Using the Web and social media to sell real estate

I have just returned from an amazing evening presentation by Chris Krimitsos the founder of  The Wealth Building Annex in Tampa and a leading expert in how to train business men to use Internet Marketing without becoming Internet Marketers full time.

The Wealth Building Annex meeting on social media strategy.

It was a private session for just a limited number of people and I have come back with the feeling that something has changed in my whole perspective of how the Web will play a key role in the future evolution of business. First I will quote a statement that was emphasized during the event: “70% of business comes from referral”, which means it comes from word of mouth by your existing or previous customers.

Social media makes it easier for the word of mouth to spread, but the real connection happens between real people who have been involved in real business. Gone is the time (or soon gone) where you just use some technology trick or technique to gather always new potential customers and then leaving them behind to find some more (high churn based on ample availability of leads with little competition).

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Yesterday night I have been to the monthly meeting of my mastermind organization, The Wealth Building Annex in Tampa. Chris Krimitsos, the founder of TWBA always manages to bring in some very interesting speaker, and this time the stage was taken by Aaron Fodiman the successful publisher of Tampa Bay Magazine and a very interesting person overall. His extensive background has seen him working at the White House in the staff of several presidents of the United States, then he has been the president of a major restaurant franchise, he owned and managed a chain of restaurants himself and eventually devoted himself to publishing.

Roberto Mazzoni with Aaron Fodiman and his wife Margaret Word Burnside, both directly involved in running Tampa Bay Magazine

The personal story of this gentleman is amazing since he has been extremely successful at three totally different activities, none of which he has chosen before hand. But he was able to excel by focusing on each one of them when the time came by also applying the first of his 12 success rules which is: “if you chase two rabbits, both will escape”.
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The video that I am presenting here shows a short piece of the interview done by Chris with Aaron Fodiman. You will see how the true path to success sometimes presents itself after some trial.

During the one hour speech by Mr. Fodiman I learned many things about the publishing business, to which I belonged for three decades, and my current international real estate business. And the lesson is this: the more you know about the area where you live and operate, the more you can describe its culture, art and way of life, the more chances you have to succeed. I have also learned that Tampa Bay is the 12^th metropolitan area in the United States and that it is even bigger than Miami in terms of economical power. The best way for me to attract international buyers in this area will be to team up with people like Mr. Fodiman so to fully represent the emotion and lifestyle that can be experienced here, which will make investing in this area even more attractive.

Roberto Mazzoni

Time for another story and I will borrow the words taken from “The Art of Money Getting” by P.T. Barnum where he teaches that the 16^th golden rule on how to make a fortune is to create a message that stands out, that surprises and entices people, and maybe orders them to do the opposite of what you want them to do. In this particular instance, the sentence: “Don’t read the other side” was written on a swing sign attracting people to a store.

But the real story is about “Genin, the hatter” a character who bought at an auction the first ticket to the play of a famous opera singer and paid a ridiculous amount of money for it. The news of the outrageous bid traveled throughout the nation transforming “Genin, the hatter” in a star overnight and people would turn their hat to check if it had been manufactured by him and his brand became renown by just this trick, increasing tremendously his sales.

This story fits perfectly with the experience I had today in participating to an afternoon seminar on balancing online and offline marketing held by The Wealth Building Annex in Tampa and leading business consultant Mark Katz.

Some of the key concepts I brought home from this intensive experience have been: you need to market to a need by ensuring an attractive market position for yourself, and there must be a specific emotion, event or need that is a catalyst for your business. In the example of “Genin, the hatter”, he definitely marketed to a need: people used hats extensively at those times, and he has secured for himself an attractive position by leveraging the desire of people of being appreciated or noticed, to win over the establishment. He had in fact won the bid against thousands of people from the Fifth avenue who knew nothing about him.

He had become a star overnight and a some of the emotion connected to this event could transfer to those who had bought his hat. And since he had a good quality product he kept selling from there on out. He had “sold” himself and his company first to the “influencers”, namely the press and the high society, and then these influencers promoted him to his real clients, completing the circle.

Today the cycle is the same, but most of the influencers are now on social media and the Web would be a good channel for standing out.

Roberto Mazzoni

Yesterday I have started a new mastermind group that is an evolution of the mastermind activity already conducted by The Wealth Building Annex in Tampa. What is a mastermind first of all? Well, it is a place where you go and meet people who are trying to achieve something different in their working life and share their experiences and necessities with others so to obtain and give help under a facilitator that makes sure that no time is wasted and that every meeting has a productive outcome.

Well maybe some of you already belong to one so “what is the big deal” here? The deal here is to create a whole new model of high end mastermind that will then be used elsewhere. Having this purpose alone will make it so much more powerful.

The official objective anyway is to iron out business strategies and to enable a faster growth leveraging to experince of Mark Katz, the facilitator who has a substantial background in business development in the US. Joining this smaller elite mastermind inside TWBA has also changed my status in the organization, bringing me to “governor” level which means I will now be able to have a deeper insight into the evolution strategy of what I consider the most advanced mastermind organization in the whole nation.
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It is amazing how many things have changed and grown in the last six months. I have completed the startup of my real estate company that offers a conduit investment opportunities for people in Europe who want to deal in North American properties and my friend Chris Krimitsos has completed the startup of the Dream Factory, the operation, production and creation center of the Wealth Building Annex in Tampa, probably the most advanced mastermind organization in the US that Chris has founded himself.

Daniele Bogiatto, Chris Krimitsos and Miranda Sorgente at the Dream Factory of the Wealth Building Annex.

So it was natural for us to bring the two things together and yesterday we organized a meeting with Chris at the Dream Factory with two key figures in corporate coaching and training in Europe: my partner Daniele Bogiatto and Miranda Sorgente. Just the day before the TWBA staff had been fully absorbed in the delivery of a spectacular event to the members of the mastermind: a presentation by Gary Vaynechuck on the future of the web and  social media.

So the atmosphere was relaxed but still full of the energy generated by the event. So the meeting flowed very well and it lasted much longer then expected. I believe we have set the stage for my company to become the conduit also for American speakers and trainers wanting to expand their action to the European market.

The right relationships are already there and I enjoy the idea of bringing over some highly powerful personality like Gary.

We are still at the early stages, but all the ingredients are already present, so we just need to move now. My original idea to spend most of my effort and time into establishing few strong relationships is paying back big time because now they start to work for me and in line with the natural evolution of the business I have created from scratch. Once again it is not important what you know, but rather who knows you.

Roberto Mazzoni