In a previous post we referred to the importance of acquiring a deep understanding of your current and potential clients’ mindset.  We call this the study of psychographics, which is comprised of the personality, values, attitudes, interests, activities and lifestyles of your target market.  However, as a luxury real estate marketing professional, to provide remarkable service you also need to discover your client’s most pressing needs, right now.

The late, Peter Drucker, author and management consultant, once said, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself”.  Apple is now taking pre-orders for the iPad.  There is just one commercial running for this new product and all it shows is the iPad features. No persuasive sales are needed.

The buzz about the iPad has been nothing short of astonishing.  Apple has introduced an entirely new product category based on a deep understanding of the needs of their primary target market.  Why buy an inferior net book computer and/or an e-book reader when you can essentially have both, plus much, much more for less money?

We say the art of marketing is communicating about your product or service in such a way that your target market instantly realizes that the value you offer is the answer to their prayers. When you answer people’s prayers, it is truly a remarkable experience. This naturally sparks word-of-mouth advertising which is the answer to your prayers.

Here is a personal example that millions of men around the world should be able to identify with (and women too). Even with the advances in shaving technology most men continue to experience discomfort during and after shaving, especially when the blades tug, pull and often cut the skin. Ouch!

I (Ron) have been on an eternal quest for the perfect shave.  The last shaving cream I tried was a disaster. I thought it might be my razors. Then, I tried a new product by MENSCIENCE using the same blade.  It may very well be the end of my quest; the shave was that smooth, close and painless.  Now, that is remarkable!

I did not need to be sold. I was simply told that this shaving cream would answer my prayers, guaranteed.  Amen!  Guys, you should try it!

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Video & Radio Interviews:

Lou Novick, Architectural Photographer

Brad Taylor, CEO - Luxury Homes Magazine

We are excited to launch a new LOL Radio Show & Video Interview series.  Here we will feature outstanding architects, interior designers, landscape architects, and architectural photographers.  We will also interview members of the LOL Team of Experts & Discussion Leaders and our LOL media partners.

Each interview is comprised of a 2 minute video “Radio Trailer” - like a movie trailer for that radio episode (yes it’s a first) plus, the 15 minute radio interview.  If you are interested in listening to the entire radio interview just click on the link provided.  You can even download the show and listen to it at your convenience on your iPod via iTunes. In the future we will also promote the live radio show.

Be sure to check out the three very exciting Luxetera blog posts, as well. See the links below.

Thanks for watching, reading & listening!

Ron & Alexandra Seigel, LOL Community Founders

Interview with Lou Novick

Architectural Photographer

Miami, Florida

Listent to the entire Lou Novick internview on Language Of Luxury Radio

Visit LouNovick.com

Interview:

Brad Taylor, CEO - Luxury Home Magazine

We are excited to introduce you to our newest LOL media partner, Luxury Homes Magazine. through our interview with Brad Taylor, CEO.

This is the first in a series of an interviews with the publishers of the finest print media in luxury real estate marketing.  It is our intention to shine a spotlight on the distinct marketing benefits that you can derive  from  each publication and also to discover the innovative ways in which our media partners have combined online marketing with the power of print.

To hear the entire audio interview online or to download it via iTunes, please visit  this episode  of our  Language of Luxury Radio Show (Click Here).  Also, visit LuxuryHomeMagazine.com.

Yachts Fit for Kings at Half The Price: Interview with Roger Liang of Kingship Yachts

Edible Faberge Eggs in Chocolate For Easter

The Magnificent French Riviera: Old Word Charm and Splendor

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There is an old adage that we make three listing appointments for every one we actually go on.  We make a presentation on the way to the appointment as we run through it in our car.  We make the actual presentation live – in front of the Seller.  And we usually make the final one on the way home from the appointment.  Which one of the three is usually the best?  Right – the one on the way home.  At that point, we have the opportunity to reflect and say what we really should have said the moment we froze from their question or objection.  How do we make the one that truly counts the best?

Let me share a couple of ideas with you to make your presentation in front of the client stronger.

Focus on the Price

Many speakers and trainers teach Agents to leave the price for last; to talk about yourself, the company, and the marketing plan first.  The client’s first concern is price.  That is what they are most interested in.  When we withhold that from them, they can start to tune us out.  My advice is get to the bottom line.  I believe this for two reasons: One for the clients (as I mentioned before); the other is for your benefit.  If you find out in the last 10 minutes that the clients are not going to reasonably price their home, the presentation is over.  You have really wasted the time you have spent with them to that point.  For me, when they were unwilling, or unable, to price their home to sell, my marketing plan did not matter.  I could run ads weekly, do open houses weekly, and try every other marketing gimmick under the sun, and the home would not sell.   The quality of my company did not matter.   I would politely excuse myself and move on.  Price it right, or it is a waste of time, was my philosophy.

Practice for the Big Game Daily

Most NFL teams will practice and look at film for 40-50 hours in a week for one 60-minute game.  They spend fifty times more in practice hours than in game hours.  What would happen if we adopted that same strategy?  We would become world class at our listing presentation.  If you practice 1 hour daily on your presentation, in less than 6 months you would be unbeatable.  Your presentation would be second-to-none. 

If you really want to be world-class, tape your presentation.  Athletes watch film of themselves to improve performance, so why not us?  For the Agent who really wants to be the best of the best, this step is essential.  Here are a few things you will find out:

·        What and how are you communicating?

·        Are you controlling the presentation through questions?

·        Are you over promising services?

·        Are you strong enough on price?

·        How do you handle objections?

Tape a presentation this week.  Go home, pour a nice glass of wine, and sit back and enjoy the show.  You will be shocked by what you say.

Be Prepared Before the Presentation

Prepare by knowing the numbers in your MLS.  Know the statistics for monthly sales in each price range.  Know the statistics on homes that fail to sell.  Know your numbers, production, and average market time.  Use the statistics to your advantage.

Develop a solid game plan.  Get enough information before the appointment, so your quiver is fully loaded with all the arrows you need.  Try to dig for the objections you will face from the client before the meeting.

Abraham Lincoln said, “When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend about one third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two thirds thinking about him and what he is going to say.”

Preparation will enable you to answer all the objections and issues raised and close for them to sign the contract.

A solid, focused listing presentation will enable you to increase your income dramatically.  You will be able to take more listings in less time.  Do not fall into the never-ending trap of making your best presentation in the car on the way home.  Make it when it really counts . . . in front of the client.

In the self-serve environment of real estate information online, it is essential for you to convey to your target market exactly what your unique promise of value is as a luxury real estate marketing professional. The internet has been a disruption not only to brokers and agents but also to luxury real estate print media.   However, some very innovative print marketing ideas have emerged that can give you the competitive edge.

We are excited to announce a new video blog series launching next week in which we feature our LOL media partners.  Each publication has a unique promise of value. Each has developed innovative ways to help agents market themselves and their luxury properties.  We thought you would like to know more about these new ideas so you can make intelligent choices when advertising in print by finding the publications that best match your particular marketing needs.

There has been much ado these days about the current health and the very future of print media in general, magazines in particular.   Many are asking, “is print dead”?

Movies didn’t kill radio. TV didn’t kill movies. The internet will not kill magazines!   This is the basic premise  a consortium of consumer magazine publishers (non-real estate) who want to set the record straight about their industry. They say an established medium can continue to flourish so long as it continues to offer a unique experience.

• Magazines are very much alive! Here are the facts:
• Annual number of paid subscriptions is nearly 300 M
• Magazine ad recall has increased by 13% over the last four years
• Adults 18-34 read more issues than adults 35 and older
• The average reader spends 43 minutes reading each issue
• Readership has actually grown over the last five years

In luxury real estate marketing there are those who tend to “throw away the baby with the bath water” by eliminating print media altogether. From our standpoint, the right print media campaign, when combined with online marketing strategies, can be an integral part of building your personal brand and advertising your luxury property listings.

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Attending a convention or seminar is an important first step in having a banner year. But, now comes the hard part — putting into action what you learned. I begin many of my seminars by asking “What is the value of increased knowledge if your actions and behaviors are not altered as a result of that knowledge?”

What I am really asking is what are you going to do now? What are you going to do with the new insights, ideas and technologies you learned about? I just returned home from Austin, Texas where I was both a motivator and was lucky enough to be motivated. As I empty my “trick or treat” bag full of disposable flashlights, calculators from mortgage companies, and pens, it is easy to forget the real value of the conference and events I participated in. Do you feel the same way? You attended, heard a lot of cool things, got a bag full of goodies…and now you’re home trying to sort through it all—and many times getting distracted by non-essential things. Now is the time to stop being distracted by things that don’t move us closer to our goals. Take a minute and look back at your notes and decide today that you are going to do something different, something new!

Is it to build a business plan for 2010? Start a social media strategy? Start prospecting or hire a new assistant? Whatever inspired you at the last conference, training class or webinar, I challenge you to take action and do it! Block 30 minutes out of your day and dedicate that time to work on your new goal.

If you will do this, I promise you will feel more productive, happy and a lot more successful, and most of all you will understand the real value of knowledge applied.

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Verl Workman is a leading national speaker, coach and consultant. Despite his busy speaking schedule, and role as co-founder of Pinnacle Quest Consulting Group, he still sells real estate so that he can test and stay abreast of the latest tools and techniques that maximize results. He uses that knowledge to assist individuals and companies in building effective business strategies, implementing powerful technology solutions, and establishing strategic competitive advantages through coaching, seminars and private consultations. To contact Verl visit www.verlworkman.com or www.PQPipeline.com or email him at AskVerl@verlworkman.com.

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Most of us have written dozens, if not hundreds of offers on behalf of our buyer clients, but I’m going to show you a new twist, and one that you may have never even considered.  Let me ask you this: Where does it say that the buyer must be the one to write the offer?  What if a seller wrote the offer?  It’s perfectly legal.  Just not traditional.  Hmmm.  That’s a new twist, now isn’t it?  Here’s how it works.

Suppose you have a listing and the market is somewhat crowded.  I know, that never happens, but just try to imagine it (HA!).  There are lots of other competing listings, and your client’s home is just another in a virtual sea of similar properties.  Here’s a simple technique you can use to generate some additional interest and often secure a buyer for your client’s home.

At a minimum, it gets the conversation started and gets things moving.  It’s a lot easier to steer a moving car than a parked one!  What’s the worst thing that could happen?  The offer is rejected?  Okay.  But maybe it will be countered.  People purchase by emotion, and if you can bring some of the right emotion into the sale, you might just put together a deal.

Let me give you a scenario.  You help your seller write an offer to a buyer, detailing some of the concessions that might be considered.  For example, the seller is willing to paint the entire interior with the paint of the buyer’s choice and re-carpet allowing the buyer to choose the carpet.  The seller wants their home to go to someone who they think will take good care of it and someone they feel would make great neighbors for their friends.

Now imagine you are the buyer?  Do you like this seller?  Of course you do.  Does part of you want to help them?  Sure it does.  As a buyer, don’t you want to move into a neighborhood when the seller wants to make sure and find good neighbors for their friends next door?  Absolutely.  It puts this home on a totally different plane than the other nameless, faceless, blind properties they are considering.

So have the seller (as part of the listing process) write out a personal letter naming the neighbors and detailing the great things about the home and the area, understanding that you will then use that as a cover letter when writing an offer to a future potential buyer.  Even if nothing comes of it, you win three ways:

First, the seller loves you for your creative sales ability and because they think they are doing something rather than just waiting.  The buyer (who often has not listed yet) thinks, I need this agent to list my home for me.  Finally, the other agent loves you because you have helped turn his “looker” into a serious buyer.  He may have been trying to get his client to write an offer for days, and you finally broke the ice for him.

Okay, so what’s the down side?  There isn’t one.  This strategy costs you nothing and allows you to position yourself uniquely, and you might just sell your client’s home quicker.  Now that’s cool.  That’s Max-Bang!

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A problem arises when Agents mistake conditions for objections.  Agents often treat a condition as an objection and beat themselves up when they don’t get the transaction or contract signed.  The definition of a condition is a valid reason for the prospect to not move forward.  You still need to try all the techniques of handling the objection.  You just need to realize that a condition is usually linked to their ability or authority to act now.

They might have the desire to move forward with you but lack the ability or authority to do so.  Ability relates to financial capacity, credit score, and down payment.  Those types of issues relate to their ability to act.  Authority relates to the ultimate decision maker.  Is there anyone else who will be influencing this decision?  Young couples and first-time home Buyers often do not have the authority to make a decision without outside guidance, which is usually a parent.

The most common condition is lack of money, lack of credit worthiness, and (in the case of a Seller) lack of equity.  You might not be able to overcome these to make a sale.  It is better to know early, before you invest the time in the presentation, if your efforts are guaranteed to not result in a signed contract.

Another condition we are seeing more frequently is a pre-payment penalty on a mortgage for a Buyer.  This clearly could be a condition.  My best advise is don’t waste your time trying to overcome impossible conditions.  Sometimes, you can invest more time than it’s worth trying to be the hero.  If you are prospecting consistently, you will have more than enough opportunities without overly burdensome conditions.

A word of caution, don’t become so emotionally involved that the line between an objection and condition gets blurred.  We can want to help someone so much that we blur the line.  We start investing large amounts of time negotiating short pays, pre-payment penalties, waivers, and an abundance of other items.  We lose sight of our business.

I realize that going that extra mile for the client can give you really warm feelings.  It can build an extremely loyal and appreciative client.  That “sold out” client can send you referrals for years because of your extra service.  However, let me give you a word of caution about these situations.  Where Agents get into trouble is not recognizing these types of opportunities for what they really are.  These types of clients allow you to generate large amounts of goodwill.  You feel good helping people who are struggling. 

I did a number of these types of, what I call, donation deals annually.  I didn’t donate my commission, but the value of my time against the time, effort, energy, and money spent was a net loss against the commission earned.  I am not saying don’t do them.  I am saying a Champion Agent recognizes them for what they really are – a donation transaction to benefit someone in trouble.  Your reward will never be monetary, especially in the short-run.  Where Agents get into trouble is when they quit halfway through the transaction because the conditions of the transaction hint that they aren’t going to make any money.  Now, they are embittered and frustrated.  If you can’t financially or emotionally do a donation deal, pass. 

The last point I want to make regarding donation deals is that you can’t do too many.  Even a Champion Agent can ill afford to do a lot of these each year.  If you do too many, it affects your income, attitude, and family.  Limit the number of these you take on.  I took a couple a year.  That was all I could engage in and still reach my business and life goals.

Realize that conditions are often temporary.  Their circumstances or the market conditions can change.  Their credit can improve; they can save more money; new loan programs are created; new children arrive, pre-payments can be negotiated.  Many of the conditional roadblocks can be removed over time.  Don’t fail to keep in touch with people who have conditions as to why they can’t move forward now.

Knowing the demographics of your marketplace can be very helpful.  However, understanding another very important marketing principle known as “psycho graphics” can give you a competitive edge when marketing luxury real estate. Psycho graphics are comprised of the personality, values, attitudes, interests, activities and lifestyles of your target market.

Most luxury real estate marketing professionals are familiar with the concept of demographics.  If you were to segment the population of your marketplace into gender, race, age, income, educational attainment, employment status you would get an objective overview of who lives there.

For example, if your marketplace is Park City, Utah one useful demographic factor to know would be the cities, states and countries in which the greatest numbers of second home buyers own their primary residence. Since many buyers come from Mexico it might be advantageous to market your ski-in, ski-out listing both in Spanish and in English.

A Baby Boomer is one of the 76 million Americans born during the post WWll baby boom.  This is a demographic profile not a psycho graphic profile. The Sandwich Generation is a generation of people who care for their aging parents while supporting their own children. While they may vary in age it is their psycho graphics that is crucial to understand because they are usually putting their own lives on hold while caring for others.  Their deepest psychological need is time off for themselves or time alone with their spouse.  Using soothing words and describing your listing as a retreat would resonate with the Sandwich Generation.

The entire purpose of the Language of Luxury professional networking and learning community is to help you attract and better serve more high net worth clients.  By better understanding the psycho graphics of these consumers (personality, values, attitudes, interests, activities and lifestyles) you will be able to speak their language and connect more deeply with them than your competitors do.

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Like it or not aesthetics play a very big role in the realm of luxury real estate marketing and the marketing of most luxury goods and services in general. Millions of dollars are spent each year on package design because it is human nature to make “snap” judgments based on outward appearance.  In our time-starved world, people often do not take the time to look below the surface and make decisions, even unconscious decisions, based on aesthetics alone.   As a luxury real estate marketing professional, you are doing yourself a tremendous disservice if your website (which may be the first point of contact for potential clients) does not reflect both your inner beauty and your competence.

You may recall the story of The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen.   The cygnet’s egg rolled into the nest of a duck and the hatchling was mistaken for an ugly duck.  The “duckling”, who later transformed into a magnificent swan, was teased, criticized and ostracized. This classic story, among other wonderful lessons, points out the aesthetic cultural biases that most humans have been taught or have absorbed in the absence of unconditional love.

For better or for worse, aesthetic cultural biases exist.  Why not turn this to your advantage?  The internet has created an unprecedented hyper-condition known as “competition for attention or eyeballs”.  Your competition’s website is just a click away. Never have consumers had such a plethora of choices.  A stunning website that makes your competition’s site pale in comparison can not only capture attention, but also has a higher probability of capturing the lead.

Few luxury real estate marketing professionals pay enough attention to their “personal packaging”. Nor, do they realize what is at stake.  We often hear the excuse “if my website is not broken, why fix it?”  Your website may work, but if it is not remarkable in appearance and eye catching, it may not be used by potential clients in the first place.

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There are some positive news in Luxury Real Estate. This weekend, Barron’s which is part of Wall Street Journal came out with this report that bodes well for the second home market.  This is uplifting for all the luxury real estate marketing professionals at large.  If you are not mentioned, the up tick is on the way, you are next!

Barron’s Magazine just released this article for the 10 Best Places for Second Homes.  These are the places where the market is rebounding.

1. Maui

2. Kiawah Island

3. The Hamptons

4. Park City

5. Aspen

6. Pebble Beach

7. Palm Beach

8. Captiva/Sanibel

9. Ashevile

10. Gasparilla Island,

To read more

Have a fabulous week!