RealtyTechBytes.com » Sales Tips

Monkey with your business card for better results

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 07 May 2012 02:00:35 +0000

Ever wondered what happens to those business cards that you pass out to people that you meet? My hopes were that the person would take the card and sooner, rather than later, use it to contact me!

Of course, the reality is much different. Unless someone has an immediate need to get back to me, what most often happens is that the card gets “filed” somewhere. That’s because there is no immediate need for them to get back to me when they take the card. The problem arises when they do want to reach me and can’t find my card. It would be a heck of a lot easier for all concerned if my card could somehow “magically” get into their address book with the click of a button or a tap on the screen.

There are products on the market that allow you to to have an online business card, but they often only offer a download of a VCF format file which very easily imports into Outlook. VCF doesn’t always import easily into the other forms of address books that people use. Also, many of those do not show you tracking statistics, offer QR codes, and give a way for a person to receive automatic updates when you change you contact info.

This is where a Canadian company called Contact Monkey comes into play. Their product takes your contact info and your picture and displays it in an online business card. The magic that they apply is that the person viewing your card has the option to download the information in any of 19 different address book formats. In other words, they make it extremely easy for someone to store your information in the address book that they use every day, be it their Blackberry, Android, Windows or iPhone, as well as their Google, Yahoo, Outlook, Salesforce, ACT!, Goldmine and many more other formats.

After they access and save your info, they are also given the option to receive email updates when you change any of the info on your card!

Once you finish entering your data into your Contact Monkey card, you are given a QR code that links to your online card as well as a link that you can use in your email signature. Here is the email line they suggest that you use:

Add me to your address book – it’s easy! http://contactmonkey.com/jerrykidd

The service is free for individuals and is $3.00 per month for a business. The business does get a few “extras” for that subscription fee, most notably the Contact Monkey branding is removed and replaced with your company branding and colors. Companies can also maintain a directory of employees and staff contact info which can be published on your web site!

A pretty sweet deal all around. And if you haven’t already done so, please click on the link to my card above, and add me to your address book. You never know when you’ll need my services!

Realtytechbytes.com by Jerry Kidd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.Realtytechbytes.com. Did you know that I have arranged for readers of my blog to receive licensed software for free? And that there is something new everyday? Click on the link to go to the blog and look for Give Away of the day in the sidebar.

Monkey with your business card for better results

HomeSpot just might hit the spot for your sellers

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 02:00:15 +0000

I have heard a few tales of woe lately from agents around the Bay Area about homes that have sold only to fall out of escrow due to what was found during the inspection process.

Many of the homes that appeared to be in excellent condition had thousands of dollars worth of deferred maintenance that wasn’t discovered until the buyer’s home inspector gave the house a thorough going over.

Over course this triggered another round of negotiations and in some case the buyers exercised their right to walk away from the transaction leaving a frustrated seller with huge repair bills to clear up.

My immediate reaction was to have no sympathy for the seller, after all, every home requires some preventative maintenance and if the seller fails to do that, then a day of reckoning comes when they go to sell.

But, as was pointed out to me by more than one listing agent recently, often times the sellers just don’t know what to do to prevent those huge remediation bills. A point that I hadn’t considered. That reminded me that I had heard of a free web service for homeowners called Homespot. The service offers a homeowner a way to record and organize home information; choose and prioritize projects and home maintenance tasks; schedule automated maintenance reminders; plan the weekend; create project specific shopping lists and find deals for products online.

I thought that you could tell your farm areas about this and give the owners a chance to take better care of their most valuable asset. But, while I was researching the site for this article I saw a link that asked if I was a real estate professional, so I clicked it and was taken to Homespot AgentPro.

While Homespot is free for sellers, Homespot AgentPro is a subscription service that you can purchase on a monthly or annual plan that will give you the following benefits:

Subscribing to HomeSpot AgentPro allows you to offer a free HomeSpot home maintenance service to an unlimited number of your valuable clients.

Whenever your clients use the free HomeSpot service, they’ll see your picture, brand, contact information and social media links. Your clients will also receive newsletters and maintenance reminders with your information prominently displayed.

This sounds like a pretty good deal to me…you get to help your prospective clients take better care of their homes and you get to stay top of mind while doing so. All for $8.95 a month or $74.95 a year.

It would be nice if all homeowners were on such a system. And if they were maybe those horrible inspection reports would be a thing of the past.

Go check it out and see if it makes sense for you. And no, I am not being compensated to write this. The owners of Homespot will find out about this article about the same time as you do!

You really need this report, seriously, open this now!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:00:08 +0000

If you are through with the Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday madness, and if you still have about $20.00, why not splurge on something useful to your business?

I am talking about you buying the National Association of REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers 2011. This is a 124 page document that is chock full of some very useful information that is absolutely essential to the success of your business in 2012.

That’s a strong statement, but let me ask you a few questions that will illustrate my point:

Do you know how the majority of home buyers first found the home that they ultimately bought? Hint: It wasn’t from a newspaper or magazine ad, and it wasn’t directly from an agent.
Can you tell me how the buyers found their agent? This answer may surprise you…but it shouldn’t.
Where do you suppose that home sellers found the agent that they ultimately used to list their home? Again, this should not be a surprise, but it’s not where most people think.

The answers can be found on the following pages in the report:

Chapter 3 The Home Search Process, Page 50, Exhibit 3-9
Chapter 4: Home Buying and Real Estate Professionals, Page 63, Exhibit 4-12
Chapter 7: Home Selling and Real Estate Professionals, Page 97, Exhibit 7-1

There are a total of seven chapters in the report, all of which contain information that will help you determine how and why to prospect for business. It will also help you educate home sellers on the minuscule value to be obtained by print advertising.

NAR does not make this all that easy to find, and they make the download version harder yet to find. Note to NAR: How about a BIG ORANGE button on the home page of Realtor.org that goes right to the download version? And while you are at it, how about knocking the price down to something more like FREE?

Here are the links that you need for both the print and downloadable versions

Download: http://www.realtor.org/prodser.nsf/products/E186-45-11?OpenDocument Non-Member $149.00 Member $19.95

Paper: http://www.realtor.org/prodser.nsf/products/186-45-11?OpenDocument Non-Member $150.00 Member $50.00

So, get off your duff, break out your credit card and at least get the download version and spend a few hours studying it. I am certain that you will learn something that will help you do more business in 2012.

Introducing A Revolutionary New Approach To Marketing – And How YOU Can Take Advantage Of It Before Anyone Else!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 02:00:27 +0000

Mobile Websites Are a MUST for “Mobile-Only” Web Users

Can you believe that some Internet users ONLY access the web from their mobile phones? Considering the explosive popularity the mobile market has experienced in recent years, it really isn’t that hard to believe.

While still in the minority, a significant percentage of internet users (approximately 25%) exclusively access the web through mobile devices. Whether due to preference or circumstance, these consumers do their browsing through their cell phones rather than more traditional desktops and laptops.

What does this mean for your business? With traditional marketing becoming less effective as targeted internet advertising gains popularity, companies that do not offer a web-based option will continue to struggle when it comes to attracting new business and retaining existing customers.

Extending conventional internet presence to include a site optimized for mobile users simply just makes sense. Most people are shocked to learn that consumers who are over the age of 65 make up a huge share of the mobile market.

As a matter of fact, many “mobile-only users” tend to be older – often folks who did not embrace new technology early on. This group found that the dual purpose phone/browser permits them to participate in the online community with a minimal investment of time and money.

With growing numbers, this population owns more than 75% of U.S. wealth, offering more buying power than the all of the younger, more tech-savvy generations combined.

Then, there is the younger generation who seem to be literally glued to their mobile phones at all times. They’re usually too busy to be tied to a desktop computer so they do most of their web surfing right from their mobile devices.

Attracting the “Instant Gratification” Generation

You already know that people search the Internet using their mobile devices today more than ever. But if your website is not mobile-friendly, your prospects and customers won’t be able to access it while on the go.

Don’t leave them hanging… Give them what they need in order to find and contact you on the fly using their mobile phones.

In fact, the market of the future is Generation Y – sometimes known as the Millennials, who were born between 1982 and 2001. (read about Gen Y at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Y)

Larger than the Baby Boomers at a strong 85 million members, their spending power will increase dramatically over the next few years as they complete their education and enter a period of rising income and household expenses.

Capturing this discretionary spending could take your business to a whole new level; and it is possible with a little smart marketing.

Many businesses fear that they can’t keep up with the “new” marketing trends. So they keep doing the same things they’ve always done, which is simply bad for business.

Generation Y consumers grew up with technology and they consider it a necessity rather than a luxury. Unfamiliar with such old-fashioned tools as the Yellow Pages and newspapers, this group expects instant gratification in the form of digital, on-the-spot access to any nugget of information that comes to mind – anywhere and anytime.

Consider this: Wireless customers downloaded 7.9 billion apps in 2010. At current growth, expectations are that these downloads will increase to a minimum of 25 billion by 2015.

Don’t Think Your Customers Are Using Mobile Internet? Think Again…

Many businesses still think their prospects and customers aren’t using their mobile phones to search for local products and services. Because of this, they neglect to mobilize their marketing efforts all together, which is a huge mistake.

Can you believe in the past ten years, U.S. wireless subscriptions have increased by a dramatic 254%, resulting in more active mobile devices than people?

More than 98% of the country has 3G coverage, and there are more 3G customers in the U.S. alone than in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK combined. In addition to that, economists predict that by 2016, total app downloads will surpass 44 billion.

With these numbers climbing every day, the most market-savvy businesses are rushing to join the mobile marketing community.

Mobile-friendly websites offer significant advantages over traditional advertising techniques, including immediate accessibility and improved customer engagement.

Have you ever tried to pull up your website on a mobile device? Did it take forever to load? Did it even load at all?

Some businesses don’t even take the time to check to see how their websites are showing up on mobile devices. However, chances are that you are missing out on a lot of potential business.

Potential customers no longer glimpse an ad and jot it down for later follow-up. Instead, through mobile websites, they can instantly obtain company information, place a call, and/or request needed information.

In fact, with Quick Response Code (QR code) technology and barcode scanners preloaded into the most popular phones, there is no need to type in a web address.

One click takes the customer directly to the desired webpage, where convenience and impulse purchasing result in more sales for business owners.

But if your website does not even load on their mobile device, you have pretty much zero chance at getting their business.

As far as mobile web users are concerned, out of sight is out of mind.

Is Your Business Obsolete?

Perhaps not, but if your marketing and branding are falling behind, potential customers may think so. Customers prefer to patronize companies that are convenient, easily accessible, and up-to-date on current trends in technology.

With 78.2 million smart phones or wireless-enabled PDAs in use as of December 2010, it’s obvious that consumers are developing high expectations around instant availability of information from businesses.

Take a glance around as you wait in line for groceries or sit in the doctor’s office. Your potential clients are filling small time gaps researching products, selecting services, and making purchases – right on their mobile phones.

From ordering pizza to securing a home loan, individuals complete their transactions anytime, anywhere… and they want only want to use mobile-friendly, user-friendly websites to do it.

You can capitalize on this preference by differentiating your business with a simply designed, easily navigated web page optimized for mobile use.

Potential mobile customers will flock to your mobile-friendly website and avoid the frustrations of your competitors’ slow-loading websites.

A last bit of advice: hire a professional to create your site. A skilled designer will ensure visitors have a user-friendly experience and will return again and again.

Mobile web searchers save and appreciate websites that are easy to view on their mobile phones. Nothing is more frustrating than waiting several minutes for a website to load – only to end up looking at a jumbled mess and unable to find the information you need.

The first thing people do when this happens is hit the “back” button to find a better, more user-friendly website.

Imagine how often this could be happening to your business…

Talk about money down the drain…

With a simple, mobile-friendly website, you can turn that around and start making your mobile prospects and customers happy to do business with you!

Can You Afford a Mobile-Optimized Website?

The more important question is can you afford NOT to have a mobile-optimized website?

Consumers are using their mobile devices on the go today more than ever. And they make instant decisions about where to spend their money based on how easily they can access needed information from their mobile devices.

When it comes to “easy mobile access,” mobile websites are one of the most important pieces of the mobile puzzle.

Mobile-optimized sites are designed to fit smaller screens, so users can see the most critical details on your website, such as location, price, and contact information… all in one glance.

Scrolling and navigating traditional pages on a tiny display can quickly lead to frustration, driving your customers away from you and to a more user-friendly option.

Mobile-optimized pages offer extra benefits if well-designed, such as “one-click” features that will help them make a call, find directions, or make a purchase without having to type in a bunch of words.

As with any marketing plan, there is a cost associated with the development of a quality mobile-optimized website. However, this cost must be weighed against the risk of losing patrons simply because they can’t find the data they want quickly enough.

As more organizations are turning to web-optimization to ensure a quality customer experience, those that do not meet consumers’ advanced expectations will be left behind.

Although it does cost money to get a mobile-optimized website, there are affordable solutions available. For instance, if you simply need a basic mobile site where users can easily find your information, you may be able to get a mobile website for a just a few hundred dollars.

However, if you need a more robust mobile website with advanced features and options, you may spend quite a bit more.

Whatever the cost, the benefits will surely be worth it. Not only will you generate more leads, customers, and repeat business, but you will also have a sound mind knowing that you’re not neglecting a huge portion of your consumer market – the mobile market.

As you can see, catering to the mobile-only preference is a very smart way to hone your company’s competitive edge. Making sure your business website is “mobile-friendly” is the first step. Without it, you’re missing out on a lot of new and repeat business – bottom line.

One of the services that I offer is creating mobile websites that are integrated with your existing web site, making it a seamless process for the mobile user. They simply go to your existing web site address (the address that you have invested time and money in!). My technology recognizes that a mobile device is trying to access the website and quickly redirects them to a mobile optimized site that opens in their phone’s browser.

Here are a couple of examples: http://www.MBSalonSpa.com and http://www.ExecutiveBaseNetwork.com. Visit them with your computer’s web browser, then key in the same addresses on your phone’s web browser. You’ll be redirected to the mobile sites which are optimized to provide the information that people want most while mobile browsing, and they will load very quickly to boot.

If this is something that you’d like for your business, drop me a line or leave a comment. I’ll be happy to spend 30 minutes with you for free to answer your questions and to give you an idea of what your investment would be. Not all websites are suitable for this, and I am a small volume provider, so act quickly or you might get left out!

Social media marketing in just seven days

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:00:58 +0000

Here is the final reposting of my vacation series. By the time you read this I will be back at work, tanned, rested and ready to go. You might not be any of those, but you might be wondering how you could best go about putting social media to work for your business. The following article will show you the way to do it in a week’s time.

http://realtytechbytes.com/your-first-seven-days-in-social-networking

Next week I’ll be back to posting new content. I hope that you were able to get some value out of revisiting some ideas from past postings.

Are you a real estate dinosaur?

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 02:00:29 +0000

As this post is being published I am in the final week of my vacation. I sure hope that I am having a good time!

I hope that you are having a good time too, but how about taking a few minutes to check and see if you are exhibiting dinosaur behavior or not! Here are two posts that are linked to that topic.

http://realtytechbytes.com/rant-are-you-a-dinosaur

http://realtytechbytes.com/3-ways-to-avoid-being-a-dinosaur-in-real-estate

So, which are you? A dinosaur, or a highly adaptable being that is going to survive whatever changes come upon our industry?

How to find new clients

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:00:47 +0000

As you read this I am on vacation and in order to make this a true vacation, I decided that I would not be writing blog posts while I was away.

Instead, I thought that I would revisit a few posts from the past that are still valid today and which could be helpful to you in your business.

Here are four posts that talk about finding new clients. Unless you are just slammed with people banging on your door asking you to work with them, you’ll get some value out of reading them.

http://realtytechbytes.com/get-new-clients-using-social-tools-part-one

http://realtytechbytes.com/get-new-clients-using-social-tools-part-two

http://realtytechbytes.com/how-can-you-use-social-media-in-business

http://realtytechbytes.com/who-is-your-ideal-client

Read them in any order you want, but do read them!

Happy Labor Day!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 02:00:05 +0000

Here in the United States we are celebrating the Labor Day Holiday this coming Monday. For many this holiday has become the last big fling of the summer. Its passing marks the end of summer (Actually, Summer doesn’t end until the autumnal equinox) and the return to school for many kids.

For adults it has become the time for that one last barbecue with family and friends. The meaning of the holiday has become lost over time by many of us. I went in search of the meaning of labor day and found that the US Department of Labor has posted some information on the origins of the holiday that is worth a few minutes of your time: http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm

But, for us in the real estate industry, this holiday typically marks the end of the summer sales doldrums and the beginnings of the last push of the year. We KNOW that we have to get busy and make some sales before Thanksgiving rolls around.

So, in that spirit, I want ask you to ask yourselves these questions: What am I going to do differently starting on Tuesday, September 6th, 2011? And how about this question: What have I been doing with my time? And this one: Who is my ideal client, what is their pain point around real estate, what do I have that can fix their pain and how can I get my message to them?

Take some time to answer these questions and I am certain that you will make more sales between now and the Christmas holiday season. If you are having trouble with these and need some direction, drop me an email. I can help.

Happy Labor Day all!

Listen, Create and Communicate

Jerry Kidd — Sun, 08 May 2011 18:49:07 +0000

Happy Mother’s Day! I hope that you get to spend it with your family. If your Mom is still alive, I’ll bet that she’d love to see or hear from you!

Because I am spending Mother’s Day with Family, I am re-posting a January 2010 post that has information that I think you may be interested in seeing again. If not, just hit delete and go spend the time with your family!

I was reading Chris Brogan’s post on “Slicing Your Social Media Pie” over at American Express’s Open Small Business Forum on Saturday, and it got me to thinking about our business.

Chris asserts that “There are three basic components to social media: listening, creating, and communicating. That’s it. Listening is how you find out what people are saying about you, your competitors, your community, and whatever else matters. Creating is where you make blog posts or shoot video, or build upon ideas that show you’re a thought leader in the space. Communicating is a mix of commenting, responding, reaching out, and taking part in community.”

He goes on to share that he slices his “pie” as 20% Listening. 40% Creating and 40% Communicating. In other words, if you spend 2 hours a day on your social media tasks, 24 minutes should be on listening, 48 minutes on Creating and 48 minutes on Communicating.

I think that is excellent advice and here is how I would advise Realtors® to go about accomplishing it.

Google Alerts – for Listening

One of the best FREE ways for you to hear what others are saying about you, your competitors, the market, a neighborhood or anything else that you can think of is to create a Google Alert. Head on over to Google Alerts and fill in the simple form. You don’t need a Google account, but you do need to find the confirming email that Google sends and click on the link it contains before Google will start sending you alerts.

So what is a Goggle Alert? Here is what Google has to say: “Google Alerts are emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for your search terms. You can also choose to have your alerts delivered via feed to the feed reader of your choice (e.g., Google Reader or add the feed to your iGoogle page). We currently offer alerts with results from News, Web, Blogs, Video and Groups.” You can have up to 1,000 alerts. Each alert has a link to the content that Google found so you simply click on the link to read what it found. In other words, you have set Google up to automatically search Google for you.

This gives you the opportunity to keep your finger on the pulse of what people are saying, both good and bad. Once you know what is being said, you can respond accordingly.

Blogs – for Creating

One of the all time BEST tools available to a Realtor® today has got to be a blog. A blog allows you to create your own customizable “home base” on the Internet. You can store and display all of your past sales, your current listings, any documentation, forms and check lists that you’d like current, past and future clients to have, and it can all be done by anyone with only a basic knowledge of computers. You can link your blog to your current static website, but you could also get rid of that website (and the monthly bill it generates) and put the content that it contains that is yours on your blog. And there are many free choices for you: Blogger, RealTown Blogs, Realtor.com Blogs and my personal favorite and the one I heartily recommend, WordPress.com.

I know that writing content can be difficult for some, but if you are listening you will be presented with many ideas for content. Even so, some people would rather have others write the content for them, so here are a couple of services that will do that for you. (Note: I am an affiliate for both of them. This means that if you buy their services I will earn a commission. It won’t be enough for me to make a living on, but it will help to defray the costs of running this blog).

The first can be found here: http://budurl.com/LeadBC. For $29.95 a month (at the time of this writing) they will produce 20 articles that you can insert into you blog after you do some minor changes like adding your name and location. These are real estate specific and will give quite a bit of content for about a dollar a day.

The second source is here: http://budurl.com/brtb. For $57.00 per month they will create a daily blog post for you and actually place it on your WordPress or Blogger blog. Again, this is real estate specific content.

Facebook and Twitter – for Communicating

The final piece of Brogan’s pie is communicating back. A large part of what makes social media marketing work is the act of engaging with people. One of the finest tools available today is facebook. With over 350 Million users worldwide, it would be the third largest country in the world, behind China and India, if it were a country.

Join Facebook and fill in your profile completely so that you are able to be found by people that you went to school with, that you worked with, that you served with and by people who live near you. Search facebook for the same groups of people and connect with them. Then engage in the conversation. Don’t talk about yourself from a self centered approach, instead talk with them about their lives and then some about yours. Be interesting, fun and educational. Provide value in your commentary so that people look forward to what you have to say.

Do the same with Twitter. Here you are limited to communicating in short burst of no more than 140 characters, so this will force you to get good at saying a lot in a little space…it can be done!

Once you are engaged with people on Facebook and Twitter, it’s an easy and believable step for them to visit your blog when you invite them to do so and you may find that because they feel that they know you well from your Facebook and Twitter interactions, that your referrals from them will increase.

And that my friends, is the Holy Grail.

How do you find your ideal client?

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 03:00:33 +0000

Last April I wrote a two part series about finding new clients using social tools, and in Part Two of that series I talked a little bit about working with only those people that you like. Here are links to those articles because I think that you should quickly review them as they will set the stage for this one.

http://realtytechbytes.com/get-new-clients-using-social-tools-part-one/

http://realtytechbytes.com/get-new-clients-using-social-tools-part-two/

And then last week, I wrote an article that sets the stage for this week’s article. You can find that here: http://realtytechbytes.com/how-can-you-use-social-media-in-business/

Today I want to expand on the concept of working only with people that you like. At the risk of stating the obvious, working any other way opens you up to having to deal with the clients from hell. We’ve all had them. And we’ve all vowed that never again would we work with turkeys. But then we’ve all found ourselves working those kinds of people again! Why does this happen?

In my opinion, it’s because we don’t do enough of the right kind of prospecting. More on the right kind of prospecting in a minute. But, for now, if you don’t have a steady stream of good, qualified prospects flowing towards you, you are inclined to work with whomever shows up. Prospecting does give you the ability to choose the client who is motivated, reasonable in their expectations, and has the actual ability to perform, either as a seller or a buyer. When you have to work with people who don’t fit those criteria you can end up with the client from hell.

If you are an experienced agent with years worth of transactions under your belt, the process of finding clients that you like is made somewhat easier. What you might want to do is to sit down with a pad of paper and start reviewing your past clients and quickly categorizing them into 3 columns. Favorite Clients, Neutral, and Turkeys.

Once you have done that, spend a little time with each name on the Favorites list and start to figure out why they were favorites and write out a little paragraph on each one. Try to capture the details that made them a favorite. You might want to do the same with the Turkeys column as that will help you decide who to avoid!

Once you have done that, go through those paragraphs of Favorites and determine what they all have in common. What you are looking for are things that you can quantify. Is it profession, geographic, familial status, the type of home they bought or sold? What was it about them that put them on the Favorite list and can you spot trends?

If you are new to the business and don’t have enough past transactions to make this work, just substitute your friends and acquaintances for past clients and then run through the exercise.

Once you have developed a profile of the clients that you want, it then becomes a matter of prospecting for them. And most likely that process can utilize social tools like Facebook and LinkedIn! Both of these platforms let you use their advertising networks to prospect for that “right” client…the one who would be thrilled to work with you!

I want to be clear about something at this point. Nothing I have said here should be taken as advice to circumvent fair housing laws. You cannot discriminate against any one because they are members of a protected class. But as near as I can tell, unreasonable sellers and buyers (and general turkey type people) are NOT a protected class!

Go out and find the people that you enjoy working with and you will have a much happier business experience!