KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Unleashing Creative Strategies to Propel Your Business Growth!

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Real estate strategy without the spin. Here's what you missed from this week's Friday Focus on KGCI, Real Estate on Air. Hello, innovators and entrepreneurs. Welcome to a groundbreaking episode of Innovation Ignited on The Simple Truth with Stuart. I'm your host, Stuart, and today we're unleashing creative strategies to propel your business growth to new heights. Get ready for an electrifying discussion that will. ignite the spark of innovation within you. Now, have you ever felt your business is in need of a spark, a fresh perspective to reignite its growth potential? Well, we've all been there, but fear not.

In this episode, we're not just talking about innovation. We're providing you with actionable strategies to unleash creativity and drive business success. Consider this your playbook for innovation and growth in the digital age. Think of this as your personal innovation lab. We will be exploring cutting-edge technologies and out-of-the-box ideas to revolutionize your approach, whether you're a seasonal entrepreneur or just starting out. These insights will empower you to break through barriers and lead your industry with innovation. from fostering a culture of experimentation to leveraging emerging technologies

will uncover the keys to unlocking your business's full potential and staying ahead of the curve. Because in the ever-evolving landscape of business, innovation is the fuel that drives progress. So grab a notepad, perhaps a cup of coffee to fuel your creativity. and let's dive into innovation ignited, unleashing creative strategies to propel your business growth. This is the simple truth with Stewart, where we believe that innovation is not just a buzzword. It's a mindset.

So welcome, everybody. And today I want to talk about something that we all need in our business. And really one of the key factors in our business that's going to help us to move forward in life. life is growth. We want to make sure that our business can grow. It is so, so important that we have actionable steps. We've got these strategies in place that's helping our business grow. Ultimately, if we don't have any form of plan in our business to make it grow, ultimately it becomes stagnant or it actually dies off. But there's one thing more important than just having

all of these strategies. And this is the key word for today. It's called, called innovation. You see, what you need to have is you need to be innovative with your strategies when you're looking at growing your particular business. Now, why do you need to have these particular innovations, these strategies that are innovative in your business? And I want to share a story with you. And this actually goes back to when I was a young lad. And I remember the times of sitting with my grandfather. And he was reflecting back in the late 40s and 50s. Now, he used to play a game of chess.

And I'm sure everybody is familiar with chess with all the pieces. But he used to joke with me and say that he used to play chess online. Now, back then, the technology of online was non-existence. How did he play chess online? Well, what he used to do is he used to send telegrams with his move through to his opponent. And a game would typically take anything from about eight to 12 months

to actually complete. And he said it used to get so exciting when he used to get that telegram and it was just one move. And he'd make that particular move and then he would fill in his telegram and he'd send it off. Now these telegrams could take anything

from two days to a week to actually go backwards and forwards. And the reason why I share that with you is then over time, he started to then take it to the next level where he used to have telephone conversations with his opponents. And that time frame of playing a chess game actually used to go down to between three and four months, which was fantastic, but there was a bit of a cost with the phones and all of that. And he said, as time started to progress, he then started to get into the likes of, and he was really, in the 80s, he used to always think of himself as

this technology fundy. And I remember I'm sharing with me a copy of a fax. And on this particular fax, it actually had the diagram of a chessboard and it had this move. And ultimately what happened is this piece of paper went backwards and forwards between him and his opponents. And you can just imagine that it just created all of these moves and he had this history that was then created on that. And I think back of how that innovation actually changed

when he was playing the game of chess. Now, if he was alive today, he would be playing live with somebody somewhere in the world and it would be instantaneous. That is innovation for you. So what's actually happened with innovation is innovation has changed. Now, if he had just remained using telegrams back then, ultimately his opponents would have moved forward.

And he would have had nobody to actually share anything with. So ultimately what happens is he moved with the times. He moved with innovation. And by moving with innovation, he actually got to see how he could bet himself at the game of chess. Now, you might be thinking, how is this actually related to business? Well, business innovates over time. technology changes over time. And it is so, so important that we start to embrace this technology.

Else, ultimately, what's going to happen is we're going to remain stagnant. We're going to die. We're going to lose our business. When I say die, the business will actually die. So a quick little study actually showed that businesses that do not innovate ultimately become dormant in shorter periods of time. So back in the 80s, if you didn't change with time, your business would basically go dormant and it would take you probably five to 10 years before you go dormant. So nobody really recognized that. However, in current stages, in current times, if you remained stagnant and you didn't embrace technology, no innovation, ultimately what's going to happen is your business could actually become dormant within a couple of weeks.

That's the severity of it because you're not getting that. input that comes in. So one of the big things is we've got to recognize that time changes. Technology is changing and we need to remain innovative with these particular times. So it is so, so important else your business remains stagnant. So one of the big things for growth, well, growth is when it goes upwards. How do we make it go upwards? Well, we need to make sure that we're innovative all the time. Now, some interesting studies that have come out, And this is something that if we reflect back on real estate back in the 80s and 90s, a lot of our business then came out of referrals, word of mouth, that communication, that warm, fuzzy feeling.

When we look at the current times, we're actually seeing nearly 100% of the business is coming from online. We're looking on our phones, we're looking on computers, we're searching on social media, etc. So most of the business is impacted with online. And you're going to go, of course it is. Absolutely. But online is moving at such a rapid pace that we need to make sure that we stay ahead of it all the time. Now, here's something else which is quite interesting when I was doing the research is when we are looking, well, when buyers and sellers are looking for an agent, it used to be wood mouth and referrals. now it's nearly 80% of buyers and sellers

are finding their agent online. So it's so important. Now we're going, of course we know that. It's online. But then I'm asking you this question. Are you actually promoting yourself online to the degree that people are finding you? That's really where we're going to start heading towards

because if 80% of the buyers and sellers of finding their agents online and you are not promoting yourself in a innovative way online, you could be missing out on a huge chunk to actually help you grow your business. And something that was quite interesting is when people are searching for an agent,

a company online, what they tend to look for, and this was really one of these key underlying factors of it is their local knowledge of the products, the services, suburbs, etc. What they were looking for is they were looking for an expert. Now, that expert came through things like, well, reviews and testimonials from past clients.

And all of that is so important when you're actually looking at creating new, innovative ways to remain with technology and with time. So people are basically searching for everything online these days that we know. 80% that's where they're going to find their agents. So the question that's coming into this is, are you being innovative to stand out above everybody else? Or are you just doing the traditional, well, I'm posting a property,

I'm posting a bit of information, and then I'm sitting back and I'm waiting. But I'm doing that once a month or once every three months. And as I mentioned, innovation now, basically if you're not being innovative, it takes about a week for your business to become, where people just forget about you and they move on to somebody else. So it's something that's a rapid, rapid pace.

And what's so important is the knowledge. They're looking for someone that is that expert. So I've got three questions for you. And I'd like you to write these questions down because these three questions, you're going to use them not only just today, not only just next week, but it's questions that you should be asking yourself almost every single month. Set us out time when we're doing the planning for the month ahead. Ask yourself these three questions that I'm going to share with you because these three questions is really going to help you to get you to look at new strategies, innovative strategies to help you move forward.

So what are these three questions? So the first one, how can I stay top of mind in a relevant way? So let me repeat that. how can I stay top of mind in a relevant way? So there's two parts to that particular question. The first part, staying top of mind. People know who you are. You need to make sure that you remain top of their mind on an ongoing basis.

But the second part of it, which is quite important, is the relevancy. It's to make sure that you're staying top of mind, but you're relevant to the business that you're in. You see, you could be top of mind by posting social media all the time, but not being relevant in a certain circumstance. For instance, you might be posting about holidays and meals and all of these things, but you're forgetting some relevancy of real estate in it. Now, I'm not saying go out there and just post real estate information. What I'm saying is when you're posting about going on holiday, it's a fantastic, location. I wonder what the prices are like in this area for us to actually think of buying a holiday home. You know, as a real estate agent, holiday homes is the greatest thing to have a

second home. Can you see how we can add in a little bit of relevancy in our communications? So when we're actually having something top of mind, how do we do it relevant? So let me say that question to you. How can we stay top of mind in a relevant way? Okay. And if you doing that every single month and writing down three to five answers, start putting into the action, start implementing those. And you're going to start looking at what's happening in the times around you. And you're going to start going, hey, how's a great idea? No one's actually thought of this.

Or actually, they've just done this and I've seen the results. So let me see how I can actually manipulate their way of doing it to work for me, to be relevant for me. So that's the first question. How can I stay top of mind in a. relevant way. The second question, and the second question really has a powerful word associated to it. The second question is, how can I share my experiences? Okay, so how can I share my experiences with and my expertise with everybody? But here's the powerful word. And again, it's being a word which is

relevant to who you are. How can I share my authentic, experiences with everybody and my professionalism. So being authentic, this is where you're not just jumping up in front of somebody and saying, hey, look, I'm the top producing agent for this particular month. Hey, look, I've got the most amount of listings. It's not about sharing a level of arrogance. It's sharing a level of authentic experience that you've actually had. And in doing that, you need to start to really.

look at your clients. And that's where you're going to get that authentic nature from. These are your past clients that you've done business with. And actually, how can I share their journey from when I first met them to when they moved into the house? How can I share that experience with my clientele? Now, the great thing with that is when you actually start thinking of, well, how can I actually do it in an authentic manner?

suddenly you're actually going to start creating relevancy and people are going to see you top of mind. So you can see how they all start to interconnect with each other. So how can I share my experiences? But how can I share my authentic experiences? That's the key word that we need to make sure is that authentic experience that we've actually gone through over the last journey with a particular client or in the industry itself as an expert. So how can I share my authentic experience with my clients? The third question, and this is something that you should in fact be asking yourself not only just once a month, not only once a week, but you should actually be asking yourself this question almost every single day. How can I generate more leads?

How can I generate more listings? This should be a question that you're asking almost every single morning. What can I do today to generate more leads? What is it that I can do? And by asking yourself that question over and over and over again, what you're going to start doing is you're going to start to explore different avenues that's going to well, I wonder if this would work. I wonder if I started to do X, Y and Z, would it actually generate something?

Well, the only way that you'll know is to actually put it into action. And by putting into action, you're going to go, it doesn't really work. Or, oh my gosh, I've just come up with a new. new innovative way to help me grow my business. So the question to ask yourself almost every single day is how can I generate more leads? How can I generate more listings? Because leads will turn into listings. So these three questions are questions that you should have written down and giving yourself answers on a daily, monthly, weekly basis. So let me quickly recap these questions. Question number one, how can I stay top of mind in a relevant way?

How can I stay top of mind in a relevant way? The second, how can I share my experiences? But more importantly, how can I share my authentic experiences with my clients? So how can I share my authentic experiences with my clients? And the third one, how can I generate more leads or listings? So how can I generate more leads or listings? And by really taking these three questions, what you're going to start to create is you're going to start to create these new innovative ways of doing things. Whether it's somebody else that's doing it, but you'd never done it.

Well, that could be innovative for your business. You can then start to implement. And what the great thing about it is when you start to implement it, you're not going to copy them. What you're going to do is you're going to make it your own. You're going to start doing it your way. It almost sounds like a song. Now, once you've created all of that and you've got these innovative ideas and you're really thinking of the new ways of how to grow your business, there are four actionable steps that is so important. And really, these four actionable steps, when they get missed or overlooked, ultimately what happens is we start going down a road that actually leads to a dead end.

We don't start, we do not get leads, we do not get listings, and we then stop doing the basics, the fundamentals. Now, what are these action steps? And there's four of them that I'm going to share with you. The first one, and it's so important. And this is something that I want you to spend the next couple of days doing this particular action. I want you to identify your ideal customer, your ideal client. But I don't want you to just to break it down and say it's a first time homebuyers.

I want you to almost define what they look like. It's almost drawing a picture so that you can visualize them. It's so, so important. So the first actionable step is actually going through to know your clients. It's identifying your clients. It's identifying the areas that you work in. What is their demographic? What is their religion?

Where do they eat? What car do they drive? Are they married? Are they single? Do they have kids? Are they more old, retired? Are they first time? You really need to start breaking that down.

And the reason for that is because when you walk down the streets, you'll be able to recognize these people. You'll be able to walk up to someone and say, you know what, I actually have the property for you. Or, hey, I know you're just at the right time to start moving into a bigger or smaller house. Why? Because you've identified them.

So you really need to take the step to a, a level where you know your client, have it detailed down so that you can actually formulate. Now, why is that so important? Well, this leads on to the second action. And the second action is really, it's bringing value to your particular clients. And the reason why we want to bring value to our particular client is we want to talk to them directly. Now, how do we do that? So here's a great way. Identify your clients and you create. what we call a value proposition. This is a short statement that you can actually tell somebody and they'll go, oh, all right,

I know exactly what you're doing. Now, here's where it comes in to see if it's actually working and you can test this. We call this the 10 second rule. Now, the 10 second rule, where this has come about is if we look at social media, when you're swiping on your phone and you see something catchy, the average time that someone actually spends is between three and seven seconds. However, if they get to 10 seconds, the chances are they are actually going to inquire a little bit further. So you can actually test this. You're swiping on your phone through social media and suddenly something catches your eye.

You look at it for about three to seven seconds. If it doesn't really move you, you move on. But if it does, you'll find that you'll spend up to 10 seconds. seconds because now you're engaged with it. So it's the 10 second description. So you need to identify your clients. And then what you do is you create that value proposition. And what you do that value proposition is you actually give yourself 10 seconds or when you tell somebody that value proposition, they'll look at you and go, oh wow. Okay, I understand. But there's a question that goes behind all of this. And the question is, so what do you do for a

living. That's the question that you need to answer with your value proposition. What do you do for a living? That's a question. It's very generalized. Now, if I had to ask each and every one of you, what do you do for a living, you'll be caught off God and you'll go, well, I'm a real estate agent and I'm going to go, oh my gosh, not another real estate agent. Thank you very much. I've been spanned by them. I'm going to move on. But if you create a powerful value proposition that really engages with the clients, you can actually start to get them to communicate further with you. So how do we do that? Well, a simple way is a value proposition and a formula that I've used in the past is, I go like this. What do you do for a living? And I said, well, you know when a young couple is moving out of home and they're wanting to actually live their own life and create their own family?

Now you feel intrigued. You want to hear more. You see, I've got you encapsulated. Well, what I do for a living is I'm a real estate person that I help these young individuals find their first homes. Now, if I've identified that my clientele is first-time home buyers that are moving from home, mom and dad, and they're moving into the own first homes, getting married and getting into that first place, well, now I know what it is, and I just ask yourself that question. You know when somebody is moving out of home and they want to live that new life, that's getting somebody engaged. So that's a value proposition, creating curiosity and then flowing on some there. So that's a 10 second value proposition that you can actually use.

And it's got to be meaningful. It's really got to have something like, oh, wow. Well, I actually know somebody that's also, you know, they've just moved out of house and they're actually looking for something. You see, that is that meaningful conversation. So number one, identifying your client that you can break it down to even to what they like to eat and what car they drive. Then number two, the action on that is to create that value proposition that when you're talking to someone, you're talking to that individual. It becomes more personalized. And if it's not to that particular individual, they will be able to refer you to an individual that will be able to become your future clients.

So those are your first two steps. Know your clients, build up their profile, create that value proposition that has that 10 second get you engaged. Not just starting with, hi, I'm a real estate agent. It's really got to get you engaged so that you can have those conversations going further. The third action. And now this is where we start to elevate it up because we've identified our particular clients. We have shared our value proposition, or we know what it is, but what we really are. But what we really need to do is we need to have ongoing.

Remember, there is one of the questions, how do we remain top of mind? That's so important. How do we remain top of mind in a relevant way? We need to now bring that into play. And bringing that into play is the third action. You need to connect with your customers. You need to do it on an ongoing basis. Now, I'm going to give you two suggestions.

And there are many, many more that you can actually go out and you can do. The first one is giving them a call at least every three months. So four calls a year. And these calls do not have to be a real estate basis. They could be something so straightforward and simple. Hey, you know, we spoke last week and I just wanted to find out, you know, how's the family going? You can start having conversation about, hey, I see your daughter's just got a driver's license. That is absolutely fantastic.

You can start having these engaging conversations that actually is not even relevant to business, but it's relevant to building relationships. So having these ongoing conversations is really going to keep you top of mind and it's relevant. It's relevant to what's happening in their particular laugh. It's not just an out of the blue phone call that's totally irrelevant. And ultimately, it's going to start to push that away. So number three, it's connecting. and the first one that you can do is make sure that you're doing at least four calls every single year.

And having those calls straightforward and simple. The second one is really, it's one that is basically an idea. This is going to take you out of your comfort zone. This is being innovative. This is taking it to a level where very few people are actually doing it. Very few agents are actually doing it. But the ones that are doing it are having massive, massive results. And that's actually going live on social media.

So going live on social media, it's like, well, I'm nervous. I don't know what to speak about. Well, it's straightforward and simple. Go live on social media once a month so that you can build up the courage, 30 days to build up the courage. But what you can talk about is you can take a suburb report to find out what has happened in a particular suburb. You can then go live and say, hey, it's Stuart from ABC Properties. And I just want to share with you over the last month in the suburb, there have been five sales. And those five sales, the highest was at this value, the lowest was at this value, the average was at this value.

And if we actually compare this month over month, we've actually seen that prices have either increased or decreased. And if you've actually got stats which is covered for year over year, you can even add and say, hey, and by the way, year over year, we've actually seen a 3% growth in the number of properties that are sold or decrease the increase on the value of the properties. Something as simple as that. Here's something that's relevant to you, but you're actually sharing it out onto social media. That goes viral. People actually start to watch it. They start to engage with it. And if you do this on an ongoing basis, so you do 12 a year, one every single month, and you pick a day, fourth every single month.

It doesn't matter what day it is. Could be a Tuesday, could be a Sunday. You're going to go out and you're going to do this. You're going to find you're going to create this following and you're going to stay top of mind with relevant content. So that's one thing is you need to connect with your clients. And then finally, the fourth way is you've actually got to look at how you can then innovate your business to move forward. So how do we do that? How do we innovate our business when we kind of get stumped?

Well, what we actually do is we need to reflect back over the last year of what we've done. Look at everything that you've actually done over the year. Maybe you've sent out emails, you've sent out messages. Maybe you've dropped off flyers, etc. You need to reflect back on all of that. And then you do something that is absolutely powerful. The best innovation comes from your clients. Your best innovation comes from your clients.

So you're looking at me and going, what do you mean by your clients? They need to have you re-innovative. No. So what you actually do is you communicate. Remember those four calls every single year. You can always use one of those calls and say, hey, I want to just touch base with you. You see, over the last 12 months, I've been actually sending out emails. I've been sending out WhatsApp.

I've been sending things on social media. And I want to find out from you, being my clients, I want to find out from you. from you, how would you prefer to get communicated, to stay relevant going into the future? So in the next day, two, three months, what would work for you? So ultimately what you do is you start asking your clients, how would they like to receive communication? How would they like to stay top of mind, or you have to be top of mind and get that relevant information from you.

And what you're going to find is some are going to go, well, no, the methods that you're using are absolutely fun. I'm happy with that. And some are going to go, hey, you know what? I've just heard of this new technology that's just been released. And we're using it in our business and we're getting some amazing results out of it. So when you speak into your clients, remember, they're in different industries. Different industries have different ways of doing business.

So why not learn from them? business is business. We still need to communicate with our clients. So, reach out to your clients and just ask them, hey, this is what I've done as far as my communication methods. And it's been great. It's helped me in my business. But I want to find out from you. How would you like me to communicate with you in the future? Like next week, next month, next year. How would you like me to communicate with you? And what you will find is some amazing, amazing, innovative ways. it's going to come from your clients that nobody in real estate has even thought of yet. Why?

Because it's innovative in their industry. They're using it. So why not innovated? Bring it into your business and you start to work forward with that. So those are the four actions that I shared. First, identify your clients. Make sure you know exactly who they are. Second, create that value proposition that when you say it, it really holds that client there

for at least 10 seconds so that they are engaged to go forward. The third, connect with them, making sure you're communicating. And I share two short little ways. Call them four times a year and do those live suburb type of reports, live on any of the social media platforms, YouTube, etc. And do those once a month in going forward. And the fourth one, ask your clients how they would like to be communicated with going into the future because that's how you're going to bring it all together.

So this was really having a look at ways to take your business and grow it in an innovative way, sharing with my grandfather who used to start with telegrams that used to take anything from two to seven days to get a chess move. That would drive me insane, but to get a chess move to currently where you can actually be sitting live and playing chess. taking these innovative strategies and what I've shared with you today, don't forget those three questions, ask yourself those questions every single month, the one you need to ask every single day, how can I generate more leads? How can I generate more listings? Asking yourself that question every single day, finding those answers, you're going to find that your business is going to start moving forward in an innovative way. Why? Because you're working on your business

and you're wanting to move it forward. You don't want to remain stagnant where you're in your business waiting for business to come to you. You're taking to that proactive approach. This is Stuart signing off until next time. Keep it simple. Keep it real. And let's set the world on fire with innovation.

Remember, in the world of business, innovation is your secret weapon for staying ahead of the competition.