Over 16,000 years ago the first human inhabitants of the Americas located themselves in what is now Clovis, New Mexico.  In 1932 an archaeological expedition discovered their artifacts and this led to some astonishing revelations.  For years it was believed the first people of the Americas had migrated from Patagonia, but no evolutionary trail could connect the Clovis people to Patagonia.  The Clovis people were far more advanced, in fact light years ahead of the people of Patagonia.  However, it seems their existence was very short; perhaps only ten years.  It was as if the people of Clovis just magically appeared, evolved at warp speed and then disappeared.  What was most astonishing was their homesteads.  They were very large and architecturally sophisticated.  In one homestead, a small box was unearthed.  Etched into the box (in Paleo-Indian of course) was this:

“There is a little known, but highly regarded real estate secret that will increase your business by 300% in 3.2 days.  Buyers will beg to buy from you.  Sellers will price their homes appropriately.  Lenders will return your calls.  The secret lies inside this magic box and it can be yours for only $19.95!  But wait… if you call within the next 15 minutes we’ll send you the mini magic box for FREE.  It does everything our magical box does, but mini-style… Call now, operators are standing by!”

 Could this magic box’s secret possibly be true?  It certainly would explain the highly evolved homesteads of the Clovis people.  The archeologists decided to open the magic box, but no latch, hinge or opening could be found.  They tried to force it open using hydraulic machines, then high-res lasers and finally explosives.  The magic box was impenetrable.  Dumbfounded, the magic box was sent to the world’s leading real estate coach.

 The Great Leap Backward

The real estate coach took one look at the magic box and announced he could open it with one hand tied behind his back.  Suddenly the magic box opened as if on command.  Inside the box were two pills, one red and one blue.  A note inside said (in Paleo-Indian of course), “If you take the red pill, when you wake up tomorrow you will be the most successful real estate agent in the world.  You will automatically find qualified buyers and motivated sellers, and financing will never be a problem.  After ten years of unparalleled success, you and everyone you work with will become extinct.  If you take the blue pill you will wake up tomorrow and nothing will have happened.  For there is no magic to selling real estate.  To succeed simply lead generate everyday, then qualify your buyers, instruct your sellers to price it right and only work with lenders who will return your calls.  Ten years from now you will have true wealth and happiness.  You and everyone you have helped will live happy and full lives.” 

At the end of the day only Santa Claus has magic.  For a box containing Santa Claus magic, please send $19.95 to:

Arch Telecom, Inc.

210 Barton Springs Road, Ste. 275

Austin, TX 78704

www.archagent.com

Sometimes we believe we lose business due to opportunity cost.  We console ourselves with the euphemism, “You can’t win them all.”  No, you can’t win them all because that’s unreasonable, but you can win significantly more simply by offering prospective home buyers choices when they wish to receive your marketing information. 

Consider this scenario: a home buyer searches the internet and writes down a few properties.  He drives by your $600,000 listing.  The flyer box is empty.  He looks down at the next property on his list and heads there.  He also owns a $400,000 property that he will need to sell.

The empty flyer box is your opportunity cost, the result of an exclusive choice you gave that prospect; he had to choose between calling you directly and driving away.  Opportunity cost describes the basic relationship between scarcity (insufficient resources to meet demand) and choice (satisfaction).

This lost opportunity cannot be regained.  Once we recognize that exclusion leads to lost opportunities, the solution is to offer choices.  That means your flyer box can never be empty.  You must offer the prospective home buyer a choice to receive information, preferably one that provides you with lead capture.  The statistics demand this.  The 2009 NAR Field Guide states that the first action taken by potential home buyers was driving by the property. 

So what are your choices?  Here are three to consider:

1. Provide the homeowner with extra flyers and when the box needs re-filling, the owner can perform the task. 

There are pros and cons to this solution.  The pro is you keep the owner engaged in how many flyers are being taken; the con is that you still have no lead capture and you are reliant upon the owner to perform the task.

2. Provide a rider that offers the information via SMS/text or by calling a recorded 800 number.

This solution works best because it is virtual so its resource is limitless, and you receive the lead capture when a homebuyer requests the information.  The SMS/text or 800 number captures the caller’s phone number.

3. Unique URL on the sign rider.

We believe address specific websites are great tools for Search Engine Optimization.  One-way links (property site to your agent site) do more for your SEO than any other criteria.  The problem with them on sign riders is that propsects have most likely already viewed the property on the internet and are now justifying the pictures they saw.  If the property meets their criteria, they will want the price.   So at least consider “gating” the price (the prospect has to enter contact info to receive it) so that you have some lead capture.

Considering the soft market, tighter lending policies and economic concerns, selling real estate is hard enough.  Let’s not make it harder by limiting choices.  Exclusion leads to lost opportunities.  There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the beach.

It’s a data delivery device.  It’s Facebook, iTunes, a GPS locator, email, TV, gaming, voice memos, reminder lists and apps like Restaurant Roulette. 

In May of 2010, the CTIA (the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry) published a report stating that, for the first time in the United States, the amount of data in SMS/text, email, video, music and other services that smart phones are designed to do, surpassed the amount of voice calls.

The original purpose of the cell phone, talking, is decreasing, while SMS/text messages have increased by nearly 50%.  Smart phone design is trending towards data functionality, such as full “qwerty” keyboards with large screens, while becoming less “cheeky” or talk-friendly.  More and more households are disconnecting landlines.

With respect to cell phone “voice” use, real estate agents have always led the pack.  After all, for many agents the cell is their “office.”  We are not suggesting that an agent should replace calling back prospects with an app… but the research is clear that the consumer prefers to make the initial contact via some sort of mobile application.  So what does this mean for your business?

It means:

1. You better have a mobile application that consumers can use to access your property information.
2. The application should have the ability for lead capture.
3. You need to be notified when it is accessed.
4. You are best served making a good old-fashioned voice call to follow up.

Our company, Arch, pioneered call capture in the early 1990s.  In the mid 2000s we introduced mobile features to complement the call capture.  Now, for the first time, we are seeing a clear trend of consumers accessing the mobile features in favor of voice applications.

Specifically, buyers are requesting real estate information via text message.  From an agent standpoint, there are several benefits to providing consumers with a mobile app.  The consumer’s contact information is captured, i.e. cell phone number, name and property they called in on, and you are notified with this information immediately.  Since the prospect’s request establishes a “business relationship,” regardless of their Do Not Call status, you have permission to follow up.

Your brand becomes “sticky” because we send your personalized electronic business card to their mobile device.  In a different response, we’ll send pictures (unlimited) and/or a single property website.  These types of features further incentivize buyers to use the mobile application.

The trend is clear.  Data applications are becoming a more popular vehicle than voice for consumers.  Manufacturers will continue to invent devices more suitable for this type of delivery (the IPAD), and as a real estate agent you must have a mobile marketing presence. 

It’s a different world out there.  Information is everywhere; and it’s not gated. 

Prospects are not reliant upon your access to the MLS to explore properties.  Ironically, the openness of information has made us more distant in our communications; in our desire to have real conversations with people we do business with.  Some of us prefer to text versus talk, or voice and email to dialogue. 

Yes, it’s a different world. 

It’s competitive.  We’re concerned about efficiency’s and time management.  I wonder, if we didn’t spend so much time managing our time would we become more efficient?  If we invested our time into people instead of automation? 

It’s a different world.  In fact, imagine you were from Mars.  You met a real estate agent and asked them what they did for a living.  What would your conversation be like?

Martian: What does a real estate agent do for a living?

Agent: I sell houses.

Martian: Do you make them before you sell them?

Agent: No, I just sell them.

Martian: How?

Agent: I arrange the buyer and the seller.

Martian: OK; how do you find the buyer?

Agent: I invest money and time into marketing to create name recognition.  When someone decides to buy a home, hopefully they will think of me.  If they call me, I put them into my database system that automatically sends them lists of properties.  I ask them to rate the properties; save their favorites.  I send them emails and text messages reminding them to call me. 

Martian: But, I thought they already did call you. 

Agent: Well yes, but I want them to call me when they are ready to buy. 

Martian: So when do you know they are ready to buy?

Agent: Well they call me.

Martian: But they already did call you.

Agent: Yes, I know, look it’s complicated.  Sometimes they weren’t really ready to buy; or I never qualifed them.. or; look it’s complicated.  It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Martian: Wouldn’t it be easier if you skipped all the auto-responders, texts and emails and just talked to them?

Agent: I don’t have time.

Martian: You’re right; it’s complicated.

At Arch, we qualify thousands of real estate leads every month for our clients.  Recently, we noticed a new phrase trending up from the prospects, “Hey, thanks for calling me back.”

It seems the old way’s; the way’s of conversation has become a brand new concept in the real estate profession.  Perhaps the agent should have explained what top producing agents do for a living.

Of course…

Over 1.8 million people purchased homes using the tax credit.  This credit helped increase sales of single family homes almost 27%.  Underlying trends, such as mortgage rates, perception of an improving economy, and home prices remaining steady, are increasing consumer confidence that the worst is over.  

Not so fast…

While the credit did provide a short term stimulus the likelihood is that most of the homebuyers that would have purchased later this year moved early to receive the credit, thereby compressing purchasing into a narrow window.  These buyers are now off the table creating a soft second half.  Mortgage rates are artificially low due to low demand.  28 of the 40 major metro areas still have high numbers of distressed borrowers (defined as homeowners with mortgages that are late over 30 days), fueling future foreclosures.  Some major markets, southern Florida, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Atlanta, are twice the national average.  Home prices have remained steady due to the large number of bargain foreclosures, i.e. creative accounting of sales price.  The rise in consumer confidence is tied to the increase in corporate earnings, but this is due to the cutting of labor and expenses, not increased sales or revenue.

It makes your head spin. 

 Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NAR, is quoted in the New York Times as saying, “…the home buyer tax credit has been a resounding success as these underlying trends point to a broad stabilization in home prices.”

 Great!

 On the NAR site, Lawrence Yun says, “So, down the road we will have our face into the headwinds of higher mortgage rates… with the expiration of the home buyer tax credit.  Foreclosures also remain troubling, as they will surely be just as high this year as last year.”

Hmmm… not so great.

But in reality, what does it matter? All that matters is what you do... how you perform in your market and what you do to separate yourself from your competition so you provide buyers and sellers compelling reasons to do business with you. 

So what are you doing?  Care to share with AR readers?

Our company, Arch, has recently received several calls inquiring about the ability to automatically send a prerecorded call or SMS/text to a consumer who called their 800 call capture number. 

The short answer is “no,” you cannot send auto-responders in the form of prerecorded calls or SMS/text messages.

Please note:  The following information has been produced by Arch as a result of consultation with an attorney prominent in this area.  While we believe it to be accurate and representative of the primary issues concerning our subscribers, it is impossible for Arch to evaluate specific situations or present the rules in their entirety.  Therefore, customers that have additional questions about specific situations should seek legal counsel as necessary.

This was not good news for our clients who desired these services, and it was unfortunate for us.  We had developed voice and SMS/text auto-responders in 1996 and sold them up to 2006.  However, due to updated TSR rules, we terminated these services to stay in compliance and protect our clients.

In legislation that has been pending since 2004, the FTC has announced a ban on prerecorded telemarketing calls without the consumer's express written agreement to receive such calls.  Commercial use of SMS/text messaging has always required express written agreement.  The requirement affects prerecorded calls after September 1, 2009.

So why are there still companies and agents using voice and SMS/text auto-responders?  There is a TSR exemption that allows for you to send calls that are purely "informational", though no such exemption exists for SMS/text.  Informational calls are not covered by the TSR under the interpetation that they do not attempt to sell the called party any goods or services.  Agents clearly represent a good or service and using voice or SMS/text auto-responders under this exemption is not valid and could get you fined.

You can call the prospective buyer back yourself, even if they are on the Do Not Call, list, under the established business relationship (EBR) exemption.  But, the FTC has proposed a broad prohibition on the use of prerecorded messages when the consumer called had not previously given express written permission to the seller to place such calls to his or her number.  Violation of the TSR rules can result in an $11,000 fine per occurrence.

In summary, any business selling to consumers must remain aware and compliant with the spirit and specific regulations of the Telemarketing Sales Rule and state-specific regulations.  Call Capture, by helping to generate customer inquiries and business relationships, can effectively increase an agent’s ability to appropriately market their products and services; however you must call these leads back live, not with auto-responders. Please visit our website for more information on our suite of real estate lead generation products.

Expired properties may be one of the most competitive types of listings you can target.  They are easily identified; typically your MLS will send you a notification when a property expires, or allow you to perform a targeted query.  The challenges presented by expireds are many.

You have to:

• Find the missing data, such as the owner’s phone number that has been removed from the MLS or by the previous listing agent
• Understand and appreciate the seller’s mindset
• Present a succinct and comprehensive marketing plan on why you are different than the previous agent

Find Missing Data

There are a number of ways to accomplish this.  You could use an online cross-reference directory.  If you only target expireds from time to time, this may be an attractive method because it’s free, but you can only do small batch queries.  Our company,ArchAgent, offers a missing data service that will automatically find missing phone numbers and reference the Do Not Call registry for you.  Alternatively, you can always knock on the door if you really desire that listing.

The Seller’s Mindset

In most cases, the seller expected to sell their home in a few weeks and six months later their home is still on the market.  The seller is frustrated and not of the mindset to accept a competitive agent’s claims of why they could sell their home… unless it is substantiated.  The primary challenge you will have to overcome is the distrust of the seller.  

Typically listings expire for one reason: it was over-priced.  The previous listing agent was unsuccessful in negotiating a price reduction.  However, you will not earn the trust of the seller by stating that fact.  You must appreciate their mindset; their previous agent most likely told them they could sell their home at that price, and now that it hasn’t happened they feel deceived.  You could show comparables to the seller that would substantiate that the reason their listing did not sell was price, but winning expired listings isn’t about evidence - it’s about presentation.

Be Succinct and Unique

When you have the attention of the Expired, you need to be prepared and be able to present your marketing plan quickly and in a manner that focuses on making you different.  At RainCamp they referred to this as the “Purple Cow.”  While the seller has already expressed the desire to list with a full service real estate agent, you still need to re-establish their motivation.  Ask them why they think their home did not sell.  Although you probably already know why, you need to listen closely to the reasons the owner believes their home did not sell.

What the seller says are not objections, but your opportunities to demonstrate your unique selling propositions (USP) and howthese propositions will be used to overcome the reasons your seller believes their home did not sell.  The USPs should be presented in an organized and specific marketing plan and stress whatever is new to the seller that separates you from your competition.  Some ideas would be:

• Extreme organization with a detailed deployment of your marketing calendar

• Advanced technologies to increase exposure:
  • Mobile Marketing to Smart Phones
  • Address-Specific Internet Site
  • Call Capture
  • Immediate Contact Of Leads
    

 Show your marketing calendar and demonstrate your advanced technologies; showing always wins over telling.  It makes a difference, certainly over the agent that tells the seller the same things they had heard from their previous agent.

The NAR reports that over 70% of buyers drive by properties that interest them before they contact an agent.  This is true whether those buyers find the property through the Internet, print, referral or your enterprise system that sends properties by predefined criteria to them.  With respect to enterprise systems, be sure to stay in contact with your prospect.  Otherwise you will only serve to educate them, and then you will lose them to the agent who owns the listing.

It makes sense that a prospect will drive by the property.  They want to legitimize the internet pictures or verbal descriptions in your ad.  After all, I've never seen an internet picture or read an ad that didn't seem near perfect.

If over seven out of ten prospects are going to drive by the property, now is the time to capture the buyer.  The best place to start is to create the perfect flyer for your brochure box. 

The first order of business is to understand the goal of the perfect flyer: its only purpose is to generate leads.  What it is not supposed to do is give the buyer all the info they need so that they don't require your involvement.

The objective is to lead the prospect one step closer to you... to educate them sufficiently but make them desire more, and then provide them with an easy way to obtain more information using a tool that identifies them so you can capture the lead.

KEYS to a property flyer that creates leads:

1. Do not disqualify.  This means do not give out any information that would educate the prospect sufficiently to say, "This house is not for me."
   • No number of bedrooms
   • No number of bathrooms
   • No square feet
   • No price (more on this below 
2. Do entice action.  Provide a vehicle (such as an 800 call capture, SMS/Text, or website that requires them to identify themselves) so the prospect can receive all of the items you did not provide on the brochure.

In the brochure state, "For the latest pricing call my recorded info line or text..." You will then give them the price, bedrooms, baths, complete set of pictures, square feet, etc... but now you've captured the lead.

Focus the brochure on a few "emotional" items that make this house unique; emotion invokes response.

On the back of the brochure, list other properties of similar value and amenities with your tool to receive more information on them; again entice action.

Price

Many agents feel uncomfortable about removing the price of the home on a brochure.  It's the fear of antagonizing the prospect.  But if you need more buyers, you need more leads.  Have you ever returned to a brochure box only to find it empty, and wonder where all the leads are?  Now imagine if you had, at the very least, an opportunity to speak to every person who took your brochure.  It only takes one or two buyers who may also be sellers to make this strategy pay off.  After all, your marketing should continually feed your lead generation machine.  If all it does is sell the home you advertised on, once you sell that property you're back to square one and that is not how you establish consistency.

RainCamp was different; specifically Ben Kinney was different.  Ben taught tools anstrategies that he actually uses; most of them are free.  These are the type of things that you can’t read in a book and no-one else is teaching.  Ben learned these techniques by trial and error.   Guest speaker, Marianna Wagner, a KW MAPS coach and Realtor® in the Denver area declared, “well you know I’m giving all my secrets to my competitors…”.  I’ve never heard a speaker say that before. 

Although we don’t sell real estate; we do provide applications that assist real estate agents to sell.  Over the years, we’ve sponsored many events, but Denver was our first RainCamp.  We learned many things, but these five you can implement right away and we did too.

 Five Things You Can Implement Right Away 

1. Create one way links to your website.  To get your website to rank high on search engines you should focus on (in order of importance) links, page titles, keywords and age.  We’ve always linked our websites, but we used reciprocal links.  Ben taught us that a one way link is viewed by search engines as an endorsement while a two way link is not as highly valued by search engines; they are viewed as partnerships.
2. Use single property websites but do not make the URL address specific.  Buyers search by area, not by address.  By making the URL “copper mountain homes” versus 123 Main Street you increase your website ranking power.  Then link the single property sites to your agent site and you’ll drag up your agent site.  We always promoted single property sites to be address specific.  The problem with that is once you sell the property, the site loses it’s value and you never get to “age” it; which is an SEO value.  .
3. On the back of your brochure box flyers, offer other properties.  Ben uses our 800-call capture on his signs; a number that prospects can call to hear recorded information about the property and view pictures.  We suggested to Ben to not use flyers, to force the prospect to call.  Ben corrected us that if you offer other properties on the back page you increase your marketing leverage, smart.
4. Your Blog is a Website.  The same rules for getting your website to rank high apply to your blog.  Your blog should be geo-specific, short (500 words), named after a phrase that would rank and have tags.  We always considered that people read your blog after they find your site; but the reverse is actually true.
5. Mixed media is on the way so get prepared.  Mixed media, such as a video blog is already being indexed by search engines.  YouTube is using close captioning to rank their videos. 

As Ben said, “what got me here, will not get me there…”

Two agents compete in the same marketplace.  They both have the same amount of time and access to the same information.  One is highly successful and the other struggles… why?  The answer is mindset. 

Mindset resolves everything.  A proper mindset enables you to possess the tenacity to turn a bad lead into a good one, so that you can discover opportunity where your competitor only saw a problem.  Conversely, a poor mindset destroys opportunity and spreads like a weed.  To appreciate the importance of your mindset, ask yourself why you became a real estate agent in the first place. 

Perhaps you felt your ambition was held in check by the corporate world of red tape.  You are not driven by the need to make money, but by the need to make your dreams a reality.  You prefer to participate versus just being a fan.  Your optimism defeats your pessimism.  You tend to set realistic goals and, contrary to popular belief, your risk tolerance is based upon calculated experience, not your gut instinct. 

If this profile fits you, you are likely experiencing some success selling real estate.  However this profile was not created for real estate agents. It is a profile on the mindset of entrepreneurs based upon interviews with people such as Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Howard Schultz (Starbucks) by Entrepreneur Magazine.  The fact is you are an entrepreneur; you accept full responsibility for your successes and assume significant accountability for your failures.  You operate and manage your business. 

With the proper mindset there are no bad leads; you are either successful in converting them or not.  Think of that famous scene from Glengarry Glen Ross.  Blake (Alec Baldwin) asserts:  “These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you they're gold, and you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you would be throwing them away. They're for closers.”

Only one agent wins the listing presentation.  Only one agent wins the buyer contract. 

Maintaining a proper mindset requires:

1. A routine that prepares you to make the call.  Each call should begin with a clear desk and a clear mind.  You never know what’s on the other end of this call, so prepare as if this is your most important call of the day.  Are you better at making calls around your peers or alone?  Many people find that if they make calls in the company of others, they are more persistent.
2. A memorized follow-up scirpt.  If you were building a home, the script would be your foundation.  If you do not have a memorized follow-up script, your business will fall down.  A script only sounds like a script if it’s not memorized and absorbed into your personality.  Once it is absorbed, it’s no longer a script; it’s you. 
3. A sole and focused agenda of what you want to accomplish.  On the initial call that agenda should be to qualify.  Are they motivated to buy or sell in the next 60 to 90 days?  Are they financially prequalified?
4. Objection Handling. There are only so many objections; learn to handle the common ones.  Know the difference between an auto-response, a true objection and a condition.
5. Removing yourself emotionally from the outcome of the call.  Be true to your agenda.  You’re not making a new friend, you’re developing a business relationship and this requires both parties to participate.  If the prospect is “stand-offish” and will not cooperate, do not hesitate to continue to pursue your agenda, and even cut them loose, versus “rolling-over” and pacifying them.