It’s a well-known fact that commercial real estate often lags behind the residential side of our industry when it comes to marketing. So, should we look at commercial agents as laggards or say, “Hold on, there’s an opportunity to learn from our residential comrades and take the best of what they do and apply it to the commercial property sector.”
In today’s video interview, commercial agency owner Jeff Moxham discusses the pivotal moment when he discovered the value of a professional digital profile. Jeff’s commercial team had been shortlisted to the final two firms from a list of fifteen or so for an asset worth in the vicinity of $40 million. On discovering that his business did not win the pitch, he was told the reason they’d missed out was because the competing firm had a much better online presence.
This sealed the deal in Jeff’s mind. He had to ensure he had a professional online presence with him and his team posting regular updates to keep the industry at large aware of their success stories. A digital presence is no longer a ‘nice to have’, it’s now an imperative marketing tool that ensures your continued business success.
Don’t let competitors steal your clients with their digital advantage – it’s time to level the playing field and establish your online presence today.
Watch the video below.
Following is the video transcript.
Melanie Hoole
So, share with our viewers, which social platforms we’ve been sharing your content on. And why.
Jeff Moxham
LinkedIn is the biggest channel for us. Facebook also, which surprisingly has been fantastic. We’ve added the personal side of things to that, which I’ve really enjoyed sharing and have seen a lot of interaction from my clients with as well. We also use Instagram. Instagram’s more for the opportunity to show a little bit of the personal side and family side, as with Facebook. LinkedIn is more corporate and for the business community. All have been fantastic, and I just want to do more of it.
Melanie Hoole
Share with everybody what formats we’ve been doing from a content perspective.
Jeff Moxham
We’ve done a combination of video interviews and written interviews. For the video ones, we got four people together who were really engaged and wanted to be involved for me to talk with. With the written interviews, there is not a lot of energy required from my point of view. You and I came up with a subject, and the interviewees got interviewed by a journalist and then edited.
Melanie Hoole
So share with our viewers the experience you had in relation to a proposal that led you to realise that you needed to up the game with your digital presence.
Jeff Moxham
Yes, the massive light bulb moment. I lost a piece of business, a $40 million asset. It went from 15 agents to two, ourselves and a competitor. And the owners of the asset were a non-property-related family that was being advised by a very reputable firm, and they couldn’t decide. And it came down to a couple of the family members, Googling both businesses, and my competitors had a better digital, commercial presence than myself personally.
And from then on, it’s just been a quest that I can’t have that anymore. In digital and real estate, you don’t know the business that you don’t get, and you don’t know the calls that you don’t get. And we all, I’m sure, don’t get a lot of calls because people these days Google you first. They check you out digitally before they do anything.
We even find it with our media advertising now. The spikes to the web listing significantly increase when we run the ads in the media. The people aren’t calling us, so we can’t measure it by we’re getting this many calls, but we can see they are looking at the ad and they’re Googling it. So you’ve just got to be there.
Melanie Hoole
And explain to everybody how it’s helped your brand with reputation management and personal branding.
Jeff Moxham
I’ve been an agent for 23 years, so I’ve been in the industry for a long time. And there are a lot of people I know that I just don’t have the opportunity to interact with because days are busy. I’m a selling principal, so I’m doing deals together with running the business. There’s obviously only so much time in the day.
The aim of it was to help my profile, and still get out to the broader market to all the people that I don’t personally have the opportunity to connect with. And it’s the level up from just sending out our just listed or just sold. Which are good, but I just wanted to try and connect on a little bit more of a personal and valuable level.
I’ve started a new business, and the business is growing, so it’s also from the business’s point of view. It assists my team by generating business that I can pass on to them. And as the years go on, it’ll be more about helping build the business further and the profiles of my colleagues.
Melanie Hoole
And how has it felt leading the charge in this area when the vast majority of people in commercial don’t put themselves out there on social media or digital mediums?
Jeff Moxham
It’s been hard, actually. Yes, it’s been hard. I have thought at times that I don’t really want to do it, or do we should we really post that? But I’m just getting out there. And as a result, I’ve getting a lot of personal messages from people, colleagues and other agents saying great, that’s so good. Good on you for having a crack.
Melanie Hoole
Is it a short-term strategy for you? Or is it a long-term strategy?
Jeff Moxham
100% long-term. I’m not doing it to generate lots of leads. Yes, we get leads from it, and I do have a lot of business that comes from my relationships. But it’s more a platform to help build my business and my colleague’s businesses.
It’s not something that you can do for a few months and then say oh, hang on, I’m not getting anything out of it. I’m actually not doing it to expect a lot back. The leads will come, and that will be great. I’m mostly doing it to be different, ideally, and to try and provide some value.
Melanie Hoole
You’ve sat essentially in this chair and done the interviews with people in the industry. How did that go? What did it feel like? What did you learn from that experience?
Jeff Moxham
Look, I found sitting in that chair far harder than I had expected. I learned that next time I’d be far more prepared. But as I reminded myself, having read one of Brian White’s quotes on the wall here, things aren’t done well until they’re done poorly first. And you can learn continually. You can’t wait and just do that when you’re really ready for it. You just need to get amongst it.
There have been many anxious moments of “Oh, do I really want that out there of me?” But, overall, I feel it’s been good. It’s been really positive. And I think many of my clients and my colleagues have enjoyed it as much as it’s made me a little bit anxious at times.
Melanie Hoole
And you’ve had people approach you now because they want to be involved going forward. Is that correct?
Jeff Moxham
Yes, I have, I’ve had a couple of clients approaching me saying, that was great. Can I be involved next time? And that’s exciting. Whilst initially, it felt to me that it might be a bit of a chore, I’m really enjoying that engagement.
In business these days, you’ve just got to be out there. I think our digital presence was just very poor and being a new business, it’s just about getting out there. You just got to do it. Simple as that.
Melanie Hoole
Well, thank you so much for your time and your insights and for sharing your experience with our viewers.
Jeff Moxham
It’s my pleasure. Thank you for everything your team and your business have done with us.
About this video series
Hoole.co’s video series brings together the best digital and social media minds in the real estate industry, to share the wonders of the web and the magic of mobile. Subscribe to Hoole.co or follow us on social media (below) for free tips and tricks to grow your reputation and attract prospects, digitally.
Written by Melanie Hoole
My team and I specialise in helping real estate and property professionals perfect their personal brand, build a first-class digital profile and implement inbound marketing activities to attract leads. If you are unsure which direction to take with your digital marketing contact me for help.
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