Agents Working With Investors

Become a "Famous" Agent-Investor Lesson #3

Better Blunt than Boring

Ok, so we've covered why NOT to be Vanilla. Let's get down to brass tacks.

In this age of 24-7 media and all encompassing internet "touching", it's easier than ever to get "slightly famous", that is, famous to the people who matter to you - your prospective customers.

In fact, as I wrote about in Lesson #1, Publish or Perish, really all you have to do to become famous is to "Raise Your Hand" and say I'm someone worth listening to.

There are thousands of outlets for you to get your message out and it's the nature of our "online" world that media (and list builders like yourself) are hungry for content, hungry for knowledgeable, informative, and entertaining people.

Entertaining? How did that get in there? Isn't it enough for me to be a great agent and to "know my stuff"?

Uh uh, sister. To get noticed and to build your "herd" in this world, you've got to be engaging and "knowing your stuff" ain't enough.

Now, that doesn't mean that if you aren't as funny as world class comedian like, say, me, you're lost and your business will wither on the vine and die. No - that of course is an unrealistically high standard to hold you to. :)

BUT you do have to put some effort into it. When we talk tomorrow about WHERE to publish to make yourself famous (i.e. the outlets), you need to start thinking beyond the circulation of boring statistics or trite, hackneyed stories and start sharing something more interesting with Those Who Would Be Customers -- namely, YOU.

You want to make the people who read what you write and listen to what you say and watch what you produce -- all of the tools of getting famous -- you want to make all of those people RESPECT you and WANT to work with you. It's great if they LIKE you as well, but it's OK to be the "anti-hero", the No B.S. Gruff, no nonsense curmudgeon with a heart of gold. (Obviously that's a well-worn archetype that the movies have helped make us accustomed to having affection for as well)

Now, this doesn't mean that you have to remake yourself and create a "fake" persona. But it does mean that you better have some personality in your writing (and the other "pieces of you" that you will be circulating). Being "Boring" is the cardinal sin of marketing and the best way that you can avoid falling into that trap is to Be Real. Talk about real things and talk about them in a real way.

Yes, we're taught to avoid politics, sports, religion in our cocktail conversations so as not to offend, but you can only be committed to applying those same rules in your marketing and your commitment to "getting famous" if you're content to be ignored.

This doesn't mean that you have to purposely offend people (although it certainly is a strategy); it just means that, rather than hiding yourself because you don't want for anyone to have an opinion about you and you want everyone to like you, you be real.

Remember, the only people who matter are your customers. And you're not going to get all of your prospective customers to work with you anyway. Whatever customers you lose because they are miffed by something in your tone or personality will be replaced by people who connect with you, who like you.

And those who you irritated because of your tone or your personality or your opinions (a) would have been lost somewhere down the line and (b) would have been pains in the ass to work with anyway.

It's tempting to dumb everything down and make yourself Vanilla so that you "never lose a customer" but the truth of the matter is, just as we discussed with nicheing, if you try to be all things to all people, you'll only accomplish being nothing to no one.

Part of your "Getting Famous" approach (once we have secured the attention and interest of the customer) will be to build rapport and relationship, to turn them into a fan, someone who turns to you as a trusted advisor. Much of your ability to create and maintain that ongoing relationship will be based on you sharing your personality with them. Don't fear the consequences of being real as long as you are following the other approaches that we talk about - nicheing, building authority and credibility through publishing, and establishing "who you are".

Whenever I worry that I might lose a customer or a prospect if I'm too, well, Frazier, I'm reminded of something that I heard Ali Brown, the "Ezine Queen", say at a Dan Kennedy seminar a few years back about building relationships with your ezine subscribers and whether it was ok to share parts of your personal life in your writing. She quoted Bernard Baruch's famous line, "Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind".

Once you've chosen your niche, started to position yourself as a specialist, and decided HOW and with WHOM you want to do business, you get to FINALLY "Be Yourself".

Remember, Nicheing means Never Having to Say You're Sorry.

Now that we've got you NICHEd (say "Agent-investor", say "Agent-Investor", say "Agent-Investor"), sold on the concept of "Publish or Perish", thinking about the TYPE of business that you want to run, AND connected with the need to let your personality show through to turn your writing, recordings, production from BORING to ENGAGING, it's time to start thinking about WHERE and HOW to share yourself to attract the attention of your prospects!

Frazier O'Leary is the sometimes brash, but always lovable Director of Breakthrough Business Consulting for the National Association of Real Estate Agent-Investors and the Real Estate Community Networking Group. Ignore his words of wisdom at your Peril!

If you want to learn the "7 Steps to Transforming Your Business By Becoming An Investing Agent", visit http://www.Agent-Investor.org.

If you want to learn how to transform your life, income, and business by becoming a "From Anywhere" Six or Seven Figure Business Consultant, visit http://www.JointVenturePreneur.com

Becoming a "Famous" Agent-Investor Lesson #2

Over the next few lessons, we're going to talk about WHERE are the best places to publish, promote, network, appear, get interviewed, etc. to start positioning yourself as a "Celebrity" in your industry. As I mentioned in Lesson #1, this adventure in becoming "Famous" is going to transform your business and turn your marketing "challenges" upside down.

Rather than chasing prospective clients and "convincing" them to work with you, you'll be the coveted one, the one that everyone wants to work with because your prospective clients will already know OF you, think they know you, and believe that you're the answer to their current problem.

But before we start walking down that road, there are some issues that we need to clear up and one of them is a BIG one: Who are you?

Now, I don't mean in an existential sense (I frankly couldn't care less). I mean as a business, as a professional, as a brand.

Who are you?

If we're going to spend this time to make you famous, what are we going to make you famous for?

Now, there are a lot of ways to answer this question for those of you who are Agents and even for those of you who have already decided to transform your businesses by becoming Agent-Investors.

In order to REALLY take advantage of the fame that we're going to create, we need to examine:
1) What's your target market?
2) What's your specialty (in terms of real estate)?
3) How do you work? (What's your process?)
4) How do people work with YOU? (what are your hoops?)

Part of celebrity and positioning is getting people trained to work with you. Yes, we want them to WANT to work with you but we also want them coming in knowing what to expect WHEN they work with you.

It's time to tell your clients "How it's going to be" and have them STILL want to work with you.

I find that this is a challenge for most realtors because, as I explain in irritating detail in my Article, "Why Realtors Are Saps and Other Mysteries...", most realtors are like 7-11s - Always Open, Trying to be all things to all people, and Not At All Selective About their Customers.

There are no "rules" - the only "rule" is I'll do whatever it takes to not lose a customer.

Well, 7-11's empire notwithstanding, that's no way to run a real estate business. Or at least it's not the way that you want to run YOUR business.

You need to define yourself, to say NO to some people so that you can have other people saying (enthusiastically) YES to you.

And so that you can become, as author Steven Yoder puts it, "Slightly Famous", famous with the people that matter and for the reasons that you want.

Let me give an example of how being famous for HOW you work and HOW PEOPLE work with you can make working with people easier down the road. Jack Nicholson has cultivated his image as a wildman. Tom Hanks has cultivated his image as a Nice Guy. WHen you work with The Jack, you make allowances for behavior that you would be shocked and appalled by from Tom Hanks.

Most realtors, because of having NO NICHE, NO SPECIALIZED SKILLS, NO REAL MARKETING TO GENERATE DEMAND, have to live and die by trading on "I'm a nice Guy/Gal", "I know the Area", "I'll always be available for you".

Well, here's what happens when you focus, when you niche, when you develop specialized skills (like working with investors and investment property, for instance), and when you TEACH your clients that you're NOT 7-11, you're a professional - not a lapdog.

- You can teach them how and when to contact you. And how and when NOT to contact you.

- You can make them jump through hoops to "qualify" to work with you, rather than your running around begging them to work with you

- You can fire clients who don't fit into your mold, confident that they will be quickly replaced by other, better clients

- You can say "NO" to people who don't, from the outset, fit your criteria, confident that they will be quickly replaced by other, better clients

- You can let your SYSTEMS attract, qualify, and convert the "right" clients rather than spending any energy dealing with "looky loos"

So, that takes us back to the question of, "Who are you?" and the second question, "What are you going to be famous FOR?"

It can't just be as a Realtor. Too big of a pond, not enough niche.

You could be famous as THE REALTOR in a certain geographic area. That's getting there but it still leaves you pretty exposed to "My sister's barber's daughter is a realtor so we're working with her."

You've got to provide THE REASON why they MUST work with you.

You could focus on a certain group - doctors, lawyers, contractors, teachers, police, military. I see Realtors doing that and it's approaching Smart, because everyone believes that their situation is different and thus when you're speaking DIRECTLY to their situation, you have an edge.

You could focus on certain "technologies" - I'm the internet savvy realtor, we specialize in Auctions, I have my own media. This focus really starts getting you places because people will start to believe (if properly sold) that WHAT YOU DO is "the answer" to getting their house sold (or finding the right house) - "And that's why, Mary, I can't work with your barber's daughter"

You could focus on certain TYPES of houses - luxury, Condos, shotgun houses, etc - Again, everyone believes that their situation is different and it makes sense to say, "It takes different skills to sell Condos than to sell single family detached".

Once you've chosen your "niche" or your specialty, it's time to define your business and yourself. Part of what's going to make people claw through crowds to work with you is a personal connection with you. And it's hard to have a personal connection with VANILLA.

In order to start having people say "Yes" to you, you've got to have people saying "No" to you and that is the hardest part for most agents of niche'ing and becoming famous. It requires some decisions that fly in the face of the "7-11" approach to running a business.

You've got to start to treat yourself as a valuable, in demand, sought after Professional, with rules, and processes, and a waiting list of people who want to work with you.

And then you're going to implement your "Getting Famous" plan to bring that POSITIONING into reality.

In the next lesson, we're going to talk about WHERE and HOW to appear for maximum exposure and maximum reinforcement of your "positioning".

Becoming a "FAMOUS" Agent-Investor

Lesson #1: Publish or Perish

by Frazier O'leary (Faculty) - Published: 03/12/09

In truth, this "lesson" applies to you whether you're an Agent-Investor or just another normal, run of the mill, ordinary, mundane, dime a dozen (am I beating a dead horse here?) Realtor.

You've got to make yourself famous.

When I talk about "getting famous", many Agents cringe a little bit. They have internalized the lessons that "self-promotion" is selfish or vain or whatever and they "wish" that they didn't have to do it. They wish that they could just do a good job and have the world beat a path to their door.

Well, good luck with that strategy.

I actually find it amusing when people shy away from getting "famous" because what is fame but having a lot of people know who you are. Business famous is having a lot of people know who you are and know you as something, know you as your "brand" or your "hook" or your USP (unique selling proposition).

Isn't that what advertising is? A device to make you more well known? Isn't that what networking is? A strategy for getting to know more people and getting more people to know you?

So why, when I start talking about techniques for increasing their visibility through personal branding, personality, publishing, controversy, picking fights, getting thrown out of bars, and getting interviewed on Letterman, do I start to get the Crook Eye from all of these entrepreneurs? (A few of those last techniques are more advanced than the scope of this article)

The bottom line of it all is that the more people who know you, the more famous you are and the more famous you are, the easier a time you will have running your business.

So how are you going to get famous? Over the next 7 lessons, I'm going to talk about different strategies but most (if not all) of them rely on a simple formula that is well known in academia but only starting to become the mantra in the world of business - PUBLISH or PERISH.

That means SIMPLY that you have to start to shake off the anonymity that you've been wearing like a security blanket and that has enabled you to stay out of the public conversation and insulated from criticism, opinion, or notice and start to GET OUT THERE.

On sites like ActiveRain.com and BiggerPockets.com, you see Agents posting regularly to their blogs - about investing, about buying and selling, about the housing bubble, about the trials and tribulations of working with clients, and everything else under the sun.

And why do we do it? We do it because the more you're seen, the more of a chance that you have to be discovered. Discovered by your prospective clients, discovered by potential joint venture partners, discovered by OTHER media who can help you take your business to the next level, discovered by search engines who can introduce you to people well beyond your reach.

The "hang up" that keeps most agents and entrepreneurs from taking that leap - into becoming a publisher and self-promoter - is insecurity - the "Why would anyone care what I think/write/say?" disease. And let me address that.

If what you have to offer is of no value, then you're right -- Don't write something. Or Say anything. Or Do Anything. Close your business down and see if anyone out there is in the market for an employee who has nothing to offer but taking up space. I'm sure that those companies are out there. And that they're thriving

Over the next 7 lessons, I'm going to share some strategies for going from anonymous, generalist wall flower to being a "Hey, I know you..." agent-investor that attracts investor buyers and wholesalers/new investors to help you implement your plan for transforming your business by becoming an investing agent. The topics covered will range from clarifying your BRAND to choosing MEDIA to developing CONTENT to partnering for maximum LEVERAGE to attracting BUZZ. You're only a decision away from changing your business from frustrating and hard to easy and effortless...if you'll jump onto the FAME WAGON.

So, the first step is to DECLARE YOUR VALUE to the world and if you're having trouble finding it, then focus on nicheing down, specializing, and becoming an expert in some area. Too many people are worthless generalists when they could be valuable specifics...if they would only niche.

To review, the first step to getting famous is to recognize that you're going to have to step out of the shell that has for so long protected you from other people's judgement and opinions about you. The fastest way to break that shell is to start PUBLISHING.

In Lesson #2 - I'll discuss HOW you want to be famous and what are some fame accelerators that you can use to supercharge your "Getting Famous" mission. We'll talk about the Power of Association, Celebrity, and the tools that Social Media have provided to make it easy to have your own Paparazzi!

If you want to learn the "7 Steps to Transforming Your Business By Becoming An Investing Agent", visit http://www.Agent-Investor.org.

If you want to learn how to transform your life, income, and business by becoming a "From Anywhere" Six or Seven Figure Business Consultant, visit http://www.JointVenturePreneur.com

Teach to Grow Rich

One of the most important lessons that I teach the Agents at the National Association of Real Estate Agent-Investors is the importance of building a group of people who rely on you as a trusted advisor.

Marketing guru Dan Kennedy calls tha group a "herd". Seth Godin has a book talking about a "tribe". We have called them network, database, list, sphere of influence, whatever.

For Investing Agents, agents who transform their businesses by working exclusively with investors, the "list" is the key. These are the people who will buy properties year after year IF you are willing to teach them. To Teach them to want to buy properties, how to buy properties, why to buy properties, and how to buy more properties.

In a way, very unlike how "traditional realtors" work, an investing agent can actually create business. An investing agent can TEACH to GROW RICH.

How do they do that? With media like this - blogs, articles, ezines, webinars, seminars, CDs, DVDs, newsletters, workshops, bootcamps - whatever it takes to help your buyers "get it" - that THIS is the perfect time to buy property, if you can overcome your fears of buying and holding or fixing and flipping.

The smart agents (the ones that I work with at the National Association of Real Estate Agent-Investors) transform their businesses by "nicheing" for riches (focusing on investors) and then building up a community, a herd, that has them as the leader, the trusted advisor.

So...are you a smart agent?

Niche-ing Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

So, I got some nasty emails from realtors who didn't like my "Why Realtors Are Saps..., and other mysteries" article (I put the (r)egistered trademark symbol in there - give me a break!) but those emails just reinforce the lesson that I was making with the article originally. Trying to please everyone is a recipe for poverty.

My business is helping realtors who either (a) get it or (b) want to get it. It's not to waste my time worrying about some idiot who either is (a) struggling with his real estate business and limping along unwilling to change his business M.O. or (b) the super agent who is simply killing it and making $100K a month and spending her weekends in Caribbean. The first one isn't going to be a customer because he's too stubborn or backwards or clueless to make a change. The second one isn't going to be a customer because she doesn't have a problem.

Having a Niche means never having to say You're Sorry. If my nasty email writer is offended or put off by what I wrote, that should, for me as a business person, be the equivalent of getting one of those "Return to Sender" emails that says, "The person that you were sending to is not at this address.". It's just that, in this case, the message is, "The TYPE of person that you were sending to is not at this address."

Good! When you're marketing for clients, you want to DECLARE who you are and who you want to work with. Those are the only people that you should (from a financial perspective) care about. Who cares if your mother likes your marketing materials? She's probably not your target marked. Who cares if your colleagues like your marketing materials? The only people that matter (again, from a business perspective - I'm not trying to make a moral, existential point here!) are the people who either ARE or who ARE GOING TO pay you money.

Save yourself the grief of worrying about what non-customers think about you and keep your business priorities straight!