We're better together!

I ran across a good discussion on Agent Genius. It started with a post by Matt Stigliano, “Are you barking up the wrong tree”.

I was asked why an agent should participate in a site that presents more than one agent to the consumer – the assumption being that agents will have to “fight” each other to get the attention of the consumer.

A great question – I think that when you are thinking about paying for leads from online providers you should consider a few things:

Size matters – You have to be found online. Some sites produce content that brings them a large audience (Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com etc). Others spend heavily to maintain lots of websites, advertising, SEO so consumers will find them online. They make investments to attract consumer attention and sell that audience to agents. Some sites promise consumers a bidding war among agents so that the consumer will pay the least for an agent’s services – that attracts a certain kind of consumer (and agent).

Competition – If you subscribe to a lead generation site that sells you an “exclusive territory” you will be the only agent in your area that gets the lead from them. A few of those consumers might trust that you are as good as anyone and not look any further. Or they might go to other places to find agents to compare. Just because you were the only agent referred from that site does not mean that you will not “fight” other agents for the business. It just means the consumer will have to go to more than one place to compare agents. As consumers rely more on online sources to find agents there will be more competition, not less. In all but a few cases you will have to compete for business regardless of the source of the lead and if you are not up to it you will not be as successful as you could be. Get good at selling your strengths – it is not a “one size fits all” world anymore.

Differentiation of Service and Skills – Matt hit the nail on the head when you said “I want the clients to be attracted to me and they can decide if they want to work with me or not”. If a site just has a list of agents with no differentiation then it is a free for all. We encourage agents to specialize in specific areas (we use community keywords that can be a town, neighborhood, subdivision, condo building – etc.), we encourage agents to post articles about those areas (market info, schools – the kind of content agents put on their newsletter/blog) so consumers can research areas that are not familiar to them and to illustrate the agent’s knowledge of the area. We also encourage agents to specialize in a market segment(s) – first time buyers, seniors, waterfront, condos etc. Another positive differentiator is client satisfaction – we have your clients login to rate your services. A positive referral directly from another consumer is helpful to an undecided consumer and is gold for the agent. Because many agents are together on one site it does not mean that they cannot differentiate their services – it allows them to specialize and attract clients that need what they have. Look at the most successful agents you know – don’t many of them specialize in some way?

Qualification – Agents qualify clients to make sure they are serious and clients qualify us to make sure we can do what they need us to do, that we are trustworthy, and that we can work well together. The more a client knows about what you do very well before he or she contacts you increases the odds of a good match. They will come to you with a warm feeling about your abilities, so they are qualified to some degree.

Value to Consumers – If a group of agents can provide the information that consumers really want and need to choose an agent wisely they will come to the site – we will pull them with the valuable information they want (for free) rather than spending money to try to get their attention. As an industry we spend many millions of dollars on advertising and promotion that doesn’t really help the consumer and may not help agents either.

Cost/Value to you – Any initiative requires some time and effort  – don’t forget about money required. Some online lead sellers ask for a significant part of your commission if you do a transaction with a client they sent to you, others sell “by the lead”. Their value is that they have spent the money to advertise, write consumer interesting content, and/or have a great number of listings to view. If we simply provide the information consumers want to research and select agents well we will have a great consumer following. The cost to run the site will be only a few dollars a month per agent. You will get to keep many more of your commission dollars.

This is something that I have spent a lot of time thinking about. You may see things differently and that is OK – this is just my attempt to help agents build their practice by bringing consumers some value rather than continuing to spend more money than many of us can afford to try to get their attention.

Best,

Don

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What disclosure responsibility does an industry expert have if they are being paid to promote a product or service? Rob Hahn asks the question.

Great post – link here

http://www.notorious-rob.com/2010/01/19/what-disclosures-for-sponsored-blogging-and-speaking/

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I arrived in New York anxious to meet the movers and shakers in real estate tech. I didn’t know a soul and had never been to a Bar Camp, but knew that the answers I needed were there. I had a simple idea that I needed to share to see if it has a future.

Real Estate Bar Camp is where industry people gather to talk about technology and how it can help your business. Many of the sessions focused on social networking – a timely and useful topic.

I signed in, told the folks at the desk that I was a vendor and asked if I could present at a session or two. Done – everyone was welcoming and helpful so it was looking good.

At my allotted time I stood alone in my corner of the presentation room quietly watching and listening to the well attended presentation at the other end of the room. No-one came to speak with me. I was a Bar Camp rookie with no reputation and no relationships and I was a vendor. I understand completely.

What I would have said

I wanted to share a new use of technology that will help real estate agents attract serious new clients online at a ridiculously low cost.

As real estate salespeople we advertise, manage our sphere of influence, blog, facebook, twitter, put our listings everywhere, join networking groups, buy leads, and do anything else we can think of to generate new business. We do many things and hope that new clients will find us somehow. Agents spend a lot of time and money trying to be everywhere a potential client might be.

The big idea – one searchable registry for all agents

The idea is to have many real estate salespeople present their services together on one website. Consumers would go to this single site to research and find the right agent for their particular needs anywhere in the US and Canada. We simply provide the information that consumers want and need in one place.

Individual agents and brokers do not have the size needed to compete with large industry websites. With many agents on the Agent Invitation site we can become the defacto agent search resource online.

Agents could present their qualifications and experience, differentiate their services, and attract new clients that need what they are really good at. Over time agents will be able to rely more on this site to attract new business and spend less time and money on other marketing and promotion activities.

Agent Invitation is version one of this website. Consumers can research neighborhoods across the US and Canada to quickly find out which agents:

-         focus on the neighborhood or community that interests them

-         specialize in their market segment – condos, luxury, first time buyers

-         speak their language

-         have happy clients.

Today we can develop, maintain and host a service like this for much less money than even a few years ago.

The cost to any one agent can be a few dollars a month, with no other fees.

Agents will be able to keep more hard earned commission dollars and spend less time and money on marketing. You can focus on providing great service to your clients.

What do you think? Does this sound crazy?

I need to know if agents will support this idea and what suggestions you have for Agent Invitation. That’s what I wanted to find out in New York. What do you think?

We’ll give the first 5,000 agents a free 12 month membership to get us ready for a consumer launch. If you think this idea has merit then sign up today and please tell your agent friends.

If you have issues or questions I would love to learn more (email don (at) agentinvitation.com). That’s the discussion I wanted to have at RE Bar Camp.

Was RE Bar Camp worth it?

Yes. I am really glad I went and would recommend it highly. I learned a lot and met lots of great people. One person was particularly kind.

When I was standing alone, hosting a discussion with myself (and feeling more than a little awkward and embarrassed), a kind soul walked past the crowd at the other end of the room, smiled and asked what I would like to talk about. We spent a delightful few minutes together. Thank you Nancy Chu, your very thoughtful gesture is appreciated.

I’ll be back, you should come too. Watch for a RE Bar Camp in Toronto May 7^th..

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I attended part of the Virtual Real Estate Bar Camp on Tuesday, a great event. Thanks to Jim Cronin of the Real Estate Tomato for organizing it.

I was lucky enough to hear Rob Hahn (7DS, Notorious ROB) say something that we never hear and all need to remember. He said that if a real estate agent spends one hour on social networks they should spend 2 hours becoming a great agent. The hour comparisons are for illustration – the point is we are in the client satisfaction business and should never forget that.

Your popularity on social networks can enhance and expand your circle of contacts, but is all for nothing without you doing a consistently excellent job and getting great reviews from your clients.

Social networking is not worth much unless you can back it up with happy clients that will recommend your services. Good news travels fast but bad news travels faster. We need to remind ourselves of the simple truths sometimes as our head spins with new technologies that compete for limited time in our day.

All the best,

Don

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Hi – Just a quick note to wish everyone a fabulous New Years Eve celebration. Hope you are able to spend time with friends and family and recharge your batteries.

2010 starts quickly with the “Virtual” Real Estate Bar camp on January 4^th http://virtualbarcamp.com/ and the New York RE Bar Camp on January 12^th http://rebarcamp.com/newyork/.  If you attend the New York event you qualify for a discounted rate for the Inman Connect conference  http://www.inman.com/events/real-estate-connect-nyc-2009 at the same location – discount code is on the New York RE Bar Camp site.

We still need our real estate agent members and friends of Agent Invitation to spread the word to all of their agent friends – never any referral fees (we do not sell leads or ask for any part of your commission) , and no membership fees for 2010 if you sign up now.

Remember, our goal is to provide the best single place for consumers to research and reach out to agents online, to do this with high quality and at the lowest possible cost to the member agents.

We want real estate agents to take back control of the cost to attract new clients online and become a more powerful force in the industry.

We’re better together.

Stay safe,

Don

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Hi – I emailed a few industry bloggers in the past week to share our whitepaper about the future of our business. Brian Boero from 1000Watt Blog replied a few days ago saying that he had not been able to read the paper yet, but would have a look later that day. Thank you for your note Brian. It only takes a second to acknowledge an email and I am encouraged that professional courtesy is not yet dead entirely.

Is it that the principals from Inman’s Future of Real Estate Marketing, Sellsius, Bloodhound Blog, Agent Genius, 7DS – Notorious ROB and Transparent Real Estate do not open email from folks that they don’t know (not in their circle of industry friends), or they do not value another point of view (that would surprise me), or maybe they have looked at the material and don’t think it merits their further interest or comment (hope that’s not the case, but it is surely up to them). Maybe the email address I used is bad, but I did not get any bounces – maybe caught in a spam filter?

It’s more likely that they’re all simply overloaded and can’t get to all the email that is sent to them – happens to us all. We react to the pressing issues of the day, and get to the other stuff when we can if we remember.

Maybe it’s just the holidays and they have kind of “checked out” till after the first of the year. Not a bad thought – maybe I should kick into holiday mode too.

Hope to hear from the industry oracles when they are able. In the mean time I would like to wish you and yours a peaceful, warm and relaxing holiday season.

All the best,

Don

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I took some time to work through why residential real estate agents must pay attention to the changes in our industry, what we can do to take better control of our cost to attract new clients, and how we can secure our place in the future.

It is a quick read and I think you’ll find it interesting and thought provoking.

The e-book is available for download on the blog (see right) and on the agent page at agentinvitation.com.

If you think it is worth looking at please share it with every agent you know. I am very interested in any thoughts and observations you might have.

Please contact me directly – don (at) agentinvitation.com.

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Iman News reported on the issues surrounding the Competition Bureau and CREA – “Canada’s gov’t pushes for MLS changes” – click here to read

It is worth a look. Basically the Competition Bureau in Canada wants to allow brokers to put a sellers listing on the MLS and provide no other service, and for the seller name and contact information to be on the listing on MLS.ca so any buyer can contact the seller directly.

The interesting thing to me is that if Google indexes all of the listings (as they can demonstrate now) so you can search “Real Estate Anytown”,  all a seller needs to do is put his own listing up in a format that will index (will be supplied by someone in the FSBO business I am sure) and return a result from Google and he has successfully bypassed the MLS entirely.

Isn’t it time to quit resisting change and to find out how we can stay relevant in this new world?

We cannot litigate our way to prosperity – why not just accept that the good old days are gone, they will never come back,  and get on with it?

Any opinions?

Don

don@agentinvitation.com

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NAR has released Realty Property Resource, a new service to corral all the data available on all commercial and residential properties in the US into one database “for the members”.  You will fund the effort and your association and their partners will make some money selling accurate property valuations, school information, neighborhood demographic and psychographic (I don’t know either) information and forward looking market analysis.

It is free to all NAR members – that’s good isn’t it? It‘s essentially a national MLS without the co-broke information (which may not be needed if the co-broke goes away someday).  So, anyone that has a number can get on the site and quickly crank out accurate MVA’s, CMA’s, Market Forecasts for any address in the country and pass them on to anyone that might want them for free!

If you doubt the valuation you will now have to defend your expert opinion vs all the science money can buy – good luck. Maybe it’ll be best to just hide behind the data.

It will help consumers greatly, but I am not sure that it helps the individual salespeople defend their value on the ground, face to face with a real breathing client when they are negotiating commissions. It’s tough to charge for services that are given away freely by others.

This seems the way things are going and resistance is futile (?). You do need to be aware and figure out how you will run your business in the face of this change. Anything given away for free has no value in a consumers mind. Do you think your peers will give away these services?

I don’t know, I am just asking…

Don

You would do well to know more about this. You could scan:

http://www.realtor.org/about_nar/realtors_property_resource

http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2009/11/09/realtors-wary-of-zillow-build-their-own-data-tool/

http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com/nar-leaps-into-the-fray-in-a-big-way

or watch the NAR webcast (if you have an hour and a half).

http://webcast.streamlogics.com/audience/index.asp?eventid=35680788

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