One thing that agents need help with ...?
Back to basics. Top Performer Qualities. Four stage valuation process.
Business generation. Sales process. Lettings Process. Best use of portals. Goal setting?
None of those. Not yet!
Or this, perhaps?
Overcoming objections. Best closing techniques. Content marketing. Get higher fees. Negotiation.
Buyer qualification. Persuasive particulars. Open House. Alternative pricing options?
Nope! Not until...
How to engage on the meeting. Persuasive valuation. Get through more doors.
First in, or last in? The right words to use. First impressions. Your secret weapon.
No thank you - no help needed, yet!
How to turn setbacks into opportunities. Mastermind groups. Mindset matters. And, last but by no means least, scripts, videos & tools to improve?
At the risk of repeating myself, no to all of that. Not just yet!
Just a few of the 'training courses' offered by some of the estate agency 'trainers'.
I've said it before. Here it is again:
Coaches enrich themselves, even when realtors/agents are badly led.
They've had their fee. Providing, mainly theoretical coaching to a group of agents that aren't always aware of the alternatives. Hardly surprising then, that a large percentage of agents that attend, never execute on the 'training'.
I know of no real estate coach that provides training in the ONE THING that is required above all else.
The one thing that, if it's not in place, will render everything else the agent has learned from the 'coach' redundant.
Let me lay this out for you, nice and simple.
Gary Vaynerchuk had this to say of the internet:
"the world is not going backwards. Technology and innovation doesn't care about how you want it to be. You, must become a practitioner in communications, because what the internet is doing, my friends, it is commoditizing everything, BUT, the ability to communicate".
Commoditizing EVERYTHING.
Insurance, books, travel, cars, music. Everything, including your real estate agency business.
Everything - BUT the ability to communicate.
That internet is littered with people who imagine they have the ability to communicate.
Just like those estate agency trainers that seduce with the long list of 'services' mentioned at the very start of this post, there are social media managers, Facebook gurus, LinkedIn marketers, YouTube specialist creators, email marketers and TV ad managers that will be only too happy to sell you some form of communication.
Witness the naivety of some of the corporate agencies with deeper pockets than your average realtor/agent.
The cost of acquisition per vendor, for some, has been £12,000.
In 2015, the ill-feted online U.K estate agency, Homeseller.com, ran ads on prime time television. Resulting in an increase of listings from sixteen to just thirty six, some seven months later.
The equally ill-feted original eMoov, another U.K online agency, interestingly with a close family connection to Homeseller.com, splashed the cash, large amounts of it, on T.V and suffered a similar fate.
PurpleBricks, YOPA, Savills, House Network, Nested, YourMove and many more appear in thrall to the reach of television ads.
Each and every one of them oblivious to the ONE THING, fundamental to success in business.
Attention.
They all needed attention.
What they got back from viewers was not attention, but awareness.
Def: Attention: a selective narrowing or focusing of consciousness and receptivity.
Def: Awareness: a general alertness, though often a diffuse condition with less depth.
Attention is the ONE THING that every estate agency/realtor needs.
And the one thing missing from their marketing.
The old-fashioned A-I-D-A (Attention-Interest-Desire-Action) acronym still rings true but, in this fast-paced tech world, Attention has been substituted with Awareness.
Obsessive for social approval, we are promised more shares, more page views, more clicks, more likes. More awareness.
Brand awareness is fast becoming 'The Emperor's New Clothes'.
Pride prevents us from admitting that it's not working.
What works is attention - 'a selective narrowing, or focusing of receptivity'.
Someone who truly cares about You, and your beliefs.
I would rather have one person truly give me their attention than 1,000 people be simply aware of what I say.
Take a look around LinkedIn and other social media platforms.
Estate agents, uncomfortable front-of-camera, trying to sound informative.
Their YouTube videos fast disappearing in the 500 hours of video content, now uploaded, every minute.
Eleven views and two likes. If they're lucky!
Pictures of yet another listing that will, no doubt, get likes but not many inquiries.
The 'Verified' Five Star Review from yet another satisfied client.
Do people still believe these fairy-tale review sites?
Everyone post quickly scrolled past or read/viewed with 'less depth'.
So, how to get attention?
Have something interesting to say. Simple as that.
We have a deluge of information throughout every minute of our hectic lives.
We switch off, for the most part, those things that annoy us, bore us, or for which we have indifference.
It's a one-hit wonder, often, when we are motivated to like a post.
The answer for businesses looking to truly connect is to stop force-feeding dross to a potential audience.
Anyone can create content that achieves awareness.
Not everyone can captivate someone and compel them to action.
That's where estate agents need help.
Right at the start.
Helping them build an audience that holds attention. Gives permission. Engages and, when they get to know you,one that trusts.
I'm not trying to argue against the estate agency trainer's offering. I'm trying to argue for them to change.
For them to stop selling something that won't work. Until the foundations of any successful agency are put in place.
Attention.
Your real estate agency is built on that ONE THING.
If you don't have that in place, you're simply adding to the 'noise' and confirming what most consumers perceive you to be - just another realtor, estate agent. Hustling for their worth.
Trainers that focus on communication are on the right track. But sadly, too many are influenced by the social media 'gurus' that claim we should worship at the altar that is Facebook.
"35.4% of the UK population has a Facebook account. That's 33 million users." - Ashdown Jones Estate Agents.
When I last checked, the UK population was given as 66.3 million. So, 35% equates to 23 million users - not 33 million.
"Now that we've established that your target market are probably on Facebook...."
Here's the thing. You can't establish something with a falsehood. Even if it suits your purpose.
All you can do is mislead and misinform.
That's just one example of the myths and downright lies surrounding social media.
Knowing who to trust is becoming ever harder.
"That's the warning sign...when the rationale/logic/story happens after you've decided what you want to do, not before. This relentless re-framing of the truth into something else causes us to not ask the right questions, it prevents us from understanding our options and from making smart choices. In a culture where con-men, hucksters and others desperately seeking power and influence have decided that they can profit from making the truth seem relative, we're in danger of every day becoming April 1st." - Seth Godin.
So with estate agency.
In the race for attention, it's easy to target a lie to those most susceptible.
And many agents deliberately do just that.
That's what you're up against.
The ONE THING that protects your agency against the lies and misinformation is your personal brand.
Who you are and how you communicate your values and beliefs to your audience.
It makes your agency bullet-proof.
Until you have that - you are always vulnerable.
I hope that the Tom Ferry's,, Grant Cardone's, Steven Brown's and Richard Rawling's of this world start to focus on that ONE THING.
How best for their clients to communicate.
The one thing that agents need help with!
Thanks, as always, for reading.
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Any questions, or comments, however opinionated, are very welcome. I won't bite:)
Stay safe as always until this pandemic is over.
Chris.
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