Real Sage Advice

Are you a Client or a Lead?

Because I'm in the real estate business, it means I am also in the referral business. I've written about my golden rolodex of referrals I use to refer other professionals to my senior clients.  I take the business of making referrals to my clients  very seriously. We hear all the time about seniors that are taken advantage of by someone they thought they could trust. Because of this vulnerability,I have some rules I use before I refer a moving company, a financial planner, an estate sale company, a handyman or other professional to the senior clients I work with.

There are rules I live by when I make referrals

• i) it must be someone who is licensed and insured if a license is available,
• ii) it must be someone I've had at least one positive experience with,
• iii) it must be someone who works full-time in their field, and
• iv) it must be someone who never offers me a referral fee. It's illegal. How can I look out for my client's best interest if I get money for referring them to another professional?

The best payment I can receive is someone who does an outstanding job for my client. The referrals I make to my clients reflect on me, and I'm not going to take a chance of tainting my relationship with my clients!

If you're someone who enjoys networking you've probably helped your friends and family find a professional service through an informal network of people. We all know someone like this. It's the person you go to and ask "Hey, do you know anyone who...?"

Referrals are Golden.It's the very best way to find a professional service- including your REALTOR(R)-bar none.

There are services out there to help those that are either networking impaired, or simply have not been able to find a referral to a professional service.  Think Angie's list.  It's a formal network of consumers who pay to see other consumers testimonial's of a particular professional service. The professionals listed on Angie's list do not pay to advertise, and so have no undue influence on the testimonial's you'll find.  This is a great way for consumers to get good information about local businesses. The process and information are transparent to us, the consumer.

Then, there are companies posing as matchmakers between the professional and the consumer. They claim to make "referrals" to the consumer to the most qualified local business to help them with their needs.  ServiceMagic is one of these companies. Let me say I don't have anything against the ServiceMagic company in particular.  What I do have a problem with is lead generation companies in general. You have to ask yourself.  If the consumer doesn't pay for these referrals, how does this company stay in buisiness? Here's a quote direct from ServiceMagic's website:

How does ServiceMagic get paid if this is a free service?
[The Consumers] are not charged for this service because service professionals pay advertising fees to participate in ServiceMagic's network. Service professionals specify the type of work they do and the geography they serve. ServiceMagic provides new customer leads that match these requests and service professionals pay a fee for each lead they receive. These fees do not affect your estimate. You can get other information about ServiceMagic here.

You're kidding yourself if you think the advertising fees plus the referral fees that Service Magic charges to the business aren't charged back to you, the consumer.

Think about this.  If most reputable businesses are making a great business out of referrals they get from happy customers, why would a reputable business PAY for your name and number?!?  Lead generation companies such as ServiceMagic are charging companies to recieve consumer names and numbers. Those companies have to re-coup those business expenses somewhere...and that's where you come in. Prices go up when advertising costs go up.  It's simple economics.  So now, you are paying MORE to use a company that PAID FOR your name and number.

What are the chances that you, who has  now become a purchased name and number are going to have the same experience as your neighbor who get's a personal referral?  You have a choice.  You can be on a list of purchased leads from a lead generation company, or you can be referred to as a person. For example:

Business makes the phone call to you : Hi, I understand you're in the market for a new widget, do I have a deal for you. Act now and I'll throw in a free thing-a-ma-jig.

Or, you receive a personal referral and call the REALTOR referred to you:"Hi, I'm Harold's nephew, John. You sold Harold a house in Minneapolis and he told me to call you." My response: "He told me about you!  I heard you're getting married!" 

Quite a difference in consumer experience, wouldn't you say?

The maze of Senior Services

If you've tried to navigate senior services, you have an appreciation for what I like to call "the maze". Talk about moving the cheese! If you haven't experienced it, let me try to paint a picture for you. Let's say you're working with your Mom, you know she should be moving out of her home because last week when you visited her, you noticed the milk in the refrigerator had curdled, the snow on the front walk hadn't been shoveled, and worse,the gas stove had been left on. You open the yellow pages and see a sea of small ads for senior housing. None of those ads tell you much about the senior communities, so you decide to "google" them. You Google the term "senior housing Twin Cities". You get some Senior Housing Directories, some blogs and some specific communities. At this point you realize what you really need is for someone to say "here are two or three senior communities that fit your financial requirements and what you want in a community." What most people would do is start by contacting a senior community. Which is fine, but you should know the property manager at that senior community has a product to sell. It is her job to make sure she has you come in to see her to sign a lease agreement! So, how do you navigate this maze when you don't even know what the cheese at the end of the maze looks like?

Among the professionals within Minneapolis and St. Paul that have dedicated their professional lives to working with seniors, there is networking that occurs. There are networking groups and conferences and classes that are filled with metro area Social Workers, health care workers, small business owners, and yes, also Realtors who specialize in working with seniors. The purpose of these get togethers is usually to network, sometimes to meet continuing education requirements, but here's the net result. We know each other, we know each other's services, we know who to refer you to.

As a consumer this should make you a little miffed. The senior industry hasn't gotten around to drawing you a map of how to navigate this maze. The problem is these well-meaning people who have dedicated their lives and their businesses to work with seniors are focused on helping their clients once their clients have found them. They haven't quite figured out how to work together to help you find them. Whether you're trying to help your Mom stay safely at home, help her move, help her eat correctly, or help her get a ride to pick up her prescriptions; someone in the Twin Cities Senior network could help you find all of those services.

Here's a tip, start by picking up the phone and calling the Senior Linkage Line. 1-800-333-2433.

Consumer Beware

I attended a closing last Friday during which the buyer's mortgage officer asked me if my job was getting tougher with all the "internet stuff" out there. I said "no, why would you think that?" She said because people were able to get their own information they would be less likely to need me.  I assured her I do more than offer information to people.  If anything, I've had to add another facet to my job...to re-educate people who get faulty information from the internet or from the media. The biggest danger from the "internet stuff" is for people to get inaccurate information and then use it to make a major life decision!  Believe it or not, you can't believe everything you read on the internet!  The more information we have as consumers, the better decisions we make. As a REALTOR the more in control my clients feel,and the more accurate information they have, the better they feel about their decisions, and the better I look!