Social Selling Made Simple

Sales and networking require us to effectively communicate with strangers. In those situations, many agents struggle to separate themselves from the crowd, and fall into the trap of simply being seen as a commodity.    We all have things that make us different. What we’re passionate about, the value we bring to the table, the niche we serve and our own personal journeys that set us apart.   When we’re able to present ourselves leading with these things, we get elevated to the status of an expert in the eyes of the people we meet.    How do we find the niche we can dominate? Why are stories a central part to sales? In this episode, I’m joined by internationally-recognized consultant, speaker, coach and author of the new book, The Introvert’s Edge to Networking, Matthew Pollard. We talk about what it takes to get better at selling ourselves.  Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode    The biggest misconception people have about introverts and entrepreneurship It’s hard to convince the world that introverts can be good at selling, and that’s because there are a lot of misconceptions about what introversion means. Being an introvert doesn’t mean you can’t sell, it’s just about where you draw your energy from, and that your path to success is often different.   Why niching down offers more options than we think Niching down allows us to become an authority in a specific space. One mistake we make is thinking there’s limited niches available. We can niche on demographics like retirees, by occupations such as medical professionals, or we can niche down based on an outcome or a specific result we can get for people.    How to sell more effectively by telling stories When it comes to sales, agents often over complicate everything and overwhelm people with information, which puts them off. Instead of overloading them, we have to tell stories to short circuit the logical mind and reach them on an emotional level. People resonate with stories more, and when we embed our communication with names and anecdotes about changing people's lives, we get attention and spark a relationship. 

One of the most important marketing fundamentals we need to make a reality in our own lives and businesses is finding and dominating a niche. When we create our own lane, we’re able to have a clearer message, stand out more, understand our clients and serve them at a higher level.  Mobile home investing is one of the most fascinating and profitable niches in real estate. Today, I’m joined by an entrepreneurial couple who have flipped over 400 mobile homes, and are now teaching other people how to build wealth and financial freedom in the same space.  What strategies can we put in place with mobile homes so that they solve problems for other people? How can we use platforms like YouTube to dominate a niche and showcase our unique value proposition? In this episode, I’m joined by the co-founder of Trailer Cash Academy, Jay and Samera Harvey. They share how they got started and what helped them rise to the top of this niche.    Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode    Why mobile home investing serves an important purpose  Affordable housing is an issue in every metropolitan area in this country, and mobile homes can be a worthy answer to this problem. By investing in mobile homes, we can contribute to improving the lives of families in our communities.  Why we shouldn’t be on every social media platform  There’s so much pressure for us to be on platforms like TikTok and Clubhouse, but it’s important to remember how easily those shiny objects become distractions that take us away from our goals. Protect your time, if a platform is not where your ideal clients hang out and what makes you money, it shouldn’t be a priority.  How to create a client avatar  Think back to who you were at the time that you started and really needed the service you offer now. Get really specific about the biggest questions you had at the time and use that to inform the solution you create. If you understand the problem, you can position your product in order to solve that pain point. 

When it comes to marketing, we’re often so focused on the individual aspects that we overlook how all the pieces fit together to create a memorable customer experience.    By focusing on the whole customer experience, we can create joy, build loyalty, get repeat business, and build a strong connection with people.    Everything we do in marketing should be about showing value to our customers, and being authentic and personable so that they genuinely get to know, like, and trust us.    Why is email marketing so important in business right now? What parts of the customer journey can we change and improve? In today’s episode, I’m joined by sought-after speaker, author, entrepreneur, and the founder of The Founding Moms, Jill Salzman. She talks about the most important marketing elements business owners often ignore.   Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode  Why authenticity and vulnerability set us apart The foundation of marketing in 2021 is a personal relationship and connection. People want authenticity and realness from the people they do business with. If we want them to hire us, they have to be able to know, like, and trust us. This happens when we’re personable, engaging, and true to ourselves on social media.  The power of email Don’t underestimate the power of email and nurturing your mailing list. Email marketing has the power to change a lot of businesses. If we dial in the content, the frequency of our emails, and our efforts to grow the list, we can deepen our customer relationships.  How to gain insight into your customer’s journeyMany entrepreneurs don’t know their customers well enough or their customer’s personal journey, which keeps them from growing their business. Take yourself through your own customer experience from the first interaction to the final sale. It’s the only way to see if there’s anything missing or something we have to improve on.   Guest Bio-  Jill Salzman is a sought-after speaker, author, the founder of The Founding Moms, the world’s first and only global collective of offline masterminds and online resources for mom entrepreneurs. A graduate of Brown University and law school after that, she started Paperwork Media, a music management firm, and her first entrepreneurial venture. (Her parents still wonder why she opted for the music business over the seductive and alluring career of a bankruptcy attorney.) She went on to create The Bumble Brand LLC to sell Bumble Bells, audible ankle wear for the newest of human beings (she sold it in 2011.) Having built two successful companies, she launched The Founding Moms to connect mom entrepreneurs around the globe with one another and help them get down to business. Jill has been featured in national media outlets including the New York Times, CNN’s Headline News, People Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, Daily Candy Kids, Business Matters, WGN TV, and WAHM Talk Radio. Her TED talk, Why Moms Make The Best Entrepreneurs, received rave reviews. She was named one of the Top 50 Women To Watch In Tech and a Top 100 Champion Small Business Influencer. Forbes called The Founding Moms one of the Top 10 Websites for Women Entrepreneurs, CNNMoney calls Jill a “Mommy Mogul,” and she was dubbed a “ Cool Mom Entrepreneur We Love” by MSN Live. She released her first book, Found It: A Field Guide for Mom Entrepreneurs, in 2012 through Piggott Press, and The Best Business Book In The World (according to my mom) in 2018. She co-hosts Forbes’ top-rated entertaining business podcast, Breaking Down Your Business and she’s launched a Tip Top Tips video series for entrepreneurs. For more information visit https://foundingmoms.com, send an email to jill@foundingmoms.com and follow @foundingmom on Instagram or connect on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/foundingmoms.

If we want to be more effective at marketing and social selling, we have to get better at leveraging the devices in the palms of our hands. We have to approach everything we do from the angle of finding solutions. Every pain point in our business and our marketing is an opportunity to learn something that can make us better.    When the lockdown happened back in March, I set goals for what I wanted to achieve to keep growing my business. Instead of seeing the lockdown as a problem, I then set out to learn, find the solutions, and gather resources to help me achieve those goals. This helped me launch ancillary businesses and even a new book!   In the last episode of the Social Selling Challenge, I talk about the importance of focusing on solutions, ways to boost our marketing, and some great resources we should be implementing in our businesses.  Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode    - We are in a competitive business but we have to collaborate to get deals done. The more knowledge we share with each other, the better our transactions will be, and the better we become at serving the consumer.     - If we’re trying to get into a new marketplace or get back in the game, one way we can get free exposure is by joining our local chamber of commerce and attending the events.    - We all have problems and pain points in our businesses, but it’s critical for us to focus on the solutions. By learning to search effectively on Google and YouTube, we can get solutions faster.   Resources Mentioned   Google Power Search Course  Hubspot Certification  Hootsuite Academy  IFTTT  Six Figure Self-Publishing Secrets  Thinkific $1 Million Entrepreneur Growth Fund

Through all the content we create and post online, our primary goal should be to build brand awareness. But we should also position ourselves as assets to our community by constantly providing value.    Delivering value through content sets us apart and allows us to digitally dominate the real estate communities we want to buy and sell in.    When we position ourselves as marketing all-stars, we become top of mind and show people that we’ll work hard at selling and marketing their home.   What simple system have I put in place to provide value and generate leads through Facebook Live? How do we leverage the value of being virtual? How did I pivot during this time to bring more value, create passive income and continue to learn and grow my business?    On Day 6 of the Social Selling Journal Challenge, I share how we can make our social media marketing more impactful, and some of the biggest lessons I learned this year.    Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode    - Referrals are the most underutilized earning stream in real estate and one of the best ways to create passive income for ourselves. We don’t have to service everyone in our markets, but we can still have market share by earning money through referrals.    - It’s critical to create landing pages if you want to generate leads. They allow us to capture contact information and send people something of value in exchange.    - Automation is at the beginning of all online real estate lead generation. If we don’t learn how to use lead generation tools, we won’t be able to remain relevant.   Resources Mentioned   Get a https://bitly.com/ account to shorten links and customize them to your marketplace and audience. 

Once we’ve identified our target audience, we have to craft content that resonates with them by celebrating what’s important to them.    We need to create branded content that looks polished, but also shows what makes us unique and what we have in common with our audience. It has to be content that comes directly from us. If we build a social media strategy based on reposting other people’s content, we miss out on the opportunity to become an authority in our markets.    In order to achieve our social business goals, we need to be consistent about our content, and it doesn’t have to take a lot of time or cost us a lot of money.     What tools can we leverage to create great branded content? In this episode, I share how to use free tools to create powerful and engaging content.    Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode    - Don’t repost what other people post, create your own content to establish your own voice, your own brand and your own authority.    - Use a social calendar to see the different themes, topics and social media celebrations you can post about. Find a way to make those events match up to your brand and resonate with your audience.   - Many people worry about third-party social media posting tools reducing their engagement. Inconsistent posting reduces our engagement more significantly than not posting natively.   Resources Mentioned  https://wave.video/calendar https://www.pexels.com/ https://www.canva.com/colors/color-palette-generator/ https://www.remove.bg/ https://ifttt.com/ https://www.stickermule.com/trace https://later.com/ https://hootsuite.com/plans/free

One of the biggest mistakes real estate agents make is focusing on buying leads, while skipping over actually building relationships and cultivating fans.    Once we become clear on what our brands represent and the target audience we’re crafting content for, the next step is nurturing quality interactions to connect on a person-to-person level.    If we want people to know, like, trust and refer us, we need to have a mindset of giving and a system for reaching out that makes them feel valued.   What are some unique ways we can nurture deeper relationships with our databases? Today, we’re going to talk about powerful ways to connect with people, and how they make us memorable and referrable.    Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode    - Top producers and successful real estate professionals are sending out personalized gifts and tokens of appreciation to the people in their databases. We have to mirror this in our own database marketing.    - Social media gives us a window into what people like and care about, and ideas for personalized gifts we can send them.    - If we don’t effectively market ourselves, we won’t stand out, create fans, get referrals, and ultimately, we won’t earn what we want.   Resources Mentioned    https://stickerapp.com/ - For custom stickers and labels    Giftology: The Art and Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through the Noise by John Ruhlin

An effective content strategy needs to reflect our unique value proposition, and the unique needs of our target audience. When we put out content that’s too general, it won’t speak directly to a specific market and it won’t stand out. This is a mistake I see many agents making. If we don’t commit to doing things differently, we won’t be able to reach our Business Social Goals.    On Day 1 and Day 2, we talked about leveraging our unique selling point and finding our niche and target audience. If we want to attract more business, we need to actively work on prospecting based on these pillars.    How do we create a social media strategy that reflects the unique facets of our target audience? How do we determine the right market to go after?    Join me on Day 3 of our Journal Series as we talk about creating content that will connect and resonate with our target audience.  Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode    Before you go after a new price point or new market, determine the barrier of entry in that area. We need to know the reasons someone in that community wouldn’t be willing to do business with us.     If a real estate market or community already has an agent who is well-known, deeply-ingrained and dominates it, it’s going to be hard for us to get into it no matter how good our marketing is.    My target market is single mothers on the South Side of Chicago. Because I’ve been in their shoes, I understand their pain points, the challenges they face, and the kind of content that will solve their problems.

Finding our target audience is the first step towards becoming unstoppable in our real estate careers. The second thing we need to do is dial in our morning routines and schedules. We have to develop the habit of living by our calendars, and a set of non-negotiable actions we’re committed to daily.    A solid morning routine sets us up for a productive day, and sets in motion the activities that align with our goals for higher income and a better business. Time is the most limited commodity we have, and how we use it determines our success.    What are the habits and actions that will make you an unstoppable real estate professional? How do we set up a morning routine that aligns with our goals? Join me to learn about this and the steps to take to still achieve your business goals.    Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode    - Our morning routine doesn’t start when we wake up. It is set before we go to sleep the night before - we need to be clear about what we need to do in the morning and throughout the day.     - We need to have a solid system built around our lead generation and scripts. The things we do and say regularly need to be written down and systematized so they can become habits.    - There’s no set rule for the time we need to wake up, but we do need to get enough sleep and have enough time to facilitate an effective morning routine and daily schedule.    Resource Mentioned RETI’s CRM Generator - find out the best CRM Vendors for Your Real Estate business.

At the beginning of 2020, many of us had big goals set out for the year ahead, but those were all shattered by the pandemic. We were quickly faced with two choices - either give up on our goals, or pivot what we do so that we can stay in business.    If we set the right intentions and nurture productive habits, 2020 can still be a year of growth. The Social Selling Journal is all about being social every day, both online and offline, to stay number one in your customer’s mind. It is a reboot of your entire business, and we’re going to work through changing our lives in 66 days together.    What are the fundamental foundations we need to have to implement this strategy? What are some of the things I’ve implemented in my own life and business? Join me to learn about this and how you can still achieve your goals this year.   Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode    - It takes 66 days to create a new habit. If we make the necessary business social connections daily for 66 consecutive days, we’ll come out of it with the drive to elevate our businesses to the next level.   - When you’re setting your business goals, you have to understand your target audience. You don’t need to know everything, you just need to master your niche.    - Many real estate professionals don’t know or understand their numbers even though this entire industry is built around them. This holds them back and restricts their growth potential.