George Bernard Shaw British dramatist, critic, writer.

One of the greatest challenges in selling real estate is to decide where you are going to focus your time and money to generate business. To assist you in this process, we’ve created short and easy to read White Papers that explore some of the best business building opportunities available to the real estate agent. If you would like to receive any of them, please call 800-882-9155 or email info@archagent.com with the reports you wish to receive.

Why Listings Expire
How to turn the previous listing agents mistakes into your success

Online Success Begins and Ends With Search Engine Optimization
For $3.25 A Month We Generated 38 Prospects A Month…
Of Which 13 A Month Were Ready To Buy A Home Right Now!

What Does Mobile Marketing Really Mean In Your Real Estate Business?
A short no-nonsense report that cuts through the hype to determine what works and what does not…

Do For Sale By Owners Really Save Any Money?
How to properly articulate the facts to a for-sale-by-owner to win their trust and their business…

I told him we deliver for sale by owner and expired lists for convenience, but more importantly how we can help him convert those lists to appointments then listings. How call capture can work with a FSBO before you list them and how mobile marketing can create points of differentiation with expireds. I explained the efficiencies and using a dialer that is truly integrated with his customer database to prospect for listings around just listed just solds.

He listened attentively and then finally said, “well I don’t know about that. I don’t think that would work for me.”. After twenty years of building and selling services to agents, I am seasoned enough to know not to argue so I simply asked him again, “Ok, what are your current methods to generate new business?”.

He said he liked to hang out at the local coffee shop and when he heard someone say the word, “real estate” his ears would perk up, he’d work his way over to them, eaves drop and eventually give them his card. I thought, “I bet you drink a lot of coffee”.

It struck me that a coffee house, while a lousy place to prospect, would be an excellent place to initially meet a potential buyer, qualify them for financial and security reasons, sign them to a buyer agreement and in a way show them that you are a local expert.

Before showing a potential buyer properties, ask them to meet you at a coffee-shop that has the neighborhood feel of the property that you are about to see. Not a Starbucks, but a locally owned shop. Once there, sit down and prequalify them. It is easier to ask them to sign a buyer representation agreement sitting at a table than on the hood of your car.

You can tell the neighborhood, local places to go such as this coffee shop demonstrating that you are a the neighborhood expert. Yes, the coffee-shop-agent was on to something.

The most effective and economic way to generate new clients is to prospect using the telephone. The challenge with telephone prospecting is that it can be time consuming. The act of dialing by hand and leaving repetitive voice mails can physically wear on you. When you do reach a live answer, taking notes of call results and having to re-enter them into your customer database wastes valuable time.

We Can Help

The PowerDialer is a simple,  web based  real estate auto-dialer that will eliminate idle time, enabling you to reach more prospects faster while automatically syncing your call results back into most customer relationship managers (CRM).

When you reach an answering machine, you simply click a button and you are off dialing the next call while the PowerDialer stays connected in the background leaving your perfectly recorded voice mail message.

When you reach a live answer, the PowerDialer automatically displays your script onscreen, then lets you enter results of the call, and you can even schedule a call back. The notes are automatically pushed back to your CRM along with  on-demand reporting via the web or download.

PowerDialer’s benefits are not limited to the technical efficiencies. It builds momentum keeping you in the ‘groove’ and motivated. Dialing by hand and leaving repetitive voice mail messages wears you out to the point of call reluctance. PowerDialer makes prospecting sessions more enjoyable and productive.

PowerDialer builds your business through abundance. When you are afforded the luxury of abundance you can pick and choose who you want to work with and focus on motivated buyers and sellers who are willing to price their property to sell.

We Use It and So Should You

We use PowerDialer for every outbound prospecting call we make. It has increased our productivity 400%. A typical session for us consists of 80 calls. In the same amount of time, we make as many live contacts as we used to make dials.  In a single session we’ll now reach 20 live answers and leave 60 pre-recorded voice mails versus a hand dialing session of 4 live answers.

The bottom line is our single session conversation rate has gone from 2 to 11. The PowerDialer has been the most efficient and valuable piece of technology we’ve ever used and it will work the same for you.

Prospecting is hard. PowerDialer makes it easier.

PowerDialer is in the final stages of testing for data integration and scheduled for release May 1st. If you would like more information or to see if we integrate with your CRM please call 800-882-9155 or email info@archagent.com.

But technology can be scary to some. It is often said “give a person a program and you may frustrate them for a day, teach them to program and you will frustrate them for a lifetime.”. Well here’s five simple plug in programs that you can implement that we promise won’t frustrate you… even for a single day.

http://pixlr.com/ – Do you print your flyers or e-brochures as PDF’s? If you need something that is similar to Adobe Photoshop without the all of the extras (and the big price tag) try pixlr for your photo editing. It’s available free online.

http://www.cutepdf.com/ - Do you email contracts and need to convert them for Microsoft Word to a PDF? Cutepdf installs like just like a printer allowing you to create, save, and email documents with just a push of a button.

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ – While there’s no shortage of real estate specific CRMs, many agents still use Microsoft Outlook or Gmail. Milk serves as a perfect add-on by providing a more robust, but simple task management option.

http://www.walkscore.com/ – More and more Internet gurus are suggesting that you present “hyper-local” information on your website. Hyperlocal is a term that means very current and specific information about your neighborhood such as shopping, dining, cultural, schools, etc. The challenge is to keep it updated. With walkscore, you enter any address in the U.S. , and the walkscore displays a map of the area and it interfaces with your website for free.

http://www.bufferapp.com/ – Social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook present a unique conundrum to many agents. You know you should do it, need to do it, but it’s hard to track and you often walk the thin line between return and investment. With bufferapp you can consolidate various social sites by queuing up your announcements and Buffer will automatically send them out at pre-defined times during the day.

A few months ago we had the good fortune of co-hosting a webinar, Accountable Internet Lead Generation, with Ben Kinney of Home4Investment Real Estate Team, a Keller Williams brokerage. Ben is a top producing agent, author, Internet lead generation guru and is in great demand on the coaching/speaking circuit.

The webinar’s topic was “Accountable Lead Generation”. Internet lead generation starts with search engine optimization (SEO) and Ben’s focus was on how any real estate agent can win their share of online leads without hiring expensive SEO firms or being a tech wizard.

The webinar was so intriguing we decided to take these strategies and implement them as if we were real estate agents. We created a single property website and did all the SEO ourselves. Other than the $12 URL we paid GoDaddy, we invested zero dollars. The only way this property could be found was via an organic Internet search. There is no physical address, no lawn sign, no tax records, no marketing brochure or MLS entry. The property has a fictitious address, but we used a recently sold home so the pictures and pricing were real.

To find out the exact steps we did, listen to Ben’s webinar on generating real estate leads using single property websites. The whole webinar is about 60 minutes and he gets into the meat of what we did at the 18:30 mark. Or if you would like the bullet-point version, you can visit our Facebook pageand download the Cliff Note Version, “Online Success Begins and Ends With Search Engine Optimization”. You may also receive the White Paper by sending us email at info@archagent.com or call 800-882-9155 ext: 2.

Instructions:

Step 1: Click on the “My Mailbox” tab

Step 2: Click on “Browse” and find the needed photo on your local drive

Step 3: Enter in a photo description

Step 4: Click “Upload File”

Click here to view the complete Mobile Marketing User Guide, or contact us at 800-882-9155.

So how do win desirable listings? Assuming you have qualified the seller’s motivation and have all the decision makers present here are six keys:

Six Keys

1. Preparation: perform preliminary research regarding the property. You can find everything you need on the public internet to become informed about the property. Drive by the property and take pictures from the street (and take pictures of the inside of the property when previewing with the potential seller). Use this information to create a prelisting package. Your prelisting package should contain:

a. step by step marketing plan
b. comparable marketing analysis
c. role during the sales process
d. value and explanation of proper pricing
e. sample marketing
f. sold properties and/or testimonials

Proper preparation will allow you to present confidently. Educate the prospect on the home selling process—from agreement, pricing, MLS listing, marketing feedback, agreed price reductions if necessary and the close. This process naturally substantiates your prelisting package; show visuals and be succinct.

2. Confidence: Proper preparation will allow you to present confidently. Educate the prospect on the home selling process—from agreement, pricing, MLS listing, marketing feedback, agreed price reductions if necessary and the close. This process naturally substantiates your prelisting package; show visuals and be succinct.

3. Competence: you have two jobs: a fiduciary responsibility to advise, consult, educate and guide. This is where you explain what you do control, what the seller controls and what you both do not control. What the seller does control is the price and how the property shows, its condition and availability. What you do not control is the market conditions, competition and what the market is willing to pay for the home. You second job is a functionary role to lead generate, build value, sell, negotiate, maintain compliancy and ensure the close.

4. Pricing: No marketing strategy or technology will ever produce results as effectively as pricing the property to sell. Convey to the seller that it does not matter what they paid, need, or want; all that matters is what the buyer universe will pay for their property. To receive the highest possible price for their property, timing is everything. If you initially list too high, you may never have an opportunity to reach that universe of buyers that would have paid a premium for your

5. Execution: This is how we perform the home selling process; what tools we use and what separates ourselves from our competitors. Points of differentiation is the most important step of the process. Some tools to consider are:

• Call-Capture IVR- Take the information that you learned about the property and create a sample recording, upload the pictures you took of the outside of the property and add the text descriptions. Take a sample sign rider with you and have the seller call it; show them the call detail of how you capture every lead. Emphasize every lead receives a follow up call from you or a member of your team.

• Mobile Marketing – The internet provides prospects ease of access to properties for sale and the internet has gone mobile. Do you have a real mobile strategy? If not, we have two for you to consider: RoamHomes and TextHomes. Both services enable you to capture and track potential prospects that are searching for home on the MLS from a mobile device.

• Single Property Site- a personal touch that conveys to sellers, “your property is special enough for it’s own website”. Do you really want this listing? Buy the property address before you go on the listing and create a site: for a sample see www.211bartonsprings.com. .

• Virtual Flyer- Create a mock-up of the property brochure and add it to your pre-listing package. Make sure and include the single property website and Call Capture number so they can visit them afterwards and make sure to email them another copy immediately after leaving.

6. Commission: Nine times out of ten you will have to address your commission. Your full brokerage commission is under pressure so be prepared. If you properly completed the first five steps, you will have created significant value in the eyes of the seller, so overcoming this should be easier.

1. Be understanding. They may be upside down or have lost equity.
2. Explain how you are taking the risk. The seller is in complete control of accepting or declining offers and you don’t get paid unless the property is sold at an acceptable price.
3. Explain costs associated with your marketing plan.
4. Explain costs associated with keeping the deal on track to close.
5. If they insist on a discount, explain all these processes have costs associated with them. Ask them which of the processes—prospecting, marketing, systems, managing, negotiating would it make sense to eliminate? The truth is, in today’s real estate market, if you perform the services as stated above, your services are inexpensive.

If you are unfamiliar with QR Codes or how to use them in your real estate marketing, please read the best use QR document. For more information please contact us at 800-882-9155.

The retention policy is renewed for six months by any of the following actions:

• Logging into the Web Portal
• Phone access to an individual Powerline/IVR extension (will only affect that particular extension)
• Using a Voice Broadcast Group or Message

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We can extend this longer if you require, please contact us at 800.882-9155.

BOLD, (Business Objective: Life by Design) teaches agents the necessary mindset skills and scripts to propel them to top producer status. ArchAgent’s leads provide the BOLD attendees a steady stream of new opportunities when prospecting for new listings.

For more information on ArchAgent’s suite of services including For Sale by Owner and Expired Lead services, Smart Phone Applications, Mobile Marketing, Call Capture and Live Operators Services call us at 800-882-9155.