I've been to Brian Buffini's "By Referral only'.

I get a lot of people "just don't buy leads". Others do, and swear by it.

My belief is one should do both, and many people seem to assume these are mutually exclusive.

One thing that sort of puzzles me, and perhaps you can shed some light, is why do so many people believe you either "are a referral agent" and never buy leads, or someone who buys a lot of leads.

In the mortgage world this is more apparent...really because of the psychology of the shops. The lead shops would usually run a call center, do some big numbers, with big overhead. The referral guys/shops did business via this "financial planner" type of model relying on expertise.

The problem are twofold:

- The "Experts" aka "referral only" people lose a ton of business, because unless you reach the level of someone like Ric Edelman or Suze Orman i.e. your name has become a serious brand with near market saturation, you're losing out on the business from the guy down the street you could serve really well and make good money from - but he doesn't know you exist. The advertising just isn't reaching him. Or at the very least, -most- of the experts (not all, but most) are not as busy as they could be. Most don't work like a doctor, instead, they have all these skills / knowledge but only use them about 10% of their total available time, while the other 50% is looking for business.

- The Lead Buyers, usually in the mortgage industry but could be applied to real estate, often from a business practice standpoint are in this "turn 'em and burn 'em" mindset. In the mortgage world, many of these shops put their agenda ahead of the clients, making as much as possible, and now they're out of business. Not a bad business if you have zero ethics and don't care about a long-term career, but why not fold these together? The referrals and good karma will easily make up for that 1/2 pt in fees you didn't make gouging the client.

This sounds great conceptually, but what it really means is:

- If you've never bought a lead or have and it hasn't worked out, I propose you try it again...but with accountability. If some lead-gen shop wants $10k up front and doesn't come with a mile-long track record, look elsewhere. A good lead generator or advertising partnership arrangement will look to build a mutually beneficial arrangement. They're out there.

- If you're a leads-only shop, I'd recommend going to some of these referral-only seminars like Brian Buffini (i'm not paid by them, just a fan) and looking for specific action steps to deepen engagement..it'll look like phone calls with real humans (not machines), handwritten cards, personal meetings when possible, and video (that's my own addition; video is a lot more emotional).

(as I type this I realize I should video-blog more often... next time... ;-)  )

Comments? Is anyone doing both effectively?

RogerV
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