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

Because I teach real estate agents how build a business based on their Sphere of Influence (SOI = the people they know and the people they meet) as opposed to marketing-to-strangers, I'm often approached by new or newer lenders asking how they can successfully persuade US (the REALTOR community) to give them a shot.

Frankly, I'm always stumped by the question. Traditional lender prospecting techniques simply don't work - at least in my experience. Offering daily rate sheets or open house brochures won't do it. Nor will weekly newsletters - printed or emailed. Sure, I appreciate (and will use) the information, but it's not going to get a lender on my preferred vendor list.

Even lender-modified SOI techniques probably won't work. Take me to lunch or coffee? Great! But I can't promise you a return on your investment. Pop-by my office to chat? Eh, please don't. Especially if your "chat" has anything to do with "earning" my business.

How about sending me buyers? Well, that sounds fabulous, but I've yet to have a lender do that, so I can't speak to the effectiveness of it.  Hmmmmm... well, stay tuned - I'll share my thoughts on that in a sec.

So, how do I find my favorite lenders? Ah, that's an easy question. There are two ways I've found my lenders-of-choice:

1. My buyer brought his lender to the deal and the lender impressed the heck out of me.
2. The lender on the other side of the deal (when I'm the listing agent) impressed the heck out of me.

So, I guess my not-so-helpful answer to lenders seeking REALTOR loyalty is to... well... impress the heck out of the REALTORS you have the opportunity to get in front of. Do your job, do it exceptionally well and then stay in touch with the agent without ever pestering her for business or referrals. Once you have an impressed REALTOR, then you're free to implement your other loyalty-inspiring activities - newsletters, lunch dates, rate sheets, etc., but without that first step - proving your competence - it's probably wasted effort.

Speaking of lender-to-REALTOR referrals... I don't expect my lender to send me referrals and I certainly don't make it a requirement of my loyalty. A great lender (who is what I want on my team) probably has dozens of REALTORS he works with and it's far more important to me that he take care of my business  than that he send me business. However, I will say that if a fledgling lender does send me a referral and then impresses the heck out of me with his handling of the deal, well, then, he has a good shot at making my preferred list!

SOMEWHAT RELATED BLOG: Dear SOI, Thanks, but I don't want your loyalty!

Okay, so my last two postings have been a little grim, a little whiney, a little dark. BAH! Enough of that! Life is good, life is sweet, life is wonderful and it might do me good to remember that a little more often! Actually, this week has been pretty darn good to Jennifer... (‘cept for those pesky spammers on my SWS forum - my gosh, where did they come from all of a sudden? Anyone know how to get rid of ‘em?)

Anyway, let's lighten things up a bit!

A few months ago, I attended a Rick DeLuca seminar here in Denver. I got a lot out of it, which is surprising because I typically HATE attending such things and usually want to leave within 15 minutes.

One of the concepts Mr. DeLuca brought up was the idea of, as he calls it, "Being in the right place at the right time... more frequently." My version? "Be out there in the world with your antenna up and a smile on your face."

Good real estate business comes in one lead at a time... not ten leads at a time. And with the size of our paychecks, one (good) lead at a time is plenty! I'd much rather have one great lead per week than 100 cool leads that I generated from any sort of mass marketing effort.

So, the way I see it, we real estate types have a choice. We can sit behind our desks and generate lots and lots of crap designed to bombard a target audience in hopes of getting a few hits... or we can go out there in the world in our sexy jeans, feeling sassy and confident, and share our enthusiasm and knowledge of real estate with the world...

I'm as guilty as any other introvert of prefering to sit behind my desk and make lists... respond to emails... blog... anything so that I don't have to shower and put myself out there. But, even with my not-the-friendliest-person-in-the-world personality, I know that I'm much more likely to Be in the Right Place at the Right Time when I'm OUT THERE than when I'm comfortably curled up at home.

Oh, don't get me wrong... I'd go nutso if I were OUT THERE all day, every day, so don't think for a minute I'm advising my fellow Ntros to do the belly-to-belly thing (ugh, I hate that phrase) for hours at a time. Just an hour a day will likely change your career.

Give it some thought. How could YOU spend one hour, every day, Being in the Right Place at the Right Time More Frequently?

I'll share mine if you'll share yours!

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Have you ever noticed (or is it just me) that the people you actually "market" to aren't the ones who actually respond? In my worlds (‘ritin' and real estate), I find that the bulk of my business comes from those who have not received any direct sales pitch from me. Either I'm a lousy sales-pitcher (very possible) or maybe (just maybe), people don't want to be sales pitched.

Here's an example. A few weeks ago I got a call from a lender with whom I've done a little business the past. Just your basic catching-up call, prospecting, I'm sure. Well, I happen to know that this lender does a lot of seminars for local Realtors and since I'm also in the seminars-for-Realtors business, I asked him if he'd be interested in bringing me along on one and letting me say a few words. He hemmed and hawed and changed the subject (I'll take that as a NO). Now, I get asked to speak all the time (particularly by lenders), so I don't think what I offered was too far out of line; in fact, I thought my offer might be greeted with enthusiasm. Uh, no.

In my real estate business, I know for sure that when (in the past), I've outright asked for business - either in a self-promotional mailing or local advertising, I can count on zero hands how many positive responses I got. But I do GET business - it just comes in organically - that is - people hear about me or meet me or stumble onto my blog and THEN pursue me. And, often hire me or buy my stuff.

This is somewhat comforting, yet irritating to me at the same time. Hey, I spend perfectly good money getting my name out there, so when my marketing efforts crash and burn, I'm pretty darn annoyed. Believe me; I had plenty of other uses for that money!

But, of course, I find myself doing the same thing. I delete inbox SPAM with a vengeance and often ignore (or politely decline) invitations to cross-link my site with others. I certainly use TV commercial time to check my email or refill my wine glass. I never look at the promotional material that clutters up my mailbox or Oprah Magazine and I toss out all the inspection and carpet-cleaning brochures that fill up my inbox at RE/MAX. I can't say that I give a second glance to the gawd-awfully expensive advertising that covers the pages of my Realtor Magazine. I hang up on cold-callers.

So, what's the alternative to aggressive self-promotion? Stay tuned for MY thoughts on the matter... but please share yours!

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