Download MP3

Dear Friend,

This week we’re going to continue talking a little bit about the works of Scott Ginsberg. You may have heard my interview with Scott last week and Scott was the gentleman who wears a nametag 24/7.

If you want to check out last week’s podcast you’ll hear an interview with him and he’s become the worlds leading authority on approachability. And I’ve got some great lessons from reading his books here, I’ve been kind of studying them over the last few weeks. I’m going to share a couple of the lessons that I learned from his books and I hope you’ll be able to pick up some of his books as well.

The first lesson that I learned was from his book ‘How to be that guy’ and it’s a fantastic book and inside there are lots of lessons about really what I see as how to differentiate yourself, how to really be in somebody’s mind, the one person that they can think of when they need to think of real estate.

And so here I’m going to share some of the lessons that I’ve learned.

Lesson Number 1: Be the only one.

You know it’s interesting when I look in the book, he’s got a very neat quote in here from Jerry Garcia and the quote is ‘Don’t just be the best at what you do, be the only one who does what you do’. And you know that’s pretty interesting because when you start looking at that you know the question that Scott asks is there anyone else who does exactly what you do? And you know I kind of laughed to myself when I’m reading it because if you’re a realtor in any major city, you know that there are literally thousands of people who do exactly what you do. Now how can you differentiate yourself?

You know there’s a great opportunity for you to be the only person who produces a weekly podcast all about the brand new town homes that have come on the market in Georgetown, or in your city. You know you could be the only one who has YouTube videos of very townhouse complex in your community. You know what kind of things could you do that would position you as the only person who does what you do?

You know it was very interesting in the email that I sent to invite you to come and listen to the interview last week, I suggested that you go to Google and do a little experiment. If you haven’t done it yet you’re going to be amazed at what happens. If you go to Google right now and you just type in the word ‘approachability’, just go ahead and do that and you’ll be amazed at what happens because it will appear as if Scott Ginsberg is the only person in the world who has ever had anything to say about approachability. I’ve never seen anything like it, you’re going to find that out of all of the results that come up, there’ll be pages and pages of results all from Scott, and all from writing that he has done. And you know so there’s a fantastic opportunity for you to really pick an area that you’re going to be the only one that does in your community. And there’s big, big dividends that you can gain from that.

Lesson Number 2: People buy people first.

You know a lot of times we kind of lead with our profession and you know we see… we talked about the idea of wearing a nametag and the difference between wearing a nametag with just your first name on it or wearing a nametag that has your company logo on it and your… you know is professionally printed, that if you’re just leading with nametag that has your first name on it and people see that and they’re approaching you, you’re going to find that they’re approaching you as a person, not as a professional and that’s a fantastic idea.

You know when Scott’s saying that he’s had three to five people a day approach him because he’s wearing his nametag I’ve got to think those are pretty good odds for you. You know it reminded me of a story that when I was selling real estate here in Georgetown I ended up helping the owner of one of the local convenience stores here sell his house, his mother’s house and an investment property. They were moving out of the city, they were moving up north and he asked me to help him because we had struck up a friendship, I’d gone into his stores and he said ‘You were always very friendly’. And before he even knew I was a realtor, and that was his way of saying that ‘You know I liked you before I even knew that you were in real estate. And then when I found out you were in real estate you’re the one’. And I thought you know what that’s what this portion reminded me of, that so often you know we end up just leading with our profession that we want people to know what we do, rather than who we are. And so I think there’s a good lesson there for us.

Lesson Number 3: Find under used hot spots for what Scott calls your personal branding iron.

And you know it was very interesting because what he suggests at looking at are two things that you kind of have a big opportunity with but you don’t really pay attention to very much. Is your email from line, the line that says who this email is from and you know I’m not going to say too much about it but if you just go to your inbox right now and look at all of the emails that have come into your inbox, what ones stand out from the sea of emails?

You know it was very interesting for me because I get hundreds of emails and when I looked through there there were very few that stood out in my mind, and I makes you kind of wonder what could I do in that opportunity there, what could I do in my email from line. Now also attached to your email is what can you do in your email signature to kind of differentiate yourself. You know there’s a great opportunity there for you to have information about whatever it is that you’re the only one who does what you do. It’s a great place to spread the word there because think of all the emails that you send out.

Lesson Number 4: It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.

I found that was a pretty interesting situation, Scott in the book was sharing an idea or you know reality of what happens when you start to get a lot of media attention. Like he had been on CNN and got a call from Jeffrey Gitomer who you’ve probably heard of, he’s written lots of books. Who was just introducing himself and has just sort of become one Scott’s friends and mentors. And you know when you start realising that boy there’s lots of opportunity out there if lots of other people start spreading the word about you. And you know the more people that you know, the more opportunity that you are out there, the more your name is going to spread. And it’s always interesting when people start you know approaching you because they’ve heard of you, not heard from you. And I thought that’s pretty interesting, you know that when you start thinking about all the opportunities that you have, the best opportunity is to have a reputation that precedes you.

Lesson Number 5: You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket.

And you know Scott tells a very interesting story in one of his books about being on a bus on Thanksgiving in Portland. And sitting next to somebody he had his nametag on and he started a conversation with this gentleman and turns out he was telling him all about this new book that was coming out, this was his very first book, the first time he had written one. And you know the gentleman just had a nice, pleasant conversation with him but one week later Scott got a call from a lady who was with the Portland Tribune and wanted to do a feature article about Scott and his whole concept of wearing a nametag and talk about his new book that was coming up. And you know when you hear and read the story you see the seeds of what can happen with you know having that opportunity.

So from being in the Portland Tribune he got calls from CNN, from CBS, he’s ended up on 20/20, he’s been in USA Today, he’s become all of a sudden a nationally known celebrity really. And because of doing what he does consistently. You know if he was not wearing his name tag, if he was not practising the art of approachability none of that would’ve happened. And you know when you think about it you think sometimes well wearing a nametag, that’s really… I don’t know that that can have a big impact on me. But when you look at what opportunities can come from that if you do it consistently rather that sporadically. You know if you’re testing just to try it out, you’re going to find that three to five people a day will approach you and you’re able to lead with your person and build relationships and you never know what’s going to happen if you’re being approached and opening up opportunities with three to five people a day.

One of our listeners was taking up the experiment of wearing a nametag, was walking into a restaurant, was stopped by somebody who was sitting in the restaurant just saying… you know they say ‘Hey’ and got into a conversation with them and it turns out that this gentleman was a buyer, real estate buyer for a major franchise. And he ended up setting up an appointment to talk about some opportunities with him, all because he was just wearing a nametag that made him more approachable that started a conversation. So I thought you know what those are some pretty cool lessons and all in all I really would very highly recommend that you take a chance to read some of Scott’s books here.

Here are the links to his books once again:

Tune in next time and we’ll have even more ideas to get more listings, to find more buyers and convert more leads. Thanks and have a great week.