The Magic of Relationship Building
By Eric Ruth
Back in March of 2002, one of my greatest friends and mentors, a wonderful woman named Lynne, told me she was getting married.
A friend of hers named Brigid, whom I had never met, decided to coordinate a wedding shower by mail. Brigid contacted me and about ten other good friends of Lynne’s via email and set up the whole thing. Brigid lives about 15 miles away from me, but I had never spoken with or met her.
Sometime in June I got an envelope in the mail from Brigid. Inside was a two page newsletter on real estate. Attached was a yellow post-it note with this message, “Hi Eric, this is what I do. If I can be of service to you and Brandy, please let me know. Brigid”
I was immediately impressed. Brigid was building her sphere of influence (SOI) just the way I teach.
She had no idea if I was interested in buying or selling real estate. All she knew is that I was a good friend of her good friend (she was leveraging Lynne’s SOI) and that I lived in the area that she serviced with her business. So she took it upon herself to build the relationship in a non threatening, informative way.
Since June, I’ve received a newsletter from Brigid every month like clockwork. Her newsletter is very simple. One page, printed front and back, with informative, helpful real estate information, some just listed, just sold info and OFFERS for various services she provides.
Her cost per name to send her newsletter is about 45 cents.
Brandy and I have been looking at buying yet another home in North Carolina (we own several now as part of our long term investment plans).
So, recently I contacted Brigid and asked her to represent us as our Realtor.
No transaction has occurred yet, but if we buy another home around here, Brigid stands to earn a nice four to five figure commission.
What will it have cost her in marketing dollars to get that commission?
About $3.23 in printing and postage.
Not a bad ROI, eh?
Why am I telling you this story?
RELATIONSHIPS!!!
Doing business is all about building and nurturing relationships.
And the most cost effective, productive and responsive relationships are with your SOI: people who know you or know of you.
Okay, let’s talk about some issues of Newsweek.
I’m looking at an old cover headline I’ve saved in my files that says, “The Perfect Diet” “Beyond the Fads: What Science Tells Us About Food and Health”
Inside, they devote one third of the magazine to diet and exercise information.
This single issue is a GOLDMINE of information for you. I was blown away by some of the incredibly powerful quotes from very prestigious and respected experts and the wealth of research and hard-hitting data revealed in the articles.
For example:
“In a study of 73,743 postmenopausal women published in September, researchers led by Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventative medicine at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, found that women cut their risk of heart disease by 30 to 40 percent with vigorous exercise.”
These kind of FACTS can be used in all your communications with your SOI to bolster, reinforce and substantiate your call to action.
Also, simply copying various articles and including them with a letter is a great “reason why” for you to contact your SOI with a new offer.
Do you understand what I mean?
You always want to have a “reason why” you are contacting your SOI. It could be that the contact is your monthly newsletter. But if not that, then why?
When you have killer information like that provided in the Newsweek articles, you can build urgency into all your offers.
For instance:
Dear Mrs. Jones,
I’m writing you today because some shocking new information has recently come across my desk that I just had to share with you…
Then you quote a couple of the experts, tell Mrs. Jones you’ve included a copy of the article for her to see…
…AND THEN YOU MAKE HER AN OFFER!
How else can you use this Newsweek information?
Press releases: There’s a great article on Pilates in the newsweek. If you offer Pilates, you can excerpt from this article for your press release and let the editor know that you offer Pilates and what makes you unique. (By the way, I’m just using Pilates as a simple example, you can pull any of hundreds of tidbits of information from the Newsweek articles for a variety of press releases.) Remember, one of the most important aspects of press release success is TIMELINESS. Newsweek is one of the most widely read publications in America. Every grocery shopper is seeing the cover of this magazine right now. This is HOT! And that’s what editors want: hot, timely topics.
Newspaper articles: You are not writing enough. If there is one thing I hope to God you get from my stuff is that you MUST be prolific. Look at Phil Kaplan. That guy writes as much as Steven King. You can’t avoid seeing one of his articles somewhere. If you commit to writing, your whole business will change. Consider how much KILLER information you have in your head already. If you couple that with reinforcing quotes and excerpts from real authorities (like the ones in the Newsweek articles), you can get published in your local newspapers. ALL MEDIA ARE LOOKING FOR GOOD CONTENT. You are simply being lazy if you haven’t made a contact with someone in your area who will publish your stuff on a regular basis. But first you have to prove to them that you’re good. So sit your ass down and write a great article using the Newsweek as your supporting documentation. Then get it in the hands of every editor of every publication in your area. Not just the major newspapers (much harder to get published), but look at all the little publications. They’re the ones who are desperate for good content. And those little pubs generally get more completely read than do the larger papers.
HEAR ME NOW: If you can get an article published once a month in a well read publication in your area (with your contact information and an offer for FREE additional information), your client acquisition problems will be SOLVED!
Direct Mail: I touched on this earlier, but you should be extracting liberally from the Newsweek articles to support your claims and build URGENCY into your offers. When you can tell people that a Harvard study has proven that men who exercise vigorously for an hour or more each week reduce their risk of heart disease (America’s #1 killer) by 42 percent, that tends to instill a little urgency, wouldn’t you say? Particularly if you can add a little emotional copy of your own.
Newsletter: You need content for your newsletters. Well, you’ve got about a year’s worth in this one magazine alone. And remember, you always want to be thinking strategically when you write. If you write an article for your newsletter, how else can you use that article? Can it become a chapter in your upcoming book? Can it be used in a special report you’re putting together? Can you flesh it out and make it into a full blown newspaper article? Can you excerpt from it for press releases? Can you read it aloud into a recorder to make an audio tape program? Can you include it in a direct mail letter?
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
Special Reports: You could put together three of four different special reports WITH REAL VALUE based on the articles in the Newsweek. Heck, one of the reports could be an opening and closing page from you and the rest of the report could simply be photocopied articles from the magazine with little margin notes you make with arrows, circled items and exclamations ( => This is important!).
Being an INFO-GURU is critically important. If you make the case with your SOI that you know what the hell you are doing and your methodologies are firmly and soundly based in the SCIENCE of health and fitness, they will TRUST you to be their expert and they will BUY from you when the time is right.
Being an info-guru is one of the easiest and most effective ways to build relationships. And relationships generate business.
People who are interested in a particular topic are rabidly searching for high-quality, factual and helpful information. When you provide that information to them, their trust in you grows to the point where they become dependent on you and seek you out for advice, counsel and to do business. (Be sure to read the last article in the series titled “A Little More Willpower Can Change Your Life”)
Regarding Special Reports, by now you should know just how important it is to have a MAGNET that you can offer to get SUSPECTS to raise their hands to you indicating they have an interest in health and fitness (thereby becoming PROSPECTS for your services). Special Reports with great titles and hard-hitting information are just such a powerful magnet. You must be an information provider!!!
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