On today’s episode of Stay Paid, Luke and Josh explain the importance of maintaining your social media presence during quarantine, and offer three stages for sharing different types of content on your channels.

Key Points:

• Don’t reach out to people right now and jump immediately into the sale—let them know you care first.
• Share relevant and timely educational content that will resonate with your sphere.
• Once you’ve showed you care and educated your clients, don’t be afraid to ask for their business.

When you’re at home thinking about how you can post content that earns business, you should think of it in a three-pronged approach:

#1. When people are in crisis, the last thing you want to do is call them up and try to sell them.

You will come across as insensitive. Look at the crisis from a marketing and communication standpoint, and realize that even things like education can come across as insensitive. So the pandemic hits and you start educating people on interest rates, and it’s not bad. But the point is that people don’t care about interest rates right now. People want to know first that you care.

So, how do you show people you care—not only from a human standpoint of text messages and phone calls—but through content? Instead of just posting about your listing, post a blog that gives them a tip for what they can do at home right now. We have a new category on our sites called Staying Home with a lot of recipes you can make with limited ingredients, workouts you can do at home, children’s activities to keep them entertained, and DIY projects.

The key is using the content to make a personal connection. Send them an email with content that will resonate with them. It’s not about the content, but the emotional connection. Look at your database for all the people who have kids. Go to social media, comment on their wall, “I was thinking about you today. I know you’re stuck at home with the kids and thought you might enjoy this activity.” That forms a personal connection, and leads you to the second phase.

#2. Now you educate.

You don’t drive immediately to the business education. But you can give useful education that’s relevant to the time. Some of the most popular things our clients have been sharing are money saving tips. People’s jobs have been impacted by this. There’s uncertainty about where the job market and certain industries will go, so people are thinking about that. As a professional service provider, you want to bring them anything. You want to be the one recommending them contractors, or recommending them to a lender. You want to have that content available and share that with them. There are also a lot of questions about refinancing right now. And even blogs, for example, like one we have called Your Home, Your Investment, which details how buying a home is investing in your financial future. We also have Home Projects That Bring You High ROI.

The main goal in this phase is to get you in a position of trust. You need people to like you as a human being, and a lot of times, you want to do things by association. If you’re sharing tips for the process of buying a home or how to renovate your home to get more money out of it, those types of things, by association they think you know everything about buying homes and they will go to you. That brings you to the third phase of the approach, which is the funnel.

#3. Closing the deal.

If you don’t ask, you don’t receive. Don’t let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t be asking for business. It’s not so much about going in for the kill as you’ve now earned the right to ask for business. People say all the time, if you ask someone for a referral, for example, that they’re only going to give you a bad referral. But they still gave you a referral. You have one more name you can nurture, and maybe that’s a top of funnel name. But more important than that, you have planted the seed in that person’s mind that they can help you by giving you a referral.

People want to be a part of your journey. If you want your content to start exploding on social media, post about your journey. People will start tuning in. This is why people love Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The point is, when you ask for the business, even if you don’t get business, you’ve planted the seed. Now, when you back to the top of the funnel, it’s a beautiful cycle. Over the course of the year, if you’re in real estate, the average person knows three to five people looking to move—and your name will be in their mind.

Links:

• americanlifestylemag.com
• starthealthy.com

Action Items:

• Implement this funnel in your business: care, educate, close.