Networking Like the Pros Do

This is the Selling More Homes podcast, program number 120.

This week, we speak with our friend Robert August on networking like the pros do. And you’re listening to the Selling More Homes Media Network.

Welcome to Selling More Homes, the Monday Morning Sales Meeting. For Jerry Rouleau, I’m Scott Stroud. Every week, we bring you interviews with sales and marketing professionals to help you find more buyers, close more sales, and earn more money in this challenging housing market. Whether you’re a REALTOR, builder, sales or marketing manager, or new home specialist, this program has been designed just for you. Selling More Homes, the Monday Morning Sales Meeting, is a production of the Selling More Homes Media Network. So get ready to listen, take notes, and enjoy this week’s program.

Welcome to Selling More Homes Media Network. I’m Jerry Rouleau. I’m Scott Stroud. And welcome to another weekly episode of our program. Scott, we’ve been getting these great interviews and doing these great webinars. We had an unbelievable webinar with Melinda Brody there about a week ago, a week and a half ago, I guess now. Connecting with buyers. She was really on fire that day, wasn’t she? You know, I always kid her. She must be drinking coffee as she’s walking around her office with her headset and just really charged as if there was a thousand people in the audience. I think it’s just her personality. But it was a great webinar. And she had very few slides and she went deeper rather than trying to cover a lot of points on how to connect with buyers, how to develop rapport and relationships that lead to sales.

So it was phenomenal material. And for those who, you know, who weren’t on the line, that program is available for immediate download. Go to our website, builderradio.com or SellingMoreHomesMedia.com and go on to the coaching series and you can just click and purchase Melinda to come right into your office for her great one-hour program. It’s the big green button on the homepage of Builder Radio. Yeah. Yeah. And this week, Scott, we’ve got a power team. We’ve got a power team coaching webinar session on Wednesday, okay, with Bob Hafer, Roger Fien, and John Palumbo, all three of them, for a one-hour coaching session. Wow. Is the broad width of the Internet large enough to contain all three of those in one setting? I don’t know, but I am anxious because I respect each one of them individually.

I love the programs and their seminars that they do. And to see all three of them on stage, you might say, or in my office or in your office, their listeners, to listen to what they have to say, a pretty good bargain, isn’t it? I would say so. That’s years of intensive experience there that are all going to be brought together for one presentation. This will be great. You know, I’d like to remind our listeners, sometimes people drop me an email and say, hey, sounds like a great topic. Sorry, I’m going to be out of town. Can’t make it. I want to remind everybody, the very fact that you register, even if you can’t make the live webinar program, you automatically, within 48 hours, we send you the download.

All those people who registered, even if you listened, we send you the download of the audio PowerPoint and all the questions that were asked during the live program. So you can re-listen to it if you listen to it live, or you can share it with your office and your team and hear what the masters have to say. You can stream it right off of our website. You can download it to your computer and keep it, burn it to a CD. We already have people that are using the last one with Melinda Brody that are developing their sales meetings around this. They’re putting it on CDs and showing it on the big screen where everybody can come in and watch it. And then they’re using it as a bring board to talking points.

How are we going to apply this? So it’s excellent material, and it formats very well for sales meetings. Hey, Scott. Talking about masters, this week we have an interview with the one and only S. Robert August. He is not only trainer, consultant, but he is Mr. Networking to the 10th degree or whatever degree we can go higher than that. Networking and asking for referrals, I’ve never seen anybody that is his equal. Yeah, and he’s always interesting to listen to. What’s he going to discuss with us? Are you ready for this one? He’s going to talk to us about networking. There we go. We’re learning from the best. The master. So let’s get him on the air here.

Mr. Robert, welcome to our program again. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much. We always enjoy talking with you for one of our weekly programs. You offer so much to our listeners. Thank you very much. You’re going to be talking today to our listeners regarding prospecting, your road to contacts, qualified leads, profitable sales, and closings. Share with us some of your insights.

Well, thank you very much. One of the things that has been helpful, certainly, to my career over the years and all of our associates that we have had the opportunity to work with is that we have found that there is a plethora, a milieu of outstanding prospects that are in the marketplace that are not being touched or capitalized upon from the standpoint of generating referrals. And we have found over and over and over that as we get into this electronic age of communication that we’re losing some of the personal touch, the personal communication skills that will endear us to future prospects and buyers for our products and services. So, one of the key things that we’re often taught, whether it’s real estate or other products, is usually it’s the location that sells products.

People will tell you it’s all about location, location, location. And over the years, I’ve been able to consider the fact that, yes, location is important. But I think that, as you and I have all learned, the more that we can touch one another, the more that we can reach out and develop relationships on a business-to-business perspective or a business-to-consumer perspective, we’re going to be able to outsell and out-position ourselves with the competition and build more profits for our companies. You know, what you’re saying there is so true, is that one-on-one personal touch and networking through that group makes all the difference in the world. Well, we found that, again, the three most important ingredients in sales are contact, contact, contact. If we’re out in the marketplace, Jerry and Scott, and we’re making a difference, it’s an amazing process.

You know, whether you’re sitting on a plane and introducing yourself to the people that are sitting around you, there’s a degree of excitement. And in Malcolm Gladwell’s book called The Tipping Point, he notes that the six degrees of separation that we often hear as referred to as the Kevin Bacon phenomenon, it’s not six degrees. Malcolm shares with us through his research that he found that it’s 2.73. 2.73 contacts. So, in essence, when we’re reaching out to someone, we have something in common with everyone within 2.73 contacts. That’s interesting. Those numbers, again, because of the social networking and the Internet and so forth, our reach is so much further out there than it has been in the past.

Well, and its phenomenon is going to grow and grow and grow. There’s another trade association that I’d like to share with the audience, and it’s called Word of Mouth Marketing Association. It’s headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and it’s one of the fastest-growing trade associations. And one would be surprised to find out that there are corporations like Dell and Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola and Pizza Hut, et cetera, et cetera, that are members of this trade association, because the world is finding that not only do you have to do all the things that we have done in the past from an advertising, public relations, and promotion standpoint, but we need to be out there from an electronic perspective to build our brand and to build our awareness in concept with the other points that we’re going to be discussing this morning.

Wow. Yeah, I have to check that out myself here. Actually, I learned of them about two months ago and joined online.

Excellent. Which brings us to another important point. Trade associations can provide us with an unbelievable amount of opportunities. By reaching into a trade association, we have the ability to get to know the individuals as well as the business makeup of the trade associations through the various corporations. And once we understand who the players are, we can go to, as they say, to the head of the class and understand how we can meet those individuals.

I’ll share a story with you that happened to me in my business career. In 1976, I had the opportunity to go to work with a builder developer in the Philadelphia marketplace, a company called Tolan Gray Boys. And we had a new neighborhood that we were launching in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which was roughly 60 miles away from our offices. And I was given the opportunity to oversee the sales and marketing for this campus. The campus comprised 256 homes, a multifamily townhome product, and single-family for sale homes. And upon going to Allentown, it was an amazing process for me. What we found is that we were the new guys on the block coming into the marketplace. And because we hadn’t been in the marketplace for quite some time, it was very difficult for us to break into the market.

You had to be in the mainstream, had to be serving the public for a long period of time before somebody would actually let you into the program. So it was difficult initially for us to generate sales. And one day, I decided, gee, I’ll go visit, I’ll start calling on corporations. And I found that by getting into the human resource department of companies, that it opened up doors for me, if you will, for me to start meeting the individuals who would often see their employees who could conceivably become our customers as they were moving in to take a new job or possibly be promoted from within already in the marketplace and have the opportunity to be there and possibly purchase a home from us. I went to, of all places, Bethlehem Steel, which was five miles away from our campus.

And I had the good fortune of meeting a gentleman who was in charge of handling relocation within the personnel department. He had a brokerage company. All of his 16 members were real estate brokers, and their job was to facilitate the ease of transfer for their employees. He knew more about our community at Country Crossing than I could ever imagine that anybody would have had. He had our brochures and everything. And what he taught me that day was really important. And the message that he shared with me is that you need to get involved at the local level with chambers of commerce, economic development councils, and other trade associations, where you can go and meet individuals and start exchanging information for people to get to know you.

I said to him, how can I get to know the folks at Mack Truck? How can I get to know some of the other leading corporation officers that are there? He said, go to the Chamber of Commerce meeting to meet the president of Mack Truck. I said, you’re kidding. He said, no. He said, you can walk in there, and you can actually find out the table that this gentleman is going to be sitting at, and you can go sit at that table and meet him and some of the other associates within the industry. And I said, the tables are not reserved? He said, no. And from that day forward, that helped me begin my networking opportunity to start meeting the key people, the movers and shakers in various companies.

You know, Robert, the way you’re describing it there, this is the easy way of doing it because you’re in a social environment, you’re opening up doors, and then it’s real easy for the next step to go meet them at their office.

Absolutely. And, you know, it’s all about that connectivity point that Scott and you, Jerry, started to discuss with me at the initial outset of our conversation. So it’s a simple networking process, but we have to apply it. Some of us are not in a social position where we can often reach out and try to make these contacts. And we recognize that throughout the world, only 3% of us are actually gifted with the sales process. That means 97% are afraid often to engage and meet the public. And even those of us who are often socially adept and adroit at meeting people, sometimes we even have a fear factor. So I would recommend to our audience that if that is the case, that you role play, you practice.

Maybe you try working with a corporation that is what we refer to a minor corporation that we would never think that we would have the opportunity to do business with, and we practice and role play and then go after that corporation and build our skills. And then as we’re ready to move up towards corporations that we can work with, we can do a much better job of our presentation. Or also go to a company where we do have a relationship and sell our wares and present the opportunity for us to sell our products and services. And you’ll find that in both cases, your confidence, your self-esteem will increase dramatically, and it will be very, very easy. The hardest sale that you’re ever going to make through a networking situation like this is the first presentation.

Once you go through the first presentation and learn from that presentation, you’ll build your sense of awareness, your confidence, and your self-esteem, and you’ll be able to start enjoying these relationships and developing the referral process. You know, Robert, you are probably the master of networking that I’ve ever met in the industry. And I find that in a lot of cases, individuals, corporate people, presidents, vice presidents, sales managers, they come into a social environment, and like you said, they’re so uncomfortable in opening up new doors that the natural tendency, and again, I’m to blame for this also, it’s a lot easier to go to the group where you know some people. And you do that, and we’re not getting out of the box enough to do that networking that you talk about.

What would be some things and how to make that extra step? That’s a very good question, and again, thank you very much for your kind compliments.

It’s a work in process. You know, I never feel that I’m established or any of our associates are established until we’ve sold our last product or service. So we’re constantly thinking of ways to work outside of the proverbial box, if you will. And I think that if you look, if you just take one step back and realize that every time you meet one person, you’re actually meeting 250 of their friends, their neighbors, their business associates, clients, customers, buyers, etc. And I think that as you start to grow from that standpoint and couple or complement Malcolm Gladwell’s point of the 2.73 contacts, when you meet one person, by the time that you’re talking to that individual and wheeling through the opportunity to understand that individual’s background and basis of life, you’ll find a connectivity somewhere.

And so if we reach out to those 250, you know, and they have their contacts and so on, you’re going to find that your connectivity point will open up the door for you right away. You have to be prepared in your first meeting, your first presentation to ask for referrals. And we find that most people believe you can’t ask for a referral until you’ve sold a product or service, Jerry and Scott, and the customer is satisfied, the buyer is satisfied. We don’t believe that. We believe that you’re earning the right through the first presentation to begin asking for that referral. And when you do, it also adds confidence to the buyer that you’re taking the buyer seriously. And when the buyer feels comfortable with you, the buyer will begin to provide you with referrals above and beyond your wildest imagination.

And, you know, with that approach, it’s amazing. You can almost cut your advertising in half. And I’m not saying suggesting that, but you’ll get a lot more leads this way than you would any other way. Well, absolutely. And I think that, you know, the other thing that we often do that’s also important for me to share with you and the audience today is that one of the biggest errors that takes place in our industry and every industry is that once we’ve sold a customer and we’ve taken care of that customer, we’re on to the next priority. And the mistake is that we don’t continue to seek referrals from that existing customer base. My father taught me years ago that in business, there is a one-third phenomena.

And that phenomena relates to the fact that one-third of your business associates you’ll always do business with because they’ve got the confidence and the appreciation for what you’re able to provide. Another third will be in transition with you. They’ll web and ebb and flow with you through an interesting web, if you will, of excitement within the marketplace. And that third will be in transition with you and your company. The other third, the last third, you may never sell for whatever reason that you can think of. So what he kept saying to me is always take care of your existing customer base. Those buyers need your attention to detail. And don’t ever take them for granted. Always make sure that you’re servicing and providing them with excitement, which goes back to the other point that once we sell a buyer in a new home community or if we’re selling existing homes, we’ve got to make sure that every time we sell a home to one purchaser or if we’re selling appliances or if we’re selling hardwood flooring or mortgages, that that buyer that we’re selling to should be able to provide us with another two or three sales within the first month of meeting those individuals.

That’s a fact. Like you said, you can cut your advertising costs in half by focusing on the ability to network into trade associations, service or community organizations like Optimist Clubs, Lions Clubs, Kiwanis. You can think of all of these different opportunities. And the key with joining an organization is to reach out and participate. If you’re going to join an organization or when you join an organization or when you’re a member right now, you need to be there. There’s a wonderful old movie called Being There. It’s an interesting fable, and it’s about a gentleman who was mentally challenged who has to leave the employ of a gentleman who had passed on. And he goes out into the world, and he has no real skills other than gardening.

And Peter Sellers plays an outstanding role with Shirley MacLaine and Melvin Douglas in this movie. And eventually, Peter Sellers becomes a confidant to the President of the United States. And it’s a question of just being in the right place and making the right connections. Making the right connections. You know, Robert, a lot of salespeople out there, a lot of our listeners, you know, some of them I hear, and you hear it also, is we’re not getting enough traffic, we’re not getting enough lead. Well, you know, based on our conversation here in this interview, you’re not getting enough leads to get out of the office and do some of the networking here that you’re talking about because you’ll end up getting more leads than just sitting around waiting.

That’s absolutely correct. And what we try to do is even encourage, you know, our salespeople. If we’re low on staff and we need to keep our offices open to meet the needs of the marketplace, we encourage our salespeople to drive to work a different way every day. There’s always something happening in the marketplace.

Interesting. I never heard that one before. And, you know, you talk about a host of different things. There’s a marvelous book, Scott and Jerry, called The 30 Keys to Success in Real Estate. And it’s by an author by the name of Jack Dale. And the book was written many years ago. Yet, he really hits on the aspect. You should be obtaining referrals from your attorneys, your automobile salespeople, the bankers, the bartenders, the beauticians, the builders, chambers of commerce, civic club officials, college administrators, brokers specializing in commercial real estate. The real estate commercial market does not know how easy it is to do business with us and how we’ll provide them with referral fees and or full commissions for the opportunity to do business with them. And isn’t it interesting?

If a real estate broker is leasing 20,000 square feet to a corporation moving into a market or to a company within market, a lot of the employees will be looking to live closer to their place of employee. And those commercial REALTORS don’t know how easy it is to pick up the co-operating commissions that are out there for them, whether it’s the sale of an existing home or one of the beautiful new homes that our market is bringing to the community. We can get business from developers and doctors, insurance salespeople, ministers, priests, and rabbis. Another fascinating story, one of the first builders that we worked with in our consulting practice years ago, in 1983, had a neighborhood of 400 homes with which he was bringing to the table.

And Scott and Jerry, of those 400, 200 of them came from a local parish. Wow. And the priest within the parish had met with the builder. The builder had requested to meet with him. And he was not of the same religious persuasion. And it turned out that this particular builder became one of the most important contributors to the church. What he did is he arranged an opportunity to give the equivalent of a 1% referral fee to the church. Well, of course, the priest wanted to have the flock as close to the congregation to participate within the excitement. And at the same time, the priest realized that the more that the congregation was closer, the house of worship, that the more that they would participate and become involved in the daily activities.

The builder sold 200 of the 400 homes through the church. Wow. The church received a 1% commission for every sale that took place. And it was made in the form of a contribution in the gross amount of whatever the 1% was for each individual home that was sold. Wow. So the outstanding sales force and the referral sales force became a house of worship. You know, Robert, I’ve known you for I don’t know how many years now. And Scott and I have watched you work the crowd, and I’m always watching you as you come into a room. You automatically almost gravitate to someone who you don’t know, which I’ve always made a note of that. But the thing that I always notice is that when you give out a business card, you give the individual two or three cards.

I wish you would comment on that. And I guess my question is, you must carry a lot of business cards with you when you go to a conference. Well, I tried. It’s really interesting. I’ve had 500 cards printed to take with me to the International Builder Show and other trade association opportunities when I travel. I always try to have hundreds of cards with me. And the point is that you never know whom you’re going to meet next. You never know where that opportunity is going to lead you. You know, this market has been a very, very struggling market for all of us, a very challenging market. And now, more than ever, we need to be as creative as we can. And I found time and again that when I’m in the marketplace and getting out and meeting the market, you just never know who the next opportunity is or where the next opportunity is.

So, the other thing I would share with you, in addition to the list that I provided a moment ago, I would also add to that list, in reviewing even the yellow pages, I found that by calling upon accountants and apparel salespeople, business editors of print and electronic media, certified public accounts, and city court record clerks and county record clerks and economic developers, economists. And this is also going to sound crazy, and this is also going to sound crazy, and this is also going to sound crazy, but morticians, nursing home executives, and restaurant operators, service station proprietors, state transportation highway officials, title company representatives, utility companies. And let us not forget our REALTOR friends, residential, commercial, retail, all of these participants have opportunities for us to learn about our properties and the opportunity to work with us, whether it’s a property or a service or a product that we can offer to the marketplace.

So, each of these opportunities are there with us, Scott, how can we add anything to that? That’s awesome. That’s a very complete list, as far as I can see.

I would share with you, you know, when we talk about, you know, that term, just do it, you know, get involved. You have to create a discipline for yourself, and we all have to take the time. We, if we are on site Selling More Homes, we have to make a minimum of 50 calls per week to the REALTOR community, and we also have to reach out to the REALTORS and recognize that the REALTORS coming into the market and earning their new licenses are going to be the most excited about working with us. We also want to praise and take care of all those salespeople who have had the opportunity to work with us through a particular product that we’re selling. And we need to make sure that we’re communicating not only with them, but with their superiors and the other participants within their companies by sending letters, snail mail, and email to their superiors, thanking them for the sale, thanking them for the introduction of their prospects, of their buyers to our products and services.

And the more that we can send out those letters of praise, the more excitement we’re going to get in exchange for that from those cooperating real estate brokerage companies or from those cooperating corporations that are sending their salespeople to us. You know, this interview makes me want to cancel all the things I’ve got to do today and just get out there and start talking to people. And I guess that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Well, it absolutely is, and it’s a question of doing it. The more that we can participate and get out there and touch people, it’s very important. I would like to share with you and Scott and our audience that after we meet with individuals, it’s important for us to follow up with them within a minimum of two hours, if at all possible, thanking them for the time that they spent with us, whether it was at a trade show meeting where we walked in and had the opportunity to work with one another, or just sitting at a table and getting to know individuals. The follow-up, the connectivity is important. You have to make it seem as if you’re everywhere all the time and that your name is coming up the same way that you’re using Twitter or Facebook or Plaxo Pulse or any of the other new electronic phenomena to get out into the marketplace and share the who, the what, the where, the how about you and your company.

Listening to you, Robert, and the importance of what you had to say, as well as the energy with which you deliver your message, what it takes here is, and I think our listeners see the amount of commitment that being successful in sales takes, and I think that commitment takes a tremendous amount of energy, but it seems to me that you get your energy from the anticipated results of what you know you’re going to get.

It’s a very, very excellent assessment, Scott, and I really believe that it’s about the hunt. It’s about the challenge of meeting individuals and taking care of our existing customers and seeking new customers and conveying the fact that when we are sharing the opportunity to meet the new customers, that we also use our third-party testimonials, our third-party customer base of success that we’ve had, so that we can explain as we’re creating that connectivity point of that 2.73 contact base through each individual to find the way that we can complement our services with the needs of the buyers that we hope to represent and close.

And it’s just a wonderful feeling when you can provide a product to a customer, to a buyer who is ready to make that acquisition after recognizing the excitement. I’ll share with you another story that just took place yesterday. One of the leasing agents that we work with in a new apartment home community within a mixed-use neighborhood just did a marvelous job. We had set her up with the information about a referral that was coming in that was actually with one of the builders who was completing this one particular building. And he had a friend, has a friend, who needed an apartment home. And we were able to assess the needs of the buyer before his arrival. And the leasing agent previously, through this referral, was prepared for him with all the information that she needed to have in order to make the sale.

So because the referral took place and we were prepared prior to the customer coming through the door, we were able to take the buyer out of the market and close the agreement within a one-and-a-half-hour total presentation.

And it’s all about the confidence that the buyer had because of the builder, the developer, and the team that was prepared to make the difference for that individual. Buyers can be taken out of the market today. It’s up to each of us to perceive how we can best do that and accomplish our goals so that we can move our product more quickly, more efficiently, and more profitably. Gentlemen, thank you very, very much. Thank you, Robert. And once again, thank you for your time and sharing your great insights here with our listening audience.

Well, Scott, I bet you the average listener and you and I couldn’t write fast enough. I know I couldn’t. You know, I take notes on everything and I wore out my wrist, yeah.

But, you know, just being creative. And I know some of our listeners are saying, whoa, that’s way too, too, too much. Or, you know what, if you can just pick and choose a half a dozen of some of the things that Robert just talked about, you’re on your way to success. The beauty of what he was talking about is that it’s timeless. You know, he talked about what he was doing 20 years ago. When he began in the industry to network, to join the Chamber of Commerce, to join the Kiwanis and the local associations that were there, that still works. That’s still where agreements are brokered, where connections are made, where deals are put together. The whole thing is, is what Robert’s really stressing is here, is you just can’t be sitting in your office and waiting for things to happen.

You’ve got to go out there and make it happen. How about the point where he said that he encouraged their salespeople to take a different route home or a different route to work every day? You know, I never thought of that. Yeah, yeah. Just to see what was going on. Yeah, just to see what was going on. Hey, before we wrap up our program here this week, I want to remind our listeners that if you’re looking for some consulting, some training, some coaching, you know, take a look at our faculty list that’s on our website. We’ve got some dynamic people there. If you just click on their names, it’ll take you right to their website. Take a look at what they have to offer. Yeah, the services that are available right there through the Builder Radio faculty or everything from social media and social marketing to merchandising to sales training to land development.

We’ve got a tremendous amount of services there offered by the faculty, and we encourage you to take a look. And just a final reminder, if you haven’t registered for this coming Wednesday’s program, or if you’re listening to this after Wednesday, go over to Builder Radio and download the program. Until next week, I’m Jerry Rouleau. I’m Scott Stroud. And thanks for listening to the Selling More Home Media Network.

Thank you.