Brooke Wolford
By Brooke Wolford
In the past year since I started my real estate marketing company Organamx, I’ve noticed one growing trend: Many people have the notion that you can pay to somehow prove that you’re successful.
While you can pay for an amazing website, for placement on Google, and even for leads, spending money will never prove that you have experience. Your experience is at the heart of everything you do – how you conduct your business, how you behave when you interact with clients, and the value you provide.
If you want to get ahead and get the highest ROI for the dollars you invest in advertising, your website, and leads, then you have to prove to everyone around you that you can truly back up any claim you present.
Being honest is the greatest thing you can do. People like to deal with people who speak from the heart. Honesty creates trust very quickly. The most obvious way to do this is to not misrepresent your experience.
Some of the most successful people I know get the majority of their business from past client referrals. Referrals prove that you can provide a good experience. Nothing you pay for can ever prove that.
Your No. 1 priority should be working to create the best possible experience for your current clients. If you do this, your clients will be compelled to talk about you and use you for other transactions. Then use everything else (your website, online advertising, and social channels) to promote that you have the experience to get the job done.
Brooke Wolford is a real estate practitioner with Coldwell Banker Burnet in Woodbury, Minn. Follow her blog at www.thehousingword.com.
Comments 4
True, but if you are not seen, you are not sold. And I have worked in remote areas where neighbors aren’t right next to you, where referrals are almost impossible to get, even after providing the best service time and time again. I can say that stuff put in the internet lasts a very long time and that is how I still got leads that I was able to refer out, once I moved to a busier market.
Very well said, Brooke.
“Your No. 1 priority should be working to create the best possible experience for your current clients.” –
Thanks for sharing.
Well said and very true! I built a very successful real estste career in a very short period of time with honesty and integrity being two of my strongest business components. Referrals are a natural response to offering good customer service to your clients.
Best wishes to Brooke in her real estate career, sounds like she’s off to a great start!
Amie Bozeman
Atlanta, GA Real Estate Pro
770-855-5590
I totally agree with you and that honesty should come from agents knowing and respecting their Code of Ethics and adhearing to the oath they took. But, I can say that being in this business for 19 years, being a top producer, receiving 100% satisfaction surveys and glowing letters to managers, that my center of influence has not been that helpful with referrals (especially friends and family). And, some past clients have even overlooked me when they were on the move again even with me staying in contact, this is very upsetting to me to the point where I want to quit this business. I have felt for many years that I need to wake up stupid to succeed because I’ve deal with and seen many agents who are unethical, not knowledgeable and steer their clients in the wrong direction yet are more successful then me. I just don’t get it sometimes.