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!

December 2009 saw the demise of Editor & Publisher Magazine, which had been around since 1854. It lays claim to being the chief chronicler of the American newspaper industry and has presided over the business for 125 years and is a clear signal that an era is rapidly drawing to a close.

NEWSPAPERS

Daily newspapers have been losing between 2% and 5% per year of their circulation base during the last 10 years. In 1940 there were 1,878 newspapers in the U.S. with a total circulation of 32.4 million. While the number of newspapers continued to decline — 1,611 in 1990 — their circulation increased: 62.6 million in 1990. But by 2008 the number of newspapers had dropped again by a little over 200 to 1,408 while circulation crashed down to 49.2 million.

In the first half of 2009 alone another 105 newspapers closed their doors — 10,000 jobs were lost. Even among the leader board 23 of the top 25 newspapers suffered between 7% and 20% declines in circulation this year (the worst slump since the Depression), and advertising revenue could be down as much as a 30% for 2009 when all the data is finalized.

One of the most critical statistics revealed that only 27% of Gen Y read a newspaper, compared with 55% of the Silent or Greatest Generation. And as the consumers change so do their preferences so other print related industries as well.

MAGAZINES

There are no reliable industry-wide magazine ad revenue numbers that are publicly reported (for obvious reasons), but according to a report compiled by The Magazine Publishers of America’s Publishers Information Bureau, automotive ads for the first six months of 2009 were down 21.3% and technology down 17.5%.

MAIL

The number of pieces of first class mail has steadily decreased and according to CEO Pat Donahoe, the USPS estimates a decline of 10 billion pieces in each of the next two years, dropping from a high of 213 billion pieces in 2006 to 170 billion in 2010. They are trying to cut costs in all areas to stop the bleeding: asking Congress to authorize reducing mail delivery to five days a week (approval unlikely), offering buyouts to 30,000 workers in 2010 to save $500 million and reducing the number of collection boxes across the country, of which in the past 20 years over 200,000 have vanished, more than the 175,000 that still remain.

SPAM

But it’s not just first class mail that is migrating to the Internet. The junk mail business is moving in that direction as well. Today there are 100 billion pieces of junk mail sent in the U.S. every year and 44% of it is discarded, unopened. Consumers respond to only 2% of all the junk mail sent and as a result one of the biggest producers of junk mail — the banking industry — has made getting out of the mail a high priority. Meanwhile it is estimated that 200 billion spam emails are sent every day.

DIECT MAIL

Revenue from direct mail is also expected to fall from $48.7 billion in 2008 to $29.8 billion in 2013 — a decline of 39% — dropping it from the #1 ad revenue generator to #4, behind the Internet, broadcast TV and newspapers. In a mid-2009 study, Anthea Stratigos, CEO of Outsell, Inc., a media research and advisory outlet, predicted that $65 billion would be siphoned away from traditional advertising channels in 2009 and be spent on companies’ own websites and Internet marketing.

The Shift in Real Estate Marketing

THE SHIFT

According to Pew Research, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that if their local newspaper closed it would hurt their community “a lot,” and even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the paper. Over 68% indicated that they get their news from local television or television websites, 48% from print, 34% from radio and 31% from the Internet.

INTERNET

Ninety trillion emails were sent in 2009 – that’s 247 billion per day. Twitter send 27 million tweets per day, You Tube serves up one billion videos per day and Facebook enjoys 260 billion page views per month. No wonder the Internet is redefining every industry, including real estate brokerage. Real estate professionals have to redefine what they do and how they do; where they find their customer and how they stay in contact with them.

Many progressive Realtors® have and continue to adapt every day uncovering new ways to use the Internet in their profession. However hundreds of thousands if Realtors® still remain stuck in a paradigm that is dead. The jury is still out on how many will survive and how many will retire over the course of the next few years.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

The changing arena of real estate marketing is but one of the key trends detailed by Stefan Swanepoel in the 2010 edition of his Swanepoel Trends Report. The 172-page annual report (www.RETrends.com) was published in February and is a must read for all Realtors® and real estate professionals.

]]> http://realblogging.com/stefan-swanepoel/is-print-finally-dead-read-all-about-it/feed/ http://realblogging.com/stefan-swanepoel/is-print-finally-dead-read-all-about-it/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/realblogging/wUIp/~3/qRqVsasZjTw/ http://realblogging.com/matt-jones/max-bang-series-become-a-new-home-specialist/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:06:12 +0000 Matt Jones http://realblogging.com/?p=6730 The last installment was more geared toward brokers and team leaders so I will make this one for agents.  I’ll warn you: This strategy will not make you friends, but it will make you money.  If you are like most agents today, you are struggling for sales opportunities.  You know what to do when you find a new customer, and hopefully, you do a great job.  The problem is finding enough customers.

Here’s a great way to find new customers, and it costs almost nothing.  It works best if you have a pickup truck or mini-van, but that isn’t necessary.  You will be working out of your vehicle, so it is important that it be clean and nice looking, whatever it is.  Here is your investment:  Go out and buy some magnetic signs that say “New Home Sales” and your company name as required by law.  Contact local builders and tell them you are specializing in new construction sales, but would like to represent buyers.

Almost all builders (regardless of their listing agent) will be happy to supply you with floor plans, feature sheets, subdivision maps, pricing, etc. that you can put together into a three ring binder.  Now all you have to do is be driving around in those new construction neighborhoods about the time people come by to look at homes.

You are an “expert” since you have the specifics on every home, you have a builder key, and you have your sign on your vehicle telling the world you are!  So every evening (from about 4:00 to 7:00, you troll for new home buyers.  You have a mobile file cabinet with all your forms and supplies, and you can write an offer from the home or from your vehicle.

The listing company will often not appreciate your trolling for buyers in “their” neighborhood.  Tough!  You are not representing the builder, they are.  But you have every right to represent buyers of new homes.  What’s particularly cool about this strategy is that at about the same time most agents are going home from spending the day in the model home, the traffic in the neighborhood begins to pick up as buyers are cruising around after work looking for their next dream house.

You have the expertise, the key, the flashlight (if need be), and all the paperwork to make it easy.  Your lender is on call.  Nobody else is around to help them, and you just got an easy sale by being in the right place at the right time.  Plus, it’s new construction so there won’t be problems with appraisals, inspections, or unmotivated sellers.  Better yet, the prices will be higher, and your clients will be thrilled!  How cool is that?!  That’s Max-Bang!

The hedgehog concept was derived from a fable about a fox and hedgehog and illustrates the strategic difference between the two.  Foxes are dispersed strategists.  They will try any strategy that they believe will give them the immediate competitive edge. But, these strategies will not yield sustainable results.  Hedgehogs are focused strategists.  They fend off predators (think competitors) by rolling up into a ball which fully exposes their sharp quills or spines.

In business, hedgehogs have identified their winning strategy and their authentic brand identity. And, they stick to it with unwavering consistency.

Here is the competitive advantage that hedgehogs have over foxes:

1. Hedgehogs identify a market niche or an approach to marketing that they can master and be better at it than anyone else in their marketplace.  They feel like they simply have the natural talent to be the best at this.  To hedgehogs, it feels like this is what they were born to do.
2. Hedgehogs select something that they are passionate about.  They love what they do and feel lucky that they also get very well paid to do it.
3. Hedgehogs are not predators. They mind their own business. While your competition is constantly hatching new plans to out-fox you, your hedgehog strategy renders your competition irrelevant.

In our strategic branding and marketing consulting practice we help our clients to identify their hedgehog strategy.  We help them to bring their authentic personal brand identity into full focus. And, we coach them to stay in focus, by minding their own business when they execute their hedgehog strategy. Although, we call this journey the unabashed pursuit of market leadership, the real prize is the inner certainty that comes from knowing who they really are and from living a life of passion.

It is this inner certainty and the focus of the hedgehog that consistently attracts an abundance of ideal clients. This is one of the most important marketing principals of all time.  It is what separates the good from the great!

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