52 Weeks of Sales Success

One of the secrets to selling in the twenty-first-century marketplace is this: Give away information to sell products and services. It was not always this way, especially in my industry—residential real estate. When I started selling real estate over 30 years ago, real estate agents were the gatekeepers to the information. We had the multiple listing service (MLS), which contained information about all the homes in the area currently for sale. If buyers or sellers wanted access to this information, they had to hire an agent. Now, buyers and sellers can easily pull up listings and perform other housing market research on the Internet.

The agents who are thriving in the new marketplace are the ones who have embraced the change and are providing valuable information to buyers and sellers—information about neighborhoods, local schools, job opportunities in the area, tips on buying and selling a home, and much more. By giving away the information, these agents earn trust and build a strong reputation as marketplace experts. When visitors to their sites need help buying or selling a home, they hire the agent who’s been most helpful—the agent who provided them the most valuable information.

I did the same thing early in my career with For Sale by Owner (FSBO) sellers. Most agents refused to show homes that were FSBOs because they thought the sellers were trying to cut them out of their commissions. I took a different approach. I published a book on how to sell your own home and put together an FSBO kit. When I saw a For Sale by Owner sign go up, I stopped at the house, introduced myself to the owners, offered them a free FSBO kit, and wished them luck. I knew that a good percentage of FSBO sellers would ultimately become frustrated trying to sell the home themselves and would need an agent to list it. Whom do you think they called—the agent who refused to show their home or the guy who offered them assistance?

CASE STUDY: FORECLOSURE SELF-DEFENSE SEMINAR

When my co-authors and I wrote Foreclosure Self-Defense For Dummies, we began brainstorming ideas on how to most effectively promote the book. One idea we found most attractive was to put together a free Foreclosure Self-Defense Workshop kit for real estate professionals all across the country The kit would include a PowerPoint presentation explaining the many options open to homeowners facing foreclosure, tip sheets, an agenda, a sample press release, an e-mail announcement, a promotional flyer, and contact information for ordering copies of Foreclosure Self-Defense For Dummies in bulk from the publisher.

Our idea is that we would create a win-win-win situation. Real estate professionals are always looking for ways to give their businesses a higher profile in the community; what better way than to help homeowners who are facing a potentially devastating foreclosure? In the process of staging the workshop, they would be promoting our book. We would create our own mini-sales team. In addition, homeowners facing foreclosure would be the big winners, obtaining free advice on how to avoid foreclosure or at least make a graceful exit without losing everything gtheir credit.

During the writing of this book, we were still in the process of getting this somewhat complicated undertaking off the ground, but I am convinced that when we do, it will be a huge success.

IDENTIFY A NEED IN THE MARKETPLACE

Take a lesson from one industry that has mastered the strategy of using workshops to win customers—building supply stores, including Lowe’s. Lowe’s sells tools, hardware, and supplies for the homeowner do-it-yourselfer, but Lowe’s knows that nobody is going to do-it-themselves if they don’t know how to do it. They create customers by showing people how to do everything from painting rooms to tiling their bathrooms and handling minor plumbing repairs.

The first step you must take is to identify a need in your community. If you’re a financial advisor, for example, people in your marketplace may need information on retirement or estate planning. If you sell insurance, prospective clients may need a basic primer on the different types of life insurance, including term, permanent, whole life, and universal. If you sell automobile parts and supplies (or even cars), consider giving a free workshop on basic auto maintenance. Jewelers could even give seminars on how to shop for and identify the quality of diamonds and other valuable stones.

Use your imagination and brainstorm with your staff to identify several needs for information in your marketplace and then rank the items from greatest to least need. This should give you at least three or four ideas to pursue.

CREATE YOUR WORKSHOP OR SEMINAR

Because you are what I like to call a content expert, developing a one-to three-hour seminar or workshop in your area of expertise should be a cakewalk. The biggest challenge you’re likely to face is limiting the seminar or workshop to an amount of time that attendees are likely to retain interest.

When planning your workshop or seminar, be sure it includes the following items:

• Agenda: A workshop or seminar should follow an agenda, just like a meeting. List the key points you want to cover and estimate the amount of time you plan to spend on each point. Leave some room for questions at the end.

• Presentation: In most cases, a PowerPoint presentation is sufficient, but a workshop or seminar can also include demonstrations, hands-on activities, quizzes, and other activities.

• Audience handouts: Attendees should walk away from the presentation with valuable materials that reinforce the lessons learned and cause the attendees to remember you. These can include an outline of the presentation, printouts of your PowerPoint slides, tip sheets, and other items.

• Sign-in sheet: Use this opportunity to gather contact information for attendees. Before you begin your presentation, pass around a sign-in sheet that asks each attendee for his or her name, address, phone number, and e-mail address.

• Business cards: Have a sufficient supply of business cards on hand and make sure every attendee gets one.

PROMOTE YOUR WORKSHOP OR SEMINAR

To ensure that your workshop or seminar is a success, you need to draw a crowd and make sure the local media know about it, so they can give you some (free) positive PR. Here are some ideas on how to promote your workshop or seminar:

• Post an announcement, including the location, date, and time on all of your web sites and blogs.

• Do an e-mail blast announcing the event to everyone in your e-mail address book. Encourage recipients to spread the word.

• Write a press release announcing and describing the event (include the date, time, and location), and make sure every media outlet in your market receives a copy.

• Design a flyer announcing the event and hang it in prominent locations where prospective clients are likely to see it.

Invite the local media to attend the event, as well, so you can generate some post-event PR through news stories and reports in the local media.

Ralph’s Rule: Give away information to sell your product or service. When you establish yourself as the leading expert in your field or industry, you become the go-to guy or gal when clients are in the market for whatever you sell.