When you think about small business marketing success, there is no magic bullet! I am sorry to be the one to tell you that, but I sick of hearing about “get rich quick” schemes.

I work in the trenches everyday with small business owners and they are busting their humps to succeed. They are learning new skills, networking online and in person, attending tradeshows and training events. They try and fail AND try and succeed!

Some people who make me proud:

1. Deborah Ward – My real estate buddy who does stuff that I tell her do and never asks why. We are in the process of taking over the St. Petersburg Real Estate and Florida Foreclosures market.
2. Cyndee Haydon - Cyndee is a Clearwater Realtor who has been working like a demon for 4+ years and now is reaping the rewards.
3. Mary Dado - Mary and I work together to make blogs for small business owners but her company writes all kinds of business writing. She is working her tail off networking and following up. I am awed by her strength!
4. Tara Becker – Tara has a great Denver Area Networking group. She is great at talking to people face to face and has grown an 8 meeting a month group. She is NOT a whiz at online marketing but she is learning and slogging through it.
5. Kirsten McKay Smith – Kirsten of Passion Parties is running hard and has set goals that she is working towards. She is one of the few people I know who have as many things on her plate at one time as I do and I am so glad she is in my High D mastermind!!!
6. Lori Crawford – Trinity Realtor, Lori Crawford is a great marketer. She is the only person I know who gets a lead EVERY time she sends her newsletter. Into every life some sanity must fall and Lori shows me what professionalism looks like.

I am sure that there are MANY MANY people who I missed but those are the ones that came to mind today. WHATEVER you marketing style is, take a page from one of these gals and JUST DO IT! Start a big audacious goal today, knowing that it will be hard but DO IT ANYWAYS!

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Using Auto-responders to Grow Your Real Estate Business

Auto-responders are one of the most innovative tools a Realtor can use to grow their real estate business. However, most Realtors fail to utilize them to their full business potential. 

The ease of use of auto-responders is astounding once you have them set up! If you have signed up for our email newsletter, you have gotten our auto-responders. They are a series of emails that go out on a periodic basis determined by you. If you are using them in an 8X8 program, that means that you are sending out eight in eight weeks, which I think is a really good frequency!

If you are using a database program, it is very easy to set up an auto-responder (or action plan).  If you are not able to use your database program for this or if you use outlook or another email program, I HIGHLY recommend that you use an email newsletter service like AWeber or Constant Contact which give you all of that functionality, a great look and both of which cost about $20/month!

We have been getting a bumch of requests for Autoresponders for Realtors – we have answered! Thus far we have developed two versions – one for sellers and one for buyers. In the coming weeks we will be adding Autoresponders for FSBOs, Expireds and Short Sales. We are offering $10 off until Tax Day (April, 15th 2009) so that everyone who want to get going right away can afford to!!!

Â		Â	Autoresponders (8X8s) For Realtors – Sellers Edition Auto-responders are email or 8X8 campaigns that you can set up to auto-generate emails for your prospects and leads. Basically they are a “set it and forget it” kind of system that will allow you to contact your prospects and suspects on a consistent basis when you first enter them into your database. Price $19.97 - Use coupon code AUTOS-TAXDAY for $10.00 off until April 15, 2009!       Find out more about Autoresponders (8X8s) For Realtors – Sellers Edition	Â
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Â		Â	Autoresponders (8X8s) For Realtors – Buyers Edition Auto-responders are email or 8X8 campaigns that you can set up to auto-generate emails for your prospects and leads. Basically they are a “set it and forget it” kind of system that will allow you to contact your prospects and suspects on a consistent basis when you first enter them into your database. Price $19.97 - Use coupon code AUTOS-TAXDAY for $10.00 off until April 15, 2009!       Find out more about Autoresponders (8X8s) For Realtors – Buyers Edition	Â
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According to Wikipedia, database marketing is “a form of direct marketing using databases of customers or potential customers to generate personalized communications in order to promote a product or service for marketing purposes”.

Wow is that not helpful! My definition of database marketing is to have all your clients, potential clients, prospects, vendors, friends and family all in one place that you can use to send out direct mail, email marketing and generate call lists. Currently on my “marketing TV tray” I have a post-it note with a name of someone who I need to add to my database, two business cards and a sign in sheet from a class that I taught. If I do not add them to my database today I will

• lose their name entirely
• find them in three months and forget why I had their card
• find them in six months and be too embarrassed to send anything because they won’t remember me (I KNOW I won’t remember them!)

So how do you use your database for marketing?

Send out emails to your database – This is FREE! You can start a bi-monthly newsletter and send your marketing message out WITH a nice piece of information that will be of value to your readers. For home service people that might be tips on how to winterize their home, ways to clean their grout or even a list of associated vendors they recommend. For real estate professionals it might be market stats, information about first time homebuyers or how to prepare their home for staging. Whatever you send, make sure that you think – “would I be interested in reading this”. If not – write something better! (if you are stuck on what to send, check out our Small Business Marketing Solution –  Thrive Client Contact System)

Make phone calls – Each month pick a couple of letters (A-C, S and T) and print out your database people whose last name starts with that letter. Carry your list around and when you have a couple of extra minutes call your people!

Send direct mail marketing pieces to your database – You can mail your clients a monthly piece of newsletter marketing, marketing postcards or even your personal brochure. Please note – if you are going to judge the effectiveness of your direct mail campaign by 1 sent message don’t bother. You need to send out your direct mail message for at least 3 months in order to be able to find out if will work! If you can’t afford to send out to your entire database, cut it in half and send half of your people a letter, newsletter or postcard each month, rotating the names so EVERYONE gets something at least every other month!

Some other things you can do with your database:

• Collect Birthdays and send a nice card out a couple of days before (I am BAD at this – you WILL NOT get a card!)
• Make notes about what you talked about – your people will think you are brilliant when they realize you remember all their personal info! Just pop in and take a peek at their notes BEFORE you call them!
• Upload relevant documentation and attach it to their record. You can attach their invoice, sales receipts, contracts etc. by scanning them into a PDF and then uploading them to your database.

If you will commit to using your database, adding EVERYONE you meet the day you meet them, you WILL get more business and make more money!!!

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BE PART OF THIS AMAZING OPPORTUNITY TO
GROW YOUR REAL ESTATE BUSINESS!

This one-day Marketing Planning Seminar for Realtors, Title Companies and Mortgage Professionals will help you focus on the activities that will help you establish your brand, grow your business, get new clients and generate leads for your business.

You WILL leave the class with a detailed plan for how to grow your business!

SEATING IS LIMITED TO 25 ATTENDEES – Don’t miss your chance to change your business!

PLUS – As a bonus, everyone who attends will get a FREE copy of “How To Service Your Listings” AND the special report “100 Things To Do To Sell Your Listings” (A $30 Value)!

When: February 6th from 9-1
Where: Integrity First Funding Group
1237 Lady Marion Lane
Dundedin FL 34698
Cost: $25

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You have a million things you HAVE to do TODAY. You need to finish your paperwork, call some clients, send a newsletter, read an article, do some more paperwork, call that icky client, start your taxes, arggg!

I can tell you that there are probably only two or three things that you HAVE to do today to grow your business, sell something or get a new prospect. Those are the only things you HAVE to do today! (If you owe money to the IRS you may HAVE to talk to them today – you have my permission!)

So if you only have a few things you HAVE to do, you must WANT to do all that other busy work you have set up for yourself, right? We humans are funny creatures, we like to keep busy, to feel needed, to do important work. If we have lots to do we can justify to ourselves not getting some vital things done.

That ends today people! Today you need to figure out the top 3 things that you need to do for your business and EVERY day, before you do anything else, those things have to be done!

For my business, my top three things are:

1. Lead generating – writing blog posts, attending mastermind sessions, writing articles, emailing prospects
2. Strategic planning – getting the systems in place so that when opportunity knocks I am ready
3. Writing Ebooks or speaking in person – this is my actual physical work!

If you are a realtor, yours may look like this:

• Lead generating – holding open houses, blogging about a neighborhood, sending out emails to your database, sending a newsletter, calling your prospects or clients and asking for referrals, attending network events
• Strategic planning – organizing your calendar, targeting neighborhoods or niches, working on your database, setting up automatic emails to your prospects
• Actual Realtor Work – taking listings, signing buyer broker agreements, showing houses, servicing your listings, writing contracts, negotiating contracts, and attending closings

Doing anything other than those things is a waste of your valuable time! You need to make sure that something from those lists is on your calendar every day!

Write these things out and hang them on the wall. Anytime something comes in that seems urgent, hold it up to your list and see if it something you HAVE to do…you may be surprised how much you have been doing that is unnecessary busywork that you just have a habit of doing.

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So these last couple of weeks have hit the nation hard. I have heard “on the TV” that there are no loans available – no car loans, no mortgages, that the banks are going to rescind all the outstanding credit lines on credit cards, that my FICO score will drop because the bank is rescindingmy credit line AND that I will not be able to buy gas.

WOW. That does NOT seem like a good thing.

That having been said, what we need to do as marketers is to get some facts into the market about mortgages, home prices and banks.

I am NOT an economist and do not EVER want to be one, but I know some feet on the street bankers who can get me information. I asked Brian P. Forrester of Tri-County for something that I could send out to my clients to reassure them. NOT to blow sunshine under their skirts but REAL information to combat the talking heads on TV. According to Brian:

I want you to know that there are many banks out there who were more conservative in their lending practices that are still here and ready to lend money to your customers.  Also, now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have settled down, they are performing as they were originally chartered to do, by providing money for banks to lend to consumers. 

I would expect a little more tightening in guidelines going forward as all of this plays out, but as I have always said, if you have a job, can prove your income, have some money for down payment (as little as 3%), and fair credit, you can get a loan. 

He has great ongoing information about the lending industry on his blog www.mortgagecommunicationspot.com. 

So what does that mean to me as a marketer (and a human)? We need to combat misinformation with facts. The fact that there are loans, and that the economy has not shut down. 

Go to your trusted sources, get quotes like this one and send them to your clients. I have a financial planner who is a great economist but not a great marketer. I feel like I am hanging out in the wind since he has not sent me any information about what my 401Ks are doing, or even just some general reassurances that I am safe in keeping my money with him.

Don’t leave your clients swinging in the wind. Call your sellers and let them know that there are loans, call your buyers and let them know there are loans, and then email your ENTIRE database with facts about what is going on with the market, where we are now and let them know you will keep them apprised in the future. Be an expert and a professional.

If you are a realtor, send out information relating to the real estate and mortgage market. If you are a mortgage banker or broker, an insurance agent, a financial planner, an accountant, etc., offer your information to anyone you come accross who has access to humans (that is everyone BTW). Become a trusted source for information and you will help your business connections communicate with their clients more effectively.

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So I was reading a blog post this week about asking for business*. Basically the author said that too many times online we have all this great information available and OF COURSE someone would know to send you an email to request your services! But do you ask them directly? Do you ask for the business the way that you would if you were face to face? I always joked around about “three copies press hard”, meaning that I was staying until I got a listing agreement unless it was a listing I wanted to turn down.

I am also very good in person about explaining the next steps in the process. “After we do the analysis of your needs I will send you a written inspection report by Tuesday” or “I will call you on Thursday to set up a time for the photographer to come out”.  Online we forget to set expectations and so sometimes inadvertantly disappoint people who are expecting a certain level of service. If your auto responder says you will get back within the next 24 hours and fail to mention that you take weekends off, they could be VERY put out when you answer their Friday email on Monday morning!

This time I have practiced what I am preaching! I have added a “Hire Me” button and listed some of my services. In the future I will have a cool email form with a dropdown box so they can tell me exactly what they are interested in and I can capture their contact information BUT for now at least they know I want them to call me! I will also have additional products  with cool links to flyers so they can see everything I have to offer, but what if they want to hire me before then?

DO NOT wait until everything is perfect before you start. Start today. I am including a variety of “hire me” buttons for you to use on your site! Please feel free to copy any of them and put it on your site so someone can hire YOU! All I ask is that you post a comment here so we can all see your site with the “hire me” button!!!!

* If it was your post please let me know and I will add a link!!!!

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