At some point, we all want to retire. One day we decide to move on to other passions or pursuits in life. There is a way to retire from real estate with relaxation and free time, to maintain an income stream and ensure our clients are well taken care of. This week we look at the method of adopting an agent and the retiring agent clients needs are attended to by the adopting agent. The most critical part of this whole plan is how you transfer and maintain client relationships and the trust the retiring agent has spent years to build. These relationships are the baton in the relay race that gets passed from the retiring agent to the adopting agent. If done well the retiring and adopting agents will win the race for them and their clients.
Let’s start by looking at the 3 steps to building your relay team.1. Having a good plan 2. Execute the plan well 3. Everyone is replaceable, but you must choose wisely who will replace you. We have to assume the retiring agent has already compiled a solid database of relationships and detailed information about the clients so we then jump to choosing the adopting agent process which is the most critical choice you will make in the process.
Here is your adopting agent checklist:
1. Experience – First and foremost, experience should but what you look for. By experience, I mean not only experience in helping clients but also in running a business, marketing and sales skills.
2. Relationship Building – For every business, the process of working with clients will be different. A retiring agent may rely on mailings, phone calls and client parties. Make sure the adopting agent is open to continuing to communicate and build relationships in the same ways that have worked for the retiring agent.
3. Resources – Another critical component to look at is the possible successor has the resources. Do they have the resources to see the plan through to completion? Depending on the size of the business, the minimum requirement will be the financial ability to fund the marketing efforts to the database of clients.
4. Ethics – In a perfect world, it would not be important to include ethics into the equation but sadly some people are just in it for the quick buck and not the full relay race. Choose someone of high character and who will take care of your clients best interest every time.
5. Energy – Although it might seem like energy and resources are the same thing, there are not at all. Energy is the spark in the adopting agents eyes, their sense of humor or sometimes described as their “vibe”. When you are around them do they make you feel good?
6. Who Not To Hire – Considering adopting your office friend, assistant, the new agent or the agent who is desperate for business you should re consider. Friends take their friends for granted. Assistants know the back end of the business and not the front end of the business. The new agent has the spark but just not the experience and resources. As for the desperate agent they are thinking about the money and nothing else.
Tips For Adopting Agents
Do you have the systems and resources to add the retiring agents business?
Take the time to review the retiring agents business and how they market and care for their clients.
Prove how dedicated you are to handling the retiring agents business like sharing Testimonials, systems, processes, resources and your plan.
Tips For Retiring Agents
Make a short list of candidates to consider.
Ask your clients what they appreciate the most about you and want to see continue with the successor.
Interview more than one agent and get testimonials from their clients.
This is an exciting opportunity for both the retiring and adopting agents and trust that the content we shared will spark a fire in you and your business to find the adopting agent out there or adopting agents find those retiring agents that never consider the possibility of residual income into retirement.
When and how to hire a real estate assistant is a question so many agents ask themselves once they get into the industry. Some even go years contemplating whether or not it is the right time. Many people ask the same questions such as, “should I hire someone now?” and “can I even afford to hire someone?” Now we know it can be scary to let someone into your business like that but in actuality, it needs to be done sooner than later. If you are constantly asking yourself if you should hire an assistant, then that alone should tell you that you need to hire someone. When it comes to affording one, if they are really doing their job, they will be making you a significant amount of money. Here we are going to break down when and how to hire an assistant through 3 different phases. Each phase comes with 4-5 questions and steps into ensuring you are using the right solution.
PHASE 1
In Phase 1 begin to ask yourself, “How do I know it is time to hire an assistant?” Like mentioned earlier, if you are asking this question, then it probably is necessary. You are clearly starting to become overwhelmed once you start even thinking about having someone to help.
Question 2,Do you stay up late doing non best use of time tasks, also known as “BUT’s”? These include very simple tasks that are more tedious than they are difficult. After a long day of meetings, going to open houses and meeting new clients, the last thing you are going to want to do is work yourself up on those simple everyday tasks you had to keep pushing aside because they weren’t a priority at the time.
Question 3, Do you have aspirations to grow beyond where you are now? If you have aspirations to grow financially or even from a team standpoint, you are never going to get there alone. The only way you are going to grow and get the most out of your potential is to have help. Asking for help can sometimes seem as a belittling standpoint but it shouldn’t be. Everyone at some point or another asks for a helping hand and so should you.
Question 4,Do you live in the clouds? Meaning, are you not able to implement in the way you need to? People who are in real estate, especially self-starters and entrepreneurs live in the clouds and you need to take this in account for needing the help with your brain storming.
Question 5,Do you know that you are losing business? The more you wait for help, the more projects you are going to have to shy away from because of how busy your schedule is. The longer you wait, the more money you are going to lose, period. Their job is not just to do the tedious and hard work, it is also to make you money. As they say, you don’t remember what you’ve forgotten.
PHASE 2
Now that you have finally agreed to yourself you need an assistant, it is time for phase 2. What are you supposed to look for when you start looking to hire?The first thing you should be looking for is if they are detail and system oriented. In order to find someone who is, the best way is to make them follow multiple steps in the hiring process on the application. These can include: using a specific font size, only sending the application through a PDF, use a specific format, include this header and more. Now if they don’t follow the steps correctly you instantly know they are not good with following directions and are not detail oriented. In all, you are looking for a person who can get annoyed with a lack of order rather than too much detail or instruction.
The second thing you should be looking for is a naturally positive person. Now, this can be a little more difficult because in actuality, everyone is “nice” during their first interview. This is why you need to take it further and have multiple interviews in multiple settings. It is known miserable people can only act happy for so long until it takes one thing to take them over the edge. You need to be able to see how they act with more than one or two interactions with them to get their full personality and potential.
The third thing you should be looking for in a potential candidate is if they are self-driven. This person should be looking for ways to make your life easier. You want someone to anticipate everything so they can adapt to what is needed and what isn’t.
The fourth and final thing you should be looking for is someone that must be tech savvy and able to type. Now we’ve all seen how our grandparents and even sometimes our parents use a computer which is funny to us of course, but when it comes to hiring an assistant, it won’t be funny down the line when you are on a time crunch and they are still working on that first email. There are plenty of people in the world, especially nowadays with technology being as advanced as it is, that know how to use specific software and can adapt fast to new software.
PHASE 3
Moving on to the 3rd and final phase, you should now have hired someone but you don’t exactly know what to do next…
The first thing you should do is either take the time to properly train them or take the time to redo their work. You need to set aside time to be able to train them respectively because the quicker you train them, the quicker you will improve your business and make money.
Secondly, you need to give them clear expectations of what you want from them. You only have one chance to create expectation so think carefully. You want to set expectations such as what time they need to be there, the kinds of activities you expect them to do, what they should be able to do in a specific amount of time, etc. Be very clear in what you want out of them so then everyone is on the same page.
Next thing you want to do is teach them a marketing strategy to implement immediately. This is because it will shortly after bring your business making not only you feel good, but making them feel good as well. Try to teach them how to do things such as saving a search in a MLS, emailing listings, saving listings and similar tasks. All in all, they are adding to your business this way and it can only lead to great things.
Lastly, do NOT micromanage them! Many agents respond to this by saying, “but what if they don’t do it right?” Well, it is not that they won’t do it “right” it is that they won’t do it YOUR way. You need to let go of what you’ve been doing in the past to make room for the new because clearly something needs to change. Additionally, in most cases, they often do it better than you which may catch you off guard at first but you need to remember it is only making you and your business greater. You need to give them the freedom to be the person you hired them to be and let them do their thing.
If you haven’t already realized, there are only positive outcomes that will happen if you were to hire an assistant. After going through these 3 phases, you should see a massive positive change in not only the business but with you as a realtor. Now start looking for that assistant before all the good ones are taken!
Strength and courage, Wade
USE THE FORM BELOW TO GET YOUR FREE COPY OF THE AGENTSBOOST “HOW TO HIRE AN UNLICENSED REAL ESTATE ASSISTANT” STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE.
Whether you’re running a top producing team or just starting out, having the best real estate software at your disposal will put you well ahead of other agents. Is this finally the year the real estate industry gets the disruptive tools and apps other industries enjoy? Read on to check out our 20 top picks for the best time saving, lead generating, and innovative real estate software:
One of the early movers in the all-in-one real estate lead generation and CRM platforms, Inside Real Estate’s kvCORE platform is finally ready for its close up. Their team focused platform for 2018 boasts lead generation, a robust CRM with AI features like behavioral lead response, text messaging, and even an auto dialer.
While AI chatbots have been threatening (not in a skynet sense, but you get the idea…) to “disrupt” real estate lead nurturing for a long time now. The only problem is that the vast majority of solutions on offer weren’t quite ready for prime time. They were clunky, slow, or too robot-like to be useful. Structurely’s AI chatbot Aisa (Artificial Intelligence Sales Agent) Holmes allows you to qualify your web leads while you’re out showing and pitching. It also talks to a ton of your favorite lead gen/CRM platform’s like Real Geeks, BoomTown, Kunversion, Placester and more.
Amitree’s Folio has always been the well kept secret weapon of many newbie agents. After all, it’s free, sits right on top of Gmail, and offers some pretty amazing transaction management and organization tasks for busy Realtors. Even better, Sand Hill Road has taken notice. Amitree recently closed a $7 million round of funding to build out more functionality into an already fairly robust platform. Get on board while it’s still free!
After interviewing dozens of Real Trends 500 agents over the years, one thing really stands out. As you might imagine, they’re all absolutely amazing communicators in person or over skype. It’s almost like a hypnotists act. You just can’t help but trust whatever it is their saying and leave the conversation wanting to hear more. It’s uncanny. Of course when you get emails or texts from the same agents… well the magic not only fades, it pretty much disappears. This is why almost every single real estate tech pundit from Gary Vaynerchuck to Peter Lorimer agree that video is the future of real estate marketing. That’s why BombBomb is a must have for any serious agent. It let’s you create video at tehe drop of a hat and reach your leads where they’re most likely to pay attention, via email and text. They also offer lead capture, landing pages, analytics and more with your account.
While it may not be free, Contactually helps you automate and manage your most valuable asset as a Realtor. Your relationships. While many CRM’s let you tag leads and send out drip campaigns, Contactually takes it a step further and offers complex automation and lead nurturing features in order to help you build and maintain relationships. It will even use AI to tell you when the best time to reach out to different leads is.
Contactually is one of the best platforms for Realtors who are serious about automating their relationship marketing and reaching the right lead, with the right message, at the right time.
One of the most common complaints I here from newer Realtors is that their MLS interfaces look and feel like they were built in 1994. Tiny fonts, dozens of tiny checkboxes and dropdown menus, and a design aesthetic that screams AOL 95. Blah. Want to know why? Your MLS doesn’t have the time, resources, or expertise to design and build sleek, modern tools to access their treasure trove of data. That’s where companies like W+R Studios come in.
Their Cloud MLX app sits right on top of your mls and gives you a Google-like way to access that data faster, easier, and without the headaches.
During a recent chat with W+R CEO Greg Robertson, he let me in on the mantra that helps them make such innovative software: Make it simple, make it elegant, and make it easy to use. Cloud MLX nails all three and then some. Even better, Cloud MLX is designed to work seamlessly with the other apps in their Cloud Agent Suite; Cloud CMA, Cloud Attract, and Cloud Streams. The whole package together gives agents a formidable arsenal of tools for searching your MLS, buyer and seller lead generation, lead nurturing with gorgeous listing updates, and finally powerful listing presentation software to seal the deal.
Follow Up Boss is a lightweight, laser targeted lead management system designed for Realtors and teams to nail their lead nurturing targets day-to-day quickly and easily. Follow Up Boss sits right on your email and logs emails and texts, manages drip campaigns, sends automatic texts (open rates are WAY higher than email). and generally keeps agents focused on lead nurturing and converting clients instead of getting bogged down by endless listing blast emails, work drama, and everything else that keeps agent’s from their core tasks. It also has great features for team leaders to check in on how their agents are doing at a glance. They also seamlessly integrate with Real Geeks, IDX Broker, Ihomefinder, CINC, and more.
If you’ve already dipped a toe into social media only to get turned off by the constant demand to post, then Buffer is for you. Do you want to reach your twitter followers at 7:30 am even on days you sleep in? Want to send out that infographic to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. AND Instagram with one click?
Buffer let’s you figure out what times and type of content your leads on each platform respond to, then helps you create a posting calendar loaded with content. Once you have your calendar ready to go, you can sit back and let the likes, pins, and retweets comes rolling in.
Did I mention Buffer is free for up to three social accounts and ten scheduled posts?
Let’s face facts. Email is dying. In some tech offices, email has been almost entirely replaced with Slack, IM, or video conferencing. Homesnap lets you give your clients an awesome home search experience and notifies you when they like a property. You can also get deep dive property info and even build free CMA’s for your listing pitches. Since it’s linked directly with the MLS, the information about the house status is in real time. You can invite your clients to join the app and when they like something you are notified immediately. For your clients it gives information about what schools are in the areas and what other homes are for sale in a particular school zone. You can send them any new listings in their chosen area that you’ve come across and reach out to the listing agent with questions that you or your client may have on the spot. Not to mention the ability to create a CMA ,( comparative market analysis ), for your clients right from the app . If all of that weren’t great enough you’re able to book a showing, map how to get there and share the directions.
Have you ever sat down to write ad copy or put together a CMA and looked up to see that it’s 4 hours later and you’ve got nothing done? It doesn’t matter how much time you devote to a project, but how much time you spend FOCUSED on that project… If you constantly find yourself putting in login hours but not getting good results, you might be a candidate for the Pomodoro Technique. Here’s how it works: Instead of giving yourself a few hours or (eve worse) an unlimited amount of time to work, Pomodoro makes you limit your work to just 25 minutes. After that 25 minutes, no matter what you have cooking, you turn off the computer and take a five minute break. When you complete 4 Pomodoro cycles of 25 minutes of work split by 5 minute breaks, you take a real, 15-20 minute break to eat lunch, chat with coworkers, or head out for coffee. Thousands of creative workers and software engineers swear by Pomodoro, (including me) and the short bursts of focused work seem to limit distractions and increase productivity. You can even try it when cold calling. While all you really need to use the Pomodoro technique is a timer (preferably shaped like a tomato, hence the name) apps like Pomodoro timer give you a timer and even analytics to track your progress.
Like AI, predictive analytics has been an unavoidable buzzword for real estate software lately. While there are a ton of fakers out there (we won’t name names) who claim to use predictive analytics to parse real estate data, HouseCanary actually does. And it’s a game changer. HouseCanary’s home valuations are based on dozens of data points both public and private, and instead of going back a year or two, actually consider trends from the past few decades when coming up with their valuations. Think if it as Zestimates with a brain transplant…on steroids. While HouseCanary’s valuations are the most accurate many in the industry have seen, they’re not out to replace agents anytime soon. In fact, they offer affordable valuations that you can use to supplement your own hard work.
Now on to a tool that our office uses daily. Trello. Trello is one of those dead simple apps that will transform the way you work with your team. Trello lets you create and keep track of long term projects and todos with your entire team. It’s also super easy and intuitive to use. Even better, Trello is FREE for small teams. For just $10 a month, you can add a whole bunch of time saving features. There. Now you have no excuse to stay disorganized!
Here’s another real estate software platform you’ll kick yourself for not inventing… No, it doesn’t do transaction management or or build IDX pages and butter your toast in the morning like so many swiss army knife platforms these days. It only does ONE thing. It turns your Ipad or Android tablet into a fast, powerful open house sign in sheet. Now instead of squinting at a list of unintelligible names as you hunt and peck them into your CRM, you can leave your open house with your leads already in your CRM. In fact, Open Home Pro offered such an elegant solution to a common pain point for Realtors, they got bought out by Placester.
Let’s eat Grandma!…. Let’s eat, Grandma! Two sentences, only one will get you disinvited from next year’s Thanksgiving dinner. The Grandma safe version uses what’s called the oxford comma, something a grammar app like Grammarly will spot and fix for you.
Yuo cna aslo porbalby raed tihs esaliy desptie teh msispeillgns rhigt? Your leads probably can too, but are they going to call you back? Better not risk it in that pitch email. Grammarly checks your grammar, spelling, and even sentence structure and style for free.
Since some people spend their entire careers following and writing about real estate news, catching up with the latest can be a full time job. Since you don’t have time to read the Wall Street Journal, The Real Deal, The New York Times, and your local paper every morning, Feedly can help. Enter in a few websites or news categories you want to follow and Feedly sends you a nice curated list of the top stories every day. Combine this with Buffer and your leads will think you have a full time editorial staff finding them the best articles. Feedly is also FREE.
Although the competition was fierce, it looks like Dotloop has come out on top for the best real estate transaction management software for another year. If your office doesn’t offer real estate software like Dotloop along with your other perks, then it might make sense to jump in and track your deals with Dotloop. Did we mention the industry leading transaction management platform is now FREE for individual agents?
Instead of a shoebox, I had a manila folder stuffed with receipts for yellow cabs, lunches, printing, and printouts of my (enormous) Uber bills. Needless to say come tax time I’m ankle deep in paper and miserable. Smarter agents use expense tracking software like Expensify. Expensify automatically scans and tags your receipts so you don’t have to. This way in April you have everything organized and ready for your accountant to scrutinize.
Good old RPR! If you’re unfamiliar or have the app moldering away in your app tray unused, you owe it to yourself to fire it up soon. Offered exclusively for Realtors, RPR parses a massive trove of data to bring you quick answers to your client’s pressing questions right at your fingertips. It’s also a great way to build up a CMA on the fly to impress your tire kickers.
Last but certainly not least, Chime has been quietly building the killer real estate CRM while flashier competitors focused on bells and whistles. Instead of just a CRM, Chime is building out a full fledged real estate software platform to handle almost everything from lead generation, to lead nurturing, to transaction management, to analytics. If you need further proof of Chime’s strategic place in the real estate industry, San Francisco tech thought leaders Climb Real Estate use Chime.
There you have 2018/2019 tech leaders for our industry. Please comment below any of your favorites you would like other agents to know about, appreciate you sharing with us all!
Employees are accountable to managers who are accountable to CEOs who are accountable to business owners. Those in leadership positions assign tasks then consistently follow up with their team to ensure that said tasks are done well and in a timely manner. Likewise, most business coaching models encourage coaches to hold their coaching clients accountable – in other words, to monitor their actions until they reach their goals, or to call them out when they don’t follow through.
So why don’t I like the accountability model?
It’s because, let’s say I hold you accountable as a coach and it works and you’re happy. Then what happens when your coach goes away? You’re left to your own devices. So what I’ve done as a coach is I’ve created a dependency, and that’s not very ethical in my mind.
But it gets worse.
Why do people come for coaching in their real estate careers? Typically people come for coaching because they are frustrated they haven’t achieved their goals. Typically they are frustrated and they have a whole set of beliefs about themselves: “I should be further ahead,” “I’m not doing a good job,” “I can’t do this on my own,” etc. What happens if the accountability model doesn’t work? Now I’ve made that situation worse. So at best it’s unethical and at worst it’s detrimental. They walk away in a worse spot than when they started coaching.
From my perspective, coaching isn’t about accountability. Coaching is really about examining a person’s thinking and helping them line up their thinking with their goals and desires. And once we line up someone’s thinking with their goals and desires, they naturally do the things and have the behaviors that lead them to those goals. I don’t have to monitor, or keep track of or hold anybody accountable. My interest is in what’s preventing you from holding yourself accountable. What’s preventing you from keeping the promises you make to yourself? That’s an interesting question. You don’t need to answer to me – who am I that you should answer to me? But why aren’t you answering to you?
Realtor.ca had 72 million users, 264 million visits and 5.3 billion page views and 965 million property viewings in 2017. 62% of all this traffic was from a mobile device!! Last year there were 6.4 million visits to Realtor website, 4 million listings emailed to a friend, 2 million consumer emails to an agent, 480,000 phone calls to an agent, 306,000 social shares of a listing and finally 62,000 emails to a real estate office from the Realtor.ca website in 2017!
Consumers found Realtor.ca website through an Organic search 40% of the time, directly 35% of the time, 10% of the time from a referral, 9% from social media and 5% from an email they received. Realtor.ca reported that 67% of the visitors to their website were repeat buyers, 14% first time buyers and 7% real estate investors. The top 3 Canadian cities searched were Toronto, Calgary and Ottawa. 69% of visitors click on the photos and there were more than 4 million photos of properties to view but surprisingly 14% of listings did not include any photo!
Consumers are searching by price almost every time, $500,000 being the most common price search, 3 plus bedrooms searched more than 32% of the time, 2 plus bathrooms searched more than 47% of the time and top keywords are walkout basement, bungalow and basement suite. 26% of Quebec is searching in Ontario outside their province, BC residents are searching in Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia for listings.
Common stages of a Realtor.ca users are 42% just browsing, 21% in the getting started stages, 33% are seriously hunting and 5% have just purchased a property. 6.1 million agent profiles were viewed, 1.5 million searches for a realtor and 166,000 listings were viewed from an agent’s profile. Desk top searches for listings peaked from 12 noon to 2 pm and highest day of week Tuesday’s. Mobile searches peaked 8 pm to 10 pm and the highest day of the week was Sunday’s.
Interest in Canadian real estate is growing rapidly. International traffic has increased by 10% year over year. Notably traffic from China has increased by 42%. International visits was lead by the U.S. generating 57% of international visitors followed by the U.K. and China both about 5% of our international visitors.
One of the greatest value propositions for us as a nation is the unique ability to deliver the majority of our countries real estate data from one central source called Realtor.ca The data they have collected allows us to see what the market and consumer trends are and allow us to market to them better than we have before. I trust these Canadian real estate insights provide valuable information for you and your business in 2018 and help you take things to the next level!
A good friend of mine recently spoke to our brokerage and really brought home how anyone could go into any market place and dominate within a certain period of time. The amazing fact that 52% of all internet and online traffic is completely related to social media now and if you think social media is a fad and it is going away you really need to think again. The other statement that really resonated with me was “We need to act like a consumer with our marketing and follow the game changing way we are exploring on the internet and that is social media and not surfing the web anymore folks!”
So what is my point?
Well I have two points this week I really want to drive home. Let’s start with the powerful concept of “Visibility Trumps Ability” and anyone has the power to dominate in any market place thanks to the way the consumer is acting now.
So how do I do that Wade? Here it is….
1. You first need to make sure you have a business Facebook page and not a personal Facebook page. The business Facebook page is the only page that will allow you to really strategically gain visibility in your market area.
2. Once you have your business Facebook page then we begin marketing campaigns on your Facebook business page. This allows you to strategically place content you place in your campaign in front of residents living in your market area for a very low investment using the promote/boost content tool on Facebook.
3. I recommend one of three campaign investments which are the minimum $5, $10 or $30 a day to get things rolling.
4. So what do we promote/boost within our Facebook ad campaigns?Here is the list…..
A) Once a month a video, yes video of you talking about the market conditions and trends in your market area.
B) Coming soon listing
C) Just listed
D) Just Sold
E) Best buy
F) Invite to open house
G) I Have A Buyer
H) Price Reduced
5. Simple important rules for lead conversion when using the promote/boost Facebook tool….
A) Max 3 photos
B) Lead photo NOT the front of the property
C) No address
D) No Price….
6. Call To Action: Always say “for more information comment below”, “call/text me @ _______” , “email me @________” Look forward to hearing from you!
My closing point is this… ”We need to be acting like marketers the same way we or others are acting as consumers.” This is game changer marketing time and how we market has changed because of the way we consume. We are spending 52% of our time online now and that stats is climbing every year so we need to be visible and present on social whether we like it or not. I trust you take this nugget of information and take action and become visible in your marketplace and begin to generate more top of mind in your marketplace and generate more business while doing that!
Why is it so easy to get apathetic, complacent or take the foot off the gas in the final quarter of the year. The seasons are changing and the days are getting shorter and the sense of urgency with our real estate market and our business seems to be settling down for a long winter’s nap. For a lot of us this is not good nor can we afford to let this happen?!
Do you want to finish the year with a whimper or finish it with a bang? Do you want to have to snap out of a funk to start 2018… Or steamroll into it full of momentum? With that in mind, here are some actions steps to dominate and finish 2017 strong!
1. What Is It You Want? Personally? Professionally?
When I ask agents “so what do you want”? It amazes me how many don’t have any idea what it is they want out of their personal or professional lives and that my friend is the root of why many don’t finish the year or start next year the way they should. A clear vision of what it is you want drives you to take action and moves your emotional meter.
As a Realtor what do you want your business to look like when January 1, 2018 arrives? What do you want your personal life to look like come January 1? How many sales do you want? How many active listings do you want? How big do you want your pipeline of leads to be? Where do you want to be physically, mentally and what do you want to experience come January 1? You know the people who want to put things off over the holidays but come January 1 will be serious. The moment you finalize these decisions, you need to align your behaviors with those goals to make them happen.
2. What & Who Gives Me Joy?
This past few weeks I can’t believe how many of my coaching clients have one thing in common right now and that one thing is they have no “Joy”. They have been going at such a ferocious pace and can’t even remember when they did the activities or spent time with the people that give them “Joy”. The best way to ensure a productive AND enjoyable holiday season is to open your calendar today and mark off all of the time you’re taking off. The vacation time. The snowboarding trip. The holiday time with family. The “I’m taking this day off just because” time. The dance class or spin class. Etc. Etc. Make those commitments and schedule it. Remember: If it’s not in your calendar, it doesn’t exist. Once you’ve marked all of the time you’re taking off and the activities that give you “Joy” then take stock of what’s left. This is the number of days you have remaining to achieve the results you desire. Seeing that concentrated schedule will be a great motivator to make things happen and get stuff done.
3. Set Some Key Goals
To finish 2017 with a bang, make sure these three goals are up and visual in your office. 1. How many appointments I want to book before the end of the year, how many listings I want to take before the end of the year and how many sales I want to make between now and the end of the year. 2. Schedule time to plan my 2018 and build that business plan for next year based on what you learned from this past year. 3. Schedule time to see all the people prior to the holiday season. Ken Blanchard wrote in the book “The Generosity Factor.” That the greatest gift we can give others is our time, talent, touch and treasure. Create that sense of urgency and finish strong!
4. Develop An End Of The Year Sales and Marketing Plan
You set those goals in the previous step, but how are you going to achieve them? Map out your marketing activities that will reach those goals. How are you going to touch your past clients? What are you going to deliver to your geographic farm? What special event — a holiday party, Mega Open House, movie theater promotion, etc. — are you going to hold in the final weeks of 2017?
5. Implementation and Execution Creates Momentum
Why is it important to close the year strong? To get some results and things done and accomplished the final days of the year? These results, accomplishments and successes impact how you start 2018. You want momentum. You want energy. You want to wake up January 1 feeling ready to run through a brick wall to make 2018 your best year ever. So let me ask you this: Has there been a New Year’s Day (or two, or three, or 10 or 20?) where you woke up not exactly feeling your best? Is that how you want to start your pursuit of your best year ever? By feeling like crap for Day 1 of 365? Do the things that will allow you to wake up on January 1 full of energy, ambition and confidence in your plan.
Implement one or more of these ideas and finish 2017 strong…
As of June 30, 2017, Facebook has over 1 Billion daily active users, with 400 new users signing up every minute. Facebook is the largest social network around and it’s fairly safe to say that the majority of your clients are on it frequently.
I was looking at some recent statistics about Facebook regarding users’ habits and brand social media strategy. Two statistics that stood out for me were:
42% of Customer service responses are attended to within 60 minutes. People relate quick response to good customer service! (Source: SproutSocial)
71% of people who have a good social media experience are likely to recommend it to others (Source: Ambassador)
With that in mind, when looking at your brand as a REALTORⓇ, one way to give you the edge over your competitors is with Facebook Reviews. Facebook Reviews give REALTORSⓇ an opportunity to increase credibility and transparency with their past, current and potential clients. It is also one of the most overlooked aspects of online marketing.
Turning a Negative into a Positive
Why don’t we start with the elephant in the room. From time to time, you may receive a negative review. Facebook only gives you one option, you can show all reviews or turn off all reviews. You aren’t able to delete or hide individual ones and you can’t organize them by having the best showing at the top. Only the person that left the review can edit or remove it. Not to worry though, if you are actively building your positive review base, they will far outweigh any negative ones you may receive. It’s important you respond immediately, apologize politely and inform them you would like to speak privately to resolve the matter. This will show others you’re professional and caring and it goes a long ways towards reversing the negativity.
Building a Positive Real Estate Brand
The most efficient way to receive positive reviews and increase your online credibility with your clients, is by regularly asking satisfied customers if they will leave a Facebook review for you. Make this a standard part of your marketing plan and provide them with directions on how to do this. Most people who enjoyed working with you, will be more than happy to help you out and spread the word – just ask!
Simple instructions are as follows:
Go to the Facebook Page you are reviewing
Click on the Review Tab
Enter a Star Rating and comment
Mark audience as Public
Click on Done
Setting Up the Review Tab
Turning on the reviews section in Facebook, lets anyone logged into Facebook leave a review on your Page, see your Page’s star rating and see reviews shared with the public.
To turn reviews on for your Page:
Click Settings at the top of your Page
Click Edit Page in the left column
Scroll down to the Reviews section and click on the settings button
Toggle to On
**If you don’t see a Review section
Click Add a Tab
Click Add Tab next to Reviews
To turn reviews off for your Page, follow the same steps, but toggle the Reviews section to off. If you do decide to turn them on again, remember, all previous reviews will still be there.
How To Share Your Page Within Facebook
Social Media is all about word-of-mouth. The more people talking about you and sharing the experiences they have had with you, the more others will want to work with you. Make it easy for your clients to get the word out.
From inside Facebook, share your page by using a private message.
On a Desktop or Laptop
Click the Share Button underneath your cover image
Click on the down triangle beside Share on Your Timeline for more options
Select Share in a Private Message
Another box will now pop up which will have your page automatically linked in the message. Type in the name of the person you are wanting to send the message to, ask for a review and give brief instructions on how to do that. When they next log into Facebook it will be in their notifications.
On a Mobile Device
If you are on a mobile device, you will need to share using Messenger.
Go to your Facebook page
Click the 3 dots on the top right side
Select Share in Messenger
You may also want to publish a post on to your Facebook Page, pointing out the review tab and asking clients to spare a minute or 2 giving you a review.
Outside of Facebook, email or give them a printout of directions along with screenshots and telling them how much you would appreciate them sharing their experience working with you. Include a link in your email signature that takes them directly to your Facebook Page Review Tab.
The direct link to a Pages Review Tab is www.facebook.com/YourFacebookUsername/reviews/.
Respond to Reviews
When you do receive a review, make sure you reply with either a Like or posting a Thank You comment to the client. Show them you appreciate the time they took to leave one for you and show others you care and this is an important part of your business.
This year continues to present a challenging retail environment, which has now been further disrupted by the Toys “R” Us Chapter 11 filing. Toys R Us did two things over the past few decades that were not the best business decisions for them. The first decision was in about 2001 – 2002 when they chose to use Amazon for their fulfillment and make them the main fulfillment for their toys instead of believing in the internet.
This basically made buying toys off the internet from Amazon something we became very comfortable doing instead of us buying from Toys R Us and fulfilling their own toy orders to their customers on the internet. The second decision and most important decision was to not innovate themselves as a company and began to die from their lack of change and the toy world began to pass them buy. They didn’t change their stores to a place where you could have an experience with the toys. Why couldn’t they make video gaming stations, Lego building areas, slime centers, skate and bike park areas and millions of other toy experience ideas in their retail spaces and would still be alive and well today?
They chose to just sell toys where no parent wanted to really go and besides could just buy it online and not even leave their own home or they just pick it up for cheaper at Walmart while they are buying some groceries or buy it from a YouTube marketer or Instagram or Facebook ad. Toys R Us was not selling an experience and literally died from their decisions and lack of any retail innovation. This is the best example today for anyone in business or any of you in real estate if we don’t change, grow and innovate ourselves and our business and just rest on your laurels and do real estate the same way you did it 20 years ago!!
Our customers don’t just want to buy or sell a house just like they didn’t just want to walk into a Toys R Us and buy a toy any more. They want to have an experience and are willing to go where they can find that experience when buying or selling a home. So let me ask you what kind of an experience do you create for your clients and who is telling your story of what they experienced buying or selling with you? Are you having buyers virtually tour homes on a huge flat screen TV while they choose their short list of homes to physically view? Do you leave time at the beginning of touring homes for a stop through at Starbucks drive thru to pick up their favorite coffee and a snack for their tour? Are you preloading a tablet for your buyers to search homes using Wi-Fi and they are able to make notes on the tablet with a stylus about each home they tour? Are they viewing their paperless purchase contracts on the tablet and then digitally signing their offers on the tablet using Authentisign? Do you present to home sellers on a large iPad or laptop showing them the 3D floor plans, drone videos or interactive virtual reality goggles that their home will be marketed with when for sale with you and your brokerage?
The list of innovative ideas for agents and creating that innovative game changing experience for their clients is endless! The truth is so few agents are choosing to change, innovate themselves and their business and sadly my friends face the similar demise as Toys R Us in the coming 5 years. I challenge you today to commit to making a change with the way you market yourself and your real estate business and become a game changer and market leader in your market place today!
“When your WHY is big enough you will find your how.” Laith Wallace
It’s often one of the first things you ask someone when you meet them. “What do you do?” or “Where do you work?” Want to know a much more interesting question? Ask them this one. “So Why do you work?” I guarantee their answer will tell you a lot about them and YOUR answer will help you perform up to your potential in life.
I believe a crucial step to living a more fulfilling life is to know your “WHY” before you know your HOW. Lots of people ask me HOW to take their real estate business to the next level. I can tell them a million strategies, but if they haven’t answered their WHY first, they’re not going to put those strategies to the best use.
You see, knowing your WHY ultimately makes the HOW so much easier. Encouraging agents to determine their WHY is one of the foundational steps in real estate coaching. Think about it for a second — how effective are you in any project when you’re unsure of what you’re doing? When there’s no “end game” in mind, you feel like you’re floating and your focus, desire and confidence tend to fade away.
So it only makes sense that one of the first steps to success is determining your genuine motivation or drive. To answer the question of “Why do you work?” Of course, the simple answer is to keep a roof over your head, to keep yourself fed and to provide for your family. But let me tell you — that answer SUCKS.
Do you want to simply exist, or do you want to excel?
Looking inward, taking a deep dive and identifying your WHY becomes a much more powerful exercise when you look deeper in search of an answer that is emblematic of who you are and why you’re willing to work so hard every day. Here’s a list of questions to ask yourself, and don’t be afraid to add others that are meaningful to you:
•What motivates you?
•What are your dreams?
•How much money do you want to make?
•How many team members do you want to hire?
•When do you want to retire?
•What do you want for your spouse/significant other?
•What kind of future do you want to create and provide for your children?
•How much vacation time do you want?
•Where do you want to visit?
•How do you want to make a difference in the world?
•What does your ideal legacy look like?
•What do you want to contribute to outside of business?
Don’t answer these questions too quickly. Do some soul searching and provide vivid detail in your responses. Like any goal, the more specifically you define it, the more it’s going to resonate with you. Like any goal, you need to make your WHY visible and public. It might feel uncomfortable, but put it out there. When you share your WHY with others, you up your cadence of accountability.
The reason the “Why do you work?” question tells you a lot about someone is because the more thought they’ve given this topic, chances are the more driven they are and the more committed to their business they are. Those who truly know their WHY are people who align their behaviors with their goals and get their work done, day in and day out. To take it a step further, they’re the type of people who spend most of their time working ON their business, not IN it.
Your WHY is a very powerful thing. Do you know yours? If not, find it. Only then should you start thinking about your HOW.
At some point, we all want to retire. One day we decide to move on to other passions or pursuits in life. There is a way to retire from real estate with relaxation and free time, to maintain an income stream and ensure our clients are well taken care of. This week we look at the method of adopting an agent and the retiring agent clients needs are attended to by the adopting agent. The most critical part of this whole plan is how you transfer and maintain client relationships and the trust the retiring agent has spent years to build. These relationships are the baton in the relay race that gets passed from the retiring agent to the adopting agent. If done well the retiring and adopting agents will win the race for them and their clients.
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This week we want to share with agents some valuable Canadian real estate insights from the latest 
A good friend of mine recently spoke to our brokerage and really brought home how anyone could go into any market place and dominate within a certain period of time. The amazing fact that 52% of all internet and online traffic is completely related to social media now and if you think social media is a fad and it is going away you really need to think again. The other statement that really resonated with me was “We need to act like a consumer with our marketing and follow the game changing way we are exploring on the internet and that is social media and not surfing the web anymore folks!”
On a Mobile Device
