Are you LinkedIn
LinkedIn has benefited my business and many other real estate professionals in many different ways.
1. You can be found. Having a profile is better than not having one at all. My friend Sean Moore with RE/MAX Boone Realty in Columbia, MO said he had a prospect contact him and sold him two houses in 3 years and received 3 million in referral sales by just having the profile. Also, if you type in your name in google search the linkedin profile moves closer to the top because of the amount of referring and outbound links.
2. Online resume. Sometimes our own personal website is too flashy and it may be hard to find the bullet points of who we really are, our past experience, and the type of client we represent. The LinkedIn profile is a non-threatening research tool for prospects to see what your experience is like.
3. Build your database by downloading the LinkedIn Toolbar to your Outlook or uploading the .csv file and invite people to join your network who already participate in LinkedIn. Add a personal message instead of using the “I would like you to join my network”. Say instead, “I am excited to see you are using LinkedIn as a tool to communicate with like minded business professionals. I was hoping we could share some ideas that will help one another in our business. Please add me to your network so we can begin our relationship online.”
4. Recommendations. It is easy to build client testimonials with the right approach. If someone is choosing by their LinkedIn profiles is it better to have 2 recommendations or 20. Once you have built a network of 200 people send those people a message that asks them to endorse you as a real estate agent. They will be more likely to respond if you sent them a personal note saying, “Thank you for being a part of my network. As you may have already viewed my profile and know more about my business I was hoping you could write a brief recommendation about the services I provide that I can share with others. If you would like me to reciprocate then I would be more than happy to help.”
5. Message success rate. Since most people receive anywhere between 50-75% junk email, email messages are often overlooked. Not many people are using LinkedIn to send inmail messages so the inboxes are much lighter than traditional email inboxes. Any inmail message sent from LinkedIn is automatically sent by email too so the recipient gets hit twice thus increasing the email success rate.
6. Participating in Q&A. Those who ask questions as well as answer questions in LinkedIn are thought of as experts in their respective fields. Asking questions means you care about the business enough to inquire about how to do something better, faster, or at a higher level. Answering questions reveals solutions to uncommon thought processes or an effective solution. Thank you for asking this question. People viewing this answer will appreciate you taking the time to ask and see the answers.
7. Finding people of influence. Who are the major decision makers that choose real estate professionals in large corporate moves. Relocation coordinators, human resource managers, and other brokers in outside markets may be quick to refer someone if you are: #1 there, #1 a connection, and #3 if you have recommendations to back your level of service.
LinkedIn can produce results in the real estate business but a proactive approach is necessary to fully reap the awards. It is no different than attending a networking event, sharing business cards, asking and answering questions in a live setting. Online is faster and more effective in my own personal opinion.
To read more about my articles on online social networking for brokers, agents, REALTOR Associations please visit my blog at http://ReTechTraining.WordPress.com or my website at http://www.ReTechTraining.com for more FREE resources.
Doug Devitre
Doug Devitre Delivers! 