John Jantsch over at DuctTapeMarketing.com is one of my favorite RSS feeds for general business marketing tools and information. For disclosure, he sent me a free copy of his book "The Referral Engine," in return for an objective blog post review, so that's what this post is about. I also accepted that offer, as he made it around the Web, in the hope that he reports on the results of that unique marketing strategy and the exposure he gets from it. It will be interesting to see how this type of marketing works for him.
The power of referrals isn't lost on real estate professionals, as a great deal of our business comes from previous clients and their referrals. So, you would think that any new knowledge about how to do a better job of generating referral business would be valuable to our profession. And, this book does provide some great insight into making referrals even more productive.
In a time of downward pressure on commission structures in the real estate business, one statement early in the book hit the nail on the head: "When your business comes highly recommended by a friend, the role of risk is minimized, and that fact alone moves the significance of price comparison down the list." There's a wealth of information in this book, but I wanted to mention one more place where our business and how we market could clearly benefit from principles in the book. It's the 4 Cs of marketing. Content, Context, Connection and Community are the key.
We fall short many times in transparency by placing limited listing content on the Web in order to try and generate a phone call or email request for more information. My MLS doesn't put the lot size with a home listing in IDX, and many of our homes are rural, with varying acreage. It's an omission that probably does generate a request, as I get them on other people's listings all of the time, but it's not consumer-friendly. Also, too many real estate websites are all about "US," not about real estate in the area, and the things people want to know.
The other 3 Cs each have very relevant information that applies to our business, but I'll let you get the book. Overall, it's a valuable resource if you believe you can do better at generating referral business.