Selling Soulfully with Jennifer Allan

"I don't want to work with my sphere of influence, I'd rather work with strangers!"

As the self-proclaimed Master of All Things SOI, I hear this a lot. Agents write to me (and occasionally call) to tell me why they don't wanna sell real estate for or to their spheres of influence. They explain that they don't want to risk their friendships, they don't want to mix business with pleasure, they don't want to discount their fees for friends and family, they don't wanna, they don't wanna, they don't wanna... yada yada yada.

And that's fine with me. To each his or her own - there are many paths to success in a real estate business and an SOI business model is only one of them. Shoot, there are many paths to success in an SOI business model even!

But I cain't help myself from arguing just a little with these agents. Not because I think I'm so smart (well, maybe...), but rather because I don't think they truly understand what an SOI business model is.

Selling real estate to and for your sphere of influence doesn't just mean your friends and acquaintances hire you to be their real estate agent on a consistent-enough basis to keep you in business. It doesn't even mean that they shovel enough referrals your way to keep you in business. 

Yes, those things will happen, but in today's market, that's not likely to be enough consistent business to keep the dogs fed and the toenails polished.

No, a 21st Century, post-mortgage-meltdown SOI business model is much broader than simply relying on your friends, family and acquaintances to supply you with leads.

Your sphere of influence is potentially comprised of every living breathing human being who crosses your path on a daily basis. Of course, not every living breathing human being who crosses your path will BECOME a member of your SOI, but the potential is there. I'll probably expound on that concept in an upcoming blog, but for this one, let's talk about all those "stranger" leads these "I don't wanna SOI" crowd is hoping to sell houses to and for.

With me?

Even if your business model is based on prospecting to strangers, I have to assume you're hoping that someday you'll meet these strangers, preferably in the context of a real estate transaction. And once you've met them, I have to assume you want to do a great job for them so that they'll tell all their friends about you. And once your transaction with them is over, I assume you'd like to get their future business and referrals, which is best accomplished by staying in touch with them (after you did a great job for them, of course).

So, if these assumptions are true, it sounds as if you're running a sphere of influence business model to me!

Of course, if these assumptions aren't true for you; if you'd rather continue to pursue strangers for your future business and let anyone you've already met face to face go because they're now a member of your sphere of influence (and you don't wanna SOI) well, okay!

The other day an agent who is going thru my Savvy Prospector, Eight Weeks to a Full Pipeline for Life program emailed me to ask "Jennifer, did you really DO all this stuff when you were selling real estate?"

He asked because the Savvy Prospector (which helps agents build a sphere of influence business model from scratch) is pretty intense and he was feeling a little overwhelmed. My initial reaction to the question was "Well, of course I did. I wouldn't tell YOU to do it if I didn't do it! I practice what I preach!"

But... before I fired off that response I paused. And thought about it a few more seconds.

And you know what? No, I didn't "really DO all this stuff when I was selling real estate." At least, not once it started working!

Once I had a docket full of buyers and sellers to serve, my sphere of influence (SOI) activities slowed considerably. I went from lunch-dating twice a week to lunch-dating once a quarter. I stopped going to parties and events if I wasn't in the mood instead of forcing myself to attend in the interest of building my SOI. My personal "how ya' doin'?" phone calls became a thing of the past.

My other prospecting activities pretty much went by the wayside as well. I stopped taking floor time and sitting at (other agents') open houses. I ceased my newspaper and bus bench advertising. I stopped my (admittedly sporadic) mailings to my farm area.

Why did I stop these prospecting activities, some of which had clearly paid off?

Because I was busy taking care of my buyers and sellers. I was managing the moving pieces and parts of multiple real estate transactions in various stages of marketing to contract to closing. I was Doing My Job.

What do you think happened? Did my business crash and burn, leaving me suddenly lonely, broke and desperate for new clients?

Nope. In fact, my business just kept growing. Without any overt prospecting by me, my phone rang, I answered it, and I had a new client. Momentum + happy customers = more momentum and more customers to make happy.

Beautiful.

So, back to the Savvy Prospector's question that kicked off this blog. To paraphrase - "Do you really have to maintain a high level of SOI activity throughout your career?"

Probably not. Not that continuing a high level of SOI'ing will hurt your career in any way (unless you're blowing off your buyers and sellers for your SOI lunch-dates and parties), but if you truly don't have time to keep it up because your current clients need you (and you're there for them), you'll be fine.

The thing is - happy customers are by far the best source of future business. Way better, even, than your best friends and supportive family members. Stay in touch with your current and past clients to the extent that they know you're still in business and can find you when needed and you'll get their future business and referrals.

But as you're working toward creating a database full of happy past clients, YES, SOI your heart out! Not only will it help you fill up that database, but it'll also get you in the habit of "doing" SOI as part of your daily routine - to the point where you won't even realize you're doing it!

Got a google alert this morning about an article that was just posted 'bout me in the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors' newsletter. I rather like it, so I thought I'd share...

Sphere Includes More Than Friends and Family

Tuesday, July 27, 2010 By Kim Shindle

Working a "sphere of influence" business is not about pestering friends and family to help you get leads, according to Jennifer Allan, owner of Sell With Soul, a real estate consulting company based in Florida.

"Your sphere of influence (SOI) is more than friends and family," Allan said. "To categorize your friends as to whether they'll make a referral and to bombard them with sales material is an uncomfortable way to do business."

Allan defines "sphere of influence" as "everyone who knows you and knows that you sell real estate. That includes people you like, don't like, people you meet every day, new contacts - whether or not you think they'll make a referral."

"Many agents use an SOI business model as an alternative to prospecting strangers," Allan said. "They ‘warm' call their friends when it's clearly a sales call; they send mass mailings to their friends and they spam them with e-mails, all in order to avoid cold-calling strangers.

To continue... click HERE!

(This is JA now, not the article)... I've been thinking a lot about my beloved Sphere of Influence strategies and philosophies... and I have some new things to say... stay tuned...

To read more of my SOI ramblings... check out my SOI blog
www.Sphere-of-Influence.com

Awhile back, I wrote a blog called "Touching versus Impressing." The gist of the blog was that taking the time to "impress" one person may be far more effective than "touching" a hundred. I challenged agents to strive to "impress" at least one person a week.

So, want an easy way to get your once-weekly impressing duty done? Every time you have a conversation with someone, make an effort to learn One Thing about them that you can follow up on in a week or so. And once you've identified that One Thing, WRITE IT DOWN somewhere to remind yourself to follow up and DO IT.

For example, as I write this, a girlfriend of mine is flying home from a romantic getaway with her long-distance beau. It's on my list to call her tonight and find out how it went. A few months ago, I went out for drinks with another girlfriend who had to cut our date short to run home and check on her brand new puppy. I emailed her the following week, asking for photos of the puppy. Another friend of mine is embroiled in an ugly legal matter, so I'll check in with her in a week or two to see how it's going.

Is that simple or what?

You may not have noticed, but I've been away from the Rain for about two weeks (except for a few little housekeeping blogs). Blog burnout - it happens and it's usually good for the soul... What have I been doing? WRITING MY NEXT BOOK! Outta nowhere, I was in the mood to create the next masterpiece (tee hee), so that's where all my creative energy went. And... voila! The first (very preliminary) draft is done!

So here I am.

Got a question this morning from a reader about SOI'ing* in a new town. And, whaddya' know, I'd just written about this topic yesterday in Chapter Four...

"Dear Jennifer, I just moved to a town where I have no SOI. Any ideas using your philosophy? Thanks for any input you can offer."

My Response (excerpted from my preliminary first draft of the new baby);

"But I'm New to Town and I don't know anyone!"
So, a little lacking in the SOI department? The only people you know are your spouse, your real estate agent and the nice lady at the bank? Well, it's a start.

First, allow me to be frank with you. Starting up a relationship-based business in a brand new town is not easy. In fact, in some cases, it may be darn near impossible. A little tough love here - if you find yourself in this situation, either by choice or by necessity, you need to accept that you HAVE a choice to make. Either you will get your backside out there in the world and meet some people as fast as your legs will carry you, or you will put your business plans on hold until you have "organically" built a sphere of influence.

Let's talk about both options.

Getting Your Backside Out There
If you're an introvert, this may seem overwhelming. I mean, WHAT exactly can you do to "meet people?" I'm with ya, there. A few years ago I moved to a new town and after two years there I hadn't met much of anyone (no, I wasn't selling real estate; I was writing books).

Frankly, I would never advise anyone to begin a new real estate career in a new town... not just because of the SOI limitations, but also because you have so much ELSE to learn! A new market, new customs and maybe even new laws and contracts!

But since you asked, I'll do my best to answer.

First, make a list of everyone you know. You may be surprised how many people you know already. Keep a notebook with you at all times so you can write down the names of people you think of as you're going about your day.

Set a goal of how many new contacts you want to have by, say, the end of the year. 200 is a good number to shoot for. Figure out how many people you need to meet between now and then to reach your goal. (The sooner you have 200 contacts, the sooner your SOI strategy will work for you - there's just something magic about 200.)

Using respectful strategies you've read about here, in my books and on my blog, strive to make new friends. Best friends? No, of course not. Just put up your antenna, put a smile on your face and greet the world like a fresh breath of air. Go ahead and do open houses, prospect to FSBOs and Expireds, or any other sort of lead generation you feel the need to do. Just be sure to treat everyone you meet as someone you might build a relationship with, not just as someone who might buy or sell a home.

Because, frankly, your goal is not necessarily to meet everyone in town with a real estate need - your goal is meet people who KNOW other people* who have real estate needs.

The more people you know, uh, strike that. The more people who know YOU, the more likely your name is to come up in conversation when the topic is real estate.

Simple enough. If you're new to town. Go make friends. TODAY!

Putting your business on hold
This is a very viable option, as unappealing as it may sound on the surface. If I were to relocate today with the intention of selling real estate in my new locale, I would probably use this approach. I'd get another job for a year or so; preferably in a company or industry that included the opportunity to meet people. I'd focus on my goal of cultivating an SOI of 200 or so and keep my antenna up for opportunities to be social, to be helpful, to get my smiling (non-salesy) face in front of people I would enjoy knowing. I'd strive to always be perceived as an RCHB, so that when I made my announcement that I was returning to real estate, the people I'd met through the year would have the confidence that I'll be a darn good real
estate agent.

As an introvert, making the effort to be social IS an effort and not something that comes naturally. However, I'm also mercenary enough to be willing to do it if I think it's leading to something profitable for me. And of course, a side benefit of this mercenariness is that I'll make friends in
a new town. Win/win all around.

* SOI'ing = Building a business based on the personal relationships in your life (ideally without making a nuisance out of yourself)

The Savvy Prospector: Eight Weeks to a Full Pipeline for Life!
www.SellwithSoul.com/savvyprospector.htm

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Been doing a little private SOI (Sphere of Influence) tutoring with some local Denver agents. Yesterday, as I was working with one of my students, she asked me a question that got me thinking (I love that). She asked "So, my goal is to expand my Sphere of Influence database to a certain number by the end of the year?"

Well, sorta. At least, that's probably one of your goals. But as I answered her question I realized that there are really four different branches of an SOI business model, thus four different "goals" to shoot for as you build your SOI model.

Here are the four branches:

1. Your Direct SOI - that is - the people you know
2. Your Indirect SOI - that is - the people your SOI knows (i.e. referrals)
3. Your Third Generation SOI - that is - the people you meet via your SOI
4. Everyone Else - that is - every single person you encounter in your day-to-day wanderings

Your Direct SOI
These are the people who know you and know you sell real estate. It's made up of your Group One (your social network) and your Group Two (those people you know that you don't socialize with). You should try to have at least 200 warm bodies there; of course, more is better, but they don't "count" if the person wouldn't recognize your name off the bat. These are people who KNOW you, even if they aren't your best friends.

You'll get business from your Direct SOI, but it probably won't be your primary source of closings. Most of aren't blessed with an SOI who buys and sells houses on a regular basis!

Your Indirect SOI
These are the people your Direct SOI refers to you, who, of course, will be added to your Direct SOI once you've met. Your Indirect SOI should be a fairly consistent source of business for you, assuming your Direct SOI thinks a lot of you, and they know how to find you.

Your Third Generation SOI
These are the people you serendipitously meet as a result of your existing personal relationships. For example, back in 1996, I met my second and third clients ever at the wedding of a mutual friend. I met another client at a Pride parade I attended with my GLBT friends. Another at a Super Bowl party. Stuff like that. This can be an enormous source of business for you, if you're often out there in the world with a smile on your face and your antenna up, and can speak intelligently about your local real estate market to anyone who's interested (and please don't bore those who aren't!)

Everyone Else
These are the people you run into during your daily travels. Every single person you meet, every day, has the potential to be the newest member of your Direct SOI. Not all will, of course, but you never know who will end up being your biggest fan. It might be that young couple who stumbled into your Open House who had a child the same age as yours. Or that woman standing next to you at Ace Hardware getting a key made, who casually mentions she just moved to town. That guy you meet at the dog park. Your neighbor three doors down who is looking for his lost cat. The woman who calls you off your Craigslist ad to purchase your roller blades.

Again, HUGE potential with this category - if not today, then next month or next year.

So, looking at the four branches... how can you incorporate these four categories into your SOI-building goals & activities?

www.SellwithSoul.com

SOI 101: What exactly is an SOI business model?
SOI 102: The SECRET to Successful SOI
SOI 103: My daughter's best friend's parents just hired someone else!
SOI 104: I think I've blown it with my SOI

Thanks for the Gold Star yesterday for my first SOI 101, AR Gods! So, to continue the message, here's SOI 101 Lesson #2 - The SECRET to running a successful SOI business model.

Sphere of Influence = The People Who Know You.

Here 't'is.

The secret to running a successful SOI-based business is to be a great real estate agent who loves her job and knows her market and stays in touch with the people she knows, without ever pestering them for business or referrals.

That's it! That's the secret! To be a great real estate agent who loves her job and knows her market and stays in touch with the people she knows, without ever pestering them for business or referrals.

Let's take these items one by one.

You're a great real estate agent
This is huge. When I say that you need to be a great real estate agent, I don't mean that you need to be a great real estate prospector, even though that's what most of our training tends to imply. I mean that you take great care of your clients as your first priority, not as an afterthought when your prospecting is done. Doing business this way helps you on so many levels. First, obviously, you'll have happy clients who will be delighted to refer you to everyone they know. Second and third, you'll be proud of the work you do and confident in the work you do, which will lead to the second requirement -

You love your job
When you're good at what you do and you know it, you'll probably absolutely love your job. And that excitement and enthusiasm is contagious to those around you.

When you're able to hold your head up high and announce that "I'm a Real Estate Agent and it's the Coolest Job in the World!" people will be drawn to you - as one agent I know puts it - they want some of what you're smoking! When the topic of real estate comes up in a social setting and you're able to say those magic words "I'm a real estate agent and it's the coolest job in the world!" people will ask YOU for your business card. It's beautiful.

Which leads me to the third requirement:

You know your market
The best way I've found to build rapport with strangers is be master of your market. If you know your local real estate market, and you KNOW you know your local real estate market, you'll find opportunities to share that knowledge all over the place.

It's amazing how much confidence this gives you and it's pretty easy, to strike up a conversation with a total stranger about real estate... if you know what you're talking about. You'd be surprised how many people will ask YOU for your business card if you sound like an expert. I get a lot of my business this way - not from prospecting to strangers, but just from being confident about my competence - a big part of which is a good understanding of my market.

So, for someone who needs to build an SOI from scratch, they need to spend some quality time learning their market and put themselves in social situations where they can share their knowledge with people who are interested.

You stay in touch with the people you know
This, of course, is really important. If you know a whole bunch of people, but you never make any effort to have a personal interaction with any of them (above and beyond drip campaigns), your sphere of influence efforts will crash and burn. To be someone's favorite real estate agent, you either need to have done a fantastic job for them in the past (and stayed in touch) or make an effort to be in touch with them on a somewhat regular basis. Especially if someone hasn't used your services before, it's really easy for another agent to swoop in and take your place!  

Just know that yes, if you intend to generate business and referrals from the people you know, you will need to take time to talk to them.

You never pester anyone for business or referrals
The last requirement is that you never pester the people you know or the people you meet for business or referrals. This is a tough pill to swallow for many agents. We're trained to ask for business and to make sure that everyone we know and meet is aware that we are desperate for business. I know, that's not what we say - but it's how it comes across. When we constantly or even sporadically remind the people we know that We Love Referrals, we send a message that is counterproductive to our goal of actually generating referrals.

Sooooooo.... Are you a great agent... who loves your job.... And knows your market.... And stays in touch with the people you know without ever pestering them for business or referrals? Yeah? Then get off the computer and go SOI!

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

 Next in the series: "My daughter's best friend's parents just hired another agent!"

The SOI Starter Kit
Everything you need to get your own SOI business model up & running!
www.SellwithSoul.com

A Sphere of Influence business model is a strategy that focuses on attracting business to you from the people you know and the people you meet socially, as opposed to pursuing business from strangers. It's possible to run a 100% SOI business and never have to make one cold call, memorize a prospecting script or knock on a strangers' door!

There are three primary activities in an effective SOI business model.

1. Nurturing the personal relationships you already have within your social network (that is, your friends - I call this group my "Group One." Clever, eh?)
   
   
2. Staying in touch with "everyone else" (that is, the people you know who aren't your friends - I call them my Group Two)
   
   
3. Meeting new people.

Before you panic and say that you don't have the time, money or energy to do all this socializing, don't! Running an SOI business is much less time-consuming and less expensive than just about any other systematized prospecting method, and can be far more effective, more quickly. In fact, if you spend a few years creating your personal cheering section, you can pretty much coast through the rest of your real estate career. That's what I did and in my last five years I rarely worked more than 30 hours a week and my marketing budget was practically zero. My phone rang, I answered it, and whaddya' know?  I had a new client.

Nurturing the personal relationships you already have
From a philosophical perspective, this means to ensure that the people in your social network (AKA Group One) know that you care about them. In a practical sense, it means that you strive to have a personal conversation with everyone in your social network as often as you can, at least once a quarter. A personal conversation can be a face to face lunch or coffee date, a phone call or even an email exchange. What it's not is a concerted effort to abuse your friends with a sales pitch. Always approach your social network as a friend first, and a real estate agent second, or third, or fourth.  Not the other way around.

Staying in touch with Everyone Else
Staying in touch with your "everyone else" group (AKA Group Two) just means that you keep your name in front of this crowd with periodic interesting, relevant, non-salesy written communications, delivered both through snail-mail and email. As long as your mailings are consistent and intelligent, you'll see a significant number of sales from even this minimal effort.

Meeting new people
An important part of an effective SOI model is to add to your Groups One and Two, especially in today's market where there is admittedly less business to go around. The more people you know, who know you, and think you're a generally cool person, the more that telephone will ring.

Running an effective SOI business model isn't nearly as complicated as some would have you believe. Yes, it takes some organization and commitment upfront, and an ongoing effort to stay in touch with the people you know and the people you meet, but once it's rolling and you're in the SOI habit, it won't feel like work at all! In fact, it might even feel suspiciously like FUN! And "the more fun you have selling real estate, the more real estate you will sell!"

Stay tuned for more SOI 101 coming to a Selling Soulfully blog near you...

How Much Do You Know about SOI? Take the Quiz!

The SOI Starter Kit
Everything you need to get your own SOI business model up & running!
www.SellwithSoul.com

Several months ago (egads, in September) I wrote a blog with a teaser promise at the end to "stay tuned" for more... and that "more" never came. I sure hope too many of my readers didn't lose sleep wondering when I'd ever get back on topic. Here's the post... At the end of the post, I promised to discuss the difference between "touching" and "impressing."

To recap, in our business, we often talk about the need to "touch" as many people as possible with our message, whether those touch-ees are people we know (our Sphere of Influence) or strangers. We get all revved up about volume touching campaigns, to ensure that we get that message out into the world as efficiently as possible. After all, Real Estate is a Numbers Game (blech), so the more people who get touched by us, the more often, the better, right?

Eh. I dunno. First, I'll debate to the ends of the earth whether or not our business IS a numbers game; after all, we get some pretty juicy paychecks and it doesn't take too many of those paychecks to add up to some serious nickels and dimes. We don't need to sell 40,000 houses this year; for some of us, 10 or 20 might pay the bills just fine, maybe 30 or 40. In either case, that means only a few dozen people in our whole city need to think enough of us to entrust us with their precious real estate business.

With me so far?

Many Sphere of Influence (SOI) prospecting programs mention "touching" as many of your SOI as you can, as often as you can. However, I want to make a distinction between "touching" and "impressing." I can touch 100 people in a day with a mass email or a postal mailing, pretty easily. And that's fine - it has its place. But what if I also make an effort to impress the people I run into during my day-to-day travels, whether it's business or personal? If you combine the two concepts - a volume "touching" campaign with a concerted effort to make a good impression on people when you have the opportunity, your prospecting results will improve exponentially.

What if you were to impress just one person per day? That's 365 impressed people in a year. Two a week? Even one a week? It sounds pretty obvious, but we get so caught up mass-prospecting that we forget the Power of One - that is - if every person you know refers just one person to you in a year, you'll have a banner year. And the chances of that happening are a whole lot better if everyone you know thinks you're pretty darn cool... instead of simply sort of knowing who you are.

Maybe I should explain what I mean by "impress." You can probably guess that I don't mean "brag about" or "blow away with a fantastic elevator speech." No, by impress, I mean that the person you just interacted with walks away from the interaction feeling just a little bit (or a whole lot) better than he did before. Obviously, he's not saying to himself "Thank GOD I got away - I thought she'd never shut up." Or "That's the last time I answer the phone when HE calls" or "What a flake."

The cool thing about impressing someone is that the positive impression you make on them will stick around a lot longer than the impression you make with a farming postcard, drip email or quarterly newsletter. If someone goes out of their way for me today, I'll still feel good about him for months, maybe even years!

So, take an hour out of your day to impress someone whenever you get the chance. It might be a far better use of that hour than whatever prospecting you'd be doing otherwise...

www.sellwithsoul.com

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

I'll be interested to see the responses to this forthcoming brain dump... some of you will totally relate, while others will think I'm just a weirdo.

I hate to prospect, in any way, shape or form. By "prospect" I'm not really referring to any particular method, strategy or activity, I just simply don't like drumming up business. I get no joy out of self-promotion, marketing or pursuing. I very much dislike the idea of spending any time at all worrying about where my next closing might come from.

But I LOVE LOVE LOVE selling real estate. Or, perhaps I should say that I love MANAGING the process of the exchange of real estate. I love pricing homes, I love solving problems, I love creating home brochures, I love managing my Internet advertising, I love negotiating contracts and inspections, I love previewing homes for my buyers, I love preparing for a tough appraisal, I love talking my buyer off the ledge when they're in panic mode.

The vast majority of my business through the years has, frankly, found me, as a result of my sphere of influence (SOI) and my satisfied past clients (SPCs). I've rarely had to formally prospect and have been able to spend most of my time doing what I love- that is - managing the business I already had.

That's still where my business comes from - from my SOI and my SPC's, but I'm feeling a bit grumpy that it doesn't flow in nearly as painlessly as it did in years past. There are lots of reasons for this - some obvious, some not so, but the fact remains that I'd be happy as a clam if I could just BE a great real estate agent and let someone else worry about making rain...

But maybe this is, like, totally obvious, dude. Does everyone feel this way, or are there people out there who really enjoy the rainmaking part of our jobs?

www.sellwithsoul.com/forum