via activerain.com
What separates Rich Real Estate Agents from the Poor Real Estate Agents? Check out this awesome infographic and survey from Active Rain. Lots of striking information in this, definitely worth checking out.
Rich Real Estate Agent, Poor Real Estate Agent
One Year Ago I Ditched Outlook for Gmail
One year ago today, I made the decision to ditch Microsoft Outlook and move everything over to Gmail. And I have never looked back!
Why did I do it? Outlook at the time was continually locking up, crashing my PC and I was completely fed up. In the back of my mind, I had always considered moving it over to Gmail but was too afraid to take the plunge because it was so different than I’m used to. Then one day, after too much frustration, I did it. And it was so much easier than I thought.
So what are the Pros for leaving Outlook for Gmail? Here are a few of the great reasons:
- Easy to use! If you are used to Google and any Google apps at all, you will easily be able to find your way around Gmail.
- Access to your email from anywhere. Any computer with internet, any mobile phone, Mac or PC. That means if you buy a new computer, the transition instructions are so easy: 1. Turn on computer 2. Login to Gmail.
- Like I mentioned above, you can access anywhere, that means it syncs everywhere. No worrying about double entry or deleting emails you’ve already received in other locations.
- If you are used to using “Folders” and rules in Outlook, then “Labels” and filters work the same way, and even better.
- Your Gmail, your Docs, Calendars (which syncs everywhere too!) is accessible in one dashboard
- You can pull in multiple email accounts via POP3 if you use different email addresses for different things (you are not stuck with only @gmail.com addresses). You can do up to 5 POP3 accounts for free in regular Gmail.
I’m an Android phone user which made the email switch much easier since Gmail is it’s main email app. Also, within the last few months I have switched from a PC to a MAC and it sure did make my email transition much smoother (see above).
With all this gushing about Google and how great it is, if you are so used to Outlook, Gmail can be hard to get used to at first. First, it just looks different, and the threaded conversations and overall look took some getting used to. I also had to take some extra time to set up all my filters and labels in the beginning. But once I did, it was smooth sailing from there.
* I should note that I did not move my domain’s mail hosting to Google Apps. I have a dozen or so emails associated with it, and my host is awesome so I didn’t want to rock the boat. I really wanted to keep it simple! Regular Gmail suffices for me (luckily I don’t have more than 5 POP3 accounts to pull in).
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Importance of REALTOR Safety
Being a real estate agent can definitely be a difficult job at times. From managing several buyer and seller clients at once, to tracking paperwork and juggling upcoming closings. But he thought that your real estate career can present you with some dangerous situations, hardly ever enters your mind. Some scary stuff in the news lately is driving home the fact that Realtor safety should become a priority.
Realtor safety concerns are nothing new. Several years ago, when I worked in the front office for a major real estate company, the company had decided to offer self defense classes to their agents which some thought was silly. Since the subject came up, my broker then told me this story:
She was working with these first-time buyers, showing them several properties on the weekends over a few weeks. One Saturday morning, she was setting up a few showing appointments for the day, and called one particular owner-occupied home where a pleasant gentleman answered. He said it was the requested appointment was fine and he would make sure to be out of the home.
Since this was the first appointment of the day, she decided to get to the property ahead of her clients to preview it herself, open up curtains, turn on lights, etc. When she unlocked and opened the door, about 10 feet in front of her was a man sitting in a chair with a shotgun in his lap, starting straight at her. She quickly apologized for disturbing him, backed away, closed the door, and got in her car. She had her clients meet her at the next property instead.
Now that scary situation turned out to be ok for my former boss, as she was unharmed. But it has stuck in her memory and has always taken extra safety measures ever since.
The news tell us that some agents have not been so lucky.
Last year, two Realtors were found murdered in separate incidents, one found shot in a vacant home he was showing, and one found in burning home.
Back in April, an Iowa Realtor was found murdered at an at a model home open house.
In July, a Tennessee agent was attacked and robbed during a showing appointment.
Just last month, an Oregon broker was targeted in his office and shot by a revenge seeking gunman.
A few weeks ago, northern Ohio agents were warned that a man was calling female agents for evening showing appointments, to possibly lure them into vacant homes and sexually assault them.
The sad list goes on.
Real estate can be a risky industry. Agents can often find themselves traveling alone, meeting with and showing properties to people that they don’t really know well or at all. There’s worries that violence against Realtors is on the rise. And it is not just women that are victimized. (check out his report)
What can you do to keep yourself safe? Though past violent incidents don’t always have a common thread, and there is no way to prevent every crime, agents should certainly take any step necessary to protect themselves.
- Take a self defense or martial arts class.
- Google new prospects prior to initial meetings to sniff out anything fishy if you can.
- Meet them for the first time in a public place, such as your office during business hours.
- Call or text someone to let them know where you’ll be and who you’ll be with showing properties.
- Use a tool such as Moby, which is a mobile app for your smartphone that can alert chosen contacts with a need for assistance and also tracks your location. And it’s FREE!
Do what you can to increase your awareness and fine tune your gut instincts. Please stay safe out there!
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11 Weeks Left in 2011? Let’s Get Ready for 2012 NOW!
Believe it or not, there are only 11 weeks left in 2011! We are firmly in the 4th quarter and have you examined your progress on your 2011 business plan? Are you flying blind without one? Well whatever your answer, there is no time to waste. The time to implement is now if you want 2012 to get off to a great start.
Some say that if you start your business January 1st 2012, you are already behind. Real estate is a lag industry and things can take 60-90 days of implementation to see any results. So if you don’t start until January, you may not see any results for several months (especially in this slow economy).
The best marketing advice I’ve ever received is to ramp up your marketing efforts and activities in the 4th quarter so you can see your results once the new year hits and get it off to a fabulous start. If you wait too long, you may find it harder to reach your business or revenue goals because you were waiting for leads to convert and get those marketing results to appear. Market for next year starting NOW!
Starting now, there are probably a few things you can be doing differently, or at least get started on, that can get your 2012 started off right. For example, you can:
- Start a blog or dust off that blog you have been neglecting and post regularly (at least 2-3 times a week to start)
- Give your website a makeover and make sure the focus is on the consumer, and not what a great REALTOR you are.
- Create or find deliverables that your prospects would actually want to sign up for and get those leads starting to come into your pipeline
- Increase your visibility on Facebook and make a business pages focusing on the neighborhoods and communities you serve.
- Start up on Twitter and be visible, engage, and share with your followers.
- Start using video! Promote your properties, your expertise, and your market area
- Be sure to keep your social media activities ongoing and never let anything get stale or make people wonder if you are still in business.
It is the perfect time to examine your current business plan (if you have one) refine it, in start implementing NOW so you can have a fabulous 2012. So take some action! I want you to start it off with a bang!
Have some marketing ideas you can implement now to get next year off to a great start? I would love to hear them! Please leave me a comment below!
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Social Media vs. Traditional Marketing – There Is No Magic Bullet
Old school vs. the new school. Traditional marketing methods vs. Social media marketing. Ways of the past vs. the wave of the future. Around the online real estate world, a small debate was going on about the different schools of thought on real estate marketing methods such as social media and online marketing, and the more traditional routes such as cold calling, door knocking, and direct mail.
Some have quickly taken one side over the other, dismissing the validity of the other point. The “old school” folks cheer on the statement that social media is a total waste of time. The “new school” people think the ones who deny the potential of social media are dinosaurs of the industry that should step aside. I think the the bigger picture here in this debate is that a balanced approach using both old and new methods is necessary to succeed in this market.
Is social media a complete waste of time? I don’t certainly think so. If you know me, you know that I am a big social media fan, and use things like Facebook and Twitter quite often personally and for my business. I have even signed new clients that I’ve met via social media.
Social networking can certainly have potential to be a time waster, with the virtual farms, virtual mafia, and the penchant to announce what one had for breakfast. Certainly if you spend too much of your time living on Facebook and Twitter, you are not going to get much done in general, or be able to effectively work with your clients. But if you handle your social networking activities correctly (strategically), you can get potentially attract new business through your social media engagement.
It is also necessary to have the right mindset and expectation about the potential business social media marketing can bring you. Connections that you attract through social media can take a long time for them to convert to actual business, much like other internet leads. But if you look at the bigger picture, social networks are a great tool to foster new relationships with prospects by engaging with them and repeatedly be out in front of them.
Through some of the more traditional methods of cold calling, and door knocking, most of the “old school” gurus direct agents to go through their database, sphere or lists looking for buyers and sellers that are ready to make their move RIGHT NOW. And then they’ll instruct them to cross the prospect off the list and move on the the next if the are not ready to do business in the immediate. Where this differs from social media marketing is that you are spending little time incubating those warm or cold leads, and going directly for the hot ones. While this approach may be successful for some, it is not for everyone, and even some prospects find this type of communication a total turn off (Hello Gen Y?).
Both social media marketing and more traditional prospecting methods both have their place in today’s marketing plans. Cold calling for hot leads can help you generate business that is ready to move right now, while social media marketing can help fill that pipeline of incoming leads that can eventually warm up to actual business too. I believe a balanced approach in your marketing plan is best.
There is no one marketing method that is the magic bullet. But use any combination of them with the right approach and mindset, and they will bring you new business.
What side of the debate do you stand on? Or what marketing methods have yielded the best results for you? I want to hear from you, so please comment below!
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Have You Updated Your About Page Lately
Take a look at the “About Me” page on your website. Have you not updated your bio within the last several years on there? Or worse, do you have canned content from your template website provider? Or worse yet, you have the phrase “This is where you put in information about yourself” in that spot?
The About page on any given website is about the first or second place a visitor clicks on when visiting a new site (on a real estate site, it’s probably 2nd to property searches). People want to know the person or people that are behind the business and what that business is really about. It is important to show who you are and still give people a reason to stay on your site and want more from you.
I recently decided to take a new approach to my own About page on my website. Before, my page was just like any professional profile or resume, stating my certifications, my past work experience and so on. It was a snooze fest. And I really didn’t think it conveyed who I was or represented me authentically. So I changed it up, re-wrote it in my own voice and added some more personal information about me outside of my business. I still kept at the end bullet points with my professional certifications and such, but now I gave a little more insight to the REAL me.
Now, I’m not saying that my new about page is the most compelling thing ever written on the planet. But I feel it is more authentic. I wrote it in my own voice, telling more of the story on how I got to be in the business I’m in, and showing the REAL person behind the business (who is a busy mommy as well as a wine lover).
Now I have mentioned before, that real estate consumers don’t really care about the agent at first, and that mostly is true. They mostly want property info and market conditions. But once they ARE ready to care about the agent they want to use, you’re about page can help to convince them that YOU are the one they can be comfortable working with.
About pages don’t have to be boring and resume like. Check out this blog with 12 of the best about pages from around the web. You can also check out this site About.me and create your own profile on there as well as get your creative wheels turning. You can check out my own About.me page here with a slightly shortened version of my bio.
I recommend you examine your own About page right now. Does it authentically represent you? Does it say who you are and give people a reason to stay and find out more. Does it tell of all of your professional experience and most updated certifications? Does it have an updated photo of you, or glamor shot of you from 25 years ago? Go look at it, re-work it and make sure it makes a great first impression.
Have a great About.me page or an about page on your site to be proud of? Leave me a comment and share it below!
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You’re Doing it Wrong
Are you frustrated with not getting a steady stream of quality prospects from your real estate website? Suffering from too many visitors leaving your website and never coming back? If you are having a tough time getting new leads and visitors to sign up for your list and contact you, take a long hard look at your site. Chances are, you are probably doing it wrong.
You Are Doing It Wrong if…
1. Your site is a stale static site that does not have regularly updated content like a blog.
- If you are not updating your site regularly with new content, like blogging, your site stays stale, uninteresting and totally irrelevant. And blogging doesn’t have to be strictly written articles. You can regularly post videos and pictures relevant to your market area that will provide content that people will come back to see.
2. You have pictures of palm trees and beaches all over your header and pages, but your local market is in Denver Colorado.
- If your site does not reflect you and your local market, what is the point? How would anyone know if you are the local market expert when your site displays a complete disconnect?
3. You have a forced sign-up immediately just to be able to start a property search or to view IDX listings.
- I know this is a common tactic to garner leads, so some may disagree with me here. But from my own experience as a consumer… when I am looking for homes and you make me sign up just to search or view them, I will bounce out of there and go where I can view homes unimpeded. It’s a personal annoyance of mine, but I know many consumers share the same experience.
4. It is too hard to find the top THREE things visitors to your site want most: Home Search, “What is my home worth”, “How is the Market”
- If those top three things are not above the fold or in a most obvious place on your site for buyers and sellers to find, you are missing the mark. Your site will lose credibility with visitors right away if they have to search too hard to find the information they want the most. So they will bounce out and find it elsewhere.
5. Your website is all about you and nothing much about your local market and what your visitors want (see the top 3 items above).
- Truth is, consumers don’t much care about the agents when they start their home search. When you go car shopping, do you first start by searching for the best car salesman you can find? My guess is that you don’t. The same goes for home buyers. They start searching for HOMES not for Realtors. So drop the ego and make sure your site is geared towards the consumer. Answer the question, “What’s in it for them?”.
6. You’re not offering buyers and sellers something of actual value to them for signing up for your list or updates.
- Those cheesy, canned “free reports” provided by template sites don’t count. (does anybody really sign up for those?) Try something like the Market Snapshot system, a special buyers guide, offer IDX listings to their inbox, or free foreclosure lists.
7. Your site has no links or way to connect with you on social media.
- Social media gives web visitors the opportunity to observe your activity, a bit of your personality, and build up that trust factor over time. And since many visitors are not usually ready right then to make contact with you, provide them links to your Facebook business page or Twitter feed for them to get to know you from a distance. This is especially appealing to Gen Y’ers since they are way more likely to reach out via Facebook than pick up the phone or send an email.
8. There’s no clear call to action on your site.
- If you don’t have clear consistent calls to action to tell your users what you want them to do with the information you provide them, you’re doing it wrong. Tell them to call or email you for more info. Tell them to leave you a comment about their own experiences or questions. Tell them to sign up on your form to receive market reports on recent solds in the area.
9. You have no contact forms on your site for visitors to actually contact you when they are ready.
- Only having your phone number or links to email you may be hurting your site’s ability to capture leads. Having no (or very few) contact forms on your site, you’re not making it easy for visitors. It can be especially difficult for those who primarily use a web based email client like gmail or they happen to be at work. In fact, it is important to have some sort of contact form on every page. Make it easy on your users to contact you!
10. You say you are different from the rest, yet you are using a templated website that looks identical to 50,000 other agents’ sites.
- Using a template site that is provided to you by your broker or from from some other web vendor, does you no favors. Those template sites hardly reflect your local market or your own brand and you can get easily lost in the shuffle. How can you stand out from the rest if your site looks exactly the same as the next guy and does nothing to set you apart.
If you took a good look at your site and saw that your are doing one, all or any combination of the above, it is probably time for a new approach. Your website should be your hub, your engine for delivering exactly what consumers want when they search for real estate info. If you are not making it easy, not making it all about them, you are losing them. Stop doing it wrong.
Consider utilizing a Real Estate Virtual Assistant to help you do it right.
Seen other ways people are doing it wrong? Have any questions on how to do it right? We want to hear from you! Leave us a comment below and let us know.
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