Archive for December 2011
Business Card Marketing Ideas For Realtors – Business Cards on Steroids
Unless your real estate brokerage mandates that you have a certain business card template, you need to start mixing things up and get crazy with your business card marketing. Your card needs to look different from every other Realtor’s and agent’s business card out there.
When prospects see the inside of a house after you’ve shown it, their eyes need to go straight to yours out of all the business cards sitting on the table.
When you hand someone a business card in the grocery store, it needs to make them want to frame it and hang it above their bed (ok, over exaggeration but you get the point).
There’s really only so much you can think of when it comes to business card marketing ideas. It’s hard to look different sometimes but there are enough options to make it work.
Let me show you…
Let’s start with the color. Most Realtors and agents use a white background for their card, right? One option is to just switch up the color. Go orange or yellow, or purple, or neon green. Make it standout. Don’t mix those all together and look like the “hippie agent” though (unless that’s your brand), but put some color into it. Don’t be afraid to be different. Just make sure it lines up with your brand that you’re trying to convey to prospects.
Another simple business card marketing idea is that the font style can be changed too. Make sure the font color goes with your card background but play with the style. DaFont.com has some great, free ideas of all kinds of font styles. Play with some of those and see what looks best for you and your brand.
Your profile picture could use a face lift too. No, I’m not saying you’re ugly. You’re beautiful just the way you are. What I mean is you should try taking a different picture of yourself.
How about a picture of you with a client? You with your dog? You sitting on top of a roof? You leaning on a giant key that’s the size of “Andre the Giant”? Get creative and think outside the box. Put a picture on there that prospects are going to remember!
What do you have on the backside of your card right now? Is it blank? Do you have some tacky phrase about “the best compliment I can receive is a referral from a friend….”? I actually hate seeing that one. That’s NOT business card marketing in a unique way; that’s just silly.
When I’m showing a house, I always look at the backside of the agent’s cards that have shown the house before me. I see that phrase on there all the time. It’s almost worse than leaving it blank. Who’s going to refer someone to you just because you say you’d appreciate it? Unless you’ve built a relationship with that prospect, it’s meaningless. If this is you I’m talking about, I’m sorry. But please consider changing that up.
OK, enough ranting. Back to this business card marketing lesson…
Instead of a tacky phrase or a blank backside, how about offering a “FREE Report” about something if they go to your site and fill out their name and email in your opt-in box?
You could offer…
“FREE 7-Day e-Course on How to Sell Your Home in 21 Days or Less” “FREE 10-Minute Interview with Your Town’s Funniest Realtor” “9 Ways to Avoid Selling Below Your Listing Price” “3 Tips on How to Sell Your Home for $30,000 More”
Give prospects a reason to go further with your business card. That’s the whole point of this business card marketing technique. Make them want to know more about you. Don’t let them think you’re the same as the other 2 million agents out there.
Now for my favorite way to enhance your business card marketing. This is awesome and I barely see any Realtors or agents doing this. It’ll make you look like Donald Trump… plastic and metal! Let me explain more…
What is your card printed on right now? Some kind of paper, I know, but what kind? Does it feel like you took some copy paper as thin as single-ply toilet paper and slapped your name and phone number on it? Or does it feel like the typical semi-durable card stock that we always see?
Do you think your card would stand out more if it was made out of a thin sheet of metal? Or plastic? No, I’m not kidding.
What if the card had your logo on it only it was cut into the business card instead of printed on it? You can actually do this stuff with business cards now.
Yes, it’s a bit more expensive but it’s a marketing piece. It says something about your brand and image. Don’t spend $5 per card but feel free to splurge a little more than the home-made Staples business card kit you bought Thursday morning.
While this business card topic is a common one, you can see there are all kinds of variations you can implement to stand out from the crowd. And when you literally have a million other agents out there to compete with, you need to stand out!
Follow the guidelines and ideas and I gave you and put your own twist on it. Take some time to think and come up with something unique and creative. Think about all the prospects that receive and see your card. Don’t you want to maximize those marketing pieces to their fullest potential? With these ideas, you’ll be on your way.
Business Plan – Is a Business Plan Really Necessary?
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” This is a legitimate question posed by Jesus Christ of Nazareth in the Gospel of Luke (14:28). Business plans are the equivalent of counting the cost of building a temple. Who would start a business without first counting the cost of starting and running that business. This is the purpose of the business plan.
Business plans are necessary but only if you want to avoid the consequences of failing to do so. Jesus continued his lesson in the next verses, “Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.” In other words, if you neglect planning, you will ultimately fail. No matter how great your idea, no matter how passionate you feel about the business, you must still take the time to create a working business plan.
Business Plan Help
If you’re stalling in your business plan creation, start at SBA.gov to get the basic section of the business plan and to learn what each section should contain. Draft a bare bones plan then find your local Small Business Development Center (SBDC). SBDCs offer free business consulting and very inexpensive workshops in all fifty states. Between these two sources you will be able to create a plan that will get your business off the ground quickly.
The Best Online Business Home Opportunity
I’ve been doing business on the Internet for 13 years now. I talk to many business owners, like myself, as well as many people looking to start businesses online. I am very frequently asked “what is the best online business home opportunity that I should look into.” I’ve done some research on this topic and have not been very happy with what I’ve found. Researching this online is extremely frustrating, and not due to shortage of information. The frustration comes from the many claims for instant income through this or that online business home opportunity, just send us $500. You’ll be making $10,000 a month with no work. Yeah, right.
So, what kind of straight-talk can I offer you? What is my recommendation for the best online business home opportunity? I take a different approach. I feel very strongly that you need to form your own strategies. You need to do research, invest time, and learn. You need to experiment. Ultimately, nobody is going to tell you exactly how to do this. You will have to figure that out by yourself. If you are really serious about finding an opportunity to start an online business from home, expect to put in the hours required.
So where do you start? Start with trusted names. Join Google AdSense. Then register for Amazon Associates, Commission Junction and ebay. These are big programs that are extremely well established. They are extremely trust-worthy and therefore, are a great place to start your home business experimentation. It’s very important that you learn how to fail as inexpensively as possible. One of the best articles I ever read was all about how successful businesses understand two things:
1) Failure is unavoidable. No business has it right at first.
2) If you accept #1, you need to learn to fail has cheaply as possible so you’re money won’t run out!
And you will see this in action. Just spend some money on a program that makes wild claims, and then check back in on that decision a month later. A few of these will teach you the lesson very quickly. What I’ve done to avoid this is to really look for the opportunity where I can pull in a little money to fund the experimentation I want to do. At least try to break-even. This has not been to hard for me because I have the technical skills to try things and see what works very inexpensively because I’m only spend my own time. If you don’t have these technical skills you have a couple of choices.
1) You can outsource your technical tasks to a developer at a cost.
2) You can look for tools that allow you to do Internet marketing experimentation through admin panels.
I can highly recommend IncomeStores.com as one such tool that will allow you to build a complete site without programming. I work very closely on this project and have daily contact with people who earn income through it from the big programs I mentioned above, but don’t have any programming skills. There are others out there. As you do your research on the right online business home opportunity for you, I’m sure you’ll find some you can recommend.