Want Hyper-Local Blogging? Think Cat Blog

I spent a good portion of today pondering Jeff Brown’s post on hyper-local farming.  (I know, I know; my ex-wife used to wonder how I was going to pay the bills too.)  In a post over on BloodhoundBlog, Jeff celebrates the vindication of his earlier thesis on hyper-local blogging – or in Jeff’s case farming – by none other than Seth Godin.  I have come to the conclusion, and you can read the post and his links for yourself here, that Jeff is recommending a cat blog.

Well… maybe not a cat blog in the common sense of the term.  But look at what he is saying:

“Imagine, if you will, a blog site having more info on your neighborhood than you ever thought existed. I don’t mean boring real estate stuff, as any yahoo can generate that boring crap. I’m talking about reading about your son Steve’s game winning, last inning double in yesterday’s Little League game — complete with pictures. Yep, each neighborhood blog would be a de facto newspaper, with all the work that goes with it.”

This is not a blog about your real estate business and it surely is not a blog about all of your skills as an agent.  Giving people that information is like delivering the newspaper to their door and just about as dead.  People no longer want their news edited and parsed for them.  They would much rather go online and research their own areas of topical interest.  In the same way, few clients these days are going to be impressed with the number of closings you had last year or the number of letters after your name.  What they are interested in (what they have always been interested in) is how these things affect THEM.

People hold a very strong interest in themselves.  That is our nature and I am as guilty of it as you are.  The main message of being a 2.0 agent is realizing that your client wants it to be about them and not you.  I know many agents realized that a long time ago, but the power to market this change in the zeitgeist has been lacking.  Until now.  The reason people post pictures of their cat is because they like their cat.  You are rarely going to earn business by posting a picture of your little ball of furry fun, but you will definitely garner the interest of your prospects by posting a picture of theirs.

A true, hyper-local farming blog is really a cat blog for everyone in your community.  There are pictures of their little league stars and stories on the school art program their children entered (along with a picture or two that they forgot to take).  There is information on their neighborhood, their street and yes even their house.  Greg Swann elaborated on this in relation to Zillow and Zestifarming:

“To other Realty.bots, what matters is the listing, an ephemeral state-change in an otherwise uninteresting terrain. To Zillow, what matters is the house…”

Not just to Zillow; to clients too.  Push is a tough way to create interest, pull is a snap.  If you succeeded in the ultimate (albeit unattainable) goal of creating a cat blog for each and every person in your farm, what do you think their interest would be? The pull interest?  Do you think you would achieve top of mind status?  If you demonstrated your level of expertise (of direct, personal expertise) by giving your clients what they crave most: themselves, how many would look to you when it was time to buy or sell their home?   How close to that lofty goal does one have to get in order to own that farm? Lots of work – yes.  But imagine that level of farm ownership.  Hyper-local farming: one big cat blog.

Filed under: LIFE THAT POPs, MARKETING, REALTORS , blogging, cat blogs, hyper-local, Success

Dr. Strangeblog or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Social Media Marketing

When it comes to success in real estate, the key has always been and will always be: leads.  The melody may change but the song remains the same.  If you want to make money in Real Estate you must generate leads.  If you want to become wealthy in Real Estate you must generate leads at a faster rate.  Everything after that is polish.  I know it is popular right now to frown on this type of characterization.  “Our clients are people, not leads” some will correct.  “I am in the relationship business and I do not view my relationships as simply numbers or leads” others will sneer.  Listen, you can put as much perfume on marketing as you like, we are still talking about a pig.  When you are in the business of selling (and trust me, if you are a real estate agent or a mortgage originator you are in the SALES business) your primary focus is generating leads.

Most all leads can be divided into a few basic categories: prospect, past client and referral.  Here is the good news.  All three types of leads are easy to generate.  You must simply be in front of people more often than your competitors.  There are a lot of ways to increase your conversion besides being in front of them: you can add value to their daily lives, you can keep them informed with trenchant analysis, you can offer discounts and free stuff; probably the most important way to increase your conversions (and the primary cause of referrals) is to convey and heighten your perceived level of expertise.  Having said all of that, go back now and look at how I started the sentence: “…besides being in front of them…”  The bottom line remains the same: you must first get in front of people before you can inform, entertain, show off or otherwise become memorable.

So why am I borrowing from Dr. Strangelove?  Because it is a movie of insane brilliance (or brilliant insanity) that stands out and makes a point in spite of itself.  Sounds a lot like blogging doesn’t it?  Social Media Marketing has made generating leads exponentially easier.  Not since the creation of the business card have we had a tool so easy to use and yet so effective in creating “top of mind status” (is everyone reading old enough to remember that concept in marketing?)  You can sit down in the morning before the day starts, or in the evening when the day is coming to a peaceful end, and type out a few thoughts or share something you learned that day.  You can report on a trend or idea that is important to your sphere.  You can generate some thoughtful discussion on what the events of the day mean to you and how they may affect your clients.  Hey, sometimes you can just put up a picture of your cat.  The beauty of it all is that, at virtually NO COST, you can get in front of people on a regular basis and remind them why they have, should or will do business with you.  Want even more reasons to embrace the land of Mayoral Marketing?  By the very act of expressing yourself you eliminate the prospects that will not like doing business with you and, more to the point, with whom you will not like doing business.  Not only can you get in front of more people for less money, but you can increase your conversion rate as well!

Willie Sutton was famously (if not apocryphally) asked: “Why do you rob banks?”  He replied: “That’s where all the money is.”  Look at the Internet and realize: that’s where all the leads are.

Filed under: LENDERS, REALTORS, WORLD OF 2.0 , blogging, MARKETING, Mayoral Marketing, Success

Advice For the Board of Realtors: Less is More

I had an interesting discussion with a member of the finance committee in our local Board of Realtors.  Seems that, according to their list of dues payers, membership is down almost one third.  Which is to say that over 500 people are missing from the roster.   Wearing their standard issue, rose colored glasses the board goes gleefully along with a budget based on all of these “forgetful” members catching up on their dues!  Kind of negates the very purpose of a budget but that is not why I am posting.

Where Are the Cheerleaders?                                                                                                                                                           What disappoints me is not their fiscal fantasy (pornographic as it may be).  No, what disappoints me is that they are not cheering loudly for the decrease in membership.  What is the purpose of a local Board of Realtors?  I find it hard to say quite often, but ranking near the top should be: the best interest of their members and the integrity/image of Realtors.  Given that, why are the local boards not celebrating the “thinning of the herd”?  Does it not benefit the agents who stay to have the part timers and order takers and short timers out of the business?  Wouldn’t the integrity and image of Realtors improve vastly by the departure of someone who just a year ago was flipping burgers?  Don’t the clients gain the most when the Realtors that are left are those that work hard all day and find ways to make it work in any market?

Know when to say when.                                                                                                                                                             Over on BloodhoundBlog Allen Butler recently posted on how tough it is out there and commented on those that were not ready to take on the work.  He said: “Quit kidding yourself. You’re already out of this business. You just don’t know it yet.”  Amazing words.  The people that do not belong in Real Estate should be getting out so that there is more business for the professionals that know what they are doing.   And the board of Realtors should be doing cartwheels over the decline.

Filed under: MARKETING, REALTORS , blogging, Success

I Learned Everything I Needed to Know About Referral Marketing From a TV Show: Survivor

How can watching a TV program make you a more successful real estate agent?  There is one reality show on right now that exemplifies referral marketing like no other.  I am talking about Survivor.  This year the producers of Survivor decided to create two teams: one comprised of fans of the show (think of them as clients) and one comprised of favorites of past shows (think of them as agents).  In almost every interaction the two teams have, the fans defer to the favorites.  They look to the favorites with an almost rock star adulation.  Why is this?  Because the favorites’ perceived level of expertise is high in the fans eyes simply because the favorites have been on the show before.  That’s it really.  By virtue of their (limited) previous experience they are considered experts in this game.

Here is the interesting part: there is no real difference between these two groups of people.  The favorites have some experience but they are not professional Survivors.  They have never seen this local or these particular challenges, so their only real experience is in creating strategy (which, for most of them, was wrong at least once more than it was right!)  The reason the fans defer so readily to the favorites is a perfect example of how people react to those that they perceive as having expertise.  The goal of all referral marketing is to increase your perceived level of expertise in front of your clients.  If they are already fans of yours (whether from watching you on TV or reading you on a blog) your job just got that much easier.

Blogging is all about creating your community and running for mayor.  The goal is an endless stream of referrals.  I do not know who will ultimately win this season of Survivor.  But I already know who owns the high ground.  If this game were about referrals, it would be all over but the crying.  Your tribe is speaking…

Filed under: LIFE THAT POPs, MARKETING, REALTORS , blogging, Mayoral Marketing, Success

Marketing to be Mayor

I just finished reading another brilliant blog post by Brian Brady: the great and powerful Oz.  (He gave up his moniker as “America’s Most Opinionated Mortgage Broker” a while back and now he is just “America’s Mortgage Broker”.  I think he needs a new nickname and “the great and powerful Oz is more than a little appropriate).  Anyway, in his post Brian says: “I make my presence known. Tony Gallegos called me “ubiquitious“. Critics have called my strategy “puking all over the internet” (but placed my results in the top 20 of all real estate bloggers). “  Now this is true and I have heard him accused of “puking” all over the Internet more than once.  Here’s the thing: he is absolutely doing the right thing and we should all be copying him, except that it would be pointless.  Let me explain:

The concept behind social media marketing has been called many things, but viral marketing is probably the easiest to understand.  Simply put, you want to be a virus (and I mean that in the best possible way) that friends, family, clients and just about anybody else that comes in contact with you spreads to others.  This is the definition of generating referrals.  The question you should be asking yourself (the question we always ask ourselves when ever we start something new in business like “creating a virus”) is WHY?  Why do I want people to sneeze me around to everyone else.  The answer may seem obvious: to create more business; but that misses a huge part of why social media marketing – and especially blogging – is so powerful.

The Chamber of Commerce Meeting… EXPLODED
Let me ask you a question: would you rather close 25% of 100 leads or 70% of 50 leads?  Again, the answer appears obvious but the power of blogging is found here.  Your posts are a grand resumé for everyone to read.  Think of it as the most successful Chamber of Commerce Networking meeting you have ever attended.  Instead of painfully coming up with small talk and trying to ever so smoothly work real estate or mortgages into a conversation about the garbage strike, you get to sit quietly while everyone in the room has a chance to learn about you in intimate detail.  Instead of fishing through your pocket for a business card, paper plate of greasy wings in one hand and sweaty handshake in the other, your information is plastered all over the walls and hanging from the moose antlers.  In one fell swoop you have not only “introduced” yourself to one heck of a lot of people, but you have communicated to them who you really are.

People do business with people they think are like them.  I will repeat that: people do business with people they think are like them.  After everyone has gotten a chance to know you, how many in the room will call you?  Not as many as if you had kept your (literary) mouth shut.  But… the ones who do are a lot more likely to do business with you.  Now that is TRUE efficiency in marketing.

DON’T Be the Disease, Be the MAYOR
So here is another question: if you do not want to be a virus and the idea of puking all over people is a tad beyond your comfort level; if you understand the Chamber of Commerce example but have no idea where your local Chamber is located, what do you do?  Or, as I pointed out in the beginning of this post: WHY do you do it?  Because you want to be the Mayor.  If you were to talk to the great and powerful Oz, he would tell you to build a community.  Build a community of raving fans that will do business with you and refer you because they see you as an expert.  I say: take that one step further.  Your goal is to build this community and then be elected their mayor!  Think of it: a community of raving fans that looks to you for leadership.  Now you are going to want to put as many people as possible into your “community,” but at the same time it does you no good to add people that will never vote for you.  Those people are “dead weight” on your campaign and unless your community is Chicago, they can not vote.  You want people that have read your platform and agree with it.  You want people that know how you stand on the issues and agree with you.  You want people that believe in you because they see themselves in you.  Put your bumper sticker on every car and your poster on every light post IN YOUR COMMUNITY. 

Which bring us back to why copying Brian Brady would be pointless.  Your goal should be to get elected mayor of your community.  He is running for President… or great and powerful Oz, I get the two mixed up.

Remember: your job is helping people to buy and sell real estate, not writing blog posts (no matter how great the prose that drips from your fingers).  Get your platform out there, kiss a lot of babies and shake a lot of hands.  You are always campaigning and your are always working to earn your communities’ support.  The reward for all that hard work is being mayor for life, which equates to a lot of transactions. MAYORAL MARKETING!  Hit the campaign trail!!

Filed under: LIFE THAT POPs, MARKETING, REALTORS , blogging, Mayoral Marketing, real estate agent marketing, Success

Real Estate Success and Focus

How many Realtors consider themselves to be excellent at marketing?  Or maybe a better question is: how many Realtors believe they could improve their marketing?  How about especially when it comes to your Sphere of Influence: past clients, friends and family?  I do not know if anyone would turn down a system for finding more clients who are more prepared to act, more fun to work with and more willing to listen.  Yet we rarely focus on doing that.  Instead we focus on our objectives.  Objectives are end results such as: more income, more transactions or greater success. 

Our objective and our focus are rarely the same thing.  Our objective is the destination.  It is the driving passion that causes us to take the journey.  But if we simply focus on the objective we stand still.  The view of our goal may be nice and we may work very hard on attracting that goal, but without action very little happens.  It is only by focusing on action, on taking actual steps, that we come closer to our goal.

Take, for instance, losing weight.  Most of us, at one time or another, have decided that we could lose a few pounds.  But if that is all we focus on, nothing happens.  Instead we must focus on sound nutritional habits.  We must focus on what we are putting in our mouths and ask ourselves why.

In the same way many of us have an objective to be more successful in business this year.  Our focus then, must be on those systems and habits that bring us more success.  There is a tremendous opportunity coming up March 26th to focus on one system that will bring you much closer to your objective and save you money along the way.  The Real Estate Training Team is presenting Blogging for Realtors, a seminar that will cover new and cost effective ways to bring in more leads.  I highly recommend attending this half-day, inexpensive seminar.  The teacher is a great motivator and the content will open your eyes to what is possible.  (In the interest of full-disclosure: I am leading the seminar so I might be a little biased with regard to the teacher.  The content, however, stands on its own.)

Remember to set your sights higher than your horizon, but focus on the steps that take you there.  Our objective and our focus are rarely the same thing.

For more info on the seminar mentioned above: email me, snail mail me, call me… or just comment on this post!

Filed under: LIFE THAT POPs, REALTORS , blogging, Success