I bought a place about 4 years ago using a realtor here in Phoenix (there are over 65,000 realtors in this city now). Since I bought the place and she got her commission, she's never sent me one card, picked up the phone one time or sent me ANYTHING of value at all.
Instead she sends out these “piece of garbage”, generic letters (see attached photo: to protect the ignorant, I cloned out her name) with the unprofessional white office labels printed on an office laser
printer by her secretary. In the letters she includes a meaningless generic flyer that is provided by the parent company and a form letter with filler information that’s not even signed by this woman and her partner. Of course in the letter she asks for referrals and the opportunity to work with me again.
Do you think I am going to give this woman anything beyond an unfavorable hand gesture? Nope.
This is the problem that most business owners fall into when it comes to communicating with clients, and I want you to be aware of it when you communicate so you’re getting the most out of your time, effort and money.
By communicating with me in this impersonal, almost spam-like approach, the realtor is making one thing overwhelming clear to me – she doesn’t give a darn about me, she just wants me to buy from her. This realtor treats me like a customer: she sells and I buy, that’s the way the customer relationship is.
No one likes being treated like a customer, and that’s why I will never buy or refer someone to this woman again.
What you’ll want to do is to communicate and treat your people like clients, or even fans. Instead of mailing out junk to people, your communication needs to be personal, meaningful, consistent and relevant to your audience. Communicate with your clients by showing that you care about them. Give them real value, provide them with information that they care about, not home-made form mails and generic flyers that they’ll throw away.
In the context of this example, the form letter and generic flyer are not purposeful, meaningful or relevant. She’s consistent, I’ll give her that. But a dog can consistently go to the bathroom on the rug, but that doesn’t make it a good thing.
If you want to keep in the forefront of your client’s minds, if you want to show them that you care for them and you hope to continue to get referrals and business from them, make sure you send out info your clients want.
Whether it’s an email, newsletter, mailed letter, post card, etc., if what you send out is personal, meaningful, and relevant – you’ve got a winner, if not, don’t send it.
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