Real Estate Marketing Tools &Tips from Real Estate Virtual Assistant, Megan E Barber
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
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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:
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:
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.
In many cities across the country, the real estate market has changed. Inventories have increased, buyers are taking their time, and pricing a home right has never been more important. It goes beyond just getting the listing. Sellers now need to be educated to understand the new realities facing many markets today.
I found this great article by Steve Harney today, Managing Homeowners’ Expectations that gives a great guide on the major factors that are affecting the housing market and what you and your clients need to take into consideration when pricing their homes right to sell quickly. This is something to add to all of your listing presentations.
Have any plans November 13-16? Well you should plan on attending the 2007 NAR Conference & Expo held in Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.
I am proud to announce that I will be joining my colleagues in the International Real Estate Assistant Association(IREAA) at the expo in this year’s NAR conference. Join in on the fun and meet me there at the National Association of Realtors’ largest meeting that features hundreds of speakers, networking opportunities, exhibitors and more.
The NAR conference can be a great opportunity for you to make hundreds of new connections, get inspired by the great speakers like Michael Russer, and learn about the cutting edge technology that applies to your industry.
The Expo alone can be the most valuable part of your conference as well. Find your favorite vendors like Advanced Access, Top Producer, Quantum Mail, Point2 Agent, and so many more that are be added each day. I not only would be there as an exhibitor with the IREAA, but I will also be there to network and make connections with vendors and check out what’s new in real esate marketing and technology.
So make plans to attend the 2007 NAR Conference and Expo. It could be the best thing to happen to your business. And I welcome you to come by and meet me and my IREAA friends at booth #3951.
I get asked quite often for good ideas for creative or unique closing gifts for their clients. Here is a collection of ideas and places to get great gifts for you clients’ next closing.
Gifts that keep on giving -
Why not give the new homeowners a magazine subscription for a topic of interest to your clients. Or set your client up on a membership to receive their favorite sort of items every month. Is your client a wine lover? Enroll them in a “Wine of the Month” club (www.wineofthemonthclub.com). Or try Clubs of America (www.greatclubs.com) to find just the right gift for you lover of flowers, beer, coffee, chocolate, etc.
Some advice that is not only important for real estate professionals to consider, but I should to.
Article from RISMEDIA: Six Suggestions for Entreprenuers to Help Balance Work and Life
RISMEDIA, June 5, 2007-Picture this: ocean waves are crashing, the sun is beaming, and your children are attempting to construct a sandcastle of grand proportions. Now look more closely at the beach blanket in this mental image . . . are you on it? For many busy entrepreneurs, this idealistic scenario sounds great, but it just isn’t in the cards. There always seems to be something going on with the business-a problem to handle or a new customer to please-and you just don’t feel you can take a summer vacation, or for that matter, spend any time away from your company.
If you’ve fallen into the “all work and no play” trap and are neglecting your friends and family, entrepreneurial expert Ty Freyvogel says that not only is your personal life suffering, your business may be at risk.
“No one can immerse himself in work nonstop, without a break, and maintain a healthy sense of perspective,” says Freyvogel, former entrepreneur, current angel investor, and founder of www.makingsenseofyourbusiness.com, a new site with a plethora of business advice for any entrepreneur.
Calling all REALTORS…
This past Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl did a complete hatchet piece titled “Chipping Away At Realtors’ Six Percent” . In this piece they practically tear apart real estate professionals and in my opinion depicted them as greedy scam artists, preying upon consumers. I also believe it was more of in infomercial for the Redfin, a “non-traditional” real estate service provider, rather than a news story. But lately, you can’t expect anything less from 60 Minutes. To me they now amount to nothing more than a TV tabloid than REAL journalism. [Read more...]
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