Selling Soulfully with Jennifer Allan

Picking up from Wednesday's blog about how introverts (and other Reluctant Networkers) can and should make more friends to sell houses to, here are some thoughts on how to go about doing that. And trust me, you'll find no nonsense here about accosting every stranger with a business card or elevator speech, or reminding everyone you know how much you LUUUUUUV Referrals!

It's actually much simpler and low-stress than you might think, especially if you are an introvert. You're not trying to find your new best friend or partner for life, you're just trying meet a few (or a lot) more people who think you're generally a decent person who probably can handle the intricacies of a real estate deal. Some may become good friends, but most won't, and that's fine. While I toss the word "friend" around, I'm referring mainly to "people who know you," not all of whom are friends. Most aren't, actually.

So, when someone tells me they have a small Sphere of Influence (SOI), I find out they're almost always thinking that they SOI is their "friends and family." And that's not right. Your SOI is "everyone who knows you and knows that you sell real estate." That's important to keep in mind.

Most advice for expanding an SOI centers on joining groups, networking, volunteering & such. Terrific! If that's up your alley, see ya at the Chamber. But it's not everyone's cup of merlot. (And actually, no, you won't see me at any Chamber).

I prefer a much more subtle approach. And it works, promise.

Every time you leave the house (which you should do on a regular basis), practice making eye contact with strangers. If you're an extrovert, this may come naturally to you, but if you're like me - more reticent about such things, it probably doesn't. Usually when I go out in public, let's say to Wal-Mart, I avoid eye contact. I look at the floor, the ceiling, the apples, or my shopping cart... anything but the other people in the store.

However, I notice a big difference in my shopping experience when I make a concerted effort to LOOK at the other people I'm shopping with. Wow - it's fun! When I smile, they smile back! What a concept.

One day I went to a big box liquor store and using my make-eye-contact-with-strangers campaign, I struck up conversations with eight different people! Okay, so I didn't sell a house to any of them, but you never know.  

So, do I think you'll build a huge SOI by hanging out at Wal-Mart or the booze-store? Maybe, maybe not. But it's a great practice ground to get in the habit of bringing the outside world into your world instead of studiously shutting it out. Even for introverts, it's not hard to smile pleasantly at people who cross your path, especially if you're NOT in a networking situation where there's that subtle added pressure of effectively promoting yourself.

BUT... think about this... what if you smiled pleasantly and made eye contact with ten strangers a day... and struck up a conversation with just one of the ten? Just one? Every day? For a year? Y'think you might have a sweeeet SOI 365 days from now?

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(My opinion will be glaringly apparent in about 10 seconds).

I'm horrified on a daily basis by the emphasis in our industry on PROSPECTING PROSPECTING PROSPECTING! Anyone who reads my blog already knows that, but here I am again with my jaw dropped to the floor at some recent comments on another blogger's post. I won't repeat them here because I have no desire to publicly criticize anyone (must be feeling abnormally sweet today) and besides, it's only my opinion, but JEEZ! To imply, heck to outright state that our most important duty as LICENSED real estate agents is to focus on finding new business as opposed to taking great care of what we already have... literally nauseates me.

My friends, I'm not stupid or naïve. I know that as self-employed people we need to ensure a steady stream of business to our door, but for heaven's sake - show those people who find their way there and HONOR us with their business the respect they DESERVE - and take care of them AS OUR FIRST PRIORITY!  Yes, BEFORE our prospecting activities. I'm serious.

Because you know what? If you approach your business with that attitude - if you get up every morning asking yourself what you can do for your clients to make their lives better (and frankly, impress the hell out of them with your service), they will take care of you the rest of your career. I promise.

Is it that many in our ranks don't really know how to take good care of their clients? That they were never trained in the nuances of buyer or seller representation? Or never cared enough to figure it out themselves? All they learned how to do was prospect, GET that sign in the yard and then waltz away to pursue the next victim prospect? Say it isn't so!

Be assured, I'm not asking anyone to do something that will hurt their business by begging them to spend more of their time on their clients instead of their prospects. The very best prospecting you will ever do (and by far the cheapest) is to prove to your clients that you are a fabulous real estate agent who knows how (and cares enough) to get the job done. Not surprisingly, that's awfully darn rare in our business, and will make an impression on those whose paths you cross.

This, by the way, is the essence of Sell with Soul. Be worthy of the business you attract. And as a result, attract lots more of it.

Rant over. Tomorrow I'll pick back up with the Confident Rookie Series.

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BAH!

Is anyone tired of of hearing this line? Lately it's all about Twittering, Facebooking, Linked-in-ing and whatever other latest technology I'm not familiar with. At a Terry Watson presentation at last year's Colorado Realtor Rally, he proclaimed that an agent's Number One marketing tool was... YouTube!

HUH?

Of course, it's not as if we haven't been hearing this same crap forever. In the old days (and still some today), the Masters proclaimed that if you don't cold-call, door-knock, farm or advertise, you'll be dead in the water. Then you had to bombard your Sphere of Influence with cheesy mailers every month. Then you had to have a fully-functional website. Then you had to SEO and PPC. Oh, and you must have a PDA (the old-timey Daytimers won't cut it). Gotta have a blog, mobile-web and GPS...

OR YOU'LL FAIL!

Nonsense. I guarantee you that if I never Twitter or go near my Facebook page again, it will not affect my success selling real estate. And I'm still enamored with my trusty Franklin Planner (the paper kind), with no plans to upgrade to digital.

Just do what has always worked for you! Upgrade to new technology when YOU'RE in the mood, not when some guru scares you half to death with the consequences if you don't!

"If I don't Twitter, I'll fail..." Sheesh.

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As much as I'd like to claim that I'm always looking out for the other guy, and always put my friends' and clients' needs ahead of my own... well... I just can't say that with a straight face. I can be awfully lazy at times (quite often, actually) and would much rather do exactly what I wanna do and the rest of my world be da*ned!

But... unfortunately, when you're self-employed, that's probably not the best approach to life. Because y'know what? In our industry, every warm body on the planet has the potential to bring you a $10,000 paycheck and there's no way of telling who that next $10k paycheck will come from. Blow someone off ‘cause you're feeling lazy and you might just have blown that week's (or month's) opportunity for The Big One.

So, lately, when I'm asked for a favor, or even to go out socially (as an introvert, I'm not always in the mood) and I'm inclined to decline, I back off and ask myself "What's in this for me?" And y'know what? I can almost always think of something "in it" for me, above and beyond the potential to have fun, eat some good food or drink good wine or even meet my next $10k client. I hesitate to give you any of my recent examples because they are SO DARN SELF-SERVING, I'm almost embarrassed.

But does it really matter what my motivation is, as long as I do the right thing?

So, give it a try. Next time you're tempted to decline an invitation or say NO to a favor asked of you, take a moment to be selfish and ask "what in it for me if I do this?" If you truly can't think of anything, you have my permission to stay home! But I'll bet you'll find that more often than not... there IS something in it for you that makes it worth doing!

My friend Bob Delle Donne in Florida challenged me to find a way to sell 1000 SWS's in March. I rolled my eyes at him, but he insisted. He said to just put it out there into the universe and see what happens. Well, okay. And y'know what? Sales are way up! I got a ginormous order last night from Amazon.com and am getting about four times the orders on my website. Neato! If you'd like to participate in my universal experiment, I'd certainly be honored. Volume discounts available (I know the boss). xoxoxo

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Because I teach real estate agents how build a business based on their Sphere of Influence (SOI = the people they know and the people they meet) as opposed to marketing-to-strangers, I'm often approached by new or newer lenders asking how they can successfully persuade US (the REALTOR community) to give them a shot.

Frankly, I'm always stumped by the question. Traditional lender prospecting techniques simply don't work - at least in my experience. Offering daily rate sheets or open house brochures won't do it. Nor will weekly newsletters - printed or emailed. Sure, I appreciate (and will use) the information, but it's not going to get a lender on my preferred vendor list.

Even lender-modified SOI techniques probably won't work. Take me to lunch or coffee? Great! But I can't promise you a return on your investment. Pop-by my office to chat? Eh, please don't. Especially if your "chat" has anything to do with "earning" my business.

How about sending me buyers? Well, that sounds fabulous, but I've yet to have a lender do that, so I can't speak to the effectiveness of it.  Hmmmmm... well, stay tuned - I'll share my thoughts on that in a sec.

So, how do I find my favorite lenders? Ah, that's an easy question. There are two ways I've found my lenders-of-choice:

1. My buyer brought his lender to the deal and the lender impressed the heck out of me.
2. The lender on the other side of the deal (when I'm the listing agent) impressed the heck out of me.

So, I guess my not-so-helpful answer to lenders seeking REALTOR loyalty is to... well... impress the heck out of the REALTORS you have the opportunity to get in front of. Do your job, do it exceptionally well and then stay in touch with the agent without ever pestering her for business or referrals. Once you have an impressed REALTOR, then you're free to implement your other loyalty-inspiring activities - newsletters, lunch dates, rate sheets, etc., but without that first step - proving your competence - it's probably wasted effort.

Speaking of lender-to-REALTOR referrals... I don't expect my lender to send me referrals and I certainly don't make it a requirement of my loyalty. A great lender (who is what I want on my team) probably has dozens of REALTORS he works with and it's far more important to me that he take care of my business  than that he send me business. However, I will say that if a fledgling lender does send me a referral and then impresses the heck out of me with his handling of the deal, well, then, he has a good shot at making my preferred list!

SOMEWHAT RELATED BLOG: Dear SOI, Thanks, but I don't want your loyalty!

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Okay, so my last two postings have been a little grim, a little whiney, a little dark. BAH! Enough of that! Life is good, life is sweet, life is wonderful and it might do me good to remember that a little more often! Actually, this week has been pretty darn good to Jennifer... (‘cept for those pesky spammers on my SWS forum - my gosh, where did they come from all of a sudden? Anyone know how to get rid of ‘em?)

Anyway, let's lighten things up a bit!

A few months ago, I attended a Rick DeLuca seminar here in Denver. I got a lot out of it, which is surprising because I typically HATE attending such things and usually want to leave within 15 minutes.

One of the concepts Mr. DeLuca brought up was the idea of, as he calls it, "Being in the right place at the right time... more frequently." My version? "Be out there in the world with your antenna up and a smile on your face."

Good real estate business comes in one lead at a time... not ten leads at a time. And with the size of our paychecks, one (good) lead at a time is plenty! I'd much rather have one great lead per week than 100 cool leads that I generated from any sort of mass marketing effort.

So, the way I see it, we real estate types have a choice. We can sit behind our desks and generate lots and lots of crap designed to bombard a target audience in hopes of getting a few hits... or we can go out there in the world in our sexy jeans, feeling sassy and confident, and share our enthusiasm and knowledge of real estate with the world...

I'm as guilty as any other introvert of prefering to sit behind my desk and make lists... respond to emails... blog... anything so that I don't have to shower and put myself out there. But, even with my not-the-friendliest-person-in-the-world personality, I know that I'm much more likely to Be in the Right Place at the Right Time when I'm OUT THERE than when I'm comfortably curled up at home.

Oh, don't get me wrong... I'd go nutso if I were OUT THERE all day, every day, so don't think for a minute I'm advising my fellow Ntros to do the belly-to-belly thing (ugh, I hate that phrase) for hours at a time. Just an hour a day will likely change your career.

Give it some thought. How could YOU spend one hour, every day, Being in the Right Place at the Right Time More Frequently?

I'll share mine if you'll share yours!

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Last week, Janie Coffey hosted a teleconference for the participants of my Savvy Prospector program about the magic of niche marketing. I was spellbound by the material and it really made me think about how this business works...

Back to Janie in a sec.

We're all looking for a magic bullet, myself included. While I know I'll have a mortgage payment due NEXT October, I'm far more concerned with the one due in 25 days, the one due in 55 days and the one due in 85 days. 

But you know what? Next October will be here before you know it, and THIS October will be a distant memory. Where do you want to be next October? Do you intend to still be selling real estate? Or do you reckon you'll be doing something else by then?

Of course, we all figure we'll still be real estate gods and goddesses and we're all optimistic that things will have turned around by then. Those of us who have stuck it out through these difficult times will be talking for years about how we survived the 2007-2008 real estate season and are now better agents for it.

So, if that's the case - if you really wanna be selling some real estate in a year... in two years... and for many years after that, perhaps now would be a good time to start planning to do just that.

Okay, back to Janie. Janie has created a niche market for herself in South Florida as the Horse Realtor. She began her campaign to be the go-to agent for horsey people about a year and a half ago. Today she's working with five developers across the country (the world actually) who want, heck NEED her expertise in horse properties. They're coming after her!

But that didn't happen overnight - nope, it took a year or so to build her reputation as someone who knows horse properties. A year ago, developers weren't beating down her door, but I'll bet if you ask her, she'll say that these last 12 months have flown by and she's thrilled with the long-term results of her efforts.

There are a gazillion things we can all be doing today to ensure a happy next year. And then be tickled with ourselves when next year rolls around and we're enjoying the fruits of our labor.

Okay, Jennifer, Miss Smarty Pantz, what CAN we do today to ensure a Happy Next Year?

1. Nurture your personal relationships. Especially if you've approached the people you know as a salesperson first and a friend second or third or fourth, you may have some repair work to do. Starting today - drop the sales pitch and start reconnecting with your SOI as a real person... who cares about them... who also happens to sell real estate.
   
   
2. Take a little extra time with not-yet-ready-to-buy-or-sell prospects. Treat them respectfully and stay in touch. Never shuttle a potential future client out the door because they aren't leading you to a paycheck within 60 days. They could very well bring you a paycheck in 180 days.
   
   
3. Become a Master of Your Market. The only way to really know and understand your local market is to be out in it. Take three hours a week to preview homes. Visit open houses two Sundays a month. Go to every Broker Open you're invited to. Read the neighborhood newspapers.
   
   
4. Make your current clients your top priority (yep, ahead of your prospecting efforts). Go above and beyond for your sellers and buyers. Believe me, they'll notice and they'll remember. And will reward you for your efforts for years to come.
   
   
5. Blog. Blogging is a long-term prospecting strategy. If you want to become a specialist in your market or in certain property types or certain client types, get blogging about them TODAY. In a year, you'll be glad you did.

It's possible that NONE of the above activities will result in a sale in 30 days or even 60. But if you're in this for the long haul, I guarantee that in a year, you'll be thrilled with the results.

The Savvy Prospector: Eight Weeks to a Full Pipeline for Life!
          

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The Daily Seduction: Tips for Generating Business & Referrals from the People Who Know You

Have you ever noticed (or is it just me) that the people you actually "market" to aren't the ones who actually respond? In my worlds (‘ritin' and real estate), I find that the bulk of my business comes from those who have not received any direct sales pitch from me. Either I'm a lousy sales-pitcher (very possible) or maybe (just maybe), people don't want to be sales pitched.

Here's an example. A few weeks ago I got a call from a lender with whom I've done a little business the past. Just your basic catching-up call, prospecting, I'm sure. Well, I happen to know that this lender does a lot of seminars for local Realtors and since I'm also in the seminars-for-Realtors business, I asked him if he'd be interested in bringing me along on one and letting me say a few words. He hemmed and hawed and changed the subject (I'll take that as a NO). Now, I get asked to speak all the time (particularly by lenders), so I don't think what I offered was too far out of line; in fact, I thought my offer might be greeted with enthusiasm. Uh, no.

In my real estate business, I know for sure that when (in the past), I've outright asked for business - either in a self-promotional mailing or local advertising, I can count on zero hands how many positive responses I got. But I do GET business - it just comes in organically - that is - people hear about me or meet me or stumble onto my blog and THEN pursue me. And, often hire me or buy my stuff.

This is somewhat comforting, yet irritating to me at the same time. Hey, I spend perfectly good money getting my name out there, so when my marketing efforts crash and burn, I'm pretty darn annoyed. Believe me; I had plenty of other uses for that money!

But, of course, I find myself doing the same thing. I delete inbox SPAM with a vengeance and often ignore (or politely decline) invitations to cross-link my site with others. I certainly use TV commercial time to check my email or refill my wine glass. I never look at the promotional material that clutters up my mailbox or Oprah Magazine and I toss out all the inspection and carpet-cleaning brochures that fill up my inbox at RE/MAX. I can't say that I give a second glance to the gawd-awfully expensive advertising that covers the pages of my Realtor Magazine. I hang up on cold-callers.

So, what's the alternative to aggressive self-promotion? Stay tuned for MY thoughts on the matter... but please share yours!

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