In the age of big data, artificial intelligence, social networking and many other forms of technology, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that what sells is human connection and communication.
This is one of the fundamental lessons that I keep in mind from my friend Jon Cheplak, the real estate leadership and productivity coach and consultant.
“If your message matches the market, you’re going to win,” he says.
Cheplak and I often discuss what it takes to run a leading real estate business in today’s increasingly competitive environment. He’s taught me a lot over the years, and as we approach the end of 2019, these are the lessons that stay with me.
Are you sharing useful information?
Many of us misunderstand the true meaning of spam, or junk emails and texts.
Spam is not a frequency issue; it’s not about how much content you send out; it’s actually a quality, value and relevance issue.
If our content is consistently valuable, and the message fits the market, even if we send it out a lot, it won’t annoy people.
If you were given the opportunity to speak in front of 10,000 people next month, would you wing it or would you think about every single word you’d say during the talk?
My hunch is that you’d prepare a whole lot.
Yet, most of us launch a canned email campaign (I’ve been guilty of this too) to our prospects in the hopes that we get lucky.
What would it look like if we took the time to think about the words we put into our emails like we’d take if we were giving that talk in front of 10,000 people next month? (At least we wouldn’t get sued.)
Get clear on exactly who your customer is and meet them where they are at. Find out what drives and interests them.
The use and abuse of the word ‘innovation’
“Innovation” shouldn’t be a buzzword we use to avoid hard work and consistency.
Very often “innovators” try different things without ever sticking to one thing, and they don’t follow through enough be good at that one thing before moving onto something else.
At the end of the day, no matter how fancy our website is or what tech we’re using, real estate sales is still a contact sport, and we have to make peace with that.
Doing the unsexy, not-so-glamours things like making phone calls, doing a pop-by, and simply connecting with the humans in our database is what it all leads back to.
Family style and visionary leadership
Learn to lead from a visionary perspective.
Visionary leadership is about the ability to establish the tone and culture of groups. This means being sensitive to the emotions of those around us. We need to help both agents and our clients to move from where they are to where they want to go.
During our week, our team holds weekly accountability meetings. We are there by choice (not everyone joins), and we declare commitments to each other verbally.
This allows us to lead each other as a tribe or a family, rather than having one hierarchical person from the top “holding people accountable.” This style of family leadership helps us tap into what is important in our lives and in our business.
There is power in understanding the human behavior side of business.
In business, we’re so focused on the logic, but in order for us to really move the people we lead and the people we sell to, we also have to put stock in emotions and behavior.
To survive and even thrive in today’s real estate industry, this is a requirement.
We’re not just in the business of buying and selling houses, we’re in the moment creation business, and to achieve those peak moments, everything we do and say needs to be delivered through the right vehicle, with the right message, the right cadence and frequency.
It comes down to how we are getting people’s attention, while inspiring them to take action. The more intentional we make this process, the more successful we’ll be.
Kevin Kauffman is a Realtor with Group 4610 Network with eXp Realty. Connect with him on Facebook here and here.
