The Day I Followed and Disagreed with Brian Tracy

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About a year ago, I had the privilege of speaking at the national Sperry Van Ness convention in San Diego.  I’d never been to San Diego – that town rocks!  I was to speak on how to use LinkedIn to connect with prospects and aid in prospecting.  I have spoken at the Sperry Van Ness convention a couple of times before – always on some aspect of Social Media.

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I was to speak after lunch.  Right before lunch, the best-selling author and prolific speaker Brian Tracy spoke.  He gave a fantastic keynote on goals.  It was the best I’d ever heard on that subject.  However, at some point in his speech, he basically said that social media had no place in sales.  You might get known, but you’d be known and broke.  I felt 200 pairs of eyes turn and look at me – at least it felt that way.

I disagree with Brian Tracy, but he is also exactly right.  I’ve never made a sale directly from a tweet.  That may never happen.  You make a mistake when you make the means the end.  Social Media is a means to connect, build relationships, and add value.  Social Media is about connecting as humans – having an impact on someone.  Chris Brogan has a new book coming out called The Impact Equation that makes this point.

Over the past month, I’ve connected with @theBrokerList.  TheBrokerList.com is the idea of Linda Day Harrison, and is the first online CRE broker directory – very cool.  (Go ahead and stop reading this post and check it out.)  We actually spoke on the phone yesterday.  It turns out that she married into a family that is from where I went to college.  My mom is from her hometown, and I have a brother living there now.

I now like Linda on a personal level.  See how that works?  On a professional level, I am going to do some guest blogging on www.theBrokerList.com.  This helps her by bringing attention and fresh content to her site.  It helps me by giving me exposure to her viewers.  Now that I know her a bit and like her, I want to help her.

This is the power of connecting with a person versus generating retweets.  I tell stories in my blog posts because I want readers to connect with me on a personal level.  All of life is about relationships – relationships with your spouse, your family, your boss, your employees.  Business is about building relationships with prospects, earning the right to call them clients, serving them until you become a trusted advisor, and on….

Social Media is simply a new and trendy vehicle to accomplish the same end:  connecting with people.  I now find it ironic that I follow Brian Tracy (@briantracy) on Twitter.  He sells too much there – hehe.

How do you use Social Media to connect with people?  To build relationships?  To add value to people’s lives?  When do you make the means the end?  When was the last time you checked your Klout score?
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Categories: Blogging, Business, Commercial Real Estate, LinkedIn, Social Media, Technology, Twitter

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

  • Jo Barron

    This is a good one. May not generate as many questions, thus the comments may be less. I’d be int’d to know. I’ll watch it.

    So she is from Chi-town, huh?

    Love you!

    Mama

  • Bo,

    Neat post!! Of course, it is just so greatly appreciated! It is such a small world and blog posts can come from the tiniest idea! I love the theme of this post because so many people ask me how I meet people virtually. They are just amazed. I have met so many people it is unbelievable. Each day brings new people into my life and, of course, to theBrokerList. It is a rewarding experience and happens organically. That is the best way. I also want to add that picking up the phone is a big deal too! If you do connect and begin to build a relationship via Twitter or Linkedin, pick up the phone and hear that person speak! Connect with them, like we did. It is hard in sound bites and 140 characters to really meet people so to me it is a phone call that helps tie it all together. Now when I see someone tweet, I think of their voice too! Great post for all of us to understand the power of virtual business networking. It does work if you have an open mind.

    We are so very grateful for the mention here!!

    We head back to Murray, KY in a few weeks and will be there indefinitely! If you are nearby or if I am near you, I will call you to have coffee!

    Have a great weekend!

    Thanks,
    Linda Day Harrison, CPM, CCIM
    Founder of http://thebrokerlist.com

    P.S. Hi Mama, Yes, I met a southern guy and we are a mix of north and south! My husband was born on a Jersey dairy farm in Kentucky (Jersey plug here) and he moved to Chicago. I am the city slicker, born in Chicago. We met at a real estate banquet and it was love at first sight!!! Have been together ever since. Nice to meet you Mama!!! I wish my Mom was more active with following my blogs. Nothing like our parents to give us support and love. My parents read blogs from time to time, but are not big on comments. You are awesome to keep up with Bo!!

    • Jo Barron

      Hi Linda. Bo’s ability to both write and verbally communicate his thoughts amaze us. He is one sharp young man. Thanks for the “Hey!” Bo is a mixture of KY and IL, too. Good to meet you!

    • My mom is awesome!

  • Bo. We are in “violent agreement.” Actually, I also agree with Brian Tracy……in a way. In June I delivered the keynote at the SVN Brokers Forum in Orange County. The title of my presentation was, “The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same.” The topic was the mindset necessary to make social media work for brokers. To summarize my point, I analogized social media to a fisherman using a fishing net rather than a single fishing pole. In order to put deals together, you still need that one-to-one connection and relationship. You want to be able to put that one potential client in front of you or across the desk to close the deal. But using social media, you get to throw a net over all the oceans of the world rather than sitting on the dock with one fishing pole hoping to catch one fish at a time. Of course I spoke about other concepts which I thought would be helpful, such as “once you have the fish in the net, how do you get the winners to jump in your boat.” Perhaps my analogy might be a little too graphic, but you get the point. The following is a link to the raw video of my keynote…http://vimeo.com/creradio/svn-keynote.

    I think this would make a good topic for a radio show with you, Linda and I. What do you think?

    • Howard – I love the term “violent agreement” and thank you for the link. I will check that out. I’d be happy to discuss this topic with you on the radio or offline. And thank you for taking the time to comment!