If you want to have a steady stream of leads coming in, you have to master your marketing program. There are different ways to drive leads to your business, and part 3 in our 7 part series on Mastery covers just that! Discover the 5 principles you need to take your marketing to the next level! Click here to download your worksheet.
MARKETING MASTERY
We’re back in our seven part series with our third episode on mastery. Today we’re going to talk about area number three – marketing mastery. How do you master your marketing so that you always have a steady stream of leads coming in of people that may be interested in working with you? What are the different things that you can do to drive leads to your business? When talking about mastering your marketing, there’s five principles I want you to keep in mind.
GENERATE NEW LEADS
Look, I love repeat and referral business and we’re going to talk about that in a future episode but what we’re referring to here is that your business has to be generating brand new leads – people who may not have any idea who you are. You’ve got to stick them at the top of that funnel so that there’s this constant stream of people that are reaching out for information or maybe raising their hand and saying “hey, I’d like to get some information or I’d like to talk with you or I’d like to meet with you.”
We always need new leads because you cannot build a long-term successful business just off of repeat and referral. It’s not possible because at some point you’re going to tap out your database and your sphere of influence. If you don’t know how to go out, kill something, drag it home, throw it on the grill and feed it to the family, your family is going to starve. I certainly don’t want that for you and I don’t think you do either.
PARETO’S PRINCIPLE
You need to remember Pareto’s principal – the 80/20 rule. This principle means that 80% of your business is going to come from 20% of the lead sources that you have. A lot of coaches and trainers are running around saying “well top producers have fifteen different lead sources.” But what they forget to tell you is that while they may have 15 different lead sources, they don’t focus on all 15 in a given calendar year.
Instead, what they do is they focus on about 20 percent of them, or three in this case if they have fifteen. Three of them are going to be generating about eighty percent of their business. The other 12 lead sources that are responsible for 20 percent of their business are almost going to happen automatically.
So my question for you is this: what are the two to three primary lead sources that you’re going to focus on over the next 12 months? Identify what those top 2-3 lead sources that need your attention, your focus, your time, your money and your resources are. Those are going to be the sources that are going to be responsible for the majority of your business.
ONLINE AND OFFLINE LEAD SOURCES
Identify both online and offline places that you can generate new leads. Look, I love online leads but I also love offline leads. I want you to have a steady stream from different areas and from different sources because every now and then, if you’ve got all your eggs in one basket or one area of the business, you may find the competition starts to get really stiff in one source. You can then transition to another lead source easily.
Right now we’re seeing offline leads generating sources like direct-mail kill it for our clients because while everybody’s online, they go offline where it’s a lot quieter. So I want you have different sources, and different strategies coming from different areas both online and offline that may be different from each other. That way if something stops working, you’ve still got two or three other strategies that are killing in different areas of the business so that you’re never putting your lead flow at risk.
DO WHAT YOU’RE GOOD AT
Focus on strategies that you’re good at – things that you’re passionate about, that you enjoy, and that you like doing. If you hate direct mail, don’t do direct mail. If you hate lead portals like Zillow or Trulia or Realtor.com, then don’t do it. We love them but if it’s something that you just look at go “I’m vehemently opposed to it” fine. Don’t do it. I think it’s your loss, but I don’t want you doing things that you don’t like, that you’re not passionate about or maybe just things that you suck at.
However, the flip side to this is to never let your lack of knowledge about something and your lack of skill of something prevent you from learning what you need to so that you can do it. If you’ve tried it, you’ve worked on it, you’ve invested in the process and it’s just not for you, that’s okay, you gave it a try. Focus on things that you like and that you’re passionate about and that are in your wheelhouse. Don’t worry about the ones that are your weaknesses.
GET THEM IN YOUR SANDBOX
You’ve got to get people into your own sandbox. Now what do I mean by that? If you get a lead from Zillow or Trulia or Realtor.com, what you do not want them to do is go back to Zillow or Trulia or Realtor.com because they could easily get connected up with who? Another agent. What you want them to do is be on your website, receiving your e-mail newsletters, your physical newsletters, and phone calls from you because you want them to engage with your business, your company, your team or just you generally, you personally.
You need to figure out ways to control the place that they’re getting that information. If you don’t have a website where you can send them so that they can find new listings or if you don’t have email newsletters or if you don’t have any sort of campaign of follow-up, all they’re going to do is once they get whatever they need from you, they’re going to go back to the other sites and they very well could get connected up with another agent and you lose the deal.
Make sure that they’re playing in your sandbox. Look at everything that you’re doing and ask yourself “am I giving them enough value, enough information, or enough data? Can they stay away from the sites they came in on because they’re better staying here? Can I service them better than those other sites can?” and if you can’t honestly answer those questions with a yes, you’re at risk and you’re going to be spending a lot of money to generate a lot of leads for other Realtors.
Follow those five principles and you’ll have success. Don’t forget to download the worksheet where I’ll walk you through some different strategies and different ways you can think about how to master your marketing!
