People are our greatest assets and how we engage and leverage interpersonal opportunities can broaden chains of influence. Whatever your level of experience is in the industry, this simple method of low budget marketing will increase the level of your personal marketing, prospecting and lead generating for low budget marketing.
Simple Task: Every day, when you wake up, plan to meet 10 people that day. Those 10 people you meet are given pointed information and resources about what services you provide, and then you as the marketer are responsible for follow up and possible conversion or referral contact. Sure, 10 people may be a stretch, but at least start with one person a day and work up from there. The information you collect, services you provide, free information you supply is at your discretion. Be original, be creative and be accountable.
Sounds easy enough, but let me add some of the details.
- 1) You have to know what you’re selling. When I ask real estate professionals around the country what they are selling, the answers range from selling a home to providing a pathway to dreams. Be real, genuine and authentic. Even though they may sound the same, they have different meanings. Real is tangible to the touch, genuine is original from the place of origin, and authentic only comes from the heart. Your marketable message should be short, concise, relatable and current. Develop and practice an “elevator speech” that invites a relationship to the opportunities you provide when buying or selling real estate. This will start the conversation for point #2.
- 2) All individuals are open game: clients, customers, top producers and other real estate professionals, vendors/suppliers, international connections, business professionals, people on the check-out lines and those you meet while traveling, etc. You have an exciting message that provides hope and opportunities for many people to own a piece of the dream. Everybody needs to know what you do and that you’re excited about the opportunity to engage as many people as possible. When you show excitement for what you do, others will want what was added to your Kool-Aid.
Break down the contacts you meet, categorize their level of interest and establish a relationship that keeps you top of mind when it comes to buying and selling real estate.
Use what you are familiar with to develop your contact database … Outlook, Excel spreadsheet, free online programs, paper and pen, your cell phone … anything to gather prospect information.
You’re looking to establish business connections that will work with you to spread the word that you’re the realtor of choice. You are now tailoring your marketing message. Through these connections you establish, you will reach out to them periodically with helpful tips, tools, resources and STUFF. Your top connections will be your greatest additional marketing staff when it comes to touting your services to others, which also will guide others to your social and website outlets. Marketing is about driving interested guests to make a decision – their first decision is to hire you as their professional of choice. Everybody must know what you do, which brings me to what information is most important to gather in point #3.
- 3) There are three points of information needed from every contact: full name, email address and cell phone number. Why? Most online and off-line contact management systems require three points of information in order to send or receive through on-line means. The additional information you gather is bonus to add to the history and story of your contact. At most times, this point of contact information is readily available, easy to obtain and simple to remember. Having this information helps fashion your elevator speech/conversation in a more direct manner.
What I’m asking is to add accountability to your tracking and planning system and see actual progress in marketing what you do as a professional to the world. Here is where you develop personal brand visibility that identifies and defines who you are and how you move inquiring traffic through your real estate marketing portal.
There is no need for fancy and costly systems, this only takes time and dedication, and you will be amazed by the end results. Think about the rule of 72 and how long it takes for money to double … 10 people a day, who could contact 10 people, and so on …
In a nutshell: Word of mouth is the best form of low budget marketing and holds the greatest advantage when it comes to honesty and integrity from a true testimony of performance.