Before I answer your question, let me start with an example of the traditional approach to marketing (aka “interruption marketing”) and permission marketing. You walk into a store and a salesman immediately asks if he can help you. What’s your reaction? In many cases, it’s “No, thanks. I’m just looking.”

But, as you are browsing the store’s merchandise, perhaps something captures your attention. Maybe you find an item of clothing but can’t find your size. Maybe you spot an electronic device but aren’t sure of the technical specs. Suddenly, you are much more receptive to talking with someone who might help you make a more informed purchasing decision.

In the first case, you don’t care what the salesman has to say so you actively try to avoid a sales pitch. In the second case, something has captured your attention, so you give the salesman your permission to tell you more about the product and together, you hold a dialog about your wants, needs, and concerns.

What is Permission Marketing?

Permission marketing stems from the philosophy that your prospects’ attention is scarce and should be treated as a gift they are choosing to give you.

Your prospects suffer from a constant barrage of interruptions from phone calls, emails, text messages, direct mail, and advertising. Everyone wants their attention and they must decide to whom to give it. Once they give their attention, they can never get it back, so it’s an investment of time and energy on their part.

At the same time, it is difficult to figure out who or what to pay attention to. With so many choices, it’s easy to gather lots of information but still not know what to do to solve the problem. The more choices you have, the harder it is to decide which option is best.

That decision becomes more arduous when your prospect is evaluating a service rather than a product. With a product, they can see a physical item, try it out, and test the results before they buy. With a service, your prospects have no idea what to expect. They can’t see what “quality” or “professional” service is like before they buy.

How to Use Permission Marketing

If you’re proud of the services you offer and convinced they bring tremendous value to your clients’ lives, then your marketing should focus around helping people to understand that value.

How do you do that? First, you must convince your prospects to give you their attention. You have to give people a reason to interact with you so they’ll give you permission to talk with them. Yes, you still advertise. You still send mailings. You still network to meet people. You still market online. But the focus isn’t “I’m the most caring, professional, hardworking real estate agent, so you should hire me.” It’s about “Will my prospect find this information useful, even if they don’t hire me?”

The best way to do that is to provide samples of your services in bite-sized chunks. In your ads and promotions, you offer educational materials like a free report, audio program, DVD, or event invite and tell them how to take advantage of that offer (call your office, send for your free DVD, visit your website to download the report). In exchange for that information, your prospects give you their contact information.

At that time, you can ask them if they’d like to receive additional information. You can do so by providing a check box on your business reply card (“check this box to receive additional information about…”), a form on your website (“enter your name and email to receive our free report as well as our weekly newsletter on…”), or by phone (“would you like to be added to our monthly newsletter?”)

You approach follow up with the same philosophy. Each marketing piece you send them after the initial one should be valuable to them in some way, so they feel they haven’t wasted their time reading or listening to it. But now, you know you are communicating with people who have expressed interest in receiving your marketing messages.

It is a lot like dating. If you wanted to attract a spouse, you might place an ad in the personals or set up an online profile on a dating site (i.e. you advertise where you have a good chance of reaching interested prospects). Most people won’t read your ad. Some will read your ad but won’t respond. A handful may contact you. When someone responds (i.e. requests more information), you don’t automatically assume they are marriage material. Rather, you get to know one another gradually until you both decide if you are right for one another (i.e. establish trust and build rapport).

People do business with those they know, like, and trust. By using permission marketing, you establish yourself as a trusted adviser focused on building relationships with your prospects before the sale.

I am a highly experienced marketing guy. I’m good at putting together marketing plans but not so good at speaking in front of people. Whenever I speak, my mind fills with hesitation and fear. How can I get rid of this problem?

Public speaking is a great way to market your services. Just by getting up in front of an audience, you set yourself apart as a leader who is confident in your expertise and skill set. Yet public speaking is also a source of fear and anxiety for many, many people.

I can certainly relate. During high school and college, I used to dread giving class presentations. I knew I wasn’t very good at public speaking, and all I wanted to do was get it over with. My nervousness showed through my tendency to speak really fast, use overly large hand gestures, and even pace back and forth. I’d stare out into the audience, and I just knew they thought my presentation was awful. Then, I’d lose track of what I was saying, so I’d try to refocus by reading off my PowerPoint slides. I absolutely hated it, and it seemed the more I had to do it, the worse the experience became. I soon tried everything in my power to avoid it at all costs.

When I started my business, however, I quickly realized that becoming an effective communicator was essential to attracting prospects and managing clients. If I wanted my business to succeed, I’d have to confront my fears. Prospects and clients look for confidence, expertise, and leadership in the partners they hire, and I didn’t exhibit those qualities whenever I gave group presentations.

Getting better at public speaking starts with the decision that you will do whatever it takes to improve. In my case, I took several public speaking classes and even hired a voice coach. It wasn’t an overnight success, but after a lot of practice and listening to feedback, I’m much better – and more comfortable – when speaking in front of an audience.

Improve Your Public Speaking Mindset

The first step to overcoming your fear of public speaking is to put yourself in the right mindset. If you are giving a speech, you want your audience to walk away with some bit of knowledge or benefit they can use to improve their lives. Focus on the takeaway – what’s the one thing you want your audience to remember? Now, realize it’s up to you to communicate that one thing as clearly and effectively as you can. To do that, keep these tips in mind.

• Be confident. Confidence plays a big factor in public speaking. Often, we are our own worst enemy. We have doubts that we don’t know as much as we should, or have the experience that others do, or we question why people would even want to listen to us, or we fear someone will “find out” that we’re not as good as we say. Realize that you are good enough to give a speech and that others do find your opinion and insight valuable.
• Realize your purpose isn’t to win your audience’s approval. One of the biggest fears people have is looking foolish in front of an audience. There will always be people who disagree with you or have other opinions. That’s ok. You don’t have to win over or persuade everyone in your audience to agree with you or become your client.
• Focus on giving value. Instead of seeking your audience’s approval, focus on giving value – whether that’s educating them on a particular subject or motivating them to take action. Focus on one main theme that you want your audience to remember when they leave.
• Realize you don’t need to be perfect to communicate your message. You can make mistakes or even forget entire parts of your talk. In many cases, your audience won’t even notice. They haven’t read your outline. They don’t know what you missed or left out.
• Humility and humor go a long way. If you do make a mistake, be humble or make a joke about it. Laugh at yourself rather than getting flustered or embarrassed.
• Know that you can handle virtually anything. It’s easy to think about all the negatives that could go wrong. It’s extremely unlikely that you’ll have a heart attack or faint. It’s even less likely that everyone in your audience will leave within the first 10 minutes. But if something does go wrong (that isn’t health related), the best way to handle mishaps is to ask for feedback. If people are leaving, stop where you are and ask them what they were hoping to get out of the talk. If someone asks a challenging question, become curious and ask why they think that way. You can learn a lot from your audience by opening up a dialog and soliciting feedback.
• Remember, the audience wants you to succeed. They showed up for your talk, so they were at least mildly interested in your topic. They want to hear your thoughts, opinions, and expertise on the matter.

Techniques For Becoming a Better Presenter

While having a positive mindset toward public speaking will get you pretty far, being prepared and practicing ahead of time will help you be more relaxed. Here are some tips to get started.

• Preparation is the key to feeling comfortable. Learn as much as you can about who you’ll be talking to and what they expect, where your talk will take place, how long it should be, what audio/visual equipment you’ll have, and where you’ll speak in relation to your audience. If you have the chance, talk to your audience beforehand to learn what they hope to learn from the talk.
• Break your talk into three main points. One of the most effective ways to communicate your message is to use the Rule of Three – that is, have three main points and repeat them throughout your talk. Three is a powerful number, especially in storytelling. Movies are broken into three acts. Some of the most famous fables are about the three little pigs, or the Three Musketeers, or Goldilocks and the three bears. And many of the key principles you remember are arranged in threes: “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” “Stop, Look and Listen,” or “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
• Practice. The more you practice your speech, the more comfortable you’ll feel with the material. Try giving your speech aloud in front of a mirror, videotaping yourself, or asking a group of friends to listen. Practice your eye contact and gestures, and ask for feedback on your delivery.
• Breathe. Deep breathing automatically calms us down and focuses us on the present moment. Take a few deep breaths before you start you speech, whenever you realize you’re rushing your material, or after you’ve made a key point.
• Seek audience feedback. While it may seem like you are the center of attention, always keep your audience’s needs in mind. If they are giving you questioning looks, ask if they have questions or need you to clarify something. If their eyes are glazing over and you’re losing their attention, do something unexpected like changing your tone, asking questions, getting them to participate in an activity, or if necessary, taking a break. After the talk, take audience questions, stay afterward to chat, or hand out a questionnaire or rating form to solicit feedback.
• Have a back-up plan. Finally, be sure to have a back-up plan just in case of technical difficulties or the unexpected happens. Dress in layers in case the room temperature is too hot or too cold, and have an outline sheet or index cards handy.

The more time you invest in preparation, the better your speech will be. Practice until you feel comfortable giving your speech. Visualize, beforehand, giving the best speech you can give. And be confident that you have what it takes to stand before an audience and speak effectively.

When the real estate market is down, no response to advertisement/promotion & target customers are reluctant to buy or invest now & would like to wait for some time even though the rates have been reduced & promotional offers are provided, how would a real estate marketer generate potential leads & attract customers for sales to sustain in such uncertain market?

It’s no secret our economy has taken a downturn. With Wall Street in crisis, the credit market tightening, Detroit on the verge of bankruptcy and millions of Americans scrimping to get by, it’s not surprising that home sales are down considerably.

Yes, many people are taking a “wait and see” approach to real estate rather than jumping in to buy or sell a home. Lots of people aren’t looking to buy or sell right now.

But – many people still are. In the last four months, two of my close friends just bought houses. And while the media is quick to report that home sales are down, they haven’t stopped, which means there’s still business out there!

So how do you attract those people who may be on the fence or looking to buy or sell?

Use your marketing to educate prospects.

As a real estate professional, you know far more about the state of the industry than the average person (I hope!). It’s up to you to educate prospects about their options because most people don’t know about all the incentives that are out there.

When the economy is booming, it’s easy to attract new clients. You barely need to promote your services because there’s just so much business out there, and people are enthusiastic about buying and selling.

But when the economy slumps, fear sets in. People are bombarded by negative media warning them of the dangers of an industry in crisis. They hear horror stories about homes going into foreclosure, tightening credit lines, and the subprime mortgage fiasco and it makes them nervous.

You can’t blame them – people don’t buy or sell a home because you need business. They do so because it makes sense for them to do so at that point in their lives.

But you can educate them on why this might not be the bad opportunity the media says it is.

Focus on giving rather than getting.

When most agents run ads, they focus on themselves and their accomplishments. I receive all sorts of agent promotions, and they’re almost always the same – a picture of the agent smiling, with perhaps a line about how they just sold a home in my area or how that agent is the No. 1 agent, and a brief “if you’re thinking about buying or selling, call me.”

Those types of promotions are mostly a waste of money, but they can drum up business during a real estate boom because so many prospects are ready to buy or sell. But in a downturn, those types of promotions just don’t work because they’re focused on the agent’s self-interest, which is “getting” new business regardless of my current life situation.

When you focus on “getting” business – that is, your needs are more important than your prospect’s needs – you sound needy. You don’t sound like a competent professional who has more clients than you can handle. Instead, you sound like you’re begging for business, which, in your prospect’s mind, means you probably aren’t very good at what you do.

Marketing that does work in a downturn focuses on “giving” prospects value. It involves putting yourself in your prospect’s mind and asking – what is this prospect most concerned about, and how can I educate him or her about how to solve that problem?

Then, you write up a special report or record yourself giving a talk about a particular problem, and what your prospect needs to know or to do in order to take steps toward solving that problem.

Here are a few examples of special reports you could create:

• Top 10 Reasons Why This Is a Great Time To Buy a Home, Despite What the Media Tells You
• 25 Ways to Get Financing For Your New Home In a Tightened Credit Market
• 17 Issues You Need To Be Aware Of When Buying Foreclosed Properties
• Top 15 Mistakes Made By Home Sellers in a Down Economy – and How To Avoid Them

Make your report specific to one problem your prospect has. Then give him the steps required to understand the situation, options he has, and the best way to solve his problem.

Promote your special reports, not you.

Now, when you run ads or do mailings, make your special report the focus of the offer, rather than a picture of a home or you smiling. Get a graphic designer to create a nice cover for the report, and put a picture of the cover on all your promotions. Include the headline in big letters, and make all the text in the promotion focus on why your prospects need to know the information in this guide – all of its benefits and points of interest – and how they can get a copy.

If you’ve successfully targeted your market and have written the guide based on your prospects’ top concerns, you’re bound to get a number of people requesting your guide.

Keep track of all the people who request your guide and start building a database of leads you can continue to market to (through more educational materials). These people have self-selected themselves as good candidates for your services because they’ve shown an interest in your free report. Sure, some won’t turn into qualified leads, but many will – and even if they aren’t quite in the market yet for a new home, that doesn’t mean they won’t be in a few months.

Education-based marketing works in every market – from booming economies to downturns. Listen to what your prospects and clients tell you are their biggest worries – they’ll tell you how to market to them if you pay attention.

I have a website that I have spent long hours making it and adding information to it. I also get a stream of about 2,500 visitors a month, but I don’t have anyone emailing me about any questions or just anything. So far I have had two contacts. Tell me what else do I need or do to improve. Thank you.

Sargon, it sounds like you are doing a number of things right.

• You’re providing lots of good information.
• You give away free reports to attract buyers and sellers.
• You offer several ways for people to contact you.
• You’re looking for ways to convert visitors to leads.

You’ve realized that traffic is virtually useless unless you can convert those visitors into leads, which means you’re off to a great start. So how can you start generating more leads from your website?

When people visit a website, they look for the information that is most relevant to their current problems, worries and concerns. They don’t take the time to learn your website. They don’t read every page – or even most pages. They make a quick assessment of your site based on whatever page they land on. If they find what they’re looking for – great, they might keep reading. If not, they leave.

Most people have an extremely short attention span, so they visit a page, quickly skim the content to see if it’s relevant to them, and if not, they leave. It doesn’t matter if you do actually have that information they are looking for. If they don’t see it, in their mind, it’s not there and they’ll keep looking.

Providing great information isn’t enough!

Information is useful only if your prospects can quickly find what they are looking for. They don’t want to dig through your site – they just don’t have that kind of time. So it’s up to you to point them in the right direction.

How can you do this?

• Make your content scanable. Most people skim web pages rather than reading them, so make sure you use headlines, subheads, bullets, and bolded text. Visitors should be able to pick up the key points on each page with a 3 second scan.
• Link to other content that might also be relevant. Don’t expect people to learn your site’s structure or to hunt for content – they won’t. Instead, make it easy for them by listing other articles on your site that they may find relevant. For instance, you might include “For more information on this topic, read my article on X or Y.” You can also link to that content directly within your articles.
• Use a clear call to action on every page. Make sure each page encourages visitors to contact you. Consider adding something like “If you are ready to move forward, call phone number or fill out this online contact form and I’ll get back to you within 24 hours.”
• Test your offers! I’ve mentioned this before, but testing is crucial to the success of your marketing.

A website’s job isn’t just to provide information. It must also persuade the right visitors to take the appropriate action. Here are some other suggestions to improve web conversions:

• You mention you are getting 2,500 visitors/month – are they the right visitors? General traffic is virtually useless. You need to attract the right types of people who are specifically looking for the information your site provides. If you don’t have web analytics software installed on your site, I highly recommend you sign up for Google Analytics and monitor the types of people coming to your site. Where are these people coming from? What information are they looking for? What keywords do they use? What pages are they clicking on? How long are they staying on your site?
• Give visitors a way to search your site. While some visitors like to browse websites, others will immediately look for a search box. You can provide a custom site search on your site with Google Custom Search Engine for about $100 per year.
• Make your reports more prominent. Don’t bury your best content deep within your site – promote it. Mention your free reports – or better yet, include pictures of the reports – on every page of your site, such as in a sidebar that boldly claims “Free Reports for Buyers” or “Free Reports for Sellers.”
• Stress the benefits of your free reports. When I visit your reports page, the promotional text describing the reports is tiny. Sell your reports – why are they so valuable? For each report, include a “Here’s what you’ll learn” header and 3-5 bullet points that stress the key benefits people will receive from reading these reports and why they are “must reads.”

Finally, to really make your site persuasive, you must also sell yourself. In your About Me section, stress the types of people you work with, specifically, and why prospects should choose you over all other agents.

I’ve covered in detail how to choose a target audience and create a unique selling proposition in other articles, so I won’t get into that here. I will say, however, that one of the best ways you can market yourself is to present yourself as an authority – a specialist – on your local real estate area.

Don’t just pick “anyone who might need my services in or around Chicago.”

It’s virtually impossible for you to effectively target all 9 million plus people who live in that metropolitan area. You just don’t have the budget.

Narrow your focus and specialize. The more specialized you are, the better the prospects you’ll attract. People want a specialist, not a jack of all trades.

Remember – marketing is about figuring out who you want to work with (your target audience) and then providing information about their biggest worries, concerns, and problems to grab their attention, keep them interested, and start building rapport and trust. Make sure they can find the content they need to make an informed decision by highlighting additional content they might find useful, and be sure to tell them repeatedly how to contact you.

I’ll close this series by going back to Mike’s original question. As a new agent, if I had $2500, how would I spend it?

1. I’d negotiate with the most successful agent in my office (or who I know) to mentor me for my first few weeks. If I had to pay them, I would probably budget 20-30 percent of my budget. I would also look for an agent to partner with so I could market our services as a “team” and thus boost my credibility and reduce risk in the eyes of prospects.
   
   
2. I’d spend considerable time talking to my target audience and learning the geographical area I chose to get the basics down. I’d then spend about 20 percent of my marketing budget creating marketing materials including:
   
   
   • Getting free/cheap business cards printed – maybe at VistaPrint or another online printing company.
     
     
   • Creating a quick web presence. – I’d spend $10 at GoDaddy for a domain name and would sign up for the Plus Package on Typepad ($8.95/month – or for more technical people, I’d recommend getting their own web host and setting up a WordPress blog, which would be about the same price) to create a few informational pages about myself and my services. I’d blog each day about what I learn about my target audience, my geographical area, and the key problems and concerns they’re having. I’d use my blog to organize my thoughts while starting to communicate with the blogosphere.
     
     
   • Writing a free report (or recording a free CD) directed at buyers in my target audience who were looking for a home in my geographical area. – I’d then spend $200-400 on Elance for an editor to proofread my report (that’s how I found my current copy editor, Monica, who I highly recommend!) and a graphic designer to format it so it looks nice and has an attractive cover (but I’d realize I couldn’t be too picky because I’m not paying for perfection).
     
     
   • Creating an e-newsletter. – I’d spend $20/month on Aweber so I could start building a list of newsletter subscribers. I’d place the Aweber subscription box on my Typepad blog and set up an Aweber autoresponder to deliver my free report whenever someone subscribed to my newsletter. I’d then start publishing a newsletter each week once I got at least one subscriber.
     
     
3. I’d spend 40-50 percent of my budget to advertise my free report. Keep in mind that $1000-1250 is a tiny ad budget, so I’d need to be extremely strategic. I’d research all local publications: real estate circulars, classifieds, local newspapers, etc., for their audience’s demographics (does my target audience read this?), ad rates, and what competitors are offering.
   
   
   • I’d first start testing my ad’s headline, offer, and landing page (the page people “land on” when they click my ad where I offer my free report if they sign up for my newsletter) on Google Adwords (If I knew nothing about Adwords, I’d buy one book – so not to overwhelm myself or waste my money – on Google Adwords to help me understand how it works. This free Stompernet video is also pretty good.)
     
     
   • Once I got my headline, offer and landing page down, I’d start advertising my report in local publications, again testing the results!
     
     
4. I’d then spend considerable time trying to get free advertising:
   • I’d send press releases about my free report and pitch articles to the press.
     
     
   • I’d go to organizations (Chamber of Commerce, churches, women’s groups, etc.) where my target audience participates and offer to give a talk or provide them free copies of my report for members. If I felt the organization was worthwhile, I might attend a few networking events. (I’d sign up for a free Highrise account to keep track of my contacts.)
     
     
   • I’d participate heavily in the blogosphere and on social media sites – both on real estate blogs and on blogs focused on my geographical area.
     
     
   • I’d consider podcasting (If I didn’t have the equipment, I might subscribe to AudioAcrobat for $20/month so I could record my talks by phone and then embed the code they give me into my TypePad blog.)
     
     
   • I’d talk with as many people as possible – preferably people in my target audience – but also people I know – to help me get those first few clients.
     
     
5. I’d spend the remainder of my budget on follow-up techniques: such as any offline correspondence, printing charges (for instance, if I need to print and mail my free report), postage and mailing supplies, etc.

As you can see, I’m taking an extremely thrifty guerilla marketing approach to this. What I don’t want to do is spend money frivolously, and I accept that if I don’t have the marketing budget to advertise heavily, I’m going to need to put in the work to make initial connections and build my prospecting list.

My primary goal is sales – not a fancy website or clever ad or cutesy postcard or slick letterhead – and it’s my job to stay focused on that goal above all else. That takes discipline and putting in a lot of long hours up front. As I figure out what works, start taking on more clients and build momentum, I can worry about upgrading the look of my marketing materials, but at the beginning that shouldn’t be my focus.

So, that’s what I would do. (This, of course, is only one of many, many ways to market a new business. You should choose the marketing tactics that work for you – and always be testing!) Agents, feel free to chime in – what other marketing tactics would you recommend to a new agent on the cheap?

Yesterday, I talked about the importance of nurturing your prospect list. Today, I’m going to shift gears and discuss what you need to do to build a referral-based business.

Last week, Mike asked me, “Where do you get the most bang for your buck in marketing?” Personally, I think there’s no question that it’s referral marketing. So why did I spend the last few days talking about building credibility, educating prospects, generating leads and following up consistently? Because when you’re starting out, those are the steps to building a referral-based business.

Most successful agents will tell you they get most of their clients through referral – and yet, a large portion of them spend considerable resources on prospecting and lead generation with only a small portion of their marketing budget going to cultivating referrals from past clients.

Initially, yes, you have to prospect because you need to build credibility and expertise. You need to learn the business cold, how to manage client expectations, and how to provide exceptional customer service. In other words, you need to get through The Dip (as Seth Godin calls it) – “the long slog between starting and mastery.”

Why Referral Marketing?

Most people erroneously believe that referral marketing doesn’t require much work. After all, if you do a great job, your clients should automatically refer people to you, right? If only that were true.

The truth is, creating a referral marketing system still requires all the basic principles of relationship marketing that I’ve previously talked about – except instead of focusing your attention on prospects, you create education-based marketing around past clients and continually follow up with a keep-in-touch strategy.

You might be asking – what could I possibly need to educate my past clients about? There’s always the local real estate market, local neighborhood events, or home improvement tips … but there’s also a great opportunity for you to promote other local businesses to start building a network of referral partners.

Once people move into a new home, there are quite a few things they might need: lawn care, landscaping, a swimming pool, new home additions, interior decorators, plumbers, electricians, and so on. You could easily interview any number of local business owners who would love exposure to your client list. With a bit of negotiation, you may even be able to get a referral fee from them for anyone who buys their services from your recommendation – thus giving you an added source of income.

Just as with prospecting, the more you follow up with clients and provide them with valuable information, the more likely you are to continue your relationship with them well after their home buying or selling process – and the more likely they’ll be to refer others to you.

How To Build a Referral Business

Building a referral-based business means you must focus on long term relationships rather than short term profits. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Decide who your ideal clients are. – This is incredibly important because you must be able to communicate what types of people you want to work with to others. If you simply ask for referrals, chances are, you’ll get referrals that aren’t a good fit for you or who won’t translate into business.
   
   
2. Fire (or refer out) any prospect or client that doesn’t meet your standards for an ideal client. – This can be difficult to do because no one likes to pass up work, but from a long-term perspective it’s essential. Bad clients are essentially psychic vampires – they consume as much of your resources as they can without giving you anything in return (aka referrals, positive recommendations, testimonials, or even a “thank you”). These types of clients might nickel-and-dime you, berate you for not doing something “their way,” complain about everything, or seem incapable of making a decision. In worst case scenarios, they demand so much of your attention that you don’t have time to provide exceptional customer service to those clients you like best – which doesn’t bode well for getting referrals in the long run, either.
   
   
3. Focus on delivering an exceptional customer experience worthy of talking about. – In order to create Sneezers, Raving Fans, and Customer Evangelists who spread the word about you to everyone they know, you must make it easy for them to talk about you. You must give them stories to tell where they’ll look “cool” to their friends and family while showcasing what great client service you provide.
   
   
4. Create incentives and make it easy for clients to refer business to you. – Give people a reason to refer business to you – such as by holding contests, offering free services with their vendor of choice (i.e. refer three clients and receive six months of lawn care), and holding client appreciation events.
   
   
5. Keep in touch consistently – Just like with prospects, following up is key. At minimum, you should add them to your newsletter, but also add bonus perks and personal correspondence that they’ll appreciate.

Creating a referral-based business can be extremely rewarding personally. It also costs less than prospecting because these people already know who you are, have worked with you, and know why working with you was an excellent choice. And having others tell your story, rather than you telling it, adds considerable credibility – you must be good if others are talking about you.

Tomorrow, I’ll give you a bonus sixth step – how I’d spend Mike’s $2500 budget as a new agent.

Most small-business owners (myself included) are guilty of not following up with all leads they generate. When leads pour in, it’s tempting to cherry pick the low hanging fruit while ignoring all the others who aren’t quite ready to hire you yet.

In yesterday’s post, I discussed how to create education-based marketing materials that your prospects will want to read. The purpose of creating those types of marketing materials is to get prospects to self-identify themselves as interested in what you have to offer by giving you their contact information and permission to follow up.

Let me be clear: Just because someone provides you with contact information in exchange for information doesn’t necessarily make them a lead – yet. (The same is true for most lead-generation services that charge you big bucks per “lead.”) Inquiries and registrations are not the same as “qualified leads.”

Yet what do people think to do? Call all those people who downloaded their free report and pitch their services. And often, those calls are a waste of time – worth just slightly more than cold calls.

So how can you weed out the low hanging fruit from those that aren’t yet ripe? One option is to ask them their timeframe for buying and provide a checkbox that states “Please contact me for a free consultation.” Those who say their timeframe is immediate or within 1-2 months and who request a free consultation are good candidates for “leads.” Everyone else probably falls into the category of “not yet ready to buy” and should go into your lead-nurturing system rather than tossed aside and forgotten.

What is Lead Nurturing?

Simply put, lead nurturing is what you do to keep in touch with people once they’ve given you permission to market to them. The best types of lead nurturing are systematized, automated or fall under your regularly scheduled marketing activities.

What does that mean? Well, if someone downloads a free report from your website, several things should happen:

• They are added to your email newsletter mailing list
• They receive a series of follow-up emails from you (generally these are autoresponders that are triggered when someone adds their email address to your mailing list).
• They receive offline follow-up such as sales letters, thank you notes, or other correspondence.

These follow-up emails, newsletters, and correspondence should be written in an informative way with the intent to get readers to engage with you. In other words, you don’t want them to just passively read it – you want to get them to do something because of it: like provide feedback, ask you a question, request other freebies, register for a seminar or workshop, visit a blog post, buy a product from you, give a testimonial or referral, or request a consultation with you.

The more people interact with the content you provide them, the more likely they are to see you as a trusted advisor who is a local real estate expert.

Why Bother with Lead Nurturing and Follow-Up?

There are a few reasons why you should put a lead-nurturing system into place:

• Nurturing leads is cheaper than prospecting – You spend considerable amounts of money trying to acquire leads – why throw them away because they aren’t quite yet ready to buy? Many will buy at some future time – and since you’ve already gotten their attention, gotten them to respond, and gotten them to allow you to follow up with them, why wouldn’t you spend a few cents each month sending them your email newsletter, your series of follow-up reports, and maybe invite them to a seminar down the road? That sure beats advertising or sending direct mail to people who have never heard of you and have no interest in what you offer in the hopes that someone, somewhere, might need a real estate agent.
  
  
• Nurturing reduces risk. When you sell a service, you’re selling something intangible. People don’t understand the value they’ll get until you’re actually working for them – and they’re hesitant to hire because it requires they make a decision. Which should they choose? What if they make a mistake? What if they can’t sell their house or can’t find a home in their price range? What if something goes wrong? What if they get ripped off?
  
  

  Prospects have a laundry list of fears they must overcome before they’ll hire someone and, to justify their decision, they’ll pick and choose evidence around them. They’ll look at how you sell your services, the quality of the information you provide, what your office looks like, how you dress, whether you tell them information that contradicts what they think they already know.
  
  

  When you continually follow up with them by offering them new information and interact with them via your newsletter, blogs, sales letters and other marketing materials, you start to build a relationship with them. As they get to know and trust you, working with you seems much less risky.
  
  

• Nurturing builds relationships and trust – The more people interact with you and your content, the more likely they are to get to know, like and trust you. People prefer to do business with those who understand their business needs and express a genuine concern for their well being rather than those who are looking to make a quick buck at their expense. As you follow up, show your personality, and continue to offer great advice, you become a trusted advisor – the person they will turn to for their real estate needs.
  
  
• Nurturing educates prospects – When prospects call you, you are at a disadvantage. Often these prospects have certain expectations about what a real estate agent should do for them – and in many cases, those expectations are misguided and run counter to what it takes to actually buy or sell a home. They might hear negative things from the media, or watch HGTV programs designed more to entertain than sell a home, or hear stories (good and bad) from their friends and family about what real estate agents did or didn’t do. When a prospect is in your nurturing system, you can re-educate them about what to expect. You can bring up issues they probably haven’t thought of and guide them through the process so when they’re ready to buy or sell, they already know the right way to go about it.
  
  

Your client list is your business’ most valuable asset. Your prospecting list is probably its second most valuable asset, as these people have a much greater potential to evolve into clients than the average person on the street.

Tomorrow I’ll conclude this series by addressing how you can generate leads with referral partners.

Yesterday, I discussed why agents should focus on creating education-based marketing materials that address prospects’ key problems and concerns rather than focusing on “getting their name out there.” In today’s article, I’ll talk about the best ways to generate leads using those education-based marketing materials – but first, let me again stress why education-based marketing is so important.

Marketing in the Attention Economy

Irrelevant advertising no longer works. Sure, back in the ’50s when there were only a handful of magazines, TV and radio channels, it was fairly easy to reach a broad audience and tell them virtually anything you wanted them to know. If you repeated your message enough or had a cute jingle accompanying your commercial, prospects would remember it and, hopefully, they’d buy because of it.

Unless you have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend, those tactics don’t work in today’s marketplace. Consumers are so bombarded with information they have to filter out things that aren’t relevant to survive. We live in an “always on” society, often called the attention economy, where there’s always something demanding our attention. If it’s not advertising from companies wanting us to pay attention, it’s our colleagues, family, and customers who want us to always be available for their call, email or instant message. Or the magazine, blog, and ezine publishers who want us to read more. Or the info-marketers who put out more books, audio, and video programs. Or the speakers who want us to come to their seminars. Or … you get the point.

There are so many things competing for our attention that many of us live in a continual state of information overload. We don’t need more information. We don’t need people telling us how wonderful they are or why we should buy their services. We don’t need more junk mail or spam or commercial breaks. Rather, we need ways to organize and make sense of information so that we can base our decisions on the good stuff and toss out the bad stuff. This is what people look for – and this is the type of advertising that grabs people’s attention enough for them to say “tell me more.”

Lead Generation Made Simple

OK, so now you’ve got a few articles, free reports or other goodies that contain valuable information that will help your prospects make sense of their chaotic world – how do you let them know about these gems? The answer is simple: Advertise in the publications that your target market is likely to engage with regularly.

This is common sense, yet so many agents are lured into advertising in publications that will be delivered to hundreds of thousands of readers or on billboards by the side of major highways or on the backs of shopping carts or in free circulars that have nothing to do with real estate. This is the equivalent of a hope-and-pray strategy: If they “get their name out” into enough places, eventually, someone looking for an agent will notice their ad while they’re out doing their day-to-day activities, write down their number or website, and contact them.

Rather than interrupt people while they’re engaged with other activities – and therefore, their No. 1 priority isn’t finding a real estate agent – why not put yourself in front of people already looking? For instance you could:

• Advertise in real estate circulars and classifieds (offline and online). – Most agent advertising looks very similar. For instance, imagine how your content-rich ad offering free reports would stand out prominently in free house ad circulars.
  
  
• Create a pay-per-click campaign on Google to specifically target searchers looking for homes in your area. – Pay-per-click advertising is a great way to test your offers and headlines quickly and cheaply before you run your ad in offline publications. For instance, you can run two ads that differ only by the headline and see which ad gets more clicks. The one that does better is your winner.

In addition, you can get plenty of free (or cheap) advertising if you’re willing to put in a bit more time and effort by:

• Writing a real estate column for a local publication your target audience reads.
• Creating an informative website about your local real estate market or writing for a popular local blog or online publication.
• Giving talks about the local real estate marketing or aspects of buying or selling a home to local organizations that are likely to include members of your target audience. If you don’t like public speaking, offer free reports or recorded CDs for them to distribute to their members.
• Sending press releases to local newspaper writers describing local market conditions or announcing your new free report that would be beneficial to their readers.
• Networking at events your target audience or potential referral partners are likely to attend. When you have education-based marketing materials, you always have a reason to follow up with “Here’s the guide I mentioned I’d send you. Let me know what you think or if you have questions.”

With each of these options, you should get a brief author byline to explain who you are and what you do, how interested prospects can get your free report, and how they can contact you.

So, what’s the point of all of this? The point is to get prospects to raise their hand and tell you they’re interested by giving you permission to continue contacting them in exchange for the valuable information and advice you provide. In other words, attention is the currency and over the course of several exchanges, you start to build a relationship with prospects. Your goal is to give content to get attention, which leads to prospects getting to know, like and trust you, which leads to more educated, easy-to-work-with clients and more referrals.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk more about how following up is the secret to closing more sales.

General common sense dictates that your marketing materials should tell prospects who you are, what you do and what you’ve accomplished. If you pick up any ad, mailer, or other promotional material, chances are you’ll read about the agent’s accomplishments, sales background and history, or awards they’ve won. Yet this is exactly the opposite of what works in advertising.

The problem with this approach is that it focuses on boosting the agent’s ego rather than addressing their prospects’ problems, fears and concerns. Agents love to see their name and picture on billboards around town, or create a glossy, full-color brochure they can hand out, or design a website with lots of bells and whistles.

Yet, the truth is, much of these types of marketing materials are a waste of money. Your prospects don’t wake up in the morning and wonder who will give them a beautiful brochure or clever postcard today. They don’t start their day wishing they could learn more about the multitude of vendors competing for their attention. Rather, they are focused on their own problems and concerns and tend to notice things that speak directly to those issues.

The best marketing materials are written by putting yourself in your prospect’s shoes and asking: “If I was this person, what, specifically, would I be going through? Where would my biggest problem or pain lie? What would I be feeling?” The marketing piece would then be written to that person, describing in detail the problems he faces, the frustrations he feels, and finally, how to solve or alleviate those problems.

Marketing isn’t about being creative, but understanding your prospects’ psychology. If your marketing materials can describe their problems better than they can, show that you understand their pain, demonstrate that you’ve helped people just like them and offer them step-by-step solutions to those problems, you’ll have a much greater chance of winning their trust and building credibility with them.

So, how do you create these types of marketing materials?

Step 1: Identify your target audience. It’s impossible to write a letter, ad, or promotion that appeals to everyone, so pick the types of people who are most likely to need your services and write directly to them.

Step 2: Learn what issues are most important to your target audience. What questions come up repeatedly when you talk with prospects? What do they feel are their biggest problems and concerns? Put yourself in your prospect’s head and empathize with them – what are they going through right now? What do they think (maybe erroneously or irrationally)? How do they feel?

Step 3: Create marketing materials that educate prospects about their problems rather than who you are and what you do. If you were looking to sell your home, which offer would be more appealing to you?

• Offer A: Call now for your free home evaluation.
• Offer B: Visit our website to download our free 25-page report on the “Top 21 Ways to Sell Your Philadelphia Condo Fast for Top Dollar in a Down Market.”

Chances are, prospects would be much more likely to choose Offer B because:

• It’s highly targeted. It talks specifically to Philadelphia condo owners who are thinking of selling.
  
  
• It’s specific. It tells people exactly what they’ll get – a free 25-page report with 21 tips for selling a condo in Philadelphia.
  
  
• It’s focused on your prospect, not you. It speaks directly to a problem prospects are having right now – they want to sell their condo in a down market and still get as much money as possible for it – rather than appealing to the agent’s ego.
  
  
• It offers something unique. Many agents offer a “free home evaluation” – so that offer has become somewhat of a commodity. It’s not unique or special. When you offer a unique report with specific information, they must order it from you if they want that information, and by default, if they find the information you offer valuable, you’ll build credibility in their eyes because you’re the only one providing this great information.
  
  
• It provides a sample of your service. Services are intangible, so it’s difficult for prospects to evaluate which agent will provide them with the best services over the course of the next few months. When you offer a free report with great content, you’re giving them a sample of the advice they’ll receive if they hire you. The better the content in your report, the more credibility you’ll build because prospects will think, “If this agent is providing this great content to me for free, I wonder what great advice they’ll give me when I hire them.”
  
  
• It allows prospects to interact with you at their pace. “Call now” immediately invokes thoughts of sitting through a high pressure sales pitch where the salesman will say and do anything to get their business. Asking prospects to “visit our website” is much less risky because it allows prospects to research you and your solutions on their time and at their pace.

By providing education-based marketing materials, you give people a reason to raise their hands and tell you they’re interested. You also demonstrate you understand their problems and concerns, while giving them a way to learn more about you and your services at their leisure and in a less-risky way than a sales call.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss cost-effective ways to generate leads using these education-based marketing materials.

Building credibility and expertise as a new agent is somewhat of a chicken or egg dilemma. You need clients to gain credibility and expertise, yet clients won’t hire you unless you already have that credibility and expertise. What is a new agent to do?

When your prospects analyze which agent to hire, they also weigh in risk – and hiring a brand new real estate agent who has only worked with one or two people is incredibly risky, especially in a down market. What if problems come up or you make a mistake that prevents them from buying the house they want? What if you don’t know about marketing techniques other agents are using? What if you fill out the forms wrong or any number of things that might possibly go wrong?

There are a couple of ways to overcome these fears:

1. Get testimonials – If you have worked with some clients, ask them for a testimonial. Testimonials act as social proof that you can do your job – and that you’ve successfully helped others with similar concerns.
   
   
2. Use client stories and case studies – Along with testimonials, use client stories to further boost your credibility. When prospects ask you a specific question, tell them a story of how your previous client had that similar problem and the steps you took to solve it.
   
   

These two techniques should be fundamental components of any marketing campaign, and as you work with more people, you should always look to collect testimonials and case studies to demonstrate your credibility.

But what if you haven’t gotten your first client yet?

You can still start gaining experience by partnering with more-experienced agents:

1. Apprentice with an experienced agent – Ask the busier agents in your office (or your broker) if you can go along with them on appointments for a period of time so you can learn the ropes. Keep in mind – if they agree to this, they are doing you a favor, so make it worth their time. Negotiate tasks you can do for them in exchange for the hours they mentor you – or even offer to pay them for their time. The hands-on experience you’ll receive is invaluable and one of the best ways to start learning the tricks of the business. It will also provide you with a few client stories you can use when marketing your services.
   
   
2. Partner with an experienced agent – Most agents are always looking for new business opportunities, so many may be open to partnering with you for your first few clients. Again, they are doing you a favor, so make this worth the agent’s time. Offer to do all the grunt work – generating leads, driving buyers around to show houses, etc. – as well as a portion of your commission if they can help you with the logistics of the transaction like negotiations, paperwork, and any problems that come up. In other words, you’ll do virtually all of the work and still pay them a nice fee to back you up and offer their credibility and expertise. This can go a long way to help reduce risk in the eyes of your prospect.
   
   

The goal with both of these options is to get you up-to-speed on your local real estate market and how real estate transactions are done as quickly as possible. These are the basics that you need to know cold to stay in business and compete in today’s real estate market. Without this fundamental knowledge, any advertising and marketing you might do to promote yourself is pretty much a waste of money because you won’t be able to close the sale.

On Monday, I’ll talk of another way you can demonstrate your credibility by creating education-based marketing materials that prospects will want to read.