Bloggle Your Mind/The Hub & Spokes Solution

Clicks, Bricks, Or Both?

Certainly there are those who are willing to hit the bricks. One of the largest and most successful direct sales firms in the country APX Alarm prospers as it has tapped into those willing to hit the bricks and sell door to door. APX Alarm provides quality products and top notch service for home security. Most of their sales force is made up of college students. As in all sales not all college students are up to the rejection door to door salespersons must go through to succeed. A logical conclusion is that some can succeeding by hitting the bricks.

My background of real estate and mortgage sales has placed me in the company of many hundreds of friends and collegues in this industry. How many if any were willing to hit the bricks? I can think of 1 and it wasn’t me. Oh I hit the bricks one day. I hated it.

The one I can think of was really successful. She was a top producer. She dominqted her market, a community north of  Seattle. Today she believes hitting the bricks or as the industry calls it, farming, is a certain way to success. She doesn’t do it any more. She found her way out of sales into management, then ownership. Now that may be a good thing and may have been her career path plan. But more likely she got tired of farming. Was it the Seattle rain she got tired of fighting? Was it the rejection? Was it the disclipine required? Is it just too hard? Oh, I just thought of a second one. He farmed his neighborhood in Bellevue. He too doesn’t do that any more even though it was good for business.

I think just too hard and maybe just too discouraging might be the reason agents don’t sustain farming. It’s not hard physically, rather hard emotionally.

So may I conclude that none of us are likely to hit the bricks permanently?

How about phoning the bricks? I was in an office sales meeting where a company top producer had been endorsed for his success in cold calling. We now had this guys fool proof no lose guaranteed sure fire phone script. YIPPEE the manager explained. Let’s all meet here next Tuesday at 10AM and do this together. Together we will be brave. As I recall there were about 40 of us in the meeting. How many do you think showed up for this 2 hour team marathon? Answer = 3. I was one of them. Now don’t get my motive wrong, I had no intention of doing this. I was merely curious if I was the lone party pooper. I came a little late, poked my head in the room to see the crowds on the phone, noted the two of them entusiastically making calls, and I quitely closed the door.

But I have discovered something I can do, will do, do do, and will do more often. What I do is come out of my bashful shell and go  places. I go to bank grand openings, local events, chamber networking events, and I even visit merchants to make acquaintances. What makes it so I like doing this? I have a blog I am proud of. More correctly we, my wife Kathleen and I, have a blog we are proud of. It is about our little city Issaquah. We tell people we undress all the positive things about Issaquah. The time I spend doing this type of marketing is amazingly fun and effective.

Recently at an event we picked up a buyer as a client. She was one that was interested in us. She asked back, what do you do? We write a blog about Issaquah I said. Oh, what is its name? Issaquah Undressed .com. OH MY she said.  Its ok I said, it’s G rated. OH SURE she said. It is I said, here let me pull it up for you. So out came my blackberry. She was impressed. I told her we do this to build our real estate practice. OH I HAVE AN AGENT SHE SAID. But she kept talking about the blog. Here let me show you some Google results I offered. She was interested. After showing her our front page results on important search terms she proclaimed she was interested in buying a home and renting out her condo. But I thought you had an agent I said. OH I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT THE AGENT I CALLED OFF HIS SIGN. HE HASN’T CALLED ME BACK YET. I THINK I WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU.

As Kathleen and I left the bank we left we noticed we not only attended and tooks some photos we would post but that we actually mixed with almost everyone there. We were comfortable asking people about themselves. Of course not all asked about us which was ok.

There are so many good reasons to combine the internet tools to the personal contact opportunities going on. Not always is the result a sale but sometimes. Perhaps always is the opportunity to get to know someone new and someone nice.

Clicks, Bricks, or both? I vote for both.

Irregardless of what business you are in, doing both clicks and bricks works. Oh, that makes me realize there is another option: none of the above. I still vote for both Clicks and Bricks.

Photo from Flickr and by Pieter Musterd

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