Jennifer Allan's Selling to Your Sphere of Influence - No Sales Pitch Required!

I've been writing for a few years now on tips, techniques and strategies to build and maintain a strong sphere of influence business model. 

• Marketing to Your SOI? Don't You Dare!
• The Seduction of Your SOI: How Trying to Get Business is Kinda Like Trying to Get... uh...
• Rely on my SOI? I don't know anyone who wants to buy or sell!

But y'know what the all-time most powerful way to run a successful business based on the personal relationships in your life is?

Do a hell of a job for your clients.

Go above and beyond every chance you get. Don't ask what your client can do for you, ask what you can do for your client. DO that open house, even if you don't want to. Attend your buyer's inspection even if inspections bore you to tears. Call your seller every single week, even if you have nothing much to report. Cheerfully take your buyer back to the house for the 3^rd time so he can measure the windows before writing an offer. Follow up with your buyer a few days after closing to see if any problems arose during move-in that you can help with.

And then, stay in touch with them on a personal basis forever and ever.

Did you notice that there's nothing in the above paragraph about buying them a fabulous closing gift or putting them on a canned drip campaign? Nothing about mailing them recipe cards or pestering them for the names of three friends you could contact with your sales pitch?

Nope. Gifts and drips won't change anyone's opinion of whether or not you are refer-worthy. If you did a lousy job for your client, but buy them a Rolex at closing, you just threw your money away on the watch. Following up with consistent sales pitches will only alienate someone who could otherwise be a huge source of business for you.

Especially if you're in your first year, please take this advice to heart. If you go all out for the clients you have today, they will enthusiastically support your business for years to come. After 3-4 years, if you've done a reasonably good job staying in touch, your phone will start to ring without any effort on your part.

It's a beautiful way to make a living.

www.sellwithsoul.com

I have an SOI Business Plan (that is, a plan for how often I contact the people I know) that includes a couple of personal phone calls every week. Before I continue, let me stress that I never ever ever attempt to prospect to my SOI during these calls - I'd hate to train the people I know to "let me go to voicemail!"

Anyway, I admit that I struggle with the personal phone calls. Don't know why it's so hard, but it is. I guess it's because I really don't like to talk on the phone myself, so it's hard for me to impose my voice on others! But whenever I do get brave and make the call, I almost always feel good that I did.

(Except I've noticed that if I call a fellow introvert, who probably doesn't like talking on the phone any more than I do, it can be a bit awkward. So, unless I have a real good reason to make that call - I don't. My introverted friends get an email.)

If you also have trouble picking up that 300 pound telephone, try this. Before you make your SOI phone calls, make a few purely "business" calls to warm up. Like - schedule a dentist appointment... call your credit card company to protest a charge... if you've moved recently, make a few phone calls updating your address. Once I've have a few successful phone calls under my belt, it's much easier for me to make the personal, or even difficult ones. (Like calling your seller to explain why you haven't had any showings this week).

If you've recently gone to lunch/coffee/happy hour with a friend, make a note in your planner about something you talked about that you can call next week to check up on. For example, last week I went out with my friend Catherine who is getting a puppy (named Ben) this weekend. So, I wrote down in my planner to call her on Monday or Tuesday to see how Ben (I made sure to write down his name) is doing and invite myself over to meet him! Maybe I'll even bring my video camera!

Just remember, don't call your friends looking for business. Don't even mention real estate unless you have a darn good reason to. If you truly can't think of anything interesting or non-salesy to talk to someone about, don't make that call!

www.sellwithsoul.com

For almost twelve years, I've run a nearly 100% SOI business - that is - most of my clients have come from the people I know, the people they know, or the people I meet. In other words, I've done very little formal lead generation with the goal of attracting the attention of strangers.  It's worked for me.

As many of you know, I have a somewhat organized, yet unconventional approach to keeping my name in front of my SOI. I don't bombard them with cheesy mailers; I don't pester them on a monthly basis for referrals; I don't sort them according to whether or not they will commit to sending business my way. Nah, I just stay in touch, as a real person who happens to sell real estate for a living. Oh, and I take great care of my clients... as my first priority - not as an afterthought once my prospecting activities are done (that's straight from my profile - kinda catchy, eh?).

And... business floods in. My phone rings (or email jangles), I answer it, and voila! I have a great new client.

But what has pleasantly surprised me since my recent return to real estate after two years away is how many of my past clients, some of whom I haven't spoken with in years, still consider me their Realtor-of-Choice. Just in the last week, I've been contacted by four past clients - all of whom bought or sold over five years ago - wanting to talk real estate. Three out of four of the calls came from people I didn't think really liked me much since they'd never responded to my stay-in-touch efforts. I figured I'd done something to make them mad and many times considered striking them from my database.

Nope. Not the case at all. They had lives to live and didn't need a real estate agent that day. But when they did... they knew who to call. (That would be ME.)

So, why do they remember me? I ask myself the same question. I really don't have a personal relationship with them, obviously, since we haven't actually spoken since the closing in many cases. Yes, I have included them in my postal mailings and emailings , but I'm sure they've met other agents through the years and probably get bombarded with Just Listed! and Just Sold! postcards on a regular basis. What's so special about me?

In the interest of research, I got up the nerve to ask a few of them. And the answers warmed my heart.

They called me because I did a good job for them and they knew how reach me when the time came. Simple as that. Now, if I had done a lousy or even mediocre job for them, but stayed in touch, I doubt they would have kept my card around, but since they were happy, they did. Oh, I'm sure that I've lost people thru the years who did happen to meet other real estate agents who befriended them more than I did, but overall, I have to say that I'm tickled with my retention rate.

Do a good job. Stay in touch. Pretty easy stuff, huh?

www.sellwithsoul.com

Coming Soon! SWS2 - the second edition... email me to reserve one of the first 1,000 copies printed!