Ninja Mom’s Meeting Notes, September 2010

Thank you to all of the amazing women that came to our last Ninja Mom’s meeting.  I always leave inspired and with great new ideas that I can implement in my business.  If you are in the Seattle area and would like to attend a meeting, post a comment here and I’ll make sure to send you the invite.

Here are some of the great things that we talked about:

~ One of the things that I have been working on is getting my database cleaned up.  Making sure that I have everyone’s email and birthday and am connected to them on the various social networking sites.  Things that are important and will help my business, but things that I just never seem to get done for whatever reason.  I run everything on Outlook and have been wanting to hire someone to help with this, but then the question is how do they access the information since it is not an online program?  Turns out Microsoft Exchange will allow me to have an assistant access my Outlook so I am excited to get that ball rolling.

~ We talked about what agents are doing for their clients for the holiday season.  It is a great time of year to reconnect with people and the time that you put in now will pay dividends to ensure you have a good start to 2011.  Some of the various things that agents do are:

• Send winter and holiday themed postcards such as information for the various ski areas and snow shoeing parks.
• Some agents deliver cookies or pumpkin bread.  (A hint on the pumpkin bread.  Costco has the mix which is really great.  You can buy the paper bread molds and bake the bread in there.  Wrap it with plastic wrap and a pretty ribbon and you are all set.  High impact with minimal cost and effort.)
• I always send a letter to my clients at Thanksgiving thanking them for their continued support
• Another thing that has been alot of fun is a Santa party.  We do one at our house and everyone has a great time.  The kids have a blast and get to sing songs and hang out with Santa for a bit.
• The point of all of these things is not to be big or expensive, but to just connect with your clients so don’t over think it.  Take advantage of the season and get out there.
• Other great ways to connect with your clients is to invite families with you on your various activities.  Call one or two clients when you are heading out to the pumpkin patch or have them over for pumpkin carving.  Do a cookie exchange with your clients.  Meet some others for hot chocolate and enjoy the tree lightings when they start happening.  All of these things provide great opportunities to reconnect and cost little to no money.

~ Survey Monkeyis a great way to connect with your clients and gain valuable feedback. It is service that will allow you to poll your clients to find out what they like about your service, what they would change and what they wish you provided.  Or really anything else that you would like to know.  I did it this summer and got some great feedback on services that I can add to my business that my clients would appreciate.

~ We talked about the new book, 7 Levels of Communication that is out.  It is a quick read with some really great insights and different twists on ways to stay in touch with your clients, build deeper relationships and as a result, a really amazing business.

~ Other great books that were recommended include: Delivering Happiness, Go Givers, Go Givers Sell More, and Drive

~ We also talked about ways that we stay connected with our clients:

• Never under estimate the power of a hand written note card.   Your handwriting may not be perfect and the note card may not be the exact style that you want, but writing a heart felt note to someone will provide a positive and lasting impact that nothing else can.
• Facebook is a great way to keep in touch.  Yes, there is a fine line with online social media as it can turn into the ultimate time waster, but it is a great way to keep in touch with your clients on a more regular basis and can give you great reasons to pick up the phone and call.
• Mailings may be old fashioned, but they still really work. One of the agents in our meeting mapped out her postcards for the entire year and did timeless things such as Valentines Day / Feng Shui tips / great hikes in the area / green tips around the house / Father’s Day / Mother’s Day.  You get the picture.  The ingenious part is that she did these all without a date and had them printed.  Now she has her mailings for the year and all they need is a label and stamp and out the door they go.  No more reinventing the wheel every month to come up with an idea. Fantastic!

~ The last thing that we talked about is the power of stories when you are working with your clients.  When you are dealing with a Seller that wants to over price their home.  A story about what happened to someone else when they did that and as a result they sat on the market way too long and sold for so much less is much more powerful than you trying to use all of those ‘tools to over come objections’ that they teach you in various classes.  Be real and be honest and it will make the conversations go a whole lot easier.

Thank you again to all that attended.  We will be holding one more meeting before the end of the year so let me know if you would like to be there.

Here’s to a great 4th quarter!