Simple formula for success selling real estate on Chinese social media

1. Don’t sell listings MLS listings, online ads, square meters, prices mean nothing to someone moving from another country.  They likely don’t even know your area!  Maybe don’t know the state.  Might not even be sure which country they want to buy in.

If you were moving to China, would an ad online with square meters sell you on a listing?  On an agent?  Or would you want to learn a heck of a lot more first?

2. Don’t sell anything What?  Don’t sell?  How will I sell my listings if I don’t sell?  Again think from a Chinese buyers perspective.  What does he need to know about your country?  Your city?  Area? Your company and YOU before he trusts you?  Think of it like fishing more than selling. If you put the right bait on the hook, the fish will be attracted.  What is the bait?  Well there is not perfect bait and not every fish is the same but there are types of buyers and types of information that is very attractive.

3. Decide which type of buyer you will target Mainland Chinese buyers can roughly be divded into 3 types.

a. Education: Buyers who are sending children abroad for education and want to buy a place for them to live in for the, on average, 10 years they will be abroad.  What to post?

Schools, clean cut students dong group events, information from authoritative media on how the school in your area has many successful graduates, food in the area, BBQ party pictures, pictures of blue skies, rivers, 

b. Hands off ROI: Investors looking for a $200,000-300,000 USD property for cash flow and capital appreciation. These buyers often buy sight unseen and usually cash. They also prefer multiple properties in a small area. What to post?

Storie and statistics. Stories of investors doing well in your area with the type of listings you are selling. Stories of Chinese who successfully invested nearby.  Pictures of clean, safe streets.  Statistics, numbers, ROI, real returns, historically, in your area on your type of properties. 

c. Buying houses, warehouses, commercial properties near their business interests. After establishing an income abroad through a trading company, manufacturing firm or services company,  What to post? 2 types

Casual Personal : pictures of your house, kids, dog, neighborhood, down to earth real life. These investors are sophisticated and can see through a phony. They also have similar needs to any wealthy investor. They want to know who you are and what you offer but don’t have much time to look around.

Business Photo: You might take a photo with a professional photographer and rethink that green suit. This agent is a good example of the dress code. Dark, conservative colors, professional look, stylish hair, high quality photo. Your picture and your website will position you as an equal to your buyer.  Wealthy Chinese want to deal with equals. You have to up your game but it will pay off handsomely.  Wealthy Chinese are 10 years on average younger than other countries so a professional photo that is taken at an unusual angle, artistically can also work but if I had only one photo, I would use a white background myself. 

Post on topics that are interesting for these 3 types of people. Educate them by showing them. Pictures of schools, stories of wealthy Chinese who invested successfully in your area, information about business opportunities in your area.

Learn how others are breaking away from the pack with this formula at ChinaCashBuyers.com

Ni hao.  Today the topic is partnerships.  Should you, as a realtor looking for international buyers, look for a sales partner in China? Will brokers across the world send you leads and sell your listings to make you money?  Here are some examples (with personal information deleted) of the types of emails that I get daily and lets see if we can improve the odds of success.

“I have XYZ exciting properties. Let’s open the doors to partnership and cooperation. I will be happy to share the commissions..”

“I am a developer with a pipeline of a hundred million dollar off plan developments.  Email me back if this is something that interests you..”

All these emails have one thing in common.  They are looking for someone to market their properties in China with zero upfront costs in time or money to them.  I’m not sure how much success they have had in asking realtors in New York to market their properties but somehow in China, it seems to be popular.  I guessing it’s mainly because agents really don’t know where to start and think that if they at least reach out to agents in China, the ball will start rolling.  In a way, it’s true as this post got started from such mails.  However, I can say that I have never, ever, in 20 years heard of a single success in China using the, you market my properties for me and I pay you later model.  Why not?

The reason is simple. No one has a list of hot buyers for every city in the world ! How many leads to buy houses have you come across in your whole career in Paris, France, for example?  Any hot ones for Beijing calling you today?  I doubt it. Same with agents in China.

To get buyers leads for specific properties, an agent needs to market the specific property.  And, in China’s case, you need to expertly market in ways that are attract Chinese buyers. It takes money, skill and time to do so.  If you are happy writing emails to agents who cannot and will not help you and wishing for sales, you should stop reading now and unsubscribe from our email list.  That’s not my business.  I want to help you find real buyers at the absolute lowest cost in money and time possible.

If I turn the question around and ask you to market properties for my company in Shanghai, you will get an idea of why this model can’t possibly work.  Here we go:  I have some beautiful properties in Xintiandi, Lujiazui and Jinqiao areas of Shanghai.  They have excellent ROI and are in the most popular locations for both expats and wealthy Chinese so leasing is a breeze.  China is growing and Shanghai is on a roll.  All you have to do is become conversant in the pros and cons of China, Shanghai, these specific areas and be able to make a presentation of the pros and cons of each for living, education for children, health care and a quickie on the basics of China’s visa and foreign investment laws would help for most clients.

Wasted time….

As you might not be so familiar with these areas, you’d probably be starting from scratch so you’d better visit at least once so you could talk coherently about these areas.   Remember that these are classy areas and the clients will be top notch and expect top quality customer service.

Wasted cash…..

You’d then have to pay for translation of our marketing materials so your clients could read them.  Then you’d need an advertising budget to market them.  You’d need to be familiar with Baidu ads, Google ads, banner ads or the local Craigslist type sites that are popular in China… Are you getting an idea of how tough and unattractive my mail would be?

More lost time and investment for you….

It gets worse, after you get the raw leads, you’d need to meet the clients to establish a relationship with them. Take them to dinner, coffee, tea and you might even need to fly around to meet them if they were heavy hitters investing in ultra-high end properties.  Keep in mind any leads you got that didn’t fit in with the 3 areas I mentioned, we probably couldn’t use. So other parts of Shanghai and other cities like Beijing would be worthless.  Just like your listings are specific, ours are too.

Risk of ever getting paid….

Then after all that time, work and expense and time you need to trust us (in another country) to handle the client, close the deal and to pay you a commission. This might take 6 months to a year… So lets see, so far you have invested tens of thousands of dollars, 6 months of time and are looking forward to a $3,000 commission for your “referral”…   Sounds exciting right?

More risk…

What if something went wrong and you weren’t paid by an agent on the other side of the world?  Let’s face it, it happens in the same city.  When we are talking about worldwide deals, its more the norm than exception. So what can you do? Take me to court in China?  International courts are much more time consuming, complicated and costly than local courts.

Additional complexity to the deal…

Wait, there’s more… Would having me as a middle man in your deal increase or decrease risk and complexity of the deal?  Who would the client listen to? Trust? The person who met them and established trust or the final broker who they were handed off to? With Chinese buyers, this is especially true.

Nail in the coffin…

The final complication is the many brokers worldwide cannot legally pay a commission to a non-broker licensed in their local area or state. If you are a California Realtor, can you legally pay a commission to a non-California or US licensed real estate agent overseas?  Ha, good luck!  Remember that local real estate licensing means “licensed”. Chinese real estate licenses don’t count outside China.  So after all that work, and expense, you can’t legally even pay the referral fee!  But you didn’t know or care prior to the deal starting.  You just wanted to sell a property and hope for the best.  Does this attitude make agents overseas enthusiastic to market your property?   (Real estate developers can often pay “marketing fees” and get around this issue)

Either way, its too risky and I’m sure you are not interested in marketing my properties in Shanghai so I promise I won’t ask again…  🙂  But are you asking agents in China this very thing…

So…instead of chasing unicorns, lets think of a proven way that actually can and does work for many agents.  And, better yet, with less risk, less fees, more history of success, larger commissions and a deep, long term trusting relationship with your buyers!  More freedom, better relationship with clients and more money always sounds good to me.

What if you could find buyers in China, across the world, with no Chinese language ability, with no huge budget for marketing or advertising?  And what if you were so good at it, that the rules were broken for you and top agents in China were contacting you to work with?  Instead of you trying to find partnerships, both the buyers and top agents with real clients contact you to work with.

It takes work. I’m not going to lie.  It takes study and focus to get where you are the go-to agent for Chinese buyers.  Many other agents like yourself have learned how and have built a clientele of wealthy buyers from China. They watched my videos, implemented the ideas and started getting real leads. Themselves!

Since they knew a lot about the buyers mindset from the training, they were able to find the right client themselves, close the deal and get a referral. Often that first deal opened the door to friends and family of the original buyer. All without spending much on advertising (I teach you how using Chinese social media with no Mandarin ability, just in English, for example)

I also teach you how to present your properties in a way that is attractive to Chinese, how to talk to buyers, how to weed out lookie loos and not waste your time, how to find the decision maker in a group of Chinese, how to close the deal and how to get referrals for future sales. Real advice from someone in the game for over two decades.

If this sounds like a good long term strategy for you, start here.  The wave of Chinese buyers is peaking in 2014. Why wait?   http://www.chinacashbuyers.com/special/welcome.html

If, for any reason, you are not satisfied, we will happily refund 100% of the purchase price within 30 days of purchase.

Sincerely,
Paul Salo

To start studying the online video course click on YES sign me up! 

PS: Did you know that half of our clients are native Chinese and fluent in Mandarin?  Chinese natives studying MY course on how to sell real estate to Chinese?!?  How is that possible!?!  It blew my mind too.  The feedback is that the techniques we use are very up to date and effective.  After Chinese go through their family and friends, they need a new source of leads and methods to get them: just like you.

I started in China in 1989 with nothing. No money, No friends. No help. A backpack,$500 and a university degree.  No experience in real estate and have developed hundreds of low, or no cost, ideas to get in touch with new buyers.  This isn’t how to use “guanxi” or personal relations because I had none!  Zero.  I had to do it the hard way…. So you don’t have to.  You can use the latest Chinese apps, tools you can easily use with no Mandarin ability and reach into the market in China and start succeeding now.  Thanks for reading to the end and hope we meet again on our journey.

You might guess that I receive a lot of emails from overseas agents and developers asking for “partnerships”. I really do appreciate you reaching out to me but want to take this opportunity to explain why most do not succeed…and what changes need to made to make this successful. First let’s go through the specific types of proposals I get daily. I have taken out the names but here are some examples.

“This is a very lucky and profitable business opportunity”

I have XYZ exciting properties. Let’s “open the doors” to partnership and cooperation. As always, I will be happy to share the love and commissions …..

I am a developer with a pipeline of a hundred million dollar off plan developments.  Email me back if this is something that interests you…..

All these emails have one thing in common.  They want me to market their properties to Chinese on my dime. So I am expected to use our cash to translate their properties into Chinese, our copywriters to write effective stories that will attract buyers, my team to create marketing materials, to find effective avenues for advertising, to pay for advertising in order to get leads for their them.  In other words, if he were in downtown Seattle and we spent months creating materials and marketing the North West coast of the US, most leads would be wasted as he has a small amount of specific listings pin downtown Seattle that he wanted to sell. Los Angeles would be useless to him, for example.

But it gets worse…after advertising for leads, we need to meet and interview the potential clients. That means flying around China, dinners, tea, hundreds or thousands of phone calls and our best agents time. In those meetings, we need to be prepared to answer hard questions from clients about immigration, education, local investment laws, the Chinese community in that area and so on. The only way we really can do this properly and be fair to the clients is to fly to his area, see the listings, learn about the area firsthand, meet Chinese immigration lawyers, local schools,see local Chinese supermarkets and talk to a lot of folk. Then fly back to China and set up meetings, talk to clients, educate them, wait till they are ready to make the move and arrange trips to Seattle to meet the agent.

From that point, we would be tens of thousands of dollars in the hole and dependent on his staffs’ ability to close deals and his honesty in paying us a commission… As you might guess this is not a profitable business model for an agent. The final referral fee is often as low as $3,000! To understand the utter lack of business sense here, let me put the shoe on the other foot.

You market our Shanghai properties where you are. Do you have a magic list of clients hot to buy in the exact areas where our properties are located, Xintiandi area, Lujiazui, Jinqiao? No….ok well that makes sense as, realistically, no one has a list of hot clients for random properties worldwide, you need to build one. That means paying for advertising, spending your time learning the specific properties benefits, learning about China, Shanghai and the specific areas mentioned so you can answer questions.

You must pay for translation from Chinese so your clients can read it. Then you would need to choose advertising venues, banners, baidu ads, google etc. After a successful advertising campaign, you will get raw leads. You then need to then call them, arrange and pay for dinners, coffees, sometimes airplane tickets in order to start a relationship. And remember, our properties are in specific areas in Shanghai so if you find buyers in other areas of Shanghai or other cities like Beijing, you’re wasting your time. It would make sense for you to come to Shanghai at least once and visit some listings so you can answer basic questions about China, Shanghai and the specific properties. If you don’t even see China or Shanghai, how could you gain the clients trust? Answer their hard questions? If you can’t answer basic questions, you will quickly lose trust of your new contacts. So add a trip to Shanghai to your list of expenses. Then after all that time, work and expense and time you need to trust us (in another country) to handle the client well, close the deal and to pay you a commission. This might take 6 months to a year… So you invest tens of thousands of dollars, 6 months of time and get a $3,000 commission?? Or even $30,000 commission? Either way, its too risky and I’m sure you are not interested in marketing my properties so I won’t ask again… lol But you are likely asking agents in China this very thing…

Here’s the rub. Do you generally have a middle man between you and the client? Would having a middleman increase your odds of success or lower them? Would having another person establish a relationship with your clients but added risk or less risk? Would you rather pay fees or not pay fees? If you’re like me, you’d rather have less risk, less fees and more success, larger commissions and a great relationship with your buyers. How can you do that? We’ve seen that a middleman might not be the best option. What can you do? Why don’t you learn how to sell to Chinese yourself? You can do it better, quicker and with less risk yourself! The new clients will know you and trust you as you live there, know the area and can answer all their questions. It’s in your interest to personally reach out and meet potential buyers and establish a relationship front the beginning.

Many other agents like yourself have learned how and have built a clientele of wealthy buyers from China. They watched my videos, implemented the ideas and started getting real leads. Since they knew a lot about the buyers mindset from the training, they were able to find the right client themselves, close the deal and get a referral. That first deal opened the door to friends and family of the original buyer. All without spending much on advertising (I teach you how using Chinese social media with no Mandarin ability, just in English, for example) I teach you how to present your properties in a way that is attractive to Chinese, how to talk to buyers, how to weed out lookie loos and not waste your time, how to find the decision maker in a group of Chinese, how to close the deal and how to get referrals for future sales. If this sounds like a good long term strategy for you, comment below or send me an email at paul (at) ChinaCashBuyers.com and I’ll send you the link to get started.
Sincerely,
Paul Salo