Making Your Market Your Fans

Jun 232011

First you earn the trust of your clients then you earn their friends. For years in my real estate business I have been looking long term, looking to give an excellent service in return for respect, excellent word of mouth reputation and possible referrals. The payback comes in what is the lifetime value of a client to me or any other business. My best referrer has sent me six other clients over the seven or eight years since he bought a place off me so the lifetime value of that client is huge. He is still here and may send more.

I have mentioned on this blog before that I believe that the majority of Spanish business people involved in Real Estate got it wrong, and very wrong at that. They were just looking to fleece the last cent out of the client in every transaction and this meant they lost respect, trust and ultimately future business and money.

I want to give you an example of course to illustrate what going the extra mile and turning lemons into lemonade can mean. Last year I made a sale of a flat in Valencia. The flat was sold unfurnished but the kitchen stayed “as is”. The sale went through without a hitch until a few hours after signing when we went to the apartment to find that the removal company had not quite finished and the elevator was bringing down the fridge and washing machine. (The dishwasher was already down)

Now I understand “as is” to include the “electrodomésticos” as they say in Spain. It always has and for ever more shall be. The owners didn’t and it hadn’t been clearly sorted in the negotiations. A quick decision was made and new kitchen equipment was bought for the new owners. Now the deal was done and the money had been paid. I had two choices, the Spanish real estate way which I believe is to say “Ah well you need to buy these things” or the correct way. I chose the correct way. It cost me just under a thousand Euros but I maintained the respect of the client who is more than likely to refer my services to friends with high disposable income in the future. If I chose to do nothing I wouldn’t have lost 1000 Euros but I would have lost a lot more long term both in terms of money and respect. It also taught me to tie up loose ends right from the start.

Now that is one way to make your market your fans but now I am taking another step. I want to make my market my PR machine. I want them to refer people to my estate agency and do my publicity for me. I want to take one of the principles of internet marketing, an affiliate scheme, and bring it into the offline, real world. Of course companies have been doing this for years through word of mouth referrals but so many of my clients are now independent professionals with their own online businesses and contacts in both the on and offline world that I thought I would do a full blown affiliate scheme.

I know what I am going to do but what about you? Suggestions welcome. I will be posting more on the scheme as time goes on, especially when I decide on the prizes for the biggest referrers although I think it might well involve an iPad and a few other juicy goodies. And the best thing is, those who sign up to my newsletter at my real estate blog site will get an even higher referral rate and will have more ammunition available to promote my company. A total win win situation.

1) The Reservoir Dogs One

2) The Donkey One

3) The James Bond Pen One

4) The Tomato One (The Most Popular Post on the Site So Far)

Originally posted 2010-02-04 11:21:26. Republished by Blog Post Promoter