“Scheduled” and “Automated” are actually NOT bad words when it comes to restaurant marketing

Posted on May 12, 2012 by admin

Okay. I can feel it coming already.  What I am referring to is my subscribers (and also my “slowly growing on me”, group of trolls) desire to automatically comment on this post, simply based on the title.  BUT, before you do, I ask you kindly to just read the entire post and then make your opinions be known, in black, white and read all over the internet.  Sound fair? Okay, let’s go!

FACT: Scheduling and Automation are not necessarily bad, when planning your restaurant’s marketing and social media schedule

There. I said it.  Now before y0u get all crazy on me, hear me out.  Scheduling and automating some of your restaurant’s social media and marketing efforts isn’t bad, simply because as restaurant owners and managers, you are busy.  Unless you have a dedicated marketing team, my guess is that you are short on hours in the day. Why not at least lay and schedule the groundwork to go down, so you can then focus on the most important elements in the health of your restaurant: The quality of your food, the quality of your service, and the quality of the dining experience.

As I have noted before, in a prior blog post, “Getting the desired results you want, and reaching your goals for your restaurant is not complicated, but it is difficult.”

One of the difficulties is getting caught in the trap of “easy”. Automation is clearly easy, BUT used correctly, it can free you up to focus on the most important tasks, making you more successful than ever before. To those ends, I have put together a quick list of “do’s and dont’s” that you should keep in mind when trying to figure out the perfect balance of “Automation Vs. Doing It By Hand”.

The “DO” List

1) You know big events are coming up. Just get them scheduled and done

You know you are busy, so when time permits, think ahead. If it’s mid-april and you already know what you guys are going to be doing for Mother’s Day, and maybe even Father’s day, why not set up your promotions, schedule them to deploy, and get it over with NOW, rather than waiting to the last minute.

I was thinking about this, this week, when two of our restaurant client’s hit us up with Mother’s day promotional materials they needed designed and distributed, only  3 days before Mother’s day.  Granted, they have us to design all their stuff and get it all set up and scheduled for them, but even then, why wait until the last minute? Why not take advantage of every drop of juice you can get out of your promotion, guaranteeing a big day for your restaurant?

Even worse, if you are a small restaurant that handles all this stuff internally, why stress? Planned events, such as holidays, anniversaries, etc., are the perfect time to pre-schedule and make things easier on your staff.

2) Why continually run the treadmill of posting your regular “weekly specials” on your social media properties, website and blogs?

Seriously, if you have regular, weekly specials, why not pre-schedule these things to fire, for you, so you don’t have to constantly remember them.

NOTE: I’m not suggesting setting the same exact post to repeat every week, forever and ever.

But, that said, why not have your staff, or outside design team design 4-6 ads for each daily special, and then program them in your marketing system to rotate accordingly? This will give the illusion of someone making “custom posts”, but free you up to focus on other things.

After a couple of months, you can go back to the drawing board and design a whole new sequence of ads, accounting for seasonal changes, menu changes, or even specials changes, thus furthering the though in your patron’s minds that these posts are being done by a human and not “pre-scheduled”.

3) DO NOT forget the current and “newsworthy”

So you have your posts set up for distribution ahead of time, and then some amazing pop-culture or news worthy thing happens. What do you do?

ANSWER: You cancel your scheduled posts and use your creative mind to do something interesting for your patrons.

This, to me, is an obvious thing, but I can’t tell you how many restaurants call us every week, to discuss our Restaurant Marketing Services and they don’t have even the slightest inclination that they should do this.

Anytime you can make your marketing seem hyper local, or current, in relation to some major pop-culture or news event, you will obviously seem as if you are “on the ball”. The best examples I have seen of this are placed like Tied House, and other sports bars that are constantly referencing what is going on with local teams, league standings, and league and player “gossip”.

The “Don’t” List

1) If you schedule your posts, you still HAVE TO pay attention to  what people say and how they respond to you. REPLY TO THEM

This should be a no-brainer, but as I have said before, it’s easy to get sucked into the trap of automation. If you are a single location restaurant that does everything internally, or even if you use an outside firm to handle the scheduling of your marketing and social media, you MUST make for certain that there is a live person that is alerted and that actually responds to EVERY reply or comment your restaurant gets across ALL channels.

2) Automation requires you to “switch it up”

As I have described above, you can’t run the same weekly ad, every week, for 52 weeks. Why you ask? Because after 2-3 weeks, people will ignore it. If people ignore your posts and advertisements, it not only hurts your business, but also your social media properties strength and stability, as many of the site algorithmically will eliminate your posts from your fan’s news feeds.  You DO NOT want this to happen.

The best way to combat this is to assign, or hire someone to make variations of all your ads, based on season, holiday, menu changes, anniversaries, or other notable events.  Rotate those, and you should be in the clear.

3) No matter what, DO NOT rely solely on automation

Again, the take home message is “don’t be lazy”. It is easy to assume that automation will be the “cure all”, but let me tell you, it IS NOT.  Even our clients that opt to have us give them the full service restaurant marketing treatment, require us to do a fairly large percentage of “on the fly” social media.

It stands to reason. After all, the restaurant industry moves fast. It is impractical to assume that we’ll have all the information, or that we’ll know “everything” about what might be a dray to get people into a restaurant on any given week.

That type of knowledge requires constant analysis, revision and re-deployment of media. That kind of treatment clearly cannot be automated.

And that’s not all folks!

Clearly, I just picked a few things that are the obvious “do’s and don’ts” when trying to automate some of your marketing. The fact of the matter is that there are many more things to take into consideration. There are also many requirements that such a strategy will require. For instance, if your current marketing vehicle doesn’t allow you to pre-schedule marketing, and then “on the fly” reschedule it, DUMP IT. It’s not worth your time.

As with all things, there is no “quick fix”, but automating some of the things you can will free you up and allow you to focus on the things that truly matter. Your patrons, your food and the experience your patrons have in your restaurant.

Are you frustrated with your current Restaurant Marketing System? Would you like some FREE advice on how you might capitalize on what you are currently using? Would you like to explore changing things up and possibly switching to our system? If you answer “yes” to any of these questions and would like to speak with me, please CONTACT ME anytime. I am more than happy to lend an ear, my professional assesment, or even suggestions on which product(s) might best suit you and your restaurant’s needs.

 

 

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The Importance Of Workflow Automation In Your Real Estate CRM Solution

Posted on May 12, 2012 by admin

I’m going to tell you a secret that nobody knows about the Real Estate Industry, and Realtors® in general:

The Real Estate Business Is Tough. Realtors® are overworked, and there are never enough hours in the day for them to get their work done.

Okay, not exactly a secret that nobody knows, right? But it is a true statement. So the question becomes, “What do you do about this?”.

There are three obvious solutions to this problem:

1) Ignore it and let things slip through the cracks- Unacceptable

2) Knuckle down and work harder- More in the right direction, but not my personal favorite approach. After all, we are more than just our professions, right? We have families, loved ones and things we want to do in life besides work.

3) Figure Out A Way To Work Smarter- I don’t know about you, but this is MUCH more my speed. Why work hard, when you can achieve the same results, simply by working smart? If I were a betting man (and I am), I would be there is nobody that would disagree with me here.

So now that we have the answer to the question, how exactly should we use this knowledge? There are plenty of areas in your Real Estate practice in which you can work “smarter” and not “harder”, freeing up time and making you more successful. Today I thought I would address a few of the overlooked ones, relating to your CRM system. Working your CRM system in a “smarter” fashion will make you more effective in the cultivation of new leads, keeping in touch with your current clients, and managing your active listings. These things of course will add to your bottom line, and the success of your Real Estate Practice.

Customized Automated Work Flow Is Your Answer

Automated workflow is something that should be in EVERY CRM Solution. If your current CRM solution doesn’t have automated workflow processes for your marketing and listing management, GET RID OF IT. It is not doing you justice.

I’ll go one more, before I get off my soap box as well.  That is that your CRM solution shouldn’t just have Automated Workflow, but “Customized” Automated Workflow.

What do I mean by this? I mean that your CRM system should be able to be customized and adjusted to work the way YOU work and the way YOU conduct your business.

I can’t tell you how many Realtors® call us every week for a demonstration of our Leading Agent Real Estate CRM System, and are stunned by the fact that we actually customize and tweak our system to work in the fashion in which the Realtor® is accustomed to working. I find this very interesting. In my humble opinion, it would be very arrogant of us to assume that the way we have set up our CRM solution is the ONLY way an agent should work. I happen to think that our base system, right out of the box works very well, BUT mark my words, every single agent we come across is going to want to adjust it and tweak it to their liking.

A tool is only as useful as the use you can get out of it. If your CRM solution is totally locked down and forces you to do things you otherwise wouldn’t do, you are going to stop using it. That means you are wasting your valuable operating budget and nobody wins.

3 Great Workflow Automaton Ideas To Make You More Effective

There are hundreds of ways that one can automate the workflow in a CRM solution that allows for custom set up. Here are a couple great ones that we always suggest for our clients, right out of the gate:

1) Automate Your Listing Management

Every agent we have ever come across has a checklist of things they perform, each time they get a new listing.  We’ve seen lists with as few as 15 items, and lists with as many as 60 items. No matter how small or large your list is, this is one of the most important things you can automate.

Automating the tasks that take place during the life of your listing is critical because it keeps anything from slipping through the cracks. What if you are handling six listings at the same time? What if you have many personal or family challenges going on, during one of your listings? What if buyers are monopolizing your time and you are stretched thin?

Automating these tasks make sure that none of these potential pitfalls will jeopardize that listing and the potential for it to fall apart.

Your automation process doesn’t even have to start out very elaborate. Perhaps you start by just making it so tasks are automatically generated and assigned to you, and the people on your team, when a new listing is generated in the system. As time goes on, you can of course refine this workflow to include extremely elaborate sets of rules.

For instance, we have one client that wanted us to set up their listing management workflow in the following fashion:

-Some tasks are sequential and not on a timed basis- This basically means before task 2 can be done, task 1 needs to be finished.

-They wished for some of the listing management tasks to be on a strict timed basis- There were a few tasks they have, related to their listings that always have a hard, fast time frame, no matter what. Because of that, they wanted these tasks to be assigned a hard date and time for the due date.

-Some tasks they wished to fire, based on information that was put into the listing information, in their CRM- This is especially helpful if you enter a listing into your system, but it’s not quire “ready for prime time”. Using the date fields in the listing object, allows for future tasks and due dates to be fluid, and flexible, based on what is entered into the listing info.

-At specific milestones they wanted an automated email to go out to their client to give them an update as to how things are going- This email wasn’t fancy, or full of graphics. It was simply a typed email that looked as if the agent had taken the time to sit down and update their client. This not only is a great way to keep your clients in the loop, but a fantastic way to save time for some of the more “basic” keep in touch things.

-Lastly, oversight was the KEY necessity- This particular agent happened to work with an entire team. To those ends, she was fearful that if she gave up control of all these things, she would be unable to ensure that everything was getting done in the appropriate amount of time.

We set up a series of follow up triggers that ensure everyone was on task, and that our client ultimately had 100% oversight over every single aspect of her business. After meeting with her, we decided that we would handle oversight with a two step process:

1) First, for any task that was 24 hours over due, the person the task was assigned to would receive a task and email alerting them that they have a task that is past due. It would instruct them to either get the task done, ask for help, or if there was some reason that the particular task couldn’t be handled at that moment (perhaps a delay with the listing), to reassign the due date and alert their boss (our client), of the change.

2) If the person assigned the task did not do any of the items in #1, and the task went unfinished for another 24 hours, our client would be sent an urgent email and task and text message, alerting them of the situation, so they could handle it accordingly.

So as you can see, you can easily have many moving parts, with many different types of triggers, and vehicles for alerts (email, tasks, text messages, etc.). Truly, the only limitation is your imagination.

 

2) Don’t lose out on leads. Automate the handling of incoming leads

This is another one that always makes me scratch my head. I get that you are busy, but you have worked so hard to get leads coming into you. Why not have some safety measures in place, to make sure that you are working these leads in the most efficient manner possible?

Last week for instance, an agent called, inquiring about our Leading Agent CRM System

When I asked them about their existing solution, and if it had custom workflow automation, the agent immediately replied “yes it does”. I asked him how it was working, and he said “it’s not”. Intrigued, I dug a bit deeper and asked for a single example of how it isn’t working.

The agent went on to explain that his system allows him to set up web to lead capture forms on his website that will automatically put the lead information into his CRM. The thing is though from there, other than a single alert that he has a lead, nothing else happens. He is a very busy guy, and he is not maximizing his potential and closing these leads.

What this particular agent got confused is that his example is not really workflow automation. That’s simply a web to lead form, with a basic alert.

Happily, we are able to fix his problems by giving him the ability to give us a list of items he wants to happen, when a new lead comes in. Additionally, we are working with him on a series of fail safes, to ensure that nobody ever slips through the cracks. With very little effort, he is going to be more effective, and capture business from more of these leads than ever before.
As I mentioned before, these are just two of literally hundreds of ways you can set your CRM to work “For You”, allowing you to work smarter, not harder, and grow your business to levels you never imagined possible.

Do you need help with your CRM solution? Would you like us to review your current solution and give you some free advice as to how you might maximize it’s potential? Contact me anytime and I would be more than happy to help you in any way I can.

 

If you like my posts and want to learn more about Real Estate Marketing, our Leading Agent Marketing System, and how we might be able to help you get to the next level, subscribe to our blog, below:

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3 Tools Every Real Estate CRM Should Have

Posted on April 29, 2012 by admin

The other day, when meeting with a prospective client, when the topic of CRM came up, she responded to me, “A CRM, is a CRM, is a CRM”.

I quickly and firmly disagreed with her, and this piqued her interest. We got to talking about this, and I was able to explain to her that while many CRM systems share some similar qualities, a CRM is certainly not a CRM, is a CRM.  I pointed out that aside from the basics, there are  key elements that every Realtor® should look for when choosing a CRM.

While I could write an entire novel on CRM features (trust me, it’s so bad, I eat, sleep and dream CRM, some days), I’ve decided to focus on three of the most important features I feel a Realtor® should look for in a CRM:

1) A True, Two Way Contact Sync

I’m putting this as rule number one, simply because it is THE most important rule for any CRM or contact management system.  If your solution won’t sync with your computer AND your phone, DUMP IT!

You should not and frankly will not ever do duplicate entry, to keep your CRM contacts up to date, if there isn’t a sync. So why stress yourself out, or even worse, try to conduct business with out of date information?

When selecting a CRM solution, make sure that it has a “true” two way sync.  What does this mean? It means that your sync will push information two ways (e.g. if you update a contact in your CRM, it will automatically update your computer address book, and your smartphone. OR, if you update your smartphone, it will update your CRM and computer).

Having your contact data, in sync, no matter where you might be, is critical to the growth and success of your Real Estate Practice.

2) Less Is More (When it comes to clicks)

Even though I might work 80 hours or more in a given week, one thing about me is that when it comes down to it, I’m lazy. Lazy in a good way. You see, I am a fan of, and on a constant mission to figure out how to achieve a desired result in the fewest motions possible. The same thing holds true with my CRM, and it should for yours as well.

Realtors® are extremely busy people. They hardly have time to log into their CRM, let alone, click on extra windows and screens. That is why a compact, clean, easy to use system will always beat out a clunky one.

For instance, one feature we have in our LeadingAgent CRM is the ability for an agent to log a phone call, AND schedule any follow up tasks in the same exact window. What does this do? It keeps an agent from having to save twice and navigate to two different pages (add up the screen refresh times for those four motions and multiply that by how many people you connect with in a given day. The amount of time you’d be wasting is staggering).

Another great feature we offer that can really save you time is an auto dialer. How many phone calls do you make in a day? How long does it take to dial a phone number? What if you could just point and click and your CRM would automatically dial your contact? The time you save by doing this means you can make more phone calls. The greater the number of phone calls you make, the more likely you are to generate business.

Time is money, and money is the name of the game. Fewer motions allows you to perform money making activities more frequently, making you, and your Real Estate practice more successful.

3) If it’s not mobile, it’s not practical

By definition, Realtors® are rarely in their office. Most of their day is spent out in the field, working with clients and handling their deals. If you are out of your office, and your systems are set up such that you can access them, while on the go, you cannot grow your business. Having a CRM solution that is mobile, gives you the freedom to conduct business anytime, no matter where you are.  All you need is an internet connection, and you are set.

Now, when I say “mobile”, I feel compelled to point out that I am not referring to “an app”.  Mobile apps are basically stripped down versions of an entire program. For instance, a mobile app might allow you to view records, but not edit or add them. That clearly is not helpful.

When I say Mobile, I mean “mobile enabled”. The best mobile enabled solutions are cloud based CRM systems.  These solutions give you the luxury of being able to log in from your mobile device’s web browser, and access every single part of your CRM solution. You’ll have all the tools you need, at your fingertips, when you need them.

As I mentioned before, I can write a list of desired CRM features that is a mile long. If though, you at least focus on these three key elements, you’ll find that you are more productive, and effective than ever before.

Is your CRM solution missing these things? Would you like to discuss how our Leading Agent CRM solution can help you with your Real Estate Practice? Contact me anytime and I would be happy to examine your current CRM solution, give you tips on how to improve it, or discuss with you the upgrade process and specifically how our CRM system can help you.
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Market Your Restaurant With A Rifle and NOT A Shotgun.

Posted on April 23, 2012 by admin

Every week, restaurants come to us to discuss having us take over their marketing initiatives. When they do so, this is a two way interview. Obviously the restaurant wants to see what we are all about, and if we are suitable for their needs. We however also want to interview the restaurant, learn about them, what they have been doing with their marketing, where they want to go with it, and then determine if they are a good fit for us.

When going over a restaurant’s marketing history, one of the things that consistently comes up is the fact that many of these restaurants started out with a pretty decent marketing plan, but as time went on, this plan started getting diluted and less and less effective. Sometimes it’s because the cavalcade of vendors that come into the restaurant to sell them the “newest, best thing”. Sometimes though it’s simply that the restaurant finds it tough to stay the course and follow the disciplined plan they set out in the beginning, opting instead to do a little bit of everything, when time permits, and to try and be a little bit of everything to everyone.

Is what you are doing today, to market your restaurant, building on what you did yesterday or are you starting from scratch…again? So often we find that restaurant owners and management are jumping from one thing to another, to another, to another but never getting any significant results, never getting ahead.

Why? Because they are spreading themselves too thin.

To have a quantum leap at almost anything in life and really have a significant impact, it is not going to be the result of trying to do everything. It is going to be the compounded result of doing only the most important activities for your restaurant and it’s marketing plan, over and over again. You need to do fewer activities more frequently. You should be shooting at your targeted activities with a rifle and not a shotgun. If you do those few, most important activities, consistently, over and over again, at some point your restaurant will reach the tipping point. It will explode into a quantum leap.

Getting the desired results you want, and reaching your goals for your restaurant is not complicated, but it is difficult. It involves doing the important activities, not the urgent ones. The difficult part is being disciplined enough to do those important, not the urgent activities consistently, and doing them over and over again until you have that Quantum Leap breakthrough.

Why is it so hard? Because you have to do it over and over and over again for long periods of time with what appears to be little or no results. But if you have the discipline to stick with it, all of a sudden out of nowhere, one day you will have a radical breakthrough. The hard part is not to quit when you feel like you are running into a brick wall with no results. Because when the wall comes down, it won’t come down one brick at a time. The accumulation effect of hitting it over and over again will bring it tumbling down all at once. It will happen when you are exhausted and beyond wanting to quit. You will hit it again and BANG!!!!

That is one of the things that make the restaurant business so difficult. Your job is demanding, requires an inordinate number of hats to be worn, and can max out your time like you wouldn’t believe. Think of it this way:

Your restaurant is known for it’s great service and fantastic menu, not because of a single meal, but because of the cumulative effect of many diners eating there, over a period of time and having a great experience.

Even though you are tired and busy, you always take time to ensure that these things stay consistent. Treat your marketing with the same dedication, discipline to stay on course, and cumulative strategy and you will be amazed at what you will accomplish.

Have you lost your way and want to get back to a targeted assault on your marketing goals? Have you decided that you need to outsource these activities, to maximize your results? Would you like to keep doing it on your own, but would just like some free advice? Contact us anytime. We would be more than happy to help you with any Marketing and Social Media questions and needs you may have.

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All Realtors® could learn something from Joanne Knapp (Rest in Peace Joanne)

Posted on April 23, 2012 by admin

Newton’s third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In some ways, this couldn’t be more applicable to the past week I have had.

The week started off with a bang. Technically it was the prior week, but who’s counting? You see, on Saturday, April 14th, 2011, at 10:58PM, my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world. We finally got to meet our son, Michael for the first time, and the entire experience was amazing, exciting, and at the same time the most humbling experience I’ve ever had.

It was the most wonderful experience that I truly can’t describe. I suddenly understand all those people that for years have told me, “You’ll understand once you go through this amazing experience”.

What an amazing week this was. I got to take time off work, spend time getting to know my little guy, and the topper was that my birthday was this Sunday, the 22nd.  Life was great and I was enjoying every minute of the week and the weekend.

As we were getting ready to cut the birthday cake though, I got a text from a friend that was going to change things in a most terrible way. The text said that Joanne Knapp had passed away.

Joanne Knapp was a Realtor® at Sereno Group, in Los Gatos, California. Joanne, and her son Roger were a very successful Real Estate team that truly cared about their clients, putting their needs first and foremost, doing it “the right way”, even if it meant that they may not necessarily get that next commission, or make that huge pay day.

Joanne Knapp started out as a client of mine. Over the years we knew each other though, she became so much more.  She became our friend, and she also became our Realtor®.

I never told her this, but many times, over the years that I’ve known her, I would think about how her way of doing Real Estate is how “it should be”, and how she could be an inspiration to Realtors® everywhere.

Sadly I never got to tell her how I felt about her. I can though share with you my experiences with her, as a vendor, a client, and a friend. It is my hopes that you will read this post and embrace even one piece of how Joanne approached life and business.

The word “pressure” should never apply to Real Estate

Owning a company that specializes in Real Estate marketing puts me in an interesting spot. You see, there is only one of me, but I have thousands of clients. At one time or another, everybody asks me about who my Realtor® is, and if I’m looking to sell my home, or buy a new one, or if I might know of anyone that can use their services.

They ask me this, because they are doing their job. As a Realtor®, you’re supposed to “ask” for business. After all, if you don’t ask for it, how are you going to get it?

This is in fact how Joanne, her son Roger came to be my wife and my Realtors. You see, one day Joanne and Roger asked me to have lunch with them. We were working on a marketing project that was going to go out to their sphere of influence, and we were going to grab a bite to eat and go over the details.  As we frequently did, once we were done talking about work, we got to talking about more personal things. This particular time, it happened to be the fact that I was about to get married.

Joanne was thrilled for me. She hadn’t met Kristy (my wife to be) before, but she knew a lot about her because of conversations we had had in the past. Kristy is a third grade teacher, and Joanne at one time was a teacher as well.  She always remembered little details we had discussed, and when we would later see each other, she would ask me how things were going, and how Kristy was, actually remembering and referencing things we had talked about in the past.

This particular day, while having lunch, I described what was going on with the wedding, as well as a call I had received from my CPA that day. My CPA had mentioned to me that she was looking at what our taxes were going to look like for the year, and after we got back from our honeymoon, Kristy and I either needed to plan on having a kid, or buying a house.  Joanne asked me if we had been talking about having kids, which of course we hadn’t. She calmly said, “then we need to talk about you guys getting a house. How about you and your fiancé come in next week to see us?

I agreed, but honestly didn’t really know what to expect. Kristy and I had enough pressure on us with our rapidly approaching wedding. My company, while successful, was still kind of in “start up mode”, and my staff and I would regularly pull 80-100 hour work weeks. The thought of getting pressured into buying a home, and all the things that would come with that was frankly more than I thought either of us could handle.

Before business comes, a relationship should be born

When we arrived to Joanne and Roger’s office, for our meeting, I was quite surprised in that everything I thought we were going to be doing was completely off base.  The first meeting in fact, we did not discuss anything about getting pre-qualified, getting set up on listing alert, the buying process, or even the possibility of going out and looking at any homes.

Instead, we sat down and got to know each other. I obviously knew Joanne and Roger, but they had never met Kristy, and they had never seen us “together”. We talked about our lives, what we were looking forward to, our wedding day that was coming up, and everything else under the sun.

After we had talked for a while, Joanne gave us both questionnaires to fill out. These were not your typical Q&A forms though. Just as Joanne had taken great interest in our lives, personalities and what kind of people we were, the questionnaires were constructed the exact same way. We filled them out, and Joanne and Roger set up a time for us to come in again and see them the following week.

Leaving their office, I was kind of shocked. The meeting was nothing what I thought it would be, and nothing like I had told Kristy it would be. When we got in the car, I asked her what she thought and her response was,

“I really wasn’t looking forward to doing this, but I knew we needed to, so I just sucked it up and went. I’m really happy I came though. They are such nice people and I had such a great time talking with them.”

Suddenly it was all becoming clear to me. Many Realtors® use the statement that “Real Estate is a relationship business”. The truth is though that very few carry this belief throughout every aspect of their dealings with clients and prospects. Joanne and Roger on the other hand, simply “got it”, and this meeting set the foundation for what was going to be a long lasting relationship.

Our future meetings with them of course started revolving around Real Estate, but the very interesting thing is that simply by spending time with us, and truly getting to know us in the beginning, the homes they suggested we look at were spot on with what we wanted. Everything from the cabinet space Kristy would want in the kitchen, to the types of neighborhoods I would want to live in. None of these things were questions they actually asked us when we first met. They just knew these things, having truly listened to us and learned about us when we met. It worked perfectly and within a matter of a week or two, we had found the perfect home that we just loved.

Sometimes it’s good to talk people out of making a mistake (even if it affects your bottom line)

After we moved into our home, Joanne and Roger kept in touch with us, and we would periodically get together for lunch and dinner, when time would permit. A couple years after we moved into our home, Kristy and I got antsy and were thinking that we wanted to move to a downtown area, where there were more things going on and more amenities within walking distance. I got online, and within a week or two, we found a place that we thought was perfect.

We called Joanne and Roger and asked if they could meet us at the listing and show us the home. Joanne was available that evening, so she met us there and we walked through the home. The home was beautiful, larger than our current home, and on paper, really great. Joanne however wasn’t thrilled for us to sell our home and buy this one.

She asked us to hold off for a brief bit, and revisit the area, two to three times, at different times of day, to really see if we were dead set on living here. We did so, and it turned out that she was right. For various reasons that I won’t bore you with, Kristy and I came to the conclusion that this wasn’t the right home for us, and we opted to stay where we were and not move.

Joanne knew us, our tastes, and our needs. She was able to see that this was a bad fit for us, before we even realized it. While she could have helped us sell our current home, buy the new one, and collect two commissions, she didn’t. Our happiness was of paramount importance to her.

I could go on and on about how Joanne and Roger conduct their Real Estate practice. All the examples though point to one single thing: Relationships come first. With good relationships, come good business.

I know many of you already know and practice these things in your day to day business. Many though do not. To those that do, congratulations! To those that don’t, I hope this article has intrigued you to give thought to some of these things.

Just spending time with Joanne made me a better person. My most sincere condolences go out to all her friends and family. I will miss you greatly Joanne, and I hope you have found peace.

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Real Estate 3.0 – So Easy, A Baby Can Do It!

Posted on April 23, 2012 by admin

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Social Media Has Changed CRM. Is Your CRM Up To Speed? Answer These Three Questions:

Posted on April 17, 2012 by admin

Every single day we get emails and phone calls in our office about our Leading Agent CRM System. The calls, even though recevied from Realtors® all over the country, share some common themes:

1) Many Realtors® are not exactly sure what a CRM is.

2) Realtors that do know what a CRM is, when asked about their current CRM solution, give us the name of  a product that actually IS NOT a CRM solution

3) We have yet to see a Realtor® call or email us that currently has a CRM solution that is actually socially integrated (don’t worry. We know that isn’t exactly clear, but we’ll go into detail below)

Because of this, this week I would like to comment on each of these findings, and then finally end my article with ways you can examine YOUR existing CRM solution, to see if it is or isn’t socially integrated.

What Is A CRM?

If you are a Realtor® that falls into the category of not knowing what CRM means, have no fear. Many of your colleagues have no idea either.  Simply put, a CRM system is a:

Client Relationship Management System

Your CRM should be the lifeblood of your business. It gives you valuable information on your leads, clients and prospects. It keeps track of your important tasks, your appointments, and any special notes and attachments. Simply put, it makes it look like you are a super hero and never forget ANYTHING.

For instance, last week, I was speaking with a client on the phone to schedule a sneak peek preview of our new Real Estate 3.0 offering. When they called, I pulled up their contact record in our CRM, and I noticed that the last time I spoke with them, they had mentioned to me that over that weekend they were going to be attending their son’s first little league game.

When we said hello to each other, and began chatting, I casually asked them how the game went and how their son enjoyed it. They were noticeably surprised that I would remember such a thing, as it didn’t pertain to “actual business”.

The reality is that we have a thousand or so Realtors with which we work. Many we are in contact with all the time, and others we hear from every once in a great while. Remembering all these details for all these people would be impossible. The fact that I have my “go to” spot, for all information related to my clients is critical to my business.  It keeps me from forgetting anything, and also makes me look like a rock star to my clients, who can’t figure out how I’m always “on top of it”.

Just Because It Stores Contacts Doesn’t Mean It’s “Actually” A CRM

Frequently when I speak with prospective clients about our CRM solution, the answer I get is, “Thanks, but we already have a CRM system”. What I find, when digging a little deeper, is that the Realtor® may have some sort of solution in place, but that solution isn’t actually a CRM solution.


Perhaps the most common one I have people tell me they are using is Constant Contact. For the record, I have nothing bad to say about constant contact. However it’s NOT a CRM. It is a broadcast email sending tool (A Marketing Tool). That’s it.

As I have mentioned above, you NEED to have some sort of CRM solution in place. So if you think that Constant Contact is it, you are falling short.  You can of course keep your subscription to Constant Contact, along side a subscription to a CRM (although most CRM tools, including ours have built in Broadcast Email capabilities. Many, like ours, also allow you to send unlimited emails to any size list, while Constant Contact charges you by the size of your e-mail list).

So do you have a CRM, or do you have a marketing tool? Here are a couple quick questions you can ask yourself. If your answer to any of these is “no”, you most likely do not have a CRM, but some sort of other tool:

-Does your solution allow you to post lots of information in the contact record (e.g. phones, emails, web addresses, contact types, address info, etc.)?

-Does your solution allow you to keep an activity history for that contact (e.g. log a phone call, schedule follow up tasks and reminders, view a list of listings you’ve sold that client, etc.)?

-Does your solution allow you to store files with your contact’s record (e.g. reports, contracts, or anything else related to that contact)?

Is Your CRM Solution “Truly” Socially Integrated?

So I hope the above information was helpful for you, however that wasn’t the main reason I decided to write this article.  The main reason I wanted to write this article is because we are finding, practically across the board, that there is a vast disconnect between CRM and Social Media.  Our belief is that if your CRM isn’t socially integrated, you are not capitalizing on the full power your CRM could have, and not prospecting to leads and keeping in touch with your clients and past clients, in the most effective way possible. This can directly affect your success, and therefore your bottom line.

Pulling valuable social media info into your customer relationship management platform is critical in today’s “Socially Engaged” World. Think how much more valuable your data would be, if you could easily pull in things such as Birthdays, anniversary dates, major life events, bios, work history, hometowns, and so much more? Imagine the relationship that would be built with your client? They would feel connected to you, because you “actually” know about them, and their personal life. You are acknowledging and validating these life events, that are very important to them, showing them that you truly care about them.

Filling in these gaps gives you the ability to have a much richer experience, when it comes to staying in touch with and marketing to past and current clients. The key to a system like this working successfully is integration. What I mean by this is that you need an automated way to have this information seamlessly pull into your CRM.  If you have to manually enter this data into your CRM, it is extra motions you don’t need to make, and frankly, most likely not ever going to happen.

There are only a very few CRM’s we can find on the market, for the Real Estate Industry, that are “actually” socially integrated. Many CRM solutions claim to be, but the reality is that there are only two or three.  If you are looking for a socially integrated CRM solution, or are wanting to determine if your current CRM solution is socially integrated, here are some questions to consider. If you answer “no” to any of these three questions, the CRM solution you are looking at, IS NOT socially integrated:

-Can your CRM system automatically search your contact list and pull in social media information about those contacts, WITHOUT you having to manually enter it?

-Does your CRM have a control panel that you can use to monitor your “online reputation” (e.g. Yelp, Trip Advisor, Mentions On The Web, etc), and all your social media accounts?

-Does your CRM allow you to use that same control panel to respond to anyone that mentions you online, or interacts with you, on any of your social media sites, WITHOUT making you log into the actual account to reply (e.g. On our Leading Agent system, in our social media management panel, all you need to do is click the “reply” button, by any posting and you can respond to them in that exact same window, WITHOUT having to log into that social media property)?

There are of course many more intricacies to social media and how it can integrate with your CRM solution, but these are some great baseline questions to use, when evaluating a CRM solution.

Our Leading Agent Real Estate CRM & Business Practice Management system is fully socially integrated, and incorporates all the things detailed in this article, and so much more.  If you would like to schedule a demonstration of our CRM / Business Practice Management solution, please contact us anytime, as we would be more than happy to give you a demonstration, and show you the power of our one of a kind CRM solution.

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You’ve Got Them Talking……Now What?

Posted on April 14, 2012 by admin

If you are anything like me,  you like to dig into things. The more I look into, the more I learn. The more I learn, the better job my firm can do for our restaurant partners.

One thing I always find curious when I’m digging around the internet, is when I see a restaurant’s social media property, where they have a fairly large group of fans or followers.  You see, not only do they have a large group of these folks, but the people are actually actively posting and interacting with the restaurant.  Why is this interesting to me? It’s because they aren’t “truly” interacting, because the restaurant, in general, is hardly, if ever, responding to anything the fans put up on their pages, on review pages, or just posts in general, throughout the internet.

The obvious question here is this:

If you have worked so hard to make sure your food is spectacular, your service is on point and your customers rave about you, when they go online to rave to others, why wouldn’t you validate their input (good or bad), and get in on the conversation?

Surely you can see the problem with this.  As to the “why” this might happen, while it’s hard to simply guess, it could likely be one of three reasons:

1) The restaurant simply doesn’t care to get involved

2) The restaurant is too busy, or small to delegate this task to someone

3) The restaurant isn’t sure what the best practices would be for interacting online with fans and customers

If you restaurant’s reason falls in #1, or #2, just save your time and stop reading this article, and go to the article I posted two weeks ago about outsourcing your restaurant’s social media. If though, you fall in the #3 category, here are a couple helpful tips that can get you on the path to interACTION:

1) Listen to your audience and engage them in conversation

Listening to your audience and engaging them is critically important for many reasons. If for no other reason, you choose to start engaging your audience and listening to them, do it to simply validate them.  If I am a fan of your restaurant and I post on my twitter feed, how much I liked dining in your restaurant, a response of “thanks for dining with us”, a “what did you have to eat?”, or even just something as simple as a retweet, will make me exponentially happier about the dining experience that I just had. Why? Because the restaurant didn’t just care about me, during the moment I was dining with them and spending money. They actually cared about me afterwards, when I’m no longer there, in front of them.

Something as simple as a “thank you” can solidify a relationship and build loyalty, frankly in a way that money can’t buy.

But what if they post something bad? What if their food was sub par? What if they had a bad experience with your staff? Or what if they are just psycho and spend their days trolling the internet to make people feel bad about themselves? The same applies.

Validate their critique, and engage them to get down to the bottom of what happened. Do this publicly and not via direct messages or emails. Everybody can have a bad day once in a while. If you publicly “own it”, and work actively to remedy the situation for the diner in question, everyone will see this and it will reinforce in their minds that you are all about customer service and loyalty.

Now what should you do if the person is just a psycho that gets a thrill from being a “keyboard tough guy”? Do nothing different. Give it your best couple of attempts to remedy the situation, in the most accommodating, polite fashion possible. Even if they are totally upset, a sane person will realize you are trying, and even if it doesn’t totally make up for the bad experience, they will still say thanks. An insane person, on the other hand will never be happy and will never stop poking at you, every time you try to offer them an apology, or peace offering.  All you can do is leave the interactions online, and let public opinion prevail. The public is smart. They will see that this person is impossible to deal with and they will not put any weight on their posts.

The important thing to remember is that unless it’s inflammatory (e.g. racial slurs, offensive content, something illegal, etc.), do not delete it from your fan page, blog, google+ page, etc. It will upset people, make you look like you don’t care about their feelings, and that is going to come back to haunt you.

2) Your patrons are more and more becoming the voice of your brand

Another reason to engage your audience is because of the way the restaurant, and that restaurant’s voice, is changing. There is an interesting phenomenon going on, because of social media, where the restaurant’s voice is more and more being dictated by the sentiments of it’s regular diners.  Diners take to social media and review sites and comment, not only about the experience they had, but the ambiance of the restaurant, the decor, the staff, the other patrons, the programming that may be on TV, the music selection, etc.  In other words, EVERYTHING.

If you ignore everything that people post about your restaurant online, you will miss key opportunities to truly hear what people think about your restaurant. Not just your food, but even things you may not notice.  You have undoubtedly worked very hard on your restaurant. As with everything though, sometimes your head is “so deep” in things that you fail to notice the little things.  For instance, maybe the lighting in your restaurant is a little harsh. Let your diners be that second set of eyes that can help you make your restaurant the best experience possible. Not only that, but again, thank that person for their input, and you’ll have a diner for life.

Now, does this mean that you should do everything that people suggest online, letting them completely dictate the voice and direction of your restaurant? Of course not.  If though, you listen to your diners, with an open mind, you’ll be amazed at some of the fantastic suggestions that will come your way.

Engaging your diners will give you huge returns in the long run. It requires persistence and dedication. For a busy restaurant owner, this could be challenging, but it’s not impossible. There are many tools out there that will make it easier for you to keep tabs on all your social media properties, and many firms, like mine, out there that can help you, if you determine that you simply can’t keep up with this.

Do you have any specific stories of how engaging a customer has made them a loyal customer that will never leave you? Do you have any review horror stories? What are they and how did you deal with them? I’d love to hear.

If you need help managing your social media, diner loyalty or restaurant marketing programs, please feel free to contact me anytime.

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Why I’m a lightning rod & how to pick a social media firm

Posted on April 9, 2012 by admin

So it appears that I have stirred up a little controversy on the Internets, this past week. If you haven’t read it, I wrote a blog post about 3 reasons Realtors should outsource their social media efforts.

By putting myself and my “blunt, to the point” opinions out in the public, for anyone to read, I understand that I’m going to be called to task occasionally. Not only that, people are going to tell me why they feel I’m wrong, give me an example to illustrate their point and why they feel they are correct. This is what is called “constructive dialogue”.

All in all, there was a great deal of spirited, passionate and constructive conversation that took place this past week. I can’t tell you how many phone calls and emails I got, with people that were passionate about my article, that fell on both sides of the fence.  For that, I thank you.

So without further delay, Six Things To Consider When Choosing, And Working With A Social Media Management / Brand Monitoring Firm

A relationship with a marketing firm is kind of like a marriage. You will tell the firm things about your Real Estate Business that are not public knowledge. You are busy, all the time, so you need to be working with a firm that is “in tune” with you and knows your Real Estate Practice’s brand, voice and value proposition, so well that it’s like second nature to them, thus freeing you up to run the operations of your day to day business. Last, but certainly not least, just like all marriages, you are going to hit bumps in the road. It’s critical that your relationship is strong enough that both sides are able to constructively address and remedy the situation in the fastest method possible, allowing regular business to resume.

To those ends, here are six things I always present to a prospective Real Estate client (as well as suggest they ask any other agencies they may be interviewing), when meeting with them for the first time, to determine if the two of us “are a good fit”.

1) Make sure the firm you work with gives you some sort of monitoring panel that you can access to see how things are going, at any time

There is a lot of trust that goes into working with an outside agency. Even though you may have found the “perfect match” for your needs, it is always a prudent idea to take the stance of “trust, but verify”. The easiest way to do this is by having them give you login access to the social media / brand monitoring control panel they are using to manage your campaigns.

If you are a firm like mine, you’ll have your own, private label solution that handles every aspect of the campaigns. There are many control panel solutions out on the market though, so even if it’s not their own, don’t stress. The key thing here is that they need to give you access, so you can see how the messages that are being deployed look, what feedback is coming in, and how it’s being responded to.

Now it is true that you could just go to each one of your online properties and look this information up, but you are busy. Why go to many places, when it can all easily be handled in one place?

If you interview a firm that does not have some sort of control panel, and login access for you or your team, eliminate them from the pool of perspective vendors. While they are no doubt good people, they most likely do not specialize in social media management, or online marketing, so it’s probably not worth the risk.

2) Be understanding of an agency’s social media portfolio

While we may post work we do for our Real Estate partners, in our blog and on our website, we RARELY, if ever, post anything related to the social media projects we work on for these Realtors. There is a very valid reason for that:

Most of our Real Estate clients DO NOT want the public to know that their social media is run by an outside firm

Would knowing this fact turn people away from doing business with them? Most likely not. But it is what the Realtor has requested, and as a professional firm, we grant their wish. That said, when contacted by a prospective client, we are more than happy to share our projects with them, in a one-on-one webinar or in person meeting (translation: NOT on the internet where anyone can see).

So, when you start your web search for prospective firms, don’t be discouraged if you don’t see any of their social media work online. Also, don’t get upset if when asked to see it, they require an online or in person consultation. They are more than likely just granting their client’s privacy wishes, which of course would extend to you and your Real Estate practice, should you decide to retain their services.

3) Make sure any firm you interview is well versed in ALL the latest platforms (even if you don’t intend on using them all)

Even if you don’t plan on using every social media platform that is out there, it is very important that any firm you interview is well versed in all platforms, especially the latest and greatest.

If they are not, it may be an indication that they are “fat and happy”, and not interested in improving their services. The thing about social media is that it moves quickly. Take a break even for a few months and you can get blown right by.

4) Make sure you have a dedicated person working on your account

Again, you are entering into a relationship with this firm. For them to truly speak with the correct voice and brand positioning for your Real Estate practice, they have to think just like you, finish your sentences and truly “know” what you want.

The best way to accomplish this is to have a single, individual person, dedicated to your account, that runs lead. The reason for this is that they will get to know you, know your business, and all the above described things will fall into place.

5) Be understanding

What you are about to embark on is a process, not an overnight quick fix. The reality is that these efforts could take 3-6 months to gain a full head of steam. While you obviously have to have benchmarks in place, it is important that those benchmarks are realistic.

One of the most common things we do with a new Realtor client is start out with a six month agreement. We have a formal analysis meeting at the three month mark, and then a final review at the six month mark. This allows our client to be satisfied that things are going the direction we have promised them. It also gives us the opportunity to make changes, mid way through the initial agreement, should something need changed up.

We find that after this kind of start up period, Realtors are much more comfortable, and willing to agree to long term arrangements.

6) Set realistic benchmarks to track progress

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:

The number of followers DOES NOT equate to a successful social media campaign

If anyone ever comes to you and promises you “x” number of followers in an allotted amount of time, throw them out of your office. If you have 1 million facebook fans that NEVER interact with your posts, then who cares? Low interaction rates mean your posts never show up in anyone’s news feeds and all that work that is being done is for NOTHING.

Instead of number of fans, calculate fan interaction. For instance, sticking with the facebook page example, if your current fan interaction rate is 3%, perhaps set a goal for your firm of 8% or 10%.

Trust me on this. I would rather have 500 rabid fans on a fan page, than 2,000 fans that could care less about my brand and what I offer.

If you follow these steps, you should be able to comfortably know that you have made the right choice when choosing the right firm to work with you and your Real Estate practice. If you would like to discuss your current social media strategy, and if our firm might be a good fit for your needs, please feel free to contact me anytime.

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A Sample Of Some Work Our DinerCentric Team Did For Ling & Louie’s Restaurant

Posted on April 7, 2012 by admin

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