Books on marketing and service — gotta love ’em. Most, at least in my view are best utilized after shredding — they’re so fulla crap they make stellar fertilizer. ‘Course I say that fully cognizant of the reality I’m pretty much BawldClueless when it comes to effective marketing, so I guess that review should be taken with a boatload of salt. I could spend a year studying it and still not know what real marketers have forgotten. Truth be told, most folks using the moniker, marketing specialist would be Von’s checkers if it wasn’t for the greater sucker theory working so well.
Do I sound bitter? 🙂 I was for a few days, but I’m over it.
I’ll confess to more than my share of marketing blunders, and openly acknowledge I’ve wasted more money on marketing over the last few years than even I can fathom. A few days ago I was lamenting this sorry fact with a friend, who made the oh so witty observation that if that cash had been kept under the mattress I’d now be able to buy several free and clear homes in the Phoenix area. A recent accounting shows just over $250K down the drain — and only in the last five years!
When first seeing that number, I began staring in the mirror while chanting “Learning curve…learning curve…learning curve…”
Do I still hire folks to, gulp, market for me? Yep. I’m not a DIY guy, nor do I kid myself that by reading books, posts, and watchin’ videos that somehow the marketing light will suddenly show me the way. Many can make that work, I’m not one of ’em.
I’m not blessed with the love of what I do for a living. Don’t get me wrong, I love much about it, just not the whole. I love the process of talkin’ with new prospects — diggin’ into their particular circumstances, mining for problems, then creating solutions. It’s like heroin to me. I need regular fixes or I tend to get cranky. I love seeing and hearing folks as they first begin to see the light at the end of their previously dark and foreboding tunnel. I also love a Plan’s implementation. The rest of what I do? You can have it.
Back to marketing and service.
I’m not only on the little bus, but the late one too. As I’ve retooled my firm’s entire personality and infrastructure the last 18 months, epiphanies have abounded. Maybe the most promising has been the simplest to apply. Before I lay it out, please don’t make reference to the obvious, which is twofold. First, I’ve already copped to being on the late bus, so don’t pile on. Second, it’s so Captain Obvious you may wonder how thickheaded I really am. Oh yeah? Well, if it’s so damn obvious, why isn’t everybody doing it? In fact, why is it so little used out in the real world that it stands out like a sore thumb?
Whatever it is you do for prospects/clients in your day to day business involves production of some service, document, analysis and so forth. The luxury of being an investment guy in real estate is the positive results that can be shown, then realized empirically — tax savings, capital growth, cash flow and the like. It’s a luxury home agents generally don’t enjoy, as they’re constantly navigating through the perilous waters of never ending subjectivity. It’s the nature of the home side of the biz.
I’ve realized that luxury has been a crutch for me. How? In my own Mr. Literal way, I’ve allowed results to be the basis for any measurement of success. Though certainly that factor is huge in clients’ perception of their experience with us, merely getting to Point B, the expected result, won’t be enough for most. The paradox for me, the investment guy, is that for most investors, results alone are, generally speaking, good enough. I’ve concluded the reason for that is the fact that 80% of my clients have never worked with an investment guy who actually knew exactly what he was doing. Most started with C/21 Larry, who also ‘did investments’. 🙂 They’re so grateful to have reached their Point B, I tend to look pretty good.
But I now know better — and with knowledge comes the obligation of application, right? Right.
Here’s where Captain Obvious comes in.
I spent last week callin’ a buncha clients, asking them about their experience with me during the process of making their last move — which was either buying, selling, or executing a tax deferred exchange. Without exception they were, as I’d insisted, brutally honest. They were asked to rate various things, using OK, good, great, amazing, and OMG! Here’s what I learned.
Wow — talk about a reality check…and a half. Who wants to be thought of as just OK or good enough when it comes to anything related to their clients’ perceptions? Amazing to OMG! results are the gold standard, but the rest, IMHO must also rise to that standard.
This is all to arrive at this conclusion.
This year I’m taking one mind numbing part of the process at a time, and deciding how I can make it a slam dunk OMG! experience — an unexpectedly delightful adventure for my clients. Some of this will be relatively easy. I’m not sure how to make cash flow analysis an orgasmic event, but I’m sure gonna take a pass at it — and I’ll get it done.
This year I want to raise the bar on every aspect of what I do for clients. From now on, the lowest acceptable grade for even the most mundane part of the process will be ‘amazing’. I’ll know success in this endeavor will be mine when a referral says my client couldn’t stop raving about my analysis of the seller’s compliance with repair requests. 🙂
We don’t hafta love everything about what we do. Frankly, I don’t trust folks who do. Do You? Do ya even believe ’em when they profess such love? FAIL
What we do need to accomplish, is to become living breathing examples of the OMG! standard of performance — even in the smallest, most mundane, boring, mind-numbing parts of the client’s trip to Point B. Results remain the ultimate report card, but the trip’s experience is what will make them evangelists for us.
Marketing? Whatever gets us the number of at-bats we need. Most any boob can get their clients to their Point B — after all, that our clients’ most basic expectation. However, it’s the trip we wanna make Amazing to OMG!
See? Captain Obvious. I will skin this cat.
Genuine Chris Johnosn says:
Yes, yes, yes.
Best practices. WOMG! is the standard. Figure out what delights and makes people marvel, and makes ’em happy, and do more of that shit. Then market that shit.
That’s where I’m missing. That’s where a “consultant,” marketing or otherwise has a damn near impossible task. Without a defined set of things that each batch of money is buying, you can’t “wow” anyone.
You can’t wow while reinventing the wheel while doing jobs.
You CAN wow if you’re selling products, because you can hammer home why you’re better. No wow, no way.
January 8, 2010 — 7:37 am
James Boyer says:
Very very good.
I have never been as in-depth with finding out what my former clients think of the service I provided, but the main thing I have have found out was, when I did not like something they could tell, even if I did not say anything. When I did say something it was blunt and to the point, no sugar coating. Some liked that, many did not.
January 8, 2010 — 3:37 pm
Jeff Brown says:
Never thought about it that way — consultants etc. Gonna hafta ponder that awhile.
January 8, 2010 — 4:05 pm