Give 'Em Something to Talk About
The Entrepreneurial Excellence Series brings outstanding leaders to the conference, who offer valuable insights on how to take charge of your personal and professional growth. The first of the four-part series today featured Seth Godin, bestselling author and thought leader on marketing, change, and work. Seth began his talk by announcing his intention to make every person in the audience just uncomfortable enough with the status quo that each of us would be ready to make a change. He had my attention.
His ideas are simple, straightforward, and sometimes brutal. And ideas are the name of the game. Ideas that spread win. If everybody knows your idea, whether or not they agree with it, you win. Seth is full of ideas, and colorful, engaging stories about each one. His talk was riveting and I can't possibly touch on all the thought-provoking things he said. So I'll focus on one. Be remarkable.
Be remarkable. The market is cluttered. The Internet is cluttered. Our lives are cluttered. Sell something, an idea, that is worth talking about or do what you do in a way that's worth talking about. Sell to people who are listening instead of yelling at strangers. One of a REALTOR®'s greatest strengths is close ties to and investment in their communities. Another great strength is people. The very nature of real estate, a local business, fosters relationships and builds a network of people for a REALTOR®—people who know them, who trust them, and who rely on them. These are the people to sell to. These are the people who are listening. Be remarkable to these people and watch business grow. Give 'em something to talk about.
I could go on and on, but I won't. I do have to include one final point that hit home with me. The question was raised by an attendee, "What then? You are remarkable, you sell your great idea, you start a great blog and get people talking....what then?" Communities need a center, an accountability center, who makes everything a little more honest and everybody a little more comfortable. It's an old-fashioned idea that there's someone in the community who knows everybody, knows everybody's story, and touches everybody's lives in small ways that add up to big ones—the pillar of that particular society. Why can't those community centers, who keep things in balance, be REALTORS®? It's a simple idea that, in my humble opinion, makes a lot of sense.
