"Clients don't want to hear about the labor pains. They just want to see the baby." - Andy Lansing, CEO, Levy Restaurants
But do they really?
I mean in our business, really any aspect of the real estate industry - or maybe any industry for that matter - do our clients really care how we do what we do to get the result they desire as long as we're successful and ethical at doing it for them?
I came across a blog post touting this quote after spending a good amount of time perusing another website that actually "showed it's readers the baby". It spelled out all of our secrets - or some. I felt confused - the way you would after kissing another girl for the first time, and liking it (or so I'm told). I couldn't help but feel like "why are you telling the customer this? now they'll know everything", but on the other hand I don't like to hide the way I do business from my customers. I feel like they should know if they want. "So maybe this is good for the consumer" - after all it certainly grabbed my attention and made me stay for 5 or 6 pages. I felt educated...I felt like I had learned a secret...I felt like if I were in his community I would work with him because he'll tell me everything...I felt like I should be doing the same thing...the key is 'I felt'. I felt therefore I buy.
And there in lays the dilema. Is a tell-all-approach to your business a way to build credibility or a client base?
From a business and marketing standpoint, it's awesome. I went to a Mary Kay round robin meeting last night for the first time. I fell in love. Not with Mary Kay but with what Mary Kay is to the people involved. Mary Kay doesn't sell cosmetics. Mary Kay sells dreams with emotion acting as currency. And that's exactly what this particular website did and accomplished. It created certain feelings that led to an internal commitment to buy, just by letting it all hang out there.
Now from a client point of view...most women that I work with are not in the real estate industry. They're in every industry other than real estate. But even speaking from my own experience using Realtors in other markets, I have noticed that when it comes right down to it, they could care less about real estate. When I first realized that, I was apalled. I was sitting on a bus to Atlantic City with one of my dear girl friends. I was reading "Construction Funding" and she was reading Love Trash. She asked what I was reading, and when I told her, she made this disgusting face - like the yellow one on the medicine bottle with the tongue hanging out. It was then, in that moment that I realized "people really don't love real estate like I do". Perhaps too much HGTV skewed my perception of reality a bit. With subsequent clients, I realized the same was true.
They all want to buy or sell a house, but they really only want to know the details to the extent that it helps them rationalize or reason the issues that concern them. They really don't want to be bothered with and know everything. And when they do, they let you know immediately.
So how do you deal?
Idea***
Instead of putting it all up on a website, perhaps put it in a client manual. Let them decide to read it or not.
or...
Your Thoughts...Anyone??
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