Why REALTORS® Fail at Their Marketing Campaigns

As many of you know, for the past three or so months, I was raising money for an event I was participating in, called Tough Mudder. The event was an 11.3 mile course in Death Valley with 21 obstacles throughout. The people organizing the event are very clear with everyone: This is not a race. It's an event to test your limits. Everyone helps everyone else out when they need a hand, and quitting is not an option. Basically they subscribe to the "No man left behind" motto.

On the ride home, as I looked out the window at the canyons and boulders (realizing that after almost four hours of scaling that stuff, I really don't like the desert), I got to thinking about the Navy Seal philosophy of nobody left behind, how that thought might be applied to the business world, and--for that matter--everything else in life.

As always, my mind gravitated to Real Estate, REALTORS®, and how they run their businesses. Specifically, I started thinking of the REALTORS® I know, and countless others I do not, that certainly are working hard but are never able to make that "breakthrough" to get them to the next level.

The thing that separates those agents from the wildly successful ones is that the successful ones:

• Never give up and stick to their plan.
• Realize that they are but a single person, running a business. As such, they look to others to work with them, as a team, to ensure success.

Obviously, no matter what your profession, if you work for yourself, you have to have a certain level of intestinal fortitude that just does not allow you to give up. Sure, some days are worse than others, but even after those days, you still suck it up, put your head down, and get back to work.

I truly believe that many REALTORS® "just get it" when it comes to this. Putting everything on the line and getting into a profession that pays you NOTHING unless you produce pretty much weeds out the guys that just want to "play REALTOR®."

What I think that many lose sight of, though, is the team aspect of the business. This business is not only hard, it requires you to have many balls in the air, all at the same time. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of service providers out there that assist REALTORS®, but the problem is when you find out that many of those companies don't actually have the best interests of their client (the REALTOR®) in mind.

Not a day goes by that we don't come into contact with an agent that has no idea what a vendor is actually doing for them to contribute to their bottom line. This occurs across the spectrum. We find agents that pay a monthly fee for a website yet never get any traffic on it, those are paying for a CRM solution that they haven't used in months, or have been sending out template (e.g. order from a catalog) marketing postcards that have yielded them no results for years.

These vendors aren't bad people. They are offering a service, at a fee, and the REALTOR® is paying them for the service. What isbad, though, is that the REALTOR® should expect more of their vendor. They need to know that the vendor they've selected for whatever service they need is operating in their best interest.

It's much larger than simply "performing a task." A well performing team works "with" each other. A vendor that is on an agent's team should always be on the lookout for the next big thing that might increase business. They are in regular contact with their client to monitor results and make changes when necessary. They want to win that agent's business, every single month, as if their future relationship depends on it.

This type of relationship builds trust. When you truly trust who you are working with, you are more effective, as you just know things will get done in the background, without your intervention while you focus on what you need to be focusing on.

My guess is that as you read this article, there are at least one or two vendors you employ for your real estate business that fall in this category. If that is the case, give them a call to speak with them about this. Ask them to help you figure out how to "quantify" the results of what they are doing for you (perhaps there are metrics in place, but you just don't know about it). Ask them if there are any new offerings available that you are unaware of. Finally, ask them about setting up regular meetings to review and discuss your programs, to gauge performance and figure out whether a change of path needs to be made.

If the vendor is reputable, and truly looking out for your best interests, they will not only be receptive to these questions, but have lots of great information that will help you make your marketing more refined, and therefore, help you grow your business.

To view the original article, visit the Leading Agent blog.