How to Become the Local Expert Your Clients Want

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Whether you’re a real estate agent, financial advisor, or any other service-based sales professional, your business will grow based on the strength of your relationships.

Yes, you will need to be able to provide great service and great results—that’s a given.

However, if you really want to see your business thrive, you need to establish yourself as the person your clients can’t wait to work with (or to tell their friends and family about). In other words, you need to be seen as the local expert.

How do you get to the point where you’re looked at as the go-to professional in the market you serve? Keep reading for five rock-solid strategies you can start implementing right away.

Develop relationships with other businesses.

Develop relationships with other businesses

If you’re looking for a quick, yet effective way to get your business in front of new people, you should definitely consider partnering with another local business.

Partnerships are great because they allow businesses to get greater exposure while offering more value to their customers. The key is to create a strategic partnership with an organization whose values align with yours. You’ll each gain access to each other’s clients, while also offering a greater range of services to the people you already work with.

Some of these strategic partnerships flow naturally out of the interactions you already have in your business. For example, real estate agents are interacting with mortgage brokers and lenders, while financial advisors might regularly encounter attorneys and insurance agents.

Of course, it also helps to think outside the box. For instance, real estate agents can partner with a local landscaping company to offer a discount on services for new homeowners. In return, the landscaping company will be able to refer their existing clients to the agent for their buying and selling needs.

The better you get at leveraging partnerships, the more exposure your business will receive—ultimately leading you to become synonymous with your community.

Join clubs and other local organizations.

Join clubs and other local organizations

Another great way to become synonymous with the community you serve is to engage with your neighbors about topics that have nothing to do with your business.

If you’ve got a hobby such as golf, running, or any other interest that your potential clients are likely to have, take advantage of that. Become a member of your local country club. Join a gym and sign up for some weekly classes. Do things you are passionate about and share your enjoyment of those things with the people in your community.

The benefits to this are numerous. You’re building relationships with people in an organic way that doesn’t feel remotely like a sales pitch. You’re getting those people to like you and trust you. If they don’t already know what you do for a living, that topic will come up pretty quickly.

When the people in your clubs and classes have a need for what you sell, they’re going to want to work with someone who will take care of them. Since you’ve already bonded over a shared interest, you’ll be far more likely to get the call.

Volunteer with area charities.

Volunteer with area charities

If you haven’t already been “introduced” to your prospective clients by another business or someone in your sphere of influence, it’s important that their first impression of you is a positive one.

After all, it’s only natural for people to be suspicious of businesses they haven’t encountered before—especially when the client is dealing with a high-stakes transaction like real estate or planning for retirement.

You can build a lot of goodwill around your business by doing good in your community. Volunteer your time with a charitable cause that means a lot to you. When you do this, you’ll endear yourself to would-be clients who share your values.

The bottom line: your association with charitable organizations will trigger the halo effect—a psychological phenomenon where your reputation as someone who does good precedes you.

Keep clients informed about local events.

ReminderMedia Local Content Email Marketing

Another effective way to grow your reputation is to offer relevant and useful content to your clients.

One of the most powerful things you can do for people you want to work with is to keep them in the loop about community events. When you do this, you become an indispensable resource—someone people will want to check in with more regularly, since you’re the local expert.

Of course, it can take quite a bit of time curating a list of community events—let alone all the time it would take to organize that list and send it to all your clients. That’s why ReminderMedia is launching a new product, called Local Content.

Local Content features:

  • Automated biweekly emails with a curated list of local events.
  • Personalized and branded to you.
  • Designed to establish you as the local expert.

Local Content is currently available to ReminderMedia customers at a special price.

Click here to learn more.

Send postcards to your geographic farm.

Send postcards to your geographic farm

Here’s the truth: you can’t brand yourself as the local expert overnight. That status is reserved for professionals who repeatedly prove their worth to their clients and prospects.

Geographic farming is a term used in real estate to describe regular outreach in a small geographic area. Gary Keller’s The Million Dollar Real Estate Agent describes how this practice can yield some amazing ROI.

Keller found that for every 50 prospects agents targeted by direct mail once a month for 12 months, they could expect to close one deal.

In the world of real estate, a 2% direct mail conversion rate is a huge deal—especially if you’re using cost-effective outreach like postcards.

To help you keep your pipeline full of relevant leads, ReminderMedia is proud to offer its own 12 Direct program. Each month, you’ll send a content-rich postcard that will brand you as a local expert in the eyes of your recipients.

Click here to learn more and sign up.

Whichever strategies you choose to implement, the most important thing is to be consistent. When you take any of these approaches and turn them into habits, you build a positive reputation that will attach itself to your business. This level of positive exposure will mean amazing things for you in the months and years to come.

Getting Started with Relationship Marketing

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