Is Your Business In The Right Shape For 2023

• 01 Mar 2023
• 472 View(s)

Copyright LocalLeadOptimiser.co.uk & Henry James 2023
======================================

Is your business blueprint under the magnifying glass?

When things are tough every Estate Agency or Home Service business needs to look at ways to take what you already have and make more from them.

This week's blog looks at one way, with no money needed, of how you can boost responses from what you do. 

Let's get started:

Pictures, Angles, and Dimensions 

When you take on a new property or do a home visit for a buyer client, you check measurements and sizes.

When you sell a home you help paint the picture of the property for the client or a prospective buyer using some specifics.

You try and paint a picture of how they will feel as though they were living there already. Matching up their needs with the best bits of the property that meet those needs.

And pictures, angles, and dimensions are things you must link to any of your marketing communications or sales copy.

For your business though, your dimensions are:

• Your seller or landlord's frustrations, worries, and desires - and how what you do addresses them. Use the copywriters framework of Problem, Agitate and Solve, within your sales copy. It creates emotions in sales messages.
• How do you get your seller/landlord etc to "picture" your service or product features and the benefits they provide to them.
• You need to focus on the end benefit of using your service the seller or landlord will get.
• Not the nitty-gritty of how you do what you do but the end result they will feel when you have delivered it.
• Focus on the "Before" feelings and then focus on the "Afters" feelings. To emphasize: not in the sense of use but how the user will emotionally FEEL after they have had the benefit of what you do or offer.
• Specifics - make sure you are very specific about the end benefit they get, and how you REALLY add value to their lives. 
• Decide what that is and dimensionalize it - make it real.
• Don't just say we will get you the best price or save them x% on your fee versus a competitor.
• Tell them what they could then do with that extra money you make or save them. Help them spend it in their imaginations. 
• What will your service offer? What will you do to make the move smoother, more beneficial, and more efficient?
• Will it save them/make them more money, save them time? If so what does that give them as an end benefit?
• Is it cheaper than what they were planning to pay, or from what a competitor offers?
• Will it make their life easier than they have it now? Will it make their lives more certain? Certainty for them will create less stress, and give them a smoother move. Make them see that and link that to an emotion.
• Use specifics: OK, an un-property-related example: i.e "Before using the ABC credit chasing system we were losing £1500 of payments a day that should have been in our bank account, not theirs. Now that we use ABC service we not only get that £1500 a day of delayed invoicing but have also made additional cash gains of £200 a day on top. The system has made clients more responsive to our payment demands too, and that helps us recycle our cash more quickly." 
• Just saying you "save/make money" no longer seems strong enough after a statement like that does it? So what will your new benefit statements say?
• In the words of one of the greatest modern copywriters, if not of all time, now sadly deceased, Clayton Makepeace, you have to connect the benefit to the "deepest resident emotion" i.e. how will your seller/landlord/customer personally FEEL after they have enjoyed your service or product benefit?
• It's a difficult one to get right but if you do you will benefit from increased conversions: increases of 2x, 4x even 25x what you may be used to. 

This brings me to the "Angles" part....

To get the right dominant emotion, you have to really think about and understand your audience.

Here are just a few examples of the types of things you need to know about your target audience:

• What keeps them awake at night?
• What do they know today that they did not know yesterday?
• If we were here in three years' time what would have had to have changed to make them feel they have accomplished something in those 3 years compared to where they are now?
• Age?
• Occupation?
• Their commonest fear?
• Their strongest desire?
• Their experiences of what you do, and your competitors do?
• Salary Brackets?
• What do they read?
• What do they watch?
• What fears do they have about moving home?
• What are their fears about using an agent, using you?
• Their concerns about the uncertainty of a move, or a tied purchase to a house they REALLY want.
• Then you can create an "avatar" - a framework of your ideal customer. And how to appeal to them.
• And, for good measure break that Avatar out. You will need a different Avatar to appeal to FTBs, to Downsizers, Expanders and so on.

Then you write your promotion, your video sales letter, and your sales copy to that ONE person.

For example, you know the sales interview questions when the interviewer takes out a pen or pencil and asks the potential recruit to "sell them" the pen or pencil.

90% of salespeople will describe what they see rather than discover how it will be used i.e. they do not explore the "angles" relating to their prospect to then reveal the most relevant benefit to that specific user. Let's take the old HB Pencil sale as an example.
i.e. First Candidate: "it has 5 sides".
As opposed to the Second Candidate:
"So, as this pen/pencil has five sides that means it will be very difficult for it to roll off the table or any foldable tray on a plane or train journey, so you won't have to embarrassingly fumble around for it, something I am sure you would find useful, right? A: yes...
Then you would move to the next feature and benefit you uncover. And so on.

But then you have to ask yourself the question: "Which means? after every feature, you can think of.

You will be amazed at how many "angles" you will discover that you never use when trying to get a listing for sale or rent, or sell a specific home to a specific type of buyer,

Try it; Just ask yourself, for every benefit as well as a feature you can think of: "Which means...." then drill down some more, then ask that same question again until you cannot drill down anymore.

Now, there will be lots of different features about what you and your business offer specifically, that give different benefits to your end-users.

You have to decide which ones should take priority and relay those to your target audience by giving them an angle and a dimension.

If you get your "Angles" right and get your dimensions right too, your sales efforts, in print, video, or face-to-face will be massively rewarded.

Try it and let me know how you get on.

Until next time.....
Henry James

===========================================

About the Author:

Henry James is an author, marketer, and consultant in the field of marketing systems for estate agents and those in the property sector i.e. he helps agencies like yours make more money! Drilling down into your features and benefits is just part of what we do but is also part of one of our Modules in our "Kill Your Company Day" where we put your business under the microscope. Want to know more? Just let me know.

P.S. It is also expensive, so be warned. 

Image provided by Click Here