Friday nights with good friends and a good wine is a great way to end a busy week.
And as you do with like minded entrepreneurial friends we were bouncing around our “take over the world ideas, million dollar breakthroughs and world changing ideological schemes”. 😆
By the end of the night I’m sure we’d pulled at least 17 million dollars and solved all the worlds problems, it was hard work but obviously worth it.
The particular friend we were visiting is in real estate and although he’s not been in the industry that long he’s pulling good listings and sales and carving out a healthy career even against all the odds of the market being slow. A man of action and a quick learner and certainly open to innovative marketing stuff.
It turns out that he subscribes to my e-marketing newsletter so I started talking about my recent post on testimonials. He hesitantly confessed he hadn’t read the recent post knowing full well that I would get on my pedestal and rant… “What, you didn’t read my stuff?”
Even when I wrote the post I had visions of real estate agents with photos of ecstatic home owners putting ‘Sold’ stickers on the ‘For Sale’ sign out the front of their house with a big ‘thumbs up’. What a better way to show prospects that you get results… right!
(What, you didn’t read my previous post too?)
Or a photo of the buyers… with the agent, beaming smiles, keys in hand at of the front door of their new dream home.
Why would you go to all this bother? People look at pictures, hello!
Don’t you think an ‘imagery’ style testimonial is a lot more powerful than a whole heap of text? I’d like to think everyone reads my stuff but the reality is we’re all busy and you know the old adage ‘a picture tells a thousand words’.
Why do you think I place a picture in my posts? To try and get them read.
I heard a fellow marketer coin the expression – ‘results in advance’. Using picture testimonials in this way is exactly that. Use the right pictures and you are showing your prospects the outcome they will achieve by doing business with you.
With any transaction there is the process but it’s the outcome that people want – focus on the outcome. Get a mix of testimonials and photo’s.
Another point that needs to be made is that of ANY marketing idea you read or hear about the question should never be “Can I make that work for me?” but rather the question should ALWAYS be “How can I make that work for me?” Most ideas can be adapted so use your imagination.
If you add a twist to any marketing idea it is sure to make you stand out over all the other brokers… and isn’t that what marketing is all about? Standing out! Differentiating you from the ‘pack’!
So to subscribers… be warned… I will find out if you don’t read my stuff. We have ways…
Seriously, we all want the one idea that will bring us 100 new clients but the reality is… it’s probably going to be 20 ideas that pull 5 clients each time… but we still end up with 100 clients.
A side note… the marketing stuff we do and advocate can be systemised meaning that once it’s set up… it’s an auto-pilot lead generating prospect converting money making marketing machine… works for me!
PS: A colleague and friend made a comment on my last post… you can too. I’ll tell you why it good for you in my next post. Click on the blue headline in the post or right here to have your say now.
Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,
Peter B Butler.
Finally: A lead generation and marketing system that generates a stream of “highly qualified” clients for small business owners and retailers that’s self managed so they ‘own’ it and it positions them as the experts in their area and ends all lame and frustrating and sometimes costly advertising and marketing methods.
All those in favour of that say ‘AYE’!
To find out more go to Peter B Butler on… Direct Response Marketing, Websites and Lead Generation!
