Blog / Prospecting
Warren Campion, Avoiding the Social Network Pitfalls for Real Estate
Social Networking is now a major topic covered by industry trainers and speakers: Are you on Twitter (75 million users), Facebook (500m users), Myspace (130m users) or Linkedin (75m users)? If not, why not? What about: Bedo (117m users), Friendster (90m users), Badoo (69m users), Hi5 (80m users), Mylife (51m users) or Cyworld (24m users). Each site has a network community greater than the population of Australia. Badoo claims over 8 million daily visitors. So how is your database of clients working for you? Just imagine the lead generation you could be missing if you are not involved.
Social Network sites are designed to gather people together and have them communicating about everything and nothing. It is a sea of communication, knowledge, story giving and receiving. Online social networks have started to eat into private lives and act as a vehicle for public voyeurism both wanted and unwanted. The Social Network qualifying question for business people is: does it generate more business and is it right for all businesses? Social Networks are time consuming and managers need to understand the return on investment gained (now and ongoing) from these new marketing platforms. If it is true only 3% to 5% of the community (over the age of 18) have real estate on their minds (Buying, Selling, Leasing or Renting) at any given time then how do you find, communicate and build a professional business network that has your agency perceived as the real estate fountain of knowledge and expertise? Every business must have a proactive lead generation platform to create a sustainable business solution but do these online oceans of global communities just rob time and de-focus the operation?
We need to have our own social network of people who are ready to make real estate transactions now, as well as a wide pipeline of supply for the coming months. Don’t get caught up in more equals more. Practise does not create the perfect result.
Repeated appropriate actions (only) generate the desired results, whereas the activity of increasing your use of bad scripts and ineffective marketing will continue to give you a poor result. Sales agents in the early 90’s were told to prospect, keep records and follow up potential Sellers. They were told to go out to FIND people considering selling in the future, if they wanted better results. Back then ‘Open for inspections’ did not exist as they do today as a lead generation tool. So how did agents find business? Working with agents today you realise proactive marketing, prospecting or future business generation is still the biggest issue which is directly linked to performance and yearly income.
Salespeople still want the soft “take it away from me doing it” option. They did twenty years ago and they still do today. This is not a generational issue, it is a people issue. Research being undertaken in Australia by Lucy Miller at Macquarie University into Social Networks has discovered four key motivational areas that contribute to the success of online Social Network communities; curiosity about the lives of others, social engagement, a desire to increase social capital and status, and self expression. Another area of research into the effectiveness of selling via social networks has found; ‘... the boom in social marketing appears persuasive with an estimated 70% of consumers visiting a social website for information, yet other research points out that 90% of ‘Word of Mouth’ (WOM) conversations still occur face to face or by phone, and only 7 percent occurs via online mediums’. Thus our future client referrals are still based more on personal interaction than via some electronic text interface.
The internet has done a great job in opening up the global community and bringing world news and events into our busy lives. But what has it done to provide lead penetration for you in the market place where your income is derived from? If eighty percent of the Buyers, Sellers, Tenants and Landlord are contained in your service area how has the reach of Facebook’s 500 million users impacted on your level of listings and property management rentals over the past 2 years? Do you see any office or salesperson doubling or tripling their business at the local level due to referrals from online communities?
Business is about relationships with people. People who want to do business in your area of expertise, service or product. Most agents want more (quality) stock and yet do not have a wide enough pipeline of future business. Start an online social network after you have found people who are interested in your service. The solution on how you find, communicate, and get the opportunity to deliver a service or a product to future clients has changed and yet remained the same over the past two decades.
The often distorted but simple truth for the first part is to prospect daily. Looking at multi channel supply feeds to meet new people and ask the right questions to find out when they are going to be active in the real estate market place. James Tostevin (Melbourne, VIC) is famous for his consistent phone activity, high performance and income levels, yet the mass industry sales force will not activate this method DAILY.
If you want a social network of people interested and active in the real estate market that will assist with WOM marketing about you, why not build a real estate professional’s database and start referring buyers / sellers from ‘out of area’ to other ‘out of area’ agents. If most buyers visiting OPENS are selling or thinking of selling, with many moving from one agent’s service area to another, here is your chance to increase your income and exposure. The real estate industry has a massive diamond mine in referral business, yet does not do the simple actions to get it running. There should be the ‘call to action’ for real estate online social networking, or are we just waiting on the conglomerates to create and charge us for this as well?
Ninety percent of the residential real estate industry is focused on a localised community. Build a database (social network) of people who are interested in the real estate market during the next 12 to 24 months. Use a system you can control, learn its capacity (obtain education on how to get your data to dance) and utilise the methodology for online global communities to keep them motivated and interested in your field of operation. This will maximize your traction and keep the focus on the correct group who will supply your income stream.
Research being undertaken in Australia by Lucy Miller at Macquarie University into Social Networks has discovered four key motivational areas that contribute to the success of online Social Network communities; curiosity about the lives of others, social engagement, a desire to increase social capital and status, and self expression.
Having no real estate database (Microsoft Outlook does not count) today is the same as using a horse for transport instead of a car. You must keep pace with the new levels of electronic communication, community knowledge and customer expectation. Learn to live in today’s world of online business and see your financial rewards increase through this decade.
Warren Campion www.warrencampion.com
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