It’s Saturday, a day to play and laugh at my kids as they make complete fools of themselves as they beg to go to Peter Piper Pizza, Chuck E Cheese or one of the other 1000 things there is to do here in Arizona. Although I have made a commitment to not work on weekends, (evidently my wife thinks I work too much) I am sneaking this post in, shhhh don’t tell her.
One of our tenants moved out yesterday so I spent this morning looking for a locksmith. It is this mundane task that sparked this post. So, I was looking for a locksmith, where do you think I looked? The yellow pages? Yea right, Facebook? Well Yes, Normally I do go to Facebook as 8 out of 10 others do, like me they no longer trust conventional marketing, they reach out to their social networks for referrals. No, this time I went to Google. This property is in north Phoenix, one of my “friends” could surely recommend a locksmith they have worked with in the past but it may not be someone geographically convenient. So I went to Google. “LockSmith in Phoenix” is what I searched for. There were 238,000 results-who knew there were that many locksmiths in Phoenix? Anyway, I am looking for a locksmith to do a task-change the locks-because its a task, I probably don’t have to worry about someone doing a bad job at changing the locks-is that even possible? It is because of this that cost is what I am looking for now, find me a locksmith in my area that doesn’t charge an arm and a leg. I found one, LockSmiths-R-US01 (that wasn’t the name by the way) $19 trip charge and $25 for labor. I can handle that. There was a time when consumers would say “that’s the one” and dial the number, but more and more are digging deeper into the search results. I am one of those.
Back to LockSmiths-R-US01. Rather than just dial the phone number, I next Google’d LockSmiths-R-US01, and boy am I happy that I did. Why? Well the second Google search revealed numerous complaints about LockSmiths-R-US01 and their bait and switch attempts. Yep, it seems that the $44 many expected to pay turned into $125 . Obviously not the kind of company I want to do business with. So, next.
Its this process that sparked this Saturday post. So you are probably thinking, what does this have to do with Real Estate, dude..you are a title rep, talk about real estate-tell me how to grow my Arizona real estate business! Well it has everything to do with real estate. You know that search engines, specifically Google are a REALTOR’s best friend right? Say YES. OK, well, you work so hard to write great content in your website, you may even pay someone for SEO services so that your website/blog/video are the first site that appears when someone looks for “4 bedroom 2 bath homes is val vista lakes Gilbert AZ” But then what? More and more consumers are doing what I did. Its not good enough to be on the 1st page of Google, now consumers want Google to say that you are a good person, company, broker, REALTOR!
How do you do that? Well there are many ways to start building an online presence but start with YELP.
What Is Yelp?
Yelp allows consumers to share the experiences they’ve had with local businesses and lets business owners share information about their business with their customers. Simply put, it’s word of mouth– amplified.
This is the part where I put my REALTOR cap on. If I was a REALTOR, I would be awesome of course, a top producer of course, but I would also be buddy buddy with YELP. If I was a REALTOR, I would ask every person that I help buy or sell a home, to leave me an online review in YELP. Why? Well because I want you to find me when you look for “4 bedroom 2 bath homes is val vista lakes Gilbert AZ” But I also want you to see others that have worked with me sing my praises when you do your 2nd search in Google for Stephen Garner, REALTOR. (I am not a REALTOR by the way so don’t expect to find anything.)
This is a review that I found from a CONSUMER in YELP for a local title company……..posted on 6/8/2009 OUCH!
I omitted the name of the title company-Yes, I am a nice guy!
“As if going through the process of buying a house isn’t stressful enough, having a crappy title company is even worse.
I should’ve gotten the hint, when the title company told me they were going to send a courier to pick up the earnest check for our house. Waited, waited, waited some more… by 4p, I called the title company again, and their response was a surprised one:
“*gasp*, the courier hasn’t been by yet, oh my! Well maybe they’ll stop by on Monday”.
Um, yeah, that’s not professional! Don’t tell me something and then not do it (one of my pet peeves)! So many papers, so many deadlines that they asked from us, and when it comes time for the title company to do something in return, they weren’t as quick to respond.
Closing day…got a call from the title company at 10:43a, “Hi, can you and your husband be at our office by 12:30p to sign your paperwork, oh and bring at least $200 extra, just in case there are some unforeseen fees we haven’t add. Thanks!”
Mind you, I work in Central City Phx, my hubby works in Scottsdale…. AND we still had to get a certified check or money order.
Got to the closing, our Realtor was there, the notary was there…title company, no where in sight (and it was in their building). Started signing papers, read them first and saw, pages after pages of our names misspelled (letters added, letters intertwined, other spellings of our names), it was endless. The notary’s response… just cross out the misspelled name (or word) , date it and write out the correct spelling. That’s real reassuring….such an important document, signing our lives away for the next 30 years and the title company wasn’t in sight, to take back the papers, correct the spellings of our names, reprint the papers and have us sign them.
Sheesh… every time the notary left to ask the title company a question, our Realtor would look at us and apologize…
So, in end, avoid this like the swine flu…Ask your Realtor or broker who the title company is and if you are able to change it, do so.
Now, before you go and run out and write a review for yourself as a REALTOR, DON’T-It’s a complete waste of time and quite egotistical. Yelp is a review site where people that have worked with you get to review YOU, not where agents can review themselves.
Whether you know it or not many consumers will check you out before they meet you at your office, a house or let you over their own house for a listing appointment. What will they find? Start building your online reputation, often times the only thing that separates you from another REALTOR or real estate agent is what others say about you.
Look below, this is a 1st page result for Echo Coffee
1st and 2nd results-company website
3nd result-YELP
Because it doesn’t matter how amazing you are or say you are as a REALTOR, Real Estate Agent, Loan Officer, Dentist, Doctor, Restaurant, Handyman or Locksmith. If Google says you are a bad REALTOR, Real Estate Agent, Loan Officer, Dentist, Doctor, Restaurant, Handyman or Locksmith then you are a bad one, because Google is never wrong. 
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