Hi There, Do you have Core Values you have as person, personally or professionally?
When promoting their services, agents invariably focus on their own skills and abilities.
Their advertising is self-promotional, touting how good they are at what they do. This approach is based on the assumption that with enough advertising, sooner or later prospective clients will believe these promotional messages and become clients. Unfortunately, there are two serious problems with this approach.
Most prospects and clients are driven by self-interest. Unless they see some benefit for themselves in promotional messages, they tend to ignore them.
There are also many other businesses and organizations, including competing real estate agents, seeking prospects’ time and attention. Bombarded by too many messages, most of which offer few if any benefits, prospective clients often ignore all promotional material.
By redefining marketing to mean attracting prospective clients instead of simply promotional activities, the focus shifts from the sales representative’s skills and abilities to client’s needs, wants and expectations. The question, “What do I offer my clients?” is replaced by “How do I attract prospects?”
The process of attracting prospects starts with having something of value to offer to clients.
Certainly the standardized generic real estate services offered by most real estate agents offer acceptable value to clients. However, standardized generic services tend to be mere commodities, with one provider indistinguishable from all others.
In real estate, this would mean you are virtually indistinguishable from everyone else licensed to sell real estate in the same market as you.
As individuals we are all unique. We all bring our own individual combination of skills and resources to everything we do.
It seems to me that if there is in fact a secret to success in life or marketing, it is that age-old wisdom: “Know thyself and to thine own self be true.”
Applying this principle to the challenge of attracting prospects means that we must know what value we offer clients. Once we understand what value we offer, everything that we do to attract prospects must be consistent with this value.
What better place to identify the value that we offer, than our own core values – the belief system that defines who we are and how we live our lives?
There are at least seven core values that will help you attract new clients:
1. Competence – When hiring service providers, most clients expect more than just a minimal level of competence. In fact, clients usually expect an above-average level of competence. As a core value, competence is not something that is turned on when needed, only to be ignored the rest of time. It helps define who you are as a person…and how you serve clients.
Competence is a combination of what you learn in formal training programs, Skillset and the know-how that you develop through the experience of serving clients.
Trust – Regardless of what service you provide, few if any clients will hire you if they don’t trust you. It really is that simple. Like competence, it is fundamental and helps define you as a person and service provider. Trust is not something you learn. It’s something you are…under all circumstances.
Efficiency – Efficiency is performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort. From your clients’ perspective, it is more efficient to hire you to perform some specific work for them than to do it themselves.
When serving your clients, you will waste as little time and effort as you do when managing your own responsibilities.
Hard work – Regardless of what you are doing for them, clients expect you to work hard at it.
But remember that clients seldom expect hard work simply for its own sake. They expect the results that hard work generates.
Quality – In the simplest of terms, quality is what your clients say it is – nothing more, nothing less.
Satisfying clients – If you are not totally committed to satisfying clients, you can expect to work harder at finding new clients than serving repeat and referred clients. Clients whom you have left less than totally satisfied are unlikely to hire you again…nor are they likely to refer prospective clients to you.
Communication – As admirable as these qualities are, it is not their noble nature that helps attract new clients. Each value promises significant benefits to clients. It is these promised benefits that make these values so attractive to clients, and important from a marketing perspective.
As one of your seven core values, communication allows you to send messages subtly and indirectly without shameless self-promotion. Instead of actively promoting your core values, demonstrate them. Let your seven core values speak for themselves, influencing everything from promoting your services to servicing clients.
And what better way to confirm that your actions are in fact determined by these core values than testimonials from clients and third-party endorsements?
Question of the Day
What are your Core Values is it written down ?
Make sure you write down your Core values today.
It can become a game changer for you and your business.
Thanks for your attention and please enjoy your day.
Dr Laide OKUBENA