“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not in the hamburger business. My business is real estate.”
Excerpt from Rich Dad:
“In 1974, Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, was asked to speak to the MBA class at university of Texas at Austin… After a powerful and inspiring talk, the class adjourned and the students asked Ray if he would join them at their favorite hangout to have a few beers. Ray graciously accepted.
“What business am I in?” Ray asked, once the group all had their beers in hand. No one answered, so Ray asked the question again, “What business do you think I am in?”
The students laughed, and finally someone said, “Ray, who in the world doesn’t know that you’re in the hamburger business?”
Ray chuckled. “That is what I thought you would say.” He paused and then quickly said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not in the hamburger business. My business is real estate.”
Ray knew that his primary business focus was to sell hamburger franchises, but he never lost sight of the location of each franchise. He knew that the real estate and its location was the most significant factor in the success of each franchise. Basically, the person that bought the franchise was also paying for the land under the franchise for Ray Kroc’s organization.
Today, McDonald’s is one of the largest owners of real estate in the world, owning some of the most valuable intersections and street corners in the world. And the amazing thing is McDonald’s gets all this real estate for free.”
“…many title companies do not need much physical traffic to stay in business…”
McDonald’s is obviously a fast food restaurant which needs to be located on a busy street or intersection to be successful.
However, many title companies do not need much physical traffic to stay in business; they just need the correct people to know they exist. Lucky for you having great real estate these days in the title industry can be as simple as ranking on the first page of Google.
This is your city’s online real estate.
…And for title agents it is often ripe for the picking.
There are a few simple things that you can do to be the obvious choice for settlement and escrow services for real estate agents, lenders and even home buyers and sellers in your town.
Amazonification of Services
One of the best online real estate corners is claiming your free online business profiles. These are websites like Yelp, Google Local, BBB, Manta, and Yellow Pages. They are free, mobile friendly, rank highly in search engines, and thus have a ton of web traffic.
Many of them even have their own mobile apps with millions of users.
The trick with these sites is not only claiming your listing, but also asking some of your best customers to leave you a star rating.
Although I am not sure who invented the star rating, I’m pretty sure companies like Yelp and Amazon have perfected it.
All of us as consumers have been conditioned to reading the reviews of products or services we are considering purchasing.
Because Title Companies have historically relied on referrals from real estate agents and lenders to drive the majority of their business, title agents have largely ignored this practice.
But now that new millennial Realtors are getting their real estate licenses and lenders as well as home buyers and sellers are becoming more Internet savvy, ignoring this can be a big mistake.
At some point having no presence here will be worse than having poor presence – similar to how one’s credit history is evaluated. No credit is worse than bad credit.
Download a full list of the free profile sites we recommend by clicking here.
Social Real Estate
To build on the last point, one of the easiest ways to get search traffic is by setting up your social media profiles. They usually rank very high and like the local directory sites listed above, Facebook has a built in star rating system.
For those of you that are worried about getting negative reviews, with Facebook, you can even write back to people and try to work out any issues. There are no longer any excuses for doing this.
Do yourself a favor, spend a few afternoons to claim your free social media and business profiles on sites like Google Local, Facebook, and Manta. Then once you’ve verified, why not ask 2 or 3 of your best clients to leave you an honest review and most importantly a star rating?
The good news for you is few if any of your competitors have not done this yet so you can get a first mover advantage.
Video Killed the Radio Star
Online video is rapidly growing like smart phones did when the iPhone was released. In fact, by 2018 Cisco expects 69% of Internet traffic to be video.
Video is not only engaging for your website visitors and on social media, Google and other search engines love it too. For example, search Google for a tutorial on something you’ve always wanted to learn and you’ll probably get a video as one of the first results.
You can provide the same value to your potential customers by simply answering their common title insurance questions, one-by-one with video. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Your smartphone camera and your expertise is all that you need.
Don’t worry if you are camera shy! Instead just get your own pre-made branded video library on real estate and title insurance related topics.
Having useful videos will likely rank you higher in your local market, get you more traffic from buyer and sellers, and more engagement from lenders and real estate agents.
Location, Location, Location!
Ray Kroc knew the old adage that location was the most important factor in real estate. That rule is still true.
However, just like with physical real estate, hot markets change after so many years. Internet real estate is the the hot market of today.
Have you claimed your online properties? If not, sign up for a free consultation and demo on how TitleTap can help you market your title company or law firm online.