real estate listings: Don’t be surprised when you get a listing - 04/19/18 04:43 PM
Three ways to make your marketing more deliberate
 
For decades, agents have been happy to take on unexpected sellers who called from out of nowhere. The common wisdom was that agents had two main options when it came to winning listings: they could target one-on-one sellers by looking at FSBOs and Expireds or the whole neighborhood by farming with direct mail efforts. The third option — the holy grail —  was to land referrals and repeat clients — but as the NAR reports*, fewer than ¼ of sellers call the agent they used last time.
 
 
“Fewer than ¼ of sellers call the … (13 comments)

real estate listings: Finish 2017 Strong! Five Ways to Win More Business - 07/29/17 06:36 PM
Five ways to win more business as you close
out the second half of the year 
 
While our strong summer market continues to keep agents busy across the country, fall is just around the corner…. And you have only five months to close out 2017 with a bang! 
 
Below are five foolproof ways you can assess your business goals, tweak your projections and ramp up your business so 2017 is your best year yet.
 
1. Start with the goals you might not meet
Dust off the goals you set last winter and painstakingly analyze where you stand in terms of buyers, sellers, marketing plans, GCI, … (8 comments)

real estate listings: 8 ways to warm up your sphere and win more listings this fall - 08/31/16 03:16 AM
 
You have the contact information of hundreds, maybe even thousands of friends, neighbors and contacts in your CRM -- but do you know how to mine your database for listing opportunities? Here are eight awesome ways to engage potential sellers in your sphere this fall.
 
1. Offer a great discount
Team up with a local car wash to offer a Buy One, Get One deal you can print and distribute residents in your neighborhood and sphere. It doesn’t have to be a car wash deal, of course. You could also partner with a restaurant, bakery or any local business to give a discount on … (25 comments)

real estate listings: 6 PROVEN ways to land more listings (sourced from Active Rain users) - 06/22/16 06:55 AM
Yesterday, SmartZip sponsored a crowd-sourced Active Rain webinar discussing new listing generation strategies. Agents on Active Rain answered the following question:
 
“Share something you’re doing in your business that’s leading you to new listings”
 
And together with Active Rain, we gathered and shared six impressive, proven strategies that are helping agents to drive in new listings. Below is a short recap and a link to the original submission.
 
1. Leverage home valuation sites
Many agents, including Active Rain owner Ben Kinney, use valuation sites to generate seller leads. The webinar showed that about 50% of agents use these “AVM” squeeze pages to offer a … (46 comments)

real estate listings: How one agent can stay connected to 1,000 contacts for 14 years - 05/05/16 09:41 AM
Recent stats from the NAR show that 86% of buyers and 82% of sellers say they would use their agents again, but only 22% end up doing so. Why the massive gap? Some of it may have to do with how long homeowners are staying in their residences before selling. NAR shows that last year’s homebuyers plan to stay in their home for an average of 14 years.
 
In a world where you can generate new leads in a few clicks, you may not see the benefit of staying in touch with past clients over a 14 year span. And frankly, … (8 comments)