Welcome,
I am a real estate educator and trainer in the field. Most trainers are national. I am local, I recruit new and experienced sales agents, and many times have to start from square one. I am there with them, I make calls, role play, all the things we do, only for me its not for a week, it is for weeks, months, to get a person up and running, to go for the gusto. I admit it, I also am a boomer. I am the age of the average seller, not buyer. That is the point of this blog, those of us who are experienced, and have credibility, and know what we are doing, may be boomers, and we may not have a great online presence.
This is a blog from the trenches. My company has an AMAZING WEBSITE, not to brag, but I think it is the BEST in the country. We have Web 2.0 technology and we have Trulia and Zillow right on the site, when a customer clicks on a property - and BTW, 80% that go there go to click on a property, not check Realtors out. When a customer clicks on a property, they can see what is going on in the area, what has SOLD for real, through a website smashed into ours called Zillow - they get their info from the local town hall databases very cool and the customer can also find out what the popularity factor is in the neighborhood through Trulia. VERY fun site, if you don't know about these check them out: www.c21accessamerica.com, www.trulia.com and www.zillow.com.
The website is amazing, the web is amazing to me, almost as amazing as going to the moon when you think about it. I know what the average experienced very successful REALTOR is asking themselves right now - is this worth it? Am I really getting leads from this? The top producers I know, don't have the time to write blogs, nor the time even to take good pictures (but they must make the time for that) They don't have time to write amazing descriptions of the property with good grammar and without abbreviations. I have to say, although part of my job is to teach technology, and I do, to our company, I secretly was wondering why are we doing this? Are we the tail wagging the dog, is all of my attention and influence changing things or are things changing and I am just starting to 'get it'?
The truth is, we, the company I work for, does have a call center. Every call that comes in, every one, and every Internet lead that comes in, is tracked. We know our sources, and its scary. Print ads account for 10% of the calls, The Internet and signs tie at 35% each, on average, the rest are from open houses, yellow pages, and unknown sources. I am a stats guru, so I do pay attention to the numbers. You can call me anytime if you want to know numbers. (860) 378-1456.
My grown children are and always have been a good study group for me, they and their friends do everything on the net. My oldest daughter won't pick up her phone but will answer text messages. So this is what I decided. The buyers out there are not looking for an agent, but they are looking for a home. If you the agent get your name out there on-line in every-way possible, with credibility, they are going to find you and call you (and they might be my children). The credibility comes from getting your name out there. This, Active Rain, is a great site for it, so is linkedin.com.
I wish more good experienced professional agents would do this, then when they google YOUR town, they won't find people that have never sold a house in your town. Check it our yourself! In my area, using a typical google, or yahoo, or hotmail search, companies come up that I have never heard of in my 27 years in the biz, and most of the agents that are listed are agents I know for a fact have not sold anything in my area, and possibly have not sold anything in any area! So Agents, PLEASE - take some time, and get yourself listed on these sites, get noticed before....... your market-share is gone and you don't know what happened!
Ciao - (this is my first blog, feel free to email me and give me your ideas)
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