An interesting thing happened to me recently when I attended a two day event in La Jolla, CA to sit and learn from some HUGE producing Realtors and Lenders - it's called a paradigm shift.
The event was sponsored by By Referral Only Inc ( http://www.byreferralonly.com/ ) and was called the 2006 Strategic Leadership Forum. Most of the agents and lenders here have anywhere from 70% to 100% BY REFERRAL ONLY business - literally. Talk about quality clients and great life style! Many earn big 6 and 7 figure incomes in 30 hour work weeks, ALL referral.
Theses B.R.O. members have been taught to segment their business into three categories called: Before, During and After.
Before is everything they do to get a new client and would include running ad's, signs, whatever. These are referred to as the BEFORE systems.
The During unit is all the systems they have set in place to generate a referral while in the process of working with a client, since this is the time most people are thinking about buying and selling, this is when they most notice it and are most likely going to be able to refer someone to you.
The After unit is everything they do to stay in touch with past clients in a meaningful and valuable way to generate referrals and repeat business.
Here's the interesting thing; having spoken to dozens of these agents at length, I was stunned to learn that all of them bar none were getting the bulk of their business from their AFTER unit. Past clients!
They didn't need to run ad's - they simply needed to stay in touch with their past clients. They had all sorts of creative ways to consistantly "wow" these valuable past clients and generate consistent business from them.
Imagine not having to spend money on marketing. Imagine only working with people who knew you, liked you and trusted you! Imagine your work day consisted of doing drop by visits to people who were happy to see you, invited you into their places of business and handed out your business cards while singing your praises as they did it?
The question that begs to be answered is, am I showing up and serving people in a way that would make them want to help me? If I am, am I asking for help from these people and then taking it one step further and showing them how they can help me?
Interesting to think about isn't it? How about if every single client generated you one piece of new businss in the DURING process and then referred a minimum of two people a year to you through the AFTER systems?
I went home, sat down and wrote a humble apology letter to all the people I'd abandoned and was surprised to learn that many were very happy to hear from me. This month, I've been referred a $2million home buyer, some first time buyers looking at $300k condos this weekend and perhaps a $7million commercial listing - waiting to find out on that one still.
Meaningful newsletters, personal notes, drop by visits, phone calls - amazing!
I know many of you are doing this already and can probably contribute some fantastic idea's to our community and I truly look forward to hearing your replys!
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