Recently, I had the honor of dining with Howard Kline of CRE Radio. Howard is a delightful chap (although he didn't wear his bow tie) and we had a terrific time "capitzing" about all things CRE...The lunch ended with a great idea and a way for Howard to achieve a goal of his...increase the advertising for CRE Radio. Although the purpose of the lunch was simply to get acquainted, we really helped each other...me, an upcoming appearance on the CRE radio show on October 11 and Howard an appearance at the Lee and Associates broker Summit in Las Vegas AND a new strategy to appeal to advertisers.
Our lunch sparked a thought...too often we look at things from our perspective and not from the perspective of our prospects and clients...in other words we think about "what is in it for me" and not "what is in it for the prospect".
A quick example: We as commercial real estate brokers (in this case we are the prospects) are bombarded by lenders...all purporting to have the best rates, easiest qualifying process, cheapest origination fees, etc. NEVER, has one of these lenders taken the time to figure out what might be in that for me or one of my clients...they all assume that I have a buyer that might need financing and that I could be a great referral source for them. What falls short on the WII-FM radio show...they haven't figured out a way to appeal to me or my clients by providing the "what's in it for me" solution. Now, maybe that sounds selfish. That is not my intent. My intention is to suggest that this is lazy...in light of all that is available to us on line about companies, individuals, connections, etc. If said lender has sent me a note that went like this..."I noticed that you closed x number of sales last year including a, b and c. It appears that you used y lender. Is there a time that we could meet next week to discuss a way that I can help you close more deals"?...ahhh, yeah, when can we meet!
We as commercial real estate practitioners make the same mistake by not crafting our message to appeal to the "what's in it for me" for our prospects. We bombard the email ip's with listings, we flood the US mail with flyers, we tweet the airwaves with "buy my stuff"...CRE Canada, you are the worst! We don't use the available channels of WII-FM!
So what is in this post for YOU? Just this. Think about your offering. What makes it unique? Why should I care? How can you modify the message to appeal to a need. What extra can you provide to differentiate yourself? What motivates a prospect to hire you?
WII-FM is broadcasting daily throughout the USA. Don't miss another episode!
You devil. You write quite a lot like me. Have a conversation and wean the true meaning out of the conversation and apply the meaning in a different context. Good job and not just because you mentioned my name. The lunch was great because we were both open minded, listened well and took two good brains and gave us the brilliance of 4. And only if you were as modest as me.
ReplyDeleteIf I write like you, my friend, I consider that the ultimate compliment as you are trained to write...and do so quite eloquently! Thanks! Only good from here on.
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