Lesson #1: Why Should Someone Choose YOU As Their Real Estate Agent?

Episode Transcript

Welcome to this episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent I’m your host, Jennifer Myers, listen in. As I share exactly what I did to go from not being able to sell a house for years to becoming one of the top 1% of agents in the US even opening my own brokerage full of agents helped me serve all the clients that were coming my way. I taught those agents the same strategies I use in date To became top producing agents. Now through this podcast and agent, rod School dot com, I’m sharing those same modern marketing and business strategies with you. Most of which I learned from looking outside of the real estate industry, no fluff, no theory, no outdated sales techniques or paying for leads, or just the exact steps to get you the real estate business you’ve always wanted. And the life outside your business, you’ve always wanted to let’s make it happen and dive into today’s episode today, The code kicks off the agent. Grad School 30 day marketing. YOU from home challenge. We’re doing this all April long. And if you’re listening to today’s episode on the day, it’s released April 1st, it’s the kickoff. It’s the first day of the challenge. And even if you’re joining us a little bit late and you’re starting over, that’s okay. Or if you’re listening to this, years from now, that’s okay too. ’cause over the course of, I think for some reason, April ends up with like five weeks this year. And if you look at a calendar and so there’ll be five different marketing challenges, marketing lessons that you’ll learn, and then ways to apply them to your business. And so, no matter when you’re listening to this, you just know that you can go through these and actually do them at any time. It’s not just now that is a good time. It’s just why not now kind of thing. And all of the corresponding marketing YOU challenge lessons will be on the Podcast page of the agent Grad School website. And if you click on the words 30 day marketing YOU challenge, you’ll go to a page that has all of them when this is done. So you can listen like binge-watch them or binge listened to them. If you want, if you’re listening to them later and you end up there, they’re all there on that one page. So thank you for being here. And I, before we dive into today’s topic, which is the question, every one of your clients is asking that your marketing must answer to work and to get clients to reach out to you. I want to tell you why I did this challenge. And of course why I did it now was because we’re all sitting at home feeling like we don’t have much to do, because we can’t be in front of our clients, but I want to challenge you to, to know, and to be thinking about that, the fact that you can actually do a lot in your business right now, especially when it comes to your marketing and much of the marketing lessons that you’re going to learn, and you’re going to apply this month. Most of them, your clients might not even know about, because it might take, take a few weeks for you to fully apply them, or really look at them again, before you’re ready to put them out into the world. And then some of the marketing techniques I’m going to urge you to actually send out and get in front of people, you know, and your past clients and your leads and your current clients that you were working with before. This whole thing started because they need, I need to hear from you right now. It’s crucial, especially during a downturn or a pause in the market like this, to be in front of you, Of your client’s in a way that actually helps them through this. And we’re going to talk about how to do that over time. So I really want Estate agents to realize that their marketing should be done all the time and should be done in a way that actually helps The people that Are receiving that marketing message. I think so often, and I’m not really sure why this is the case, but based on the real estate agents that I speak to every day who come to me and say, I don’t know why my real estate business, isn’t where it, where I want it to be. I’ve been doing this for years or I’m brand new and I’m not getting any traction. You know, so often I say, well, what are you doing to actually market themselves? And they’ll say things like, well, I’m doing open houses. I’ve been told I should do open houses every weekend. And it kind of works, but not really. I don’t really know how to convert people. It’s kind of like a crap shoot. I’m told To call my sphere. I’m told to go to lunch or go to coffee with people and try to get clients that way, The way, well, I would argue that there’s actually a whole, A different way that you can be marketing yourself and your business, regardless of whether you’re a brand new agent, or if you’ve been doing this for years, if you don’t have clients reaching out to you, YOU, if you’re spending more than, you know, The whatever amount of time you want to be spending, trying to get clients, then we need, Need talk about changing the way that you market yourself and market your business. And that is what the next 30 days are Going to do. Just know that Nothing I ever teach, whether it’s now in this free 30 day challenge or any of the podcasts or anything on the website or in any of the classes that we, that I teach is not theory everything I teach. I have tested. And I have Proven not just to myself Because I’ve used it myself, but with other agents as well, most of them, Of them while I was teaching In my brokerage, my brokerage in Washington, DC dwell residential. Before I started to do agent grad school full time, I worked, I had a real estate brokerage for I think, seven years. And all I did Was teach the agents there, what I had done in order to get to the success that I had. And they started having that success as well. And I started thinking, well, wait a second, perhaps this will work for other people As well, but let me explain To you how I even came up with some of the concepts that you’re going to be learning during this 30 day challenge. And especially this first one today, this story relates to how I understood what was the one question our clients are asking before they’ll work with us. So when I, It was new in the business, this was a 2002, 2003, somewhere around there. I, for some reason I quit my job as a PR rep. And I thought for some reason that I was just going to have clients, like I didn’t have a real plan for knowing how I was going to get clients. I was just worried about Knowing what I should do once I got a client that was my biggest concern. But then as the months and years went on, I realized, Oh no, the actual concern I should be having is how am I actually going to get clients? I just thought that because people liked me and I was successful in my past career, that it would automatically translate and They would just seek me out and want to use me. But that was for the furthest thing from the truth. And so after about two years of trying that and doing things like floor duty and doing things like open houses, I started To do, you know, learn a lot about What the real estate industry, whether it was other coaches or my broker or other top producing agents were doing in my office. I started just seeking out any piece of information inside the real estate industry about how can I be successful. I was trying to learn from other real estate agents, how to be successful. And I started doing All the things that we are, we all know That we’re being told to do as real estate agents. Things like open houses at that time floor duty, calling my sphere, you know, having a party’s trying to network all of that. And I D I tried all of it and I actually did have a little bit of success. I started slowly but surely getting to a few million dollars a year in production. I think I, You know, I went up to 3 million And then suddenly I was at 5 million. But then by that time, it was about 2008. And my numbers started to decline and I was exhausted. I had gained like 40 pounds. And because I was constantly running around exhausted trying, not only to serve my clients, but try to get new clients all the time. And I was like, I don’t understand how I’m going to have enough time. I barely even have clients. And I feel like I’m working 12 hours a day. And so at that moment, my number started to decline. It started to be that financial crash of 2008. And I said to myself, I have got to figure out a better way to do this because it’s not working. My numbers are going down and The, The market is crashing. And I’m either going to have to get, you know, another nine to five job at a PR agency, or I’m going to have to figure this out another way, because I, I just, I can’t make this. And so I don’t know how I ended up there, but somehow I, I ended up at an online marketing and business conference. And when I was on, when I was at that conference, The instructor turned All of us and it was a big room of people. And many of them, The people in that room were a brick and mortar businesses like real estate agents, restaurant owners, people who owned stores, there was all Those kinds of people in what the real goal was, was we were all trying to learn, how do we grow our businesses? Mine? Because that, that was just right. Kinda when the internet was for online businesses was starting to kind of come up, right? And this teacher asked a question to the group and he said, in order for you to get any clients, if you’re having a, A hard time getting clients, and you feel like they’re just slipping through your fingers, it’s because you’re not answering this one question. And that question is why should somebody choose? YOU among all other options, including doing nothing At all, and why Should they do whatever you want them to do at all? So let me make more sense of that. Why should somebody choose you as their real estate agent in this case? Why, Should somebody choose you as their real estate agent among all the other real estate agents that are out There and why should They even buy or sell a house at all? What reason is there? And so that is The question. And I think more than anything, that first question for most real estate agents, why should somebody choose YOU among all their options, right? Among buyers, all other agents, a discount thing, they find online, why should they choose you? And I can tell you that when I was asked that question, I had no answer, but that was a turning point in my life and in my business, because I realized the reason that I was struggling so much, and the reason that I felt like I just couldn’t get a handle on having enough clients, no matter how hard I worked was because I wasn’t able to answer that question. Why should someone Should Choose me above all other options. And so, So I melted down a little, my mind felt like I had just like exploded. I didn’t quite, you know, I kind of felt like I was really failing because I couldn’t answer that The question, but then I decided I’m to get to work. I come from a line of scientists on both my, my, my sister, my, my mom, my dad, my mom’s husband. Now my stepdad, they’re all scientists. And so naturally, right? What do we do? We, as a people who come from science backgrounds, we naturally go into research mode. We go into the lab and we study and we test things and we test concepts. So I started seeing patterns. I started seeing Patterns among these brick and mortar businesses that have Had started to apply things that worked online to their brick and mortar business. And I started to see a path Patterns that made sense to me and was able to start applying these techniques that I kept Seeing. They all were doing My own real estate business. And that is when my business exploded. And this again was during the 2008 crash. So I learned These concepts in 2007 when my business was taking a dip, but by 2008, nine, 10, my business had gone up and I was selling a million dollars a month of real estate during the financial crash. And I was truly because of these marketing tactics, then I’m going to be teaching you during this 30 day challenge. And by 2010, I had so many clients, I couldn’t handle them all that I had to open my own brokers Grudge to hand them out to other agents. And of course, yeah, No, for me to feel comfortable handing out my clients that I had worked So hard to, to get an order For me to feel confident about those agents. Most of us who were brand new to the business, I wanted to teach them exactly how I would have worked with them. And that’s what I teach inside of Asian grad school is how to work with clients once they come to you in addition to how to market to them. So they actually come with you, come to You. And so these are the same Exact marketing concepts that I’m going to be teaching you each and every week throughout this challenge. Most of what you will be hearing is going to sound counterintuitive to what you’re hearing inside the real estate industry. It’s going to sound weird. You might even think like that. It’s not true, or it doesn’t work, but I can tell you that everything that you hear from me is proven to work, and I’m going to do my best to break it down step by step. So that these big concepts you’re able to actually apply during this 30 day period during this challenge. So let’s get on it With today’s lesson. But before actually, before we get onto today’s lesson, let’s talk for just a second about what the word marketing means. Now, I know at first glance, it may seem obvious, but I want to share with you my definition of the word marketing, That The word marketing is truly just a vehicle that you choose To display Your message, to reach it, The audience, and to talk to a certain audience. And so when we use the word marketing, I’m saying Teaching you concepts, that you can apply to any one of these vehicles. So for example, a vehicle is your website, right? Anything that the public sees when it comes to your business is what is where I’m saying that you can apply the tactics and strategies that you’re going to learn during the day 30 day period. So for example, Certain marketing vehicles Are your website. The Emails that you send your email signature at the bottom of every single one of your emails, your business cards, your signage, What you have lying around at an open house, any social media posts that you do, any ads that you run, whether it’s online or offline, What you actually say to people when you start a conversation with them, that includes I’m including that the vehicle is, is talking and this even applies everything you’re going to learn this month, even applies to how you get and convert online leads that you pay for whatever it is that you’re doing in your business, that the public sees and understands that you are a real estate agent or should understand. I think so often real estate agents like hide and they try to show up at places. And they just think that people are going to understand that like, Oh, you’re here, you’re a real estate agent. That means they should give you a client’s. Don’t do that kind of marketing, make it really clear when you’re on the clock and you’re marketing yourself. And when you’re off the clock and you’re there just to have a good time. So The first step in your marketing working Is whatever vehicle you choose. Isn’t, Be Being able to answer that question. Why should somebody choose you? YOU and Why Should they choose YOU among all their other options. Now don’t get don’t melt down. When you think about how to answer that question, because the rest of today’s lesson is going to be how you go about answering that Question. But the fact that you Know, that that’s the question you have to answer. I want you to be happy with the fact that you have that knowledge, that alone, even if it takes you like me, it took me years to answer that question, correct. And as I was iterating On my answer and making it better and better, I, my business kept growing and growing and growing. So just know that this isn’t something you’re going to spend like two minutes on and have an answer to, but know that that is what your clients, your prospective clients, your past clients, anybody that you wish would work with you, you have to first answer question Why they should pick you and why should they do anything at all? You’ve got to answer And communicate that question in any of your marketing. So I know this is a big nebulous topic, But the fact that you know, that that’s what needs to be happening is a good Thing. So let’s break Down how to actually go about answering this. And then I’ll give you a couple of examples about how I answered it and How our students answer it. And Hopefully it’ll give you some inspiration about how you can answer, Right? To so there’s really four steps to answering this question, and I’m going to go through each one and then explain it. And then at the end, I’m going to put it all together. So the first step In answering this question, right? The question is, why should Someone? Well, the first step is you need to know who that someone Is. And so I Always say to our students, who are you talking to? And you cannot answer everybody As online personality. Marie Forleo says, if you’re talking to everybody, you’re talking to nobody. And what that means is if you’re trying to cast a, Be A big wide message and saying, here I am, I would love to help you buy or sell a house that does not answer the question. Why someone should choose you. YOU that message. If you’re trying to talk To everybody is actually going to fall flat. And so the first step is who are you actually talking to? And how you answer that question is first and foremost, The most, no, that there’s really only two people that you can market yourself to when it comes to real estate, either people, you know, or people you don’t know. And As we all know, people, you know, is a lot easier to market yourself. To, it’s a lot easier to convert and get referrals from and get repeat clients from right to people. No, but for some reason, when we are doing our website or we’re doing an, an app Grad, or we’re doing whatever our business card, especially our website though, I think that’s the biggest example. We seem to want to talk to people. We don’t know when in fact we should actually be talking to people. We do No. And as you know, talking to people you don’t know is a lot harder. If you try To do a postcard campaign into a neighborhood that don’t doesn’t know you at all, or you’re doing an ad, it takes a lot of time and a lot of repeating and a lot of money to actually like penetrate The mind of those people long enough for them to be like, Oh, I know this person, right? There are ways to use that strategy, but, but for somebody, if you’re going in and they don’t know you at all, and you don’t do any business in that neighborhood and all of that, it’s a lot harder. And so just remember that any marketing campaign is going to make, give you way better results. If you’re somehow talking to people you already know, and I’m going to give you strategies and ways to do that. Now, just another layer down into that concept of who are you talking to next week, we’re going to talk about one of the biggest mistakes that real estate agents always make, which is not niching into their audience. And we’ll talk about how to do that next week in detail. And I actually even interview one of our students who was really fighting this concept of niching. And it just really felt like I kept fighting me like this means I’m going to get less clients not more. And I just said, listen, you just got to trust this process, do it. And finally she dove in with two, with two feet. And she’s going to tell you all about that concept. So just put in the back of your mind that choosing someone to talk to ideally starts with who, you know, and then talking to a certain niche. So let me give you my personal, a personal example of how I answered this part of the four steps. How first deciding who you are talking to you see when I was first asked that question, right? Why should somebody choose you? And I melted down and didn’t have an answer. It took me a long time to figure out, well, why should somebody answer? Why should somebody choose me? Because I had barely sold any homes at that point. Right? So the way that I answered that question was, well, who do I know more than? Or who do I have more experience then? And suddenly it dawned on me that, well, at least I bought a house I’ve barely sold any houses at that point, but at least I’ve bought a house. And so I know more than anybody who’s not bought a house. And so that’s how I first started to choose who my Someone was, who I was going to be talking to. And in order to know who in order for your message to resonate, which is what we’re going to talk about next is you have to, in order again, it’s like, who do you know? So it just so happened that I was able to talk to people I knew who had not yet bought a house, because at the time most of my friends that I knew that I was going to be marketing myself to had not yet bought a house. And so there I was in alignment. And what that means is when you’re in alignment with choosing who you’re going to be talking to, what that means is ideally they know who you are. And then it’s a niche where you are a few steps ahead of them. So in my case, it was a perfect fit for, to Choose first-time home buyers, because I was in a pool of people who had not yet bought their first home. And so I was a kid people to talk about why they should buy their first home in a pool of people who already knew me, who I was a few steps ahead of. Okay. So whether or not that you believe in this, in this concept of talking to somebody and talking to less people, not trying to talk to everybody, regardless, just look at your marketing and say, who am I really talking to on this vehicle, on this marketing? So for example, on your website, look at your website, who are you talking to on your website? And the answer cannot be everybody. It can’t be people in the entire state, and you really need people to understand who you’re talking to that you’re talking to them when they look at whatever marketing piece that you’re creating. So the, in my example, right, when people hit my website, which all of you can go to my, my real estate business website is where do you do well.com. And when you fall on that website, you notice I’m talking exactly to first time home buyers. It’s very clear who am I target audiences and who I’m talking to another example of how you pick someone, you talking to and making sure that you are in a pool of people that know, Oh, YOU. And so with your message will resonate is we have one student who came to me and she hadn’t sold a home in eight months. And she realized that she was talking to the wrong people. She was talking to first time, she was talking her message of first-time home buyers, but her group wasn’t really first-time home buyers. Most of the people she was talking to had already bought her their first home. And so she needed to go out and find new people to talk to. And the way that she did that was in her mom’s group. She was a member of this mom’s group in a particular neighborhood that she lived in and loved. And she realized that she had just gone through a move out of that neighborhood, which was very, very difficult. And she realized that moms in that group had that same difficulty. And so how she answered that question, why should somebody choose you and among all other options and why should they buy or sell a home at all? The way that she was able to answer that question is she realized that that The someone’s that Should, Choose her work moms in that moms club, in that neighborhood. And the reason that they weren’t buying or selling a home was because they felt stuck. They did not know where they were going to go next. And so they felt paralyzed. And so she, with her marketing message was able to explain why it was a good thing for them to move and where to move to once they were ready to move out of that neighborhood. Okay. So those are just two examples. One last example is we have a To students, actually, who one, one was a, was a teacher in his past Life. And he, his, his answer To that question, why should somebody choose you? Is he wants To work with teachers. He wants to help teachers become homeowners. And so that was how he first decided who he was talking to. We have another student who chose teachers as well, and she was not a past teacher, but she was, she had access to a lot of teachers. A lot of people she knew were teachers. I don’t really exactly know how she, she got in with so many teachers, but she realized that she was able to connect with a lot of teachers. And that’s exactly what she did. So she first and all of these examples, right? In order to answer the question, why should somebody choose you? You first have to know you first have to choose someone that you want to choose you. So start there and in all of your marketing, just ask yourself If somebody, It was To in this example, I’m giving go to my website. Would they know who I’m talking to? To and Why yes. That’s the next step. That’s step two on how do you answer this question? Why should somebody choose you to be there? Estate agent choosing somebody. This is just step one. The second step is you have to communicate in a way, The way that is something that they care about. So you have to ask yourself, what is it that these people care about And why have they not bought or sold a house yet? Why have they not moved out of that neighborhood? Why haven’t teachers bought their first house yet? Why haven’t The home buyers and what are those people thinking about? And what should they be also thinking about? So I know that’s a big factor, But let me break that down for you. Essentially, what you’re trying to figure out is what is it that your target audience, the people you want to, To be talking to, what is it that they care about? And then you need to be talking about that to them. So, In my experience, right, my first time home buyers, they didn’t realize that they, they should buy a house. Most of the people that I knew, They loved being renters. They didn’t want the responsibility. They didn’t have the money. There was all of these reasons Why they hadn’t already bought a house. And so I Knew that, right? I knew that’s what they were thinking about because I was one of them. And what I, what I wanted them to be thinking about is how PR how like financially savvy and smart, it was to be a homeowner and how it helped them build wealth. And so I started talking about that to them. I didn’t talk about why they should buy a house. I talked about why owning being a homeowner was better than being a renter. I talked about how to make that happen. I talked about all the loan programs that were available to make their first home more affordable, right? So I was, I was meeting them exactly where they were at. I wasn’t trying to convince them that buying and selling right now was what they should be doing. I was trying to explain to them and teach them. Why thinking differently and thinking about their wealth and their future and how to build wealth and all of that, and how to overcome the obstacle of not having enough money, money for a down payment and whether they could afford it, whether they could live in the same neighborhood that they wanted to live. I talked about that in the example of our teachers, she reached out to a bunch of local teacher associations, and she started talking to them about, again, all the programs that teachers qualified for in the example of our student who had the mom’s club, she started talking about how they could find a really wonderful house outside of that neighborhood and gave them examples. So you have to meet the people that you’re talking to, where they are not just talk about why it’s a good time to buy and sell. That’s not deep enough. You can’t talk to them about stats or anything like that. You’ve got to talk to them about what’s on their mind right now and help them through whatever block it is that they, that why they haven’t taken action. You’ve got to talk to that. And that is step two, step three. So step one, to answer the question, why should somebody choose you? You have to know who you’re talking to. Who are you talking to? And I do really, you’re talking to people who already know you. That is how you make the most traction with your marketing. And hopefully, ideally your target audience, your ideal client, the person you’re talking to in any of your marketing is somebody that’s just a few steps behind you. And you can say, I’ve been there. This is how you get through that. This is how you get to the other side of that. And then you need to think about step two. What is it? That’s on their mind? What are they thinking about? Because they’re not ready to buy or sell a house right now. So what do you need to be thinking about and telling, telling them, and talking to them about where they are not trying to just buy, buy, or sell home right now. They’re not. So what can you be talking to them about instead, that’s going to get them to take a, The just a tiny bit, The next action. And then you need to talk to them about that, Your marketing vehicle, your websites, your emails, your flyers, your conversations, needs to address That. And that step three. Talk about that. Okay. So a perfect example is when I’m at an open house, and I know that let’s say, I know that most people who would be looking to buy that house also need to sell a house. The house I talk about that. Do you already have, Do you have your health, is your health currently under Mark, under contract? Are you ready to buy, you know, I talk through what it is that they are, where they are, and they’ll say something like, no, we still have, we still have to get our house ready and we can’t possibly buy this one. And then I would say something like, well, there are ways to buy first. If you do fall in love with this house or another house, there are ways to buy first without selling your house. Have you learned about what those are? Would you be interested in learning Them? You see I’m Meeting them where they are and where they are is they aren’t ready. They don’t know how to buy first without a doubt Selling first. And so I’m going to meet them there. Okay. And then the last step is keep doing it. In other words, keep talking to that group Over and over again about what they care about and what they need, where they are right now. Talk about that And keep doing it. So often I see real estate agents start a meeting. You just send one postcard or send just a few emails out. And they don’t see a huge change in their business overnight. And if only they would keep doing it week after week, month after a month, A month, will they start to see the results? Now, what I teach at agent grad school in the way I built my business was really just two things. It was half a website that gets you leads and talks directly to your target audience and answers the question. Why should they choose you? And then use your website and articles on your website and send them out each and every week. To a list of people that, you know, that fit that target audience. That is exactly how I built a million dollar plus business. And that is what I recommend that you do As well. And the rest of our, The marketing lessons are going to teach you exactly how to do that. But before we get there, I just want you to understand the concept that it doesn’t matter exactly what it is that you’re doing, right? Like it can be any vehicle. It could be a flyer, it could be a website. It could be whatever it is that you want to as your vehicle, your, to market yourself, Whether it be Facebook, Boats, I don’t care what the vehicle is for this lesson. What I care about is that you understand the concept that you have to answer the question. Why, Should somebody Choose YOU, you have to talk to them. You have to Choose I use a target audience. And just, and hopefully it’s a group of people. You are part of that. No, you already, and you have to talk to them in a way about where they already are right now. And then you’ve got to keep doing it. And so, For example, of how you can do this in your business right now Is what’s happening in every, whether you’re wanting to buy it, Sell a home, whether you bought a home and never planning on selling, right? All of your clients are thinking About this Coronavirus and how it’s impacting them. And whether, yeah, We’re not, people are looking to buy herself. They’re wondering like, how is this going To impact the economy? And Obviously real estate is a huge part of the economy. And so it’s your job to be in touch with your list. In my opinion, the easiest way to do it is send out a weekly email List every single week about what they care about. And then right now, What they care about is how is Coronavirus going to Affect me? And here’s The types of articles that we are sending out right now to our list. We sent out an article about that, What we’re doing In our business, the policies and procedures changes that we’re doing in our business, regardless Of what, you know, Whether you’re under contract or if you’re looking to sell or looking to buy. Because again, even if people aren’t immediately ready to do any of that, right, We’re sending the message that we are on top of things and that we are For them. And we’re able to be nimble and change our business quickly and communicate to them. And it gives people who are kind of on the fence about whether they should buy herself, the confidence that people are still doing it because we’re communicating about people who are still doing it. Another article we sent is about the fed rate cut and what that means for people and how they could hopefully get lower interest rates and afford a house. And also refinance for our clients who aren’t going anywhere, who, who have bought or sold a long time ago. Next week, we’re talking about the mortgage relief that people can get and making sure that they have the resource. They know where to go and how to, if they’re being affected by this in any way, financially, that the first place that they can go Is To their mortgage lender and get up to a year of, of not paying their mortgage relief. And we’re sending To both of our audiences, our clients who haven’t bought a house yet, because it gives them confidence that being a homeowner is better than being a renter. And we’re sending that to our past clients because we were truly want to help them. We’re not talking about what the market’s doing. We’re not talking about how, you know, the real estate market is going to survive. This. We’re not, we’re not talking about any of that. We’re talking about how best to help them, where they are right now. And we are assuming that They’re not going to be buying or selling anytime soon. So I want you to Start thinking about how to answer that question. Why should somebody choose you? And it doesn’t have to be an articulate answer because no one’s really ever going to ask you that. Although I will say we had a client ask us that a couple months ago, and we had a really great answer for it, which was, you know, and we were talking to a first time home buyer who was interviewing several agents and they, and they said, well, why should we choose you? We’re interviewing several agents. And the answer was because we we’re the only company in Maryland, DC, or Virginia, that, that specializes in helping first time home buyers. And we’ve helped hundreds, maybe even thousands of first-time home buyers buy their first home. And we help them take advantage of all the loan programs available to make sure that you’re getting, you know, the most affordable first home that there is. And We love doing it. We Love helping our first-time home buyers get into their first house and all of that that brings with it. And most of our clients, and this is what we’re telling them. Most of our clients come back to us. And so they’ve enjoyed the process as well. And we, you know, that’s how we approach helping you buy your first house is we want to hear from you five years from now, or seven years from now, or 10 years from now, when it’s time to sell again, we want to make sure that you have a house that you can sell and that you have a lot of equity in because we have an invested interest in doing that for you. And so obviously they chose us and, and we were able to answer that question, But nine times out of 10, nobody’s ever going to actually answer that question. And nine times out of 10, they don’t even really know that. That’s the question they’re asking. But if you can answer that question because that’s, what’s really deep seated in their mind. That’s why other options, you know, come up is because like I buy And discount brokerages and all of that, right? The reason that they’re getting popular or they do get popular is because they answered the question. Why should somebody choose us? Yes. In the event of discount brokerages it’s because they think the answer is To so you can save money on your purchase, Right? We’ll give you a rebate. That’s is a strong enough answer. And so that’s just one example of why those companies Are doing so much business is because they have a good answer, but just know that there are way many, many, many different answers to that question. It’s not always about discounting commissions or dollars. Again, sometimes it’s just, this is what we specialize in. And this, we are the best People to help this group Of, of individuals and to become the best person at that. It’s typically, again, it’s helping somebody, that’s been a few steps behind you and being able to help them through that. Whether you’re a teacher, you used to be a teacher in your past life, or maybe you just went through, you know, an estate sale with whoever in your family. And you understand how complicated that can be. Maybe it’s helping people who are going through divorce, because maybe you’ve done it. And you understand the sensitivity to that. Maybe it’s one of our other students moved from the city in Chicago to a suburb and understands that transition and how difficult it is. And now loves her life. She never thought she would live in the suburbs and now she loves her life in the suburbs. And so she’s doing all of her marketing and her website and everything that she’s doing revolves around how to love her, her neighborhood, the area where most people who move out of Chicago go to. So there’s all sorts of ways to answer that question. But once you start digging in and being able to answer that question, that is when your business and your marketing will all start to click into place. Another one of our students, she folks, she, after learning this concept, she decided to focus on people who are downsizing. And so once she was able to figure that out again, she’s able to talk to what matters to them, even if they’re not looking to buy or sell right now. So she talks to them about, you know, how to, how to start getting rid of things that you don’t need anymore. Or, you know, she sends out information about how to, you know, donations, where to donate the stuff you don’t need any more. You don’t want to move with all that process that goes into downsizing and that overwhelming feeling that her clients have when they even think about downsizing. That’s what she talks about. So again, just to rehab, you’ve got to answer the question. Why should somebody choose you to be their real estate agent among all other options among all other real estate agents out there? And you’ve got to ask, you got to answer, why should they buy or sell a home at all? Because there’s some reason that they haven’t done it, even if it’s what they want to do. And you’ve got to talk about that in order to answer that big question, you’d have to know who you’re talking to. You hopefully are able to talk to a group of people that you already know. And when you start looking at the people you already know, you have to ask yourself, what do they care about when it comes to real estate? Do they care about buying their first house? Do they care about how they’re going to move up from their first house to their second house with two kids at home, right? There’s something that, that your, that your audience, that the people you’re talking to, there’s something in the way, there’s something that they’re overwhelmed about. You need to be talking about how they can solve that. And if you’re the person That teaches them, how to solve that, they naturally will come to you. And then you have to keep doing it over and over and over. And my recommendation for that Is a weekly newsletter that You send out each and every week to your audience. And if you want help on how to set up a weekly newsletter, which helps you, we have a three-step framework. We teach you how to, who should be on your list, what it should look like your newsletter should look like and how to create content or take our content. You can learn how to do that in our program called swipe file. If you watch, we have a free training about it, called the three behind the scenes, secret two, a newsletter that actually gets you clients. If you go to Agent grad school.com and go to our free classes, you can watch that and apply this technique. You learn a lot from that free training. Feel free to watch it and start applying that newsletter strategy to your business. In addition to everything we talked about in today’s lesson, and then if you want to become a swipe file member and have our help putting that all together and teach you exactly how to do it, answering your questions and even giving you our own content. If that serves you and you want help, please, please reach out and go to agent grad school.com, go to the free classes. And that is a free training for you to learn. And then at the end, there’s an opportunity to save $200 on swipe file and get your newsletter started in your business, right? In a way. But regardless of whether you buy them The program or watch that free training, everything you learned in today’s lesson can be applied to your business now. And I want to give you a step-by-step way for you to do that. So, number one, I want you to write down all of your marketing vehicles that you’re currently using, whether it’s your website, your emails, you know, how you talk about you can, you can say like my, my own conversations, that would be an example of one, your, your signage, every single thing that the public sees when about you and real estate. I want you to write that down and I’m not right next to it. I want you to write who you are talking to for each one of those marketing vehicles. Are you talking to people, you know, or are you talking to people you don’t know, or are you talking to both or you’re not really clear because on tomorrow, the live that we’re doing, I’ll be talking to those people, answering questions. If you’re not clear who you’re talking to, we need you to get clarity. So I’ll help you with that. But first write down every single place that somebody might see you when it comes to being a real estate agent or marketing your properties or anything, postcards, you send out signage in front of, you know, open house signage in front of a hell of a listing, your website, whatever it is, write it all down, and then really ask yourself, this is a time that we might need to start contracting what we’re doing. So when you start looking at this first, who are you talking to? And are you talking to them about what they care about when it comes to real estate? And if the answer is no, I would highly, highly recommend that you start saving some money in your business and cancel any marketing that doesn’t directly get you clients. And doesn’t the answer, the question why somebody should choose YOU in a way that answers the question, you know, why, what are they thinking about? And if you’re not talking directly to what they’re thinking about when it comes to real estate, for example, if you’re just sending a pamphlet about a house that you sold, if you’re just sending a magazine with your head on the cover that has recipes in it, or something like that, that doesn’t answer the question. Why should they choose you? Just because they remember you that doesn’t, that’s not enough. You’ve really got to dig in and start talking to people, you know, in a way that meets them exactly where they are. And just what I call that vanity plate marketing that just kind of has your face, or has the fact that you sold. That’s really not enough. So if you’re looking to save any money right now in your business, because you’re worried about kind of what the next couple of months will bring, my recommendation is to cancel any marketing that you’re doing. That doesn’t adequately answer that question. Doesn’t speak to your clients and from where they are right now, and doesn’t directly get you clients, or hasn’t gotten you clients in the last six months directly. So I know that sounds harsh, but you know, we’ve got to kind of tighten our belts a little bit and really look at our marketing, do a marketing audit, write everything down. Who are you talking to? It doesn’t answer the question. Like, what is it that they care about when it comes to real estate? If not, I’d highly recommend saving some money in canceling that. So the data is your homework assignment, write it all down. Who are you talking to? And what, if anything is probably worth canceling because it’s not giving, getting YOU direct clients and it’s not marketing YOU to an audience that meets them where they are. So that’s a homework assignment, and don’t forget, I’m a part of this 30 day challenge. We have prizes for people who are applying this to their business and posting their finished homework on the website. So all you have to do is write down exactly what it is that every single place that your clients or potential clients see you, that’s your marketing vehicle. So write all those down. Are they talking to people, you know, or people you don’t know who specifically are you talking to? And does it answer the question? Why should choose you? Do, are you communicating in a way that meets them where they are? And if the answer is no, my recommendation is to cancel it. So tell us how it’s going on. The Facebook group. And for every submission, you get one entry into the, a plus student prize, which is a free course, how to get your own online leads. The course will be free to you, but typically it’s 1997, how to create your own online leads for anybody that wins the A-plus student award, which all it takes is posting on the Facebook page, that you did your homework and really showing us that you went through it. So I can’t wait to see your homework assignments being done up there. I’m also going live on a Wednesday, April 1st in the Facebook group to just talk through this in this lesson and the challenge and answer any questions you have. So get busy with this, and I will see you in there. And I can’t wait to see your homework and answer any questions you have. All right, answer that question. Why should somebody choose you among all other options and watch your business change for the better? See you next week for marketing lesson. Number two, Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Remember change happens when you take action. So apply what you learned today to your own real estate business. If this episode has helped you subscribe, leave a review and share it with all your real estate agent friends, and as always, if you want even more great resources to create the real estate business you’ve always wanted and have the life you want outside your business to head over to agent grad school.com and sign up for the free weekly trainings, you’ll get free classes, discounts, and other goodies that only go out to real estate agents on that email list. See you next week right here on Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent the Agent Grad School Podcast.

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Confessions of a top producing real estate agent

Lesson #1: Why Should Someone Choose YOU As Their Real Estate Agent?

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