By Ken Lizotte

Beyond the usual blah-blah marketing advice of putting up a website, printing out a stack of business cards and designing a lavish four-color brochure, exists four powerful marketing techniques that are so little-used they can for all practical purposes be labeled "secret." Yet those who regularly practice them consistently reap such benefits that they soon wonder how marketing could be conducted any other way.

Here are the four "secrets" which when practiced over a period of time will catapult your real estate investment business to new levels of visibility and profit:

1. Stay connected. If your objective when meeting new people is to merely pass out as many business cards as possible, but you follow this up with virtually no additional contact, such time spent will be wasted. Instead, seek out qualitative new connections at an event or meeting, enjoy the interactions that develop, and then...implement effective ways to stay connected.
   
   Send a "nice-to-have-met-you" e-mail to your new contacts the very next day, telling them you're putting them on your e-list. Ask them to do the same. Invite like minded individuals out to "grab a cup of coffee," to chat about your respective investment approaches. Successful investors know that real estate is a "team sport," and finding ways to keep new connections alive over time allows them to fall into such productive categories as ally, partner, opportunity-finder or referral source.

2. Use e-mails strategically. As you plug your new connections onto your e-list, develop ideas that remind them who you are, what you're all about, what kind of investments or opportunities you're seeking... and that you're still around! The idea is to use e-mail to "give away value," an inexpensive strategy which will keep you connected as an investor.
   
   Try sending an e-newsletter quarterly or monthly, or send them a brief "alert" of a new law or regulation. Send an announcement of an award you just won or an article you've written and published. Maybe even let your e-list know about a great deal you've just made! If you don't take such initiatives, your connections will soon (and easily) forget about you. Keep thinking up newsy tidbits to report to them and this will not happen.
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3. Publish articles! One powerful marketing excuse for staying connected is to write and publish articles, making them available for free to those on your e-list. Published articles afford three large benefits: a) they help you flesh out and organize your own ideas; b) they promote to the reader some core expertise or knowledge or message that illustrates why you are worth doing business with; c) they elevate your professional credibility because a third-party entity (publication) has deemed your ideas worthy of publication. Announcing a published article to your e-list thus reaps multiple rewards.
   
   Remember that just as you have many choices regarding which professionals to work with, so too do your colleagues. New deals and opportunities arise quickly, and you want to be on everyone's short list as somebody worth doing business with. Particularly if you're a new investor, it's in your best interest to quickly develop a reputation as a capable professional. Getting published is an efficient way to help this happen.

4. Speak to or get active in targeted groups. The impact of public speaking or volunteer involvement brings us full circle in insuring that our four secrets transform your e-list into connections that endure. Communicating your ideas to an audience of targeted individuals (banking groups? homeowners?) inevitably causes at least a few in your audience to want to know more about you or to do business with you. Make sure you collect business cards from your audience of course, so that you can plunk them too on your e-list! Something often appreciated by an audience is an offer to e-mail them notes of your talk so that they can later review more fully what you have had to say.
   
   And by getting actively involved in an organization, you accomplish the same thing: your industry colleagues get to know you, they begin to trust you and to appreciate your experience and know-how, and many soon see you and you alone as the go-to guy/gal to help them get a deal in place. Of course, don't forget in these more intimate settings to also send "nice-to-meet-you" e-mails the next day (see secret #1), then get these individuals too on your e-list. In this way, you keep the whole loop humming along nicely.

Heed these four secrets and you will turn the contacts you meet into marketing gold. New opportunities will slide along more smoothly with your colleagues, partners, buyers and sellers, all of whom will remember you and be excited to do business. They have now gotten to know you, to trust you and to value your expertise and professionalism, so they are ready to begin.

Try this method for the next few months and watch your business development efforts and attitudes shift radically, and yield surprisingly positive results. From that point on, you'll never go back to your old ways again.

Ken Lizotte CMC is Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) of emerson consulting group inc., a Concord, Massachusetts firm that transforms entrepreneurs and other business leaders into "thoughtleaders." Contact him at ken@thoughtleading.com or 978-371-442.

P.S. See Ken Lizotte live, as he helps us kick off our first "Turning the Key" session, Thursday, April 6th, with his presentation, "Communicating Effectively With The Homeowner." Read more or register online.

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April 2006

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