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

On one of my recent (featured - thank you!) blogs about referral-begging, the comment was made "If you don't ask, you don't get" in relation to calling up your sphere of influence (or even strangers) and asking if they know anyone to refer to you. In case you don't already know my opinion on the matter, I think that's a really stupid way to prospect.

As Dave Ramsey sez, "Hope I wasn't unclear."

Of course it's true that in many situations, you must ask for what you want to have any chance of getting what you want. If you would like a discount on a computer at Best Buy, you'll have to ask for one. If you'd like fries with your Big Mac, you'll have to ask for them. If you'd like a nicer office, you'll probably have to ask for it.

But when it comes to inspiring people to send business your way - it's a whole 'nother thing. You're "asking" people to think highly enough of you to entrust their precious referral business to you - and as we all know, referrals can backfire on the referrer if they don't go well. Therefore, it's important that you exude an air of success and confidence, which does NOT involve asking / begging / bribing or obligating for business.

Blah Blah Blah - if you've been around here any time at all, you already know how I feel about asking for business. Don't.

But here's the thing. You absolutely CAN inspire the people you know and the people you meet to send business your way without ever asking / begging / bribing or obligating them.

How?

Well, let's go back to Referral-Begging 101. We're taught a variety of scripts to Beg for Referrals from our spheres of influence. How about these gems?

• "Do you know anyone who needs to buy or sell real estate?"
• "Do you know anyone moving to my area who could use my services?"
• "I build my business by referral; will you please keep me in mind if you hear of anyone buying or selling?"
• "I'm never too busy for your referrals."
• "I'm always looking for referrals, so would you mind taking a few of my business cards?"

So, Jennifer, um, I don't get it. What's wrong with these scripts?

Say each of them out loud. What message are your words sending to your audience?

More tomorrow!

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At the end of last year, I went on a rampage about cheese. Not the edible kind (heavens, no!), but rather, the prospecting variety. As in, promoting yourself with dorky, pitchy, predictable material that you bought off the shelf or copied and pasted from some free online resource (or egads, maybe you even paid for the krap!). Y'know. Prospecting cheese.

It is my opinion that if you're going to spend your time and your money promoting yourself to your adoring fans, it's far more effective if you actually create the material yourself to ensure that it's not dorky, cheesy or boring. Everything you send out, whether via snail-mail or email, should be done with the intent of inspiring the recipient to smile and think of you fondly.

And yes, that might just take a little more time than you're used to devoting to your mass-prospecting efforts.

Well, seeing how "time" is usually in short supply, many agents read my stuff and say "Okay, I agree in principle, but at least I'm sending out SOMETHING! I figure that's better than nothing, right?"

Nice try, but no. It's not. Especially when you're sending out that SOMETHING to your Sphere of Influence - aka your friends and acquaintances. If you must, go ahead and send out cheese to strangers, but PLEASE don't do it to your Sphere.

Why?

Your Sphere of Influence contact database is precious and should be treated as such. In fact, it may be the most valuable tool in your arsenal for getting good business and bringing in juicy paychecks. Treat it with the respect it deserves. Let me rephrase that. Treat the PEOPLE who make up your contact database with the respect they deserve.

Every single person in your Sphere of Influence has the potential to bring a $10,000 check your way. More than one, even. That's a fact. So, it's well worth the effort to MAKE an effort to, as above, inspire those special people to smile and think fondly of you every time they hear from you. Don't do anything that sends a message that the person is simply a name on your list, someone worthy of your prospecting efforts, but maybe not your personal attention. And that's exactly what canned, boilerplate, cheesy marketing material does. It sends the message that the recipient is just a name on your list.

Frankly, I'd rather take the chance that my Sphere of Influence (which remember, includes my social network) forgets I sell real estate, rather than take the chance that they roll their eyes every time they hear from me. If I'm not willing to take the time to create interesting, relevant, non-cheesy promotional material to send to my precious Sphere of Influence, then a Sphere of Influence business model may not the right model for me.

So, no, Prospecting with Cheese is NOT Better than Nothing. At least not with your Sphere of Influence.

RELATED CHEESE-TO-SOUL BLOGS
Turning Cheese into Soul
Expireds & FSBO's
Newsletters
Open Houses

The other day, a nice man from REALTOR Magazine called me up to chat about the Do Not Call list - specifically, what recommendations I, Jennifer Allan, queen of cold-calling (*snort*) might have for agents stymied in their prospecting efforts by that pesky DNC.

We had a great conversation, although it remains to be seen if any of my brilliance will make it into the final article since I really have no experience with the DNC except for being first in line to sign up.

But one of the last questions he asked made me think... and I came up with an answer off the cuff that I'm rather proud of. Thought I'd share it with you.

Question: "Jennifer, I understand that you never cold-called, but I'm sure that someone in your RE/MAX office did. If that agent were to ask you for advice on what to do instead, what would you have advised him?"

JA's Off-the-Cuff Answer: "Hmmmmmm."

No, seriously, I did come up with something...

"What I would probably tell him would be to get out from behind the desk and the telephone and take his naturally charming self out there into the world and make contacts face to face. No, not by knocking on doors or attending power networking events, but rather by striving to make a positive impression on as many people as possible as he goes about his day. By implementing a Quality over Quantity approach to attracting business. Instead of trying to make contact with 100 people a day, who will almost certainly promptly forget about him, try to really connect with two or three, who will be much more likely to remember him tomorrow... and six months from now."

I'm guessing that someone who has experienced success in cold calling has an appealing personality and a confident aura of success, which would be very attractive out in the real world, too! And, frankly, being out in the real world making real friends and real connections sounds a whole lot more fun and rewarding than dialing for dollars three hours a day!

I must confess that while I think my advice is brilliant, I've never been approached by a master cold-caller for my opinion and I don't expect to be in the near future. There are many paths to success and we're all better suited to one path or another.

So, while I don't expect the cold-calling world to suddenly shift their tactics to the JA-Way, I do hope I can inspire those who'd rather not cold-call to try the JA-Way and see if they like it!

Oh, and watch for your April edition of REALTOR Magazine to see if any of this made it in...

The other day I got a very timely question from my cyber-friend Ron, considering this week's Cheese-to-Soul series.

Ron asked if I knew of a source for good real estate-related newsletter content that would be "meaningful" to his Sphere of Influence (his "SOI"). He's frustrated by the material available for purchase, most of which simply feels canned. Moreover, he's uncomfortable using much of it because it relates to topics he's NOT an expert in, such as tax planning, home staging and credit reports.

I agree. As I may have mentioned a time or two, I refuse to use canned, boilerplate material. I think it's cheesy and dorky. (My definition of Dorky is any written, self-promotional communication that is dull, dry, boring or corporate. Most content-for-purchase pretty much qualifies. )

But let's go back to Ron's quest for real estate information that would be "meaningful" to his SOI.  Here was my response to him:

"Here's the thing - your SOI doesn't have a lot of interest in real estate on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, there's not much in OUR world that would be generally meaningful to people outside of our world, with a few exceptions that come up from time to time.

You want your newsletters to be interesting to your audience, more so than "meaningful." And you know what's interesting to your SOI? Stuff from YOU.  From YOU, their friend, Ron. Maybe an observation about the real estate market, if it's interesting, or to pass on a funny story from your career. Or maybe not related to real estate at all.

I write to my SOI every month in email form, not newsletter form. I want my SOI communications to clearly come from me, not some canned product I bought off a virtual shelf. If newsletters/emails are going to be part of my marketing plan, I'm going to put some effort into them in the hopes of inspiring my friends and acquaintances to think fondly of me, rather than to just simply remember that I sell real estate (and promptly forget)."

So, to pick up from yesterday's blog post on this very topic, remember that the primary goal of your "newsletter" is not to impress, educate or overtly prospect. It's simply to remind the people you know that you exist and that you're a pretty cool guy or gal.

What topics might do that? Well, kinda like blogging, the list is endless... and once you're in the habit, it gets easier and easier to come up with ideas. Here are a few of mine:

Didja' See Me on the News?

Denver Dwellers, what's YOUR special day?

And I thought I was so smart...

I recommend that you always have a notebook with you to scribble down ideas for SOI newsletters - and I think you'll be pleased how quickly your list will grow once you get in the habit.

This seems like a good opportunity for a little SWS plug - I just released my SWS Mega-Toolkit which includes a section of several dozen real-life SOI letters and emails that might give you some ideas for your own 2010 newsletters.

Okay, so that's three blogs on the Art of the Non-Cheesy Newsletter. I think I'll move on now... next up - Greeting Cards! Or... maybe listing presentations... or maybe... heck, I dunno. Just stay tuned!