Brilliant Marketing!

Remember Jason Smith?  He was a former Chicago area Help-U-Sell broker and a corporate employee for awhile.  He’s now a State Farm agent in Solana Beach, just north of San Diego.  This morning I got the following in my inbox:

LinkedIn

Jason Smith has sent you a message.

Date: 1/09/2012

Subject: Business proposition for our mutual benefit

I see we have some mutual connections. As an insurance specialist my clients often ask if I can refer them to quality realtors who specialize in particular types of properties and/or areas here in San Diego. Let’s see if we can help each other out. It will be great if we can be better connected and are more aware of each others strengths.

Feel free to call me, or share your contact information with me so that I can get in touch with you directly to set up a meeting.

Regards

Jason Smith
State Farm Agent
312 S Cedros Avenue Suite 140
Solana Beach, CA 92075
Ph: (858) 755-2106

View/reply to this message

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© 2011, LinkedIn Corporation

Jason has more than 500 connections on LinkedIn.  I don’t know how many more because Linkedin quits counting at 500.  He’s gone through and ticked everyone with real estate in their profile and sent them this message.  Brilliant, huh?!  It’s personal, targeted and very straightforward:  a ‘Business proposition for our mutual benefit.’

Take a look at LinkedIn.com.  Once you have a profile, you can search ‘Groups’ for all kinds of things.  I searched for ‘San Diego,’ and came up with dozens of groups that I could join, thus gaining the ability to send a message to other members.  The San Diego Biotechnology Group has 5,618 members!  The San Diego Sales and Marketing Group has 4,314!

I am waiting to hear from those of you who pick up this nifty idea and run with it.

And Thank You! Jason.

 

Resolution Solution

We have been talking about planning lately.  Specifically: planning for business growth in 2012.  I am urging you to keep it short and sweet, define your goals with a razor focus, write them down in bullets, not paragraphs.  I’m also urging you to create action plans for a shorter period:  say,  90 days.   Create your annual bullseye but plan your activity only for the next 3 months.  The short term action plan keeps you focused on the NOW and more open to opportunity as it appears.  It also enables you to take new information into account when you create your next set of action plans in 90 days.

The bulleted list of goals and action plans ought to fit on one page and ought to be in front of you every day.  Treat them like affirmations:  those simple one sentence phrases that, when carefully constructed and consistently considered are proven to create positive personal change.  Attacking 2012 with this kind of laser focus will keep you moving forward and doing what we all want to do:  MORE.

I have a slip of paper I keep tucked away in my keep-sake file.  It is about 4 inches wide and 10 inches tall.  It’s just a scrap, really.  But in 1987 I wrote half a dozen bullets on it.  They were things I wanted to achieve, big things.  I put the paper away and didn’t see it again for a couple of years . . . and you know what?   I had achieved every single thing I’d written.  Getting clear on your bullets, then committing them to writing is powerful.

This is also the time of year that we tend to make ‘resolutions.’  These are promises we make to ourselves to be better or happier or healthier or wealthier.   I don’t really see the need for a separation; I mean:  why can’t a good resolution or two be part of your annual business plan/quarterly action plan?  The last thing any of us wants to do is to stop becoming, whether as human beings or as businesses.

Dr. Maya Bailey, a business coach, has an article on Inman News today about resolutions that’s pretty good.  She lays out 5 steps.  Step 1 is to define what you want and be very specific:  what does success mean to you?  It’s different for different people.  Step 2 is to recognize your blocks and obstacles.  Interesting:  here are some of the most common limiting beliefs she finds in her clients:

  • ‘I don’t have what it takes to succeed in today’s market’
  • ‘I’m not assertive enough to market myself’
  • ‘I’m not educated enough to be successful’
  • ‘Who am I to have abundance and prosperity?’

My own Rx for that kind of thinking is Toastmasters.  Even if you never plan to speak in public, I know of no better way to build a little brass and to understand how much you have to offer.  It’s also a great way to network and expand your CI list.  Hmmm . . . Maybe Toastmasters ought to be on your resolution/business plan bulleted list?

Step 3 is to zero in on the areas you need to develop, which has a lot to do with being honest about your limitations and weak areas.  For example, consider that first limiting belief:  ‘I don’t have what it takes to be successful in today’s market.’  I can’t tell you how many REALTORS I know who feel this way, largely about technology.  They are wonderful salespeople who see the business becoming ever more tech oriented and they feel lost.  Frankly, I don’t get it.  Why would you pine away about your lack of tech understanding when you could hire someone for $15 an hour to handle it for you?  And if that’s too much to pay, why not go to your local college and find an intern, possibly for free?  Oops . . . could this be yet another item on your plan for the year?

4  is to have a timeline and a plan.  We all need to be held accountable and most of us would like to believe we do a good job of that on our own.  That’s where self-imposed deadlines and timelines come in.  Unfortunately many of us discover that we don’t do a good job of holding our own feet to the fire.  This is not awful; it’s not even a failing; it’s just an indication that a good mentor, accountability buddy or coach is needed.  Could that be another resolution/business plan item for 2012?

Step 5 is to visualize the end result.  I’ve urged you to set big, annual, numeric production goals.  But what will your life look like when you achieve them? That’s what you want to visualize.  See yourself behaving as you will behave when you have achieved all the additional production you’ve planned . . . and then start acting as if you’ve already achieved it.

And above all:  find a way to be happy.  It’s a decision, you know.  None of this stuff works at all if you’re not operating from a place of general happiness.  Happiness precedes success.  In fact I’d assert that happiness is a pre-requisite for success.  Plain and simple:  Money loves Happy. Success seeks out happy people.  Get happy and watch all of your plans, your resolutions, your affirmations come to pass.

Planning for 2012

Gather the following information about your 2011 production:

  • Number of new listings taken
  • Number of seller sides closed
  • Number of buyer sides closed
  • Average gross commission per closed side (all closed sides)
  • Average gross commission per closed seller side
  • Average gross commission per closed buyer side
  • Average listing price
  • Average sale price
  • Average sale price as a % of average listing price
  • Average days on market
  • % of sales occurring ‘in-house’

Inquiries generated by category:

  • Web
  • Signs
  • Print
  • Mailing
  • Referral
  • etc.

Set big numeric goals for 2012:

  • Increase production by 25% (or whatever % you choose).  Take new listings and closed sides and multiply each by 125%; if you took 100 listings in 2011, your goal for 2012 is 125 new listings, etc.
  • Look at the mix of closed seller sides to closed buyer sides in 2011.  Your goal should most likely be a 50/50 mix.  If you see it way off from that – say a 70/30 mix of buyer sides to seller sides, you’ll need to set specific short range goals to tackle the problem.
  • Look at your average gross commission per closed side.  How might you increase that?  Go after more expensive property?  Sell more buyer side transactions?  Increase your set fee?

Now, get real.

Truth is, the annual goal is just mile marker set way on down the road.  What’s important is what you’re going to do today, tomorrow and next week.  Think of your annual plan as a road trip across country.  You probably know where you want to end up and may even know some of the places you want to visit on the way, but by and large, you’ll invent your route as you go, responding to current conditions and opportunities in the moment.  As long as you’re moving toward your final destination, you’re on track.  So, for this exercise, consider the first quarter of 2012, January – March.  What are you going to do in the coming 90 days to move you closer to that distant mile marker?

  • If you took 24 listings in this period in 2011 and are planning for a 25% increase, what are you going to do to ensure you get 30 by the end of the quarter?
  • If you closed 28 sides between January and March of 2011, what are you going to do NOW to ensure you will close 35 by March 31?
  • If you are getting, on average, 95% of list price as a sale price, what are you going to do to ensure that you’ll increase that to , say, 97%?
  • If your average days on market is 110, what are you going to do to reduce that to,say, 100?
    • (By the way, the previous two items usually have most to do with how you price property at the time of listing)
  • Look at your percentage of in-house closed sides.  What can you do to increase that?  Is it time to polish up your seller participation dialogues?  Are you ready to rethink the notion that every listing must go into the MLS?

Compare what you did in 2010 against the MLS

  • If your average sale price as a percentage of list price is 95%, what is it for the MLS?  You’ll most likely discover that their number is worse than yours – say, 93% compared to your 95%.  If this is so, how might you use this information in marketing and in seller consultations?
  • If your average days on market is 110, but the MLS is 123, do you have something worth crowing about?

And then consider the number of inquiries you generated by category:

  • How many ended up as contactable entries in the Buyer Pool Book?
  • How many converted to listings or sales?
  • What can you do (over and above taking more listings) to increase the number of inquiries?
  • What can you do to improve your conversion rates of inquiries to clients?

By the way, the Inquiry category is very important AND many will be unable to examine results and set goals for inquiries because they don’t keep track of them, or do so inadequately.  If this is YOU, make one of your first goals for 2012 to become obsessive about leads tracking, inquiry capture and conversion.  Next year, when you do this exercise, you want to have the numbers at your fingertips.

Please, o please:  do not create a ten page carefully crafted Business Plan for the year unless you want to go to the bank to borrow money.  Other than in that specific instance, those plans usually end up as dead documents in a drawer that are never  seen again.  Instead, put your annual and quarterly goals in a bulleted format – preferably on one page – that you can get to quickly.  Your goals and action plans for the immediate future should function almost as a set of affirmations that you look at every day.  Reminding yourself constantly that you need to have 30 new listings by the end of March is a giant step toward making it happen.

 

Crystal Ball

I was reading a fascinating article about Venture Capitalists and what they are pouring money into right now.  It’s a good clue about the tech advances we can expect to see in coming months.  A couple of things caught my eye.

First there is Apple’s SIRI voice recognition program.  I’m not an Apple person, but I understand it is far superior to anything else on the market.  Supposedly you can get your IPhone to do almost anything by simply speaking to it.   Right now SIRI is proprietary – only Apple can work with it.  But speculation is that they will open it up to App developers soon.  Already people are tinkering with it to interact with all kinds of other things:  televisions, thermostadts, appliances.  Imagine sitting in your living room saying, ‘Set temperature to 72%’ and having it simply happen!

Another key area is education.  Just as Amazon made bookstores irrelevant and ITunes drove record stores to extinction, so technology will at least change the way education happens.  I don’t think brick and mortar schools will go away entirely, but what happens inside them will look very different in a few years.

As evidence, the article I read referenced M.I.T.s’  OpenCourseWare program.  Right now, M.I.T. has over 2,000 of their courses online and available for anyone to take FOR FREE.  Soon, every class they teach at the Institution will be online, so essentially, you will be able to get a complete M.I.T. education gratis.  They won’t be awarding degrees for the work, but it will be possible to get a Certificate.  As  someone dealing with distance learning all the time, I wanted to check this out.

I went to ocw.mit.edu and looked around a bit.  T’here are courses in all kinds of things.  I checked out Spanish.  A year ago I bought the full Fluenz Spanish program and I can’t say enough about how good it was.  I’m not conversational (yet) but I’m comfortable in places where English is not spoken.  My quick scan of the free M.I.T. program has me believing it might be superior in some ways.  It’s designed to be done in four hours a week for about two months.  The whole program is built around a little movie with a plot, suspense, characters.  You learn by listening and watching the interactions and then completing exercises and reading.  The quality looks outstanding.

This kind of stuff gets me very excited.  I love the way our electronic world is changing.  Things that once seemed beyond the horizon are now almost within our grasp.  And the speed at which new ideas move from the horizon line to our fingertips is getting faster and faster.  Is there any doubt that, soon, the right technology, mixed with the right consumer offer and operating system will completely change the real estate business?

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