Reputation Management

Don’t Balk. Learn ASAP.

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Today we had a birthday party for my four-year-old daughter. My wife invited a few couples from the community as well as our immediate neighbors and everyone that had young kids brought them. The party was a hoot and we all had fun.

I, of course, am now ready to curl up in a ball with a book for an hour or so before I fall asleep.

Talking with one of the fathers and he asked me how work was going. This is what people do. They ask me how the market is, how work is going. I answer the question, on average, two or three times a day to different people.1

I answered like I would, telling him that the interest rates are higher than they’ve been in more than twenty years, which makes it difficult for people to want to buy. Being that many sellers are also buyers, there’s also a lack of inventory which is compounded with what is already a low-inventory market. So, things are going okay, but they could be better. What homes there are are selling quickly. There are more cash deals than what is typical, and most of the sellers that I’m working with are moving out of state for various reasons.

We somehow got on the topic of assumable mortgages. It was definitely something I brought up. It’s something I’ve been thinking about. Having gotten licensed in 2017, there hasn’t been a big reason to know anything about assumable mortgages. Now, with interest rates being as high as they are relative to how low they were three years ago, I know it’s something I should learn more about to help buyer clients secure loans on the best terms possible.

But, I have yet to learn about them. That is, until after my conversation with this guy when I proceeded to look it up so I’d know what the hell I was talking about.

Don’t talk about real estate things that you don’t fully understand with people. That’s my lesson for today. We talked in and out and all around the notion of an assumable mortgage. I hadn’t grasped the concept fully. It was only partially hatched in my little 2017-licensed brain. No appraisal? Couldn’t be. Has to appraise. Turns out that’s not true. Bank doesn’t give a shit so long as you have the difference between the loan and the sale price in cash. What kind of loans are assumable? Are there certain kinds that frequently are or certain kinds that frequently aren’t?

I knew nothing, other than that the point was to acquire the lower rate. I didn’t know that one then has to come up with a down payment sufficient to cover the difference between the loan amount and the market value/asking price of the property. I didn’t know that government-insured loans are often assumable, that conventional loans rarely are.

I didn’t know. But he asked, and I admitted I didn’t know.2

What’s worse is that I brought it up. I initiated it. I looked uninformed, professionally, which makes it appear that I’m not fully able to represent my clients. That’s true to some degree. This is something I should know about, like I said.

I don’t want to get myself into situations where I don’t know things that I should know professionally. Not going to win me any points with the public. So, I learned, and I’ll learn more. I’ll begin to use this for my clients, when possible. I will ask my sellers about the nature of their loans and will research this more effectively in my pre-listing process.

  • If the thought comes that I should know something because it will make me more valuable professionally, I shouldn’t balk. Learn it asap.
  • Don’t unnecessarily put myself into positions where I don’t have the answers that relate to my profession.
  • When these things happen, autopsy the situation, see where I went wrong, correct course, and don’t make the same mistake twice.
  1. It pays to have a canned response to this. It’s not something I’ve mastered. I usually make the mistake of being transparent and telling them how the market actually is or how work is actually going. Maybe that’s me being authentic, or maybe I’m missing opportunities to be a clever real estate salesperson. ↩︎
  2. This is a sign of progress. The new-agent version of Sam would have tried to bullshit his way through it instead of just admitting that he didn’t know and exercising even the smallest display of humility. ↩︎
Don’t Balk. Learn ASAP.

Top Contacts

samuelabbottiii, , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This is something I’ve yet to perfect but I have a belief in it because of how many people have instructed me to do it or something similar to it.

As a real estate professional, I’m in the people business, much as I hate to admit it. See, I don’t hate people, no not at all. But I don’t particularly love having to interact with them for my work.

I’m what is frequently referred to as an introvert. But, I get along well enough with others, so I’m moderately successful at real estate sales. This doesn’t help me though when it comes to spontaneously reaching out to everyone I know so I can be top of mind.

Yes, it’s not something I’ve been doing well lately. We participated in a coaching program earlier this year with Workman Success Systems and this is one concept they’re known for.

I identify my top contacts. This might be 250, 100, 50, or somewhere in between. The working notion here is that these people are the people most likely to refer me business. From here, I design a contact plan of how I want to keep in touch with them. At WSS, it was as simple as a phone call or a face-to-face meeting once per month.

A book that influenced me a lot earlier on is 7L – Seven Levels of Communication.1 Strongly recommend it. I may reread it now that I’m thinking about it. I could use some motivation around this.

The premise of the book is that trust comes as a byproduct of communication. When we communicate with people more and more, they trust us as professionals and become more and more likely to refer business to us.

So, how do we keep in touch with these people? WSS keeps it simple with a phone call or a face-to-face once per month.2 7L provides lots of ideas, an example of one is their emphasis on writing personal notes.3

7L also prescribes the task of grading one’s database. WSS had a similar suggestion. Most people think in terms of A, B, C, and sometimes D, and F. The point is that if I grade them, I don’t have to remember who’s at what stage, I just search for the categorical letter and see the list of people.

WSS used A is for leads that are expected to buy/sell/etc. within 30 days, for instance, whereas, A+ is an Ambassador in 7L — somebody who has before, and you expect to in the future, refer you more than 1 deal per year. Typically A (or A+) is the optimal grading, and people less likely to close or less likely to refer us business (depending on which model is used) would be graded as B, C, D, F, etc.

Some people make their entire careers just focused on direct referral. In order to do that, we have to be referrable. In order to be referrable, we have to behave remarkably when we’re dealing with clients.

Old Sam doesn’t always deal remarkably with clients. We all make mistakes. The important thing is to actually do our best so we can lay our head on the pillow peacefully, and so we can ensure that we’re going to be talked about positively by the people we’ve helped.

When it comes to this aspect of the business, we’re rewarded for being good at relationships. I sometimes feel that the effort makes it insincere, inauthentic. I have an angle, after all. So, I’m going to challenge myself to find a way to do it authentically for me.

Writing comes much easier to me. I could finally get serious about a work-related blog and send content out to my people once a month, once a week, bi-weekly, whatever. I could call the ones that I feel comfortable calling because I like them and they seem to like me.

Another way I could increase my SOI activity is by visiting people. I’m always so busy like every other real estate professional claims to be. 4 Getting out, intentionally, and visiting with past clients and friends in the area where I work is much more up my alley than the phone call. The visit, as opposed to the call, feels more meaningful for them, and it’s more fulfilling for me.

So, there I go! Win/win.

  • Begin a blog for my company and email the post however often I decide.
    • I’ll begin with a monthly newsletter with a market update and whatever other ancillary things that matter that I can think of.
    • I’ll post that as a blog post on our company website.
    • Maybe I’ll read the market report to a video screen and call it a YouTube video.
    • I’ll link both in our MailChimp account and send them out monthly to our subscribers.5
  • I’ll challenge myself to visit with one past client/member of my sphere of influence (SOI) every week.

For me, this feels both authentic and effective. It’s something I can get behind doing because it suits my personality and preferences more. Many people I know don’t mind making phone calls—it comes easily for them. Great. I think the important thing is mapping out a system and actually executing it for an extended period of time.6

  1. I’m a guy who’s had a considerable amount of my business come from people I know personally and from direct referrals from people I know personally. I believe this is due in large part to this book and the things it teaches. ↩︎
  2. I merely skimmed the Ninja real estate book you may have heard of. One concept that jumped out at me was this one. Very similar, they recommend a call every seven weeks to set up a meeting every eight weeks. Something like that. The approach is altered slightly everywhere but is otherwise ubiquitous. ↩︎
  3. Writing personal notes can be an effective and touching way to communicate. It feels very personal to see someone’s handwriting. A good rule of thumb with this would be to commit to writing X per day. In the 7L book, there’s an in-depth formula for how to write the cards. Use the formula if it’s helpful. If it deters you from writing them, it’s not serving you and you should just write notes. ↩︎
  4. But I’m rarely too busy for lunch with my business partner at the drop of a hat. ↩︎
  5. This will be distinct from the newsletter we’re already sending out, for this will actually be news! ↩︎
  6. Holiday cards, thank you notes, thinking of you notes, blogging, phone calls, client events, visiting them at their home, inviting them to visit you at your office or an open house, getting lunch/meals, play dates with their kids and yours, birthday parties, housewarming parties—the list goes on. ↩︎
Top Contacts

Reviews

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Several people I know in real estate don’t collect reviews. This is something I learned the importance of early on and made an effort to gather them since. I’m no multi-hundred review Realtor, but I frequently meet new clients primarily because of the reviews that I have displayed on the internet.

Another friend doesn’t like the term “review” and instead prefers to call them “testimonials”. I can understand his reasoning. The word review has a negative connotation to it. I’m not asking people to review me, as though it’s a grading sheet for how I performed, but more so to validate that they had a positive experience.

I still call them reviews. But creating a process around this has made a big difference for me. I tend to meet people who are looking online for a real estate professional in my market. I don’t get everyone, but I often at least get a seat at the table.

I’ve found that a lot of the time these people only interview me, but not always. They’re often people who do not know another real estate professional. This makes them easier to convert to clients. Win for Sam.

The process is simple enough. I used to wait until the deal was over before I would ask for the review. Sometimes I still do (especially with people that I have a strong rapport with) but this is more a point of bad form than it is process.

When it’s optimally executed, I wait for a high point in the transaction. Sometimes for listings, this actually precedes the transaction and is somewhere in the time between taking the listing and getting an acceptable offer. But in either case, I wait for a high point when I’m the obvious hero to them. In that moment of elation, when they’re happier with me than they ever have been or perhaps ever will be again, I ask them if they’d be willing to do me a favor.1

I’ve never had anyone that I asked this say no.2 Usually people are delighted, especially in the elated moment, to agree to do something like this.

So, then what? Hope that they are disciplined and get it done, eventually?

That’s what I used to do. Not always effective. What I’ve found is that most people want to write me a nice review, especially once they’ve learned how helpful it can be for me.3 Sometimes, oftentimes, that’s the problem. They want to write me a nice review. An excellent review. A perfect review.

And so the review never gets written.

This is a human problem. Being that the content of the review seems to be less important than the quantity of positive reviews, I emphasize this to them as well. I take it a step further and offer to write the review for them, highlighting things that went well, and then encouraging them to edit it to their liking and just to use it as a starting point.

Well, I did that for a while, but then I took it a step further. I just wrote it, and sent it to them along with a direct link to my Google Business Reviews where they would then just have to paste it and click once for it to be complete—if they wanted. I do this all through text messages or emails if I have to. Texts are optimal because I can share the language and the link and they can do it quickly. Of course, they are welcome to just use it as a starting point if they want to write me a review of their own, but I’ve found that most people are content with the review I write so long as it’s honest and well-written. They’d rather not spend more time on this than needed, their ambitions about writing an excellent review notwithstanding.

Only one person has written a review altogether different than the one I provided them. As it turns out, I’m quite a bit better than the average consumer at writing a review for a real estate professional!4 I know which things to emphasize and am able to remember the points of the transaction that they may have forgotten. It all gets packed into the review. If it’s a high-priced property, or a transaction type that fits some marketing funnel I have, I accentuate that too so I can add it to those marketing funnels and channels. This will speak more specifically to prospective clients that fit those price points or demographics or stages of life. Did I get chosen over a well-respected Realtor in the market? It’s going in there. I wouldn’t name their name, but you better believe I’m writing it.

It works really well. I don’t feel shameful or unethical about it either. The client approves the language and posts it. That’s what’s important.

Some platforms have been easier to get reviews on than others.5 Zillow used to be a crapshoot. It might get published, but it might not. They would make the consumer click more times and go through more hoops. And it wasn’t always immediate. Bad enough I have to ask these people to do this shit. Worse still, when they do it and it doesn’t publish for unknown reasons, I have to politely ask them to do it again.

These reviews are money—they matter. But the client only cares a little about doing me a favor. After all, they’re paying for my service. “Raving fans” or not, the less friction I create by asking them for anything other than the order, the better.

In closing, I’ll add that it’s important to own the reviews as business assets. Keeping them published on these third-party sites (Zillow, Realtor, Trulia, Google) is good, but copy and paste them into a Word file and/or onto your website. If for any reason any of those companies dies, goes away, glitches out, deletes your shit, locks you out, etc., etc., etc., you are without those reviews. They own them, not you. Take it from me. I’m one of many people who were subject to a phishing scam where some jerkoff somewhere hacked into my Facebook profile and began posting obscene videos. Within seconds, Facebook locked my account. It was subsequently deleted and there was no recourse I could take. That was a kick in the balls for a guy with 2500 Facebook “friends” where I would post every new listing and sale. I still have some work to do around this gathering all mine into a file and republishing on my websites, and so I’m telling myself this as much as I’m writing it for others here.

So, go get those reviews! It doesn’t have to be a terribly uncomfortable act to ask someone. Wait for the high moment, ask them to do you a favor (after you’ve just made their day), and write up a scripted text that you send after they agree explaining that your business is dependent on people like them leaving positive feedback for other people thinking about doing business with you in the future. If they agree to write a review, then send them another scripted text explaining that in your experience, oftentimes clients want to write the perfect review, and so it never gets written. Because of that, you took a couple minutes to put together this quick review for them to use or not. They can use it as a starting point or just copy and paste it if it’s easier for them. Then send the direct link to whatever platforms you prefer if they agree. Follow up as needed if needed and be politely persistent.

  1. The closing is not always the high point. In fact, it’s usually not. It’s also awkward to ask for it because, at least for me, it feels way more forced and like they’re expecting me to ask them for a review before/during/after the closing. I think the client sometimes feels they’ve done me a favor when we’re at the closing because they’ve acknowledged once if not more times very recently just how much money my services cost them. ↩︎
  2. I don’t typically ask people for a review if the relationship feels strained for any reason or if something went poorly through the transaction. Call that what you want, but I’m actually not interested in people leaving me a negative review on the internet. ↩︎
  3. I explain to them that this is how many people either find me online or “interview” me before they reach out at all, both of which are true. ↩︎
  4. It’s important not to write it in Realtor jargon though. You’re playing the consumer here, so don’t say deal, double-side/double-end, over ask, DOM, or any of this other nonsense language we squawk to each other. The consumer doesn’t have a goddamn clue what any of that means, for one, and for two, they’ll likely intuit that it wasn’t their fellow consumer that wrote it. ↩︎
  5. I’ve found Google My Business (GMB) to be the easiest to work with. I have some on Realtor.com, more on Zillow.com, and most on GMB. I think I’m going to begin trying to get more on Zillow again but will prompt clients with both links and will not ask. The instructions will be to post them here and here, not one or the other. Ask for what you want, don’t hope for shit. ↩︎
Reviews