Aaron Hoos

You’ve probably heard the well-known, often-quoted concept that all products or services possess two of the following three qualities:

Good, Fast, Cheap.

It means that every product or service you buy will be…

• Good and fast but not cheap
• Good and cheap but not fast, or,
• Fast and cheap but not good

Every client who wants to buy a product or service will have an innate preference about which two qualities they want their product or service to possess. And they will seek out products or services that match their preference.

Knowing this, most businesses specifically sell their products in a way that fulfills two of the three qualities. For example, a fast food restaurant might offer food that is fast and cheap but not very good, or a freelance writer (ahem) might offer writing services that are good and fast but not cheap.

HERE’S WHY THIS MATTERS TO REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS

If you’re a real estate professional, you might be wondering how this applies to you. I think the answer is quite exciting and can help you become even more successful because it will help you build better relationship with your clients.

Yes, the good, fast, cheap concept applies even to your real estate practice! Here’s how:

Every client you work with — whether they’re listing or buying — wants the home listing or home purchase to satisfy two of the three qualities.

For example, they might want to buy a house quickly and with your great service and therefore they will have less concern about the cost. Or, they might want to buy a house cheaply and with great service and will therefore maybe not get a house as quickly as others.

I’m sure you read the above paragraph and said: ‘Aaron, all of my clients always want all three of those qualities and I deliver all three qualities every time‘.

Here’s my response: I believe that all clients want all three qualities in the service they receive from you but there are only two qualities that are extremely important to them (and the third is less important).

Even if you offer all three qualities all the time and with every client, you will build better relationships with your clients when you intentionally identify what is important to each of them and you highlight that aspect of your service to them whenever you interact with them.

Let’s say that you identify a client whose must-have service qualities are good and cheap and they really don’t care that much about how fast you are. You will build a stronger relationship with them by highlighting the depth of your service and how hard you’re working for them, as well as how much money they are saving. Don’t worry about talking about how quickly you can close the sale or how fast they can find a home. Those don’t matter as much to them.

It’s all about finding out what is important to your client and then making sure that your interaction with them resonates those two most-important qualities.

By highlighting the aspects of your service to them, and by going the extra mile in the two must-have qualities that are important to your client, you’ll demonstrate your value to them much more effectively than if you tried to establish your credentials and ability in all three.

Want to dive into this good-fast-cheap concept even more? My blog post Why good-fast-cheap might be wrong (and how to fix it so you can sell more) will give you an in-depth look at the good-fast-cheap model and help you use it more skillfully to work with your real estate clients.

HERE’S A BONUS IDEA TO SUPER-CHARGE YOUR BRANDING

You can construct your entire business around one of these models — which is exactly what some real estate professionals do. (The flat fee real estate agents are using “cheap” as one of the must-have qualities while other real estate professionals might use “good” or “fast” as one of their must-have qualities).

Although you’ll drive away some clients because you’re focusing on something they don’t care about, you’ll attract more clients by marketing in a way that truly resonates with the must-have qualities they are looking for in a real estate professional.

Clients have a lot of choice when it comes to selecting a real estate or financial professional to meet their needs. And just because we serve a client once doesn’t mean they’ll come back to us when they need a similar service in the future. Client loyalty is scarce.

One important way to create client loyalty is to build a relationship with them. The deeper the relationship, the more likely they’ll be to come back to you for future services. But building relationships isn’t easy – you probably have lots of clients and it’s hard to keep them all straight.

Here’s a tool that can help. It’s a simple list of questions to help you get to know your clients better. Don’t hand over this list to your clients to fill it out and don’t pepper them with all of the questions at once. In fact, not all of these questions can even be answered by the client! Answer as many questions about each client as you can. Then identify a couple of questions that you want to discover the next time you talk to them. Sometimes you can ask the question directly; other times you’ll have to communicate with your client and use clues to discover the real answer.

Use this list as a guide to understand your client better and as a foundation to build a relationship with them.

HERE’S HOW TO USE THE ANSWERS

• Use the answers to build rapport: “Your daughter is in piano? So is my daughter. I’ll watch for you at the next recital!”
• Use the answers to prompt future sales: For example, a child’s birthday might be good reminders to sell insurance or an adult’s birthday might be a good time to revisit their retirement fund.
• Use the answers to start future conversations: “Hey, how did your son’s little league tournament go last weekend?”
• Use the answers to look for referral opportunities: “If anyone in your business networking group happens to be looking for key man insurance, let them know that I specialize in insurance for small businesses.”
• Use the answers to help you understand your clientele and shape your business accordingly: If many of your clients are young families, the products you offer might shift over time as your clients’ children age.
• Use these answers to help you understand how to market your business: Once you have these question lists started for your clients, you can fill out the questions in the blog post 55 questions to answer when defining your sales funnel’s target market. (In fact, you’ll notice that some of the questions below are closely connected to the target market questions).

61 QUESTIONS TO ASK

1. What is your client’s age?




2. What is your client’s gender?




3. What is the your client’s ethnic heritage?




4. What language does your client speak as their primary language?




5. Where does your client live?




6. Who else lives at that address?




7. What does your client do for a living?




8. What is your client’s approximate income range?




9. What are your client’s hobbies?




10. What teams, leagues, groups, and associations does your client belong to?




11. What kind of music does your client like to listen to?




12. What kind of car does your client drive?




13. What sports does your client follow?




14. What kind of education does your client have?




15. What are the things that your client aspires to do? (i.e. Climb the corporate ladder? Give their children the best opportunities?)




16. What kind of house does your client aspire to live in?




17. What kind of car does your client aspire to drive?




18. If your client seems themself in a “lifestage”, what would that lifestage be?




19. What would your client say is the next lifestage that they should move toward?




20. How can you help them get to that next lifestage?




21. What does your client consider to be important to them?




22. How does your client define happiness and success?




23. What kind of personality would describe your client?




24. What motivates your client?




25. What fears does your client have?




26. What are the problems that your client wants solved in their lives?




27. What are the challenges that your client faces in their day-to-day lives? (Unlike the above question, this question forces you to consider other challenges — even ones that your client wouldn’t define as a problem to be solved).




28. What value does your client place on family? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




29. What value does your client place on friends? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




30. What value does your client place on their work? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




31. What value does your client place on recognition and status? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




32. What value does your client place on happiness? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




33. What value does your client place on fear of loss? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




34. What value does your client place on money? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




35. What value does your client place on time? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




36. What value does your client place on leisure time and activities? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




37. What value does your client place on peace of mind? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




38. Who influences your client?




39. Who does your client influence?




40. Where does your client like to spend their time?




41. What are the most important purchases to your client?




42. If your client had an extra $100, what would they spend it on? What if they had an extra $1000? What if they won $1 million dollars?




43. If your client had a week where they had no work-related commitments, what would they do? Where would they go? Who would they go with?




44. What are the top 10 tasks that fill the to-do lists of your client?




45. How does your client define the problem that you solve or the need that you fulfill? (i.e., What words to they use? What “symptoms” trigger a search for a solution? Check out this blog post, which gives a closer look at the Audience stage.)




46. What does your client consider to be risky? (Time, effort, money, and reputation are the big ones)




47. Who will your client have to face if they buy your product or service and it doesn’t meet their needs?




48. What other alternatives does your client have to solve their problem or fulfill their need? (Be sure to include competitors’ products and services as well as alternate offerings that aren’t direct competitors but still solve the problem. And don’t forget: Do nothing is also an alternative!)




49. What reasons would your client give for not purchasing your product or service?




50. How familiar is your client with the solution you’re offering? (i.e., is it entirely new and requires a lot of explaining or is it a very familiar solution?)




51. How is your client changing? (i.e., what answers to this list of questions will be different next year or in the next decade, and why?)




52. Does your client have a spouse? What is his/her name and age?




53. What is your client’s spouse’s hobbies?




54. Does your client have any children? How many? What are their names and ages?




55. What activities do your client’s children take part in?




56. What products/services has your client bought from you in the past?




57. What products/services has your client bought from your competitors in the past?




58. What products/services is your client most likely to buy next from you?




59. What would your client say is the most important reason that he/she uses your services?




60. What would it take to get your client to switch service providers and get the same service you offer but from someone else?




61. What would it take to lock your client in to working exclusively with you for the rest of their lives?

Some clients know very little about what you do and they put their trust in you. These are great clients to work for because a lot of the relationship is built as you prove your value and educate them.

And some clients know a lot about what you do and are pretty easy to help because they eliminate a lot of the legwork. Everything clicks because you communicate as peers and they can move through your sales funnel pretty quickly.

These are great clients to have.

But the worst kind of client thinks they know what they’re talking about (but really doesn’t know what they’re talking about). They have just enough financial or real estate knowledge to dazzle their friends, and they expect their financial or real estate professional to be dazzled too.

Maybe you’ve met a client like this.

It happened to me. Years ago, when I was working at a leasing company, I had a meeting with a client who felt I didn’t know as much as he did about the industry and he “educated” me. Unfortunately, I knew what he was saying was wrong but I didn’t know how to correct him.

With frustration and regret, I’ve thought a lot about that meeting since then. It really bothered me that the client felt smugly superior. More importantly, it bothered me that I didn’t know how to respond to his inaccurate knowledge. Here’s what I’ve learned since that meeting, and here’s how you can handle these clients when you meet them.

HOW TO RECOGNIZE THESE CUSTOMERS

In the example I gave above from my early leasing career, the client I met with was smug in his inaccurate knowledge. But not all of these “worst kind of clients” are smug. Some of them are just plain fooled because they know a bit but it’s quite a bit more than their friends and family know. Financial professionals see this all the time with people who dabble in the stock market: They know a bit more than their neighbors so it seems like they know a lot more. But the reality is, they’re just dabblers.

You can recognize these customers pretty easily in conversation. They have a confidence in their knowledge that might (at first) make them seem like they know a lot. But further conversation will reveal that they know less than they think they know.

HOW TO DEAL WITH THESE CLIENTS

Here are some tips on how to deal with these clients.

• Acknowledge that they know what they are talking about, even if they think they know more than they do.




• Take the approach of working with these, alongside them, shoulder-to-shoulder. Treat them as you would treat a peer. Talk to them as you would talk to a colleague — informally yet professionally as if you are both insiders.




• Refer to your relationship as “working together”. You’ll put them on your side by making them feel like they are equal to you.




• Avoid colloquialisms and acronyms and the conversational short-cuts you use when talking to your colleagues. Spell everything out.




• Don’t ask for their opinion. If they give their opinion, acknowledge it. If you disagree, use a phrase like, “That’s an interesting experience. I’ve encountered a different outcome from a similar situation”. (Be genuine! Don’t be condescending!)




• Don’t call them on their ignorance! The worst thing you can do is push them a little to reveal how little they know. It will humiliate and anger them and you’ll lose a client.




• Use phrases like “as you know” or “as I’m sure you’re aware”.




• Go into extra detail to help these customers connect what they do know with what you want them to know. If they talk about small cap stocks but don’t know what “cap” means, take a moment to talk about market capitalization and the different kinds of -cap stocks. But again, do it in a way that helps them to feel like equals.




• Provide educational materials and training content but position the information by saying: “You probably know the material covered here but there might be something in here that will fill any gaps you might have simply because you don’t deal with this information 24/7.”

In summary, take a specific approach them where you acknowledge what they do know and make them feel good about it; then build on it with more information.

And, be sure to stand your ground in situations where they might smugly try to educate you. You can be professional about it by taking charge of the conversation and saying something like, “I have a different perspective.”

WHAT TO DO IF NONE OF THIS WORKS

Not every client/professional relationship is destined for greatness. That’s okay. As a financial or real estate professional, you owe it to yourself to determine who you should and should not work with and then stick to those parameters. For more information about firing your clients if you need to, check out my blog post Breaking up is hard to do: Why businesses need to occasionally fire clients.

If you drive down the average street of the average city in North America, you’re going to pass several insurance broker offices, each offering basically the same service to the same clientele at the same price.

True, a broker might be able to identify a few key areas where their business offered insurance products that were different than their competitors were offering (especially if the broker used competitive analysis to study the competition) but I promise you that most of your customers couldn’t tell you apart from the other brokers on the street.

In many cases, customers simply go back to their broker’s office out of habit or because no where else seems to be any better.

But what would happen if a new and innovative insurance broker shows up on the block? One who opens early, stays open late, has a play area in the office for the kids, and offers Starbucks coffee for the grown-ups? Those small differences might only be surface differences but they could be enough to steal the customer away from you. (“Convenience AND coffee? Sure, I’d give that a try. What difference does it make?”)

What insurance brokers should really use to attract and retain their customers has absolutely nothing to do with tiny, meaningless innovations. What insurance brokers really want is:

• Loyal customers who wouldn’t be tempted away by the hours/play-structure/coffee.
• Loyal customers who would drive across town to buy from you instead of a broker closer to where they live.
• Loyal customers would become evangelists and tell their friends and family to buy insurance from you.

How can you achieve this?

Let’s forget about getting new customers in the door. That’s a post for another day. It will happen, too, when your loyal customers tell their friends and family about you.

Instead, let’s focus on the clients you have. Since you can’t compete on price or product, the most important thing you can possibly do is build a relationship with your clients.

I don’t mean a relationship where you send them an annual form-letter reminder every year (like this insurance broker does to me each year). I mean a real relationship — where you know what your clients’ kids’ names are by memory and your clients are interested in knowing what YOUR kids’ names are.

I’m talking about a relationship so meaningful that they invite you for coffee with them… just because it’s nice to hang out with you.

I’m talking about a relationship so meaningful that they don’t think of you as “an insurance broker” but “a friend… oh, he’s also ‘my insurance guy’.”

I’m talking about a relationship so meaningful that if you go to the hospital, your clients come visit you. (That’s what happened to my friend who works at a Starbucks. His customers visited him when he had to go in for surgery).

You don’t have to spend a lot of money on this kind of relationship but you do need to invest some time and energy.

Get to know your clients. Connect with them. Don’t use every connecting opportunity to sell insurance to them. Instead, build a true relationship. Build enough trust that you are one of the first calls when a major life event happens (a wedding, a birth, a death, a car accident, a new house)… whether or not that major life event will require more insurance. Build enough trust that they call just because you’re THAT important to them.

Here are some additional ideas and suggestions:

• Give your cell phone number out. People like knowing that they can reach you any time even if they probably won’t call.
• Find out what their kids’ names are. If their kids play a sport, show up to a tournament.
• Find out where your client works and what their aspirations are.
• Find out what your client is interested in and take an interest. Send them a link; clip a magazine article; ask a local event related to their interest (or tell them that you’re going to attend the event and would they like to come along).
• Connect with them on social networks. (Don’t talk about business there!)
• Encourage your clients to ask for you by name when they show up to your office. Tell your staff to get you when the show up. Yes, you’ll barely be at your desk but that’s a good thing!
• Train your staff to recognize clients when they walk in the door.
• Mail something regularly to your customers that doesn’t involve reminding them that they owe you money.

I’m just scratching the surface here. There is so much you can do to build relationships.

It all starts by considering these clients your friends.

Build a friendship and it won’t matter what kind of broker office opens up closer to their home with more convenient hours… they’ll call you up for coffee and a policy renewal, and they’ll invite along a friend who also needs insurance.

My hammock gave out in the spring of 2010. Squirrels had ravaged it while preparing nests for the previous winter. I’ve been meaning to replace that hammock but last summer was busy and wet (not conducive to “hammocking”). So yesterday I went outside and realized that the weather was perfect but I remained hammockless.

I posted on Facebook: “It’s beer-and-hammock weather. Sadly, I’m out of beer and my hammock was eaten by squirrels.”

Seconds later, a friend messaged me and told me that she had just bought a hammock for her husband. She briefly described it and sent me a link to the seller’s website. Within minutes of posting my sad status, the sale was closed. I’ll be picking up a hammock from this importer this weekend!

SALES FUNNEL EVANGELIST IN ACTION

My friend was first a hammock Customer. She had purchased the hammock, was happy with the quality and price and service. Then, she became an Evangelist by sharing her success story with me. I will (shortly) become a Customer by purchasing a hammock.

This hammock importer’s hammocks have now become more profitable because she didn’t have to spend time and effort and money marketing and selling to me. I’m already in her sales funnel and I’m basically sold; it’s just a transactional issue at this point. My friend’s advice was enough to compel me toward a buying action.

Turning your Customers into Evangelists is critical for your business. Rather than expend the costly effort of marketing and selling to every single Customer, you can turn your Customers into an army of marketers and sellers who are working on your behalf.

Here’s how to do that:

THE EVANGELIST EQUATION

The right combination of elements need to be present in order for a Customer to become an Evangelist… and not just an Evangelist but an effective one that actually closes the deal for you. Those elements come together in the following equation:

Effective Evangelism = Trust + Satisfaction + Shareability

Where Satisfaction = Problem Solved + Perceived Value + Satisfaction with Service
And Shareability = Ease of Sharing + Context

Here’s what those equation components mean:

• Trust: Trust needs to be established between the Evangelist and the prospective Customer. In order for the prospective Customer to act on the advice of the Evangelist, there needs to be a foundation of agreement between the two. In my situation, I know my friend is a very careful shopper who thoroughly researches everything before she buys.
• Satisfaction: Satisfaction is actually made up of three components: (1) the problem was solved; (2) a sense of value was perceived between the price of the product and the degree to which it solved the problem; (3) a sense of satisfaction with the service received during the process.
• Shareability: Shareability is made up of two components: (1) how easy it is to talk about your product or service in relation to the problem; (2) the context in which an Evangelist has an opportunity to share.

When all of those components are present, an Evangelist can effectively talk about your product or service with their friends and their friends will act on the Evangelist’s advice.

If any components are missing, your Evangelists might still share but the likelihood of success diminishes with each missing component. For example, a recommendation on Twitter about a great soup restaurant is still Evangelism but might not result in any new Customers if there is no trust between the tweeter and their followers or if there was no context for the recommendation.

TAKE CONTROL OF EVANGELISTS IN YOUR SALES FUNNEL

The truth is, you can’t control every part of the equation. You have little influence over the trust established between an Evangelist and their network. And, you have little influence over the context in which your Evangelist shares.

But, you do have a lot of influence over the other parts of the equation — the components that make up Satisfaction (Problem Solved, Perceived Value, and Satisfaction with Service), as well as one of the components that make up Shareability (Ease of Sharing).

Creating an army of Evangelists to help you market and sell your business is done by looking at each of the following components and improving/increasing each component:

• Solving problems: Your product or service solves a problem or fulfills a need, even if you don’t think it does. Figure out what the problem or need is and make it clearer in your marketing.
• Providing value: Customers who feel that they got ripped off will never return. Customers who feel that they got exactly what they paid for might return or they might not return. But Customers who feel that they got more than they paid for will be far more likely to buy again and turn into Evangelists.
• Satisfying with service: Like the above component, Customers who feel that they received poor service will never return. Customers who feel like they received “normal” service may or may not return. But Customers who were surprised at how good the service was will buy again and turn into Evangelists.
• Making your product or service easy to explain: Use clear, compelling, picture-words in your marketing, and use the same messages over and over. Make your business name and your web domain easy to talk about and share. Spread your presence around the web (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) so that people can share you far more easily.

The equation to turn your Customers into Evangelists is pretty simple. And it is made up of several components, many of which you have a considerable amount of influence over. The time and energy you invest into these components will be an investment into creating Evangelists who will fill your sales funnel for you.