If sellers ARE staying in the area, ask if you can help find their next house. It benefits both you and the seller.

Here are five reasons why:

1. They don’t have to interview more real estate salespeople.

2. You already understand their needs, know their decorating style, have an inside look on how they live.

3. If they trust your market knowledge enough to sell their home, they should trust you to find them a new house.

4. You can help coordinate both sides of the deal so they don’t find themselves homeless for a few days between closings.

5. You can make negotiations go more smoothly and quickly. You have dates on both closings and don’t have to wait for return calls from fellow practitioners.

And if you like what you read, subscribe to the real estate marketing blog by email or news feed.

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Or maybe you’d simply be happy to learn how to find clients who always walk away satisfied after a transaction with you…

Think about it: what’s it worth to you to find and nurture a handful–say, I don’t know, 100–clients who love you to death?

Who can’t stop talking about you…

And who send you so much business that you often wonder if there’s some kind of law against getting so many leads?

This would make you happy, yes?

Deep inside you and I both know that this kind of arrangement–referrals to the max–is the most sublime way to earn a living.

But here’s the sad part: you haven’t bribed or manipulated that situation into being doing things you are currently doing.

And probably won’t anytime soon. Man, that’s frustrating.

See, one of the chronic problems with sales, advertising, business and marketing–whether in real estate or not–is bad information.

Bad information in the sense that what you know about your client is off.

Way off.

And when you have bad information on prospects and clients, you will constantly concoct strategies that sail clear over their mark…

Or peter out well before they reach their destination.

Here’s the good news, though. You can overcome this failure.

How? Easy. Think like your prospect and client.

Learn everything you can about them. Better yet, spend a year or two in their shoes. Confront the issues and problems they see. Burn into your mind a feeling of what it’s like to live like them.

A 2004 Chicago Sun-Times article gives a vivid example of this in the auto industry…

Yuji Yokoya, a Toyota engineer, responsible for revamping the Toyota Sienna minivan for the North American market drove from Anchorage, Alaska to Mexico…

And from Florida to California…in a Sienna mini-van.

The Chicago Sun-Times says:

Crossing the Mississippi River by bridge, he [Yokoya] noted that the Sienna’s crosswind stability needed improvement. He observed excessive steering drift while traversing gravel roads in Alaska, and the need for a tighter turning radius along the crowded streets in Santa Fe. Driving through Glacier National Park, he decided the handling needed to be crisper. He also made an all-wheel-drive option a priority, along with more interior space and cargo flexibility.

Finally, he decided that the new Sienna would have to be a minivan that families, and especially kids, could live in for extended periods of time. Upgrading seat quality became a priority, along with “kid friendly” features such as a roll-down window for second-row passengers, an optional DVD entertainment centre and a conversation mirror so parents could monitor what was going on in the back seat.

As you probably know, the Sienna has “an excellent reputation for overall quality” and “long-term dependability”. Edmunds says as much.

And Toyota is simply a brand with hot cars and hot technology. Year after year it fires on all cylinders.

Getting into the heads of your prospects and clients will allow you to give prospects the best possible solution for whatever problem they’re facing…

To persuade effortlessly, bringing to the table vast hands-on experience with all kinds of markets. In all kinds of economic conditions.

But you’ll need to go beyond traditional market research.

Instead of just combing through numbers and plowing through a stack of reports, you’ll need to get off your duff and speak to your prospects and clients.

Do it with no other agenda than trying to figure out what they like. And why.

In other words, create a persona.

Watch how they work. See what a typical day looks like for them. Find out how they interact with their families. How a home integrates into their lives.

As you can imagine, this will take a little work. But it will pay dividends. It will make you a murderously good real estate pro who will book up quickly…

Because people like to work with wise, friendly people.

And once you lock into the ebb and flow of your prospects and clients, you’re business will be on the fast track.

That’s a good place to be, right? Right. And when you get to the point where you want more…where you want to slam the pedal to the metal…check out one of the plainest, but potent referral systems around.

It might be a good idea to just check it out now. Get familiar with it so you’ll be ready when you need it.

Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the real estate marketing Blog by email or news feed.

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What can you, as a real estate agent, do that would challenge the status quo, overturn your market or even persuade a competitor’s client to work with you?

See, out of the 43 businesses that were showcased in the book In Search of Excellence 14 were out of business in two years. BusinessWeek then studied these 14 failed companies…and do you know what they found out?

“Failure to change” was the main theme for going out of business with these companies.

What does that say to you?

Are you in a position to change? To challenge the status quo? To shake up your market and be a trend setter instead of a passive causality?

6 Unconventional Questions to Help You Become a Market Shaker

Forget widely accepted principles such as blind optimism and arrogant self-promotion. Instead, break out of the box by asking yourself these unconventional questions that will lead you down a different, unused, but highly prosperous, path to success.

• What worse case scenario could happen, that seems impossible, but if it did happen, what would I do?

• What alternatives to marketing, technology, industry, prospecting, organization are out there…alternatives people are not thinking about?

• What pain are my client’s and prospects GOING to experience in the near future? And how can I provide a solution to that pain?

• What am I personally doing in my business or life that if I don’t change now could provide significant pain in the near future?

• What did other companies do during a recession or sagging growth to survive? How did they change? How did they adapt?

• Finally, what rules can I break? What rules can I rewrite?

The best performers in any industry are the agitators, the pioneers, the rule breakers and the game-changers.

In essence, it’s about staying fresh. So ask your self theses questions. Forecast the future. The ability to peer around corners will pay off big for you.

If you haven’t already, subscribe to the real estate marketing Blog by feed oremail.

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You want to make seven figures a year. You want the eight car garage. A second house on the sea. The boat.

You want enough money in the bank to run a small country. Send your children to the best schools. Buy a 747 so you can fly all of your friends to your private island off the coast of South Africa.

Okay. Maybe that last one was a stretch.

But you catch my drift. We’ve all got wild dreams. Big ones, to boot. And this includes your clients.

So often we forget that the people we want to attract have dreams. We forget that they are are dreaming and scheming.

Scheming in a good way. But scheming nonetheless. They want to be successful. Prestigious. Healthy. Liked.

Or perhaps they just want a roof over their family’s head. A roof they can call their own.

We call that the “American Dream.”

So, with this in mind, let’s look at three ways you can help beef up just about anything you do–whether it’s writing an ad or pitching during a listing presentation–and help your prospects and clients understand that you can help them reach their wildest dream.

1. Paint the Vision for the Prospect.

Within the headline or the opening copy or at the start of your presentation, tell them about the benefit they’ll get from doing what you want them to do: living well, saving money, entertaining grandly. This is the big promise.

2. Offer the “Prize” Inside.

Either within the same headline or within the first few lines of copy or just minutes into a presentation, introduce your offer as the means for obtaining the desired end: the infinity pool that makes you to live well, the low property taxes that allow you to save money, or the finished basement with wet bar and 50 inch plasma screen that allows you to entertain grandly.

3. Go On the Quest.

This is the fun part. Here you get to tell the story of how and why your offer, in Step 2, fulfills the desire in Step 1. You’re pulling all the pieces together here.

For example:

Living well means owning an infinity pool. Posh hotels in Singapore with infinity pools attract actors and presidents and singers. And actors like to live well, don’t they? They like to relax in a landscape that’s unique and something only a few people can afford to enjoy. Infinity pools are all about living well.

By the way, if you need help creating pictures like that, we have great resources here to help you. But also consider picking up a travel magazine like Conde Nast Traveller.

While I’m a big fan of blogging as a way to get content online, I don’t think it’s the ULTIMATE way of having a web presence for real estate agents.

Why? Simple. Blogs don’t suit every personality.

You might be a writer. Then again, you might not be.

You might be a good communicator. And you might not be.

You might prefer speaking over writing. Or not.

You might be a self-starter. Or not.

You might be starved for time. Or not.

You might have thick skin. Or not.

You might enjoy reading. Then again, maybe not.

You might have the stamina. Or not.

Where you fall in these two columns depends on lots of factors, but namely your personality. In other words, you have to decide that for yourself if blogging fits your personality.

However, if you’ve come to that point in your career that blogging, indeed, suits your personality, then this post is for you. Here are nine ways in which blogging can help you and your real estate career.

1. Attract a New Market.

No surprise here, but the new savvy home buyer and seller is online. Googling for homes to buy. And real estate agents to work with. And more.

People are also searching for answers. You have to be the person who answers those questions.

2. Dominate Search Results.

So, a blog will allow you to write content about how to buy a home, stage a home or finance a home…typical needs home buyers and sellers have.

In other words, you write posts about ways you can help people.

And you want a page from your blog to appear in the top ten of search results. More pages with more inbound links equals greater chance you land on that coveted first page for that keyword. That’s how you dominate search results.

3. Establish Your Authority.

Published online content–at first blush–equals instant credibility. But there’s more to it than this. I’ll explain in a minute.

4. Sharpen Your Writing Skills.

Within four seconds people decide if the page is worth their time and attention. The more you write, though, the better you become. And people start to recognize your talent. Thus, your credibility grows.

5. Engage Your Prospects in a Wider Discussion.

Did you touch upon an issue in a meeting you would’ve liked to have gone deeper but couldn’t because of time? Blog it.

Local issue that’s abuzz in your community? Blog about it.

Then there’s popularity contest you could play. A sure winner for drawing readers.

6. Clarify Points.

Maybe you said something in a networking event or negotiations that wasn’t clear. Or drew criticism. Blog it. Systematically and clearly. Why? See point 4.

7. Do More.

Wanna start a discussion about a topic but don’t want to mess with the logistics of actually bringing warm bodies together? Blog it.

You can use your blog as a forum and invite your prospects to join a certain topic–new development or a slumping market. Think online small group.

8. Build a Reputation.

This is similar to authority. The difference is that authority is instant credibility. The certificate you see on the wall certifies your doctor is legit. That’s authority. Your best friend raving about the best MD in town…that’s reputation.

You want both.

9. Stretch Your Skill Set.

Launching a blog is easy. Still, it contains challenges and new ground to cover–from the hard [minor technical tweaks] to the soft [replying to criticism].

Thus, rounding out your real estate career set with blogging skills can be an added bonus for younger generations who grew up with blogging and social media. Something to consider.

Please note that these are in order from what I think is most important to the least important. Building an online presence and generating more traffic is a good reason to start a blog. Better than simply stretching your skill set.

But they’re all good things–both professionally and personally.

I’m sure there are plenty of other reasons why or ways that blogging can help your real estate career. Can you share some?

Did you find this article helpful? If so, leave a comment or subscribe to the real estate marketing Blog by email or news feed.

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Your career–that is, as a real estate agent–demands you write. It demands you write emails. Ads. Descriptions. Letters. Voice mail messages.

You name it and you have to write it.

Unfortunately most of us are a product of an educational system that focuses on facts. And in most cases, the education stuck.

And that’s a problem.

Why is this a problem? If you’re a product of our educational system, then most of what you write is saturated by facts. Let me show you an example:

This house is less than 3 yrs old and has a 2009 appraised value of over $230,000. Nearly $30,000 in up-grades featuring the Waterford floor plan and the Colonial III elevation, hardwood floors, luxury kitchen and luxury master suite options, this house is priced for a quick sale.

Not too bad, right? Sorry, but the ad is limp and inert at best.

The Problem with Facts

Now, there’s nothing wrong with facts. Except that educators refused to let it go at mere memorization of facts. As a society, we plunged into wholesale fact-worship.

What’s at stake? When you glorify one thing, it’s generally at the expense of something else. In this case, the something else is “feeling.”

A feeling is as opposite a fact as you get. You can’t see it or hear it. Measure or weigh it.

Furthermore, feelings differ from person to person. Feelings are unpredictable. And faced with this unpredictability, educators cast a suspicious eye on feelings.

Again, this education–hold all feelings at arms length–stuck. We are, generation after generation, a population trained to reject decisions based on emotions.

In fact, we feel guilty if we make a decision based on an emotion.

Therefore, if you want to become a great writer–or if you merely want to inject more personality and life into your written communication–then you need a new approach to writing. An emotional approach.

The Emotional Approach to Writing

Instead of analyzing ads, deducing rules and then writing to fit these regulations, accept your own ever-so-finite limitations, take facts for granted and place your certainty in feelings.

Feeling is what drives you forward. And it’s what drives your prospects and clients forward. “What if” is your watchwords.

And the rules? They’re incidental.

I re-wrote the above ad based on feelings. See if it sings:

This 3-year old house is like a new build–except without the headaches of unpredictable contractors. Wide open floor plan and tall ceilings make this a big house. Add hardwood floors, professional kitchen and master bath–you’ve got luxury living on a small budget.

Do you see how you can still incorporate facts into your written communication? What did I do differently? I just spelled out the benefits for each feature. All I did was think about why the buyer would care about the facts. That’s really all it boils down to.

Now, let me talk to those of you who are afraid to write.

Communication of your feeling demands skill. But also heart. Yes, you will make mistakes. But to win at the skill of writing–or real estate for that matter–then you have no choice but to begin right where you are.

This very moment.

Remember: Whatever you do in life–writing or real estate or raising kids–you have to start on the bottom rung like the rest of us. That means you have to be willing to be bad–very bad–in this business if you ever want to get good.

In other words, only if you’re willing to make mistakes today can you hope to move ahead tomorrow. So, give it a shot right now: Write a comment below explaining why you thought this post was good or bad. And don’t forget emotion. Feeling.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: I won’t grade you. I promise.

That’s why Greek heroes like Odysseus–who were able to look beyond the present and plan several steps ahead–seemed to defy fate. In fact, men like Odysseus mimicked the Greek gods in their ability to tell the future.

The comparison, today, is still valid.

If you can think further ahead and patiently bring your plans to fruition, you’ll seem godlike. And naturally be more successful.

Most people are imprisoned in the moment. Imprisoned by their emotions. They can’t plan with any kind of foresight. Neither can they ignore immediate dangers or instant pleasures…traps that ultimately strip them of their future success.

The Mistake Successful Real Estate Agents Avoid

Successful real estate agents, on the other hand, like those profiled in the Baylor study I wrote about last week, have the power of being able to overcome the natural human tendency to react to things as they happen. Instead they train themselves to step back and think about the larger things taking shape beyond the horizon.

Most agents believe that they are in fact aware of the future, that they are planning and thinking ahead.

They are usually wrong.

What they’re really doing is succumbing to their desires, to what they want the future to be. Their plans are vague, based on their fantasies rather than reality.

They’re not thinking to the end. Only focusing on the happy ending, which is nothing more than a figment of their imagination.

“The most ordinary cause of people’s mistakes,” Cardinal de Retz wrote, “is their being too much frightened at the present dangers, and not enough at that which is remote.”

Dangers that loom in the distance cause the most chaos. You only need to reflect on the housing bubble to see what I mean.

But if you can see those dangers before they take shape…how many mistakes do you think you could avoid? How many plans would you abort if you realized you were avoiding a small danger only to step into a larger one?

So much of success is not what you do but what you don’t do. The rash and foolish actions that you restrain from contribute a lot to the outcome of your future–whether it’s fortunate or unfortunate.

The Moral of This Post

Plan in detail before you act. Train yourself to step back and evaluate your future–in detail. Compare it to reality. Ask questions: What consequences could this have? Will I lose prospects if I do this? Will someone else be able to take advantage of me? Can I actually sell this house?

Don’t be swayed by the happy ending in your head. Unhappy endings are more common than happy ones. And the happy ones usually come at great cost–hours, days and months of planning, refraining, adjusting and executing.

Happy endings are product of hard work. And good plans. Where you confront the brutal facts. Doing this can be the difference between a good ending and a bad one.

See the ending. And tolerate no deviation.

These researchers discovered two things.

First, those real estate agents who reported doing better–or much better–in their market than most agents reported significantly higher lead conversion rates to appointments.

Second, these same agents reported higher conversion rates from appointments to a transaction.

What was their secret? Well, their secret pretty much boiled down to 5 characteristics that make up a compelling real estate agent profile.

Let me show you what I mean.

Real estate agents who reported doing much better in their market tended to:

1. Have higher lead and appointment conversion rates.

2. Spend less on open houses as a percentage of their total spending.

3. Spend less on promotional items as a percentage of their total spending.

4. More productive when using open houses.

5. More seeker oriented in their lead generation activities

One way to approach this information is to use it as a baseline for your own lead generation investment. The question is: Are your lead generating strategies seeker-oriented or attract oriented?

Attract-oriented strategies tend to be activities like print advertising or signage where the real estate agent puts out the ad or the sign and then waits for leads to come in.

These types of strategies tend to be passive. You sit and wait.

On the other hand, seeker-oriented real estate agents typically invested in the proactive strategies like networking, referrals and IVR technology.

These type of strategies are active. Aggressive. They put you in control of your leads. And your career.

Yes, I know. Aggressive strategies are nerve racking for the timid. So, the question is: If you could be in control and guide your career to success, don’t you think it’s worth the risk of sticking your neck out there a little to be more aggressive?

I do. And I hope you do, too. You and your career are worth it. Let me know what you think.

Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.

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Why? Clickthrough decay. Twitter time passes 10 times faster than email time.

Jakob Nielson says:

One of the big downsides of stream-based communication compared to email newsletters is the highly ephemeral nature of the postings: Once they scroll off the first screen, they’re essentially 6 feet under.

A look at clickthrough statistics for links posted to Twitter vs. those circulated in email newsletters shows a drastically steeper decay function: lots of clicks the first few minutes, and then almost none. In contrast, email continues to generate clicks for days as people work their way through their inboxes.

So, since more and more and more people are checking their e-mail on cell phones or smart phones and archiving, it’s wise to keep grooming your emails so their readable, relevant and powerful.

1. Reason Why. First, what’s your most compelling reason to send the email? If there’s no good reason for it, consider taking the day off.

2. “From” Line. The “From” line and subject line work in tandem. And an effective “From” line starts with name recognition. If you’re not famous in your market, then maybe your company is. Use the most famous.

3. Subject Line. Something that stands out in their inbox. Use this tool to test your subject lines AND “From” lines.

4. First vertical inch or two. Many people won’t see images—your header, wrapper, or photos—because their e-mail software turns them off. Or they may be getting your message on a BlackBerry or Treo or cell phone. Consider what’s in this precious real estate. And make it count.

5. Scannable. Since very few people read it all the way through, is it easy to scan your email? Can they get the point at a glance?

6. Headline. You do have a headline, don’t you? Okay then, if you don’t, then the first sentence is your headline. Does it make the point and provide a link for action? Is the call to action simple and clear, making a single point and with no more than a sentence or two at the most?

7. Precision. Omit needless words. All of them. Here’s a rule of thumb to follow: Once you reduce the email to half it’s length…try to reduce it again.

8. Call to Action. Will the person feel like he’s losing big if he decides to sit this one out? That’s the kind of feeling you want to give people.

9. Tone. Conversational. What do I mean by that? Does it feel like one person writing to another? As impersonal as e-mail can be, you still want it to feel like one person’s message to another.

So what about you: are you still using email to prospect? Have you given it up for Twitter or Facebook? If so, how effective have you become? Or has spam and the crowd noise chased you out? Is email dead and anybody who uses it wasting their time and money?

Share your thoughts. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Since then, Longinotti-Buitoni has changed his mind.

What he learned was that the desire for a Ferrari comes from our dreams…not the part of our brain that balances the checkbook each month.

Those same dreams fuel our desire for leisure time. It fuels our desire for Gucci purses. Gulfstream jets. Beauty. Exotic vacations. And houses.

You, real estate agent, need to understand these dreams. And reinterpret a house in terms of your client’s fantasy world.

But it’s not about selling homes to people who apear on the cover of Vanity Fair. Average people like you and I have our own set of dreams to fulfill.

That’s why Volkswagon could sell a van called the Beetle to thousands of hippies. Our Levi’s could position a pair of denim jeans like a vein of gold in the foothills of California.

Think about Nike shoes and what they mean to inner-city kids: An escape from his oppressive origins.

Bottom line: People fantasize about the things they can’t afford. Selling a house to a buyer is all about tapping into that fantasy.

The best way I’ve found to do that is to simply show them their dream home. Yes, they might not know it’s their dream home. But when you roll up to the $500,000 house and they gasp, “There’s no way we can afford that,” you need to respond, “Let’s look at it anyway.”

Elevate their fantasy and anything you show them after that will seem below them. They will naturally gun for homes at their high-end of price.

What’s truly heartbreaking about this tactic, though, is this: It’s nothing more than the notorious takeaway. You’ve given them something they want…and now you take it away.

You see this when you prohibit your seven-year-old from playing his Nintendo DS. We, especially Americans, freak when we go from freedom back to bondage.

And bondage is exactly how it feels. No one likes going from abundance to lack. You’re constricted. Restrained.

And you lie awake dreaming about what you once had. Be it a million dollar home or $150,000 car.

Granted, you don’t want to set your client up to fail. So you must be careful when using this tactic. You must use common sense and constantly check in with your client to make sure he’s not getting in over his head.

Yet, this plays into the gambit in two ways.

One, you protect your client. Two, you demonstrate that you aren’t desperate for this deal. That you could walk away. That’s a powerful indication that there’s more to this sale than money, making the house all that more irresistable.

And if you like what you read, subscribe to the real estate marketing blog by email or news feed.

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