If You Try to Be All Things to All People, You Dilute Your Effectiveness
Wed, Sep 4, 2013
You may have heard me talk about the Universal Business Principle that ‘trying to be all things to all people dilutes your effectiveness’. I don’t think this can be over stated, nor can it not be talked about enough. I teach, and communicate regularly with, many of the top real estate agents in North America. One thing I’ve noticed among these pros is that they live, eat and sleep this hard and fast principle. Let’s take a quick look at its application in a couple of different areas. First, with respect to marketing, it’s very important to know who you’re talking to. Remember, you are not a salesperson – you are a marketer. Marketer’s make sure they have what the customer wants. Select your target market so you can focus your marketing efforts and be efficient with your spending. I’ve seen many agents make the mistake of sending thousands of post cards to home owners not even knowing if that home owner is even considering selling. This shot gun approach can be effective, but let's face it – we are sending cards to owners of houses who may or may not be moving and, if they are moving, they may or may not even be interested in the message on the card. It can sometimes take months of mailings and thousands of dollars to figure this out. Following the business principle of targeting and focus will allow you to assess the market, thus making sure that your message matches the motivation of the prospects you’re sending it to. You do that by making them an offer of something you know they want. Then, further, target who should get that message. In the example here – only those who are considering selling would be best suited for the postcard. Instead of a general zip code of all sellers, what about all the FSBO’s or Expired’s in that zip code? FSBO’s and Expired’s want to sell now – so a Guaranteed Sale would be a good USP or message to this group. Lastly would be that of leveraging your time. Time is a precious commodity, so spending it only on the things we are good at instead of the things we are not so good at makes sense. More to the point, it is important to spend your time on things that can best leverage your success. If I woke up, went to the office, sat down at my computer and started entering listings because it needed to be done – I could walk away at the end of the day knowing it got done. However, since I am very good at influencing sellers to list with me and buyers to buy, I would be better served, and so would sellers and buyers, if I was not entering the listings but instead in front of more prospects who wanted to buy and sell. It would benefit all if I delegated the entering of listings to another person. Understanding the concept of focus and targeting is great, but to make it work, you have to really act on it. Be effective by focusing and doing what you're good at and enjoy. P.S. You can test drive my ideas and systems absolutely free by signing up for Free Weekly Training which includes live weekly webinars, a monthly newsletter and priority invitations to free half day training events. This Free Weekly training will expose you to inexpensive and highly effective methods of lead generation (with no cold calling) -- what I call “Reverse Prospecting”, where qualified prospects actually hunt you down rather than the other way around, and then how to follow these leads through to maximum GCI via proprietary lead conversion and prospect presentation systems. This is the easiest way for you to find out with no risk or obligation what my system is all about and how it can help you profitably grow your real estate business and vastly improve your quality of life. JOIN MY FREE WEEKLY TRAINING PROGRAM HERE