A Fresh Approach to Real Estate Rookie-hood with Jennifer Allan: October 2007

I love SOI*. It's my thing... it's my passion. I think every self-employed salesperson oughta include a little SOI in their arsenal. Or a lot. During my real estate days, my business was nearly 100% SOI with a few random floor calls, walk-ins and web leads tossed in as gravy.

But if you're gonna SOI, you better do it right! Not everyone does. In fact, most don't. Not because they're stupid or incompetent or insensitive, not at all! Rather, because most salespeople have never been shown the right way to do it. When done right, an SOI business model actually changes the way the salesperson views his business ... and his world.

Most experienced real estate salespeople claim to embrace an SOI philosophy. They support the idea of generating business and referrals from the people they know. But the reality is that the vast majority of real estate agents fail miserably in their SOI efforts. Even worse, they manage to alienate many of their friends and family members along the way!

And then they proclaim that "SOI is a lousy way to run a business!"

Well, they're wrong. And, they're right. They're wrong that an SOI strategy is a poor business model, but they're right that it was a lousy business model for them. Because they didn't understand how to do it right.

If you're gonna SOI, you better do it right. If you're gonna do it wrong, don't do it at all. The personal relationships in your life are far too important to risk!

21 Ways to Blow it with Your SOI

1. Ask a friend to lunch and give her your sales pitch (every time)
2. Call your friends on the first Monday of every month and ask if they have any referrals for you.
3. If they don't, ask them why not.
4. Angrily (or tearfully) confront your friends and family if they use another real estate agent
5. Take on business you aren't qualified to handle
6. Send your friends weekly emailed newsletters of your listings
7. Blow off your friend's housewarming party, but expect her to be loyal to you
8. Attend your friend's housewarming party and sales-pitch everyone to death
9. Tell everyone you know how lousy the real estate market is
10. Tell everyone you know how overwhelmed you are
11. Tell everyone you know how depressed you are about your real estate business
12. Send out an announcement letter with typo's and misspellings
13. Send your friends frequent "forward this on for good luck or else" mass emails
14. Pepper your language with four-letter words
15. Borrow money or books or tools or whatever and don't return them in a timely manner
16. Don't return social phone calls or RSVP's
17. Try to hijack referral fees from your family's pre-existing real estate relationships
18. Ignore your SOI in favor of mass-advertising projects (then get your feelings hurt when they use someone else)
19. Contact your friends only when you're looking for business
20. Offer bribes to your friends for referrals
21. Sell real estate "on the side"

*An "SOI" (sphere of influence) business strategy means to generate business and referrals from the people who know you.

To Read About "Doing SOI Right", check out these blogs:
The Jake Series
Are You Tired of Pestering Strangers for Business?
What's the Best Way to Ask for Referrals? Don't.
SOI and the Single Gal

www.sellwithsoul.com

MYTH #3: You Have to Pester (er, Cold Call) Strangers to Build a Successful Business

Some people have it, some don't. The desire and willingness to cold call, door knock and network, that is. I'll bet many competent future real estate agents have been deterred from their calling, thinking that they had to spend their lives bothering people to get their business. Not true! I am living proof of that and so are countless other successful real estate agents.

Strangers are probably not your best source of business anyway. Many real estate agents primarily prospect to strangers with newspaper advertising, web placement, bus bench ads, even billboards, but these self-promotion techniques are expensive. I've found that the agents who attribute their success to these techniques are the ones who could not pay the bills relying on a referral-based model. In other words, they don't get many referrals! Possibly because they are spending most of their time and energy on massive marketing projects rather than focusing on doing a good job for the clients they already have.

I've known many agents who operate this way. Their marketing efforts are legendary. They blanket their farm area with thousands of postcards, harass every expired listing, advertise on the radio and TV and pay big bucks for top placement on search engines. And they do get a lot of business, so I guess you could say these efforts are successful. But that's not the way I'd want to build my business.

(If the above sounds good to you, see if you can get a refund for this book. It won't be much use to you.)

It doesn't have to be that way. You can build a successful business on a combination of referrals and warm prospecting, which we'll discuss in depth later. Just know that if the thought of making a hundred phone calls a day asking the poor sap who answers the phone if he "knows anyone who's thinking of buying or selling real estate?" leaves you cold, don't for a minute think that you can't be as successful as you want to be.

Tomorrow... Myth #4

The 7 Myths of a Real Estate Career
  Your Love of People Will Make you a Successful Real Estate Agent
  Your Love of Houses Will Make You a Successful Real Estate Agent
  You Have to Pester (er, Cold Call) Strangers to Build a Successful Business
  Your Job Is to Drive Buyers Around and Hold Open Houses
  You Will Work Every Weekend
  Real Estate Is a Team Sport
  You Shouldn't Ever Discount Your Fee

* due to heightened self-imposed stress due to participation in the NAR Convention, I am blogging with material from my book until the end of October (unless something absolutely brilliant strikes me that I MUST write about).

copyright Jennifer Allan 2007

Yep, that means exactly what you think it means. If you are not a good real estate agent, get out of the business now before you spend one more dime or dollar on your personal marketing or MLS dues. Give your overpriced listings to someone else who will price them right and market them intelligently. (That way you might actually see a few dollars from your efforts down the line when the referral fee comes due after closing.)

Gone (for now) are the days where being a good real estate agent meant you were a Good Prospector. NO ONE IS IMPRESSED with your listing inventory or even with the number of marginally-qualified buyers you're driving around.

All that matters are closings.

And you know what? You don't create closings with expert real estate prospecting. You create closings with expert real estate advising.

I don't care how good of a salesperson you are, you cannot sell a house to anyone. You cannot sell a house for anyone. Your new job description is to use the brain and creativity God gave you to best advise and serve your client.

If you don't know how to sell a house, other than to plop it in the MLS, create a brochure and put a sign in the yard (and oh, yes, enter it on Craigslist), then you have no business tying up a seller's valuable marketing time and energy.

Let a GOOD agent handle the listing... one who:

• Knows how to properly price a home and absolutely refuses to overprice

• Has the balls to be direct with sellers about any obstacles to sale and insist that they be corrected or priced for

• Has the manpower connections to help the seller prepare his home and/or get through inspection.

• Is willing to risk upsetting a seller by insisting that he allow short-notice showings and that he vacate the house during showings

• Knows how to take good digital photos and post them online

• Knows how to explain the marketing process to the seller so that the seller feels involved, committed and included (and therefore cooperative!)

• Keeps the seller updated on local market activity and trends

• Ensures that the brochure box is always full OR pulls the damn box off the sign

• Ensures that the key works in the lock and doesn't accept the excuse that "there's a trick to it"

• Is pleasant, respectful and responsive to buyer agents who express interest or have questions.

• Is a respectful, creative and effective negotiator

• Insists on a home staging consultation

• Offers 7 day/week showing service

• CARES almost as much about selling that home as the seller himself

(Feel free to add to this list...)

THE PUBLIC DESPERATELY NEEDS US RIGHT NOW. It's not all about us and our needs. Our clients need us to do our jobs exceptionally well to give all those FOR SALE signs a chance to be SOLDs. If and when that happens, the perception could possibly turn this mess around. WE OWE IT TO OUR ADORING FANS!!

copyright Jennifer Allan 2007