If we were writing Naked Conversations right now, Maggie Knowles SunnySpot would very likely be used as a great example of a very human small business blog. Maggie, is a residential real estate broker in Souther California, hardly a topic that gets my passion twanger clanging.
But Maggie's blog is a lot better than the brochure type delivery you might fearfully anticipate from a ReMax franchisee. But Maggie is wise enough to understand that we do business with people we know and that's because we trust people we know.
Maggie has her Remax sign well-placed in her banner, but her topics are on all sorts of things, such as global warming. She interviews people in her industry with a definite attempt to get them to give information that is relevant to potential home buying/selling readers. She figures people with similar values to her own will seek her out.
It's too soon to call her interesting attempt a success. It only started in March. In fact, she's new to the profession having only started in January 2005. In her first year she sold nine houses, but to accomplish that, she told me she
"...spent a lot of money advertising on the radio, newspapers, with a web site, and got no return for my money. I produced a public access show about real estate and even though I was well prepared, the equipment at the cable company was very old and the interns very inexperienced.It took months to get studio time and weeks to get the show on the air.
I was looking for an inexpensive way to market myself as a real estate agent. Blogging seems to be the answer."
She gets the essential Cluetrain concept of the conversation generated through her blog
"I hope to get sellers calling me to list their house and buyers calling me to find them a house to buy. I hope to use it to meet successful people in my industry and create content for my blog via interviews with them. I hope that it will be a place that people can go and learn about me and what I value, to help me gain their trust. I hope it will help me attract clients who share similar values. I hope that I get to meet people all over the world. I hope that it will create opportunities for me to move away from the congestion of the Los Angeles area to somewhere closer to nature. Wow, I didn't realize I was hoping for so much!"
Maggie told me that on a recent day she had about 75 visitors, only one who became a prospect. But then, the cost of acquiring the prospect was incredibly low. Someone, please remind me to circle back to Maggie in a few months to determine of she becomes an example of a measurable ROI, something that most corporate decision makers are still struggling over.
