Unchained: Increasing Your At-Bats — Seeing Your Own Gold

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

I’ll be speaking at Unchained — sharing what I’ve learned about creating new business through my online efforts. This post is about marketing. BawldGuy Marketing might just be the oxymoronic phrase of the year. 🙂

I’ve never understood the finer points of marketing. It takes a different kinda mind than the one with which I was gifted. (At least Mom said it was a gift.) There is a definite science to it. It’s hard to deny there’s also a certain art to successful marketing. To those who are good at it, I offer my profound respect.

Over the years we learn a bit as we watch the marketing masters. (The next original marketing thought I have will be the first.) I don’t think I’m all that in marketing, ‘cuz clearly that just ain’t the case.

I’m Japan.

They don’t produce many original products — they take a product or idea and put their spin on it. They see their own gold in others’ ideas.

Although I certainly lay no claim to making particular marketing ideas better, (a laughable concept if ever there was one) I do reshape them to fit my company’s agenda. What may not work for me as originally designed, works like gangbusters when tweaked juuuust a little bit. Sometimes I just extract one extraneous factor from a major marketing concept.

Here’s an example taken from my own personal WayBack Machine.

About 20 years ago I began sending out targeted letters to local investors. Original, huh? Anyway, the results were OK, calls were coming in and business was being done. However it wasn’t delivering the results for which I’d hoped. Then one day I remembered a book I’d read, written by a local guy who’d transitioned from a totally unrelated industry into investment real estate. He wasn’t sending letters. He was cold calling — except he added his own twist.

I adopted his new twist, but into my letters, not phone calls. The results were unexpected. What was this brilliant new angle? He simply took pictures of the properties whose owners he was calling. The owner would be politely trying to get rid of him when this agent said, “Mr. Apartment Owner, I’ve seen your units, and I think it’s possible they might be a match for a couple buyers with whom I’m presently working.”

Credibility was quickly established — he did six figures his first year in the business — this, in the ’80’s when that was real money.

My letters’ response rate went through the roof. Literally? I was forced to take a break from mailing for a couple months. It was that effective.

Was it my idea? Absolutely not. Did I take it, repurpose it for letters and make it work my way? Yep. The approach was so successful I had to cut my mailings by 75% in terms of quantity per letter.

See? — Japan.

I’ve done the same thing online. Nothing’s changed, as I still can’t market my way out of a wet paper bag. I’m always taking other’s ideas and seeing how they could be adapted to what I do. 90% of the time I’ve gotta change most of what others are doing with it. I’m still using the core concept of what the marketer originally created. And just for the record, no, I have no pride. I’ll take whatever you offer and make it my own if I can see even a sliver of daylight. Just ask Brian Brady. Fortunately he encourages theft of his ideas. 🙂

The latest idea falling prey to my modification process (sounds so much better than idea theft) came from my own marketing folks, long since departed. Hey, that means I didn’t steal it. Anyway, about three years ago they conducted a survey of my client base, asking them what they wished I would start doing.

The answer came right out of the Twilight Zone.

They wanted to give me more referrals, but their family, friends, and neighbors had been a little intimidated by her description of what I did. I swear this is a true story. Their solution? I come to their homes giving intimate seminars to their hand picked referrals — all of whom were eager to meet me, just on neutral/familiar ground. Go figure.

I did it, and called the first two ‘seminars’ Beta tests — mostly ‘cuz I thought it made me sound like I knew marketing stuff. 🙂

The results?

The first ‘in-condo’ seminar produced eight transactions — so far.

The second, a full on Saturday afternoon BBQ with steaks & salmon produced another eight transactions — so far.

Those results were acceptable. 🙂

Here’s the punch line

These were ideas filtered through my own agenda

They produced more at-bats — therefore more chances to hit homers

Same with the letters — more at-bats meant more homers

Marketing ideas aren’t found on Moses’ tablets — Change ’em to your liking

Experts in marketing abound. In fact I’d go as far as saying you can’t swing a dead cat online without hitting a couple. Pay attention to what they say. Every now and then they’ll come up with something you’ll be able to mold to your agenda. Stop treating their advice as Holy Writ — commandments which must be obeyed, every jot and tittle.

See where you can pencil yourself into the every day lineup with new prospects. Think of it this way — Babe Ruth wouldn’t have hit 714 homers if his managers hadn’t put him in the lineup day in and day out. Nobody hits homers from the dugout. The Babe got 4-6 at-bats daily 140-150 games a year — year in and year out. That’s the only way a home run hitter can hit over 700 homers — the only way.

In the final analysis, isn’t that all marketing is good for — giving us more at-bats on a regular basis? If you (me, anyone) produce enough at-bats on a consistent basis, we experience success. But you have to see your own gold first — and it’s everywhere these days.

Begin looking at marketing ideas with an eye for how you can custom tailor it to your specific operation. Before you know it one of them will be that perfect fast ball thrown right where you like it — and you’ll hit it out of the park. As you’re going into your ‘home run trot’ think of me, OK?