Posts Tagged ‘Estate’

Top 10 Ways to Know You Are a Real Estate Agent Who’s Doing Business Deal to Deal

January 9th, 2012

The life of a real estate agent can be a tough life, running around searching for a buyers, looking for homes to list and trying to scare up a transaction or two. A key to agent success is to develop a real estate marketing-based business that generates a steady flow of new leads. Most real estate agents operate deal to deal, working very hard to get a deal, servicing that deal and then starting over looking for the next deal, it’s a “hamster-wheel” existence. When they do start over looking for the next deal, they often start looking for a quick fix. This is not a good way to structure your business or organize your life.

Here are 10 good signs you’ve fallen into the deal-to-deal trap:

1. You make excuses that the demands of your current clients don’t allow time for marketing and prospecting.

2. You get a listing and you start “marketing the property” and think that that’s actually marketing.

3. You’re waiting for your next commission to establish a marketing budget (and you’ve been saying this for your last four transactions).

4. The phones are silent, your web site isn’t producing leads, you just closed a transaction and you say to yourself, “I have to do some marketing.”

5. You’re on the Internet searching for the next great idea in lead generation.

6. You’re thinking: “Ah, social media. That’s cheap. I’ll just focus on that to generate leads and build my business.”

7. By the time you get to making calls to your sphere, it’s been a year since you last talked to everyone on your call list.

8. You get a listing outside your target market and all of a sudden find yourself prospecting around that listing and forgetting about your farm.

9. You need another deal so you decide to “do a mailing, send an email, start a blog, post on social media, door knock and make some calls” in a frenzied attempt to “do some marketing.” » Read more: Top 10 Ways to Know You Are a Real Estate Agent Who’s Doing Business Deal to Deal

How to Put the Power of YouTube to Work in Your Real Estate Marketing

January 9th, 2012

YouTube is truly an amazing marketing tool for real estate agents-posting videos of your listings, information about your area and basic information about buying and selling homes. Today’s successful agents are creating personal video profiles, posting them on YouTube and linking to their website, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites. Your personal video profile is a great way to get prospects to feel comfortable with you before they ever meet you. Remember that people like to do business with people they like. The goal of your website is to have the prospects who watch your video feel good about you and to like you after they’re done watching the video.

Think of the short 2-4 minute video clips that you see about Olympic athletes. These clips give us some insight into the type of person they are and helps to make them a real person in our minds.

As an agent, start with a brief personal introduction-who you are, your past, your family- and perhaps a short comment on why you decided to become a real estate professional or what you enjoy most about being a real estate agent. Don’t sell the second you start talking, saying what you can do for the person watching, etc., or you’ll instantly take on that used car sales persona.

When I create one of these videos for an agent, I talk about things like the themes we want to cover, the tone we want to create and develop a basic outline of topics, but we do not script it. If you read or recite a script, unless you are a truly gifted actor, it will come across stiff and uninteresting. When the camera starts rolling, you want to be both personable and professional. Smile…be friendly…and relax. I recommend not looking directly into the camera…but instead just off to the side as if you were being interviewed by Larry King.

It’s fine to use a cue card, where a subtle glance at key words can keep you on target. Don’t be afraid to use your natural humor; the key is to be yourself. The more relaxed and comfortable you are, the better you will come across on video. Record a few practice sessions and critique them with help from friends and family. But remember, it’s more important for your presentation to be authentic and personable than for it to be flawless. When you are ready to record the real thing, do three or four takes and select the best one. » Read more: How to Put the Power of YouTube to Work in Your Real Estate Marketing