Coaching Success and Judging Horse Flesh

How do you know when you are backing a good horse? You see the guys that know horse flesh standing in line in front of you and betting the same horse.  How do you know when you are becoming a pretty good judge of horse flesh yourself?  When those same guys are betting on the same horse, but they are standing in line behind you.  I just read a post by Seth Godin in which he touches on a new online tool that allows you to become mayor of a zip code.  It is not often (in all honesty it has been never) that I have an idea before the likes of Seth Godin, but I think I see him standing in line behind me!

Seth refrences a new online page builder (an approximation of what they do from a decidedly non-techie; for more info click here) wherein you become the “mayor” of your zip code.  I wrote previously that the goal of blogging (and social media as a whole) should be exactly that.  The difference? I don’t know that being mayor of your zip code should be the end result.  After all, geographic farms are very RE.net1.0  In the coming age of 2.0 and 3.0 real estate, you can create any community that you like.  You can farm geographically, vertically, even industrially (especially industrially).  I have advocated for some time that loan originators do this: one whole community of CPAs for instance.  The most obvious industrial choice and one that applies to agents as well as originators: divorce attorneys.  Just about everything they touch turns into a sale or a refinance.

The community is not nearly so important as what you do with it once you have built it.  In my previously mentioned post I introduced the idea of a new marketing plan that embraces all that is right and beautiful about RE.net 2.0.  You are welcome to read it here, but the gist of the matter is this: Create your very own community of raving fans… then become Mayor of that community!  MAYORAL MARKETING.  Imagine the ramifications: you need to put together a group of raving fans (isn’t that the point of all long-term marketing?), you need to make sure that the people in your community know you, like you , see you as professional and see you as successful (the basis of people wanting to do business with you).  Most importantly, however, they need to see you as the expert (the secret to all referrals): the one and only person suitable to be their… Mayor. 

Once you become Mayor your job is to keep your job.  As with any long term success plan, this one requires that you never stop campaigning and you never stop kissing babies and you never stop adding value to your community.  I will end the way I started: a horse analogy.  When you find a good horse, ride it till it’s dead… 

Filed under: LENDERS, REALTORS , Mayoral Marketing, real estate agent 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