Recently we attended an all day webinar through Virtual Rebarcamp and learned great information about building your business and marketing your business online and off. One of the sessions I attended was titled “The 7 A’s To Building Your Business Online & Offline” hosted by Darin Persinger. Because of his experience as a trainer and coach in the real estate industry, the session was very valuable.
Below are highlights of this great information. It outlines strategies to use when building your business.
- Audience – Know them! Who are they, where are they located? For example, if you are an agent in Manhattan, your blogs are probably not going to reference planting a garden in your fenced back yard. However this may be appropriate for the agent blogging in a small town in North Carolina.
- Availability – Make it easy for your audience to contact you. Make sure your phone number, email and office number are on each page of your website. Some agents have an area of the website where the user can click a button and immediately contact the agent. Even if the lead gets a voice mail, that is okay. As long as the call is promptly returned.
- Approachable – Does your audience feel like they can contact you? When you first obtain a potential client/lead, do you make it known they can call you any time and there are no ‘stupid questions’? Generally with potential clients, you will give more at first and expend more effort. Do not get discouraged if they don’t respond at first. Be friendly and cooperative. And most important, be patient.
- Acknowledge – EVERY email, every facebook interaction, every twitter @, every voicemail. Time is important to people. If they take the time to write or call, even if it is 120 characters on Facebook, acknowledge that.
- Appreciate – There are 9 billion web pages and 200 million blogs out there today. There are also 6 billion tweets. There are so many places your clients can go to get information, or referrals, or real estate agents. Appreciate your clients. Time is even more precious than money because it is non-renewable. How do you say “thanks” to your clients or to people that refer clients? How do you acknowledge them?
- Authority – People use the market leader. With so many options, they want someone that knows what they are doing and has their act together. Be confident. Learn it…share it!
- Authentic – Be you! Not everybody will click, so there is no point in spending time being disingenuous or being someone you are not. Get involved in social media like Facebook, and be yourself. Most people can see through insincerity. They want someone that is going to be genuine and honest.
Some of these tips are pretty useful and some are common sense. But still a great reminder. Hopefully you’ll find them helpful as well!