Are you getting hundreds of emails a day? Dozens of requests to buy products, attend webinars, try out new software? Join the club! We are all inundated with more and more ‘clutter communication’. We want to ignore all of it. But, as salespeople, we have to assure that our communications actually cut through the clutter! 

First, Just Stop Selling……..

I just finished a webinar for the Learning Library of the National Association of Realtors. It was for seasoned Realtors, and I explored 5 strategies for getting back on track in this transitioning market. (Seasoned but Stuck: 5 Business Strategies for Seasoned Agents to Get your Business Back in the Groove).  One of the major points was to

stop selling!!!!!!

Now, I don’t mean to actually stop selling real estate, but stop using those old communication methods, like the ‘alternate choice’, the ‘getting them to shake their heads,’etc., etc., etc. I advised agents to review their scripts and dialogues and determine if they were really serving the client of today. That’s not creative, and clientrs are really tired of feeling manipulated by ’sales techniques’.

Use Your Right Brain, for a Change

As a musician, I’m fascinated by creativity–and repelled by blatant copying. Now, creativity is becoming key in business, and it’s my pleasure and background to help real estate professionals apply creativity to their businesses.

In his book, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink explores creativity and states that the creative people will be the next people to take over the world! Good news to this leftie/right brainer/musician! But, how do we use creativity to sell real estate?

Blend Relational Selling with Creative Messaging

Pink gives a real estate example of a card sent by agents to introduce new buyers to the residents in the area. On the card, the agents explain that the 90-year-old seller was assisted in making her move with the agents, who went beyond the call of duty in getting the home ready to sell. The agents then introduce the buyers. Nowhere is the selling price stated. This approach provides a human view of seller and buyer, and demonstrates the ‘value-added’ service the agents provided.

Blending Social Media with Creativity

Nowhere is creativity more needed than in the realm of social media today. In my webinar, Seasoned but Stuck, I suggested agents first develop a ‘theme’ and use social media to reinforce the theme. Taking my own advice, I just created a blog to serve what I believe is the least served section of the real estate community: the newer agent. So, I created a blog based on my best-selling resource Up and Running  in 30 Days. This blog provides solid, immediate information and inspiration to newer agents, to help them stick to it until they get success. It too reinforces my ‘theme’ as a productivity coach.

Developing a creative, conttemporary approach with your unique ‘theme’ assures you cut through the clutter of over-communication, and create the best kind of long-term relationships.

Carla Cross, CRB, MA is a National Association of Realtors’ Educator of the Year, coach, and author of 6 internationally published books. She was just named among 50 of the most influential women in real estate. Carla speaks, coaches, and writes on productivity and profitability with creativity, with a specialty in real estate management.

During the last week, what did you postpone until tomorrow that would have been better handled today? Prospecting? Calling past clients? Saving for a rainy day? Going to the dentist? Paying your bills? Calling a loved one? A physical check up?

One of the great ways we create stress and struggle in our lives is through procrastination. When we say, “I just don’t have the time (or energy) to deal with it now,” we “pay the price” of our procrastination in several different ways. First, when we focus on a task and decide not to act on it, we’ve wasted time we could have used to complete the task or to work on something else. Second, the more we procrastinate, the more difficult it becomes to take action to complete the task. Third, delaying the task often increases the “cost” of completing it, much like paying a credit card late increases the cost of carrying the debt.

What can you do to reduce the procrastination in your life? Here are five simple strategies:

1. Increase your awareness of when you procrastinate. Note how often you decide to postpone tasks as well as how you feel when you make the decision not to act on it now. Notice which types of tasks you normally complete as well as those where you consistently procrastinate.

2. If there’s a consistent area where you procrastinate, it’s probably time to delegate it or dump it. Many times we’re trapped by our own belief system that tells us we “should” engage in a particular activity. For example, you may believe you have to bake a homemade cake for a special birthday when one from the market would be just as good and would be a lot less effort.

3. Tackle the simple items first. If you try to stop procrastinating all at once or tackle the hardest items first, you’ll only create more struggle and stress. Instead, start with what you can easily handle and then move to the more difficult items.

4. Put a “time limit” on what’s not handled. For example, if you don’t read this month’s magazines, put them in next month’s stack. If they are not read by the end of the month,  discard them. Allowing them to pile up is a constant reminder of your procrastination and only makes you feel worse as the pile continues to grow.

5. Prioritize what’s most important and focus on completing those items. The 80-20 rule says 80% of the benefit comes from the top 20% of our activities. Conversely, the bottom 20% produces less than 1% of benefit. For the next week, eliminate the bottom 20% of your activities that produce the least benefit. Reducing how much you have to do frees you up to deal with the important items you’ve been procrastinating about doing.

Reducing procrastination requires a series of small steps over a long period of time. If you’re ready to stop procrastinating, how about completing one item right now that you’ve been putting off?

Posted by Bernice Ross, CEO of www.RealEstateCoach.com,author of Real Estate Dough(TM) Your Recipe for Real Estate Success, the #1 Best Selling Book at the NAR 2008 Conference.

According to NAR and other research we have done independently, 80% of leads generated by you or your company over the internet are lost, marked as dead or simply thrown out? Why is this happening?

An online consumer contacts you by email. They want an immediate response to their question. And As we know the first one to contact the consumer has the better chance of engaging the consumer.  Speed matters, and the speed of the internet has created this consumer need.

The reality is that the online lead many times is not ready to commit right way.
So we give up, or just lose interest, or don’t have systems in place to keep track of them to convert them at a later date.

Todays online consumer does not want to be captured by the real estate agent. They want to stay in control of the process.They feel if they give information the agent will bug them to they buy or die.

The technology needs of a buyer-based marketplace are so different than those of the past five years that many real estate professionals find themselves back at square one.

Here are some of the challenges:
Knowing who today’s consumeris and how they consume information  on the internet
Having all the tools to respond properly

In other words The challenge today is to understand which values are desired; and retool our business around them.

What about the leads that you send information to and then won’t give you enough information for your to qualify them as a lead?
One import fact to remember is that buyers are on line way before they are ready to purchase. Try to eliminate the 45 day mentality we attach to leads. Remember? A buyer walks into your office. You speak to them, read their tells. Wihtin half an hour you know if you have a commission check in your inbox in 45 days. Ahhh . . . memories. Those days are gone forever.

Many buyers enter the real estate search arena up to 4 years before they sit at a closing table. This is the subconscious stage. When something triggers to them to the next phase they actively engage into pre research. This is the thinking about it stage.

Another trigger sends them to active research. They are finally pre-qualified and they actively Search online for homes,  and areas.

The actually buying stage is when they need help on the  Offer, Negotiating and Closing.  Keep in mind the actual buying phase can last as long as 4 months.

What are these triggers? Job change, income change, family change, you name it.
Managing all these leads can be overwhelming,  so look through all the software, programs you own, especially products attached to your website and see if there are any automated email campaigns availble to you.

Please note - I am not an advocate of just pushing unwanted data to these people. AND I NEVER recommend this type of product to your sphere and past customers. Watch for my next post when I review products who pass my 3 Point Marketing test!

Rich Levin

It is exciting to kick off this new Mastermind Blog with the best Real Estate Speakers in the Country.

A new paradigm shift is occurring in Real Estate. To be successful in this new Real Estate era you must retrain your brain.

You have to operate from what you want and why you want it instead of operating from your to do list. Successful agents will be clear on this. Most Agents are addicted to their to-do list or guilty or embarrassed about not having a to-do list instead of operating from what they want and why they want it.
Successful Agent will be those that retrain their brain in this way.

There was a time that Web sites were Websites and Blogs were Blogs. With the revolution of social media, it’s harder to tell which is which!

So I asked the expert, Paul Chaney, author of the upcoming book, “DIGITAL HANDSHAKE” to explain just what the differences are. Paul points out that the blog format allows for more participation and interactivity where websites are generally more static and function as a resource destination but aren’t designed to encourage much participation.

He says that using a blog can help us AQUIRE customers, while email helps RETAIN the customer by building a relationship bridge.

If you are wondering just how to build that bridge, here’s a couple of ideas he shared with me to maximize both your email and your blog:

1) Build Lists: Incorporate a newsletter subscription form in your traditional and electronic newsletters. This invites the customer at their option to get more information from you.

2) Use your email messages to encourage response from recipients to build blog content – this provides that “bridge” we spoke of earlier –Invite guests to submit questions or suggestions and posts to your blog. This puts in place another opportunity to nurture and reinforce the relationship through conversation.

3) Re-purpose previous email reports – If you’ve been sending tips and resources for sometime thru previous e-zines, your blog will give you another opportunity to revive and repurpose those valuable tidbits of information again.

4) Use blog content for your email newsletters – This is especially effective when you are able to quote real responses from real people instead of just “pushing” information thru the medium. It’s all about conversations and blogs allow for that interaction from multiple participants. Remember it’s not about you anymore; it’s about the community!

5) Use your blog to fill the gaps between your monthly e-zines. Newsletters are usually published monthly –about 12 times a year – but what about the time in between, especially if there is a top of mind question or national development? Your blog offers a platform for your subscribers to “hear” from you –especially if they subscribe to your RSS feeds. With regular postings, customers can be touched many times with information they have requested…making you a valuable resource!

You can see how having a static website does not serve the new demands for the participation and interaction demanded by today’s consumer. But if you are wondering how to tie your blogs to your email, there are some programs to help you.

Paul says at this writing, that the only company that integrates both blogs and emails into a single platform is iContact.

If you are comfortable with exploring and implementing a blog email platform, check out applications like FeedBlitz, Zookoda, or Feedburner. These applications take your blog posts and turn them into emails which can be scheduled daily, weekly or monthly.

The days of visiting your website to secure information are going away! People want real time information and interaction. As blogging continues to grow, it is critical that you develop a blog strategy that partners with your email to keep pace with how customers and clients prefer to be informed.

Terri Murphy

www.TerriMurphy.com

SEO Expert, Real Estate Speaker and Trainer

Randy Eagar is a skilled speaker, master webinar presenter, and a search engine expert.  My team learns something every time he speaks!  From blogging to web site and serch engine placement, he delivers every time.

If you see a webinar or speaking event where is his speaking - don’t miss it!  Here is a short 2 part video clip on search engine optimization.  Good stuff!

Randy Eagar SEO Part 1

Randy Eagar SEO Part 2

If you are in the real estate education business, you certainly have recognized by now that e-learning in it’s many formats is HOT!  Ease of use, affordability, convenience for the end-user and limited risk on the part of the host are only a few of the reasons online learning has skyrocketed in the recent year.

REALTOR(R) University has responded to the demand for low-cost, high impact training and has launched a new Webinar Center with over 50 “live” webinars and a growing library of “On-Demand” webinars with the country’s leading experts.  www.learninglibrary.com/ru/webinars

Just some of the presenters online are Randy Eagar, Amy Chorew, Bernice Ross, David Knox, Verl Workman, Terri Murphy, Carla Cross, Denise Lones, Rich Levin, Bob Corcoran, Tom Kelly, Allen Hainge, Jackie Leavenworth, and Pam Ermen.  They cover a wide array of topics including listing, selling and marketing skills.

So, for agents and brokers it’s a true library of timely, cutting edge information and for boards, associations and large companies it’s a fantastic resource and an opportunity to earn revenue as an affiliate.  Learn more at www.learninglibrary.com/ru/affiliate

Check it out!