Technology Strategist, Speaker, Trainer

As we create more and more profiles online, a social media card may be a good solution. Our personal information was once manageable. Today we are overwhelmed by our online information. Every day more profiles, more contacts, more content, creating new problems for consumers and businesses.

What’s a social media business card ? It is a mini website or a virtual card that will hold all your social network identities just like in a business card so you can hand it over, or share the link to anyone. Its a fairly simple concept, where you just need to give some details,  like your social media identities, a quick bio and picture and these sites  auto generate the card for you.

If you have asked yourself the following questions a social media card site is for you.

• How can we make money not spend money?
• How can we help clients with social media?
• How can we  drive people to our official Facebook Page?
• How can we increase our client base?

A Personal Profile Website or Social Media Business Card is all about you and your listings. It organizes your bio, your social network profiles, your content and your contact information via a single, easy to remember Website address.

One of my favorites is published by a company called Agency Logic. Their product is called Follr.com. They have a special product just for the real estate industry.  Follr is a personal profile website organizing the chaos. It offers a simple to fill out format and the website has several tabs. They include:

• A personal “home page” to anchor information
• Your resume and digital personal brand
• Content and contact information
• Biography, video and professional summary
• Connecting to official marketing channels
• All your listings

For real estate, Follr offers to use of  Rlty.Me for Real Estate Agents and Rlty.us for Brokerages or Teams.

Here is a great example.  rlty.me/HeidiGolff

The best news is that is is FREE.

Rich Levin

There is a crazy amount of interest in successful open houses and that makes sense because we are in a market where the pent up demand of the past few years along with some decent economic news and continued low interest rates are driving hoards of people into the market.

The keys to a successful open described in the article and its attached checklists and scripts is to engage people at the open in the conversation that leads to make an appointment with you to discuss working with you to buy a home.  Stage the home as a place where, in addition to the house showing well, you are demonstrating your personality and professionalism.

Then treat the open house for what it really is, an opportunity to generate a bunch of leads in one place and in a relatively short period of time.  This also means choosing opens that you know will have good traffic and not holding homes open just because the owner wants the open when you, the Agent know that there will be little or no traffic.

Bottom line: unless you abhor open houses this is a market in which well priced houses, newer on the market and relatively easy to access are worth thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars.  My record is eight appointments made at one open house that turned into six sales to Buyers and one listing.  See if you can beat that!

Are you finding the success you want when it comes to working with buyers? Or are you so frustrated with buyers that you’re seriously considering working exclusively with sellers? If you choose not to work with buyers, you are walking away from 50% of the opportunities that exist in the market! If you love the business you have and don’t need one more penny of income, then by all means focus on sellers and forget about buyers.

I personally believe that having a strong buyer business can be an extremely lucrative and fulfilling experience! But you need a strategic plan to be really successful working with buyers. Over the course of the next three Zebra Reports I’m going to give you everything you need to wow buyers.

Let’s start by talking about the most important piece of the buyer puzzle - engagement. It’s the cultivation of relationships that ultimately leads to an increase in business, and a more profitable bottom line.

Many of you are having challenges with buyers because you are not engaging effectively with buyers.  Are you showing buyers home after home after home … but they never buy?  Or do they make offers that are never accepted?  Perhaps they write offers that are accepted … but they bail out of the transaction before closing for reasons that don’t appear valid?

While it’s easy to label these as buyer problems, they are also agent problems! In order to have an effective buyer business you need to seriously sharpen your buyer-client skills.

Let’s look at three critical pieces of the buyer experience: communication, the pace of the home search, and negotiation.

Communication: Often an agent will tell me about a problem they’re having with a buyer … and it immediately becomes clear that the problem is communication. What do I mean? It’s not just whether you talk to buyer clients on a regular basis. It’s also how you talk to them, what you’re saying, and whether the method you are using to communicate mirrors their preferences. Here’s an example: Let’s say you have a buyer named Mike who communicates with you primarily via email and text. You, on the other hand, prefer to pick up the phone and chat, or meet face-to-face. Because you’re obviously not communicating in the manner that Mike needs, he’s going to get frustrated with you. When his frustration gets to the point where he just can’t stand it, he’ll likely find another agent who does understand his preferences.  Or maybe your favorite way to communicate is via email and text, but your new buyer Claire rarely responds to your email messages. Is she not interested in buying? No! She is giving you a clue that perhaps email is not high on her list of communication methods. If you want to create great buyer relationships, ask your client how they prefer to communicate. And remember - listen for the clues, then honor and respect those wishes.

The pace of the home search:  Let’s say you’ve found, after many years of experience, that most buyers can’t remember the details of more than three homes in any one showing. Based on that assumption, you always limit showings to no more than three homes in one buyer appointment. However, you’ve just shown Jim and Diane three homes. You’re heading back to your office with them, and you realize that they’re ready to look at many more houses. Obviously, Jim and Diane don’t fit your preconceptions about buyers! Now they want to keep looking, but you haven’t made arrangements to do that. So they’re disappointed … and they’re probably feeling you aren’t showing them “enough” homes. Making assumptions about how buyers like to search for homes is a common mistake, but it’s one that is easy to correct. All you have to do is open the lines of communication! Ask buyers whether they like to look at lots of homes at once, or if they prefer to view just a few on each outing. Then, listen and watch for more clues.

A great way to handle the home search is to start by taking buyers on a “driving tour“, which helps you learn a lot about your buyers fairly quickly. Based on their parameters, create a tour to show them neighborhoods or communities that they prefer. While on the driving tour, ask your buyers to identify the homes that they would like to take a closer look at. These tours allow you to cover a lot of ground up-front, and ultimately shorten the buying cycle. Just remember to match the clues they give you with the pace they are going. If you drive buyers past 20 homes and they seem overwhelmed, that’s a clue. If you take them by eight and they seem bored, that’s another clue. Pay attention to all the clues!

One last thought on the home search process. If you’re sending buyers bundles of listing information via email and they’re not responding to you, it could be that you’re simply overwhelming them and they don’t know where to start. It’s also a clue that perhaps you should slow down the process and talk to them face-to-face again. If, on the other hand, your buyers are contacting you regularly to ask about listings you have not sent information on, or called them about, you need to pick up the pace and become much more proactive. Again … watch for the clues.

Negotiations:  Every buyer has a negotiation style that is most comfortable for them. You need to determine what that style is, and how to effectively manage it. Some buyers are always going to want to write a low offer on reasonably-priced homes because they want room to negotiate. Other buyers will offer exactly what they can pay, and not a penny more. Some will offer full price - because they and their agent have done their homework and they know the home is priced correctly. Regardless of your buyer’s style, it’s critical that you spend time talking to your buyer clients about “win-win” negotiating. Show buyers exactly what that looks like. Explain to them why it’s important to bring a fair offer to the table. Before you get to the offer-writing stage, have an honest discussion with your buyers about their negotiating style and how you can work together to make it work within a win-win scenario.

Remember - the key to building an amazing buyer business is engagement. It’s listening and watching for clues and adapting your style to mirror your buyer’s style. Engagement is making sure that your communication, home search, and negotiation styles match the preferences of your buyers. If you take care of these three critical areas, you’ll build strong, long-lasting relationships with your buyers … and ultimately build a profitable, sustainable business.

Facebook Groups:

Facebook groups are designed as a place for a small group of Facebook users to share, chat, and email. There are three types of groups that can be created: Open, Closed, and Secret. The type of group you create determines if the group members and group content are public or private. Because you can create a closed or secret group where the conversations and content and members are not publicly visible, groups can be a great tool for real estate agents to have conversations on Facebook that are segregated from the conversations that are occurring on their profile wall. Offices and associations can also use closed and secret groups as places where their agents and members can converse without the greater Facebook community observing the discussion. One of the great features about Facebook groups is that group members don’t have to be Facebook friends to communicate with each other in the group. Another feature to note about groups is that there is no centralized voice of the group. Each group member is equal and the conversation with the most recent activity is promoted to the top of the group’s wall.

Facebook Ads:

Facebook ads are the only Facebook marketing tool that costs money to use. With Facebook advertising, you can target users based on location, age, marital status, and likes and interests. You pay for ads on a cost per click basis (how many times someone clicks on your ad), or a cost per impression basis (how many times that ad appears on the site). Ads appear on the right hand sidebar in most places on Facebook. Facebook advertising is the most targeted and powerful advertising database available. Facebook ads can be very effective and an strong part of a pages marketing strategy. They can also be a great way to advertise listings.

Technology Strategist, Speaker, Trainer

2012 brings opportunity. You have a new business plan and goal,  and hopefully a new marketing plan that includes new technology to help your business.  There are eight main areas that have all stood the test of time and should be incorporated into your online strategy for 2012. We feel if you create a plan (no matter how simple) in each of these in the coming year you will have your best year ever online! It is not as overwhelming as you might think so just jump right in and get started.

1. General Marketing

2. SEO

3. Blogging

4. Facebook

5. LinkedIn

6. Twitter

7. Video

8. All other Social Media Sites.

For the full article with several links please visit: www.AmyChorew.com

Rich Levin

It’s one of the most interesting parts of my job.  When an Agent that I coach is in the middle of a tough negotiation I ask them to call me.  Debbie did.

The asking price was $769,000.  The offer came in at $625,000.

Debbie is smart and talented.  As the owner’s anger and frustration arose, Debbie calmly explained that, “All offers are good offers,” that in this market Buyers feel that owners may be desperate.  The key is that she kept the owner objective.

She did not disparage the offer, the other Agent or the Buyer.  She didn’t compliment them either.  Instead she kept it objective.

The owner countered at $725,000.  The Buyer came back at $640,000.  Again, as you might expect the owner was angry and frustrated.  Again, Debbie kept her cool and told him.  “I want to be as upset at you are but my job is to keep my eye on the goal of getting you the price you need to get the job done.  So, let’s decide do we want to tell them we won’t respond until they raise their offer?  Do we want to make a small concession and keep inching closer?  Or do we want to go to or close to your bottom line and send the message that we want to get this done with less “Mickey Mouse” back and forth.”

She explained the risks of not responding and allowed the owners to lead the decision making with her guidance.

So many Agents who are far less skilled negotiators than Debbie empathize with their Client in ways that paint the other Agent or the other party as wrong, greedy, etc.  Debbie demonstrated three key negotiation skills of a talented negotiator.

1. She kept the negotiation and her Client objective.
2. She kept the conversation and the negotiation focused on the goal.
3. She kept herself objective and focused on the goal.

Real estate agent “Sally” (names have been changed to protect the guilty!) called me.

“Denise”, she said, “my business is good, but not great.  I’ve had a marketing makeover. I’ve redone my listing presentation.  I’ve learned consultative selling.  Things have gotten better, but I’m still not at the level where I want to be.  What am I doing wrong?”

Nine times out of ten when I hear this from an agent, I know exactly what the problem is.

I asked Sally a few questions.  It took me only five minutes to confirm my suspicions. Sally had been doing everything right-with one exception.

One very major exception.
She wasn’t being consistent with her follow-up.

I can’t tell you how many brilliant agents are losing business because of lousy follow-up, inconsistent follow-up, or no follow-up at all.  It perplexes me that an agent would put in all the time and expense to develop a business, only to ignore the one tool that consistently generates new leads.

Follow-up is basic.  Every successful real estate career has been built on it.

Take a good hard look at yours right now.

Are you staying in touch with your database?  Are you contacting your past clients?  Do you have an email campaign pre-written to automatically go out to them?  Do you sendannual reports specifically tailored for their individual neighborhoods?  Do you hold anannual client appreciation event?  Do you call past clients at least once a year?

If your answer to any of these questions is “no”, you certainly cannot expect your past clients to remember you when someone they know needs real estate assistance.

The reason is simple.  People-even the really nice ones-take the path of least resistance when it comes to referrals.  If the path of least resistance is that you’re top of mind, then you get the referral.

If, however, they haven’t seen nor heard from you in three years, the path isn’t so direct anymore.  Perhaps they’ve become friends with another agent since then.  Add the fact that you’ve disappeared from their lives and chances are that they will forget you.

When you forget them, they forget you.

Your follow-up is the one foundational piece of your business that needs your critical attention.  Consistency is key.  Without consistent follow-up, you are destroying your business.

I can just hear you now, “Destroying my business?  Really?  But Denise, I’m out there prospecting every day.  I work very hard to find new clients.  And I’m good at it.  So what’s the problem?”

The problem is that you’re working harder and harder to find those clients.  You may indeed be great at prospecting.  That’s wonderful.  But prospecting is tiring.  It can wear you down.  The last thing you can afford right now is to become burned out.

It is so much easier - and more lucrative - to have an army of salespeople out there bringing new clients to you. These are your past clients.

One agent I know spends 80% of her time just fielding referrals.  How?  Years ago, she realized the value of past clients. Since day one, she has stayed in touch with everyone she has ever done business with.  It has paid off for her so much that her phone rings at least once a week with a new referral.  Wouldn’t you like to be in that position?

(Be careful. I’m not suggesting you don’t prospect.  Don’t forget - this agent has built her list over three decades.  Yes, it takes time.  But look what consistent follow-up did for her business!)

By having a strong follow-up plan targeted at your past client database, you will sustain your business longer with less upfront effort.  This frees you to focus on other tasks or totake time off - which is a mandatory element of being successful.

Follow-up doesn’t need to be consigned to your past clients, either.  Why not follow-up with the people that you come across in your daily travels?

Recently, in my Evolve! group, I asked agents to list every single person who is even remotely on their radar - people who might buy or sell a house in the next year.  Then, I asked them to hypothetically assume they would take action.  I had them calculate how much money that would mean to them.

The numbers were startling.  This hypothetical analysis showed them the possibility that existed with those clients, if only they can keep in touch with them until the clients are ready to move forward.  The sad fact was many of those agents did not have any kind of follow-up system in place … even when they knew that the clients would likely take action soon!

In order to do follow-up well, it’s important to have a system in place.  That system details exactly what to do every month of the year.

Here’s a great example of effective follow up:

• Six times a year, send an article about what’s going on in the real estate market.
• Four times a year, send a quarterly report that compares the previous year’s quarter to this year’s quarter.
• Once a year, send an Annual Client Review.
• Once a year, send a forecast for the coming year.

That’s twelve pieces to keep you in the minds of your clients-one for each month of the year.  Now that is a powerful follow-up program.  And you’ll notice that not one element of the system involves recipe cards, automotive tips, or suggestions for maintaining good health.  Your follow-up system must be focused solely around real estate.

Follow-up is the essential foundation of any real estate agent’s business.  If you’re not doing well with your follow-up, take some time to get it in order.  Ask yourself what you can do to make a connection with your clients RIGHT NOW.