Using the Web and social media to sell real estate

North America is the land of marketing, nowhere else you find so much creativeness and emphasis on making products easier to sell or more acceptable. It is also the land of customer service, to a great degree: people are got accustomed to fast replies and to a special attention given to attract new customers. Everywhere you go, even in convenience stores, you can put yourself at ease and enjoy the shopping experience.

The needed rest during shopping.

Yesterday I went with my family to the local Big Lots, where you can find retail products at wholesaling prices. Something caught my eye: a huge beer bottle full of pop corn and a small plastic guitar with the picture of Elvis on top of it also full of pop corn. They literally stood out on the shelves of the very crowded place and I felt “forced” to get closer and look at them.

It's not beer, it's pop corn!

By just using odd shapes they had managed to get my attention on something as corny as pop corn. The shop has also pieces of furniture and you can try the arm chairs at your leisure: everything to make yourself at ease. The shop staff can also come and show you how to operate them. Maybe it is just the way Florida goes, but it felt all very relaxed.

Elvis' guitar turned into a bottle of pop corn.

I remember also talking with the manager of a Mattress Giant store some time ago. He told me of a guy who had lied down on a mattress to test it and had woke up four hours later. People would just walk around him while shopping and the manager didn’t bother him at all.

So people are willing to go great lengths to get new business, but what happens if they don’t get immediate response and attention? They move on. Today I met a Realtor who told me that Americans are impatient and that they want to get what they want right now. And they want to get away of unpleasant situations fast and easily.

He had lot of debts and had to sell something fast, his family life was also in trouble and he needed some kind of a solution but had no real plan. Yet he was convinced that if he could stick with it long enough and meet enough people and market enough properties he would sooner or later hit the jack pot and be over with it. He had many potential buyers, but when I asked which ones he knew very well, he couldn’t really respond.

I have heard experts say that it can take up to 5 or 7 contacts with a person before you can make a sale. I don’t know if it really boils down to numbers, I rather believe it is more how deep you can establish the relationship and how much can you follow up with the person, even when it seems that it is going nowhere.

Some of the Realtors I talk with are looking for the nicest house for the cheapest possible price, and they want many of them so that, by shooting wide, they can eventually sell something. Then they complain about the fact that buyers are liars, that they waste  lots of time and sell little, that they engage in activities they know don’t work anymore (if they ever worked) but they’ll do just anything to get more leads.

Then you find Realtors who simply sell houses and don’t complain much. What’s the difference? They have hungry buyers or willing sellers who trust them enough to entrust to them the most important purchases or sales of their life. And the trust is built over time, by providing service and sticking with the buyer or seller also when the deals seems to be falling apart. Because eventually decisions are made by people and people deal with other people they trust.

Roberto Mazzoni