While you have to take everything you learn with a grain of salt, the answer is yes. In essence, business is business. While the product, service, or customer may change, the art of selling remains the same in many respects.
3 Lessons from the Real Estate Industry
For the purposes of this discussion, let’s examine the real estate industry. It offers plenty of valuable lessons and takeaways that can be effortlessly transferred to unrelated niches of the consumer marketplace. If you’re a business owner, salesperson, marketer, or advertiser, you’ll benefit from knowing the following:
1.
Visibility is a Must
If you’re selling your house, how do you let people know it’s on the market? While internet marketing has obviously created dozens of different channels, we’ll take a simple approach here. When your house is for sale, you put a sign in the yard; that’s just how it works. If there’s no for-sale sign, nobody knows the house is on the market.
It may sound like an obvious piece of advice, but how many times have you talked with a business owner and they seem to have this idea that customers are supposed to find them? Sorry, that’s just not how it works. Only massive brands that have put in years of work can expect the majority of their sales volume to come from organic leads. Market
visibility is a must
. Customers need to know you’re open for business – there shouldn’t be any question about it.
2.
First Impressions Matter
In real estate, there’s nothing more important
than the first impression
. It doesn’t matter how attractive or nice the inside of a home is, it’ll never get any showings if the outside is falling apart. That’s why realtors and sellers spend so much time addressing landscaping and monitoring curb appeal.
From a business perspective, you need to consider what first impression you’re giving your customers. While the inner-workings of your business may be phenomenal, are you doing what’s necessary to attract and engage customers from the start? You may find certain marketing techniques to be superficial and surface-level, but they’re often important components of a successful sales strategy.
3.
Extras Go a Long Way
Freebies, extras, add-ons – whatever you want to call them – they work. In real estate, especially luxury real estate, you’ll often see agents or sellers throw extra items at potential buyers. These are generally small items that cost very little when compared to the price tag of the property. However, it’s not the price tag that matters. It’s the idea of getting something extra that has an impact.
“When you are buying a luxury property, those small things may not add up to a significant portion of the cost,”
says Rohit Bhargava
, strategy and marketing expert, “but could mean the world when it comes to helping a customer establish an emotional connection with a property based on more than just hard details like the bathroom count or location.”
This holds true in other industries, too. If you can spend a few extra dollars to establish an emotional connection with the customer, that’s money well spent. Emotionally engaged customers are much more likely to become repeat purchasers than those who simply made a buying decision based on a sale price or promotion.
Putting it All Together
The real estate industry is certainly unique, but it’s also highly relatable. The aforementioned business lessons can be applied to a number of different professions and are already being used by successful business owners, salespeople, marketers, and advertisers throughout the world. Which lessons will you apply, and how will they impact your business for the better?
