Sometimes, the best move is to stop producing and contemplate.
Real estate is a notoriously fast-paced industry that requires a hustler’s mindset.
Similarly, the internet is a fast-paced medium that creates the illusion that you must constantly produce content.
When you add these two factors together, you get a lot of white noise—people producing online content just for the sake of producing online content.
But how often do we stop to ask ourselves:
“Is my content adding value to anyone’s life?”
I'll admit it: we’ve been guilty of producing white noise in the past. Look back in our archives and you'll see “press releases” that were little more than thinly-veiled advertisements.
Or we'd post surface-level advice articles that did little more than repeat what already existed elsewhere online.
At one point or another, we've all produced spam-y online writing material.
Sure, there was a time when pumping out a keyword-heavy blog post every day would improve your search ranking.
Nowadays, this technique of jamming keywords into blog posts or YouTube videos in the hopes of boosting your SEO is no longer viable.
Google won’t reward this kind of writing in the search results and potential readers will quickly move on to something more interesting online.
- Do you really think you can compete with 10 hours of cat fails!?
Content is King
Google is constantly trying to improve its search algorithm to provide the best content for its users. You can read more about one of its latest major updates here: Google Webmaster Blog* (see footnote for more info).
Marketing used to be focused on the products we sell. Now, marketing is all about the stories we tell.
An easy way to get started telling stories is to provide your prospects with insight into your business. People love the idea of having a behind-the-scenes glimpse into an industry.
Share part of your sales process or a personal success story from your business. Or write a blog post about the time you failed miserably and what you learned from it.
By telling these stories, you provide value to your sphere of influence.
Thought Leaders
You need to read more.
We all do. Reading is how we make sense of the chaos in the world—reading is how we get new ideas, whether professionally or personally.
Don't know where to start?
I would begin by finding 5 to 10 SuperStar Agents that I admire and reading the content they're producing online if I don't already: their personal blog, their ActiveRain account, etc.
Don't stop there—get in contact with them.
Find out what books they're reading.
Ask them what books have had the greatest influence on them. The answers to these questions will provide you with a ready-to-go reading list.
Because successful people, in all industries, are molded by the books they read.
Hiding in Infinity
It’s easy to think about dominating an entire state or region. You tell yourself you’ll be the best real estate agent in Florida. Or the best in the southeast. Or the best in the world!
But can you be the best real estate agent in your own neighborhood?
Seth Godin, the author of 18 bestsellers about marketing and leadership, calls this tendency to think big as opposed to thinking small “hiding in infinity.”
He says:
“Whenever possible, ask yourself… ‘what’s the smallest group of people I could make a difference for?’ Smallest feels risky. Because if you pick smallest and you fail, now you’ve really screwed up. We want to pick big because infinity is our friend. Infinity is safe. Infinity gives us a place to hide.”
(For more on this, check out Godin's book Purple Cow. This quote comes at the 12:20 mark of his podcast “How to Think Small to Go Big” with Tim Ferriss.)
So find your niche—whether it's selling waterfront properties in Naples, Florida, or selling chocolate-covered frozen bananas (I'm just spit-balling here)—and become a thought leader for everyone who's interested in your little sliver of the world.
Larson Educational Services
13040 Livingston Rd. #12
Naples, Florida 34105
239-344-7510
*Footnote: Anyone who's interested in SEO should follow Google’s Webmaster Blog. For the longest time, I could never find a primary source for Google’s algorithm updates. Any website or article you read about Google’s updates are using this blog as their source material. Rather than rechecking this site every few weeks, I would suggest signing up for their email feed—they’re quite infrequent, so they won’t clutter your inbox. Just click on “Feed” on the right side of webmasters.googleblog.com then click on “Get Google Webmaster Central Blog delivered by email” as seen in the pictures below.
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