The Phone Awaits

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Not many people work the phone harder than Jerry Maguire. We do live in a cynical world, and we do work in a business with tough competitors.  Phone calls are a big part of it.

Is your Android staring at you?  Does the iPhone mock you?  "I dare you to make a call!" - you might hear that smart phone making fun of you.  No matter the experience level, sales professionals all struggle with making calls routinely. Some days it's easy; many days it is a challenge.  Whether you call it  "The Hour of Power," "Dialing for Dollars" or "A Core Workout" - consider these tips to keep you on track:

• Be Organized: have your database open, phone numbers handy, and be ready to take notes.
• Define the Purpose: every call has a reason, know what yours is by writing it down before making the call. 
• Timer: you're working and time is money.  Try to keep most calls to 5 minutes or less. Be friendly and efficient.   
• Energy: schedule the daily call session at a time when you are normally energetic.  Take a quick walk, stretch a bit, and a few deep breaths before you start to raise your energy level. However, don't pant - that freaks people out on the receiving end :) 
• Visualize: before you dial, visualize your contact and imagine a very successful call. See it in your mind, grasshopper. Really, it's powerful. 
• Transfer feeling:  make your contact feel valued, appreciated, and important.  You know everyone wears a sign that says, "Make me feel special." Maybe you won't get a business result, but we can't go wrong by making someone's day. 
• Keep balanced: work your way up to ten calls daily, usually in sixty minutes.  When you reach that level, keep it there.  Rather than burning out in a few maximum sessions, finish with a little gas in the tank.  Better to have enthusiasm for the next session than exhausting the dialing fingers in one major event. 

Ready for Video

Video search is becoming a key component of the Internet experience.  Hopefully you can capture video with either your smart phone, tablet, or digital camera.  Then its a matter of posting to your choice of hosting sites like YouTube or Vimeo.  Once we have the technology down, you may crash into a wall called "Content."   To help you get off the mark and into action, here are some suggestions for developing your content:

Think like Your Audience:  we often get stumped on our own perspective.  What's critical is to answer the question, "What does my audience want to watch?"  Survey past clients in your daily prospecting, make it a point of conversation at open houses,  and chat it up at your next event.  You will quickly develop a list of ideas.

Imagine the Screen:  Instead of getting nervous in front of camera or mumbling your lines, give some thought to what's going onto the screen.  Imagine what images and backgrounds you want.  Position your self in the center, to the right or come in from an angle - give it some consideration before you start filming.

Plan It:  The story board is where directors plot out their work.  You don't want too many scenes (leads to more editing work), but draw a few out to visualize your film before you create it.

Someone Else:  Some of you just are not eager to be in front of the camera.  Good news!  You don't have to be the star of the show.  Put out great video content with other people as the celebrities.  Here are two key sources -

Endorsements: Past clients and others who have worked with you professionally can make strong leads. Let them tell the world what's great about working with you, how their real estate story unfolded, and what to expect from your service approach.

Love Your Network:  No - not NBC, CBS, or ESPN.  Your network.  Your vendor team, reps from your charity, and local civic officials can all make great interviews.  Consider pulling in the town planner to describe the next road expansion, a small town mayor to promote the new park, or your non-profit friend to tell us about their work.

Keep at it, and get that video going!  I look forward to watching your channel.

Ready for Video?

Ready for your screen test?  From what I have seen lately, many Realtors are camera shy while a small group is off and running with their own video productions.  Recording in front of a just sold, interviewing with clients, and  reporting from talking heads characterize the early round of video among work by real estate agents.   I even know of an agent who routinely films an update while she is driving around her market (not sure I recommend that approach without an insurance bump).

Nevertheless, it is time for all of us to jump in to film.  Get out your smart phone and start the digital tape rolling.  Here are a few key tips to launch you on your way.

• Get comfortable with the video features of your smart phone.  Don't have one?  Get one.  Practice filming, take samples, make mistakes.  No one gets it right the first time.  
• Plan your creation: just remember that any effort that includes more than one shot will require editing.  Editing creates better productions, but it will add more time to your effort. My time on today's video was three minutes planning, two minutes filming, four minutes to post on YouTube, and a final two minutes to login and capture the link: 11 minute project.   (We used an iPhone to film)  
• Think small: 30-90 second clips are ideal for Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts.  
• Develop a list of topics:  What would make a good video message for your audience?  Instead of thinking I need to make a video, be more specific.  Example? A video with a short interview of the HOA president would be an engaging post for your neighborhood farm.

Above all, don't wait.  Experiment, create, dabble, and make video creation a regular part of your marketing efforts.   Share your work, get feedback, and let's see your next production. Look that camera right in the lense and make something special.  Props to cinematographer Zach Schabot for work on today's shoot.  Action!

How Do You Measure THAT!?

There's an old saying, "What gets measured, gets done."  That's a simple way of pointing to the importance of accountability in our work and efforts.  Lately, I have been pondering social media and how to measure it.  Facebook posts and Twitter tweets are out front in real estate marketing right now.  I support it, encourage it, and practice it.  

Go to a seminar on social media, and ask this question: "How do we know when we've been successful?" When I have asked that question, I haven't been satisfied with the answers.  As a leader and a coach, I place a premium on measurable results.  In our industry, closed transaction count is a matrix that quickly rises to the top.  Is there a magic ratio of Facebook posts to closed sides? Tweets per pendings?  I haven't found it yet, but maybe we can discover it.  I am confident the quality of the posts also impacts the result.

Not all important results are numerically measurable, but I did find a great article in the Harvard Business Review that addresses measuring the impact of social media.   From that article, here are two questions to gauge your work when writing your posts:

• What is the value of this post to the reader?
• What action do I want them to take? 

Brian Sollis, the author, goes on to redefine the old acronym: K.I.S.S.  You probably know that stands for "keep it simple, stupid."  He brings a fresh spin: 

Keep it significant and shareable.

Significance requires that we are thinking and engaged.  Sometime I sit down to Facebook and realize, "I've got nothin'!"  No ideas, no responses, no interest.  I find that significance develops when I am taking in truly valuable information on a steady basis, kind of like good eating habits.  I need the vegetables of reading: short stories from the New Yorker,  business books by thoughtful leaders, blog posts from online gurus, great fiction to explore human relationships, poetry to stir my heart, and spiritual reading to strengthen my soul.  Not everyone's a reader, but we all need the nutrients that come from theses sources written, video, or audio.  When I have fed my mind well, then I have something significant to say.

"Shareable" strikes me as a trendy, but important, term.  We are all after the viral impact.  How can I develop content that motivates others to pass it along to their networks?  Last week, I hit a milestone.  I was excited to log in to my Twitter account and find that I had been re-tweeted; by someone I didn't even know!  On a personal level, I thought, "I'm important!"  On an objective level, I hit the level of relevance: My message on Twitter made an impact deep enough that the reader thought it important to share with his network.  

Engaging in social media with consistency is the first step to successful online marketing.  But there's more.  Consider what you want to accomplish, how you can make it shareable, and what action you desire for the readers to take.   While we continue to explore for more precise measures, I recommend that you measure the following:

• Frequency of Posts: My current measure are two posts every business day
• Relevance:  After writing, I ask, "Who wants to know this?"  Does this reflect my target audience or a sub group of that audience? 
• Reaction: did I get a response, comment, share, like, or re-tweet?

There's a lot more to learn,and I plan to dig in deeper with Solis' book, Engage!.

Improve Your FaceBook

Here are some resources that you may want to consider. One is the podcast, Big Mouth Marketing, available from Sharper Agent. It’s available online or through free download using iTunes. Click here for the link. Each week they post a different interview with very relevant real estate marketing information. This morning, I listened to a terrific interview with national real estate trainer, Stefan Swanepoel. He provided three simple and effective tips for our online social marketing. Here are his points with my expansion and applications:

1. Give more than you take: make sure than what you are posting is more about helping others achieve their objectives than it is about you achieving yours. How often do you go on FaceBook and simply comment on the posts of others rather than promoting your newest listing?

2. Be careful: remember that what you post can be shared well beyond your intended audience, especially on Twitter. It is important to acknowledge the ongoing conversation posts rather than jump in as Mr. or Mrs. Expert-on-the-subject.

3. Build Relationships: Imagine making a new contact at a social event and immediately launching into a series of prospecting questions. Not cool. It’s not cool in online social environments either. Build the relationship and the business will follow. Become a person of value in your online community, not the bill board of real estate.