lead generation: 2008 Marketing Plans...What you should know about spending your money - 12/04/07 01:52 AM
Everyone should be working on thier budgets for 2008.  With that in mind...I thought it was important to re-post an old blog of mine with some info for everyone about referral companies and 'lead generators'.  For those of you that have read this one before...sorry for repeating myself.  For those of you that havent, you need to read this before you choose a referral company.
Every agent knows that services like HomeGain and HouseValues are still licking their wounds after being crushed in the form of a $900,000+ profit loss and a recent lawsuit in the state of Washington.
But many agents still rely … (0 comments)

lead generation: Welcome, Amanda King! Century 21's International Realtor of the Year! - 11/27/07 01:00 AM
RECR would like to welcome Amanda King, Century 21's International Realtor of the Year, to the ActiveRain network!  I have personally worked with Amanda for about 4 or 5 years.  She has been taking exclusive referrals from my company for that entire time.  To date, she recieves about 30% - 40% of her annual business from our referrals...which for her amounts to about $5.5 million in sales annually. (not a bad ROI when you consider her total annual investment ranges from $5K - $8K.  But, dont take my word for it, check out her testimonial and many others here.)
Again, Congratulations Amanda!!  And … (0 comments)

lead generation: HouseValues and RealtyGenerator - Is this the End? - 11/26/07 04:37 AM
When I read credible blog posts, from real agents doing real business online - like this one from RealBlogging, I wonder if this is the beginning of the end for real estate marketing programs.
If you don't have time to read the entire post, it talks about RealtyGenerator, a real estate marketing service, being bought up by HouseValues, a lead generation program. Many agents have a huge distaste for "lead generators" to begin with - for the fact that much of the industry has been chewed up and spat out because of bad leads, junk leads and zero return on investment.
HouseValues just recently … (21 comments)

lead generation: Are All Lead Generation Companies Scams? - 11/23/07 07:19 AM
...Because it really makes my blood boil when I read things like this and this - about how agents get sucked into these great-sounding lead products and end up flushing their money over and over again and can't get out.
If you read some of those comments in the links, you'll find that even their ex-employees are jumping ship and siding with the consumer/agent.
I say, good for them.
Because if you're paying for something like a lead generation program, you'd better have something to show for it.
A Really Good Lead Generation Program will do 3 Things:
They will set up their system … (5 comments)

lead generation: 5 Things Every Agent MUST Know Before Choosing a Referral Company......www.RECR.com - 11/23/07 03:09 AM
Every agent knows that services like HomeGain and HouseValues are still licking their wounds after being crushed (in the form of a $900,000+ profit loss) in a recent lawsuit.
But many agents still rely on services like these to help them add to their existing business. And rightly so - because when done right, online referral efforts really DO pay off. 
So what should an agent know before they choose a "lead generation" company?
1. Know that no service, not even referral generation, will be 100% perfect all of the time.  Like other forms of business, real estate lead generation follows … (7 comments)