Honey, Remember the milk…

 If you are like me, a list-maker, and the Internet has taken over your life and you yearn for the ‘ol days when creating a list of things to do was the best way to stay organized, then this cool application may be perfect for you.

Remember the Milk is a great way to keep track of those ‘ToDo” items that seem to slip through the cracks in this crazy multi-tasking world we find ourselves in. 

I know what you are thinking—something else to learn, something else integrate, NO thank you!

But I need to encourage you to use this one–It is the best of the breed!

John Thomson of Interomojo has reviewed this application and has given it raving reviews. 

Let’s take it for  test drive…

2010 Game Plan

As we finish up 2009 and head into 2010 I know many agents are doing their planning and goal setting for the coming year.

So, I thought I’d pass along some information and tools that have helped shape my business and may help yours going into 2010.

First off, the hottest topics in RE these days are: Online Lead Generation, Listing Syndication, Blogging, Social Networking etc…My team in Ann Arbor is doing all these –  but we NEVER take our eye off the “sphere of influence” target either.

For example,

1. Any entity or person that I pay money to, I solicit business from. I call upon: my lawyer, financial planner, estate planner, insurance providers, lenders, contractors, auto dealerships, etc… I basically reaffirm my desire to help them grow their businesses and ask them to commit to helping me grow my business.

2.  I send an email to all my clients thanking them for putting their trust in me. And I ask them to keep me in mind when they hear of anyone anywhere needing to buy or sell. I also tell them that during the holidays they’ll hear friends, colleagues, relatives and neighbors talk about their plans…I ask them to tell these folks about their experience with me and to pass my name and number along.

(A good portion of my business comes as a direct result of referrals and I can attribute ASKING, SEEKING and KNOCKING to all that business-the Lord is good!)

Many of you have asked how I syndicate my listings and although I won’t share the entire system with you HERE - I will tell you that you need to get your listings on Wellcomemat, Craigslist and Vflyer ASAP and commit to learning a bit about blogging and Twitter, too.

1.  Wellcomemat–http://www.wellcomemat.com/team366

2.  Craigslist–Craigslist is one of the most visited sites on the internet and getting your listings on there has two benefits: Listing exposure & lead generation.

3.  vFlyer–Go to http://vflyer.com/ and see how it works…

4. If you have a blog, get great new material by setting up a Google account here: http://Google.com. Then go into settings and set up an ALERT for the type of information you are interested in blogging about.You’ll get a steady flow of great topics and will never lack for something to blog about!

5. Facebook – Post listings and rentals on your facebook account. In our town, Ann Arbor, MI, students who are using Facebook as there social networking platform run into our RENTALS posted there and we have been fairly successful getting student rentals rented.

6. Commit to learning a bit about Twitter as well in 2010…There are many ways to spend time and I haven’t embraced this yet but I’m willing to learn and maybe this tme next year, I’ll be singing the Twitter praise as well…

These ideas have helped me weather the storm and even prosper.

So commit to implementing at least one of these stategies  in 2010. I’m certain that if you do you’ll increase the number of listings you sell and buyers you serve.

Have an outstanding Holiday Season and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2010..

Lead Response Times: A Study

Ok, so I stumbled across this MIT study on Lead Response Management and found a literal treasure trove of information that continues to back up what we know instinctively about responding to leads: response time is a factor! Huge factor, even.

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.

Online Classified Services

Just like a newspaper, the internet has had “classified” websites for a long time.  Some of the original bulletin board services (BBS’s), when the ‘net was fresh and new, were glorified, online swap meets.  Someone had some hardware, furniture or something that they needed to sell and they offered it via their BBS.

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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Web Applications To Make Life Easier

Web 2.0 has been about collaboration, more than anything else.  One of the benefits of this collaborative nature, has been web applications (apps) that are free to use.  In spite of the free nature of these web apps, many are very well developed and highly useful!  While the version you can use for free isn’t as fully featured as the “for-a-fee” version, many still have become very handy in day to day use.

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Updating your Technology?

The three tools a Realtor® needs, in fact are as necessary as breath itself, are a smartphone, laptop and a digital camera.  Ok, so maybe not as life-giving necessary as breath itself, but these tools go a looong way to making our job a lot easier, more efficient, and fun.

If you are getting ready to purchase for the first time or upgrade any of these items, be sure to check out the following sites for making an informed decision.  Sometimes the kind of technology can hinder or enhance your efficiency and real estate systems.  For example, here at theRockStarAgent.com we are rocking the BlackBerry smartphones for the instant email, and are split 2-1 on the laptops: PC to MacBook Pro.

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The New Real Estate

theRockStarAgent.com was born as a result of doing real estate differently.  We found that the systems and processes that we used were not only unique to our marketplace, but to the industry at large.  When the local real estate market declined, and many licensees decided to parachute out, we had our best years ever.

Don’t Get Caught Napping

One thing that we know about life in general and real estate specifically, is that change is constant.  In real estate, change can be alarmingly fast.  For agents not keeping pace with the drastic and swift changes to our industry, it almost appears as though the industry is lethargic. Slow to change.  Yet, there are agents that are on the cutting edge of the change and using it to their advantage.

Developing an edge in today’s market requires REALTORS to have a user friendly website with IDX listings available.  Practitioners need to be proficient in Blogging, social media, search engine marketing, and how to work with the e-consumer once they contact you. Using savvy marketing techniques may generate leads for agents, however with no skills in permission marketing and inbound marketing, you will be lost. Nearly 90% of the home buyers are searching homes on the Internet prior to ever contacting an agent. Are they finding you, when they go to Google, Yahoo or MSN?

Mike Bowler has a great post on the change that we are currently undergoing.  And he’s right…

Those agents that see, educate themselves and take advantage of their new knowledge will be well set when the market turns.  This business has always been about the buyer or the seller.  Now, with information at their fingertips, consumers are in the drivers seat when it comes to choosing the agent to represent them.

Will they choose the agent that presents all of their listing information online, holds “office hours” when they can be reached via instant messaging or webinar and is easily accessible via the ‘net or phone?  Or will they choose that agent that “forces” them to contact the agent for the address, number of bedrooms or square footage of a property?

The Light at the End of the Tunnel Does Not Need to be a Train

With information so easily found, and so free on the internet, here are a few simple steps to help you become the resource your future clients so desperately need:

• Be sure that you are visible on the internet
  • start a blog, get involved in social networks, fill out your own Google Profile, do something that the search engines will see when someone searches for you as an agent.
• On your website, be sure to have a user friendly IDX search solution
  • Consider creating web pages dedicated to your marketplace’s neighborhoods: photos, general description, a map, etc.
• On your website, be sure to have information about your marketplace
  • take your site to the next level by doing some business reviews or restaurant reviews
    • business owners will love the exposure, and your readers will begin to see you as an area resource

These are just a few ideas to implement, but there are many more you can put into place to be found on the internet and show yourself to be the real estate resource that your future clients should be contacting.

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Setting Up Your Auto Responder/Drip Email Campaign

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Listing Syndication Systems

One of the challenges that we all face as Realtors® is learning how to manage seller expectations.

Having the hard conversations and doing what is right is merely the beginning.

We all need to strive to learn what REALLY works, when it comes to marketing our sellers’ properties.

How do you satisfy your sellers’ expectations while not throwing away your hard-earned dollars on ineffective advertising?

Typically, sellers like to see their homes advertised everywhere. And, if your town is like ours, you have at least one agent putting on a show in newspapers and homes magazines – in essence, selling false hope to land more listings.

The fact is: newsprint advertising doesn’t ‘SELL’ homes – it’s simply another form of ‘personal promotion’ and in that sense, it’s the industry’s ‘dirty little secret.’

So why do agents feel compelled to play that game when there are much better ways to sell homes that both preserve personal and professional integrity?

Why play that game when your sellers expect you to be the Real Estate Rock Star they hired and the one you yearn to be?

In a listing appointment, when asked, “Where are you going to promote our home?” some agents say, “Everywhere.” And, in a futile attempt to live up to that impossible expectation, they waste money on print advertising.

So that’s what needs to be dealt with: the need to please versus figuring out how to seriously market listings…which is the more ethical thing to do.
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Agent Bailout

Scary! The headlines today read…

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