Build relationships and bring value with every outreach

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By Maria Malin

When we look back at the experience of living through the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ll have learned many valuable lessons from it, including how life and relationships were reprioritized and strengthened. Though physically and socially distanced, we forged new and creative pathways to check in, keep in touch, share our lives and, yes, do business. Technology will be remembered as the conduit for our connectivity, teaching us that virtual, though not reality, worked as not only an effective, but sometimes more efficient, use of our time. As we now emerge from the constraints of the pandemic, will we continue to simply click to connect our relationships? More specifically, will the return of our ability to be “in person” give technology a new place in how we reach out and stay top of mind?

From a coaching perspective, I encourage you to envision how you’d build your business if you couldn’t text or post or like or comment or stream or otherwise digitally find your way into someone’s life. What if your business wasn’t referral-based? What if you were building a business for the first time or in a completely new market or had no established sphere of influence? What would outreach look like? What would stand out? What would make you stand out? Would it be tech-savvy or grassroots?
The first, last and only thing that counts — in my personal and professional opinion, and no matter how you deliver it — is value. True and genuine value. Value to the relationship and valuable real estate — in that order.

Whether you deliver that value via digital routes or grassroots is secondary. Bringing value to those you know and those you want to know better can and should be an everyday thing. Building relationships and making others feel important doesn’t take genius, but it does take consistent effort and authenticity.

Think about the unique aspects of the relationships you want to touch, and deliver custom, relevant, personal outreach at every opportunity. Be present; be a go-to; be who you genuinely are, not some curated persona on social or a once-a-year check-in or someone only seeking out their next referral.

Remember, the world today is not only digging out of a year-plus of pandemic-weary living; it has reprioritized what’s important and has a keener sense of what’s untrue. Be other-centric in how you deepen, enrich, share and stay top of mind to the relationships in your life, and via direct or digital outreach, you’ll bring value.

Delivering valuable real estate is more straightforward. If you’re newer to real estate, build credibility by sharing quantified, data-focused market knowledge at every opportunity. If you’ve been in the business for a while, yes, you’re busy and the market’s been like no other. Still, always be other-centric in sharing what’s valuable to those asking you about the market and relying on your expertise. Simply stating that your business has been busier than ever may be perceived as “too busy.” Keep answers specific to those asking you the questions, and create value with what and how you share.

A few simple questions will help you stay in tune to whether or not your outreach is effective. Do you get response or engagement, or never hear back? Remember, half of a relationship is not a relationship. Is your sphere of influence organized? Do you then customize your outreach based on that? Make sure you’re sending what is top of mind and relevant to your recipients, and go beyond the usual, like geographic farming.

Again, always be authentic. Curating a brand or image that’s not true to who you are is not only ineffective, it’s extremely difficult to sustain or find long-term success with. Think genuine rather than simply strategic, and you’ll win in life and real estate.
Indeed, hearing a voice or seeing a face will never become obsolete. And of course, we’ll continue to deliver valuable outreach at scale via technology. Enhance and enrich your relationships at every opportunity, and strengthen your credibility by sharing your specific real estate knowledge and experience with those you know and those they know. Spend your time wisely and consistently on all fronts, and you’ll create a template for long-term, sustainable growth in any market.

Since 2011, Maria Malin has worked exclusively in real estate coaching and training for @properties and Compass in Chicago, writing, developing and teaching content to assist Illinois real estate brokers with building and growing their business. Brokers who regularly coached with her in 2020 grew their business an average of 76%. Maria recently launched her own real estate coaching business, works with all brokerages and can be found at mariamalincoaching.com.

Two tech tools to brand like a pro on social media

Anne Ewasko Leave a comment

We all love our brands, and because of that, we are loyal to them. When we find something we love, we stick to it and buy it again and again. We do the same thing when it comes to finding the right hairstylist, doctor, contractor and, of course, Realtor.

There is no better way today for us Realtors to build our brand (and our business) than by using social media. But it’s always a huge challenge to stay on top of our social media and continue to sell homes. Juggling the two can be quite difficult, as both take so much time to do it right, and often it’s our social media presence that suffers because of it. However, with today’s available tech tools, there is no need to hire a social media manager or a graphic designer to keep your brand and messaging consistent. You can DIY — Do It Yourself!

Here are two ways to manage both and stay on top of it like a pro: One, find the right social media management platform; and two, find a good online design tool that can quickly put together your concepts (even if you aren’t that creative or tech savvy) to create posts that reflect who you are and enhance your brand. There are tons out there, so do your research to find what fits your budget and skill level.

I chose eclincher as my management platform because it’s simple to use, has great 24/7 customer support and allows me to organize and manage all of my accounts in one central hub. With just a few clicks, I can carry out automated tasks that can be simultaneously posted on multiple platforms — and they have all the major ones I need (not all of them do): Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google Plus, Pinterest and even TikTok. It comes with a single inbox so you don’t have to move from one platform to another to stay on top of messages, and it makes it so much easier to interact. They have an unending supply of recommended content (including image libraries) that one can pull from and stay fresh. I love the fact that I can plan and curate my posts as far out as I like with their visual content calendar (so easy to plan ahead for holidays) that will automatically post once they are plugged in. This allows me to set it and forget it so that I can stay consistent in my postings and focus my time and energy on my main business, selling real estate! What’s even cooler about this platform is that you can boost your posts and monitor their performance with their analytics tracker. This allows me to see what types of posts bring in more engagement and helps me to pivot my efforts to attract more business, and who doesn’t want that?

One could get away with merely using this social media management tool, but if you want to up the ante and really come across like an expert, then add on a design tool to create visually striking posts that keep your brand identity consistent across all your platforms. I use Canva, and the good news is that it can be fully integrated with eclincher. So again, everything is in one place, which makes this all super-efficient. With their vast selection of templates and over 3,000 fonts to choose from, all you need to do is change them out to your brand colors, fonts and imagery — it’s that simple. They even allow you to set up a “brand kit” so that your colors, fonts and style stay consistent.

OK, so what if you have never defined your brand? Then this is a great place to get started. Scroll through their templates and fonts, and see which ones are “you” and the brand/image that you want to convey to your audience. It’s a lot of fun to hunt around and you will know it when you see it. It will feel “right” — just like a homebuyer knows when they’ve found the right home. Once you have found the one that fits you best, then you need to stick to that theme consistently so that your audience will be able to tell immediately that it’s you — THAT is how you build your brand and, most importantly, a dependable following. You can carry that theme into your listing presentations (and Canva can assist you with that, too), print brochures, e-campaigns and all of your print/digital marketing. Once clients see this consistency throughout, they will know they are working with a true professional and will want to hire you to sell their home.

So, no more haphazardly posting random content and discombobulated images on the fly that detract from who you are and how you want to position yourself in your market. Now you can control it, save time, stay consistent and look like a pro by using these tools. Your target market will find you, follow you and fall in love with who you are and stay loyal to your brand, which, in turn, will be a great pipeline for success and bring your sales volume up.

Anne Ewasko is a veteran Realtor in the Chicago area and a longtime techie. Visit her at anne.luxhomechicago.com.