The Greatest Marketing Strategy to Ever Exist

We've been in the coaching business now for 26 years, helped thousands and thousands of agents, and I can confidently say that this is the best marketing strategy for any business. It's called delivering the unexpected. Let me explain. Welcome to the Richard Robbins Show where we coach you to greatness.

A number of years ago, many years ago actually, I was in San Francisco, and I had the good fortune of being invited to speak at the National Association of Realtors Conference. And I was staying in a hotel. It was called the Argent Hotel. Anyway, I checked in, did my speaking engagement, staying overnight, and the next morning I was leaving.

I came down the elevator the next morning, and I had my roller bag, I had my briefcase, and I was heading over to the front desk, you know, back in the day when you still had to walk to the front desk to check out. Anyway, I'm standing there, a couple people in front of me, I'm waiting in line and a porter, a gentleman, walked up to me and he said, sir, you're leaving us today. I said, yes, I am. He goes, are you going to need a cab or do you want us to bring your car up?

I said, no, actually, I need a cab. He goes, I'll get a cab for you right away, sir. And he disappeared. Anyway, he was gone and all of a sudden he came back and he said, I have a cab out front for you, sir.

Would you like me to take your suitcase there and put it in the cab? I said, well, that would be great. Pulled my briefcase off and away he goes with my roller bag. And I do remember looking at him for a moment, thinking, I hope he really works here, if you know what I'm saying.

Anyway, way it goes. I check out and I start, you know, heading towards the front door. And as I'm heading towards the front door, he catches up with me again. And again, a while ago, he had two newspapers in his hand.

And he said, you're about 40 minutes to the airport. Would you like a newspaper to read on the way? I said, well, that'd be wonderful. And he said, I got the San Francisco Chronicle and I got the USA Today.

I said, I'll take the USA Today. So we continued to walk He walking along with me You know why right He wants his tip I get it And then all of a sudden he says this He said there a Starbucks right at the corner Would you like me to have the cab driver stop at the Starbucks Get yourself a coffee You can have a coffee, read the paper on the way to the airport before you get on the plane. And I remember thinking to myself, like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?

Like, do you know how big your tip is getting right now? Like, this is absolutely incredible. So anyway, I did tip him very well. doesn't matter how much but I get in that cab we did get a coffee and all the way to the airport all I did was think about him I kept thinking about him I go are you kidding me like with that type of attitude would you agree that no matter what he did for living he would succeed and the answer is yes now if that hotel was smart you know they would do somebody like that they would actually you know they would actually give him a promotion and then make him responsible for other people and then he could teach the other people how to do it.

But when I think about it, I thought, think about what he was doing. In other words, I get off the elevator, he's standing there by the porter desk and he sees me get off and he's probably thinking to himself, what can I do that's delivering the unexpected to this particular customer so that maybe he will consider giving me a little bigger tip than I would normally get. And by the way, there's two other porters standing they're doing nothing. So he's really creative.

So how do I bring value to this person so that he's willingly going to pay me money? So of course, you know the story, and I did pay him money. So when I think about that story all the time, I said, if you think about success in the world, it's what we do after we've done what we're expected to do that will ultimately determine our success in life and in business. It works in relationships as well.

And so we created this concept called DTUing And this is where what we do is you know we encourage people to go way above and beyond And the reason is is because when you think about it there three levels of relationships in the world There what we call a satisfied customer Now will a satisfied customer do business with you again Maybe maybe not right But then there the second level of a relationship. It's called a loyal customer. Now, will a loyal customer do business with you?

Of course, that's what loyalty is. That means, yeah, they're going to do business with you again. But just because they're loyal, does that mean they're going to refer business to you, not necessarily, right? So the third level of relationship is called advocacy.

And advocacy is what it's all about. Because when you get to advocacy, what happens is other people will support you, and they will argue for you, and they will plead in your favor. And that is the definition of advocacy, everybody. So when I think about that, I go, can you imagine that all of us have this opportunity to build this amazing business where what we do is we provide such a high level of service that we turn everybody in to advocates.

Now, we all know that maybe not everybody's going to refer business to you, but that's not the point. The point is the mindset of saying, how can I do more than I get paid? Because as Zig Ziglar said, then the day will come when you get paid more than you do. So think about your business.

You have what I call, you know, three opportunities in your business. You have, you know, before the sale, during the sale, and after the sale. So somebody reaches out to you, you're showing property, you're on a listing presentation, what can you do to blow their mind during that period of time? Then you have during the sale, you know, this is maybe when you have the listing and you're working to get that listing sold, then of course you have post-sale service.

And I want to tell you a story. One of our teachings is called the one day, one week, one month follow up program. And this program made me a fortune when I was selling real estate. So what I would do somebody moves into their house I would phone them the day after and I would check in and make sure everything okay And then I wait a week I phone them a week later make sure everything was okay And then I phone a month later make sure everything was okay And then I introduce them to you know, my newsletters, my client appreciation parties, right?

That sort of thing. So one day, I'll never forget. I called the day after, the gentleman's name was Gary. And I said to Gary, hey, Gary, you get all moved in.

Oh yeah, we got all moved in. How's this going? Oh, it's going really, really well. And he said this to me, he goes, Rich, you know, I'm wondering, the automatic garage door opener doesn't work.

I said, hmm, that's interesting. He said, like, what should I do is call my lawyer. I said, Gary, don't worry about it. I'm going to look after it.

He goes, what do you mean? It's not your fault. Like, I said, no, it's all cool, man. I'm going to get it looked after.

I'm going to get one of my handyman. They'll come over. But a week later, I get a garage door opener put on his house. Well, I remember Gary.

He called me after. He was unbelievably thankful, but not unbelievably thankful. In the next 12 months, he sent me six referrals. Six referrals.

Why? Because I delivered the unexpected. See, the way I look at it is every problem you have with a client is nothing but an opportunity to show them what you're all about. So here's what I'm going to suggest.

Take the pre-sale, the during-sale, and the post-sale, and just start writing out whether you do it on yellow stickies on a wall or whether you do it on a notepad, whatever the case is, and start writing down and get creative. What can we do pre-sale, during sale, and post-sale to deliver the unexpected? And when you do that, you're going to develop advocates. When you develop advocates, you're going to have a whole team of people that are helping you grow your business.

As always, thank you for sticking around right to the end. Remember, if you like this content, please subscribe, and that way you'll get more of this type of content from us. Also, if you know somebody that's, you know, this will be useful, please share it with them as well. And what's cool about this idea, this isn't just for real estate agents.

This will work for any business at all. And remember everybody, it's a beautiful life. Make it count.