Foursquare: Have you checked in?

Foursquare hit the social media scene in 2009 and has gained popularity ever since. With over 25 million users world wide and over 2.5 billion check ins, Foursquare allows users to check in at businesses and public places. Foursquare is a fun social media app but it isn't all fun and games when you consider its business applications

Become the Mayor of your favorite spots
When you check in to a place more times than anyone else you are deemed the mayor of that place. Being the Mayor can give you special things and general notoriety.

Register your office
Setting up your office as a place on Foursquare not only allows you and others to check in at your office giving it online exposure, but allows you to write about your activities like preparing a new listing. It also gives you the opportunity to write tips like preparing your home to sell.

Open House Buzz
Foursquare is a good way to post information about open houses. Sellers and other office agents can comment about open houses and the neighborhood.With Foursquare's ability to forward to Facebook and Twitter, more of your social community can view open house activities.

Connect with your Sphere
Checking in at local stores gives you the ability to see which of your friends are there. Imagine "bumping into" an old friend while shopping! Knowing that they're there gives the savvy real estate agent time to prepare for the casual conversation.

Take a few minutes to sign up for Foursquare if you aren't already using it. The online social community is blending into our face to face contacts making prospecting much easier.

Blogs: Quick and Easy Tips to Increase Readership

Writing and publishing a blog is a lot of fun. It allows the author,using articles photos, and videos, to creatively  develop their online personality. Many bloggers develop an intricate and detailed online personality only to be disappointed at the lack of interaction with their online community.

Here are a few words of encouragement. Whatever you do, don't give up! Try these easy steps to develop a long term group of faithful followers who interact with you through your blog.

• Post - Quit waiting for the perfect article. Take the idea you have and express it. You can always go back later and expand your idea by posting more detailed information. Just Post it!
• Distribute - Make sure your blog posts are shared throughout your online media sources. Remember to use your blog as the hub and sources like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others as the spokes. These  other social media communities will help you draw in more readers to your blog.
• Engage - Ask questions in your posts. When your readers comment, it is important that you respond. Listen so you can interact. Do this by setting up notifications to your phone or email (or both) so that you are immediately notified when someone comments on your post. By  responding to their comment quickly, you can create a real time conversation.
• Adjust - Analyze and tweak as you go. Watch your statistics and and analytics so you understand what interests your readers most. Post on subjects that have high interest and comments. Stop posting on subjects that have little to now interest.

Enjoy developing your blog and your online community. Keep your blog fresh by updating it frequently. You'll be glad you did!

If you're going to eat it, don't nibble

At some point, you're going to have to jump in. Business is tough. It's tougher when you're not committed to success. What's holding you back? Fear? Lack of plan?

As a trainer I get to meet a lot of people. They're all different with different learning styles. Beside how they learn, they're all the same. All people come to training with their own dreams and desires. Some people, however, go beyond dreaming. They have their dreams and desires organized as specific goals and some don't. It sounds tedious to the dreamer but it's essential. Taking defined goals and creating steps and action plans to achieve dreams is critical to success.

It's funny though, successful people not only know what they want and have a plan to get it they all have pulled the trigger. They're living the dream. They're doing what it takes to achieve their goals by implementing their plans.

Do you have your goals and plans? It sounds like you're ready. Quit nibbling and take a big bite! You'll be glad you did.

Use Social Network Sites to Research New Prospects

Social sites aren’t just for talking but for listening. Social networks provide excellent opportunities for real estate agents to search for people who are talking about making a move. Searching this way enables agents to make contact with people they may not yet know who are planning a move. Spend a few minutes (that’s all) each day searching your social media sites looking for people who are planning a move.

Think about who may be moving…

Anyone who has had a life event may be considering a move. Someone who has just graduated, had a baby, landed a new job, had children move out, etc. are all excellent prospects.

Searching is quick and easy when you know how to do it.

Start with the largest social media site, Facebook. At the top of the page is the search box. Type

what you are looking for in quotation marks. Here’s an example, let’s look for “moving to Houston” It’s important that you click on the magnifying glass to start the search instead of just hitting enter. Next decide what group to target. On the left side of the page are Search Filters. Start with Posts by Friends to check your friends. Move to Public Posts to check for people you don’t yet know.

Twitter also has great search capabilities. Just like Facebook,

type the search parameters into

the search box. Use quotation marks to narrow the results. The gear to the right of the search box has advance search tools. Add a location to your search to help target a certain area. Adding a target group of people is possible in the advanced search section of Twitter as well.

Searching for potential clients this way and reaching out to them on their social media site is the newest form of warm calling possible. The difference is though the potential prospects have already expressed an interest or need to make a move.

Just like any prospecting these potential customers may still require follow up before they are actually ready to buy. If possible, add them to your following or friends. Send them a message or comment on their post to help them notice you. Here's to your Success!

The Home Showing Process Simplified

Real estate agents should help buyers in the home buying process. The agent's job isn't to make the decision for the buyer but to facilitate the process by properly preparing to show homes and to show homes correctly. Following these few simple steps will help the buyers come to the best decision for them.

Pull the weeds - Preview homes before taking a buyer to see them. Some houses look much better in the photographs than in person. Others may be next to undesirable items like high tension power lines. Previewing eliminates wasted showings and deminstrates professionalism.

Do your homework - Once the choice homes are selected spend time researching each property. Know the listing history, the date it last sold, the value, and other pertinent information the buyer will need to make a decision. Add disclosure notices to the showing packet for the buyer's convenience. Be prepared with market analyses.

Know where to go first - David Knox in his Mentor Series II series talks about what order to show homes. In David's tongue-in-cheek manner, he calls it The Theory of Relativity. Buyer's don't understand how good a home is until they compare it to other homes. For example, have you ever jumped into a swimming pool straight from the jacuzzi? Freezing cold, right? What if you just jumped into the pool first without going into the jacuzzi? The pool won't feel as cold because you didn't come from as hot an environment. David Knox recommends that after choosing the best four or five homes for your buyer client, put them in an order to help them reach a buying decision. Show them from good to better to best to good again. This gets them excited to move from house to house but shuts down the showing process in the end. Don't manipulate the process by adding a dog into the mix. These are the best homes available for your buyer.

Shhhh! - This is the hardest part! If the agents has done his or her job correctly, picking the best homes for the buyer, then all the homes should have practically all the same amenities. These are the perfect homes for the buyer. Why not let the homes show themselves and let the buyers experience them without agent commentary. Use the time to observe the buyers as they explore and enjoy the homes they are viewing. Listen for their comments as they enter and leave rooms. Write down their reactions to add to their feedback at the end of each home showing.

Following these easy steps will simplify the buying process for the buyers. Enjoy!

Open House Prospecting Plan

Prospecting in real estate should always be systematic and planned. Open Houses, a comprehensive prospecting system, is a great example. With both active and passive prospecting activities, open houses expose our listings and reach both buyers and sellers.
For open houses to reach their greatest prospecting potential, follow these simple steps:

Two Weeks before the Open House

• Choose a house to hold open
• Mail invitation post cards to 50 neighbors
• List the open house on the multiple listing service and on other real estate pages
• Order a short open house newspaper advertisement or facebook pay per click ad

The Week before the Open House

• Place an Open Sunday sign rider on the sign
• Place an event on Facebook and invite local friends
• Prepare flier for open house
• Call prior open house attendees inviting them
• Call twenty neighbors inviting them

The Day of the Open House

• Place at least six open house signs
• Request every visitor sign in by using an inexpesive raffle

These simple to follow steps will create an open house system that will generate many buyer and seller leads. Including the buyer prospect in future open house invitation calls insure more interest to your open houses and will create lucritive relationships with buyers.

Open Houses Create Successful Prospecting Opportunities

If Prospecting is the lifeblood of a real estate agent's career, then open houses are the blood cells themselves. No other single activity gives more opportunities to prospect for new customers than the open house.

Frequently, real estate agents try open houses and then give up doing them because they quickly learn that open houses don't work. Though this will sound contradictory to my initial statement, they're right. Open houses don't usually work ... by themselves. Most of the time an agent plans an open house by placing an announcement on the local mls, an Open Sunday sign, places a directional sign or two and lets it rip. If this is your idea of an open house, let me save you some time, GIVE UP!

Open houses offer many proepsecting opportunities that need to be used to not just increase attendance to the open house but to also prospect for other buyers and sellers.

- Think about your sellers. They're looking for the BEST price for their home. Brining in more buyers may bring more than one offer but at least the highest possible offer.

- Think about the neighbors. They're watching the for sale sign in your seller's yard. They are considering selling but haven't found a real estate agent yet. They're waiting to see your efforts.

- Think about other buyers. Often buyers visit open houses long before they're ready to buy.

Prospecting for these groups will increase your customer base dramatically. Having success using open houses takes a systematic approach with a variety of open house invitation and follow up activities.

Ready, Set, JUMP!

Being cautious and looking at a problem from all sides is a great business practice. Business plans should include intricate details about marketing and product development. After careful analysis, however, sometimes you just have to take a running start and jump in! Don't forget to make as big of a splash as you can!

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Content Marketing for Social Media Sites

Many new Facebookers have true concerns about what and when to post material. Instead of creating a page and then trying to determine what information to provide, do it in reverse. Decide what content to provide and then create a page designed to deliver the information.
Before creating your Facebook page decide what kind of content or information to provide. This will depend completely on who the targeted audience is for the page. This allows the page to focus completely on consumer needs and delivers enough content for the first thirty to sixty days.
Three good questions to ask before creating a Facebook page are:

1. What kind of information does my targeted audience mostly likely need?
2. Why do I love selling real estate?
3. Why do I love this community?

The answers to these three questions are the beginning of a cntent grid. Use the following chart to help create a content grid.

Post several times a day in order to maximize exposure. Some recommend even posting the same material more than once to increase readership. Though this may look a bit like spam to frequent Facebook visitors, allows for the greatest exposure.

With all this great consumer centered information being produced, length of article or post is a concern. Facebook users are accustomed to short bits of information which is why Facebook is not in the center of the social media hub. Facebook allows the consumer to readily find topics and shorts posts of information. The true source of the information is the blog. Facebook just directs the consumer to it Even so, some bits of information may come from other sites like
governmental agencies, Realtor ssociations, school websites, news organizations to name a few. Create a link tothis information and post it directly on Facebook. Add the URL to longer articles or helpful link lists posted on the blog.

Each blog post has its own distinct URL or web address. By clicking on the title of the blog article, the URL will appear in the address bar. Copy and paste the URL for the article to Facebook. This gives the blog article greater exposure. The back link helps in placement in Google searches as well.

Content on blogs and Facebook is not limited to written articles. Content can be as simple as a picture with a title posted from Flick’r onto Facebook and the blog. Use the hub to create a network of sites whenever possible! Content can be shared as a video as well. Imagine, for example, keeping the community informed about a local construction project by posting
frequent and short videos. These videos are stored on YouTube and linked or embedded into the blog and Facebook. Creatively, client testimonials can be video as well. Ask satisfied clients to make a short 30-45 second video instead of writing a letter. These are great show instead of tells for blogs and Facebook.

Now that the social media hub is in place and beginning to work, refocus on the content grid to deliver quality and enjoyable information to your targeted group of consumers. This is the fun part!

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How do we interact in 2011?

To reach consumers it is necessary to understand how people interact today. More than likely, people meet online with 1 in 5 marriages originating from an online introduction. With the likelihood of personal interaction initiating online, a strong, widespread, dynamic, and planned online presence is a must for a real estate professional to grow a successful and productive business.
An online prospecting campaign must include a substantial amount of Facebook. Successful campaigns that create a measureable return on time and dollar investment usually include use of both the personal profile and a business page along with facebook ads.

Recently Facebook incorporated Facebook generated lists to help organize friends into manageable groups. Lists allow individuals to post status updates to specific groups of people allowing a great opportunity to target market. It would be beneficial to post an open house for friends in a specific geographic area. But it may be considered spam to others who live far away from the open house. Lists also allow facebookers to review or watch posts from specific groups of people. Many people today have more Facebook friends than they can interact with. Lists allow people to streamline friends into smaller lists. The smaller groups let posts move slower down the wall so it is easier to pay attention and interact with friends.

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Prospecting for a New Consumer

Statistics continue to point that the trend of using the internet to learn about literally any topic and to interact is not only not going away but is getting greater. We continue to see individuals reaching toward their peers to get information about products and services instead of relying on advertisements to help them identify brands and make purchases.

Real estate consumers are always becoming more adept at researching without the assistance of a real estate agent. They easily obtain information on communities, researching schools, proximity to amenities, prices, and more before reaching out for the services of a real estate professional. This new consumer is a confident researcher able to make choices based on the availability of endless information.

Though stated many times in the previous decade, real estate agents are no longer the gateway to the information. The role of the agent is changing rapidly as much of the control of the real estate transaction is moved into the hands of the consumer. The availability of information is only paled by the ease of communication. The new consumer is relying on peer recommendations, referrals,
and independent rating systems to aid in choosing a real estate professional. This savvy consumer bases service provider selection on relationship over advertising. Simply stated, the consumer demands a relationship based on trust. This trust relationship must be earned by the
agent and cannot be underdeveloped.

Looking positively at the new consumer, the agent can now truly focus on providing superior service and invaluable intricate knowledge about the real estate transaction. Agents can focus more on providing a singular place to gather information regarding specific communities and the transaction. Agents can once again truly specialize and provide develop a niche market.

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Video Blogging Helps You and Consumers

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Questioning techniques can simplify the buying process

How did their real estate agent know that they all wanted their own shrub?

Helping people buy requires learning about the buyer's motivations and needs. Some of these have nothing to do with the number of bedrooms and square footage.

Learning to ask the right questions will help the buyers get what they are looking for. Open-ended questions allow the consumer to explain and describe more. The real estate agent can learn alot from open-ended questions.
Open-ended questions that start with

• How
• What
• Why
• When
• Who
• Where
• Describe
  

Closed questions have their place too. Use closed question to get definitive postions from buyers. Closed questions may lead specifically to a yes or no answer and include words like:

• Do
• Are
• Is
• Have
• Could
• Would
• Will
• Can
• Did

When qualifying buyers and sellers, it never hurts to SLOB them!

• S How soon do you want to move?
• L How long have you been looking?
• O Have you made any offers?
• B If you found the right house today, would you buy it?

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Just a few choice words

Just a few words from Jim Rohn to start the day:

Skills: Don't wish it were easier; wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom.

Growth: Don't join an easy crowd. You won't grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform and achieve are high.

Change: We generally change ourselves for one of two reasons: inspiration or desperation.

Activity: The few who do are the envy of the many who watch.

Success: Success is what you attract by the person you become.

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You can't hit a your target if you don't know what it is

Setting goals is like going to the dentist. Everyone has to do it but most people don't like it. So, we put it off as long as we can....sometimes years. If you can afford to do that, I guess it's ok. If your career and financial stabilty is dependent on your goals, then it's not!

Jim Rohn, on more than one occassion had a few things to say about goals. Watch part one of Mr.Rohn's interview with Vic Johnson of Goals 2 Go entitled, "Becoming the person you need to be to achieve your goals."

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How you succeed depends on what you're willing to learn

Jim Rohn called Self Development "Working harder on yourself than you do on your job."

Mr. Rohn shared a story told to him by Earl Schoaff: "To be successful you must have an appetite for learning. Pursue learning in a manner in which it will help you to grow and change. Become a real searcher for knowledge. What you think about is like the sail on the sailboat. No matter how the wind blows, if you’ve got a place you want to go, you can’t arrive there by cursing the contrary wind. You arrive there by adjusting your sail. That’s your thinking, your ideas, and information. If you are short on that, it will cause you difficulty in the future."

When setting goals, more often than not, you'll have to overcome a obstacle in order to achieve your goal. Usually that requires meeting new people or learning new information. Embrace this challenge enthusiastically by listing the hurdles you'll need to overcome to be successful in reaching your desired outcome. These smaller successes will lead you toward your ultimate goal.

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Prospecting is a Contact Sport

Reaching out to consumers comes in many forms. Some methods require agents to actually make active contact with people. These active prospecting methods have face to face contact, phone or email contact, or other contact methods that allow for conversation. Other prospecting methods are inactive. They place prospecting materials in front of consumers with the hope of the prospect then to reach out for the real estate agent. Real estate agents’ prospecting plans need to include a balance of active and inactive prospecting methods.

Belly to Belly, Nose to Nose, and Toes to Toes

If I can hand you a business card then I am involved in an active prospecting activity.

– Steve Barnes, Coldwell Banker United, Realtors®

Active Prospecting includes activities that allow engagement in conversation such as face to face meetings, phone callings, emailing, and some social media posting. Real estate agents who are handing out business cards in a networking meeting, talking to their friends in social settings,calling friends and family member or neighbors to discuss market conditions, homes on the market, open houses, and other real estate activities are conducting active prospecting activities.

Active Prospecting Methods
Phone calling
Handing out business cards
Networking at social settings
Emailing friends and family members

Passive Prospecting creates opportunities for consumers to see, hear, or read about you, your company, and your services. The marketing piece gives the consumer enough information to be able to reach out to the agent. Passive marketing pieces usually have a call to action and a valuestatement along with the contact information of the real estate agent.

Passive Prospecting Methods
Billboards
Direct Mail postcards, etc.
Print Ads
Internet Ads
Websites
Flier boxes
Door hangers
Television Ads
Agent Intro Videos
Calendars and other giveaways

To be successful in real este, agents must use a combination of both active and passive prospecting methods. What are you using to insure success in your business?

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Prospecting through social media

Social Media is Relational NOT Transactional

In creating a set of business objectives, we tend to look at number of contacts needed to create one appointment or one revenue share. Though textbook planning, this doesn’t necessarily lend itself to the essence of social media: creating a network of people who share about themselves.

Looking then at the goal of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites, I am enthused by the potential of online relationship building. Wow, social media creates the perfect platform for personal branding!

Often people question which social media platform yields the greatest results? The answer varies greatly depending on the preference of the media user. Though many people believe Twitter, for example, is more B2B focused, it provides ready opportunity to build hyper-local market interest. Facebook, on the other hand, is commonly considered a business to consumer media source. Neither social media platforms, however, will produce prospecting results unless they are worked consistently to deliver relevant market contact.

Easy steps in making money with social media:

Choose your favorite platform. If you like Twitter, use it. If Facebook is your favorite social media platform then become a Facebook professional. Learn your social media platform’s tools and posting methods.

Identify your content strategy by understand your target market. This could be a geographic group like in the old neighborhood farm days or it could be an interest group like model railroaders.

Research and “friend” or “follow” your target market.

Identify daily tasks. These are 4 to 5 daily posts of information that are of interest to your market group.

Manage the delivery of the information through a realtime drip marketing program. Just like neighborhood farming, you can’t send out a year’s worth of postcards in one day. Sites like www.hootsuite.com, www.tweetdeck.com, and http://www.socialoomph.com deliver scheduled posting opportunities. Most blogging platforms like Wordpress and Blogspot do as well.

Keep posting! Growing a group of faithful followers who know, like, trust you takes time. Success is dependent on consistent longevity.

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Four Sales to SUCCESS

I was trained to look at each contact with a prospective client as a SALES opportunity. Don't try to do one sale before you have completed the sale before it.

The first sale is the initial phone contact with the prospective client . . . Sell the Appointment. Don't let them make you do your presentation over the phone. Give them enough info that they want to hear more. You want to give your presentation face-to-face.

The second sale is your Presentation . . . Sell the Sizzle, not the Steak. If you want to meet them in their home or office, ask for a specific amount of meeting time . . . I usually ask for 30 minutes because it is not too much time out of their schedule and yet it is enough time to make a quick evaluation of their interest in your presentation.
• first 10 minutes is the "ice breaker"
- If you know them already, talk about something you have in common
- If they are new to you, look around the room quickly to see what they are interested in . . . pictures, trophies, golf clubs in the corner, fish tank, etc. . . . and ask about that. They will want to talk about their passion and that will loosen them up.
• next 20 minutes - your presentation
• last 10 minutes - wrap it up and set up next appt. . . . when you reach the end of the 30 minutes, look at your watch and tap it with your finger and say, "Well, our time is up, so I will . . . (reaffirm what you agreed to for the next meeting). Many times, if the client is really interested in what you are saying, they will say, "No, you don't have to leave yet . . . I want to hear more about . . ." (or something like that)

The third sale is the Close . . . this may take more than one meeting.

The fourth sale is to get Referrals . . . if they liked what you did for them they will give you 2 or 3 referrals. If they cannot think of anyone, don't tell them that you will call them back. Have something to prompt them with. You can interchange the questions or come up with new ones.
• Friends - Do you have any friends who have outgrown there current house and are talking about buying or building another one?
• Neighbors - Have you heard any of your neighbors talking about getting transferred?
• Relatives - Do you know any of your relatives here in Houston or Texas or other states that are thinking of selling their house or buying/building a new one?

Guest Blogger David B. Atkins is a Sales Associate with Coldwell Banker United, Realtors in Houston, Texas and owner of Bulldog Shipping

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Video Blog for Authentic Marketing

Video in blog posts can take many forms. From fun and whimsical to informative and serious, video creates authentic marketing opportnities for those who use it. Youtube is the second largest search engine in the US with millions of minutes of video posted everyday. Use this to your advantage. Create a youtube channel and link back to it as often as possible from your blog. Embed video into your blog when possible as well. Here are a few helpful video blgging tips to get you started.

• List topics you wish to explore


• Research to find others who have created videos of the same topic to help gather ideas


• Share links to others' videos


• Make your own videos


• Create a small studio using ample lighting

Here is an example of a fun video from Realtors in Canada

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