Where Are Your Customers Hanging Out?

The Real Estate Espresso Podcast

Where Are Your Customers Hanging Out?

Spotify Google Podcast Apple Podcast Subscribe via RSS Leave a Review

Where Are Your Customers Hanging Out?

Welcome to the Real Estate Espresso podcast, your morning shot of what’s new in the world of real estate investing. I am your host, Victor Menasce.

On today’s show, we’re talking about the street-level process for getting a property leased up. Marketing is all about generating interest. Sales is about generating revenue.

Now, we have an industrial outdoor storage project. It was built in central Florida to meet the needs of contractors who have equipment and materials that need storage. These are businesses that have valuable equipment that you just can’t park in your driveway. The Homeowner’s Association won’t allow it.

These contractors have trailers full of battery-powered tools that need a secure place to charge overnight. These are landscaping contractors that have truckloads of materials.

Now, no landscaping contractor woke up this morning and said, “I know what I need. I need a secure place to store materials so I can get a significant volume discount and maintain a secure supply.”

Many landscaping companies purchase composite decking materials for each job because they don’t have the space to store the materials. Yes, they have to charge more, and they lose some bids because their prices are not competitive. If they purchase the materials by the truckload, they could get a 15–20% discount on those materials.

Now, in the landscaping business, that kind of discount can make the difference between getting the job or not. It can also make the difference between a profitable season and a break-even one.

Not every customer will want the colors you chose, but if you have a few standard colors that are widely popular, you can win more bids for the modest cost of renting additional outdoor storage space. Contractors who are educated on how these solutions can help them be more competitive become loyal customers for years.

Now, this is a relationship-driven outreach, not just passive listings. Contractors who will sign leases are often busy doing project work. They’re not browsing general property sites. They’re not out there on social media just browsing, looking for storage yards.

To lease to these clients, you need to target to where they are, you need to speak their language, and make the transaction clear and simple. There are a handful of places where they tend to visit online. For example, there are Facebook groups that are focused on renovating work in the local area. These are visited by homeowners and contractors. These are the groups where the contractors look for homeowners asking for referrals for all kinds of trades. These groups are filled with daily posts for everything from roofing contractors to landscaping companies, or even looking for simple help to build a kitchen cabinet.

Now, Gary Vaynerchuk is a marketing icon. He often tells the story of how he used to have a lemonade stand as a young child. He hired older kids to man the lemonade stands and to sell the lemonades. He focused his attention on where to place the signs advertising the lemonade stand.

He would post a sign on a tree and then watch the cars going by. He would pay attention to where the driver was looking to see if the driver noticed the sign for the lemonade stand. If the sign location wasn’t good, he would move the sign to another tree until the majority of drivers looked at his sign.

He understood that he wouldn’t sell lemonade to a driver who didn’t see the sign. That basic principle applies to all marketing.

If you’re renting an office to dentists, then find out where dentists are paying attention. If you’re renting a hotel room, then where in the neighborhood are they paying attention?

This is the basic law of day-trading attention. Getting an industrial project leased up means test marketing solutions to contractors’ problems in those locations where they’re already hanging out.

At the core of this is something we call the ladder of brand equity. It starts at the most basic level: has your potential customer ever heard of you? That’s called brand awareness. They’ve either heard of you or they haven’t.

The next level is brand preference. This is where they know a little bit about you. For example, “I’d like a Coke.” “Sorry, we only have Pepsi.” “Fine, I’ll have a Pepsi.” That’s brand preference.

Next, you go to brand insistence. This is where the customer has a high degree of allegiance to a particular brand. “I’d like a Coke.” “Sorry, we have Pepsi.” “Well, then forget it, I’ll have water.” That’s brand insistence.

And then at the top is what’s called brand advocacy. This is where customers who don’t work for you are shouting from the mountaintops about how great your company is and how great your products are. Apple, for example, has brand advocacy. Tesla has brand advocacy.

But before any of that can occur, it starts with brand awareness and an understanding of the value associated with the product offering.

Our project is currently part way through lease-up. There’s still a ways to go, but the early discussions are almost always with companies who lack the knowledge of how extra space can make them more money. Once they see the potential, it’s an easy sell.

Every one of those conversations starts with building a relationship of trust and then a process of communication. That awareness is built through direct outreach to curated lists of local contractors, and then it’s reinforced through social media on those channels where the contractors are currently hanging out.

As you think about that, have an awesome rest of your day, and go make some great things happen. We’ll talk again tomorrow.

Stay connected and discover more about my work in real estate and by visiting and following me on various platforms: