There are few terms more liberally thrown around these days than “influencer.” Naturally, with such a hot button topic, you’ll find virtual libraries of content about influence. Yet, I had trouble finding anything out there about influence in real estate. I started contemplating my own definition of an influencer, which is likely different than what you’d expect. I also considered the easiest path to success in influencing. If you do it wrong, you’ll end up attracting the wrong people. But if you do it right, you’ll have the power to change minds. And isn’t that what we really want?
My Definition of an Influencer
Everyone seems to have a different definition of “influencer.” When I talk about influence, I’m not simply talking about people with cameras on their phones. I’m referring to the type of person who recognizes and understands their audience. It’s vital that you know as much as possible about the people you want to influence. What’s their age group? What are their interests? What do they want? Don’t just ask yourself these questions; ask them! My personal definition of an influencer is someone who fully understands the people with whom they’re speaking. It’s your responsibility as an influencer to make sure that, no matter whether you’re addressing an individual or a group, everyone feels like they’re the center of your attention.
Influencing is About Them, Not You
Influencing has very little to do with you and everything to do with them. Are you the type of person that can be influenced? If not, you’ll need to become one to effectively influence others. Contrary to what you may believe, being a masterful influencer doesn’t involve you projecting your personality or beliefs onto others. It instead requires you to receive what they are projecting and understand how to deliver what they need from you in response.
If you’re having trouble wrapping your head around this concept, look at your conversion rates. Stop obsessing over your number of followers. Instead, obsess over how the followers you already have are reacting and engaging with your content.
Does Your Inner Circle Consider You Influential?
Aspiring influencers often make the mistake of aggressively focusing on building followers. This usually comes at the expense of giving your current followers the attention they require. Take a look around at your friends, family, and other close relationships before trying to build your followers. Do they already consider you an authority worthy of spreading influence? If not, you’ve got urgent work to do closer to home. Your inner circle should be raging fans of your work, ready to tell anyone and everyone about your expertise. If you can’t convince those closest to you that you’re worthy of fervent acclaim, how can you expect to convince strangers?
Want to Receive? Consider How Much You Give
When I say you need to be influenced to be an influencer, I practice what I preach. I find the work of Robert Cialdini particularly indelible. If you want to learn about influence from a master, research Cialdini’s Six Principles of Persuasion. I won’t go into all six, but I did want to highlight a few inspirational points.
Cialdini discusses the importance of reciprocity at great length and I couldn’t agree more. To illustrate the vitality of reciprocity, I’ll reference a study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology back in 2002. The team of researchers monitored how the behavior of wait staff influenced the size of the tips left by their patrons. When a waiter included a single mint with the check without noting the gesture, they enjoyed an average three percent increase in tips over the control group. When a waiter doubled the mints and mentioned the gesture, that tip jumped to a 14-percent average increase.
That’s impressive enough, but what happened next is what really caught my attention. For this part of the experiment, the waiter initially brought a collection of mints to the table with the check. After a brief period, the waiter then returned with another collection of mints. Upon bringing the second round, the waiter specifically mentioned the mints. This resulted, on average, in a 23-percent surge in tip size.
Now, the psychology is debatable, but I’ve combined this research with anecdotal evidence to reach my own belief. When you give to people, they want to give back to you. Sometimes, they even want to give more back to you. An effective influencer doesn’t just receive attention because they’re naturally great. They make people feel special by giving attention… and people return it to them in spades.
My Nine Principles of Influence
Cialdini’s teachings informed my own spin on the concept, which I’ve summarized in my Nine Principles of Influence. You can easily remember these by familiarizing yourself with the following acronym:
I.nspire – Your audience should feel inspired by your words and actions.
N.urture – You genuinely care for the growth and development of others.
F.an – You recognize that to create fans you need to be one yourself.
L.oyal – Your followers recognize you will always fight for them with everything you’ve got.
U.nite – Do your actions bring everyone together? They should!
E.ncourage – You constantly boost your followers’ morale.
N.atural – Sincerity and authenticity defines your every word and action.
C.onsistency – You’re always in front of your followers, reliably delivering quality content.
E.mpathy – You need to fully understand the needs and feelings of your followers.
R.elationships – Possibly the most important element to success, your relationships must be your top priority.
The Power of Empathy in Influence
If you can only take one lesson from this blog, make it a comprehensive understanding of the power of empathy. The people you’re influencing don’t know what you know, and it’s easy to lose sight of this. One of the biggest enemies of empathy is confirmation bias. I’ve met so many potential influencers who wrongly assume that everyone thinks exactly the way they think. What an absurd assumption! No one else could possibly share their unique experience.
But here’s the trick: you can plug pretty much any question into Google and get a seemingly endless supply of results confirming your expected answer. It all comes down to how you pose the question. I’m a real estate guy so I’ll use a relevant example to illustrate my point. Plug the opposing questions “Is the housing market going to crash in 2022?” and “Is now a good time to sell my house?” into Google. You’ll get results for both.
It can be tempting for a budding influencer to steamroll past a potential follower’s perspective in favor of their own. This is a critical error. You need to comprehend your followers’ perspectives, to explore their hopes and fears. If you try to avoid them, they’ll see right through you. Good luck regaining your sense of authenticity at that point!
You may think your personal experience is your greatest strength as an influencer. This is a fallacy. What a follower truly wants is for you to understand where they’re at in their life. Compared to someone who truly, deeply understands another person, an expert is just a dime a dozen.
Keep It Simple
Fortunately, one of the quickest ways to become an effective influencer is by studying the path of least resistance. You want to make things as easy as possible for your followers because ease is the single greatest predictor of behavior. People are more willing to stick with a situation they find easy than one that’s consistently difficult. Is your message too complex? Are you needlessly challenging your followers? Consider the ways that you can break down your processes into bite-sized, easily digestible increments. Your followers are bound to reward you for the effort!
Close Your Mouth and Open Your Ears
I’ve given you a daunting amount of information to process, so naturally you’re wondering where to begin taking action. Every tenet of effective influence I’ve discussed can be traced back to one simple action: listening. People often focus so much on formulating an answer that paints their savvy that they miss the heart of a speaker’s message. The next time someone is communicating with you, do yourself the huge favor of simply listening and processing their words. They’ll tell you exactly what they need from you.
Don’t believe me? Then trust the science. A 2012 study conducted by Harvard researchers and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that people tend to spend 40% of a conversation disclosing information about themselves. In fact, fMRI scans indicated that self disclosure triggered the same reward system in our brain linked to food and sex. Never doubt that the quickest way to your followers’ hearts is listening to them and understanding what they want. Each person may have different criteria for an influencer. But if you keep your ears open and your mouth shut, you’re likely to get all the hints you need. And don’t be afraid to ask questions! There’s this stigma in our society that questions indicate a lack of knowledge. Redefine this for yourself right now: questions indicate that you’re interested in what they have to say.
Ultimately, every great influencer has to cut their own path. It’s one that you have to walk alone. But so many prospective influencers don’t even make it to the starting line. This blog will serve you well as a guide to start you off on sure footing. Remember, being an influencer isn’t about you. It’s about them. Keep that in mind, follow these practices, and let your sincerity invite the rest to come naturally.
After working with, and for, many different real estate firms, it became apparent to Harout that there was a major disconnect between what consumers needed/wanted and the service that was being provided to them. It was upon this realization that Harout founded and opened JohnHart Real Estate; and as the CEO/Principal Broker he has continued to break from the norm and redefine real estate with an insatiable appetite to give his clients the service and attention they deserve.
