One of my favorite inspectors does something when he’s explaining inspection items to my real estate clients who are couples that makes my toes curl up into little fists of despair:

He makes eye contact with the man about 70% of the time, with me about 20% of the time, and with the wife only about 10% of the time.

I don’t care how much he looks at me, but wouldn’t you be seriously annoyed if you were the wife and only got spoken to directly a small part of the time?

(I I did finally say something to him about it.  He had no idea, of course. :))

So while this might seem like a no-brainer to some people, it’s still worth a reminder:

• Be aware of how much eye contact and interaction you have with each person in a group.

This includes older people in a family who might not come across as a primary decision-maker.  (My mother was appalled when at the age of 75 she was looking at condos with my sister, and the agent, after pretty much ignoring her and  then seeing a rabbit on the lawn, asked her if she liked bunnies.)

• Never assume that one person or another is the primary decision maker.

Just because one person is more reserved doesn’t mean the mental wheels aren’t churning.  Disregard that person at your own risk.

This isn’t a strategy, or a women’s empowerment thing.  (After all, a female real estate agent who connects more with the wife might have to make an effort to ensure that the husband doesn’t feel left on the sidelines.)

It boils down to common courtesy and smart business practice.  So yes, it’s normal to sometimes ’connect’ more with one person or the other.  Just remember to occasionally ask yourself, “Who you lookin’ at?”

Here’s something you should know about your marketing:

There are ways to write that make people very likely to DO what it is you want them to do.

Here’s the problem:

Most of us have no idea how to write that way!

Real estate is a marketing business.  We sell our services and especially our listings all the time in writing.  Has it ever boggled your mind that most of us plunge into the profession without ever having learned a stitch about how to write in a way that makes people want to buy anything?

Learn even some basics of copywriting and you’ll boost the overall effectiveness of virtually all of your marketing.  I’m going to give a quick but important tip, and then a wonderful resource.

Tip:  Understand Features versus Benefits

The great copywriters will tell you that people are most likely to ‘buy’ (in our business that could mean pick up the phone to call you, refer a friend to you or call on one of your home flyers) when they see a big benefit to themselves.  But much of the time in our marketing we tout features, not benefits.  It’s important to see the difference:

A feature is an attribute.  For example, if you tell people you’re honest, attentive and experienced, that’s all great - but those are features.

A benefit is the end result to the ‘buyer’.

For example, if you’re honest that means you’re going to tell a home buyer when they’re thinking about buying the wrong home.  Not losing money by making a poor investment is the benefit.

If you’re attentive, that means buyers and sellers won’t waste time and stress doing things you’re supposed to be doing.  Saving time and stress is the benefit.

If you’re experienced, that means buyers and sellers are less likely to end up making costly mistakes during a transaction.  Not losing money (and even not getting sued) are the benefits.

Features create benefits.  Anytime your reader or listener has to TRANSLATE a feature into a benefit you lose some marketing punch.

One of My Favorite Resources:  Bencivenga Bullets

Gary Bencivenga is an amazing copywriter, and even though I’ve never met him I have the feeling he also has to be one of the nicest guys ever.

He shares his wealth of knowledge in his free e-newsletter.  Here’s the link to the Bencivenga Bullet archives, and here’s a highly useful issue called The Most Important Advertising Question.

I strongly recommend you sign up for his e-newsletter, he only sends out a few issues a year and they’re all golden.

More and more real estate agents are using self-hosted Wordpress blogs these days, as I do on all my sites so far.  Here’s something you should know about how to choose the best permalink naming structure.

(The permalink is how the URL will look for that blog post.  For example, for this post the URL (permalink) will read “http://www.toolsforrealestate.com/best-permalink-structure-for-blog-posts.)

1.  The default blog post naming structure Wordpress will give you looks like this:

http://www.yoursite.com/?p=123

This is terrible for search engines, since ?p=123 doesn’t say anything about what the post is about.

2. Most people do what I did, which is to instead select one of the other naming structure options provided by Wordpress.  A really common one looks like this:

http://www.yoursite.com/2008/12/21/post-name/

where ‘post-name’ is the the title of your blog post.

This url includes the date of the post.  What I didn’t realize until just recently is that if you update your post at a later date the url changes to reflect the new date.  This messes up the search engines and anyone who linked to your (most excellent) post because it now has a new url.

(I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone in the next day to edit old posts.  Aagh!)

3.  A good choice is to select ‘Custom Structure’ and then use either just the post name:

/%postname%/

or the category and post name:

/%category%/%postname%/

This means that you can go in and update your old posts without losing the old url, since it doesn’t include the date.

So… what if you want to switch to a url with no date, but you already have a bunch of old posts with dates in the url and you’re afraid of losing links to them?

(When you change the naming structure in Wordpress it changes all of your old post urls as well.)

4.  There’s a great blog plug-in called Dean’s Permalink Migration that creates a Permanent Redirect from all your old url formats to the new one.

This keeps the search engines happy and doesn’t break any links from the people who linked to you. It’s also VERY easy to use.

Just upload and activate the plug-in, go into the Permalinks Migration section to make sure that the old naming structure is correct (you can copy and paste from your permalinks setting if it’s not,) click ‘update’ in the Permalinks Migration section, then go into the Permalinks setting of your Wordpress blog and choose whatever naming structure you want.

I just did this with two blogs and tested it by clicking on an old url to see if it went to the new url.  To test it yourself, click on:

http://www.toolsforrealestate.com/blog/2008/12/20/sending-an-email-newsletter-make-sure-your-content-rocks/

and you’ll see it will go to:

http://www.toolsforrealestate.com/blog/sending-an-email-newsletter-make-sure-your-content-rocks/

Here’s the link again for Dean’s Permalink Migration Plugin:

http://www.deanlee.cn/wordpress/permalinks-migration-plugin/

I love things that work.

This video if of a seagull in Scotland that became famous for its habit of stealing cheese flavored Doritos from a newspaper stand.

Notice how he checks first to make sure it’s safe before he darts in to steal the chips.  Good stuff.

Thinking about sending out a monthly email newsletter to your real estate clients?

The first question to ask yourself is, “What information am I going to be sending?”  Or, more specifically, “Why should someone open this email?”

 This is HUGE.  Let’s face it, can you think of any one of your clients who’s not already bombarded with marketing?  People are so pressed for time these days, and every one of us has to sort through an email inbox that’s cluttered with unwanted correspondence.

How many times can you expect your clients to continue opening emails telling them that you once again sold or listed a home?

On the flip side (and partly because people are so busy) there’s plenty of useful information that homeowners need and are not getting.  Things that you know that can help them increase the value, safety or enjoyment they get from their current or future home.

Let me say that again, because it’s really important:

People need information that helps them increase the value, safety and enjoyment they get from their real estate.

This is how we structure the main content of all our done-for-you real estate e-newsletters at Tools For Real Estate.  After all, can you think of any current or future homeowner who would say “No” if you asked if they’d like to increase the value, safety or enjoyment they got from their home?

No one would say that.  That means it’s a good basis for the content you put in your email newsletter.

If you’re writing your own client e-newsletter check back in to this blog for more tips.  And if you’d like to save yourself some time and stress, please check out our done-for-your email newsletters at  www.ToolsForRealEstate.com.

For the record, having a specific topic for each day has helped me post more regularly, in case you’re thinking of trying that for your blog.

I’m changing Home Photo Fridays to something else - I love the home staging and photography stuff, but I just realized that while Tools For Real Estate sells done-for-you client e-newsletters for agents, I hadn’t allocated a day for anything about, um, email newsletters.

So I can’t think of anything appropriate that starts with F, or even Ph, for Friday.  No biggie.  This week’s Friday post will be about a crucial element of a good email newsletter.

Thursday’s posts are about things that help us keep perspective in life.

OK, there’s corruption in government - I think most of us pretty much assume that.

But I read a fair amount of international news, and it could be much, much worse.

As jaded as we might get sometimes about political lobbying and other things that make us feel like government is not as much in the hands of the people as it should be, I’m grateful to live in a country where the kind of wheeling and dealing that Rod Blogojevich is accused of is still worthy of national outrage.

So yes, we have our problems - but we still have a LOT to be thankful for.

There’s a great free Wordpress blog plugin called NextGen Gallery that lets you do just that.  Considering how many great features it has I was actually surprised at how relatively simple it was for me to set it up.

Here’s the link to the NextGen Gallery plugin download page on Wordpress - just click on the red ‘Download’ button on the right hand side.

Have you ever gone on a long-awaited appointment to a professional, like a doctor or counselor, and ended up disappointed because after all that build-up you felt like that person hadn’t really listened to you?

Well, I remember once as a pretty new agent I was being interviewed by prospective buyers who made me nervous, and almost as soon as they sat down I started in on my big buyer agent spiel - complete with workbook, etc.

I could feel them disconnecting from me with every passing minute, but I didn’t know what to do.  It was like being some kind of horrible Broadway tap dancer who couldn’t stop tapping.  (Except there was no big cane to reach out and pluck me off the stage.)

Here’s what I learned from that:

When people sit down with you for the first time, they’re full of hopes, concerns, fears and dreams.  They’ve been thinking about these things for a while, and they’re dying to share them with someone who can really help them.  So LET them!

A great way to start out a meeting is to:

• First explain that you know they have questions about specific topics (name them) and that you’ll be covering those.  Mention anything else they can expect during the meeting.
• Then, ask them to first give you an idea of where they’re at.  Even if they gave you information over the phone, you can repeat some of it to let them know you remember it, but explain that you want to make sure you’re clear on things.

You’ll be amazed at how the floodgates open (so take notes!)  You learn a lot of information that lets you help them better as clients, and at the same time you show them that you know how to tune in to their needs.

But what makes people want to keep your postcard around for more than three seconds?  If you’re sending out the typical ‘Just Listed’ postcard, chances are not much.

People are busier and busier each day - even if they care about you or are curious about real estate, let’s face it - other more pressing issues are knocking at their mental doors each minute.

Here’s a postcard idea that has become a favorite with my clients.  Each month I look up local events and list nine or ten of them on a postcard.  On the back side where the message goes I give my clients a straightforward, from-the-streets view of the market over the past few weeks.

With this one marketing piece they’re getting something highly useful for them, the event information, as well as real estate market information that helps them understand the current housing market.  It also reminds them of my expertise and positions me as the person to go to with questions.

Just as important, it has a long lifespan!  When I walk into my clients’ homes I see this postcard up on the fridge because they use the events list.  My photo and contact number are on the front.

In another post I’ll link to the Publisher template I made that you can use for this postcard.