By Jana Davis

The rush to finish a brand new home in eight days is a daunting task. No one could have prepared Dusty Boren, owner of 4 Corners Custom Homes, for the new and exciting challenges in their first participation in the nationwide Habitat for Humanity Builders Blitz.

"It's like landing jets at O'Hare International Airport," Boren said. "You really have to rely on everyone."

Preparation is the key to the success of the new homes. "We've been planning since January," Boren said. Read the Full Article >>

About 4 Corners:

With over 30 years of combined experience in residential construction and community development, you can trust you have made the right choice when it comes to your next home. Our neighborhoods are located in the finest school districts, boasting the most appealing landscapes with homesites from 1/2 up to 2 acres. We are building new homes in neighborhoods located in Edmond, Deer Creek, Oklahoma City and Guthrie.

Come be a part of one of the fastest selling communities in Edmond.

If your looking for more space, a vibrant family atmosphere with the convenience of the city, look no further. Highland Trails offers families 1/2 acre homesites and unmatched ammenities. Featuring a community pool and clubhouse (Summer 08'), gated walking trails, baseball field, basketball court and much more. All of this in the top rated Edmond school district.

There is an average of 3 kids per household making this a family friendly neighborhood.

Amenities

Average Price Per Sq Ft - $87 Homes Starting in the $190's including lot - View Floorplans Here>>

Highland Trails is located 1/2 mile north of Waterloo Rd on Kelly Avenue

Learn More Here>>

New Homes in Edmond

This has long been an important conversion factor when responding to your leads. It is critical that you respond within a timely fashion and it is now confirmed that your customers EXPECT it.

Here is how the numbers add up:

22% expected an immediate response
21% expected a response within 30 minutes
16% expected a response within 1 hour
17% expected a response within 2 hours
18% expected a response within 4 hours
6% expected a response within 1 business day

Compare the buyer’s expectations to the standard response rates by Realtors, less than 50% even respond to internet leads at all. The ones that do, it takes an average of 2 days.

How do you measure up? Are you meeting your customer’s expectations? Whether you receive a large volume of leads, or just a few, you must always focus on a timely (if not instantaneous) response to your prospects. This will give you a competitive edge against your competition.

Great video from Trulia interviewing the lead generation division of Weichert Realtors. Michael gives the following stats (don’t know where he got them from but I like it!)

Of the customers that submit their information online:

• 21% Expect Instantaneous response
• 44% expect a response within 40 minutes
• 100% expect a response withing 1 day

The typical agent only responds 48% of the time - and the average response is 2 1/2 days.

For those fast responders - guaranteed job security.

That’s why one of any Realtor’s worst enemies is a cluttered and unorganized email inbox. I know (from experience) that it’s not the easiest thing in the world to stay organized—and ready to pounce on hot leads—if you can’t even tell which message is your top priority. And with all your daily tasks, reminders and appointments chiming away, how can you possibly keep it all clear on screen and in your mind?

Remember, a lead is always a good thing, no matter how busy you are.
When email messages are overwhelming you and tasks seem to start spinning out of control, you’ll actually end up experiencing a negative emotional response each time you receive a new lead. Imagine that; instead of being excited at a new opportunity, you slump in your chair and mumble, “Here comes another lead; great—just one more thing to add to my list.”

I recently read—and re-read—David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. In it, he offers a fantastic new system for managing your time and increasing your productivity. He also serves up a great system for taming the ol’ Outlook inbox using the same techniques.

The following is a brief overview on how you can take advantage of Allen’s innovative principles to change your email habits, so you’ll be perfectly and calmly prepared to handle every new message that comes your way.

Experience the business-boosting freedom of an uncluttered Inbox.
Simply put, I can’t tell you how freeing it is to have an empty inbox. The concept is to get rid of those “sticky” emails—you know, the ones that you can’t do anything about, aren’t quite ready to handle and really just distract you from responding to higher priority tasks. Allen’s rules basically boil down to three simple steps—see a new email, read it and decide what to do with it immediately.

Here are five choices for dealing with a message the moment it lands in your Inbox:

• Delete it. Seriously, this will probably cover most of your emails. Immediately toss out all those forwards, CC’s and messages that don’t even interest you. Become an email Zen master at one with your “Delete” key. Free up that Inbox for messages that will potentially make you the most money—not time-wasters like the latest funky YouTube videos.
• Answer it. If you can respond effectively in two minutes or less to a message requiring a follow-up, take care of it right then and there. It doesn’t matter if it’s a reply to a customer, an associate or even a personal email. Just make sure it doesn’t take you more than a minute or two.
• Defer it. You’d be AMAZED at how many of the emails sent your way aren’t even your responsibility. Ask yourself, “Am I really the right person for this job?” If not, figure out who is, and pass the message on. You might also respond to sender and cc: the responsible party, just to make sure everyone is on the same page. Of course, make sure that the responsible party is actually accepting responsibility—especially if you are delegating a task.
• Save it. Some emails won’t need action—but they don’t deserve the instant “Delete” treatment, either. You know, things like passwords, email newsletters, receipts or whatever. You might need these messages in the future, so create a folder or folders in Outlook to store these for future reference. The great thing about Outlook 2003 (and subsequent versions) is that you can perform searches to find those old emails anytime you want.
• Determine the next action. If a message requires action but a response will take longer than two minutes, move it to an “Action” folder. Then, create a new Outlook task for the next action item. This way, you get to keep a message AND get “permission” to forget about it until the task is at hand—later that day, later that week or later that month. It sure beats the heck out of opening up your Inbox every day and wasting valuable time and brainpower staring at a wall of emails asking, “What do I need to do with all these again?”

As agents, our email is our primary lifeline to prospects and buyers. That’s why it so important to keep our “virtual” desk clutter-free—organization leads directly to higher productivity. Naturally, your Inbox will fill up while you are away from your desk. Just make sure that you zip through your Inbox and trim it down at least twice a day, so you’re back a square one and ready for the next lead, question or response.

This simple technique has eliminated LOADS of stress emanating from my bulging, unorganized email Inbox. Before, it seemed like every time I opened my account, I didn’t know where to start. Like I might as well have been chasing rabbits.

I highly recommend reading studying David Allen’s Book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and purchasing the companion manual (GTD and Outlook) to help you restructure your inbox—and seriously streamline your prospect response times for increased sales.

So, how’s that Inbox looking NOW?

Here are some snippets:

What’s worse is that a lot of that advertising may never come back to newspapers even if the real estate sector recovers. That’s because a significant chunk of those advertising dollars are moving — you guessed, online.

“Is newspaper a high priority? No,” Antal said. “I don’t believe my buyers and sellers are going to be in that market.”

Now, when most people think of McDonald’s, they think of the ubiquitous Golden Arches logo on street corners and freeway exit signs across America—and around the world. Or maybe they think of the Happy Meals, Play-lands and McEverything-else they’ve introduced to today’s consumer-driven business landscape.

“…But I discovered genius in the drive-through window.”
Behind the scenes, the company has also pioneered an incredibly successful, sales-spiking, prospect-pushing, margin-maximizing technique that Ray Kroc and his franchisees have mastered over the decades.

Embodied in a single phrase, this proven, powerful concept has entered the modern lexicon as the ultimate example of the up-sell, in which a salesperson can properly use a simple, subtle power of suggestion to convince customers to quickly take action and “get a deal” on their purchase.

“Would you like FRIES with that?”
You’ve probably heard this phrase hundreds of times at the order counter or drive-through window (at McDonald’s and elsewhere). It’s not by accident; the entire McDonald’s empire is built on processes—the company spends millions of dollars a year on R&D in this area—and our ordering process was no different.

We were literally given “scripts” that quickly burned into our subconscious minds through sheer repetition: “Welcome to McDonald’s; may I take your order,” or perhaps, “Would you like to try our new McRib sandwich today?”

I quickly realized that the most powerful scripts by far were the “up-sell” scripts—“How about a hot apple pie?” or maybe “Can I Super Size that for you?” We learned what Mr. Kroc and his team knew: if you ask a customer to try (or to buy) something new, they’ll often say, “Yes.”

In short, the opportunity to up-sell is really just acknowledging human nature and using it to your competitive advantage; most customers like to be friendly, agreeable and not seen as “rocking the boat” or inflexible in social situations. That’s why we NEVER finished an order without asking for an up-sell. And when I saw how successful the strategy was, it just made the process easier and easier.

The “Real Estate Up-Sell”—ASK for the appointment, contact information or more!
So, where does the up-sell come into play for the Agent handling internet or phone leads? As is so often the case in life, the key is to be clear and ASK for what you want—in this case, usually one of the following:

• An appointment (best-case scenario—when prospects are ready to see properties)
• Contact information (ideal for first-time callers or other prospects who may need a little more coaxing through the sales cycle)
• Opt-in permission (allowing you to continue marketing directly to prospects about new properties, special opportunities, etc.)

Of course, you may also have the opportunity to ask deeper questions to more thoroughly qualify your prospects—many of which may be standoffish anyway. The more you’re able to qualify each prospect, the more likely you are to be able to match them with the most appropriate available properties.

Be ready to respond to common prospect objections.
The more questions you ask, the more objections you will receive. Even after you’ve mastered to art of up-selling, you need to be ready to deal with at least occasional rejection. For example, I always make it a point to ask something like, “Have you had a chance to visit one of our homes in _______ community.” Often, I’ll hear, “No thanks—we’re just looking right now” or some other common diversionary reflex, but I’m always ready with scripts to overcome those objections and more. And the up-selling cycle continues…

Is all this difficult, nerve-wracking and harder than it sounds here? Of course, one of the main reasons you aren’t asking for the appointment already is because of fear. Just keep in mind what IBM founder Thomas J. Watson famously said about perseverance in business: “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.”

And remember, if a 15-year-old in a Hamburglar costume can do it, you can, too.

Bloomberg.com reports New York Times Hit as Housing Moves to Web

Smith, president of Realogy Corp., the largest residential real estate broker in the U.S., said the portion of his Coldwell Banker and Century 21 branding budget devoted to newspapers will shrink by as much as two-thirds next year from 2006 as spending moves online. Newspapers will receive 70 percent of Realogy’s home-sale advertising by 2010, down from 84 percent this year.

“It’s going to be bloody,” Smith said in an interview. “The newspaper industry is going to have to adjust.”

There seems to be a general shift in all real estate sales…how do we do more with less money?

I took a test drive acting as a customer - the end result produces a housing report (view my report) that you can email to a friend, email to a wilshire associate, or print. I like the options. Obviously, they couldn’t list every variation in the scripts but covered most of the important qualifying questions - at least to get a customer pointed in the right direction.

Below are the results from Wilshire Homes in the case study by Marketing Sherpa:

RESULTS
Texas homebuyers are loving the microsite and Sheila’s down-home hospitality. At first, Horne (Wilshire’s President) had set goals that were mostly related to stickiness, but he was elated to see the microsite lift online sales leads by 13.54%. Even more interesting is that 2% of the site-generated leads actually complete their purchase online — sight unseen.

Additionally, site-generated customers visit an average of six homes before making a purchase, while offline leads look at 15. “It tells you that the knowledge the site users are getting is beneficial, which allows our sales team to achieve higher efficiency,” Horne says.

Other stats:

• 56.2% who start the lead generation process complete the entire demonstration and receive their housing report.
• 11.17% print their report or forward it to a friend.
• 3.14% email their report to a Wilshire Home sales rep for follow-up.
• Users spend an average of 6 minutes on the microsite.

I thought this to be a little ironic. I am burning through my feeds from all of the latest real estate news and at the end I see 2 articles.  Just a tiny bit contradictory.

No matter what the market does - the recent leveling off has required agents to tighten up their processes. One of the areas with the biggest room for improvement seems to be the online sales and marketing. How does your program fair in these competitive times?