Being "The Source" of the Source

Your clients, friends and family trust you, know you and love you. They look to you for advice about their homes, their communities and anything else that might be on their minds and that is a good thing. Remember, if they are calling you, that means they’re not calling who? Right – the competition.

People are always asking me what types of things they could be “the source” of. I respond to them – “anything.” Here’s a perfect example.

I was reading the March issue of Money Magazine over the weekend. I am not a huge fan of Money because they haven’t been card carrying members of the Realtor Fan Club over recent years but they might just be guilty of today’s rule of thumb when it comes to selling magazines- “if it bleeds, it leads.”

Anyway, the cover story of this issue is “The 20 Best Money Websites…and Ones You Should Avoid.” It covers sites in areas of interest such as your portfolio, wallet, home, health, job and purchases as well as listing some great iPhone apps and also shares many tips and links to additional cool sites.

This is exactly the type of thing to send to your data base. You could make a hard copy of the article from the magazine and mail it your your list with a cover letter including a seasonal greeting and quick update on the market…or you could add it to you blog (like this)… or you could go online to Money.com and find the article there and share the link to your sphere via email…or even post it on Facebook or Twitter or any other social networking site. By doing that, you just became “the Source of the source.”

You could do this with recipes, television or movie reviews, restaurant recommendations, sports updates or anything else that people might find interesting.

But What If They Hit “Delete”?

So what? That’s okay, because they will have seen your name and known that you reached out to them. They may not read it all all, they may save it and read it later or they might read it right away, find value in it and who knows…might hit the “reply” button! How cool is that?

Or they might think it so neat that they share it themselves with people they know and add in their email the following blurb:

“Hey, check out the cool ___________ that my Realtor sent me!”

So what are you waiting on? Start “out sourcing” to your data base, friends and family. Remember, they don’t need to be thinking about you every second of every day. You just want them to think about you when they have a need for a great Realtor.