One of the huge advantages of educational marketing — when done properly – is that your clients are now coming to you when they are ready, fully informed about you. There is far less sales ‘pull’ that you need to do and you have a lot less convincing, objection handling and persuading ahead of you.
If a client who has never heard of you before is starting from Point A, and your goal is Point C, proper educational marketing means that when they contact you they are already at Point B the moment they contact you.
The hardest part of the sales conversation has happened before they even contacted you, getting them to view you with a higher level of trust than other Brokers and knowing what you do and appreciating it. As such, investing in a proper Initial Marketing process is the best time and money you can spend, because it increases conversion rates and saves you a lot of time — essentially it turns ‘cold leads’ into ‘warm leads’.
For me personally, because of my book The 7 Easy Steps to Mortgage Freedom and the additional complementary information clients receive, the conversion rates of clients who have been through this process are far better than when I have done standard advertising. The relationship starts from a much stronger position, with me viewed as an authority, not a salesperson. That is the critical difference.
When a client contacts me it is one of three main ways:
- They have an online or physical copy of my book and have read some or all of it.
- They have seen or at least been told about my book, but haven’t read it.
- They have never seen or heard of my book, just happened to hear about me.
When they call me, I know very quickly which category they are in by the way they talk to me and the questions they ask.
If they are in the first category they talk to me as if they already know me, and they are much more forthcoming and open in their discussion. It’s not really a sales conversation so much as the conversation you have with someone you have already done a loan for and who was very happy with how that went, so now you are just working out the best way forward.
That makes sense because while I am talking to them for the first time, they have been having a conversation with me in the heads for however long they have been reading the book. To them, it’s almost like I have already been in their home talking to them, so for them to invite me in for an appointment feels far less of an intrusion for them — certainly compared to inviting in a ‘salesperson’.
If they are in the second category, and have just seen my book, I am still starting well ahead. I certainly don’t expect everyone who gets a copy to read my book, I know plenty of people won’t. But just the fact that people see I have written a whole book about home loans sends them a very clear message that I know what I’m talking about. Once again, I am well ahead of my competition.
I do have more questions to answer in the sales conversation, but we are starting the discussion with them viewing me more as an authority, and less as a salesperson.
In both cases, I find if they have had a physical copy, it is well worth the extra expense over just an e-book version, it only costs me about $6 to print a book, anyway. People just respond a lot better to a tangible, real book. There are advantages to both, but nothing beats the impact of handing someone a copy of my book of 200 plus pages.
In the third category, when a potential client contacts me but isn’t aware of my book, it’s quite obvious. There is a lot more objection handling and trying to get them past the ‘what is the best rate you have’ discussion. It is pretty much the same as the sorts of leads that I generated through my normal online and print advertising for years.
What I tend to do in this situation, particularly if the conversation seems to be dragging on and they aren’t committing to an appointment, is tell them I’ll post them a copy of my book and give them a call when they’ve had a chance to look at it. I grab their postal address first, but then I also get their email address and tell them I’ll email them an e-book version so they can have it right away (immediate is the best delivery time of all).
Now I am getting the best of both worlds, because when they get my e-book they are also signing up for my follow-up emails and I have found out what category they are in — first home buyer, home owner, property investor or thinking of selling their home. So the emails they get from me will be tailored to that situation.
By also posting them the physical book I know that will have the greater impact and make my authority a lot more real for them. It also gives me a reason to give them a call to make sure they received it and how they found it. Now I have moved them into one of the first two categories and we are starting the discussion from a much better position.