You’re reading a blog right at this moment. Our somewhat-rhetorical question today is, “Should you as an auctioneer blog?” and/or “Should any professional in business today have a blog?” We think so.
I have told 1,000’s of prospective auctioneers and real estate licensees that blogging is a key part of building an Internet presence where instead of you finding your clients and customers, they can find you.
Here’s the typical “story” I present to future real estate licensees when I am teaching at Hondros College of Business:
Jodi moved to Colorado when she was 18 years old. She’s now 40 years old and her mother has decided to move to an assisted living facility here in West Chester, Ohio. Jodi flies in Monday morning and needs to find a real estate agent. Jodi picks up her iPhone and “Googles” what? Your name? Your website/blog URL? The answer is, “No,” because she knows neither. More likely she types in “Real estate salesperson West Chester Ohio” and reviews the search results. One could say that real estate licensees should be able to find all these prospective clients with a mailing, email, Facebook post, and the like. The fact is there’s not really any way to find Jodi so real estate licensees should have content which allows Jodi to find them. In short, your blog and/or other content allows prospective clients to find you, rather than you having to find all of them. Plus, good quality find-able content allows those clients to find you 24-hours-a-day, any day, from anywhere.
So how do auctioneers get started? What should they do first? I recommend creating a free www.wordpress.com account. Don’t worry too much about your URL, as Jodi doesn’t know your URL, and only has to find your content to click on your URL — never typing it herself.
Next step? Start writing (text is “king” for search ability,) creating videos, taking pictures, recording audio and/or all of the above. We suggest this content (in our above example, a real estate licensee in West Chester, Ohio) needs to be necessarily two things:
Good, quality, accurate, interesting content
About real estate sales in West Chester, Ohio
One good story about real estate sales in West Chester, Ohio won’t allow Jodi to find you — and 100’s of not-so-good content about real estate sales in West Chester, Ohio will discourage Jodi from calling you.
Content works when there is a bunch of it, it gets updated often and it’s good, interesting stuff — where it brings up interesting, relevant questions, and answers them. More is more, quality is essential and constantly fresh is better still. In other words, start creating good stuff and keep creating good stuff.
Have you tried blogging and given up? That’s not a bunch of it, nor fresh so you’re probably not seeing any results. We suggest restarting, and maybe create a schedule where you blog every Monday — every Friday — twice a month — or maybe only once a month, but stay on a schedule. Set time aside for this important personal marketing.
Is this all auctioneers need to do to be “found?” It isn’t. Blogging pays off several ways from people finding you and hiring you, to others finding your blog and recommending you. Yet, being “plugged-in” to your community where people get to know you is also essential.
Finally, don’t have time to blog yourself (which is ideal) or don’t feel competent to write these blogs? You can hire people to write blogs for you, for as little as $25 each, to as much as $100 each. Price seems to depend on length and complexity of the material, and the experience and credentials of the contract blogger.
Mike Brandly, Auctioneer, CAI, AARE has been an auctioneer and certified appraiser for over 30 years. His company’s auctions are located at: Mike Brandly, Auctioneer, RES Auction Services and Goodwill Columbus Car Auction. He serves as Distinguished Faculty at Hondros College of Business, Executive Director of The Ohio Auction School and Faculty at the Certified Auctioneers Institute held at Indiana University.
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