Contest Below - But First, a story........
In a recent featured post, Cari Corbalis wrote "I've NEVER heard a buyer or seller say their agent contacted them TOO MUCH!". In her post, Cari speaks about how she is always ensuring that her clients know what she is doing for them, no matter how small it may seem to her.
I love that!
Our new owner here on ActiveRain, Ben Kinney, does something very similar in his business. This year, Ben's team will do over 650 transactions. That's a crap ton of deals! And even with that many deals happening, his team ensures that every single client is communicated with about what is happening with their transaction....Every. Step. Of. The. Way.
You're probably thinking, 'oh sure, he has a big team, so that's why they can communicate everything'. Wrong. They have one person that manages all of their listings, and one person that manages all of their pending deals. At any given time that can be 50-80 transactions for one person. And even despite this, every seller and every buyer knows EXACTLY what is happening with their transaction. Every detail is shared.
Let's look at an example of a seller. In the beginning they ask their sellers how often they would like to be communicated with. They give them the option of daily, or weekly. Slightly more folks pick weekly, but there are plenty that wish to be communciated with daily. What the heck would you communicate with someone daily? Ben's team has figured it out.
They have taken the entire sale and broken it down to 90 specific things they do for each listing (this varies depending on the type of listing. Lake front homes have a few different things, condos have a few different things, etc.) Many of the things they communicate to their sellers are the type of thing that most agents take for granted.
Here's an example. They place the listing on every real estate website in Washington State. How? They put it in the MLS. But your average client doesn't know what this means. They don't understand that by putting it in the MLS it will end up on John L. Scott, or Windermere or RE/MAX in addition to being on Keller Williams and Ben's own site. It also ends up on Zillow, Trulia, REALTOR.com and many many other sites. Every agent in Bellingham (where Ben sells homes) is going to have their properties show on these sites, but very few are going to actually show the seller that they did this. By showing their seller that they have placed their property on every competing site, Ben effectively eliminates any thoughts his client has that some other brokerage would do a better job selling the home. And at the same time he is showing them value.
They communicate EVERY SINGLE THING THEY DO.
Ordered title? Yep, they tell them. Received title? Yep, they tell them. Ordered the sign? Yep, they tell them. Had the sign installed? Yep, they tell them (they tell them even though in most cases the client can look out their window and see the sign, doesn't matter. They tell them). Had a showing? Yep, they tell them. Got feedback? Yep, they tell them. Wrote a blog post about the property? Yep, they tell them. Put the listing on Windermere? Yep, they tell them (and they show them the property on that site). Same for every other site in town.
Here's a few more things they communicate to the client that I bet many of you do not (and this isn't even close to all of them)
* add additional showing instructions and open house information to the MLS (could they have done this when they entered the house in the MLS to begin with? Yes. and they do. But they break it out and tell the client about it separately)
* Upload supplemental and virtual tours to the MLS
* Added the lockbox
* Create open House flyer
* Have seller approve open house flyer (you do this, right?)
* Create e-flyer
* Share e-flyer with client
* Feature listing on Craigslist (every two days)
* Post listing on Facebook Business Page
* Post listing on Twitter (every day)
* Revamp photos and remarks (after six days)
* Send seller gift card to help with move (before they close. They do this one week in. A gift card to a hardware store in the area to help them purchase moving supplies)
And this is only the tip of the Iceberg!
There literally isn't one thing they don't tell the client they did. Why? Two reasons.
1. At the end of the day, they want to make sure that the client knows exactly what they did to earn the fees that they charge.
2. Having a system for how they work every listing ensures that they keep the same high standards in place and make sure that every seller is treated the same, even when they have 70 listings at any one time.
How the Heck Do They Do This With One Person and 50-80 Listings????
This is a valid question. They use technology. In fact, they built it. There wasn't anything like this available, so they went out and built Brivity. If you are interested in how it works, you can request a demo of Brivity here and we'll show you how you can use it to streamline your business and put a similar system in place.
The Contest
We want you to share your process. What do you do for each and every one of your clients? Anyone can participate. Do you sell loans? Tell us your process. Are you a home inspector? Tell us your process. Of course, if you list houses, tell us your process. Do you just help buyers? Tell us your process.
While you write your blog post explaining your process, we want you to think about how effective you are at communicating your process to your buyer/seller/client. How much of what you actually do gets communicated to your seller. Ben doesn't spend one second of any year worrying about losing clients. Why? Because he knows that his clients get tremendous value from using his service. Part of the reason why is he has clearly defined for them the value he provides.
Once you have written your blog post, please share a link to your post in the comment section of this blog post. Entries will be accepted until October 19th at 11:59pm Pacific Time.
The Prize
Two people will be selected from the participants of this contest to receive a free year of Brivity ($1188 value), the process management tool that Ben created and uses in his business. (And if you sign up today, and want to get started, and then end up being one of the people selected, it's fine, we'll refund your money).
One person will be selected at random to win a free year of Brivity.
The second person will be selected to win a free year of Brivity because we look at your blog post and think "holy cow, they do a ton for their clients, and a system like Brivity would probably help them a ton to streamline their business and help them communicate all the awesome stuff they do with their client".
Everyone who enters will receive 1000 ActiveRain points.
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