It's Not What You Know...

Networking 101

Since networking is critical to a salesperson’s success, it is important to build relationships that will provide value both now and in the future. In anything that is this critical to success, it is important to define the terms. The salient terms here are “Networking” and “Relationships.”

WHO IS ELIGIBLE FOR YOUR NETWORK?

Networks are systems or sets of contacts. Local businesses and professionals in your area might be considered a viable network for you. Your sphere of influence is another network and your past clients is yet one more. In addition, a network might be your geographic farm or farms and another network might be real estate agents from around the world. Think about this for a few minutes and you are sure to come up with more.

WHAT IS A RELATIONSHIP?

It is easy to see that you have some sort of a relationship with your sphere of influence and your past clients. These are all people you have met, spoken with, and spent some time with. But you can also have a relationship with other networks. I have a relationship with the brokers and agents who subscribe to this newsletter and yet I have spoken or met relatively few. A relationship is a connection, a bond, an association or a rapport. It is not necessary for you to actually meet the people in your network. It is important that there be some mutual benefit.

NETWORKS ONLINE

Before the Internet salespeople were more limited in their networking abilities than they are today. Internet technology lets you build and maintain profitable networks using your Website and Email communications.

Creating Relationships

Let’s look at how Internet technology can help you build and maintain mutual benefit networks. Starting with local businesses, you can have a Website created that allows you to give a link to any and all of the businesses in your area. This is helpful to them as an advertising tool and as a way to obtain top search engine placement without having to resort to pay-per-click advertising. So, offering a link to a local businessperson’s Website from your site is a great way to build and maintain a network. The advantage to you comes when these people use your real estate services and refers friends and family to you. Is this complicated? No, of course not. If you would like to talk with me and develop a plan for growth through networking, visit me online at http://www.sellrealestate.net/FreeWebPlan.asp.

GEOGRAPHIC FARM AS A NETWORK

Maybe you do not know very many people in a geographic area that you select to be your farm. Should that stop you from building an effective and powerful network? NO! The key to success here is mutual benefit. This means that you provide them with some useful information on your Website in return for the privilege of sending them an Enewsletter on a regular and consistent basis. It does not take a mental giant to know that homeowners want to know facts about recent sales and market trends in the neighborhood. So, if you give them what they want you will get what you want by keeping in touch and keeping faith with your network.

Search Engines Reward Networking

Networking is important in ways that many brokers and agents routinely overlook. Networking is BIG on the Internet and BIG with search engines. They like to see that you give links to others and that is pretty easy to do. They also like to see that other real estate related sites link to you. This is also pretty easy to do if your Website is set up properly. You can read a brief capsule of what search engines want and why they want it when you visit us online at http://www.sellrealestate.net
/SearchEnginePlacement.htm.

HOW IMPORTANT ARE LINKS?

A Web crawler is a type of a search engine that likes to follow links. It will follow links from your site to the sites you link to. If other sites link to your site, it will follow those links as well. Web Crawlers think links are IMPORTANT, really important. In fact, Web Crawlers think links are so important that if you do not have any Websites linking TO your site, it is very unlikely that you will get top search engine placement unless you rely on Pay-Per-Click Advertising. So, if good search engine placement is important to you and you don’t want to pay a monthly fee for it…THINK LINK!

WHY LINKS ARE IMPORTANT TO CRAWLERS

Let’s face it. A Web crawler, such as Google, sends out a Robot to crawl your Website. Your Website may be one of several hundred that would like to have top placement for a particular keyword phrase. So, how is the search engine supposed to decide who gets top placement? Well, they have their rules and one of their most important rules is determining the number of Websites that link to your site. Their reasoning is that if lots of other people think you are good enough to link to then the, the engine, think you are important too.