Yep....your grandma is online too
There is a conspiracy going on and it ain’t right. Recently I spoke with a real estate agent of the “older persuasion”. He came to one of my Inbound Marketing classes. Nice Guy. Great Guy actually. He sat there, fully engaged, eyes locked on me and asked Lot’s of questions. I am a former title rep for a national title insurance company in Phoenix Arizona, I spent 10 years helping real estate professionals [real estate agents and loan officers] grow their business. Now I am a partner at PRO-Found Marketing.
He [let’s call him Arnie] that is not his name of course, but if you have been here before you know that I like to assign people names when I talk about them. Anyway, “Arnie” showed up for my class and this dude was “in it to win it”. He was going to get his money’s worth [the class was FREE]. He is the best kind of student. He wasn’t staring at his phone [like I do] or staring around the room [ like I do], no, he was there, he came, he saw and he conquered.
The class was about Inbound Marketing. Inbound Marketing of course, is the act of helping a consumer [your ideal client] find you online at the exact moment in time they have identified a need for your services. We touched on WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google’s Keyword Tool, Google Alerts, Bing’s new algorithm [which now includes your “friends” LIkes] and a few other things. These poor agents. They came there with the idea that they were going to hear another website guy talk about why his ridiculously priced websites are so much better than everyone else. They sat down, crossed they arms [defensively] and listened. And then I said it. A question. “Tell me HOW I can find you online without typing your name or company into a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing”. The body shifting started. The looks around the room started. Some were thinking, I’m not going to be the 1st one to tell Stephen that. . . I have absolutely NO CLUE!. Got em. I found their pain. Pain is an interesting thing. Many people won’t do anything unless it is to stop or avoid pain. Think about it. You hear about people that smoke for 40 years. They try and quite hundreds of times but can’t. Until the doctor says “you have cancer, if you quit now you will live an extra 3 years.” What happens? They quit. Cold turkey. Done. Why? Pain. Consequence of not being here.
They listened intently as I told them why traditional real estate websites stink. They raised their hands when I asked who has a website? I watched their hands come down when I asked them to leave their hand up if they have gotten a deal from their website in the last 6 months. Sad. Only in real estate is it OK to have a website that does absolutely nothing. The class lasted for 90 minutes. Well, it was supposed to anyway. The 90 minutes turned into 120. Why? Arnie. Arnie came up to me after the class and he told me about the “conspiracy” going on. “Arnie” is a BIG agent. He works a specific part of the Phoenix area and up until recently – he killed it. By his own admission, he was responsible for 1 out of every 10 sales in his target or “farm” area. Now – it’s 1 out of 15. And he is pissed. I don’t blame him. What he used to do worked fine. Full page ads in the local newspaper. Flyers and postcards, hell, even a billboard at one point. But not anymore. Now he is losing business. To kids. “Those damn kids are killing my business”. I initially thought he meant “kids” like teenagers. The kind that steal your flyers out of your flyer tube or pop your balloons at your open house. No. He wasn’t talking about those kids. Arnie was talking about the kids. The young “whipper snappers” that are diverting his business. Diverting his business from him to them. Actually, not really from him because he never really had a chance to get it. The conspiracy is all the kids that are using the Internet to steal his clients. Of course, they were not his clients because they don’t even know he exists. They don’t know he exists because they are not looking for his billboard, flyer, postcard or full page ad. They are online. It’s online that the conspiracy begins.
Those little bastards are optimizing their websites. Optimizing them with great content that people are looking for online. And it’s ridiculous. Who do they think they are? Stealing his clients? Unbelievable. To “Arnie’s credit, he knows. He knows why he is losing business and he knows what he needs to do to compete in the new reality. Pain brought Arnie to my class. He paid attention, he listened to everything I had to say and he asked lots of questions. Arnie knows that without a change in his business those 1 out of 15 homes that he has had a hand in will become 20 then 30 and so on. Good for Arnie. This is a guy that is driven.
I would like to thank “Arnie” for becoming our newest member at PRO-Found Marketing. Come on in. The water’s warm.
Do you know any Arnie’s?
