20 Ways to Blow it with Your Sphere of Influence (SOI*)
June 12, 2008
I love SOI. It’s my thing; it’s my passion. I think every self-employed salesperson oughta include a little SOI in their arsenal. Or a lot. Literally from Day One of my real estate career, my business has been nearly 100 percent SOI with a few random floor calls, walk-ins and web leads tossed in as gravy.
But if you’re gonna SOI, you better do it right! Not everyone does. In fact, most don’t. Not because they’re stupid or incompetent or insensitive, not at all! Rather, because most salespeople have never been shown the right way to do it. When done right, an SOI business model actually changes the way the salesperson views his business … and his world.
Most experienced real estate salespeople claim to embrace an SOI philosophy. They support the idea of generating business and referrals from the people they know. But the reality is that the vast majority of real estate agents fail miserably in their SOI efforts. Even worse, they manage to alienate many of their friends and family members along the way!
And then they proclaim that “SOI is a lousy way to run a business!”
Well, they’re wrong. And, they’re right. They’re wrong that an SOI strategy is a poor business model, but they’re right that it was a lousy business model for them. Because they didn’t understand how to do it right.
If you’re gonna SOI, you better do it right. If you’re gonna do it wrong, don’t do it at all. The personal relationships in your life are far too important to risk!
For your reading enjoyment, here are twenty ways to blow it with your SOI:
- 1. Ask a friend to lunch and give her your sales pitch (every time)
- 2. Call your friends on the first Monday of every month and ask if they have any referrals for you.
- 3. If they don’t, ask them why not.
- 4. Angrily (or tearfully) confront your friends and family if they use another real estate agent
- 5. Take on business you aren’t qualified to handle
- 6. Blow off your friend’s housewarming party, but expect her to be loyal to you
- 7. Attend your friend’s housewarming party and sales-pitch everyone to death
- 8. Tell everyone you know how lousy the real estate market is
- 9. Tell everyone you know how overwhelmed you are
- 10. Tell everyone you know how depressed you are about your real estate business
- 11. Send out an announcement letter with typo’s and misspellings
- 12. Send your friends frequent “forward this on for good luck or else” mass emails
- 13. Pepper your language with four-letter words
- 14. Borrow money or books or tools or whatever and don’t return them in a timely manner
- 15. Don’t return social phone calls or RSVP’s
- 16. Try to hijack referral fees from your family’s pre-existing real estate relationships
- 17. Ignore your SOI in favor of mass-advertising projects (then get your feelings hurt when they use someone else)
- 18. Contact your friends only when you’re looking for business
- 19. Offer bribes to your friends for referrals
- 20. Sell real estate “on the side”
*An “SOI” (sphere of influence) business strategy means to generate business and referrals from the people who know you.
About the Author:
Jennifer Allan is a top producing real estate broker, a published author, a speaker and a trainer. She has written five books about the business of selling real estate, including her flagship book: Sell with Soul: Creating an Extraordinary Career in Real Estate without Losing Your Friends, Your Principles or Your Self-Respect. Her book shows new agents how to jumpstart their career so that they can experience success before they become discouraged and risk being just another real estate statistic.
Jennifer began her writing career after ten years of selling real estate successfully in Denver, Colorado. She was dismayed at the low level of professionalism she frequently encountered in the real estate industry and, with her "soulful" message, hopes to encourage the real estate community to self-correct the negative stereotypes of the profession.
She is a regular columnist at Realty Times and RE/MAX Times, and one of the industry's most popular bloggers. She recently rejoined her former RE/MAX office as a broker associate and is thoroughly enjoying dividing her time between real estate sales, writing, and coaching.
To learn more about Jennifer's books and philosophies, please visit her website at http://www.sellwithsoul.com/.
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