s the natural law of the harvest.
And part of the law of the harvest is to focus your efforts on prospecting. Just like a farmer plants, then waters, then fertilizes, then harvests…you also focus on the other three pillars of real estate–and prospect.
Follow these seven natural laws of prospecting to create competition and in no time you’ll harvest a bumper crop this year of leads, clients and commissions.
1. Prospect Enough
Prospecting is THE PATH to finding the leads that will become your successfully closed transactions in the weeks and months ahead. If you don’t search for and cultivate the best people to work with in your territory, your competitors WILL find these people…and successfully close transactions with them instead.
2. Prospect With a Good Attitude
People respond to you based upon what you are putting out to them. When you have a great, positive, fun-loving attitude people will like talking to you more.
3. Follow-Up With Prospects
Following-up on the leads you’ve uncovered and enrolling your prospects in follow-up systems is really what being a successful real estate agent is all about. Follow-up systems are essential.
4. Prospect the Right People
Are you prospecting the people you ideally want to be working with? Are you prospecting in the geographical area that has the properties you really want to list or sell? Make sure you’re prospecting the people who will be closing the exact kind of transactions you want to be working on.
5. Ask Your Prospects for Referrals
When you are prospecting you will maximize your results when you ask your prospects who they know that might be interested in buying or selling in the near future. When you ask the right questions you can also begin prospecting everyone else they know. Don’t be afraid. Just do it!
6. Mail to Your Circle of Influence Constantly
Mailing to your circle of influence keeps you “top of the mind.” You get their attention and remind them of who you are every single month. And the more you consistently mail the higher the probability that one of your circle of influence (or someone they know) will buy or sell right around the time that one of your mailers arrives on their doorstep.
7. Prospect Even After You’ve Generated Activity:
To be the best you can be in your real estate career you need to prospect constantly. If you get busy and stop, or substantially reduce your prospecting you will most definitely experience a gap in your incoming commissions in the weeks and months ahead. Don’t delude yourself about this. Know with certainty that whenever you slow down your prospecting you will substantially decrease your income for the year.
Final Thoughts
Carve each day you work into four quadrants and focus on one pillar in each quadrant. Especially prospecting. Don’t deviate. Always prospect and you’ll create competition and render those snobbish buyers humbled. Count on it.
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Aug
5
The Surprising Secret to Growing a Business Through Self-Control
Filed Under Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Prospecting Ideas, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Around 1970, psychologist Walter Mischel launched the ground-breaking “Marshmallow Experiment.”
Mischel left a group of preschoolers inside a room with a bell and one marshmallow on a plate. His instructions: Wait 20 minutes and you’ll get a second marshmallow. If the child couldn’t wait 20 minutes, ring the bell and he could eat the one marshmallow–but not get another one.
Videos of the preschoolers show children squirming in their seats, hiding their eyes and kicking their legs. Some children couldn’t wait one minute. Others bailed at 15 minutes. And some waited the 20 minutes and got a second marshmallow.
What Mischel Did Next
Then Mischel tracked these children as they grew up. What he found was astounding–and could have a big impact on your real estate business.
According to Mischel, those children who waited 20 minutes ended up getting higher SAT scores, entering better colleges, learning more, earning more money and having a better social life.
Those who couldn’t wait the 20 minutes ended up becoming bullies, failing parental and teacher evaluations and using drugs.
What does this tell us? It tells us that self-control is essential. And here’s how you can use self-control to grow your business.
The Curious Secret to Self-Control
Do you know what the most popular alternative medicine website is? It’s Mercola.
Several years ago Dr. Mercola started his website and did nothing but give away great, free content–on his website and in his e-newsletter.
Over a period of three years he built his subscriber base to 1.2 million people. So, when he started offering books and other information products, his subscribers bought them in droves.
The same thing happened to David DeAngelo.
DeAngelo is the founder of DoubleYourDating. It’s a website that helps men learn how to pick up beautiful women and get as many dates as they want. DeAngelo started the website in his basement six years ago. And in less than six years, he makes $20 million dollars a year.
How did he do it? The same way as Dr. Mercola. He gave away free, useful, unique, urgent and specific information. Information people could use. The moment he started offering products, his subscribers bought like mad.
Why Does This Work So Well?
I’ll tell you why. Reciprocity.
What is reciprocity? Reciprocity is the principle–noted by Dr. Cialdini–of returning a favor. In a nutshell, if I give you something, you have a sense to give something back to me.
Reciprocity was one of the reasons the Hari Krishnas were so successful back in the 80s. They gave flowers to people who then felt obligated to hand over a dollar or two.
What Does Self-Control Have to Do with Growing a Business?
Here’s the self-control part: Stop bulldozing people with requests for work, leads or money. Stop harassing people at parties, on the street or in church.
Instead, learn how to give–and give enormously–before you ask for anything in return
For example, give of your time. Volunteer your time at a soup line, homeless shelter or city hall.
Or, if you like to write, create substantial newsletters or articles. Give away free, useful information. Or pay someone to do it. Think valuable stuff that people can actually use–like breaking news on the mortgage crisis, secrets to avoiding foreclosure or insider tips on short selling.
Or, give up two hours of your week to consult with clients on a variety of issues like financial planning, gardening, do-it-yourself home repair or elderly care.
Find out what people want and enjoy–and give it to them.
Why You’ll Never Have to Ask for Business Again
Here’s the point: Avoid demanding people for work, leads or money before you give anything away. Delay your immediate gratification.
Like Dr. Bernie Siegal said, “If you spend two hours a week giving your time to people who aren’t your family, you’ll never run out of family.”
The same goes for your business.
If you invest just a small amount of time, money or effort–without strings attached–in other people you won’t have to ask for business. You can simply make an offer and people will respond immediately.
So, what are you giving away? Let me know in the comments. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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