Are You Telling It or Showing It?

We believe what we see, not what we hear. If you’re still talking a mile a minute, telling the sellers how wonderful you are, blah, blah, blah–just stop talking and start showing. Also,

We remember only 10% of what we  hear three days later! With visuals, retention goes to 65%.

5 Points to Include as You Create that Marketing Plan

            1. It’s an action plan—what you will do for the seller

            2. It’s specific—it has dates for what will be done and who does it

            3. It’s not about what the company will do—it’s about what you will do

           4. It is stated either as a checklist, as a calendar of events, and/or in visuals.

           5. It has a section on pricing, but the pricing, or market analysis, is only one part of the plan

Creating specific marketing plans for each individual will put you far ahead of most real estate practioners. Now, the next important action is to dutifully do the actions you promised and report back.

Complimentary Sales Webinar with International Speaker

Master Motivator Verl Workman helps you get your year started off right.

This action packed 1 hour webinar is like a private consulting session with one of the industry’s top coaches and mentors.

Verl will take you step by step through how to build your business plan and achieve your financial goals.  Using the 3 Ts:  Technology, Training, and Trade Secrets of the top performers in the world, Verl will show you how to make 2012 your best year ever in real estate.  Invite your friends, partners, teams and entire companies to this event. 

Today, real estate agents capture much more of the gross commission dollar than ever before. At the same time, they must become real businesspeople, because they must allocate some of these dollars to marketing—to increase their business. But, how do you know how to spend those marketing dollars?

Here are two basic principles of marketing dollar allocation

Principle One. Spend a proportional amount on your best source (s) of business—it will beget more business (your best source of business is from your past clients and people who know and trust you).

Most Agents are Not Spending Their Marketing Dollars Right

A recent study showed that agents spent the largest amount of their marketing dollars on direct mail, advertising, and the Internet. Yet, the majority of their business came from traditional ‘people to people’ sources 

Do you know how much you spent on your best source of business last year?

Only one percent of the agents do. That means they aren’t treating that group of people as a ‘target market’. You must segregate your best sources and allocate funds directly to marketing to them. You must make a marketing plan directly to these people, and attach a budget to this best source.

How much Money Should You Spend?

Principle Two. Spend between 5 and 10% of your projected income on marketing to your best source of business.

Example: If you were to project for next year that you will get 20 sales from your past clients, and that income would be $4000 per ‘revenue unit’ or $80,000, you would allocate $4000 to $8000 to marketing to that source.

Simply reviewing how you spent your 2011 and allocating adequate marketing dollars for 2012 will, in the end, save you money. Also, you’ll have something to measure and adjust.

New Business Planning Series

If you’re unsure how to start your plan, if you don’t see the benefit of planning, I’ve got some answers for you.  I’ve been working on business planning for years……and I’ve just come up with a series that I think answers questions like, “How do I get started? How do I know what numbers to put in? How can I make my plan useful?  How will I know that it works?”

I call this big program Come See 2012: Beyond the Basics of Business Planning. In it, I’ve created 2 webinars to walk you right through the planning process. I’ve made it simple and straightforward–but not so simple it won’t work!  Along with that, I’ve provided the most updated versions of my planning documents–15 of them!

In addition, I’ve added several bonuses:

• From the Coach: 53 Pointers for your Business Plan
• Biggest Marketing Dos and Don’ts
• Especially for teams: How to use the planning process to teamify and inspire

All for a VERY affordable price of $79. Why not let me walk you through the process, provide inspiration, and confidence that your plan will work to give you a great 2012? Click here for more information and purchase.

Today, real estate agents capture much more of the gross commission dollar than ever before. At the same time, they must become real businesspeople, because they must allocate some of these dollars to marketing—to increase their business. But, how do you know how to spend those marketing dollars?

Here are two basic principles of marketing dollar allocation

Principle One. Spend a proportional amount on your best source (s) of business—it will beget more business (your best source of business is from your past clients and people who know and trust you).

Most Agents are Not Spending Their Marketing Dollars Right

A recent study showed that agents spent the largest amount of their marketing dollars on direct mail, advertising, and the Internet. Yet, the majority of their business came from traditional ‘people to people’ sources

Do you know how much you spent on your best source of business last year?

Only one percent of the agents do. That means they aren’t treating that group of people as a ‘target market’. You must segregate your best sources and allocate funds directly to marketing to them. You must make a marketing plan directly to these people, and attach a budget to these best sources.

How much Money Should You Spend?

Principle Two. Spend between 5 and 10% of your projected income on marketing to your best source of business.

Example: If you were to project for next year that you will get 20 sales from your past clients, and that income would be $4000 per ‘revenue unit’ or $80,000, you would allocate $4000 to $8000 to marketing to that source.

Be sure to make a budget for 2012 with a targeted, segmented marketing plan and allocations for your best sources. Now, you’re in business!

New Business Planning Series

If you’re unsure how to start your plan, if you don’t see the benefit of planning, I’ve got some answers for you.  I’ve been working on business planning for years……and I’ve just come up with a series that I think answers questions like, “How do I get started? How do I know what numbers to put in? How can I make my plan useful?  How will I know that it works?”

I call this big program Come See 2012: Beyond the Basics of Business Planning. In it, I’ve created 2 webinars to walk you right through the planning process. I’ve made it simple and straightforward–but not so simple it won’t work!  Along with that, I’ve provided the most updated versions of my planning documents–15 of them!

In addition, I’ve added several bonuses:

• From the Coach: 53 Pointers for your Business Plan
• Biggest Marketing Dos and Don’ts
• Especially for teams: How to use the planning process to teamify and inspire

All for a VERY affordable price of $79. Why not let me walk you through the process, provide inspiration, and confidence that your plan will work to give you a great 2012? Click here for more information and purchase.

The Value of Being a Salesperson

 I learned the value of becoming a salesperson–a really, really good salesperson, because I learned I could help people do what they wanted to do–and just needed someone to facilitate that.

If There Were No Salespeople

Where would we be without sales skills and salespeople? Here are some of the notable people today that you don’t think are in sales–but who have really, really good sales skills (and have to have, to get us to embrace their ideas):

Madonna (she may not be the best singer, but, boy, does she know how to sell herself)

President Obama (he must be able to sell himself and his programs)

Warren Buffet (help people embrace his investment ideas)

Bill Gates (Sell Microsoft and its products)

What Salespeople Do–and Why You Should Be Proud to Call Yourself a ‘Salesperson

As my first ‘boss’ in real estate said, ” If there were no salespeople, few/no goods would be bought” (except those that are absolutely needed). In fact, as Bob pointed out, the economy would come to a grinding halt. Look at what’s happening in our economy today. People are just starting to spend money again, and salespeople should be there to help people see the benefits of buying.

Sales Skills are Artistic and Not So Easy to Master

Now, there is a movement against using anything with the connotation of ‘sales’. Yet, there is nothing wrong–and everything right–about the art of sales. Using properly, sales helps people see the benefits of buying whatever they are considering.

Poor Sales Hurts the Consumer–Really Hurts!

As a long-time real estate salesperson, I saw buyers and sellers actually stopped from purchasing or selling because their salesperson was so inept. That meant the customer lost hundreds of thousands of dollars down the road! In fact, 99% of the mistakes agents I observed salespeople make were not in forcing, manipulating, or lying their way into getting someone to do something not in their best interest but rather

stopping a buyer or seller from doing what’s best for him/her because the salesperson had such lousy skills

Become a Blazingly Good Salesperson

If you have some reticence at the word ‘salesperson’, tackle that reticence right now. You aren’t just a licensee; you aren’t just an agent; you are a sales professional. You discover prospects (lead generation). You uncover prospects’ needs; you help prospects investigate new possibilities; you help prospects prioritize information and properties; you negotiate on their behalf. Those are all sales not agent skills. Agency is just a license. Sales is a skill and an art. Become  an artist of what you do!

1. Under-promise and over-deliver. Agents do the opposite in their messages. Just read the homes magazines. You would think that every agent is really ‘number one in service”, or “provides great service”, or “excellence in action”. It’s not believable to the client. And, by over-promising, agents are setting themselves up for a fall.

2. Use lots of white space. Agents have too many messages on their business cards and signs. Just try reading one of those for sales signs going thirty miles an hour! Remember, clean and clear. Get some graphic artist assistance.

3. Slogans are passé unless they’re dynamite. You know the Nike slogan. What’s Reebok’s? Yet, Reebok has spent millions of dollars to get us to recognize it. You’re not a simple product. Don’t get ‘sloganitis’.

4. Frequency is more important than reach. One big ad in a newspaper once makes little or no impact. It takes frequent repetitions to create remembrance in the client’s mind. Don’t start unless you commit to frequency over time. Narrow your field and become known! One long blog once inawhile is not effective. You have to blog at least 2 times per week to start to have memorable impact. Frequency is the key, along with consistency.

5. Work your best market, not your worst! Who’s your best market? The people you just sold. Make a marketing plan to communicate frequently with it.

6. Differentiate, differentiate, differentiate. An-all promising slogan won’t make it. Develop unique themes that communicate your value to clients and customers, and run those themes through all your promotional pieces and verbal communication. They can’t discover your great skills unless you tell and show them!

I created The Professional Portfolio to lead you to your ‘core competency’, so you would know what’s outstanding about YOU. The Professional Portfolio helps you focus on your strenghs, to create the confidence you need to succeed in this tough sales business. Click here to find out more.

How to Decide What to Write and Who to Write For 

Pick up your favorite real estate magazine or newsletter. See the kind of articles that the publisher likes. Note the length. Ask yourself: Why would my articles be a benefit to that publication? Then, contact the publisher for article specifications and submission policies. You’re on your way to standing out as an exceptional agent! 

How to Construct your Article

Writing an article follows the same process composers use in writing a popular tune: It starts with the theme (A), continues with the middle, where you expand on the idea and example (B), and ends again with the theme. When I’m teaching my “Train the Trainer” course, we practice this simple structure when we create training programs.

 Steps to Create and Publish your Article

Here are the simple steps I’ve used over the years to create articles that have gotten published hundreds of times in major real estate magazines and newsletters:

   1. Decide on who your audience is, so you realize for whom you’re writing

   2. Decide on the challenge (s) they have that you want to address

  3. Jot down all the ideas you have about the challenges and solutions

  4. Narrow the topic so you can zero in specifically on what you want to write about.  The biggest mistake writers and teachers make is to choose too broad a topic for the time or word framework.  For example, it’s difficult to write 500 words on how to create a team. You CAN write 500 words about why to create a team; or three strategic tips in creating a team.

Note: You can write a longer article (1000-3000 words ) and then break it down into 400-600 word sections for a blog series.

   5.  Choose one to three ideas to discuss.

    6. Arrange the topics in the order you want to discuss them

   7. To expand on the ideas, present the idea clearly and then give an example. One commonality I’ve found among editors is that they want examples with the idea. Otherwise, the reader doesn’t really get the picture.

     8. Close the article with the reiteration of your challenge and solution, and give your audience positive motivation to take action.       

 Biggest Lessons

 From writing all those articles, here are the lessons I’ve learned:

1. A smaller topic is better
2. Less ideas are better
3. More examples are better

 So, in about 400-500 words, you’ll only have time for one to three ideas and examples. Make the examples ‘real life’. Also, be sure your article is as perfect as you can get it before submitting. These editors don’t have time to work with any of us in extensive editing. The person who submits articles “ready to go” gets published much more often!

Want to know more about writing marketing plans? See Up and Running in 30 Days, which has a prototype plan. Or, if you’re a seasoned agent, see The Business Planning System for the Real Estate Professional.

Does Social Media Work?

One of the biggest questions agents ask is, “Does social media work?” Well, that depends on what you expect it to do for you. To make any of your marketing effective, you must first decide what your objectives are for that marketing. Then, you can set up appropriate measurement tools.

The Two Types and Objectives of Marketing

Merchandise: That means advertising a product or a service to ‘get the phone to ring’, or to get a specific, immediate response. An example of merchandise advertising would be placing a home ad in the newspaper—or placing a home ad on Facebook.

Institutional: That means advertising that increases your image, cements your uniqueness in the mind of the consumer, and/or establishes you as the agent of choice. These are not placements that make the phone ring, or get an immediate response. Instead, this kind of marketing  is more subtle. It is also more difficult to measure, but, it can be measured. How? By establishing a baseline of consumer perceptions about the product or service, and then measuring the consumer perception after the campaign. (Best to hire a professional marketing service to do this, because it requires expertise).

What do You Expect from your Social Media Efforts?

If you’re placing homes on Facebook, you probably expect to get inquiries on those homes. Are you getting  them? Do you have a method to measure results? Or, if you’re not expecting an immediate response, why are you putting the home there? To show your Facebook friends you are successful? You decide.

If you’re blogging, what to you expect to get from blogging? If you’re establishing yourself as a neighborhood expert or expert in certain types of homes, you should be able to see more acceptance and trust from the consumer after you consistently and frequently add to your blog.

Don’t Give Up!

Frequency and consistency are the by-words of marketers. Yet, advertising executives always complain that their clients expect results too quickly and change their campaigns way too soon. Just think. How many times did you have to hear that pop tune until you started recognizing it? How long until you could hum it? Probably anywhere from 8-20 times!

In my business planning system, I show you how to create a marketing plan. Put your social media into that plan, be clear about your objectives, and set up consistent and frequent efforts to your best target markets. Now, you’re using social media as part of your overall marketing strategy.

Today, real estate agents capture much more of the gross commission dollar than ever before. At the same time, they must become real businesspeople, because they must allocate some of these dollars to marketing—to increase their business. But, how do you know how to spend those marketing dollars?

Here are two basic principles of marketing dollar allocation

Principle One. Spend a proportional amount on your best source (s) of business—it will beget more business (your best source of business is from your past clients and people who know and trust you).

Most Agents are Not Spending Their Marketing Dollars Right

A recent study showed that agents spent the largest amount of their marketing dollars on direct mail, advertising, and the Internet. Yet, the majority of their business came from traditional ‘people to people’ sources

Do you know how much you spent on your best source of business last year?

Only one percent of the agents do. That means they aren’t treating that group of people as a ‘target market’. You must segregate your best source and allocate funds directly to marketing to them. You must make a marketing plan directly to these people, and attach a budget to this best source.

How much Money Should You Spend?

Principle Two. Spend between 5 and 10% of your projected income on marketing to your best source of business.

Example: If you were to project for next year that you will get 20 sales from your past clients, and that income would be $4000 per ‘revenue unit’ or $80,000, you would allocate $4000 to $8000 to marketing to that source.

Want more advice on smart business planning? Check out The Business Planning System for the Real Estate Professional. Special pricing through December, and a business planning bonus webinar, too.

What should a business plan do for you? Appease your manager?  (I’ve been there, so I know that’s why we do it sometimes….) Or, should it actually provide you specific, day-to-day guidance about what to do to make your business thrive? If you’re a practical person like me, you don’t like to do ‘busy work’. You and I believe, then, that a business plan should have a practical application for every day of your business.

How Does your Business Plan Stack Up?

Take this quick ‘exam’ to see how your business plan stacks up.

1. By going through your process of business planning, you get the ‘vision’ and mission principles to make the positioning, marketing, hiring, and termination decisions right for your particular business.        T                      F

Does your plan have an over arch of your vision? Few business plans start with vision. This causes huge problems when real estate professionals try to implement—such as implementing a marketing plan.  A potential coaching client told me she ‘wasn’t very good at marketing’, and wondered how to get better. You can’t become a great marketer unless you have a very clear vision of who you are and where you expect your journey to take you.

It all starts with a crystal clear idea of your vision, mission, and positioning in the market. Your business plan should contain these very important statements. Then, when you design an institutional marketing plan, you’ll be able execute your thoughts and feelings visually.

If your vision and mission aren’t well defined in your business plan, you simply have no solid foundation to make those tough leadership decisions.

2.  Your business plan starts with reviewing and researching the past year in all your business areas.                                             T                         F

Are you ignoring the obvious? If your planning ‘template’ doesn’t lead you through the analysis of key business statistics, you simply don’t know what happened. So, you can’t possibly make decisions for next year, because you don’t know whether to do it, stop doing it, or start doing something differently!

Example: What percent of your listings sold within normal market time? What was the percent of list price to sale price? Few business planning templates ask you to grab these statistics and analyze them. Yet, these are the statistics that directly point you to your strategies and tactics for the coming year.

3. Does your business plan have an ‘action plan’ area, so you can translate your yearly and monthly goals into daily actions—and actually schedule these actions?                                                      T                         F

Is your business plan so theoretical that no one could follow it daily? I have seen so many business plans that only played on the ‘results’ playing field. Writing down the results you want are great, but if your plan doesn’t get down to where the rubber meets the road, (what you need to do daily), you simply are doing an exercise. In other words, you have to get past the ‘what’ and get to the ‘how’ and ‘how much’.

For example: You may say you want to increase your ‘sold’ listings by 25% in the coming year. How are you going to do that? You may build into action part of your plan that you are going to take several courses in gaining marketable listings.

4. Does your plan consist of integrated, ready-to-follow systems so you can delegate?                                                                           T                      F

Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth and The E-Myth Revisited, says that a business plan consists of the integration of systems. Most managers and agents feel they are working too many hours. They want to be able to delegate specific duties. But, without systems and processes in place, delegation is impossible.

Sell me your business. Pretend you wanted to sell me your business. I walk into your office. What systems do I see? What systems can I buy from you, so I don’t have to ‘reinvent the wheel’? What systems do you have that integrate and reflect your values in the overall way you do your business?

How did you do on the ‘exam’? Here’s your opportunity to think through your business at a much deeper, more meaningful level. Doing so will re-motivate you, re-ignite your passion, and provide you some solid answers for next year.

Click here to see each of the parts of a business planning system–and the order in which they should be explored.

Looking for a system that guides you with assurance through the planning process? Offers dozens of strategies for you? Helps you avoid common mistakes? Check out The Business Planning System for the Real Estate Professional, now on special through December. Plus, you’ll receive a bonus of a business planning webinar to update you on best strategies for 2011.

Are you using the old term, “listing presentation” to describe the presentation you give to the seller to list the home? It’s over. The days of describing what you’ll do for a seller as a “listing presentation” just don’t cut it in this marketing world.

Today, savvy agents are presenting “marketing plans”, not giving listing presentations. Why? Because you want to describe what you’re going to do for the seller in action terms. That’s your special marketing plan. To get the commissions you expect, you must compete on “added value” issues. That added value is all about you, not just about your company. These added values are best stated in your individual marketing plan. Here are 5 points to remember as you create your plan:

1. It’s an action plan—what you will do for the seller

2. It’s specific—it has dates for what will be done and who does it

3. It’s not about what the company will do—it’s about what you will do

4. It is stated either as a checklist, as a calendar of events, and demonstrated in your visuals.

5. It has a section on pricing, but the pricing, or market analysis, is only one part of the plan

Show Them or Tell Them the Plan?

We agent types like to talk. In fact, many of us became agents because people told us that, since we’re good talkers, we’d make great salespeople! That’s an old idea today. Why? Because consumers are over-whelmed with sales talk. The client today just doesn’t trust salespeople because they have a good ‘sales spiel’.

If you’re finding it increasingly difficult to list properties at the right price, it may be because you’re working too hard trying to talk the seller into it, and are not working hard enough to show a seller into it. Sellers, like all of us, believe what they see, not what they hear.

Go visual. Instead of trying to tell a seller what you know to be true, back up your statements with statistics, graphs, facts, etc. You do this already in your market analysis. But, most agents don’t do this with the rest of their marketing plans. Start now gathering information to back up your chosen marketing strategies. For example, if you’ve found, through your experience, that open houses do not sell that particular home, start keeping statistics of your open house visitors, their needs, and what happened to them during their buying cycle. You want to provide sellers the information they need to make good decisions, and to support your marketing plan.

Tell them What You’re Going to Do—Show them Why, and Show them What Worked

In a recent study of buyers visiting open houses, only seventeen percent accepted the claims of the agent holding the home open. The other eight-three percent sought a second opinion! So, back up your claims with testimonials, statistics, pictures, graphs, and history. You’ll see a dramatic rise in your marketable listings. You’ll have enthusiastic clients forever. You will have told the truth attractively!

For a complete sellers’ process, including marketing plans, see Your Client-Based Marketing System.