Network News Video
This is the blog for Network News - a Real Estate newsletter that features humourous commentary, editorials, profiles, case studies, advice, contests, and news. The goal of Network News is to create an online community to boost referral business and give you a chance to get to know other real estate professionals across the country. Each issue features submissions from different brokers and agents.
Study offers advice on what to say — and what not to say.
In 20 years of real estate I've seen alot of real estate trainers and motivational gurus. By gummit one of the best is Mr. Howard Brinton. Enough flattery. This article is fromm Howard is pure Gold.
Most of us know some of the basic do's and don't but its never a bad idea to review them. I saw this article from Realtor online magazine and just had to share it with you. I hope it helps. The author also gave some excellent websites to search for additional ideas and information on ettiquette that I have included at the bottom.
Love this websites message
I came across this blog and while I was impressed with the relevant information and the delivery of the messages, I was blown away by this article maybe because it mirrors alot of the things that have helped me be successful. You may have to scroll down to the Article called "Manifesto Redux" which he posted on Oct 3 2006. http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/
Found this article this morning. The points I found important - the percentage of consumers using discount brokerages has increased from 2% to 11% in just a few years. That the new trend of buyer discount firms that offer to just do the paperwork and don't actually show you any houses (the listing agent shows the home) has a major flaw. But most importantly, the dispute between the discounters and the full service companies puts our industry in a bad light in the eyes of the media, and consumers...
At least that is if you're the giant Cendant. Apparently there are meetings underway to determine how to break up. For more on this just visit this link for more information.
Hello everybody. Just in case you were wondering what we were up to we are still here and caught up in one of the craziest housing markets I've ever seen.
Well, the good new is as an industry we are adapting. According to this most recent survey from NAR the number of people using technology in their business has drastically increased, but in my opinion, still pretty low.
The names may change but the game remains the same from their prospective. Be the dominant player and grow bigger and bigger and bigger. Just how big is big enough? Who knows only time will tell and maybe some day there will be a reverse of this process. The interesting thing in the article on Inman news is the focus on Coldwell Banker as the major force behind these companies. Not C21, Not ERA or Sotheby's.
We've just returned from a great trip in the Rockies. From our condo in Fairmont to our friends and family in Cranbrook returning via the scenic Crows nest pass. Not to mention the beautiful drive down the David Thompson highway to the Jasper Banff Parkway. Awesome. Just Awesome. We hope everyone had a safe and happy Easter weekend.
At the end of the day what matters. To me customer and job satisfaction is key. How to make sense of it all really can be a challenge. Do I measure how many leads I get, phone calls, appointments, appointment times, calls of specific ads, expenses vs revenues and so on and so on. In the end there is a measurement for everything. You could measure your clients heart rate in relation to yours to correlate your prospective chances of getting the business.
Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?
Typical real estate marketing is unimaginative. Pens, note pads and others. As a victim of this senseless marketing, I too can't believe what I have convinced myself is a good idea. I say victim because there are plenty of influences marketing us. Marketing companies, our own "approved suppliers" hunt us like seals in the spring time. The follow is an excerpt from a blog I read regularly that made me think its a good idea to get an outside opinion the next time I have an idea to revolutionize the real estate magnet industry. In fact at a recent board meeting, I was talking to an old pro, who recently won a contest at their office for the oldest magnet.
Coldwell Banker Kalwest (25 agents approx) merged with Realty Executive Chinook city (50 agents) officially today. Its been great catching up with some old friends who are there and some current friends who are excited about their new company. I guess the difibrulator can go back on the cart and hopefully this will start a new and exciting trend towards growing the brand in the west.
A lot of this we've all read before, but it's nice to take a minute and refocus. The point of this article is that to build customers for life, you need to focus on the client, not the end result...
It is official Charlotte Sutherland from CB in Canmore is no longer with the Real Estate Council of Alberta after a long and in my opinion successful 6 year tenure. Charlotte represented members not belonging to organized real estate.
This just in from CBC news online. A bit of a cooling off period at least here in the west could only be a good thing from the perspective of the market here in Edmonton.
What's in a name. More importantly how do you pronounce it. You know you've got a marketing genius screwing things up somewhere when a very senior executive of one Cendant's biggest assests isn't sure how to pronounce the name. Enough of my side bar.
Office politics, economics and social hiearchy affects your bottom line. You can get sucked into like a fart in a wind storm or you can rise above it, separate yourself from the fray and maintain your sanity and profitability.
What's to say except sorry for the delay. Busy, busy days when we got back from Red Deer prevented us from getting this out sooner.
A recent report shows that almost half of local keywords purchased online are purchased by real estate agents. The fact is, advertising online works, and thousands of agents are doing it. Here are some exerpts from a report on Inman News today:
Complying with the dictum, "Follow the money" (or at least the consumers), real estate advertising now comprises half of the local advertising on search engines, according to a report released this month.
Paid search ads for individual local real estate agents account for 49.6 percent of listings on keyword searches for local business segments across 10 different cities, up from 17.5 percent of local search ads 18 months ago, according to Borrell Associates' "2006 Local Search Advertising" report.
Local advertisers now occupy a third of sponsored links in search-engine results, according to the report, and many on city-related keywords.
The Borrell report predicts that paid search advertising by local advertisers will more than double this year to $987 million, and nearly double again in 2007.
Local agents' search ads jumped from 17.5 percent of all local search ads 18 months ago, to 23.9 percent a year later, the report said.
Search ads for the keyword "mortgage" comprised 25.1 percent of listings on keyword searches, the report said. According to the report, the highest bids in terms of amount paid per click were for DUI attorneys, mortgages and real estate.
According to the March 2005 report, local agents occupy almost half of all search advertisements, and not just in big cities, either. "In Des Moines, half of the advertisements on the Google and Yahoo results pages for 'Des Moines real estate' are being placed by local agents bidding as much as $3 per click," the report said.
Matt Shaw, an agent with Coldwell Banker Mid-America Group in Des Moines, told researchers he estimates as much as half of his total advertising budget is spent on search-engine advertising, and an additional 20 percent on other forms of online marketing. "It's paid off," Shaw said, according to the study.
The report tracked more than 2,000 online search ads on Yahoo! and Google and also compiled the predictions of 400 so-called ad experts. One of the reports' more interesting predictions: "More than three-fourths of the Borrell panel agrees that within the next five years, yellow pages books will evolve into directories of local Web site addresses. Eighty-five percent of respondents think this will happen within five years."
While this new book contains some real lame and generic stuff it is organized in such a way as to make it a good flip through for ideas for your own best buyer practises and recommendations.
As many of you know. Network news is a e newsletter dedicated to giving you something of value to improve your business. It is designed to be visually stimulating and profile interesting industry members. One of its background goals was to keep top of mind awareness for referrals for our company. Origionally constructed for Coldwell Banker agents in Canada we have subscribers from all over North America and from various different real estate companies.
Has this impacted our business. Certainly. We have reached our goals and well honestly exceeded them. One thing we didn't count on is the tremendous feedback we have received from brokers and agents alike. We thank everybody for their feedback and encouragement. Some of the responses have been truly amazing and definitely uplifting. So from our perspective e mail marketing does work. Below is a link to a survey that breaks down email marketing statistically.
One last comment though
A recent survey found that Canadian delivery rates were nearly 93%, open rates 55% and click-through rates over 8%.
By American standards, already not bad, that’s stellar. If the average click-through to purchase ratio is in Canada what it is in the US, someone is making a lot of money there via email marketing.
This is particularly interesting since the Canadians have long been wary of online shopping, according to many sources.
Fortunately, no one need move to Canada to take advantage of this phenomenon. (Though that wouldn’t be bad, Canada is a great country.) Developing a list of Canadian subscribers is no more difficult (and no easier) than any other. And the language and cultural barrier is even lower than for some other countries.
See… email marketing is alive and well. Some of it just moved.
The following are snippets of various articles that are pertinent to anyone in marketing and sales.
Of course, you've heard the objection. "It just costs too much."
Today's Times reports that 411 accounts for more than a billion calls a year--at just one provider. That's more than a billion dollars a year being spent for a service that is truly a commodity--you want the number, here it is, bye.
And yet, Easy411 provides precisely the same service to callers for half the price. Why doesn't everyone use them? Because it's not just the price. It's the hassle and the set up and the "I didn't get around to it" nature of saving a few bucks.
Example 2: check out the parking lot at Costco. Lots of $40,000 or more cars and SUVs in the lot, people who wasted a few shekels worth of gas to drive out of their way to invest an hour of time to save a dollar on a big jar of pickles. These are the same people who will spend an extra $100 on an airplane ticket to save a few minutes in getting home after a meeting.
My point, and I do have one, is that price is a signal, a story, a situational decision that is never absolute. It's just part of what goes into making a decision, no matter what we're buying. Seth Godins blog