Hello fellow 'Rainer's!

I was recently asked to write an article for our quarterly publication, The Appraisal Press.  As you may or may not know, a la mode started as a desktop software publisher for real estate appraisers 23 years ago.  To this day, over 60% of the appraisers in the United States use the number one desktop appraisal software, WinTOTAL.

Anyway, as you have probably experienced - many home purchases have either fallen through or have been on the verge of falling through because of the final value of an appraisal.  I was asked to write an article educating appraisers on how they can go about getting appraial orders before a home is listed to help support not only the listing price, but help build their business beyond waiting to receive an order from a lender or AMC.

So I ask my fellow 'Rainers a two part question: 

• "Do you suggest getting an appraisal before listing a home"
  
  and/or
  
  
• "What could appraisers do to get agents to suggest getting an appraisal before listing a home"

I'm looking for any and all suggestions as well as your view about getting an appraisal -- good idea?  bad idea?  Thank you in advance to all who reply.  I know this will be a great article that could help both sides of the real estate transaction.

If you've been in real estate for the last three years, undoubtedly at some point you've found yourself in a room where the speaker, panel group or ‘expert' was talking about the social networking ‘revolution' and how it's going to set the real estate world on fire.  As a speaker and as an agent it infuriates me to hear the generalities that get thrown out there with absolutely no direction for the attendees.  I hear things like, "If you're going to speak to today's buyers and sellers, you have to participate in social networking." And "Buyers and sellers are finding agents through social networking sites.  It's free to have a page so not having one could be hurting your business."  They cite examples like, MySpace and Facebook and say, "If you're not already doing it, you need to."  The thing that gets me is that you have agents out there that take these words at face value.  They hear that they have to have a MySpace and Facebook account and they have to ‘tweet' on Twitter, so they leave the presentation, go back home or to their office and sign up for a profile.  But when it comes to what to actually write, they don't know.  What do you write?  Do you talk about your history as an agent?  Do you put up hundreds of pictures of your listings?  Do you add your logo?  And that is where I find the disconnect between what is being said and how it's lost in translation.

The fact is social networking can be an invaluable tool for an agent.  But does that mean that your profile has to strictly adhere to only your real estate career?  No.  Your real estate career is a part of what you do.  It's the extension of who you are based on your personality and interests.  Those things have to be present to show people that you're not a robot that drives people to houses and writes contracts.  By listening to some of the panel's or speakers that I've heard, I would think that if I simply create a real estate-centric social networking page, buyers and sellers will flock to me as if I held the title to the internet. 

Successful and impactful speakers will not only point you in the direction, but they will also hand you a map.  Sadly, most speakers don't, so agents find themselves lost or frustrated and will typically give up. 

Think of the rest of this article as your "map".

What Social Networking IS:

•·         A great tool to communicate with friends and family

•·         A great way to reconnect with past classmates

•·         A wonderful tool to stay up on the latest happenings at some of your favorite places

•·         A great way to make thousands of people aware of important items without the SPAM label attached

•·         A place to find people with like interests

What Social Networking IS NOT:

•·         The answer to all of your successful real estate career dreams

What should a successful Facebook or MySpace page look like for an agent?

You!  It should contain your interests, where you went to school, your career, your hobbies, where you're living now and your favorite destinations but most importantly it should be ‘loose'.  The reality is that the majority of your page should talk about vacations you taken, what your main interests are (please leave "real estate" off, it's a given) and things that help your friends understand more about you.  In your bio, talk about where you've been, what you've seen, what you like to do when you're not slinging real estate but also talk about how much you enjoy real estate which is why you chose the career that you have.  Those are the things that give people a ‘snapshot' of you.  Add pictures of vacations, outings, time with friends or sporting events.  If you volunteer, add pictures of events you've helped put on.  If you're a motorcycle enthusiast, add photos of your last ride, cross country trip or fundraiser poker run.  If you're a wine enthusiast, add photos from your last wine tasting event or party. 

But keep in mind, what people see in those pictures helps form the perception of who you are.  Does it mean that you should only have pictures of you helping little old ladies across the street or the ridiculous pose of you handing the keys to a new homeowner?  No.  But it also doesn't mean the picture of you chugging down a beer bong at a wet T-Shirt contest might be the best to add either.  Just as employers have turned to these pages to review potential employment candidates, your clients do the same.

Should I only join Facebook and MySpace?

No.  Social networking isn't confined to just these two sites.  They're simply the most well known (or at least the only ones talked about in these real estate conference's).  The reality is there are thousands of social networking sites out there.  Typically they fall into two categories, "General" and "Focused".  General sites are those like Facebook or MySpace where the goal is to create a page that's open to many different interactions.  Focused sites cater to specific hobbies or interests.  The fact is, if you're into something (travel, cars, motorcycles, etc.) there's a networking site for those.  If you're into specific things within those interests (Travels to Ireland, BMW's, Harley-Davidson's, etc.) there's a networking site for those too.  It's as broad or as narrow as you want to ‘socialize' with.  Almost every one of them is free and almost all of them have a ‘profile' page that you can customize.  Find as many or as few as you like and give them a try. 

Personally I am part of 6 groups that I actively participate in.  All of them have the potential to create opportunities for my listings or to help gain buyers, regardless of the subject.  Heck, YouTube is a form of social networking!  I have a profile on there with 2 videos.  One is of my family's vacation to Mexico (before Swine Flu) and the second one is a 60-second vignette about my real estate services.  I've actually gotten a couple of e-mails from people that have seen it and asked me to help them in their home search or listing their home.

How does having my personal life information help?

It creates a community.  It helps people find other individuals that have like interests.  I've been asked to join groups of Harley-Davidson owners in the state of Oklahoma that I didn't know existed.  How did they find me?  They searched for other Harley enthusiasts and because I listed "Harley's" in my "Interests" area, I came up.  Not only is it great avenue to discuss my hobbies and interest with other people that like the same things, it's a great way to generate business from those riders that buy and sell homes.  Typically there's no list that you can buy of everyone that rides motorcycles in your area to hit your target market.  But if you're using social networking to form friendships wouldn't it naturally benefit you when one of them is looking to buy or sell?   If your social page is strictly about real estate and contains no personal information, guess who you'll be most likely to attract -- yup, other agents.  While this isn't bad, it does make it extremely hard to build clients from people that do the same thing you do.  You should be part of real estate agent groups, just don't make it the mainstay of your profile.

So how do I use Social Networking in my business?

Our whole goal as agents is to put ourselves in front of as many people as we can, right?  So if this is the case, wouldn't it benefit our clients to put them in front of as many people as we can as well?  Sure it does.  If you have secured a new listing from a couple in their mid to late twenties and thirties, they're going to expect to see their home everywhere on the web.  This means the MLS, your website, your brokers website, Zillow, Trulia, CityCribs, Craigslist, and yes... Facebook and MySpace.  Every listing that you have should be blogged about and dropped on your Facebook page.  You should write a blog about your new listing (including photos) on your MySpace page and finally, you should ‘tweet' about it to your Twitter followers (more about Twitter later) 

What happens every single time someone logs onto MySpace or Twitter?  They get an overview of what has happened since they've been gone.  This includes that new listing that you posted.  Just happened to be that their friend (whom you've never met) is moving to your town and this house is in the price range they're looking for.  So they send the information to their friend (whom you've never met) and they contact you!!!  Social Networking SUCCESS!!!  Chances are you might not sell them THAT house but you wind up selling them A house.  Pretty good investment on something that's free.  Your seller is happy because they see how you're using the web to get the most eyeballs on their home.  And your buyer exposure has increased tenfold. 

"Tweet" but don't be a Twit

Twitter... oh, Twitter.  You seemed so innocent.  You were created so that millions of people could keep millions of other people informed of articles, promotions, specials and interesting stories.  You could ‘follow' other Twitter members and stay informed right there on your mobile device.  Then you were released to the masses and much like the video of the Miss South Carolina stammering through her "map" question, you spread fast far and wide.  Unfortunately, you didn't come with instructions so your use was left to interpretation.  People started ‘tweeting' about anything and everything.  "Bill is going to the doctor", "Melissa is thinking about having sushi", "Mike just found a goiter on his elbow" and your effective use was decimated.  Nowadays if you ‘follow' someone, typically it means that you get to share the most intimate and inane details of a person's life all at the same time.  It's like we've all become, "The Truman Show" and nothing is sacred.

But all is not lost.  There are still effective usages for Twitter.  Use it for its intended purpose:  To quickly update friends and family about relevant or useful information.  If I have a new listing, it's going on Twitter.  I can even give links to where they can find more information!  By doing absolutely ZERO marketing, I have over 50 followers on Twitter, you can do the same.  But remember, with great power comes great responsibility.  Fight the urge to "tweet" about everything.

"X" marks the spot

So how does social networking work for successful agents?  It's simple; they use it sparingly but effectively.  They post their listings to their Facebook page, they write an article about the Home Buyer Tax Credit on their MySpace, they ‘tweet' about articles showing growth in the housing market for their area and link to the article.  They join forum groups and participate in social sites that deal in their interests and create opportunities to educate members about what they do and create a higher visibility for their listings.  There's even social sites where people that have real estate questions can go on and ask a real estate professional.  Even better, they have filter that will recognize when people are asking about your farming area and send it directly to your e-mail or phone!  That is social networking.  It's creating opportunities to expand your profile to greater numbers.

Hopefully, this has helped give some actionable items to the generalities that we hear when we're sitting in these sessions.  It's great to talk about how social networking can help agents but it's another thing to show them how to use the tools to succeed.  Good luck and happy socializing!

If you're like me, it's sometimes hard to commit hours and hours of writing "why" you should live in my area when choosing a home.  Sure, I could frame in a local page of great information but what makes the internet great is the ability for a user to have endless searches, endless possibilities and endless educational pieces that they can (and will) find. With my XSite I have the ability to actually frame an outside page directly into my site which will give me the flexibility to have it launch in another window or frame it with the header of my XSite theme.  But if I were to simply frame the page that talks about the only thing that I want them to see, am I really doing them justice to only have one solution? To me the answer is no. If we take at face value that 80% of buyers and sellers start their search on the internet, we have to be mindful of the key word in that statistic, "search". What that means is that they don't stop at the first result and never go further. They dig, the probe, they ask questions and most of the time, the do it through Google.

One of the things that I watch on a regular basis is where people are going on my XSite.  This helps me keep my XSite fresh with relevant content but also shows me what's working and what's not.  And because I provide a location for information about my city, Edmond Oklahoma, I see a lot of traffic directly to this page to get more information.  Instead of just typing static information that I know or have gotten from other sources, why not make it dynamic for them to search while they're there?

So how do I keep my options open but still show a higher service level? I simply ask them to "Let Me Google That For You". LMGTFY (www.lmgtfy.com) has become the easy way to guide visitors to your pre-determined search results and helps corral them to an open library of information. All you have to do is visit the site, type in your preferred keywords and LMGTFY will generate a unique URL that you can then copy and paste as a hyperlink in your XSite.

Let me give you an example. The "About Edmond" page that I talked about earlier gives me the ability to have a brief overview with quick highlights but instead of me having to go back and update that page constantly to talk about what's happening around the city, I created a LMGTFY link that is continually updated and broadens my visitors search options. If I were to type in even, "Edmond", the results are scattered all over the place which often will include multiple real estate agents, large real estate sites like Homes.com, REALTOR.com and others looking to offer their services. But if I add a link to my site provided by Let Me Google That For You, I can actually type in the preferred keywords that help give them information about the area but also display results that have many of my entries about the area that rank higher from many of my blogs.

How I edited my page: 

How I set up my page is this, I will created a button on my website called "About Edmond" and then write an opening paragraph that talks about some of the highlights of living in my great city. From there I will leave an area open for different topics such as, "Edmond Events" Now, I can either make the term, "Edmond Events" the hyperlink to the Google search or I can add a separate line with a link that says, "Let Me Google That For You" which will lead them to all kinds of information from our community bulletin board, Edmond Convention and Visitors Bureau and our Chamber of Commerce. This gives them access to not just one source of information but a whole site of entries that they can view and explore.

On more than one occasion I have had visitors actually fill out a lead generation form (conveniently provided on this page) asking me where I came up with this idea. Some have said how they actually like being able to explore more than just one page of information and it actually kept them coming back to my site because it wasn't limited.

If you approach your XSite as a source of information opposed to just a slim marginal view of your idea of what you think visitors should read then adding "Let Me Google That For You" keywords and links will help expand your expertise as not just another real estate website but a gateway to the beginning of your visitors home search.

I was talking with a broker this morning about an idea that he had.  He was talking about marketing to FSBO's -- shocker, right?  Actually his idea had some merit.  He was talking about marketing to FSBO's not to get the listing but instead give them the ability to list their home on his website.  His initial thought was to look for another service provider that would give him the ability to do this but after thinking about it I came up with a different way to use his current XSite.  Because a Broker XSite gives you the ability to add profiles for every agent, that doesn't mean that they have to specifically be agents.  Let me explain further.

Because you have unlimited profiles that you can create under a Broker XSite, why not add the FSBO's information as they write in telling you that they want to list their home on your site?  Now, let me say that you should definitely check with your local board as to whether you can add FSBO listings to your website -- I know in Oklahoma, our board eliminated the "$500 gets your home on the MLS" marketing, because there were agents getting the $500, posting the listing on the MLS and then not doing any service behind it when a contract came in.  Sellers were under the assumption that for $500 they were getting the whole service (list, negotiate, sell, etc.)  So they put a nix on this a couple years ago which is why I say to check locally.

But if a FSBO called or e-mailed me wanting to add their home, I would fire up my XSite, log in and then add their contact information as a new profile.  And because my Broker XSite lets me set the permissions that they have I would simply limit them to only having permissions to upload their listing.  There is a menu selection that includes FSBO as one of the entries.  At this point I would create a custom listing page that filters out all listings but the 'FSBO' status.  Bingo, all FSBO properties on my website!  If someone writes in to ask about the listing I can either have the e-mail go to the homeowner or I might go above my normal service level and work with the FSBO.  Who knows, I might even work out a fee for the service at the end.  I might even be able to turn a few of these "customers" into full fee clients.

What a great marketing piece to the FSBO community!  With the decline in FSBO website traffic, this might be a way to build an inventory of FSBO listings that hang off of your marketing and search engine results.  This would definitely drive me to change up my postcard message and talk about a great website to see all of the FSBO properties in your area! 

In a world overflowing with agents rushing to get into the foreclosure market, this is a way to identify a niche that makes you the expert in a sea of faceless foreclosure agents.

Has the Internet made an negative impact on how we list and sell homes?  Do we just give up too much with the Internet for buyers and sellers?  Is it too easy for buyers and sellers to scan the Internet and find what they want without ever calling an agent?  With all of these articles and blogs about how to buy or sell a home have we taken the mystery out of buying or selling a home?  Thankfully, YES!  Sorry if you were thought of these questions as a rallying cry to arms to cut down that big tower that transmits all that Internet stuff but let me explain.  Honestly, I am happy that technology has moved center stage on how we do business because it's created opportunities that would have never been there before. 

Can you believe that I have friends of mine that are agents in their 30's that actually HATE the fact that technology has made such an impact on real estate?  I'm talking people that think it's the scourge of what is wrong with the industry.  "They have too much information." and "There's no reason for them to contact me if they have all of the information right there." are just a few of the things that I've heard before.  I guess I am a glass half full type of guy.  My thought process is, this is exactly why they will contact you but it's not going to happen magically.  It will require you to work different.  If you only have a website for your real estate business you're not arming yourself with enough ammunition.

Put yourself in your clients shoes.  When you first learned that an agent has to have a website to succeed in real estate, you probably started doing your homework to find the best fit for you.  You might have asked another agent that you know but no matter what their answer was, you still did some research online.  You might have gone to Google and typed in "Real Estate Websites" and gotten hundreds of pages of results.  You probably clicked into the first couple of them and saw an ongoing list of features or ‘must haves'.  You might have read testimonials from their customers that talked about how their business improved by using "Brand X" website provider.  But then you clicked a couple of other providers that gave an entirely different list of ‘must haves' and new pricing and their customers testimonials about how much better their business is because they used "Brand Y" websites.  After you've looked over a couple of site providers you started to notice that one or two companies have multiple results in that search.  Yes, they have their website but they also have articles about them, press releases, reviews, blogs, etc.  and there's a pretty good chance that you might have chosen this company as your provider.  Why?  Because you felt that if they had this much information out there, they were probably the best choice out there because of their exposure and expertise.  But, isn't this the same thing buyers and sellers do when it comes to choosing an agent?

So if we feel like we're "giving too much away" on the Internet, why do we ask our clients to be different than the very way we operate?  Just as you typically will not choose the first entry on a search engine result because it was there, why do we assume that if you're first on the "Orlando Homes for sale" search that they're going to choose you?  If there's one thing we know, it's that today's buyers and sellers are some of the most tech savvy clients we've ever dealt with and that trend will increase not decrease.  With our instant gratification society, they have too many television shows, website pages, iPhone applications, and other forms of media to simply leave it up to fate and choose the first result in a search engine "just because they were first".  

Instead, we need to expect the same of our clients that we expect of ourselves -- to make an educated decision.  This brings me back to my original story about the friends I mentioned earlier.  These are the people that think because they have a website with 15 pages on it and provides a ton of information about the buying and selling process, provides all of the available homes in their market, and has a bio about how fast they can sell a home, that they're going to have a chance of capturing these web surfers.  While a website is a great start, having just 15 pages out of the millions that are available, there's a pretty slim chance you're going to capture a lot of buyers or sellers.  When this happens, those agents tend to look at 'technology' as a bad thing because they still see the Internet as a free-for-all. Or they'll make the grave mistake that I commonly see.  When an agents website doesn't produce leads they'll set up a trap -- most agents will call it a "Guest Book". But forcing people to sign in and give information will actually produce the exact opposite of its intended effect.  If you were only getting one or two leads from your site, this move will ensure that you will drive that down to zero.  People don't want to feel forced to give information and they know they can find it somewhere else.

The best way to increase your leads and one of the best ways I found was to increase my exposure and make me a multiple result was to start branching out past my website.  I created a profile on ActiveRain and started writing about things I encountered when listing or selling a home.  These included solutions that other buyers and sellers should watch for, questions on how to handle situations to other agents that were on the forum and technology suggestions that I wanted to pass on to the group.  Within my first 4 articles I was finding my blogs and conversations popping up when someone typed in, "Belle Pointe Edmond Oklahoma".  Because I was including the cities I covered in my articles and adding them as keywords to my blogs, search engines were picking them up and returning them as results in future searches. I also put out a press release about a new technology that I was using to help decrease a home's days on the market and sent it off to the real estate section of my local newspaper.  They picked it up, wrote an article about it and it appeared on their website as well. 

Within a couple of months I had gone from trying to compete for buyers and sellers armed with just a website, to multiple articles, press releases and blogs about my business that showed I was the expert when it came to selling homes in my area.  When buyers and sellers see your name over and over in their search results it helps connect the dots to making an educated decision.

"Your e-mail is important to me.  Typically I read and respond to e-mail between the hours of 11:00am - 12:00pm and then again between 5:00pm - 6:00pm"

Is their e-mail important, really?  What part of, "I'll get back to you when it's convenient for me", says, "You're important"?  I see these "auto responders" a lot when I will e-mail a colleague about something going on in our transaction or just question in general.  My first thought is always, "People still use these?"  Here's why I say this.  In the late-90's when e-mail was quickly becoming the staple of communication between individuals and smart phones with e-mail support were but a far away thought, there was a need for auto reply.  In some cases it helped the individual sending an e-mail to know why you might not be responding to their instant communication form immediately and it let them know that their message didn't fall into an e-mail black hole.  But just as times have changed, it seems that some agents don't want to change.    With millions of today's of our potential buyers and sellers receiving and responding to e-mail directly from their phone, can we  really afford to basically tell them, "You're going to have to wait."?  Every time I see auto replies like,  "I check and respond to e-mail within 24 hours"  I seriously cringe.  

There was a time that a 24 hour turn around was acceptable; it was right around the time that we attached those shoulder cradles to our land line handsets to take long calls.  The truth is, we now have a window of 30 minutes or less response time and frankly with the advancement of instant notifications, it's going to get shorter.  Put yourself in their shoes.  You're excited about your first home that you've been approved on.  You log onto the web, start your search of homes that are available in their price range and then you find it, the perfect house.  It's everything you want, you want to see it now so you click the link on the "Contact Me" section of the site.  You type all of your information in and ask when you can see it.  You click "send" and in 2 seconds you get a reply that tells you, "Thanks for writing me about your home needs!  Typically I check mail once a day and when I do, I'll get back to you.  Remember, I love referrals!!"  

I always wonder if those agents that have these types of auto replies wonder why they usually wind up splitting the commission with another agent.  If a person that takes the time to fill out one of your lead generation forms or makes that first contact, they're typically expecting a quick response.  If you won't do it, they'll earmark the property they want to see and contact the agent that will get back to them quickly.  It's not uncommon for a person looking to sell their home to e-mail numerous agents at the beginning and talk to the first few that respond.  If they receive an e-mail that says you will respond on your time, those typically get deleted.  Their thought process is, if you're that unavailable at the before you've listed their home, how are you going to be if you did list their home?  

"But Eric, I make myself available for those people that are my clients."  Great, but what about those people that want to become your client and you've essentially told them that they haven't made "that list" yet?

The truth is, if you can't do it, there are some hungry agents out there biting at the bit to provide that extra level of service and include a 20-minute response time as part of their normal business.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you have make yourself available within 20-minutes of a buyer or seller contacting you.  What I am saying is that it isn't that hard to simply personally reply or call that person to explain that you're with a customer, getting ready to walk into a closing, or simply having lunch and you'll be happy to call them back shortly.  Doing this, eliminates that impersonal, cold e-mail that they get with an auto responder and it lets them know that you are an agent on top of their game.

Do yourself a favor, go back into your auto responder and uncheck that box, you'll be glad you did.

If listings are the lifeblood of an agent, why do some agents treat them with such distain? You've seen them while cruising through the MLS, looking for that perfect house for your new buyers. You add all of the criteria that they're looking for, the price range and click "OK". After a little spin through the MLS, it returns 20 properties that match your criteria. When you start to dig through them, it's amazing to see the complete disregard that some agents have for their listings.  Here are some examples to name just a few:

• No photos - the death knell for a listing, ESPECIALLY in the first 10 days of the listing hitting the market
  
• Descriptions that look like newspaper ads - "2br,3bth,grt loc8shn,clos 2 evrthng... $800,000 wont last!"  Wow, if that doesn't scream "buy me!" I don't know what does.
• Typos - Here's an actual listing I saw: "Enjoy you're own Concert pool this Sumer"  ("You're" instead of "your". "Concert" instead of "concrete". "Sumer" instead of "Summer)

There are so many examples I could give about this scenario, but the simple truth is, should we really be shocked when a FSBO is hesitant to work with an agent or the fact that real estate agent jokes rank right up there with lawyer jokes?

Quick Comparison:
Which listing might your buyers pay attention to more? (Given a 200 character limit)

"This home has it all! 4 bedroom, 3 bath with a large backyard, custom carpet and tile work in the kitchen. You'll love this house!"  -or-  "Located in central Edmond, this beautiful home boasts 4 large bedrooms and three baths, custom tile work in the chefs kitchen. Built in 2007 this home has all of the luxury you seek in your next home."

Your listing is your brand. It's your first impression. It's your calling card. Simply put, it's how buyers, sellers and even other agents view your approach to your business and what you'll be like to work with if their buyers decide to buy your listing.

I hear agents tell me that it's just so "time consuming" to enter a listing (especially if they have to enter it twice, whew!) Well, it should be time consuming. In this day and age, we should be thrilled to flesh out as many details about a listing that we can. If we have to enter it twice, that's just another chance to get it right. It used to be (when a listing went on the market and sold in the same day) a little easier to get away with sloppy listings because they didn't stick around. No more is this the case, and now we need our listings to stand out from the other 50 listings for sale in the same neighborhood - and in some cases on the same block.

As I drove through a neighborhood last weekend to drop off my son at a friend's house, I saw approximately 20 houses for sale in their subdivision. Most of these were clusters of homes that were on the same block or street. However, on every one of these listings I was shocked to see simply the proverbial yard sign and flyer box (most empty) with no other distinction between any of the houses. Oddly, every home was listed by a different agent so it tells me that for every seller that saw their neighbors house up for sale, there was nothing that differentiated the agent that caught the neighbors attention and made them at least inquire about listing with that agent.

As a seller, would I maybe look at an agent that had a "See the virtual tour of this home at www..." or "Need more info? Visit www.2701DuPont.com"? If I saw an agent that deployed these sales tools, would I be more inclined to ask my neighbor that's listing the home, "Hey, does your agent do this on all of the houses they sell?" Heck, I probably would even call to tell that agent, "I want you to use all those things to sell my home."

The point is that we should be doing everything we can to provide an extra level of service with our listings. Not just to combat the "What did you do for me" mentality that we sometimes get post-sale, but to become "the" agent in your sellers mind and to help garner numerous referrals in the future.

That means that we need to take advantage of all opportunities to do the following:

1. Write full descriptions about our listings.
2. Provide virtual tours.
3. Create a Podcast.
4. Create branded brochures.
5. Use marketing programs to announce Open Houses.
6. Shoot a homemade video and post it to your site.
7. Record an audio tour and post it.
8. Add maps to your listing.
9. Share your listing with other agents on their sites (Listing XChange).
10. Automatically syndicate your listing to the hottest real estate sites out there.
11. Write a Blog.
    ActiveRain Bloggers, "UNITE"!
12. Send "Just Listed" postcards and announcements.
13. Create a dedicated website for each listing.  Example: http://www.2701dupont.com  

Now, before you throw out the "Uh, yeah Eric, BUT that would cost a TON of money," let me finish. In my XSite from a la mode, most of these features don't cost a thing except for my time. And I'm sorry, but to make 3-4% per listing, spending an average of two hours per listing doing all of the items I mentioned is nothing; but my return on investment (my time and very little money) is huge. Mix that with the fact that if I garner just ONE referral or have one seller in that same neighborhood that noticed my marketing methods of information available about the home and that received my "Just Listed" postcard, I've doubled or in some cases tripled my investment.

We've always had to justify our commission rates in some fashion or at some point in getting the listing.  "I've got a great personality" doesn't always cut it anymore.  However, when sellers have seen my marketing campaigns that I've deployed, it's actually funny that I rarely get that objection any more!

One of the things that is largely overlooked in an agent's website is their tracking ability.  Not just their number of visitors but where those visitors come from and what terms they used to find you. I want to show you how to do a little work on your site and get results organically. For me, this achieves two important things for my website. First, it ensures that I am continually updating my site with new and fresh content which will help with search results. Second, it helps me identify what actual buyers and sellers are typing into the major search engines and what I might need to change, delete or update on my site.

Inside your XSite is a Stats tool that will show you the number of web visitors you've had from today through the last 90 days.  It also shows how many of them are returning visitors.  This is great information to share with your sellers. But there are two areas that I continually watch and want to focus on here: "Referring URL's" and "Common Search Phrases". These two areas tell me exactly how and where people are finding me on the web.

Referring URL's

It might look like gibberish but there's gold hidden in those links. As I scroll through the list of addresses, I take special note of areas that appear numerous times. If it's a site that I have a profile with (like ActiveRain), I will make sure that I update my profile on that site and also write down that site for later use.  I look at the search engines that are ranking me and write them down as well. But here's the big secret: if I see a site like Yahoo in my list, I will move my mouse just over that link. When you hover over it, a yellow banner will appear and show the address.  At the end of it you'll see exactly what the visitor typed to find your site!

Here's an example:

Notice at the end of the link it shows, "Richardson+Homes+Oklahoma+City", what that tells me is that a buyer or seller went to a search engine and typed in "Richardson Homes Oklahoma City" and my site came up. Knowing this, I would then go back to my home page in the "My Content" area and edit that page to update my Keywords at the bottom of the page and add these terms to help boost my rankings. See example below.

Common Search Phrases

This area tells me the most common words or phrases that were typed into a search engine that resulted in my site coming back in their search. I look for the most frequently used terms that returned my site as a result to see if the general public is looking for a common item or term about real estate.  I can use that to boost the information on my site or even create an entire page to it. By eliminating those pages that get no views and replacing them with what people are actually looking for, I keep my site relevant and fresh for visitors, while optimizing it for search engines.

Oh it drives my wife absolutely crazy.  There we are driving along the open roads of the beautiful metro of Oklahoma City and then she'll hear it... "DING DING"  At that point she knows this ride has gone from an enjoyable ride with a safe and cautious driver into, "Crazy Drive while texting driver".  I'm guilty, I admit it.  Sorry.

For the life of her, my wife can not figure out why my friends and I don't simply pick up our phones and call each other.  Instead we choose to go back and forth for hours texting our thoughts and observations over our phones -- sounds ironic doesn't it?  Texting on our phones instead of calling on our phones.  Anyway, as soon as I see the message I begin to shift into my DWT (driving while texting) position:

Knees raised to the 5 and 7 position, rolling eye checks of the traffic ahead to ensure that I've properly backed off another 10 feet from the bumper of the other car (just in case of a lock up) and I begin...

It's like a science but lately I've seen the error of my ways (and lost partial hearing in my right ear from my wife yelling, "WATCH THE ROAD")

But now, that's all gone...

Enter JOTTER www.jott.com

This little free beauty has freed me forever.  It's quite simple, log on, create a profile, enter your cell number and e-mail address.  At this point, you'll be prompted to call a toll-free number to confirm your phone number and there you have it. 

From here, I saved the toll-free number in my favorites on my phone, I call the number and an automated voice asks, "Who do you want to Jott?" I'll say the name, it confirms and then I start recording.  Once I am done the voice will tell me, "Got it".  I hang up and magically my voicemail is transcribed into text and sent as a text and an e-mail to my recipient. The cool thing is that you can also set reminders for yourself, set tasks and confirmations as well.

My car is set up with bluetooth so I recorded the Jott number into my car and all I have to do is tell it to call Jott, record my message and it's delivered immediately.  The best thing about it, my hands never leave the steering wheel.

Since I've signed up, the drives with my wife have gotten much more enjoyable, for both of us.

Try Jott, you'll love it.

How many countless Sundays have you spent sitting in your open house and either reading or using that time to "catch up" while individuals stroll through your listing? I know that we always jump up when we hear the crack of the door to make sure that we provide a friendly face to greet visitors - but what do we do after that initial greeting? Typically if it's like most of the open houses I've walked through without my "agent hat" on, most agents will greet me upon entry, hand me a flyer and let me know to look around and feel free to let them know if I have any questions. Once they've made that introduction, they'll scamper back off to the living room or kitchen where they have established their "open house camp" (that area strategically set up as a work area/greeting/pivot spot) and wait for the visitor to make their way back in order to take a temperature of the buyers' like or dislike of their listing. At this point, following typical protocol, they'll give a smile, ask how everything is going and then wait for the buyer to see the other half of the house before hurriedly making small talk as the buyer is leaving.

How many opportunities do we squander by doing this repetitive routine? One of the most successful things I do to help increase the awareness of my visitors is to have my XSite on my laptop open and running. I also open my contacts folder in my XSellerate to capture information about the buyer when I've engaged them during their visit. After their walkthrough and before they head out, I will engage those buyers not working with an agent already by letting them know that I have a full virtual tour of this listing I can send to them so that they don't have to drag around 100 flyers from all of the open houses they'll be visiting today. At this point, I'll ask them if they've planned out their route to look at open houses or if they're just driving through neighborhoods. No matter what their answer is, I will let them know that I have my website up and can quickly show them a list of open houses today and even e-mail a driving map to them so that they're not driving around aimlessly. Our MLS will let me narrow searches for open houses and even provide printable or e-mail centric directions. I find that over 80% of my visitors carry a SmartPhone that they can use to check e-mail or receive messages. I think I've been turned down a handful of times in the whole time I've offered this.

When we go over to enter a visitor's information, I will have my website up with the contacts information available. I'll then type in their information, save it to my contacts and tell them to expect the open house driving directions e-mailed to their phone shortly.

For those visitors that take me up on my offer, what I've done is capture their information so I can follow up with them later. I've also completed two things: 1) I've provided another level of service that they're not used to seeing; 2) I've again established my website by telling them that they can find a lot of information about the various subdivisions in our area.

Face it - how many people like filling out a blank sign-in sheet when they walk into an open house? I'll bet I've met more "Mark Jones" and "Michelle Smith's" than I care to imagine -- because they don't like feeling that they'll be spammed to death. But with a simple suggestion to help them plan a route to help them ease gas consumption, I have people that appreciate the effort to help them instead of them thinking I view them as another faceless visitor of my open house. All of the information that I send to them is branded with my website address and the follow up e-mails that they'll receive in the coming days announce other properties that match their search criteria.

I've picked up more than 10 new buyers and sellers - directly or indirectly from their referral -- using this method that normally would have just resulted in another person walking through my open house. With air cards being offered by almost every major cellular carrier, the return on investment that could be had by simply having your laptop "always on" is immeasurable.