People Love Stories... What's the Story of Your Real Estate Business?
I was so excited to receive my much anticipated copy of Scott Stratten’s new book “Unselling” and dive right into it... and just as expected it did not disappoint.
This week’s post are from some of the things that resonated most with me and hopefully will with you as a REALTOR.
“Sixty percent of all purchase decisions are now being made before you even get a chance to make your pitch.”
Gone are the days of “buy or good bye” and focus all our energy and efforts on the moment of the sale and counting our sales numbers.
Up until now all of our efforts as REALTORS have been on our sales funnel and ignoring those outside it before, during and after the sale. Stratten refers to this as “Funnel Vision” and it needs to stop!
Unselling in real estate is about everything but the sale like customer service, support, branding, experiences and even product quality.
It is about the Big Picture like creating raving fans, repeat clients, referrals, not treating clients like faceless numbers and become the go to person or product.
The question is are you creating experiences that make it so easy for people to share them? Unselling is about content, connection and engagement and separating yourself, your product, your company and most important your service from the pack of real estate noise!
What's Your Story in Real Estate?
The book shares a great story about the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island and what they did for a little boy that left his favorite stuffy giraffe at the resort and what their staff did for the little boy and his family to create an incredibly easy story to tell.
The story began with the little boy discovering his stuffy was gone and being so upset and not being able to sleep and cope so his father thought it would be a great idea to tell his son his stuffy was still at the resort for an extended stay and would be back soon.
The story (or lie) seemed to ease the little boys anxiety and was able to finally go to sleep. The next day, to the fathers delight, the Ritz-Carlton called and said they had found the stuffy so the father to try and smooth over the lie he had told his son asked if they might take a photo of the stuffy by the pool and send it with the package.
Well the staff didn’t just send a photo and the stuffy they sent a package with branded goodies like a Frisbee, football and a binder beautifully prepared with the stuffy wearing sunglasses sitting by the pool photo, getting a massage in the Spa, hanging with other stuffies, driving the golf cart and even his own employee badge for the stuffy giraffe.
Needless to say the family went out of their way to let as many people they could know what type of service the Ritz-Carlton provides their guests and would never consider staying anywhere else.
So what kind of real estate experience are you creating?
What stories are you making easy for your clients to tell the world?
Why are these experiences so important?
We are not alone in this business and have a ton of competition and online people have a ton of access to information and remember sixty percent of them make their agent decision before you even get to meet with them face to face and this is why making exceptional easy to share experiences is so important to you and your real estate business.
When it is a negative story being shared about you and your service or no stories being shared about you and your service there is always another agent ready to make a good impression.
According to Forrester Research about “about forty eight percent of customers reported that social media posts and reviews are a great way to discover new services, products or brands.”
What are they saying about you in the cloud?
3 Keys to Remedy “Funnel Vision” in Your Real Estate Business
- Never, ever think of peoples as "leads"... online or offline. We do not walk around with invisible prospective numbers on our heads, and no one wants to be valued based on their possible future profit to you.
- Create amazing products, services and content first. If you put it out in the world, make it good. Social media sentiment is not to blame for your disappointing quarter. A bad product and/or service is.
- Trusted referrals are the best marketing. When customers pass through your company funnel, they do not go live on some deserted island, they go back into the mix. They share their experience good and bad and those listening value those opinions ahead of any ad or campaign.
“Unselling” as a REALTOR is what happens when you understand the humanity of your market, produce a quality product, and create experiences that lead to trusted referrals. Step back from the sale and focus on everything else but the sale.
Special thanks to Scott Stratten for sharing this great work of literature “Unselling”
Check out more of Scott here...
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Strength and Courage,
Wade
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