Social Selling Made Simple

When it comes to choosing the best platforms to invest our time, effort and money into, Instagram offers a high return. It gives us the opportunity to entertain and educate, set ourselves apart, and establish our own unique visual brand in the market. What kind of content should we be creating on Instagram to achieve our goals? Where should we be focusing our energy within Instagram? What hacks and tools can we employ to become social media masters? On this episode, closing attorney and social media expert, Jack O’Donohue shares his top strategies and tactics for Instagram success.   3 Takeaways Stories is where the attention is right now on Instagram. If we post to our regular feed, we run the risk that people aren’t going to invest time in our content.  Use social media to attract millennials, and turn them into lifelong clients. We can build a relationship with them in their mid-twenties and grow with them as they move into the property market.  Focused interest leads to focused sales. If someone is watching our videos all the way through, those are our strongest leads.   Guest Bio-  Jack O'Donohue is a closing attorney, social media expert, and the managing partner at Touchstone Closing. He accelerates operational efficiency at every turn, using the best available technology to simplify the closing process. He distributes and creates content involving the latest information and trends in the mortgage, real estate, and legal sectors. Visit https://touchstoneclosing.com for more information.  Follow Jack’s Instagram series The Donut Digest here @thedonutdigest and connect with Jack here @jackodonohue

Sales technique, lead generation and client development aren’t skills we automatically gain as soon as we get licensed. We have to work daily at mastering these skills, as they determine how successful we will be in business. What is the first step we have to take in order to set the tone for a successful real estate career? How do we develop habits that support successful growth? How do we improve our lead generation game? On this episode, I’m joined by Homes.com National Sales Director Joe Sesso, a real estate investor and bestselling author of Secrets of Top Selling Agents: The Keys To Real Estate Success Revealed. We discuss how to set ourselves up for success in sales, and the lessons he learned from the real estate veterans who contributed to his book.   3 Takeaways Goal setting is a fundamental part of growing our business. In real estate terms, it provides an understanding of the number of homes we need to sell and the best price points for those properties.  When it comes to lead generation, most agents default to strategies employed by top producers and managing brokers. However, if the top producers or brokers have developed bad habits, these will have a greater overall effect on agents with less turnover.  We give up on qualified leads too early. Develop a strategy of follow up and follow through to stay current with your prospects and potentially resurrect dead leads. Mastering both marketing and sales is essential if we want to go far in the real estate business. A major part of sales success is setting and maintaining focused goals. The goals we set affect the actions we take and in order for our goals to translate into results, we have to review them on a constant basis. Once our sales process starts producing results, it sets a positive tone for our overall business.

Video content is by far the most engaging, lead generating and powerful medium right now, but agents are still nervous about how they look and sound, and stuck when it comes to what to talk about. What kind of video content can we make if we want to generate leads, and become known in our markets? Why are thumbnails on YouTube videos so important? How do we cure our hang ups about being in front of the camera? On this episode, marketing strategist and speaker, Antoine Dupont shares on how to make great video content.   4 Takeaways We should be creating video content because it’s what people are consuming most, and it has 1800% more engagement than text and pictures combined.  Never underestimate the power of thumbnails on YouTube. When people know what they are looking for, the decision is no longer about the title. The visual appeal of the thumbnail is what drives whether or not they click.  People don’t have a short attention span when it comes to video content, they just don’t have the patience for content that’s not good, well-paced or relevant to them.  The 45-65 age group is the fastest growing demographic when it comes to YouTube content, and 51% of all content consumed on YouTube is how-to related.    Realtors want more leads, more visibility and more people in their databases. In order to achieve this, we need to put ourselves out there, on platforms where people already are, with the content they want to consume. Right now, video is the best type of content to put out and it doesn’t matter if we don’t feel like we look and sound good. As Realtors we are in an ideal situation, we have content people want and if we get their attention, our businesses will benefit.  

Real estate is a unique business for many reasons, but one major reason is the disconnect between the ease of getting licensed and the level of responsibility agents undertake. Why do we need more training and education? Why is it so important for us to stop thinking of real estate as just a transaction? On this episode, real estate CEO, coach, speaker and author, Leigh Brown talks about the importance of us getting training to improve our skills.   3 Takeaways New agents are often given to first-time home buyers, and this is a problem. They don’t often have enough knowledge and experience to guide them through such a huge transaction.  Real estate transactions don’t happen in a vacuum. We impact communities, lives, families and economies. The guidance we give can actually make a huge impact, and we should take them seriously.  It’s not always easy to dedicate an hour a day to prospecting, but one prospecting phone call a day is more than enough to grow our business.  There’s a huge gap between the time where real estate agents get licensed, and the moment they are fully competent, in the know, and equipped to provide the help people need to get through the transaction. The merits or pitfalls of our training of new Realtors is done on the backs of consumers, and because we’re handling such a huge thing in people’s lives, it’s unacceptable for us to go without the highest level of knowledge.

One of the biggest investments real estate agents have to make is in their lead generation, and Facebook advertising is a powerful way to generate leads. How much money should we be willing to spend on our ads? What kind of systems do we need to have built into our Facebook lead generation? How can we resuscitate dead leads? On this episode, I’m joined by real estate marketing expert and founder of Just Sell Homes, Andrew Fogliato who shares on the best strategies for Facebook advertising.    3 Takeaways $10 a day is the best ad spend on Facebook. It means that the audience sees the ad enough to where they take action but not too much that it annoys them.   Even if you have a Facebook page that is the center of your online marketing, do not neglect your website. It’s something you will always own and have more control over than another platform.  The cost-per-lead with ads that have a video instead of an image is a lot higher.   It is impossible for a new agent to grow their business without a solid process and system for generating leads. Facebook is an advertising platform we can easily add to our marketing activities, and by investing some money in it, we can start getting quality leads. In order to do this successfully, the right audience-content fit is key. We have to figure out what matters most to our ad audience and create content that solves those problems.

In this age of social media, technology and digital, it’s hard to imagine any offline marketing methods still being relevant to us today, but very often the offline makes the online more successful. What are the most effective types of offline marketing? How do we craft content that can generate leads? How do we choose the kind of marketing to invest our time and money in? On this episode, real estate and tech expert, Alex Camelio, discusses why agents shouldn’t count offline marketing out.   3 Takeaways Direct mail has become extremely effective for generating leads. The top performing type of direct mail is simple and not too salesy.  Don’t ask people to just mention you if real estate comes up. We should start connecting to life situations like someone getting married, having a baby or downsizing. When that reference point comes up, they will think of us.  Our marketing activity should be based on where we are in our real estate career.Early on, we have to fill our pipeline first, but down the line, we have to switch to lead nurturing.  Real estate agents and teams are seeing a lot of success with direct mail, and this trend isn’t as unique as we might think. Amazon has sent out direct mail pieces and have gotten great traction from it. Sending simple, informational pieces out into our database can actually help us connect with people, bring value to them and become the trusted entity they will want to talk to when a real estate need arises. 

Great content isn’t just about great visuals, it’s about resonance and the impact of the message. Real estate agents miss out on this and end up posting content that does nothing to connect with people. What is the real estate community getting wrong about storytelling, and how can we fix this? How do we craft content that people will respond to? On this episode, I’m joined by real estate marketing coach and storytelling expert, and NAR Conference speaker, Kyle Draper. We talk about how we can make our content better with simple changes to our strategy.   3 Takeaways Context is key to great storytelling. If we don’t share with people the journey and the struggle we went through to get to that moment, it won’t resonate.  Focus on talking about struggles, challenges and hurdles we’ve overcome. If we focus on our success, we alienate the majority of people.  When we go live on Facebook/Instagram/YouTube, we bypass the need for editing, which is something most of us struggle with. Our challenge with video content comes down to not liking what we look like or sound like, and not knowing what to say.    The difference between content that generate leads, views and tractions and the ones that don’t, is our ability to tell a story. What makes us good storytellers is the ability to add context to our content so that the audience understands why that moment is important to us. We also need to think of what people would respond to, and for the most part it’s not our success, it’s the things we’ve had to overcome. That’s how we make an unforgettable impact. 

A key part of using social media to get more sales is to get in front of more people, and right now Facebook and Instagram Stories are where people are hanging out and making connections. How do we choose where to post our stories? What kind of content can we create and how do we create engagement? How do we turn the connections we make on Stories into leads? On this episode, broker, CEO and social media expert, Barbara Betts shares how real estate agents can turn Instagram stories into a powerful relationship-building tool.   3 Takeaways The easiest content strategy to use with Instagram Stories is to document our day. There are many interesting things we do as Realtors that our clients would love to see.  The better we feel about yourself, the more we’re going to post.   If we’re too scared to post a video of ourselves speaking to the camera, we can start with baby steps. Take videos of something else while talking, or go on camera with someone else.    Instagram has over a billion monthly users, and a huge percentage of those people are viewing Instagram stories. As Realtors we can take advantage of all the eyeballs on Instagram stories and use it to not only put out content that makes us relatable; but to create conversations, connections and stay top of mind. The people who engage with our content are the ones who are interested in what we’re doing and we can take these relationships offline. Through stories, we have a great opportunity to put ourselves out there authentically and sell more effectively.

While we’ve all had to deal with naysayers at some point in our lives, we also need to own up to the fact that sometimes, we might be our own naysayers- or worse- someone else’s. Even though we may think we’re ‘keeping it 100’ by being what we think is realistic about other people’s dreams, it’s important to remember that just like we can manifest our desires, so can the people we think we’re helping.    When my son was accepted into Howard University, I told him I wouldn’t be able to afford his tuition. By giving him this dose of reality, I thought I was helping him. However, I later realized my language was hindering my child and his dreams. It dawned on me that he was capable of achieving his dream of graduating from Howard, and it wasn’t my place to put limitations on his abilities. I changed my negativity towards the situation and after 5 years, he completed his degree.    As parents, we should be encouraging our children to reach their dreams by celebrating them and affirming their abilities.   Connect with Marki & download free tips & tools: https://markilemons.com/

Early in my career, I was balancing two careers, as a pharmaceutical rep and as a real estate agent. Even though it seemed impossible, I was the top earner in pharma sales, and then I successfully switched to real estate full-time, and made more in a month than I ever would in MONTHS of pharmaceutical sales.  I refused to let people’s doubts get in the way, and I prepared through reading, coaching, affirmations, and prayer. That’s what allowed me to take a skill I learned in sales into a successful real estate career. We can make the impossible happen when we are stubborn in our self-confidence and belief that we will go far in achieving our dreams.  Connect with Marki & download free tips & tools: https://markilemons.com/