Final Piece Consulting, LLC

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Everyone knows the real estate market has been in the proverbial crapper for more than two years. So of course my wife

and I decided to put our house on the market in February (a cold and dreary month in NC) of 2011.

After 91 days and 10 showings we had an offer and accepted that offer early this month.

Why do I bring this up you ask? Because I am confident that an integrated social media strategy helped sell my home.

But first, let’s bring it back to 2010.

Choosing a Forward Thinking Real Estate Firm

I began to work with 1st Signal Realty (Disclaimer: 1st Signal Realty is a client) in September of 2010 when their owner, Will Dyson, and I sat down to discuss

his business model moving forward. Will has been a successful entrepreneur in a few industries and he wanted to meet with me because he understood

the importance of social media but simply didn’t have the ability to implement a strategic plan.

We spoke for a few hours and I came away with the feeling that I could come up with an integrated strategy across the web that included website updates, a local blog and a local focus on a few specified social networking sites.

Since that meeting, Will and I have been working together to not only help sell homes but to create a community of friends and clients online. It has helped grow 1st Signal as well as encourage home buyers and sellers to choose a real estate firm that is progressive and always evolving for their clients.

How Social Media Helped Sell My Home

Fast forward to late January of last year when my wife and I decided it might be a good time to sell our home in order to take advantage of the low interest rates. Will counseled us on how we should approach this decision and we had our home on the market by Super Bowl Sunday.

Since 1st Signal had a strategic and integrated social media plan in place for 5+ months at the time I knew my home was, at the very least, going to be in the upper eschelon of local homes in that prize range as far as visibility goes.

Because we had already created a community, when our house became available it was shared everywhere. Facebook, Twitter, Real Estate Forums and more.

We didn’t beg folks to buy our home or even ask them to “please, please tell everyone about our home!”  Instead, thanks to the commitment 1st Signal made to social media – our home was able to stand out from the rest of the pack.

Do Your Research

Make sure the next time you decide to buy or sell a home that you find a local real estate firm who is offering a marketing strategy that includes an integrated social media plan. There may be a bigger real estate firm that has more agents or a longer list of achievements – but I can almost gurantee that won’t sell your home.

How do I know? Social Media sold my home, that’s how.

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I had the pleasure of being interviewed via email over the last few weeks by a young up-and-comer in the social media realm, Cole Watts.

I previously worked with Cole when he served as an intern at 919 Marketing.  Now he spends his time putting together great blog content while looking to land that great social media job that I know is out there for him.

Below is a brief excerpt from our conversation, and feel free to travel over to his blog IDreamInTech to read the entire interview.

Most of us know you as the Social Media presence behind 919 Marketing, but you recently left to start your own company.  What can we expect from your new company “Final Piece Consulting”?

 First of all, I’m excited to hear that “most” people may know anything about me since I’m just a guy that loves working online. At 919 Marketing, I did my best to integrate social media marketing into as many client accounts as possible while still handling day-to-day PR tasks and account management. After spending the last 3 ½ years working at Triangle firms, keeping up with emerging trends and working them into my everyday tasks, I finally had a “Eureka” moment and thought – maybe there is something MORE I could be doing with all this great knowledge I’ve been able to soak up.

That moment was when I decided to start Final Piece Consulting. I view the company as place small businesses that can’t afford large retainers can turn to for help in social media marketing with a splash of traditional marketing, public relations, event planning and copywriting. Small Businesses are the lifeblood of our local economy and many of them flounder because they can’t afford high quality marketing help.  With the emergence and effectiveness of social media marketing I firmly believe you can propel your small business to success with the right guidance and expertise.

I also realize that cash flow and the bottom line is even more important to a small business than a larger entity able to take financial risks. That is why I will come in to your organization and make sure I fully understand it before I will even create a plan or offer up any inclination as to what you can expect if you work with me. Once I understand your goals on a holistic level I’ll head back to the Final Piece “cave” and create a full-scale 3, 6 or 12 month strategic plan.  The plan will include everything you need to achieve those goals, from what tools we should use and how we should use them, to what complementary PR and traditional marketing we need to elevate the campaign. Most importantly it will involve metrics of measurement (financial and non financial) that can be tracked so at the end of our (hopefully) long partnership you can see how your investment in Final Piece Consulting has paid off.

You’ll also be able to expect an honest guy who can sometimes be a little too sarcastic and is passionate about what he believes in. That belief can range from his approach to social media marketing to why the 1999 Virginia Tech Hokies were the greatest team to not win a National Championship.

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Over the course of the last few months I have been moving non-stop in an effort to get my initial entrepreneurial endeavor off the ground. It has been extremely gratifying to see something I have complete control over come together but at the same time it has been overwhelming.  The one thing that has gotten me to the point where I am at now though (two clients and a good deal of freelance work) is my friends.

I can’t overstate the importance of reaching out to those friends you trust for advice, expertise, insight and an occasional kick in the pants as you begin a business. I consider myself an intelligent guy, but I know what I am really good at, and it’s the work I’ll be doing for this company – not the starting the company part.

Luckily I have a great group of friends I was able to look to when it came to choosing a business entity (Thanks, Bardin), getting my finances in order (Thanks, Theresa), designing a logo (Thanks, Ty) and searching for advice, insight and support (Thanks: Carrie, Mom, Dad, Dane, Mike, Ryal, Barbara, Lane, Will, Tom, Sean, Marshall, Kate, Ashlie and many others).  You may not have even known what you said or did was helping me at the time – but it was.

I know this isn’t going to be easy. I know I’ll have to work twice as hard. I know 100% of my livelihood and finances are now in my own hands. I know and understand all of this and that’s why I started Final Piece Consulting.

I thrive in high stress situations and love working for and with people I know have strong ethics and at the end of the day want to offer a quality product or service.

I wanted to be my own boss and you all helped that dream become a reality.

Thanks.