Real Estate Marketing Drips

Inspirational Stories~Springing for an Online Break is Worth Much More than the Eye Can See

This Monday marked the official beginning of Spring Break for schools in Walworth County Wisconsin.  Since two of my three children are school aged this is a significant event for our family. 

We made no plans to go to Florida, Aruba, Jamaica or Zimbabwe for that matter.  Just some good old time with each other during the week with a splash ending coming up on Easter Sunday.  A resort waterpark serves up good fun for this family of four and it is something all of my kids enjoy. 

Waterparks are a godsend for a family with three children aged preschool to preteen and one in between.

It's funny that Spring Break falls right on the second week of April this year.  This is one of the busiest times for me.  April is my month where I know I have to get busy, busy, busy.

• Busy blogging good content.  My blog has been my biggest source of business yet.
• Busy researching and practicing what I teach.  I yearn to learn beyond what is ordinary.  I like to twist it and aim to make it extraordinary.
  
• Busy listening to others through blog commenting, phone conversations, emailing, DM's, Online Chat, face to face and more.
• Busy closing the prospects I can from my pipeline in the winter.  Busy gathering new prospects...it's almost summer, then fall.

This busy blogging working mom is living a Spring Race not a Spring Break.

Let me pause...rewind...now play

Eight years ago I started working online SOLEY because I knew it was the one way I could work from home and earn a living.  WOrking from home was my number one priority.  I had two young children at the time and I wanted to be the one to raise them.  I didn't want to read about them in reports from a daycare center.

I worked night after night and more often that not on the weekend.  My background was in getting real estate transactions from contract to close, not in working the internet.  I always craved marketing and I had a strong repect for the Art of a Salesman. I had to take these curiousities and learn how to market and sell online.  My persistance won out and I was rewarded a position with an online internet marketing company that sold to the real estate industry.

The internet became my drug of choice and the very goal I had first come unto the internet for, to use it as a tool to help me spend more time with my children started to dispate before my eyes.  It was an obsession, an addiction, and I could never know everything.

I was becoming the drugged hamster on the wheel. 

Squeak, squeak, squeak one day I was on my wheel and my daughter Zoe, five years old at the time, came into my office and said, "Mom, are you ever going to stop working?"  She looked up at me with her big hazel eyes and squeak...pause...stop. 

One look at Zoe, a glance around my office, and back at my daughter and I got off my damn wheel.  My daughter's words were the rehab I needed.

Fastfoward Spring Break 2009 it's a crazy time.  I have work to do....lots of work to do, and this is my first Spring as an entrepreuner, man I have work to do.  My biggest goal this week, though, is to spend as much time with my kids as I can. 

The drug of the internet is more intense than ever...the drug of 2.0 is like a hydroponic hybrid.

I have been enjoying Spring Break with my children, working intermitently when I can this week.  I will bust my rump making up for some of my time...but I can never get back this time again with them.  The online networking, excessive twittering, researching of toys tools...it will have to wait.  There are real faces behind every computer screen.

The most relevant and real person that I can be is when I take a break and enjoy being a mom...

To my beautiful clan of three.  They are real faces and they look to me.

Springing for an online break is worth much more than the eye can see.

**  If anyone is nodding their heads and feeling the crunch of balance, whether you are an empty nester or are raising a young family like me...please remember that the more well connected you are with yourself and those that matter the most offline the more connected you can become with like-minded online peeps- KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST.  This is the beauty of building a true community.

I am so glad I got off the computer and reconnected with people offline.  Had I been blogging during my crazed stage eight years ago I would have been a pompous bore**

Subscribe to Blogging In The Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

If you enjoy inspirational stories, check out these blog posts:

• Inspirational Stories~Tuesday's Tale of Affirmative Action
• Inspirational Stories~Life is a Shared Custody Venture
• Inspirational Stories~My 2009 Resolution:  Practice More, Preach Less, and Take the Easy Way Out

Real Estate Brokers:  5 Keys to Real Estate Agent Success

This list has been building in my mind since I first got started in the real estate industry 17 years ago when blogging wasn't even a conceptual thought on Jorn Barger's mind.  I have compiled this list from on the job experience, reading, listening and helping close thousands of real estate sales and purchases by partnering with local real estate agents.

I have much more to share, but thought I would kick this off with the five basics relevant to the real estate industry today.

Five Keys to Real Estate Agent Success

1. Provide Real Estate Training

Develop an in house mentoring program.  There are some professionals who I am sure know HTML and PHP but I am unsure if they know what houses are on the market, what has expired, what has sold, what has been listed in the past 30-60-90 days.  I see this as a huge oversight by the real estate industry.  It's important to be a great marketer, but buyers and sellers of ALL GENERATIONS hire real estate professionals because they are supposed to know the market not because they are self proclaimed Internet marketing gurus. 

If a real estate agent advertises as a first time home buyer specialist but cannot answer questions like:  1. What first time home buyer programs exist?  2.  Can you recommend any mortgage professionals?  3.  What is available in my price range and will it have to be a fixer-upper?  4.  Can you tell me about the school districts in this area?  Then that IS a problem.  If a real estate agent advertises themselves as any specialty but cannot provide a service that differentiates themselves from their competitors THAT is a problem.

My sister and her boyfriend are going to be new first time home buyers in Chicago and by next week I will be interviewing at least three real estate agents before referring one to them.  I will be looking for a first time home buyer specialist in particular neighborhoods.  I will not be looking for an expert in PHP development. Let that be your minor.  Real estate should always be your major.

The agent I am looking for will be a blogger and I will be reading their content solely to assess the agent's expertise on first time home buyers and Chicago Real Estate Markets.  I will also be trying to get a sense of their character.  I don't want to refer my sister and her boyfriend to someone with a snotty attitude.

Back to basics.  Education and knowledge of the real estate industry is FIRST.

2.  Emphasize the Importance of Having a Website

86% of consumers come onto the Internet to look at properties, but there are still real estate agents who don't own any internet property.  Why?  It is guaranteed that if you don't provide a marketing hub you are losing more opportunities than you should.  I would NEVER refer a consumer to a real estate agent who didn't own a website, especially a seller.  A page on a real estate broker's website IS NOT a sufficient website.  A website off a real estate broker's website IS NOT a sufficient website.  All real estate professionals need their own domain with their own website. 

IT IS that simple.

3.  Encourage (strongly encourage) your real estate agents to write a business plan that includes a marketing plan. 

This is a topic that is discussed ad nausea each November/December headed toward the new calendar year.  If you don't decide what you want from your business and how you are going to get what you want, HOW CAN YOU expect your business to deliver for you? 

The concepts of defining a niche, giving yourself real estate homework daily and weekly, advertising and marketing, and good ole fashioned selling should be part and parcel of a good business plan.  Defined quarterly goals and objectives is another essential part of business plan.
 
A good business plan doesn't need to be a novel, it just needs to have meat and potatoes that real estate professionals can sink their teeth into.  The business plan should have actionable items and a checks and balance system to measure the results. 

I would recommend dedicating the last eight Fridays or Thursdays of the year to helping real estate professionals with their new year business plan.  There are also resources available FOR FREE   to help real estate brokers and agents with putting together business plans.

It's really simple.  If you do not plan you are planning to fail.

4.  Pick your training partners carefully

I love this one.  Many real estate professionals get so caught up in needing to know the latest and greatest tools and SEO techniques that their content just falls by the wayside.  If you hire an "SEO Expert, Social Media Expert, or Blogging Expert" to train your real estate professionals on the tools of the profession, then do yourself a favor and make sure they have adequate knowledge on the subject AND that what they are teaching pertains to the real estate industry.

Everyday there is a new Social Media Evangelist, Social Media Expert, or Blogging Expert.  It has become an "in demand" skill and so the market has flooded quickly with experts.  It's very similar to the amount of technology vendors who entered the industry in 2004 when they saw they could just sell any old website/lead generation product to the industry and r.e professionals were buying. 

It didn't matter that they had no knowledge of the industry or any experience with real estate consumers.  They were using the spaghetti theory, throwing noodles up against the wall to see if they would stick.  Last week I personally referred 3 prospects to a business associate who could serve their needs better than I could. 

I know what I know and am not afraid to refer what I do not know or care to know.

You can provide training for real estate professionals on tools and tech toys and networks all day long, but if they really don't understand why and the reason is not part of the training, you might as well just flush your money down the toilet.

5. Be aware of your office culture and hire like minded people

Be picky, nit picky, when you are recruiting and hiring real estate agents for your company.  Realize that you have a corporate culture, goals, a mission, a repoire, a sort of spirit about your office and you should be seeking agents who would be a good fit for your real estate environment. 

A company I worked with had a sales professional on their team that used to be absolutely negative about absolutely everything that had to do with selling the product.  That professional was described by the Director of the Sales Department as a cancer on the sales staff but still no one could pull the trigger and let the salesperson go. 

This salesperson continued to disturb the other members on the sales staff and after many years of employment was finally let go.  If the company had a better screening and assessment system in place I am confident that this particular error in judgment could have been avoided.

If regular reviews and consequences were a part of this company's operations this problem would have been nipped in the bud a lot sooner.

The people you staff your company with, from the receptionist to the individual real estate professional, are an obvious reflection on the quality of your services.  Do you want to be the market leader or the market bench warmer?  I could have made this list longer, but I figured I'd start with just one shy of 1/2 a dozen.

For a fun bonus here are a few recent polls I have conducted.  Back to Basics:

• Are you inviting your SOI, farm Area, and website prospects to read your blog?
• Why do you blog?
• How many hours a day do you spend prospecting for new business?
• Brokers:  Do you actively mentor or have a mentor program in place for your real estate agents?
• Will you be attending a marketing seminar that includes blogging and social media marketing in 2009?

I don't mind digging in the dirt. If you want your garden to flourish you gotta keep up with the weeds.

Real Estate Brokers:  5 Keys to Real Estate Agent Success.

Subscribe to Blogging In The Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

****************************************************************************************

Need help with your real estate marketing needs?  Rebecca D. Levinson is a Real Estate Marketing Consultant who can help you develop an online marketing strategy.  Call #262-203-5231 or Email rebecca@realestateskillz.com.  You can also visit my real estate marketing profile.