What are those signs you might ask? We are seeing more activity; at open houses, on our phones, more buyers looking at houses and more offers. We are also seeing inventory decreasing in many price ranges and homes that are on the market a shorter period of time as well as multiple offer situations. And I’ll be the first to say….this feels good.

This is also a good time to be going into the real estate business. Right now we are working within what you might call a good thick condensed broth. Much of the water has boiled off over the past couple of years, and what I mean by that is many of the part time brokers or brokers who were not serious about this as a profession have taken their leave.

This is truly a time to get back to the basics of running a real estate business. As a new broker who applies all of the principles that a good Branch Managing Broker should teach you, you should be able to start your business off and double your income each year for years 2 and 3 while hitting your overall goals between years 3 and 5.

If you are new to the business or just getting started in the process be sure to interview several brokers and focus on how you feel about the person you are interviewing (the branch managing broker) and the environment of the office. Is there energy and momentum in the office? Are they doing transactions?

Just like individual brokers there are still offices who have their heads in yesterdays market. You want to ensure your new office is excited about real estate and optimistic about the future. A company may claim to be #1 in the region…what is more important is how is that office doing by itself.

In case you hadn’t guessed, I think this is a great time to be getting into real estate!

So, this might be a bit of a back lash on my part after being inundated over the past 24 months with classes being offered to real estate professionals that tout success through blogging and other social media magic.

If your 2012 business plan has blogging, or starting a blog as its primary method of prospecting you might as well go get an hourly wage job now. Don’t get me wrong….blogging has its place, but a well maintained and promoted blog has got to be wrapped in other proactive prospecting methods in order to be successful.

While I’ll acknowledge that there are some real estate professionals that have found some success in blogging I would submit that there are just as many if not more who have gotten lost behind their computers and forgotten that real estate is a contact sport.

Don't let blogging be your only bright idea for 2012

If you are going to blog here are some things to consider:

1)    Ensure your blog is set up on a platform that is quick and easy to use, don’t reinvent the wheel, use an existing blogging platform.

2)    Ensure your blog is hosted in such a way that it will be found by search engines.

3)    Just like a webpage, focus on and use the keywords your user will be searching for. Use any SEO functions your blog host may offer for each post.

4)    Stay on topic and focus on what you know, which is typically real estate and what is happening in your area.

5)    Be hyperlocal with your information. There are many other places to get the news…you want to provide information that is meaningful and useful to the few. You can provide information that the big guys can’t which is what is happening at the street level of a community.

6)    Implant Google Analytics or other tracking tools so that you can see a cause and affect with your marketing efforts.

7)    Get a standalone URL for your blog, try to include key words in the URL.

8)    At the beginning post twice a week. As time goes by and your library of information builds, blog weekly.

9)    Start a blog topic file to help you get unstuck when you do get stuck.

10)                       Consider co-blogging with someone else to share the responsibilities.

11)                       Put your blog address on all printed material, link it to other web resources and social media, talk it up at your open houses and at other point of contact situations.

12)                       As you write remember your readers come in all flavors, Visual, Kinesthetic, Audio and come from all backgrounds. Mix statistics with human interest content. Use graphics to break up the sea of print. Keep your posts to several paragraphs and if you have a long or complicated topic consider breaking it up into bite sized pieces over multiple posts.

All of this will be for naught unless you also include in your marketing plan for 2012:

Identifying your sphere
Identify the core of your sphere
Communicate with your sphere with a mixture of:
Person to person
Phone
Handwritten notes
Printed material
e-mails

Consistency, many contacts over a long period of time, mixed methods of communication and information with value are all key to a professional relationship that will generate more business for you.

PS Istock photo is a good place to get graphics and pictures that you can use on your blog without fear of copy write challenges.

There are people behind the electrons

Just because you can…does not mean you should:

As real estate agents and brokers we have many electronic and web tools available to us. We use these tools to communicate with each other, our offices and our customers. Though these tools offer many benefits and conveniences they also provide opportunity for us to let our customers down.

Most of us have moved beyond the thinking that being a real estate professional is about “houses”. Our profession is truly about people. Looking them in the eye to learn what they want, what they need, what they fear and what we need to do to help them through one of the biggest business transactions most people have in their lives.

Most real estate transactions have 16 to 22 people involved, each with their own agenda, vision and motivation. Most of the buyers and sellers we work with already have a great deal of stress in their lives. Let’s face it, making your way through today’s hectic world, by its very nature brings stress. House buying and selling is up there with death in the family and job change because it touches so many facets of a person’s being; financial, family, comfort level, stability, ego are all wrapped up in an 8 to 12 week adventure of emotional ups and downs.

So, here is where we can let our customers down. If we let electronic communications take the place of our meeting them eye to eye, if we waste the opportunity to feel what they are feeling, if we choose to be more efficient and less compassionate because it is easier and quicker to send an e-mail or send the contract over electronically….we have lost.

We are seeing an increase in the use of electronic signatures. Our local multiple listing service will be rolling out an E signature product later this year. I wish it would come with “USE WITH EXTREEM CAUTION” stamped across it. Though this is a great tool to use occasionally when clients live outside the area or are traveling during the process, if used daily will erode the one-on-one relationship we have or should have with our clients. There is no point during the process that it is more critical to be eye to eye with your client then when they are looking through their contract to buy or sell a home. Even a one page change to the contract brings with it a certain level of anxiety that is best addressed face to face.

As the electronic tether gets longer and longer between us and our clients the more likely that it will eventually be cut by the consumer. Once the public feels that our value and service can be replaced with electronic resources we will lose our roll in the real estate transaction.

Bottom line….we will do this to ourselves. Our actions and professionalism will either keep us central to the client and the transaction or our actions will remove us from the process.

Just because you can communicate with your clients electronically does not mean you always should.

The 20 Biggest Mistakes
Brokers make as they build their business.
My Notes from Rick Deluca class June 1, 2011

1) Accountability:
     Be accountable to someone
     Broker
     Coach
     Partner
     Group

2) Focusing on a 12 month plan:
Who can see that far into the future, instead focus on your activates for the next 12 weeks
     Block out personal time
     Block out educational time
     Write it down and review it each day

3) They don’t treat the profession of real estate as a “real job”.
     Have a schedule
     Have systems
     Be consistent

4) Being a student of the industry:
     Know the market
     Know your own numbers
     Knowledge breads confidence
(Rick has a good list of numbers you should know)

5) If you don’t act like an expert you will not be perceived to be the expert:
     Do local market studies to know the area
     Be prepared to answer the questions
     (See number 4 above)

6) Have an unrealistic expectation that clients will call you:
     You need to stay in front of them consistently
     Use all types of marketing; in person, phone, mail, e-mail, hand written note
     Everything comes down to TRUST…how do you demonstrate TRUST…through
     your Character and your Competence.
     Character goes to personal activities
     Competence goes to professional activities

7) Be influenced by negativity:
     Be careful where you get your news
     You can’t control most of it anyway
     Just turn the news off
     Don’t listen to people who are negative…it rubs off
     Often others who are most willing to share….shouldn’t, they have nothing    
      better to do.

Spend too much time reinventing the wheel:
     Copy the most successful people around you
     Search for it before you design or build it
     Ask your broker..he/she probably has something you can use already

9) Treat everyone in your data base as equal…..they are NOT:
     Look at data base like a target
          Bulls eye = They enjoy you and your success
           1^st ring = Would refer you to others
           2^nd ring = Might refer you to others
           3^rd ring = Probably should not be in your data base
     Know who your “Bulls eye” people are and spend most of your time and
     attention on them

10) Are not consistent with ongoing contact:
     Only 11% of customers later use the same agent again even though 88% said
      they would when asked after their transaction closed.
      Of the customers who did not use the same agent again 65% said it was
      because of a perception of …….indifference.
      Send out an annual thank you letter
      If you have not been in contact send a mea culpa letter.
      Always show evidence of success

11) Don’t regularly update their presentations:
     Market time vs. Selling price
     Remodel vs. Sell
     Keep it neat and professional
     The higher the quality of the physical package the higher the perceived value of
      the information and the information provider (that’s you)

12) Failure to fulfill promises:
     Provide a sellers activity report every 2 weeks
     Call day after closing

13) Be willing to be the boss:
     Hold yourself accountable, you are the boss of you
     7-10% of income goes back into your business
     3 times a week stay an extra 15 mins and ask yourself “How could I have
     increased my productivity today?”

14) Have a business plan:
     Keep it simple
     Bulleted points on 1 page
     Daily habits/routine that will lead to your success

15) Not spending enough time constantly generating leads:
     30-45 mins. a day on lead generating activities
     Create new habits at http://www.habitforge.com

16) Not using systems:
     Everything you do more than once should have a checklist or system
     A system is a process that can be replicated, duplicated, anyone can do it and
     you can hand it off. A system is a written process.

17) Most agents don’t stretch themselves:
     Yes it can be uncomfortable, You can’t grow when you are trapped in your
     comfort zone
     Hold yourself to a daily action plan
     Must do
     Should do
     Would like to do

18) Pricing home correctly:
     Know the market
     You set the parameters you are comfortable with as a professional
     Use fhfa.gov for good information
     Housingpredictor.com

19) Social marketing:
     Some spend too much time on this one method of marketing
     Do it professionally
     Keep in mind you are doing this for their information…not your ego

20) Fail to embrace technology:
     Don’t hide behind it
     Use it to duplicate you…you in many places
     Youtube.com
     Eyejot.com
     We are in the wave of video….get with it too. Great for testimonials

Rick Deluca resources:
http://www.realtor.org
http://www.realestateideaclub.com

In the last of this year’s success club series, Jan Zufelt, a real estate broker from our Kingston office, shares with our group some of her systems, ideas and philosophies that go into making her the success that she is.

Jan’s systems and outlook on life allow her to deliver a superior customer experience when working with home buyers and sellers.

In this 3 part series Jan covers valuable tools and ideas that real estate professionals can employ in their business; Power To-do Lists, Filing, Listing and Open House systems as well as thoughts about using Act or Microsoft Outlook.

Jan’s systems and outlook on life allow her to deliver a superior customer experience when working with home buyers and sellers.

In this 3 part series Jan covers valuable tools and ideas that real estate professionals can employ in their business; Power To-do Lists, Filing, Listing and Open House systems as well as thoughts about using Act or Microsoft Outlook.

In the last of this year’s success club series, Jan Zufelt, a real estate broker from our Kingston office, shares with our group some of her systems, ideas and philosophies that go into making her the success that she is.

Jan’s systems and outlook on life allow her to deliver a superior customer experience when working with home buyers and sellers.

In this 3 part series Jan covers valuable tools and ideas that real estate professionals can employ in their business; Power To-do Lists, Filing, Listing and Open House systems as well as thoughts about using Act or Microsoft Outlook.

Success Club 2011 culminated in the Kingston and Poulsbo John L. Scott offices spending an afternoon at Emerald Downs. This was a lot of fun, spending time with our brokers and taking a little breather from the day to day work of real estate. Office culture is a tough thing to grow. When you have it the result is more fun, more transactions, more momentum and more energy. We have a great group and because of it we have a great office.

Though we were all winners a special congratulations to the winning team…Big Drama; Teri Hewson, Larry Kaplan, Sonny Woodward, Kristina Moneypenny, Kelly Simkins and Cheri Fahlsing

Brain Wilson, our 4th presenter in this years John L. Scott Success Club, shares with us some great tips about using different file formats, using Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Excel, Cloud Computing and other skills and habits he brings to bear in his successful real estate career. You can also find out more information about he and his partner Jana Salmans at http://www.janaandbrian.com. This is part 3 of 3.

Brian’s presentation was on St. Patrick’s Day…….You can’t have real estate without a little fun and Brian always leaves you with a smile on your face.

Brain Wilson, our 4th presenter in this years John L. Scott Success Club, shares with us some great tips about using different file formats, using Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Excel, Cloud Computing and other skills and habits he brings to bear in his successful real estate career. You can also find out more information about he and his partner Jana Salmans at http://www.janaandbrian.com. This is part 2 of 3.