Posted by Michelle Smith/Director of Knowledge Services
Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:05:00 GMT
RISMEDIA, July 27, 2007— The residential real estate brokerage industry appears to be about half way through a 10-15 year industry transition – one that is creating confusion and frustration, but above all, huge opportunities.
That’s the message of the 2007 Swanepoel TRENDS Report that, since its release in February, thousands of brokers and agents have used as a roadmap to reposition their businesses for the future.
“If brokerages, Realtors and Realtor Associations are to remain relevant and effective, they must clearly understand the changing real estate environment and the new, evolving real estate business models,” states Stefan Swanepoel, industry consultant and author of the report.
According the report, real estate professionals will “certainly survive as the primary link between Americans and the American dream,” despite the industry’s constant evolution. The advent of new models such as Zillow, Trulia, Redfin and many others are all contributing in different ways. As a result, real estate professionals will have to step up their “game” by improving their knowledge about real estate, the neighborhood and technology, as well change their mindset from a “salesperson” to that of a consultative, interpretive and negotiating lifestyles facilitator.
“Clever brokers and agents will objectively research every market and model, every nook and cranny, every book and every course – searching for that one idea that will spark a new strategy, idea or method that will lead to more effective customer service,” Swanepoel says.
“Never has the industry experienced so much change,” he states. “What was important last year, or last month for that matter, will in all probably not be relevant tomorrow. Those that understand that and are able to pull their team of agents together are the ones that will benefit the most.”
At 159-pages, the Trends Report offers extensive research and analysis of the top real estate trends, technology innovations, shifts, and new business models changing our industry.
The Report is also now available for the first time on DVD, being released on August 1. It shares Stefan’s insights and perspectives on camera. The DVD includes a 90-minute video presentation of the 10 most important trends along with his Powerpoint slides, available at a limited time offer of $49.95.
To learn more about the top 10 trends impacting real estate or the 90-minute DVD visit www.RealEstateBooks.org. Use the promo code RIS2007 for a 10% discount and free shipping on either item.
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Posted by Michelle Smith/Director of Knowledge Services
Wed, 25 Jul 2007 20:45:00 GMT
By Lorne Wallace
RISMEDIA, July 25, 2007–Making profits in a real estate brokerage is challenging at the best of times. In today’s business climate, we need to make sure that we are operating as efficiently as possible. Here are some ways to do so.
First off, let’s realize that 65% to 70% of expenses in operating your brokerage consist of rent and salaries. This is true across the industry. So just two numbers account for over one-third of your expenses. And the rent, once you have decided on location and signed a lease, is pretty much fixed. Unless you have a landlord who likes a good sob story, don’t waste your time agonizing over it.
But salaries are another question. There are lots of things to consider when you look at what you are spending in salaries.
First off, hire the right people. A staff member at $30K who does half the work of the $40K staff member is NOT a better deal. I see brokers shortchange themselves all the time by trying to skimp on salaries. And consider that the staff member probably interacts with your agents more than you do. For anyone who hasn’t already, I highly recommend reading the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, which perfectly describes the importance of “having the right people on the bus.” A 50% more efficient employee at 33% more cost is a great deal!
Now take those people—who represent the largest expense in running your office—and make them more efficient. Start asking questions about what your staff does, when they do it, where they do it and why they are doing it. If the answer is, “We have always done it this way,” a cold sweat should break out on your forehead.
There is a huge danger in many firms, especially the ones that have grown a lot, of getting stuck in ruts. What worked well when you had 40 agents and one office probably isn’t working with 240 agents and five offices. For example, I had a client, with over 400 agents, who filed their pending transactions by closing date. When we went to find a deal, the staff asked for the address, which they looked up on the computer, found out the closing date and then pulled the file. I asked them why they filed like that. The answer was, “We have always done it that way.” When I suggested that since they typically found files in the computer by address that perhaps the filing should be done that way, their answer was what I consider the second scariest answer to a question in a real estate office: “We are too busy.” Of course they were too busy—they were taking way too long to do simple tasks.
Tasks like sending monthly statements to your agents can be highly inefficient. Staffers print off monthly statements, fold them up and then stuff them into agent mail slots. If you are multi-office, somehow those statements have to be moved to that office. Wow, lots of time and work on a system that probably hasn’t changed in years.
Now imagine having a system where the agent statements are e-mailed to them. The work in producing and distributing them is drastically slashed. The paper and printing costs are eliminated. Your company extranet can have the statements accessible to the agents whenever they need, cutting down on calls to your administrative staff and wasting their time.
How about other things that take staff time? How many systems are you using where you need to maintain an agent roster? You’ve heard of double entering data. Typically in a real estate office it’s more like quintuply entering data. From the accounting system to Word documents (birthday lists) to Excel spreadsheets (commission level tracking) to Web sites and onward. Wouldn’t it be nice to have one system that can manage all of this data for whatever purposes you need it for—one system to share data among your back office and front office operations? Your system should have the ability to manage the agent hiring and termination processes and make sure that all items are accomplished. Nothing is more embarrassing then terminating an agent and finding that he is still on your Web site a month later.
Here’s another classic example of where time is wasted. Say you do 3,000 deals a year and each one goes into a labeled file folder. After you put it into whatever system you are using, the staff goes to Word, re-types the address and prints it on a sheet of labels, which are getting grey after the first dozen are used. Do you know there are products, like a Dymo label printer that can print directly from your accounting program to a label? Doesn’t sound like a big deal? Let’s figure it takes 40 extra seconds to produce that label. Times 3,000 deals is 2,000 minutes—this is over four days of work. Four days to just stick labels on folders!
So look around your office, question your staff and take a moment to step back and think outside of the box. Utilizing your staff time efficiently can have not only an impact on your bottom line, but also free up time for more productive pursuits in the operation of your brokerage.
Lorne C. Wallace C.A. is president/founder of Lone Wolf Real Estate Technologies, providing fully integrated management systems to over 3,000 real estate offices across North America. For more information, please visit www.lwolf.com or e-mail wolfman@lwolf.com.
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Posted by Michelle Smith/Director of Knowledge Services
Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:24:00 GMT
Seven Reasons Real Estate Websites Don’t Work
by Charles Warnock - eNeighborhoods Marketing Director
More and more, your first point of contact with prospects is your agent website.
Your first - and often only - chance to impress prospects is a valuable opportunity that’s often wasted. Avoiding a few common but critical mistakes can mean the difference between success and failure. If you’re looking to provide a compelling, interactive client experience instead of a tired online brochure, here are seven mistakes to avoid:
1. All about the agent. It seems counter-intuitive, but the focus of effective agent websites isn’t agents - it’s consumers. Your photo, sales awards, accreditations, nicknames, community activities family background are far less interesting to site visitors than they are to you, and they belong on "About us" section, not the home page. Instead, capture attention with local images and current, relevant content that’s not available on other real estate sites. To draw attention to your skills and achievements, it’s often more effective to get success stories and testimonials from clients and colleagues, rather than blatant self-promotion.
2. The three-second rule. Web researcher Joseph Carrabis suggests it takes visitors just 3-5 seconds to decide if website information is interesting enough to continue reading or click away. In this "attraction phase" visitors scan the page and quickly decide if they want to invest the time to explore further to see how content relates to them - in other words, what’s in it for me? Try scanning your website as a first-time visitor would. Is the information you’ve provided to capture their attention up-front and prominent? The questions that site visitors have in mind - What’s on this website? What’s in it for me? What services does this real estate professional offer? - need to be answered very quickly.
3. The language of the dog. On the subject of effective website content, e-business author Jeff Eisenberg likes to say "Speak to the dog, about what matters to the dog, in the language of the dog." In other words, use language and terms appropriate for your audience. For example, do you know what search terms people are using to find your website? You can get a quick idea at a website called www.digitalpoint.com. Click Webmaster tools on the left,scroll down and click the Keyword Suggestion Tool link. Then, enter search terms that people are likely to use when searching for your services. You may be surprised to see how small variations in phrasing affect the number of daily searches performed. To boost site visibility, try incorporating popular search terms in your page titles, descriptions and headlines.
4. A road to nowhere. Successful real estate practices have a clear path from prospecting, conversion and sales, to repeat sales and referrals. Yet, many real estate websites lead nowhere. There is a vague notion that site visitors will click around, find the information interesting and hopefully contact the agent or broker. If you have not defined measurable goals such as newsletter signups, phone calls, email requests for information or special report downloads, it’s difficult to say whether or not your site is successful. Design your website with clear pathways to your conversion goals, and measure them.
5. All take, no give. The ethos of the Internet is something-for-something. You might give up your name and email address to receive a newsletter or special report, or take a survey in return for a chance to win prizes. Yet, many agent websites offer no incentive for visitors to take some desired action such as providing contact information. Do you offer a free home valuation, Neighborhood Report, newsletter, coupons, business directories or links to local resources? Since many visitors are in the just-looking stage and aren’t ready to pick up the phone and call you, you can provide different touch-points at various commitment levels to make it as easier to begin a dialog with you.
6. Content isn’t king. In an effort to attract as many prospects as possible, many agent websites try to be all things to all people. A laundry list of real estate services is not compelling content, and this type of "information overload" can give site visitors with the idea that you don’t offer any particular expertise that would benefit them. Old listings, typos and outdated articles can all make visitors click away in search of competing websites with better information. And remember, content doesn’t begin and end with text. Photos, animations, virtual tours, maps and charts should also be high-quality and up-to-date.
7. Fire your nephew. You don’t still have a website that was created in 2002 by someone’s nephew, do you? In three seconds, your website can give visitors the idea that you offer quality services or that you lack attention to detail…not a good quality for real estate professionals. Your site should be of comparable or better quality than your industry peers. Make it a point to visit the sites of local and national competitors to gather ideas and see how your site stacks up. What can you do to improve it?
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Posted by Michelle Smith/Director of Knowledge Services
Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:59:00 GMT
By Dr. Cliff Baird
RISMEDIA, July 17 2007—“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” This famous quote by Eleanor Roosevelt summarizes how each of us reason through decisions and problems. What’s your approach? The following are some of the questions I asked in a recent national survey of over 1,000 real estate salespeople. The answers reveal the problem.
Q: Why did you choose real estate sales?
A. I like people
B. I like homes
C. I like the freedom
Q: Do you feel adequately trained for all aspects of real estate sales?
YES–75%
NO–25%
Q: If yes, what skills do you feel are the most important for an agent to have to be successful? (Read the responses carefully)
• Knowledge of the current market
• A good listing presentation
• Web-based, computer skills
• Knowledge of financing
• Good time management
• Enthusiasm
• Good negotiating skills
If you don’t look closely enough at their responses you will probably miss the real answers. So let’s take a much closer look.
Question 1
These are the warm-fuzzy responses of most people who join real estate. They underscore the reason for the gross mediocrity of agents:
- “I like people.” What does that mean? So do morticians!
- “I like freedom.” If you are really working this business to reach your first level of noticeable success, you’re not generally experiencing the kind of freedom that is being implied by this response.
What is truly remarkable is that no one mentioned money. We are intimidated into not openly admitting to it. If this is not near the top on your list you probably won’t make much of it. I can hear all the regular warm-fuzzy stuff right now: “There are some things more important than money.” That’s true until you don’t have any to pay your bills.
I always love this one: “Money can’t buy you happiness.” What an irony. The only people who really know that to be absolutely true are the ones with the money. You have to have money to know that.
Question 2
Interesting that most people felt adequately trained for the business. But did you notice that the list of lofty things to know in order to be successful did not include prospecting? Do you think this list merely reveals the things that most mediocre agents do all day long just to try to convince themselves that they are working in the business? Stay alert to just how easy it is to fall into that trap. The only way to secure your future is by prospecting. Can anyone guarantee that you will get a listing today if you prospect? No, but here’s a 100% guarantee. If you don’t, you won’t.
Cliff Baird, MBA, PhD, is a business therapist and real estate sales management coach, helping agents and managers for over 25 years. He recently introduced ReSTAR (Real Estate Sales Temperament and Aptitude Report) a customized, online recruiting program for brokers and managers.
For more information, visit www.restaronline.com or e-mail cliff@cliffbaird.com.
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Posted by Michelle Smith/Director of Knowledge Services
Mon, 09 Jul 2007 12:59:00 GMT
By Bryan Feller
RISMEDIA, July 9, 2007—The vast majority of sales teams today work without a plan. In a basically hit-or-miss environment, it’s amazing when they actually land sales contracts. Even when a sales force is hitting quota, company management often believes that they are operating at a fraction of their potential.
The bottom line is that sales is not the disciplined group of professionals that management wants them to be. Many people attribute this lack of discipline to the “sales personality,” and argue that attempting to infuse order and structure into their world would surely result in failure.
Management, however, understands that absence of order in the sales team is one of the highest opportunity costs in the organization.
The Power of Sales Standards
Is there a way to put discipline into the sales function without breaking its spirit? Won’t discipline kill the motivation of a good sales team?
Good sales people are typically high-energy, relationship-oriented people with a low tolerance for structure. Their talents lie in handling the nuances of multiple relationships in an uncertain and dynamic environment.
It’s hard to be successful while following strict (and restrictive) rules in a high-stakes game with shifting goals, fierce competition, and multiple layers of decision makers, influencers, and spoilers to navigate.
Sales Standards are the answer.
Sales Standards are not policies and procedures. They are a set of best practices, lessons learned, and minimal operating procedures that help create discipline and that form the baseline for team learning. They offer the right structure for high performance as well as discipline, and also allow the freedom to adapt and improvise as needed.
The Seven Building Blocks of Good Sales Standards
Sales Standards can take many forms. To be effective, they have these common sections:
1. Corporate Information. This section discusses the corporation, areas of business, and strategy. It needs to tie corporate strategy to a compelling “dream” that can really motivate the sales team.
2. Sales Organization. This section covers “how things work” with topics such as territories, marketing support, team procedures, and performance measurement. “Sales operations rhythm” is a key topic. It defines the timing, tone and objectives of periodic sales meetings. It also includes the manner and method of management spot checks. Another key topic in this section covers coaching to support their continued development. A coaching standard that includes simple forms and steps can ensure that coaching takes place on an ongoing basis.
3. On-boarding Process. Getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong ones off) is one of the easiest ways to improve the performance of the whole sales force. This section of your Sales Standards should spell out in detail how you market for new sales positions, what pre-hire assessments you use, the interview process, structured interview questions for each step of the process, and the hands-on skill demonstration tests candidates must pass.
4. Tools & Technology. This section outlines the basics of your sales management software system, and is as much about data entry consistency as about instruction. The important items to include here are screenshots and how-to’s for entering new prospects into the system, forecasting, contact management, report creation, and any other key system use.
5. Prospecting. There is no one right way to prospect; different personality styles are better at different approaches. This section should contain all of the “best practices” your team uses, directly from the people who have been successful using them.
6. The Engagement Cycle. This section should diagram the critical milestones in your engagement or sales cycle. It should also provide guidelines for account management. This helps everyone who touches the customer coordinate with each other in order to win the sale.
7. Selling Tactics. This section covers how to qualify prospects, position your services, and close business. It should include lists of questions to use at each stage of the sales cycle and for approaching different types of buyers. It should also include “how to” scripts for positioning your products, selling against competitors, as well as closing techniques.
You Have Them, Now Use Them
When you have completed your Sales Standards, make the document tangible.
Print, bind, and distribute it the “old fashioned” way. Use version numbers with different covers for new iterations, and make sure people destroy or return old copies. People will take the document far more seriously when formal updates are employed. You can have an electronic version on your intranet, but this is not a substitute for the printed document.
When you are ready to launch your Sales Standards, hold a series of meetings with your team to review the document. Expect resistance, but don’t succumb to it. If you don’t take communicate clearly at this point, no one will take the standards seriously, and you won’t establish the discipline you want to achieve.
Refer back to the standards in every meeting. If an issue is not addressed in the standards, add it to the document. If there are loopholes that allow individuals to take advantage of others on the team, close those loopholes.
If you have a recurring problem with poor coordination between sales and service, send the team back to the standards the next time the issue comes up. After a while, people will catch on and get in the habit of referring to the standards when resolving issues.
Create a standards review committee that meets at an interval appropriate for your business. Their role is to review and update the standards based on feedback from the sales team. This helps establish the Sales Standards as the primary repository for best practices and lessons learned.
These tips for creating and using Sales Standards will go a long way toward decreasing the opportunity cost of an undisciplined sales team. Over time, you will see measurable benefits that provide a clear return on the time and energy spent on this key element of an effective sales force.
About the Author:
Bryan Feller is CEO of Catalyst Performance Group, a full service B2B sales and marketing agency that focuses on the whole go-to-market system. Catalyst Performance Group works with the who’s who of corporate America - helping clients achieve sustainable growth through disciplined sales and marketing strategies. Bryan has attracted a diverse team of high-caliber talent, each working toward the same powerful vision: to achieve unprecedented results for their clients through experience, opportunity and insight.
For more information, please visit www.catalystgroup.us.
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