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Video Notes/Transcript
00:00 Introduction and Session Overview: Samantha McLean
00:49 A World of Consumerism
We live in a world of consumerism, and consumerism basically says, “Make it easy for me to say yes.” That’s what consumerism is. Agent 1.0 in the old days was, “I have the information, and I can control that information so you have to believe me.” Agent what I call 3.0 now is, “The consumer has the information, and they know as much as the agent.” Our new book’s coming out on May 22nd, which is just being finalized. It’s called There are No Blind Dates in Real Estate. I love that term because I actually think to myself, “Consumers know more about you than you know about them.” Now there’s social proof who actually sells the most amount of real estate, and it’s done with the press of a button. In the old days, it used to be done by people following sign boards, but today people can actually get on the realestate.com site under Just Sell section and control who sold what for how much in an instant.
01:59 Personal Branding
What I think is the most important thing that you can do is concentrate on your personal brand. I’ve got to tell you one of my strategic goals. It has been from the first day I worked in publishing, was Tom Panos PTY LTD. It’s no … The truth is the reason I’ve got so many people on my database and the reason I’ve got so many profiles, it’s not an accident. This has been a set down strategy from day one that you’ve got to understand, you’ve got to be the CEO of your own brand. I just want to show you with brands, your brand is made up of three things. You’ve got what I call the traditional, the digital, and the social.
02:55 Traditional Interview
The traditional brand, the traditional brand is sign boards. That’s traditional. Letterbox drops? That’s traditional. Your local newspaper? Traditional. All these things are touch points that are telling people in the area that you are in real estate. That was the game for the last 20 years, then Google changed it. Google came along and they created what I call now … You’ve got traditional, and every footprint has got what I call a traditional interview.
03:36 Digital Interview
When they’re interviewing, they interview you traditionally, then they do the digital interview which Steve Carroll already spoke about at REA. I’ve just got to tell you the most important thing that you’ve got to do to win the digital interview is have a kick ass video. When I say a kick ass video, I’m talking about a video that is done by a company that is so seductive to a consumer that the person says … Because look. We did a session this morning. We had a person that wrote six million dollars in fees and D’Leanne Lewis, who writes roughly about half that, and they said they don’t sell hard because their pre-list stuff does that for them. They said that this morning at a training event that I was interviewing them at. The video does the selling.
Just picture this incredible video that is sent out before you go to the listing appointment where for 60 seconds, they just hear about what you do and how you do it. If you haven’t done it, I would turn around and I would look at Gavin Rubinstein’s previous video. Gavin Rubinstein’s one of my clients now. 27 years of age that writes two and a half million dollars in gross commission income, and success leaves clues, right? Success leaves clues.
Is that we pretty much know if you Google your name and the words real estate, 99% of the times your realestate.com profile comes up. It pretty much says that that will be the first thing the consumer’s going to look at. Man, it is so easy to complete your agent profile. If you haven’t done it, stock standard easy. I do realize that there can be some from franchise restrictions that, you know, prohibit you to get it done than some other people who don’t have those restrictions, but you’ve got to get on top of that. That’s a 20 minute job, by the way, to do your profile. Easy.
05:38 Have a Personal Website
I’m also, and franchise owners hate me saying it, but I’ve got to tell you I’m a big believer in agents having personal websites. The truth is that if you’re running your own personal brand, you should have in one area where all the information’s there. All your just-sells, all your just-listeds, your testimonials, your integration of your social media, your video, because this integrated mobile-friendly site actually helps you in SEO, but it also means that you have control.
When you send something out to a prospective vendor, they’re getting the URL that you send them which should be your name. So what’s your full name? BenMunroSmith.com.au, if it’s available. That should be it. Now I can pretty much tell you, you can get this all made up for about two to three grand. These things here are so easy now. WordPress sites, simple, you know? They’re cheap. Personal website, mobile friendly, everything including a rock star video. That’s how to win the digital interview.
06:49 Social Interview
Social interview. Social interview is about what people say about you when you’re not there. In the past, it used to happen where they used to talk about it over the back of fences. They used to talk about it at cafes. They used to talk about it at football practice. Now what we’re seeing increasingly is that this chatter between friends seems to happen between social media messages that are both on timelines and private messages. All of the sudden, social becomes important.
One of my clients, 140 sales, a million dollar agent from St. Marys. I was talking to him yesterday, and he said to me, “Tom, I’m off to a listing presentation.” I said, “Peter, where’d you get it from?” He said, “Facebook.” I said, “Explain to me.” He said, “Mate, exactly what you’ve taught us in real estate gym. Get a vendor to put a message that you just sold their house and they were happy with you, and get them to tag you.” That process alone has told all their friends that Peter is a great real estate agent. That process, when they tag you, tells all your friends and all your likes that you’re a great real estate agent.
What we’re seeing now is that you’ve got a traditional footprint, a digital footprint, and a social footprint, and one of your jobs as an agent is to control this. Marketing is about getting noticed. Sales is about closing. Remember that concept. You won’t be sitting at a table closing a listing if you don’t get noticed to be at the table. This is very important to understand, because I’d like you to know that one of your jobs in real estate is to be doing everything you can to be getting called out.
08:33 Constantly chasing, building customer relationship
You guys right now in the stage of your life, I’ve got to tell you just hustle. Just chase, chase, chase, just chase, chase, chase, and what I mean by that, call people.
Now, let’s do an analysis of that phone call. I find out what price he wants, 8 to 900, because I’ve been sounding him out. I find out why has he called me at this time, because what I want to find out is this. Is he an immediate seller appointment, or is he a future seller appointment? An immediate seller appointment means it’s game on. He’s selling. I’ve got to go in there and do a listing presentation, and I have to beat other agents to this listing presentation. If it’s an FSA, that’s a future seller appointment, I’m going in there, I’m building a relationship, he’s going in to my database, and I stay in contact with him. We are not trying to go through the marketing here. We are just building a relationship and getting an idea of value. Make sense?
All right. What doesn’t he like? Auction? Yeah. Sold on the day. I found out who he owns the property with. All these things I found out, who else has he called out? I’ve got to tell you, what have I done? Question based. What have I done? I’ve done what a doctor does, diagnose then prescribe. Too many real estate agents go and prescribe without diagnosing.
But the most powerful thing I’ve done of all is I have used the power of consumerism, and I’ve said, “Don’t worry about what I’m going to say. Listen to the last 20 people that have sold with us.” I am so backing myself, I’m giving you their details. That’s the power. The power is not what you say to the market, it’s what the market says to the market. We see that all the time. We see people make decisions about where they holiday not based on what a company like the Hilton says, but what another consumer says on TripAdvisor.
Questions?
If you have questions for the coaches or for the Super Six tweet us @eliteagentmag #transform
