Marketing 101 Part 3 - Developing Fishing Skills

Having identified the types of Fishermen in the previous section, let’s now turn our attention to the actual practice of fishing and some of the skills that are needed. Those of you who have had some fishing experience will remember occasions where you have seen one angler taking fish while other anglers watch in awe and wonder what makes the difference.  It’s not usually just a single skill that contributes to success but rather a number of skills working together.  One weak link can render a chain useless, likewise one area of weakness in a selling or listing process can collapse the entire deal.

FISHING PRINCIPLES

1. You Must Go Down To the River to Fish

You go to the fish; the fish do not come to you.  Some people get a real estate license and then turn their license in once they find out how much prospecting is required in order to be successful.  Oh how nice it would be to sit in the office and rely on walk in traffic.  Some people actually sit around the office waiting for floor calls or walk-ins.  Good luck!  It is slim pickings.  You have to work to generate the traffic to develop a successful business.

2. Identify the Fish

Some fish are seasonal, some are nocturnal, some like deep still water and some like faster currents.  Once you know what fish you want to catch, you then must decide which place to fish and the best time for the fish to be present and available.

3. Select the Right Tackle

Different fish respond to different lures and different techniques, depending on the environment.  Salmon, for instance, can be taken in the ocean, the river or a lake and each location requires a different tackle and a different approach.  You need to know what should be in your tackle box before you get to the river. First time homebuyers, seasoned buyers, past clients, for-sale-by-owners, expired listings, you name it, all need different lures and different technique.  True professionals practice their skills and test their equipment before the contest.  Amateurs try to improve their skills during this contest and the results can be very costly.

4. It Is All In the Presentation

I have seen anglers cast their lure directly at the fish and stand wondering why the fish make a hasty retreat.  Experienced anglers employ a more sensitive approach.  They pass the lure above the current and let it drift over to the fish in order to attract attention.  The stealthy approach is asking questions and finding the needs before you offer your solution. A fish will most often strike when the lure is being retrieved rather than when it is being presented.  Likewise, when a presentation is made with a quiet confidence, in which the features and the unique benefits of your service have been carefully explained, it is often at the point of starting to pack up your briefcase that the commitment is voluntarily made!  It is all in the quality of your presentation.

5. A Hooked Fish Is Not a Caught Fish

The fish is only caught when it is in the boat or the net.  A listing is not a sold listing until completion.  A buyer is not a buyer sold until conditions are removed.  A lot of skill is required between hooking a fish and landing a fish.  A fish that slips the hook or breaks a line is always a disappointment.  However, it is a part of the fishing, or real estate game.  You should always learn from the experience and prevent it happening again.  You don’t stop fishing because the fish got away.  You make your judgment by the number of fish you have in the bag at the end of the day, month or year.

Keep Fishing and may your net always be full!  Next week, we will take a closer look at the Presentation.

Keep your lines in the water...

Coach

Marketing 101 Part 2 - Let's Go Fishing

I have done a fair amount of fishing in my life, in different locations, in different countries and for different types of fish. Over my career, as I developed knowledge in the practice of Real Estate, I became intrigued with the similarity that exists between Real Estate and Fishing.
                              
Let’s take a look at these similarities in a marketing context and see what we can land from the comparison.

Firstly, there are basically three types of fisherman, and perhaps you can recognize which one you are in your practice of Real Estate.

1)  THE COMMERCIAL FISHERMAN

This represents the person who is very committed to their career. They have a driving need to get up and go fishing every day no matter how adverse the weather or how badly they feel. They prepare their gear the night before and they are up early in order to beat their competition to the fishing grounds. Their driving force is survival and it is fuelled by need. They know that if they do not have these disciplines in place the payments on the boat will not be met, the crew will not be paid, their mortgage will be in jeopardy and there won’t be food on the table for the family. They know their trade and they constantly sharpen their skills so that they are never at a disadvantage.

2)  THE SPORTS FISHERMAN

Now these fishermen are interesting characters. You see, I was very definitely a commercial fisherman when I was plying my trade. Oh how I envied the sports fishermen!  They didn't really need to go fishing because they were fortunate enough to have a second or third source of income. They knew the mortgage (if they had one) would be paid and they would be provided for, even if they did not catch a fish. They went fishing because they enjoyed fishing. They simply loved the challenge, the freedom and above all, the thrill of the catch. They are always in pursuit of the “big one”, always have expensive and up-to-date tackle and never ever seem to be under pressure. What amazed me most was that they would sometimes be found fishing even before the commercial boats arrived!

3)  THE CASUAL FISHERMAN

This group represents fishermen that have no real motivation or purpose. They use old and beat up tackle and are fishing much the same way as they were 10 years ago. They have very little reward for the time they spend fishing. You will usually find them fishing at the end of the dock with a hand line, a bent pin and a few emaciated worms. They dangle the bait in the water hoping they will catch an occasional unsuspecting relative!
                              
Now, if you took the time to read the descriptions, you will have a suspicion which group you belong to. You will also suspect which group others you associate with belong to. If you belong to the third group, and I hope you don't, you represent a dying breed that will one day be extinct. At one time our industry was plagued with this type of indifferent agent. These days the fish are much smarter, more demanding and much more selective. There are also a lot more good fishermen competing for the same fish.
                              
If you represent the last group you will probably not be very interested in the marketing information that will follow and are probably looking for the "delete" button right now. However the first two groups will want to learn more since they are always trying to sharpen their skills.
                               
We will next discuss the principles of marketing as it relates to the practice of Real Estate. 

Stay tuned!

Coach

Who Pays the Buyer's Agent?

An article on Realty Times by Blanche Evans asks this interesting question and is apparently in response to a prospective buyer's agent questions about how he would be paid. I ask our readers the following two questions about this. First, after reading the article, do you think the new recruit will have his or her answer or be more confused. And secondly, honestly now, when you represent a buyer in a transaction (those of you who are not 'exclusive' buyer's agents), do you act like you are representing the seller? Do you tell your client that you are or are you prone to suggest that they need representation and that your services are free to them? Just asking - posted by Glenn Davies

Link: Who Pays The Buyer's Agent? by Blanche Evans.

Free eBook - The Bootstrappers Bible

Everyone loves a good book, but a great and FREE eBook! Don't miss this limited opportunity to get guru Seth Godin's ebook—The Bootstrappers Bible. Perfect for the independent marketer.

Link: ChangeThis :: The Bootstrapper's Bible .

Real Estate Blogs—Where Do I Start?

We are getting more and more questions about blogs and how they impact real estate and, in particular, brokers and agents. Suffice to say that blogging has matured significantly in the past year and that ignorance of the power behind publishing on the Internet, could be as costly as thinking you didn't need a website a few years ago.

We will begin this series with a look at the basics and then add some meat to the discussions as the weeks go on. We will skip the history part, but do look for the links in this article as hints where to go to find the info you need.

There are a plethora of companies dedicated to helping you get your blog online and we will just mention two of the more notables here—Blogger the FREE kind and TypePad by Six Apart, the blog software Coach's Compass is using. Check out these vendors and others to get a feel for what is out there.

The next thing you will need is a News Reader. When I first looked at blogs I will tell you this—I was skeptical. When I learned about the news reader, well, that changed everything. From this blogger's perspective, the reader is the engine that makes publishing as often as possible, a reality. Here's a few sources for news readers to get you started.

• PC World has a list of readers for PC users.
• For MAC users the leaders is NetNewsWire

Now before you go out and get your first blog set up and install your news reader and subscribe to a few RSS feeds... I will answer the one question that most of you will want anwsered before you take the plunge—WHY!

The answer is you MUST! If for no other reason than to understand what this medium has to offer and whether or not you can benefit as a REALTOR or Broker. If you believe communicating with your customers is important, you will understand how blogging will contribute to your success. It is a journal, it is a publishing tool and it is a news aggregating resource. Blogging is the next wave in publishing.

Next week... a few real estate blogs and links to subscribe to. Now off to get your new toys!

by Glenn Davies

New Beta MSN Search

The boys at MS have finally released their beta version of the much anticipated MSN Search. Built upon their own technology, this new search facility will finally allow MSN to separate itself from rivals Yahoo and Google. Yahoo, owners of the Inktomi search engine database, are the current content providers for the natural search results on MSN Search. Things are about to change....

Check out the beta test site at: http://beta.search.msn.com and see how your website posts. Also check out the new MSN Beta Blog and forum at: http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch

It is certainly good to see the competition heating up for relevance and search engine postings. Currently, if your website is not doing very well on the Inktomi database, you are basically out of luck on Yahoo, MSN Search, AllTheWeb and a host of other search engines. On first blush, the new MSN Search appears much more inclusion that Inktomi and that means more pages indexed and better chances that your website will be found.

Ode to Mr. Ogilvy

There have been many firsts in my personal, as well as my business life. I was just 20 years old when I first cracked the spine of David Ogilvy's classic, Confessions of an Advertising Man. I knew instantly, that I had met someone who understood what my mind had been telling me for some time—there's nothing truly 'new under the sun', but inspiration and creative genius, thankfully, YES!

Another, was my first great job as a retail salesman for Bay Bloor Radio in Toronto, Canada. The family that owned this wonderful shop gave me what every young entrepreneurial mind needs... opportunity. Things like profit margin and paste-up were terms I regularly dropped at parties to impress my friends that I was both a business and an ad man. These were heady times.

Many years have passed and retail, wholesale, distribution, radio, desktop publishing, fundraising development, music and the web, have captured my attention along the way. Two things have remained constant in my 25 plus years in business—a passion to avoid growing up and the belief that Marketing is what makes it all tick.

Welcome to my view...

Introduction to Marketing & Advertising Category

By Glenn Davies