Everyone loves a contest right? Since I’ve been talking about video a fair bit lately, I saw a contest for REALTORS from NAR that ties into video nicely. So you’ve been sharpening your video making skills lately, and making fantastic real estate videos, right? Well now you can put those skills into practice by entering the Win a Trip to New Orleans in the NARdiGras 2010 Video Contest.

All you have to do is submit a video that is 3 minutes or less, explaining why you should get an all-expenses paid trip to NARdiGras 2010, NAR’s annual conference and expo happening November 5-8. Looks like a fun contest and a pretty great prize as well. A few years ago I attended the NAR Conference & Expo in Vegas, had a blast, and met all sorts of industry greats.

Winner of the contest receives, full conference registration, round-trip airfare, hotel room for 3 nights, and $300 gift card for expenses. The winner’s video will also be displayed on the REALTORS® Conference & Expo home page.

Video submission deadline is August 15th, and the voting for the finalist happens August 23rd – September 13th. So get creative, show off you awesome video skills, plead your case, and be sure to include the phrase “NARdiGras 2010, the REALTORS® Conference & Expo in New Orleans.”

For more information on the contest and guidelines, check it out here.

Good Luck!

Just wanted to wish one and all a Happy New Year! Welcome 2010!

2009 was a great year full of fun, milestones, and good things. The most exciting happening of 2009 was the birth of my son. And though last year saw a soft economy that slowed business a bit, I didn’t let that get me down.

Now I am gearing up for a fantastic 2010. Bring it on!!

via activerain.com

If you want to ditch the desk and go completely mobile, here are the necessary tools to do so. This is a great post from Clint Miller on Active Rain. Follow him on Twitter too – http://twitter.com/therealclint

Posted via web from megbarberva’s posterous

Ever get fed up chasing down showing agents by phone trying to get showing feedback for your listings? Playing phone tag, or dealing with a fellow agent who is annoyed with the fact you called to bother them is never fun. (Been there, done that.) Then some of the online feedback systems can cost too much but offer just too little.

Well a client of mind found a free online showing feedback solution solution recently, we tried it out, and it is working great. So today I wanted to share this great tool to help you get your showing feedback results in an easy and automatic fashion. And best of all is that it’s FREE! The program is www.ShowingFeedback.com, and my agent client and I had recently stumbled upon it when looking for cost effective online showing feedback solutions.

ShowingFeedback.com allows you to track the feedback on your listings by creating and sending short surveys to agents that show your listings, and then give access to your sellers to review the reports and comments that have been left by the agents.

To use is, you simply enter your listings and seller’s information into the system, and when there is a new showing, add the showing agent’s information and a showing feedback survey is sent. The feedback survey will be sent automatically up to 3 times until the showing agent responds. When they do respond, they you AND your seller will receive email notification of the showing feedback that was just left. It is that simple.

So far in using it the past few weeks we have seen about a 90% response rate from the showing agents and we are very impressed. And of course, the sellers really appreciate getting direct email notification of their showing activity and feedback.

And did I mention that this was free? So go give it a try, you have nothing to lose!

In the business world, REALTORS are some of the busiest people I know. So many tasks are involved like working directly with clients, marketing their listings and then marketing themselves. Agents make their money by working directly with their clients, eyeball to eyeball. Much of thee “busy work” type of tasks involved in running their real estate business can take away from their bottom line. And if a Real Estate Professional doesn’t have an assistant, they ARE an assistant.

Still wondering what a Virtual Assistant can do to help keep you from burning the candle at both ends. Here are 10 things a VA can do to help:

1. Listing Coordination – You just received a signed listing agreement with a client, and now it is time to deliver on your marketing promises, all of which can be very time consuming. Your VA can handle everything from the moment you sign the contract. This can include entering the data into the MLS, creating flyers, creating and mailing “Just Listed” postcards, arrange print advertising, publish to personal website, Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, track showing feedback and much more. All you have to do is send the pictures and the info, and your VA can do the rest.
2. Contact Management – Making sure you stay in touch with your database, keeping them up to date, and keeping track of appointments, birthdays, anniversaries, etc, can be a daunting task. Let your VA manage your contact management, by using such CRM’s as Top Producer or the Wise Agent. The VA will keep your database up to date, make sure action plans and campaigns are being applied appropriately, set up your reminders for events and appointments.
3. Internet Lead Management – Receiving lots of leads from your websites or blogs? Let your VA help you manage your lead intake. They can import them into your CRM, make sure follow-up and drip campaigns are going off without a hitch, and help you stay in touch to convert those leads into clients.
4. Website Maintenance – Have several websites, but never have time to update listings or add fresh content? Let your VA maintain your real estate websites by making sure they are optimized for search engines, make sure your listings are updated, and that you have fresh relevant content for your visitors. Most VAs even have the ability to customize and design your sites to set them apart from the rest of the competition.
5. Listing Presentation Preparation – Want to impress potential seller clients? Your VA can create a professional listing presentation for you that will clearly outline your marketing plan and selling process for your sellers, in digital or print format. It can be customized to the the house you aim to list, to really knock their socks off!
6. Transaction Coordination – From the moment you get a sales contract, things can go from zero to crazy in an instant. Your VA can manage your transaction from contact to close and you can rest easy. They will manage all the documents and signatures, schedule inspections, handle the appointments and be main point of contact for your transactions.
7. Custom Marketing Materials Design – Want your flyers, postcards, and presentations to have a professional look, but have no idea of how to make them that way? Hire a VA to custom design your marketing materials with your branding scheme. It help you put your best foot forward and set you above the rest.
8. FSBO & Expired Prospecting – Want to tap into the FSBO and Expired markets? FSBO and Expired prospecting takes some special attention that your VA is well equipped to handle. By the use of certain programs, your VA will be able to harvest the FSBO and Expired leads, start the campaigns, send the letters & emails, etc. With the help of your VA, you will show those prospects that you are the one that can successfully list their homes.
9. Social Networking Assistance – So you have a profile on Facebook, MySpace, Plaxo, ActiveRain, LinkedIn, or other popular social networks, but you can’t keep up with the friend requests and updates. Let your VA screen and manage your friend requests, make sure your latest blog entries get posted, post listing information, and make sure you get “out there” in the social networking world.
10. Marketing Planning – No idea on how to focus your marketing efforts or any idea on what to budget for? Your VA can strategize with you to come up with long term marketing plans with many different options to make sure you get enough “touches” and stay in front of your clients, contacts, and farm.

Now if any of the above options sound like something you would like to unload from your busy schedule, than you should consider delegating these kinds of tasks to a Real Estate Virtual Assistant.

Feel like you have too many plates spinning at once? Having a hard time remembering birthdays, appointments or other important dates? Do you have piles of clutter around your home, work and other spaces that seem like they’ll never go away?  Are you being easily distracted by "time wasters"? When your home life and work life are unorganized, your productivity can drop dramatically.  I understand the life of a busy real estate professional and know how easily one can fall into a slump due to disorganization and bad time management. On my blog, I am planning to share a few new items each week to help increase your personal and professional productivity which will improve your life and your business.

Tip #1: Take care of clutter in baby steps Got piles and piles of paperwork or mail cluttering your desk, your floor, your car, your kitchen counters?  Don’t fret!  It may seem very overwhelming at first, but it does not have to be. It didn’t get there all at once, and it doesn’t have to be taken care of all at once. Take care of it in baby steps by focusing on one pile in one area for 15 minutes at a time each day. Set a timer for 15 minutes and start going through your piles, throwing out what is not needed and filing (in your labeled file folders of course) the papers you need to keep. When your time is up, stop what you are doing, making sure you can mark where you left off, and come back to it the next day for 15 minutes. Any new mail or papers that come to you in this time, automatically file away as you get them. Do this for 21 days (it takes 21 days to make something a habit right?) and see where this takes you. Little by little you will purge and file all the cluttering paperwork you have laying about and before you know it, you have trained yourself into being nearly organized!

© Megan E. Barber, Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions, LLC Megan Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions, and publisher of The REAL Advantage E-Zine. Megan has spent 9+ years doing the "behind-the-scenes" work in the real estate industry assisting agents with their real estate marketing and transaction needs.

Last week I spoke about a couple solutions for real estate contact management or CRM (MS Outlook and Top Producer) and this week I will cover another option: The Wise Agent.

At the NAR conference, I had the pleasure of meeting the energetic people at The Wise Agent booth. Wise Agent is a web based CRM much like Top Producer 7i with many similar features. The Wise Agent’s system includes the following essential items:

• Time Tracking to manage your calendar, to-do lists and appointments;
• Contact Management to organize your clients and vendors, track notes & communication, birthdays & anniversaries, and create labels & envelopes;
• Marketing tools where you can create custom marketing plans including letters, flyers, emails, newsletters and calendar reminders to implement the plans;
• Transaction Management where you use customized action plans or checklists for tracking activities in your sale transactions;
• Online Forms that are integrated into your Wise Agent site that you need for your transactions, including your contracts and disclosures.
• Additional features such as expenses tracking, tax help, lock box tracking, and the sending of greeting cards (through send out cards

The last few weeks I have had the opportunity to test out The Wise Agent and get down to the nitty-gritty of how their system works and how it compares to the top competing CRM platforms. I have to say that in working with with Wise Agent I am really taking a liking to it and it is really climbing to the top of my list of favorite CRM programs for real estate.

What is most remarkable about Wise Agent its ease of use. The main complaint I hear from agents when it comes to other CRM programs (with the initials TP) is that they love all the included features, but they are difficult to understand and learn how to use. Wise Agent has really listened to those complaints and have come up with a great system that anyone can jump in and figure out how to use relatively easily. They also offer free online training classes and offers support 24/7.  I have been really pleased with their service so far and have gone above and beyond to help with account set-up and questions I may have.

Wise Agent also gives you the ability to add your assistants or team members and give them access to your account without having to purchase additional licenses. So you can coordinate tasks and appointments right with your team on your Wise Agent account. You can also have external team members (other Wise Agent users) to coordinate tasks and vendors with (great for transactions).

At the conference they were billing themselves as the alternative to Top Producer. After playing with it for the past couple weeks, though it is not yet as advanced and in-depth as Top Producer, I believe The Wise Agent is really a viable alternative to other top CRM programs and will fit the needs of most agents looking for something easy to use.

Wise Agent is offering a 30 Day Free Trial for agents to test and see if it is a good fit for them. Want a discount? Just for my blog readers and clients, if you use the promo code: barberva , you will receive a 20% discount off of their normal monthly fees. It is definitely worth a try.

Megan Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions, and publisher of The REAL Advantage E-Zine. Megan has spent 9+ years doing the “behind-the-scenes” work in the real estate industry assisting agents with their real estate marketing and transaction needs.