2 solid leads in 2 days! How? It’s staring you right in the face…

In May I listed our investment unit with a real estate guy I met when visiting a local BNI chapter. At the chapter meet Paul did a 10 minute presentation and impressed me with not only his local knowledge but his passion for the district.

I mean, how do you tell one agent from another, they all tout to be the best. So I took a gamble.

Fast track forward 60 days. Unit sold AND settled.

When Paul did the research there were 2 similar units on the market in our complex. One had been on the market for 154 days, and the other 212. That property was right next door and was listed for $195,000.

OMG, 212 days, I needed to clear this property quickly, the tenant had just moved out after 4 years and I didn’t want to have to re-tenant it while trying to sell it. And I certainly didn’t want to have to cover the mortgage. I needed to shift this property, and quickly.

Just on 31 days later, offer made and unit sold – and within the 3% of the asking price. Woo woo.

So – was I a happy camper? You got that right.

So why am I sharing this?

I went straight to my Facebook wall and placed this rave review for Paul!

Paul Ellis of Warnbro Realty, about to become an Elders branch, is a legend. Sold my unit in a slow market in exactly 31 days. The unit next door is still on the market after 272 days. And I got within 3% of my asking like he said, legend.

Within minutes a friend posted a comment “Is he that good?”

Needless to say they have since touched base and no doubt they’ll be doing business together (by the way, this guy has several properties).

But it gets even better. Next day I get an email from someone else, “Should I use him?” Obvious response – “Yes!”

2 solid leads in 2 days! I reckon that’s a good start to the social media marketing arena.

And Paul doesn’t even have a Facebook Business Page (Yet). Imagine if he had that on a Facebook Business Page, that would mean those client raves would be there forever. Maximum Exposure, Credibility and your Authority, that’s what social media will do for your business. IF YOU DO IT RIGHT!

It’s not enough to just have a Facebook Business Page nowadays.

• You need to have it optimised
• You need to know how to leverage it properly
• You need to know how to us it to engage people, to maximise your efforts.

Check out this video, the numbers are staggering –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBXOjEZUIm8

Want to get it right?

Check out the raves on our Smarter Workshops “Profit From Your FB Business Page ‘Hands On Do It With You” Workshop wall –

http://www.facebook.com/SmarterWorkshops?sk=reviews

If you’re in Perth we have a workshop running THIS Friday (29th July 2011).

If you’re not in GET IN NOW. Call me direct on 0413 733 272.

There are only 5 spots left so don’t procrastinate – just BOOK NOW!

Also, check out the epic rave reviews we have on our Smarter WordPress Websites wall –

http://www.facebook.com/SmarterWordPressWebsites?sk=reviews

We show you how to do that, and a LOT MORE!

The point is this – you work hard to give great service – so why shouldn’t you get more referrals from all that hard work?

Are the leads that you’re harvesting “qualified”, or anywhere near the mark of the “Ideal Client” for you?

I made a “Post” blunder on Monday on my www.SmarterWebsites.com.au site. I stuffed up.

I needed to narrow the niche that I’m marketing too so I was refining my lead generation “Funnel” on my site. Trouble is I forgot that the auto update was turned “On” so the edit that I did went out automatically to my list.

This would have been the starter of the email you got…

Attention: Self Employed Professionals & Small Business Owners!

Really am sorry about that, it was just an internal site edit and wasn’t supposed to go out.

Anyway, the blessing is that it’s a good subject for a post.

Are the leads that you’re harvesting “qualified”, or anywhere near the mark of the “Ideal Client” for you?

It’s a valid question.

I had people signing up left, right and centre but in running them through my “process” I realized that in building this list some of these leads weren’t after what I was offering. Now, you could argue that it doesn’t matter because it’s all done online that it doesn’t cost me anything.

Well, yes, and the extra traffic to my site can be a good thing for ranking but obviously if we can all refine our process to attract that “Ideal Client” then the faster our business will grow and the quicker we’ll slip into the serious money stream.

Un-qualified traffic can also be a negative too – if they come to your site and leave quickly that will increase your “bounce rate” which is the percentage of single page visits. This is bad if it’s too high, it means they’re not finding what they came for. Google God demerit point!

The point being, always “Test and Measure”.

• Check your offer – how many clicks on your offer (Your button or newsletter opt-in) compared to new visitors?
• How many people are then following through and filling in their details to get your stuff?
• How many “unsubscribes” down the track?
• How many convert into a paying client?

Here’s a quick starter check hit list – In Google Analytics (which we install on all our sites – that was subtle “sell” on one of the many sexy things we do) you should be looking to compare – “new visits” to “click throughs to your opt in page” to “actual opt ins”.

Test and measure and refine always. Websites are a work in progress!

Be Sociable with WordPress Social Media Marketing!

I made this post to my core “Smarter Websites” site but the same principal applies to Mortgage Brokers.

There’s a lot of ways you can leverage off social media marketing to build your business and increase traffic to your website.

Social media marketing is a form of viral marketing – which is effectively getting others to share your message with the world, mostly using the social media networks.

How that might look is simply this – the visitor to your site has read your stuff and they liked it, great!

How can you take advantage of that and make it easy for them to share it with the world?

Have you ever read a ‘post’ on a website and noticed the nifty little icons down the bottom? – like facebook, digg, linkedin, my space maybe and a heap of others.

Giving your readers a quick and easy way to share and promote that ‘post’ or article to whatever social media sites they use will be the smartest marketing move you ever make.

I’ve done it many times with my own clients – I’ve read their post, liked it and thought others would too – I’ve clicked the social share button and bang – there it is on my facebook for all my friends to view it. Once its set up it runs on auto pilot and your clients and visitors will literally run it for you. When you set it up right there’s nothing more for you to do.

There a literally hundreds of social media and bookmarking sites in the world.

How can you tap into those in the easiest way possible?

The WordPress platform and plug ins is the perfect model to minimize your time and effort with social media marketing but maximize the result.

Today we’re going to focus on a WordPress plug in called sociable. Specifically we’re going to show you how to set it up to maximize its use by your clients and therefore your exposure to the world.

That’s the theory now let’s get down to actually setting it up. This video shows you step by step.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiu4rI6WGlY

First you need to go to your WordPress admin area. For non WordPress users this is where you get to control your entire website.

In the video I’ve already opened the sociable tool from within the settings section. There are already 105 social media and bookmarking sites to choose from within ‘sociable’. All you need to do is simply click the radio button to select it.

Now the trick is to know which sites are going to give you maximum exposure.

You need to put yourself in your client’s shoes.

• Where do they go ‘online’ socially’?
• How old are they?
• What do they do by day? … or night!
• Who do they hang out with? … or want to hang out with!
• There’s also a sexy print function and email function too, which might be useful for your particular group.

You need to consider all the demographics.

But here’s the thing – you don’t have to have all of this exactly right from the get go. Just review your settings in a month. With there being hundreds of social and media sites to choose from you only want to include the ones relative to your ‘group’, otherwise it really is overkill and you will lose the effectiveness of the whole concept.

You might be wondering – what do half of these mean and which ones should you choose?

Here’s some links that will give you an overview of that.

Vladimir is well respected and comes out with some great info along with some of his own plug ins. This list is very cleverly set up.
http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/top-list-of-social-media-sites

Here’s a site that lists social and bookmarking sites by category – very handy. http://traffikd.com/social-media-websites/

Neither of these are definitive but they’ll give you a handy quick start.

Let’s go back to the 3 best tips for using LinkedIn.

Here’s the catch. The most important thing is how to prompt your reader to promote your page or post – oh, yeah…

When you do a new post or page you get to choose whether you want the ‘sociable’ option to display. Sometimes it might not be appropriate, like on a thank you page. All you do is just tick the radio button, it’s that simple.

So – back to prompting your reader. The ‘share and enjoy’ is just not going to cut it. You need a strong call to action – your actual tag line will depend on your clients and target market – but don’t be shy!

I have a client who runs a back-packer hostel. He might say – “Help Share Planet Inn With the World – Click Your Social Fave Site Below”

If you’re a Mortgage Broker, Coach or Consultant you might say “Referrals Are the Greatest Compliment – Click Your Social Fave To Share and I’ll Love You Forever” or whatever. Just don’t use a pathetic line – if you’re boring it won’t get shared.

The tag line I’m testing is “Reap, Sow… Click Your Social Fave Icon To Share and It’ll Get Shared Back”.

I want to try and prompt people using networking as the psychological trigger. If you think that might work for you feel free to plagiarize.

The last couple of settings are simple.

• Post – yes
• Pages – yes, it might be a squeeze page – would you like to see that up on Facebook or LinkedIn? Um, yes.
• And the last setting is ‘open in new window’ – I set it to yes.
• Click ‘save changes’ and you’re good to go.

Presto –all ready for social and viral marketing – It’s a beautiful thing.

Let’s have a look at what actually happens when the facebook icon is clicked on.

It will take them straight through to their facebook profile. They’ll get to choose a thumbnail image direct from your site and they’ll also get to make a comment. It places an excerpt of your ‘post’ to their facebook profile complete with a link back to site – all within seconds. That means that their friends will now see your post.

What makes this so powerful is that ‘what others say about you is infinitely more powerful than what you say about yourself’. It’s very powerful and so underutilized.

So, if you want people to do it on your posts then do it on other’s –

“Reap, Sow… Click Your Social Fave Icon To Share and It’ll Get Shared Back”

If you enjoyed this tutorial, hit your social fave icon or three and the universe will see it’s returned.

I hope this was helpful.

Next time around I’ll be showing you a really simple but powerful way to get back links to your site. Why would you want that – hey, the more people looking at you the more the Google Gods will smile upon you?

So, go to it. Start sharing and make sure you don’t miss out on the next vid by hitting the blue button on my site or just sign up for the weekly website prosperity tips.

3 Best Tips For Using LinkedIn!

I started using LinkedIn about a year ago. Probably like most people I set up my profile and did nothing with it. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what else I should do.

You do need to build up your connections. Check your friends ‘connections’ too and ask for the introduction to like minded people.

It is a valid networking and lead generation tool and I’ve generated 1 hot lead through it already so I’m good with that. A friend even had a job offer last month too!

Here’s the share on a few tips and tricks that will help.

First up is your Public Profile URL… Edit it.

The default link looks something like this – http://www.linkedin.com/pub/XX/xxx/XXX which is pretty ugly and random.

What makes a lot more sense is to use the word or term you want to ‘rank’ for with the search engines. So change it to something like this http://www.linkedin.com/in/thepeterbutler but it could be your business name if you like.

It will help in Google World. Your name should still appear in the search results regardless but if the text link contains the actual words, like your name or business then that’s all the better for the search results.

Increase Your Public Profile!

I’d also recommend placing this as a link on your website. The more links on your site to other sites about you will increase your overall profile on the internet.

A point to consider, when people click on that link and they’re redirected to your LinkedIn page the sexier URL will appear in the address bar, much more professional rather than some generic random line.

It’s easy to edit. Just hit ‘edit my profile’ and click on the text. Your name might be taken already so be prepared to slip in something that sets it apart. You can use a digit or perhaps ‘the’ as a differentiator.

I have both my LinkedIn and my Facebook profiles as links under a category link ‘social media sites’. My take is this, people want to do business with people and this shows them that humanness side. You should have decent profiles set up on both Facebook and LinkedIn.

Your Own Personal Built In Website Feature!

This is huge. Click on ‘Applications’ in the left navigation bar and you have 10 applications at this point ready to ‘plug in’ to your profile.

The biggest for me was the WordPress plug-in. This feature means as I make a post to my site it appears in my profile automatically. So my last 3 posts are sitting in there with no effort, getting more exposure and all the while telling my story and adding to my credibility. That is a very cool tool.

Yup, it has a Built In Slide Show Presentation too…

The Slide Share Presentations will be my next set up – this will be a real boon for a lot of people too. I show my wares via Power Point so this will work particularly well for me.

What plug-ins will suit you?

Depending on the nature of your business as to which other plug-ins will be most useful to you. This is the short list of other tools – Google Presentations, Blog Link, LinkedIn Polls (cool), Trip-It, Reading List by Amazon and some online collaboration tools.

It seems the issue for most people is time, to learn how it all works or committing to ‘building that network’. It’s the same for me so my take is to do this stuff in my ‘slow’ time or at least not my ‘peak’ productive time. I’ve even sat there with my laptop while I catch a TV show to get through it.

So, go to it and get LinkedIn!

While your there let’s get connected too. The more ‘connections’ we all have the better.

Here’s my public profile link:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/thepeterbutler

See you on LinkedIn!

Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Commissions,

Peter B Butler.

Finally: A lead generation and marketing system that runs alongside even the best referral systems and generates an independent stream of “highly qualified” clients for brokers that’s self managed so they ‘own’ it and positions them as the experts in their area and ends all those lame, frustrating and sometimes costly prospecting methods.

All those in favour of that say ‘AYE’!

To find out more go to Smart Mortgage Marketing or go here to get your FREE Marketing and Website Audit! valued at $350.

“Build It and They Will Come”

In the movie “Field of Dreams” Kevin Costner as Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer hears a voice in his cornfield telling him, “If you build it, they will come.” Ray interprets this as a message to build a baseball field on his farm.  When the voices continue, Ray seeks out a reclusive author to help him understand the meaning of the messages and the purpose for his field. We all remember how the ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other seven Chicago White Sox players banned from the game for throwing the 1919 World Series appear.

Then the miracle of the masses appearing to watch the game and how that was the saving grace for Ray financially. This was one heck of an inspirational, touching and goose-bumpy movie. The ‘vision’ was fulfilled and in a sense that’s probably worked for you, up until recently!

So many mortgage brokers we speak to have the “Build It and They Will Come” thinking.

Like most brokers you have a few good affiliations with some real estate agents, insurance brokers and accountants and the like so you have that steady stream of new deals coming through.

The trouble is that your business is dependent on someone else’s business… and you’re in a vulnerable position.

When you first went into business you probably thought your specialised knowledge and skill was all that you really needed to be successful. You knew that your expertise and professionalism will be the keys to your success in your mortgage broking business and once people heard how good a broker you were you knew that your business would simply flourish.

You knew there were some areas where you would need specific help such as – accounting, taxation, bookkeeping and the like. That’s par for the course in business. You can’t know everything about everything.

Marketing and Advertising? That’s not rocket science. What’s to know?

Surely it’s simply a matter of running a few ads, maybe some ad campaigns, get in the Yellow Pages maybe and oh, we come up with a really cool logo and stuff too so that people will get to know who we are.

We are really good at what we do, people will talk about us and we will be fine. Once people know how good we are…

Your business is growing, albeit a bit slower than you visualised but the momentum is picking up. Or is it? Cash flow is becoming a bit of a issue, but you’re confident you’ll squeeze through. Things might be a little tight right now but you know it will improve… you hope!

And it may improve, for a season, but …..how successful do you want to be in business?

Do you want an ordinary business or an extraordinary business?

So, why isn’t this going according to plan? Is it our location? Is it our staff? Is it our service? Our referral structure?

It has to be them – the clients! Right! Uneducated gits.

No… we doubt if this has anything to do with your clients, gits or otherwise … or your location… or your staff… or your service.

You need a Mindset Shift!

Maybe you are the best in your field. Maybe you’re right, maybe nobody can do it quite like you but until you shift your mindset it is doubtful that your business will reach its full potential and be as profitable and successful as it can be.

So what do I mean… Mindset Shift?

You are not in the business you think you’re in… your real business is in the Marketing of Your Business!

You are really in the business of marketing. Well, that is how you should be thinking about your business. It is this mindset that will take you to the next level and make you more successful than you ever imagined.

If you’re serious and want to transform your existing business into an extraordinary business then you need to have an open mind on this.

If you’re don’t agree or are struggling with this then the next post “New Millennium Marketing” will open to eyes to a healthier “Entrepreneurial Mindset”. To find out what our members know that you don’t go to our Mortgage Broking Lead Generation on Auto-Pilot System NOW!

Smart Mortgage Marketing is born.

Months in the pipeline and many a long day and night but final exposure is here. Mortage brokers rejoice. Gone are the days of lame lead services and sad marketing pieces.

You will have the power to cut through the crap and market with such sharp shooting market specific accuracy that you’ll be blown away at the ease of the marketing and the quality of the leads.

Your website will become a practical tool instead of just a gorgeous looking piece of art on the net. Gone are the days of the ‘dead’ glossy corporate brochure style of website…

Well, gone for Smart Mortgage Marketing members anyway.