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Where top-producers and their organizations learn to transform their spheres of influence into a goldmine of opportunities

Building Your Business Plan: Develop a Marketing Strategy

posted on February 8, 2021

In Part of 1 of our Building Your Business Plan series , we outlined the initial steps an agent can take in 2021 to prepare for a successful year. This included reviewing how an agent can get and stay organized and why an agent should focus on their sphere of influence to build their business. We also pointed out how Cloze can make this process simpler, allowing you to spend more time on quality tasks, such as prospecting and building relationships.

For the next phase of your business plan – and what we believe is most relevant to focus on this month – we want to review the various steps you can take to develop an effective marketing strategy. Let’s take a look!

Tips to Developing and Implementing an Effective Marketing Strategy

For today’s clients, marketing is key. You want to show your clients you are active in the market while maintaining a personal connection with them. To help accomplish this goal, you should consider developing and implementing a multi-channel marketing program.

The channel you choose can vary depending on your velocity, access to marketing teams, business model, and more. However, all agents should consider using a few key channels in today’s world:

• Phone outreach
• Email campaigns
• Social media campaigns
• Texting campaigns

Each offers a unique perspective on how to connect with clients and how to promote your business.

To keep yourself “top of mind,” you should use a set of automated, routine, and more generic activities to target your entire sphere of influence (leads, prospects, past clients, and core sphere). At the same time, you should use personalized, one-to-one outreach for your core sphere of influence. With this approach, your core sphere receives both standardized content and your personalized outreach.

To implement a high-quality, multi-channel marketing program, you need to plan and reflect on your business model. Incorporating all four channels – phone, email, social media, and texting – can help you reach the largest audience and effectively use your time.

Let’s look at how you can use each one to optimize your program.

Phone Outreach:

Calling clients is the most traditional sales and marketing method and can provide the quickest avenue to building a personal connection with your clients. However, just like any other business strategy, cold calling is an art!

When making calls, you should always use an enticing opener to catch your audience’s attention. Research shows that you have less than 5 seconds before prospective clients decide if they want to continue the conversation. Therefore, it is crucial to know what you will say and how you will bring value when you get someone on the line. To help prepare, consider drafting a script for your calls.

Your script should be unique to your market and services and be based on your knowledge and experience. There are dozens of resources that can help you write a compelling script, which can help you build confidence. Consider conducting your own research to learn more about how you can sell yourself in your market. To bring the most value, the call should always be about your client, not you. Once on the phone, avoid pushing for referrals. If clients are engaged, focus on active listening and take notes.

Tip: Add your call scripts to Cloze as templates so you can stay on track and take notes as you talk.

To help get your creative juices flowing, here are sample Ninja Selling scripts that you can use while you continue your research.  Below are a couple Ninja Selling Call Script examples:

Sample Call Script 1

Hi there, XXX. I was thinking about you all day today and just thought I’d call on the off chance I’d catch you. Hope all is well.  [Throw in something personal you know about them, their kids, the things they like to do, etc.] I always love hearing from you, but please don’t feel you have to call back. Talk to you soon.

Sample Call Script 2

Hi there, XXX. I (1) was at a Giants game and thought of you, (2) saw the Westminster Dog Show and thought of [dog’s name] (you get the point) . (The more personal stuff you know about the client, the more you can communicate on a personal level.) Just wanted you to know that you crossed my mind. Hope all is well. We’ll talk soon.

It’s essential to know your script but also to be able to go off-script . Avoid reading your script word-for-word, and instead, think of your script as organized thoughts (not something you stiffly recite). It should be fluid and natural like you are having a conversation with your best friend.

Email Campaigns:

For email campaigns, identify the ideas you want to focus on in 2021 and how you will convey that information. Different types of emails provide different types of value.

When it comes to email, we recommend breaking it down into two primary types:

• Standardized messages
• Personalized messages

Standardized Messages:

Standardized messages are the staple of every real estate agency. They are large scale communications that you send to your sphere of influence and beyond. They include newsletters, market updates, listings, and other bulk communications.

Samples of standardized messages include:

• Holiday emails : Remember to stay personable and recognize important days of the year (Cloze makes this easy!).
• Market updates : Discuss recent transactions or market data that may impact a client’s home value.
• Your activity : Send listings, market updates, and closed transactions.

You can use email marketing software such as MailChimp, Rezora, ActivePipe, or others for this type of mass communication.

Personalized Messages:

Beyond the continuous, automated communications, you should also have a steady flow of personalized, one-to-one communications. Automated mass emails are necessary for brand awareness, but they do not help to build relationships. 

As we discussed in Part 1 of this series, the bulk of your time should focus on your sphere of influence. You need a steady flow of one-to-one communication via email, phone, Zoom, text, or in-person. 

For this, Cloze can help. Here are some marketing campaigns to consider this year and tips on how Cloze can simplify the process:

Drip marketing campaigns:

Use this strategy to keep your clients engaged and informed.

Drip campaigns can come in many forms and include a mix of outbound activity beyond email communication. In a traditional email-based drip campaign, a series of pre-written emails are sent over a period of time. They can be sent automatically, or you can set reminders to alert you when to take action by sending each message manually. It is vital to keep your content concise and provide value.

Tip: Cloze offers a feature called Next Steps that lets you create and send drip campaigns.

Each campaign may include a mix of email templates, text templates, and phone scripts. As each reminder in the campaign comes due, you will see it on the Cloze Agenda, which prompts you to personalize and send the associated template.

Agent’s choice:

Come up with your own creative messages that distinguish you from the competition. This can include timely information or share something you are passionate about.

Tip: Use Tags in Cloze to organize your contacts by common traits. For example, you could identify all of your clients who have dogs.

Then, if you read something interesting related to dogs (like a new dog park opening), you can easily find and send a Mail Merge message to them.

News articles:

Send clients updates on legislation and news that may impact their position.

Tip: Cloze makes it easy to assemble a newsletter from articles in just a few minutes . It is as easy as pasting a few links. From there, Cloze automatically completes the formatting.

Simply start with a base template, paste your links, and include a personal note. Add this to your schedule to ensure your clients get relevant newsletters.

• Review throughout the week, making note of interesting articles.
• Send when you are ready – simply paste them into Cloze, and it automatically creates a newsletter for you, including pictures.
• Add a personal note and send your email any time.

In the following example, a personal newsletter template has been selected and several articles added.

Note: The Marketing Email feature is included as part of the Cloze Business Platinum Plan. 

Social Media Campaigns:

Creating effective social media campaigns takes some planning. Start by identifying which networks to use and the pros and cons of using each one. In addition, identify how often you will post, what you will post, and how you will interact with your clients. FYI: 74% of sellers use social media to find their real estate agent , so don’t overlook this type of campaign.

Tip: With Cloze, you can post to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Simply type your post or paste a link to an article to share immediately or schedule it for the future.

• Facebook : Most popular among baby boomers, Facebook offers an excellent starting place to build your brand. If you are not set up with a Facebook account yet, you can create a business page to promote your services. Facebook marketing is useful for target marketing, which can help you target a specific niche of clients.

Tip: You can also use services such as Homespotter Boost to automate your listing campaigns.

• Twitter : To reach a wider audience and promote yourself as a market expert, use Twitter. It’s free and allows you to deliver content to your audience in a clear, concise manner. However, this network also limits how much you can post (it has a character limit) and can be wasteful due to each post’s time sensitivity.
• LinkedIn : The most professional service, LinkedIn, lets you focus on B2B communication and networking. All users are linked via their professions, which provides a safe space to build one’s business and brand. However, free accounts have limited use. Advertising can be more costly, but the ability to target specific audiences is worth it. For real estate agents, this social network may be better for building a professional network than meeting new clients.
• Instagram : Sharing your transactions and personality is best saved for Instagram. As the second-largest network globally, it allows agents to keep their clients updated on multiple levels – via posts, stories, and IGTV. Therefore, it is an excellent resource for sharing open houses, posting about local events, and connecting with individuals. 

Texting Campaigns:

Less popular but gaining traction are text campaigns, which promote a higher probability of interaction with clients. Text campaigns tend to have higher “open” rates than email campaigns, which improves client response rates. When you send a text campaign, keep it short and leave out the sales pitch.

Sample Text Template 1

Hi! I hope you are doing well. I wanted to connect since it’s a new year! Let me know a good time to set up a call this week.

Sample Text Template 2

Hi! It’s been some time since we discussed your plans. Are you free to jump on a call this week?

The samples provided are not aggressive and give clients the option of scheduling a call if they choose. You don’t want to get too pushy. The goal is to elicit a response, not have them ignore you. 

Tip: In Cloze, you can create text templates to make outreach fast and easy . Each text template can be tied to a Cloze Next Step .

When the reminder is due, you can simply swipe to send the text template using your real phone number.

Grow Your Business

For each campaign, use an application that can help you track your connections and progress. For example, for email campaigns, use a program that analyzes how many emails were opened and how many clients responded (these options are included in Cloze).

For social media campaigns, you want to track data such as views and likes. And for texts, you should monitor which numbers are accurate and how many clients respond. Continuously fine-tuning these campaigns is another sure-fire way to improve your efficiency. 

In the end, by utilizing automated systems, such as those featured in Cloze, combined with personalized phone calls and campaigns, you can optimize your marketing strategy and build effective relationships to grow your business. As you continue to work on this process and implement new ideas, you will begin to reap financial benefits.

Stay tuned to learn about building your business through networking and how to analyze your Q1 goals to determine what actions to focus on in Q2!

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Building your business plan: the Supernova method

Building your business plan is a crucial step in every business project. However, the approach is far from obvious and leaves many entrepreneurs perplexed. To simplify the process and offer a resolutely operational vision of the business plan, the SaaS Supernova application relies on a different approach from traditional tools. Thus, it focuses above all on the validation of the economic model to ensure in a few minutes the viability of the project. Accessible since June 2020, it has already been able to mark its difference and be adopted by support structures as well as project leaders. To understand Supernova’s philosophy, BORDEAUX Business met Nicolas CABANEL, co-founder of the application and its method.

About Supernova

Supernova is designed to be a simple and smart application. It is intended to validate its hypotheses in a few minutes. The business plan can then be completed and shared with your banker or partners in less than an hour. Thanks to a readable approach to information, the application popularizes financial management, at all stages of the life of the project.

In a year and a half, Supernova has largely captured its customers since 7000 business plans have already been made on the application. Approved by the entrepreneurs themselves, the tool then quickly found a buyer in the major structures of entrepreneurial support. Supernova is now available to companies supported by BGE, 40 branches in France and 150,000 business plans per year; as well as by the CMA Occitanie and its 13 branches.

Business plan, understanding standards

There is no fixed method to make a business plan. You can start with a market study, a competitive analysis, a swot approach, model your economic model, make a financial forecast, etc.

In addition, this part is often subcontracted to a chartered accountant. Which then uses cumbersome and accessible accounting tools on its own to provide accurate financial projections. Problem: the entrepreneur has difficulty in impregnating himself and therefore defending it in front of his banker. Even more so when it is necessary to modify a hypothesis, and to verify that the business model still holds.

Supernova is therefore positioning itself as an alternative to traditional methods. The application takes the opposite view, starting first by determining the economic model, in a clear, readable and immediately exploitable way by the business manager.

Finding your business model above all

Supernova therefore manages the financial side first. From the outset, the application wants the entrepreneur to find his business model and understand it before tackling the editorial. Thus, he guides him step by step to determine realistic sales objectives to defend to investors. Choice of field of activity, definition of the offer, estimation of financial needs…

The application is connected to data from INSEE’s Esane database. In this way, it gives direct recommendations on the average selling price according to the envisaged offer or the items of expenditure to be expected for example. The entrepreneur is therefore not alone to build his project. He relies on precise data, market figures for a first confrontation of his project with reality. This method therefore makes it possible to verify the viability of the economic model, as well as to make proposals adapted to each sector of activity.

Supernova also builds business plans by imposing precise rules. First, the business model must be simple, that is, it must fit on a page. He must also be pessimistic to ensure that the business can operate, even in the worst-case scenario. Then, it must be pragmatic by confronting the market. Finally, it must be exhaustive so as not to forget anything, to think about all the items of expenditure.

The target, the market research, the added value are then easier to achieve. On the other hand, these steps are also the subject of proposals resulting from the practices of other companies on the market.

Market research, empiricism and data

As for the importance to be given to market research, it all depends on the fields of activity. For Nicolas CABANEL, it does not necessarily have to be a priority. In many cases, common sense and empiricism prove to be more reliable.

For example, if you want to open a car dealership, you will choose to settle on the same street as your competitors. If it is a pizzeria, we will choose a busy street far from its competitors. On the other hand, a craftsman will probably prefer to work quietly or in pedestrian streets. The construction of the business plan is also done by confronting its concept with the market, to see if its product pleases. In this way, one can start a business with as little investment as possible. Start with a testing period. Finally, it comes down to adopting a start-up, product/market fit approach. Enough to get proof that the product is of interest.

This approach is indeed more delicate in the industry, for example. This is a sector where work takes longer, but which also has more resources. R&D ends in pure loss 9 times out of 10. So it is important to quickly confront the market, to choose as quickly as possible the projects to abandon and those on which to invest.

Take Airbus as an example. They build planes but they sold them before. They had a firm order book before investing millions in production.

The mobilization of outreach employees during COVID-19

Build your business plan, a one-shot exercise?

To the extent that a company is built day after day, the business plan cannot be fixed. On the contrary, it is built and reselled at several times. Even at the launch of the company, it is built in several stages.

First, the entrepreneur sets up a quick business plan to validate his project. It starts from its idea of concept, product, service. He gets an estimate of the costs, the cash receipts, and plays common sense to modulate the project in order to find the viable formula.

Then he confronts his company with the market before making large investments. For example, for Supernova, it was necessary to collect qualitative feedback from customers. Then readjust the business plan, review the selling price and the number of sales to be made to remain profitable. As well as define the investments to be made and the methods of financing: webmarketing, fundraising …

The business plan is therefore destined to evolve. It is a management and arbitration tool that follows the development of the company and the vagaries of the market.

Supernova’s ambitions

Currently, Supernova is taking its place on the French market. However, the company’s ambitions are universal because the business plan method applies in all countries. Nicolas CABANEL therefore plans to make Supernova the global standard for the business plan.

It intends to initially finalize its establishment on the French market before attacking the international market. For the moment, in a year and a half, the company has acquired a solid reputation and credibility in the eyes of customers and support structures. He is now working on the strategy to be adopted to accelerate development and pool funds to match their ambitions.

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BUILDING CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS PLAN IN NIGERIA

Building Construction Business Plan in Nigeria

This sample Building Construction Business Plan In Nigeria can be used for Grant Applications, Bank Loans, Proposal writing, Business Concept Note, Competitions etc. Building Construction Business Plan is a lucrative business that needs a lot of strategic Planning to start and a business coach like Dayo Adetiloye to help you start the Implementation.

Business Description of Building Construction Business Plan in Nigeria

Business: Building Construction

Industry: Construction/Manufacturing

PATILADWONDER, a Building Construction Firm, is Nigeria’s foremost building construction and civil engineering company in Lagos that specialises in Building, Civil & allied design of event centres, shopping malls, homes and offices. What sets PATILADWONDER apart from our competitors is the respect and professionalism we maintain in the most challenging situations including schedule. We are a very promising start up, and in just six months of operation, we raked in a profit of over 10 million naira in just three projects we did.

At PATILADWONDER, we manage every aspect of your building construction including scheduling, estimating, budget control, value engineering, sub-contractor bid solicitation, on-site supervision, quality control, cost control, safety monitoring, total project management and a commitment to delivering expert approach and exceptional value.

The company also provides consultancy services and bespoke products based on customer’s demand.

The benefits of our products and services are

• High level professionalism and an eye for details of our clients’ demand.
• Project concluded right on scheduled delivery time.
• Exceptional Customer Care Services

My business meets a need and demand for:

• Improved efficiency and affordable cost
• Use of high quality construction equipment and material
• Experts with extended years of professional service

Our Objective for Building Construction Business Plan in Nigeria

• Constant growth in sales in 12 months.
• To generate customer satisfaction so that at least 60% of our customer base is repeat business.
• To build state-of-the-art on-time durable edifices at reasonable prices with exceptional customer care services.

Our Goal for the Building Construction Business Plan in Nigeria

To be Nigeria’s foremost building construction and civil engineering company that specialises in Building, Civil & allied design of event centres, shopping malls, homes and offices.

Our Vision for the Building Construction Business Plan in Nigeria

To become the largest, most patronised building construction and civil engineering company in Nigeria.

Our Mission for the Building Construction Business Plan in Nigeria

To exceed the customers’ expectations by providing outstanding product quality, personalized service and efficient delivery in a professional and understanding way.

Management Team of the Building Construction Business Plan in Nigeria

Desmond Elliot – Project Manager, he is a certified project manager and a member of project management institute. He will assume the position of the overall boss on site and would be saddled with the responsibilities of running the project. He oversees the construction works and attends to the administrative structure. He has the authority of the company to represent our organization in whatever capacity as you may require. Moreover, his duties include setting up of site: site capacity build-up; logistic management interplay of material and human resources, structural stability of the built structure, quality control and safety of workmen.

Ifeanyiachukwu Igbokwe – Contract Manager, educated in natural resources management, and with extensive customer-service experience. He is in charge of undertaking commercial bids, construction cost, sourcing of materials, workmen, the administration of project cost and sub-contract works.

Mr Ekenedilichukwu Obinna –  CEO/MD, Ekene is a resourceful young man with sterling practical experience in construction management, infrastructure, cost estimation, project management for over 15 years now. He has worked both in consulting and contracting organizations and has successfully managed various technically challenging projects for government, corporate set up and private clients.

Mr Dayo Adetiloye – (B. Agric., MBA, and PMP): He has over 15 years’ experience in business management, business start-up dynamics, financial management of business and overall business growth and development. He is an alumnus of Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) of the Lagos Business School (LBS), Pan Atlantic University (PAU). He is our business development strategist and a strategic partner.

We brought to the business:

• Capacity to produce on a large scale
• Our experience in the industry bring competence and credibility
• My staff brings operational, marketing and promotional skills to the business

Management experience gained for the Building Construction Business Plan in Nigeria

With over 12 years’ experience in the Building Construction industry, I’ve being able to master the several procedures involved in the production and distribution of granites. Over the years, I have also gathered practical managerial skills which are immensely valuable to the running of the firm.

My managerial skills have also helped in putting together a workforce for over 15 years, which will also help me to coordinate the team in most aspect of the company.

I am the CEO of the company overseeing the day to day activities of the business.

Materials and Machines for Building Construction Business Plan in Nigeria

Concrete mixer, Vibrator, Jack hammer, Sledge Hammer, Tipping Trucks, Door Machine, Tile Cutting Machine, Dumping Level, Theodolite, Working Tools, Block Making Machine, Grader, Pay Loader, Backhoe, Cranes, Load Loader, Soil roller (compactor), etc.

Competitor Analysis Building Construction Business Plan in Nigeria

People buy from us because of the following reasons:

• Our value of integrity, efficiency and consistency
• Online presence.

Our two major competitive advantages are:

• Excellence in service delivery including on-time project completion, affordable cost and high level professionalism among our staff.
• Our value of integrity, efficiency and consistency.

For the remaining part of this business Plan, including the detailed financial analysis, call any of our business plan consultants on 08105636015 or 08076359735 or 08113205312 or send me an email at [email protected] .

We help institutions and organizations to write concepts and implement Business Plan and also train on business Plan writing in Nigeria. We can help you write a detail, strong and winning business Plan for any use. Call any of our business plan consultants on: 08105636015 , 08076359735 and 08113205312. or Send me an email at: [email protected] . Click here to access my free E-book and newsletter on Grants opportunities in Nigeria and other business opportunities and information to help you discover, develop and fulfil your business potential

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