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I once heard a John Tenza, a RE trainer, say “Anything you can say, I can ASK better“.

So I’ve learned to turn the table and to ask probing questions of the questioner in order to discover the essence of their question. I want to know why they are asking the question before answering it.

It is in the ‘why’ that the need is discoverable and to answer anything you need to know the ‘need’.

To that end, I’m going to make some assumptions here about my audience. I’m going to assume that for some of you a nugget is all that’s needed and for others clear direction.

In either case, Enjoy!

 7  Things I do to Market homes

Step # 1

Get 7-10 qualified appointments per week It doesn’t really matter how you get the appointments. I’ve discovered that every system works when I do. A qualified appointment is an appointment with someone who wants to buy or sell a home in the next 90 days. All other appointments are important because you have to ‘circulate to percolate’ but they don’t fall into the ‘qualified’ category yet. 

Step # 2

Speak the truth When ask about the market or value of a home, speak the truth. In order to do so you have to be aware of what the truth is. I stay ’on-top of the market’ and understand the mood of the market. Begin by understanding values, types of homes, neighborhoods, what constitutes a good home from a great home,  and understanding the needs and wants of your clients and if you do so you’ll be equipped to speak the truth and it will be well received.

Step # 3

Apply yourself  fully to the task at hand Planning requires full concentration. Begin with the end in mind and work backwards. So if your goal is 7-10 qualified appointments per week, you first need to decide  what you need to do to get appointments. Ask yourself, How am I going to get 7-10 qualified appointments per week?  Depending on what systems you ALREADY have in place will determine much of the how. Assuming you have no systems at all, don’t begin building systems. Too many agents get caught up in system building to the detriment of achieving the primary goal, getting appointments. Instead, be creative. i.e., do a great OH, call your Sphere of Influence, Creat a video using a webcam and post it on Youtube and then send everyone you know a link to it, etc..Don’t spend money, spend time and creative energy and you’ll get results.

Here are some things I did:

When I first got started, I sent a simple note to the members of my Church. It said something like, ‘I just became a REALTOR(R), pray for me’.  It was sincere and it worked.

Then I did open houses sometimes as many as 3 a day. Listen, FOCUS on the objective, getting appointments and remember that all systems work, when you do.  I’ve learned that ‘Face Time’ is really important, so my suggestion is  to get out from behind the desk and ‘circulate to percolate’. 

Put yourself in a ‘target rich’ environment.

In the beginning Church, kids school events, open houses and floor time is where most my appointments originated from.

Today, for me, Church, online-leads, listing syndication, reciprocity networking ( i.e. if I pay anyone to do anything, I ask for a reciprocal relationship) drip email, open houses and social networking are my primary means of getting appointments. In all these arenas, I apply myself fully to the task at hand.

Step # 4

Be efficient Call me frugal but I’ve found that being efficient saves time and money.  Early in my career, as I began to gather a little steam, a technique I used was to set up MLS searches, both Active and Sold searches, for just about eveyone I knew–buyers and sellers and even closed buyers and sellers, friends and family, etc..This is a simple and FREE technique that will enable you to stay in front of your folks…I thought, ‘why should I pay for a drip email campaign when I have immediate access to the information that these folks want at my finger tips? ’

Another technique had to do with open houses. Open houses are essentially ‘launch platforms’ for your business. 

Again, begin with the end in mind and think efficiency and productive time.

First- Choose a location that is ’RIPE’ for an open house. DON’T allow the big shooter in your office to place you out in the sticks, unless you need quiet time. Second-Group open houses so that there are a variety of  them being held at the same time and contact the other agents in the area and encourage them to hold their home open as well. Third- Send out invites to 100 neighbors. Fourth-Be sure to put a rider and fliers on the sign and in the yard 1 week in advance of the open house. Fifth- Post the Open House ad on all available Websites and in the Newspaper. Sixth-email your base to let them know about the open house and HAVE your clients do the same. Seventh-Be sure you place MANY directional signs. Eighth- Brew Flavored Coffee  and have cookies made (Have your clients do this for you and be sure to turn on all lights). Ninth- Goal is to capture contract information so that you can keep the buyers informed of other homes that are available. Tenth-Call and email all who came and thank your client by leaving a card…

The above example of ‘how to do Open House’ is meant to show you the process I go through and is simply one example of strategies I use and the purpose of sharing it with you is so that you can understand the mental process I go through when creating systems.

Every system I employ uses the same type of overlapping strategy and as such is super productive.

I‘m always trying to get the biggest bang for the buck in terms of money and productivity.

If you are going to do something, do it well, it’ll save you time and make you money.

Step # 5

Listen carefully and discern needs I cannot over emphasise  the need to listen. It is more difficult than what you think. The difference between listening and hearing is substantial.  When you UNDERSTAND your clients, you can tend to their needs well. Talk with them, don’t rushbecause in the end if you don’t connect on a deep level your repeat/referral business will NOT grow–people do business repeatedly with those they connect with.

Ultimately to have a sustainable practice you need a strong base that consist of totally satisfied clients who know how to refer business to you and who are willing to do so.  The only way you can sustain such connections is to conect on adeep level first and then maintain that relationship.

Step # 6

Be know as an exceptional person I don’t really strive to be #1. It is more important for me to be known as a trustworthy person who sells Real Estate and participates in the community and in Church. A person who is dependable and available. A person who is easy to contact and who doesn’t shy away from challenges. A person of integrity, period. 

Step # 7

Win the hearts and minds of clients When I meet with a prospect, I’m all in. To me no matter how the prospect came to sit in my office or me in their kitchen, the goal is the same, to win their hearts and minds.

The process begins even prior to our first meeting. All my marketing is structured to produce opportunities like this. Before we meet most of the clients have read my profile online, checked out the marketing that has been applied to the my listings, read ’satisfied client’ endorsements and in many cases has been referred to me.

But when I first got started and I didn’t have ‘reputation‘ to lean on so I leaned on the reputation of my company, my own enthusiasm and market knowledge.

Assuming you are at a listing appointment, prior to the appointment take whatever time is necessary to get to know everything about the neighborhood, i.e. what has sold, what is for sale and what is pending. Also, know who the players are and what separates you from them..For example, I use the following language: Unlike other REALTORS(R) I….

Separate yourself from the pack and know what your differentiators are.

How are you different from them? You might say, unlike other agents who simply stick a sign in your yard, hang a lock box on your door, take a few pictures with their portable camera put them in the MLS and on their personal and Company websites,  I leave no stone unturned when marketing a home.

1. I syndicate your home’s listing to hundreds of websites across the Internet so that anyone, anywhere on the planet, who has an interest in a home like yours can tour it.

2. I make certain that your home’s listing is fully contextualized. That is that is contains multiple high-resolution pictures taken by professional photographers, a virtual tour, and narrated walk-through video and that the details and descriptions are complete and accurate. There is nothing more frustrating to a buyer than incomplete and inaccurate home information. Thegoal is to do everything possible to get your home on the buyer’s SHORT LIST and by getting them to save it to their FAVORITES we accomplish that goal.

3. I quantify the online data because it isn’t enough to know that the home is on the Internet, I want my clients to know how many online visitors it takes to result in a showing and how many showings are needed to result in a sale.  So I provide the analytics to the seller weekly with commentary and the sellers know upfront that if we don’t achieve certain thresholds then the price will need to be adjusted.

4. I automate the feedback. The number one complaint, bar-none, from sellers is that they don’t get feedback from their agents…We nipped this in the bud several years ago and automated the feedback. Automate your feedback…Your clients will love you for it.

Okay, that’s enough to get you started. Hopefully it’ll stir your imagination and you’ll gain a little confidence going into the Spring.

The 2009 Realtor® Tech Survey’s top three tools that respondents plan on purchasing or replacing in the next year are: Smart Phone (42%), Laptop (34%), Digital Camera (26%).

These three tools have almost become necessity in our business today. Here’s a list of some of the top online review sites for all 3 products to assist everyone in making intelligent and well informed purchases.

Laptops and Notebooks

More Laptop and Notebook Reviews

Digital and Video Cameras

 More even Ipods

*A special note for our online lead generation clients. Lead gen clients are be best served by getting a Blackberry as opposed to any other smart phone including an Iphone…Call me for further explanation on why this is so vital to conversion.

On the Lead Response Management site is a whitepaper about the Jim Click Automotive Team.  The automotive industry, like the real estate industry, has been hammered by the economy.  Yet this automotive team increased their gross profit by 102.8% in eleven months!

They did this with an integrated system generating web leads.  Sounds like a truly neat system that would be fun to implement in real estate.  However, without dropping a bunch of money on a fancy integrated system, their results and findings, still point the way to increasing your own success with online generated leads.

THE INTERNET HAS CHANGED THE WAY CARS & HOMES ARE SOLD

The Internet has also conditioned people to demand an immediate response to information inquiries, and if not, they lose interest quickly.

This same study found that 92% of automotive consumers felt that the speed in which a dealer responded to their inquiry affected their perception of the dealer and whether they ended up purchasing a vehicle from them. 74.3% said it even affected their perception of the manufacturer who supplies cars to the dealership.

So, we know that response time is a factor…and a big one at that.  Now, due to the immediacy web users have come to expect, your brand and service/product are now being judged by your response time.  Unresponsive/slow to respond means the customers perception is dropping.  Respond quickly and you have least allowed yourself the ability to continue the conversation.

PROFESSIONALISM, COURTESY AND FORTHRIGHT ANSWERS

People are less inclined to subject themselves to the high pressure sales tactics of dealerships as they were in the past. They want real, courteous answers to questions. Or they just go elsewhere.

Information about real estate cars can be found everywhere on the internet.  Jim Click Automotive Team learned and profited from their ability to meet the needs of their customers shortly after responding to a web lead.  Dealerships struggle with the some of the same negative perceptions as real estate agents; namely, high pressure sales tactics.

They found that by contacting the web customers immediately, answering their questions and inviting them to the dealership, they were able to generate more sales.  Here are the three critical opportunities they discovered:

Critical Opportunity #1: A number of Salespeople may be talking to customers and qualifying them prior to capturing vital contact info and getting them to come in to the dealership.

Critical Opportunity #2: Not answering inbound calls and responding to Web leads immediately (as in 5 minutes.)

Critical Opportunity #3: Not proactively reaching out to leads, prospects, and past customers effectively, efficiently, and with a high volume of contacts.

Great points for anyone generating leads, let alone online leads, would do well to heed.

Craigslist is the 800 lb Gorilla

If you’ve not heard of Craigslist, check out the site and learn how you can expose your listings to a much larger audience than just your local MLS.  We’ve used Craigslist to market our rentals and first time home buyer priced homes.  Every time we put one of those listings out on Craigslist, the phone and email inbox light up with inquiries.

Craigslist isn’t the Only Gorilla in the Mist

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Click here to view the embedded video.

But you’ve heard and read all of that before.  And quite possibly, you think we’re a little around the bend.  Honestly, can’t blame you.  However!  I’ve got research, statistics all based off research done by M.I.T.

From: THE INSIDESALES.COM/MIT LEAD RESPONSE MANAGEMENT STUDY OVERVIEW

We used the data from the InsideSales.com system (critical to this purpose because it generates and stores quantitative call data linked directly with qualitative lead process and flow information).

We examined 3 years of data across six companies that generate and response to web leads, from over fifteen thousand leads and over one hundred thousand call attempts.

Web Users Want Information NOW!

But that chart is purely about contacting the lead…  What about qualifying/converting the lead?

Qualifying a lead drops by a factor of 4 in just 10 minutes after they drop their information.  Chances of qualifying a lead drop by 21 times if you wait half an hour.

Summary

The whole report is fascinating.  In fact, here is the executive summary of their findings:

The behavioural study revealed when sales representatives had success around calling web-generated leads. To find these facts, we looked at leads that were captured through a web form, and attempted or called at least one time. Summarized below are some of the more interesting findings related to speed and timing when responding to web-generated leads:

1. Wednesdays and Thursdays are the best days to call in order to contact (by 49.7% over the worst day) and qualify (by 24.9% over the worst day) leads. Thursday is the best day to contact a lead in order to qualify that lead (by 19.1% better than the worst day).
2. 4 to 6pm is the best time to call to make contact with a lead (by 114% over the worst time block). 8-9am and 4-5pm are the best times to call to qualify a lead (by 164% better 1-2pm, the worst time of the day). 4-5pm is the best time to contact a lead to qualify over 11-12am by 109%).
3. The odds of calling to contact a lead decrease by over 10 times in the 1st hour. The odds of calling to qualify a lead decrease by over 6 times in the 1st hour. After 20 hours every additional dial your salespeople make actually hurts your ability to make contact to qualify a lead.
4. The odds of contacting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 100 times. The odds of qualifying a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 21 times.

Great post on why you should not simply focus on one network in your SocNet strategy at the detriment of other networks.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn…they all have good aspects in trying to connect and re-connect with friends, family, past clients and soon-to-be clients.  The one thing they all have in common, other than being able to absorb a LOT of your time, should be your…

Blog.

Your Blog is Where Your Heart Is

You invite a bunch of “followers” to your home for a get together.  They drive to your home, come in through the front door, admire your taste in [fill in whatever hobbies float your boat], grab a drink and head out to the deck where the grill is working its magic.

Once you’ve gathered a few folks in this manner, you simply have a good time.  Make sure everyone’s comfortable, the conversation is good and the food and drink are plentiful.

5.  Secret everyone knows:  most of Twitter is just linking to blogs and content on the open web.  Being the end product people are actually interested in and focus their attention on is where your ideas will be studied carefully, not in the cacophony of Twitter.

Easy, right?

Unfortunately, what some folks on SocNets think they should do is usher you directly into the dining room, whip out a white board and begin to sell you the latest and greatest widget designed to get you your heart’s desire.

Where’s the warm up?  What happened to “folks don’t want to be sold, they want to buy?” If I’m in someone’s house, I want to know more about THEM, not their product or service!

As you engage your SocNets, remember that you should have a place where folks from any SocNet can learn more about you and how you do business.  A blog is perfect to showcase yourself and your knowledge of your marketplace.  In addition to being able to showcase your service and knowledge, folks will see how you handle yourself; they will get to see a lot of who you are just by how you communicate and what you communicate.

We’re Real Estate Agents, Dang it!

We are social by nature.  We have a deep rooted desire to be out and about, chatting with folks around town and learning who needs to move.  We get the idea of not pushing our services, because we don’t like having services pushed on us.

With that in mind, here are a few tips to integrate your website and/or blog with your SocNet presence:

Do’s

• Be yourself
• Fill out your SocNet profiles with links to your site and/or blog, noting that you are a real estate agent (Dang it!);
• Share information that is relevant, deemed interesting (stufftotweet.com) and is of interest to you;
• Periodically mention in your SocNet chats about being in real estate
• Connect with folks around the country – when they think of someone moving to or from your area, often times, you’ll be the only real estate agent they know in your marketplace (works well with other agents and lenders across the internet)
• Be sure to compliment, engage and converse with others across your SocNets (re-tweeting on twitter, for example, is a great way to engage with others on twitter)

Don’t

• Constantly push your services or the fact that you are an agent (people want to buy not be sold, remember?)
• Be someone you are not
• Blather to the SocNets with no direct purpose (is it really a conversation if no one responds?)
• Reveal intimate/personal stuff via SocNets – remember, the Google has a better memory than an Elephant
  • And really? How creepy if you knew THAT about your real estate agent? eek!
• Complain

Social Media according to Wikipedia, “are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings.” The different social media outlets aim to integrate both media (print, audio, video) and interaction between the content creators and the consumers of the media.

Social Media? Like MSNBC?

No doubt you’ve heard about Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. All three of these social networks (SocNets) have their place within the online community as places to “gather.”

You’ve also likely tried to get involved in one SocNet or another and found yourself asking, “Why do I care what these people are doing right now? Heck, why do they care about what I’M doing?”

Both are valid questions, however the point of social media is to have a conversation with prospective clients across the internet. Remember, the National Association of Realtors states that nearly 90% of real estate consumers utilize the internet to find information about their next foray into real estate.

So, if 90% of consumers are utilizing the internet, that means that as an agent, you need to be found in as many places as possible across the ‘net….just like your listings!

[but that's an entirely separate subject and article]

Why SocNets? Think Chamber of Commerce…

As a successful agent, you have no doubt made the rounds at your local Chamber of Commerce networking events. In attending these events, you were diligent to either bring a stack of cards to distribute or you drew up a list of folks you need to meet prior to leaving the event.

SocNets are a giant Chamber of Commerce – but without the geographic boundaries!

This means that you can have conversations with folks interested in your marketplace from across the globe. This level of networking allows you to communicate with many more folks than just the ones you are in direct communication with. You see, every person you connect with on just those three SocNets mentioned earlier has their own network of folks. So by chatting with one person, you could be communicating with an addtional 10, 100 or even 1,000 additional folks.

Social Media Will Change Your Business Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later

There Are Two More Benefits

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Google Indexing

If the first item doesn’t make you twitter, the second one will!

Every account you fill in online for these SocNets will have a profile for you to flesh out. To continue any conversation from SocNet to appointment, you need to place your high value website or blog in your profile. This allows interested parties to learn more about you and your business at their own pace (see how this is kinda like geo-farming an area?). More clicks on the link to your site, the more traffic you get, the more Google begins to notice your site.

Which leads right into Google Indexing…

And online lead generation is a great way to acquire customers to build your real estate business.

It has revolutionized the way we do business.

But not all online lead generation is what it’s made out to be.

We have spent tens of thousands of dollars on national lead companies and can tell you first hand that some work and some fail miserably.

When I first started working online leads, I had been a Realtor for 14 years and I had a good business but not an awesome one; I had plateaued. With the tough housing market the past couple of years, I needed to find a way to make up for lost business.

After all, my goal in life was to make sure that my kids would graduate from college without debt. So one day, I took a leap of faith and replied to an email sent to me by a national lead gen provider. Long story short, I made a BUNCH of extra money in a short period of time – $258,000.00 to be exact and I was on top of the world.

I felt we were paying too much for leads (many of which were bogus) and we didn’t have control over the process. Turn-key national online lead generation companies were convenient to use, but we found the costs were extremely high, the quality of leads poor, and we had limited knowledge or control of how the leads were being generated.

At that point we decided to learn how to generate our own leads. And after spending a ton of cash, countless hours researching, studying, testing, tweaking, and losing a lot of sleep…

Thanks to online lead generation, our business is growing faster than ever in the worst housing market since the great depression.

Bottom line: While many real estate agents are going under in this economy, we are having record $50 and $60k months.

To quickly begin to get your share of online business, this is what you need to do:

First of all you must have a niche mindset and ‘niche down’ by ‘un-branding’ yourself so that your ads and your site are about what the prospect is really searching for, housing. Make it all about a geographic location, not about you or your company!

Here are the steps:

We have a much more detailed walk-through of how we generate leads using our ALG system (auto lead generation) in one of our free training videos.

You can sign up to get free access to the video on the Agent Bailout Blueprint page.

1. Get Out There!
2. Pause for a Reality Check
3. Get a Fresh Perspective
4. Place a Bid
5. Foolproof Financing
6. Brush Up on New Laws
7. Get Referrals

At 12 minutes in, he talks about 43% of buyers choosing their agent via a referral. Even though 43% is a lot and having a system that delivers steady referrals is important, 57% IS EVEN BIGGER! And a huge portion of that 57% is going to be comprised of buyers that are ‘referral-less’ and shopping for homes online.

In this current housing debacle, many agents that relied mainly on referrals, are dying on the vine. Our ALG real estate lead system can help you tap into that 57% automatically and consistently – delivering leads straight to your email inbox EVERYDAY.

Here’s some proof  and what a recent client had to say:

“I signed up to be a Rockstar on Tuesday 7 April, since then I have written the following contracts:

April 12th 385K
April 20th 285K
April 20th 140K
April 21st 257K

I have a client coming in on April 23rd to finalize a 550K contract and I have scheduled appointments with 9 clients between May 5th and May 23rd which will translate into approximately 2 million in total sales.

I am currently receiving 200 leads a month but will sign up for at least 400 within the next 2 months after I properly train a couple buyer agents to handle the referrals I will hand out.  …my investment is has turned into clients worth 105K in AGC in less than 2 weeks.  Needless to say, I’m ecstatic.”

Brian Nadrowski
Century 21 United
San Antonio Texas

You can read about our ALG lead system here.