ERA Knight Launches new website for agent training and development. Agents can produce their online business plans. The new site is www.myrealestatecareeronline.com
January 30, 2011
August 21, 2008
Business is everywhere. Phone calls make it happen!!!!
Potential sales are everywhere. I don’t care what kind of sales you are in. There is always the possibility of obtaining a lead from your everyday life. A rookie asked me today,” How do I get more leads.” I guess when you are a rookie, leads seem so hard to come by. Well, you can’t sit and wait for it to come to you. You have to go get it. I make propsecting phone calls everyday. I go through my list of people I know and I call them. For agents who have been in the business a few years, they have become use to having old customers and clients call them. I do. I stay in touch by my mailing campaign. But when you need to drum up more business, you have to call them or go see them. You want these people in your sphere of influence to help you find more business. “Hey Rick how is it going. My freind Bob is thinking about selling his house” That is the kinda lead I want. I want a personal referral.
When the market is slower you have to prospect more. Period. Prospecting means talking to people. Calling them. Seeing them. Talking about the real estate business. Yesterday I was making calls in the morning to my list of people I know and leaving messages about properties I have for sale. One guy called me back and offers to take me to lunch. Well it turns out that he is in the market and we went to look at a home after lunch. Another guy I had called, contacted me back and said his father wants to sell his property.
Bottom line. I was not sitting in the office waiting for the phone to ring. I was calling. Make those prospecting calls each day. You have to. So if you find yourself just sitting at your desk doing nothing but waiting for the phone to ring or killing time. Pick up the phone and call. Call freinds, family, old clients, old prospects, For sale by owners, expired, vacant land owners, and investors.
Good Luck and remember if you have a referral for the Lake Norman area please contact me. We will take great care of them.
Rick Knight
ERA Wilder Realty 1-888-892-7373 Ext 105
Lake Norman, Cornelius, Mooresville, Huntersville, Charlotte, Troutman, Denver NC
August 8, 2008
Virtual Tours should be mandatory
I love Virtual Tours on listings. But what is surprising to me is how few agents use them. I am putting them on all my house and condo listings. Also I will be adding them for each land and lot listing. I just got a listing that was an expired. The previous agent had not used a virtual tour. In the first 24 hours of taking the listing there were over 20 views of the tour. Most tour vendors have traffic tracking that can be viewed and emailed to your clients. What a great way to stay in touch with your seller. Also on REALTOR.com you can use the traffic reports to see how many page views and how many times someone clicked on the tour.
So, it seems as web site traffic goes up the showings go up a week or so after. And vice versa. Another point is that when you are getting no showings but plenty of web traffic you have to discuss with the seller that the market is making other selections to go see and eliminating theirs. I think REALTOR.com is a great tool for tracking web traffic of out of town buyers. Most of the buyers I have spoken with that use REALTOR.com, have started there but ended up changing to a local broker’s web site.
I just sold a condo site unseen except for the virtual tour and a youtube.com video. So why not put them on every listing? If you are a new agent, take the advise that you are going to put this in your budget for each listing. The company I use is Visualtours and they charge $29.95 a month for unlimited tours. The company I used before sent a photographer out and did everything for $75 a pop. Either way I think our clients deserve the best Internet exposure. It also help other agents preview the home for potential buyers. I do that all the time. When available. I wish they were mandatory. Set yourself from the pack and do tours on all your listings. Most companies brag about tours but when you look at your mls you will see that most agents do not have them.
Good Luck. And remember if you have a referral for the Lake Norman, NC area. Please give me a call. We will take care good care of your referral. And use a virtual tour.
Rick Knight
1-888-892-7373 Ext 105
June 12, 2008
Turning lunch time into commissions
We all have to eat. So why not have lunch with a client or prospective client. I go to lunch every week with past customers or agents or recruits. Or I go have coffee with them at Starbucks. This is really real estate basics but I see a lot of agents who do not use this time effectively.
It is a great way to stay in touch with your freindsand family and past clients. I love to go to where they work and visit them. The reason I do this is because I get to meet their co workers. Has the light bulb gone off yet??? Yes I get to meet the guys they work with. They get to meet me not as an agent but a freind of their co worker. Then the find out what I do and many times I get a referral from someone in the office who needs to buy or sell.
Personal referrals are the most valuble to you. The trust factor is already built in. And trust is one of the major factors a seller and buyer use to determine who they are going to work with.
Let’s talk about a buyer and lunch or coffee. Many times you get buyer leads from ads or email. They just want info and have not decided on an agent yet. Try this. Ask them to meet you for an interview. ” Can we meet for coffee at Starbucks and you can interview me to be your agent?” Then shut up and wait for them to answer. There are going to say yes, no or maybe. It makes them realize that you want to earn their business and that they have a no obligation approach to meeting you. Some buyers don’t set appointments with agents because they are not yet comitted to buying. Some don’t want to commit to an agent yet. I have used this technique on several occasions.
The reason I thought about it this week, was because one of the buyers that I met using this interview technique stopped by to see me. I sold them a house on Lake Norman and since have sold them a commercial building. And yes they are on my mailing list. And we go to lunch from time to time. So when you read my blog and think about how easy I make it sound. Ask yourself can I do this? Sure you can, but do you want to? You have to love selling real estate to be good at. So if you don’t love it I would suggest getting another job and let the ones of us who love it, do all the business.
As always if you have a referral for the Lake Norman, Mooresville, Cornelius, Davidson, Denver, Charlotte, Concord, Statesville and Troutman North Carolina areas. Send them my way. I promise we will take good care of them.
PS. I am taking the wife and kids to Bermuda for a vacation. Back in action the week of June 24th
Rick Knight
Direct mail to sphere of influence is a money maker
This week I was on a listing appointment and yes, I got the listing. The client called a few months ago and we got together this week. I have probably been sending mail to them for about 15 years. This will be the fourth real estate transaction as their agent. When the wife called me a few weeks back I asked her if she had been receiving my post cards. ” Yes,” she said, “I keep them in my planner to remind me to call you to sell our house.”
If you are new to the business please remember that real estate can be easy. Stay in touch. Stay in touch. Stay in touch. If you are out of sight then you are out of mind. What you are trying to accomplish, is that when they think of real estate they think of you. When they think of you, they think of real estate. It is not that hard. You have to follow up with great service.
You can be someone’s agent for life just by staying in touch. I have probably spent $50 to $60 on mailings to this client over the last 15 years. Was it worth it? Four sales with a sales volume over $800,000. Yes it was. So get your planner out and mark down each day of the month that you are going to mail to your sphere of influence. Make a plan and stick to it. The dividends will pay off.
Many new agents hesitate to start contacting the people they know or they assume the family and freinds will just contact them because they sent a business card when they started. I learned the hard way in my early real estate career. I lost a few sales because I did not stay in touch on a regular basis. You have to remind them and you have to show them success. Just listed and just sold cards are the simplest way to do it. When you run into a freind or family member and they ask,” are you still in real estate?” You know you are not marketing yourself as a real estate professional.
Direct mail to your sphere of influence is a money maker. So shake it !!!!!!! In my opion it is the most profitable of all ways to market yourself. Start your direct mail campaign today. And of course, if you know someone moving to Lake Norman, North Carolina, please send us the referral. We will take good care of them.
Rick Knight ERA Wilder Realty
Toll free 1-888-892-7373 Ext 105
June 11, 2008
Real Estate Sales and Sushi
I had lunch with a client yesterday who has been on my mailing list for almost my whole real estate career. I am closing a property he owns next week. Interesting sale, because it will be about our 10th closing together. It made me think about the importance of follow up and working your sphere of influence. You not only have to work your sphere of influence with a direct mail campaign but you have to also follow up with personal visits and phone calls. Meeting for lunch or meeting for a cup of coffee is a great way to stay in touch. Real Estate Sales is not a hard as some make it out to be. If you love what you do and you can work with people you like then it really does not seem like work.
The listing he gave me was a condo. The buyer called me off a web site and I asked her to preview the videos on youtube. She did and then went to the virtual tour. And before I knew it, we had a contract and now it is time to close. I have added her to my sphere of influence mailing list. And I will be taking her out for sushi soon.
So get out of the office and call someone on your sphere and take them out for some spicy tuna.
And of course, if you have a referral for the Lake Norman, NC area please call me toll free 1-888-892-7373
Real Estate Marketing Basics Keeps the Phone Ringing
As I work with new agents, they always seem to be looking for a new way to build a better mouse trap. Some of them have a hard time grasping the basics. There are just a few basics that any agent can follow and have a very successful career.
#1 Contacting your sphere of influence.
This can give an agent their highest return on real estate marketing investment. If I was only given one tool in my real estate marketing tool box, I would pick this one. I make commissions all year long from staying in touch with this group. Direct mail, email, phone calls, personal visits, lunch appointments, social events, holidays and the list goes on and on.
When you are reviewing your budget please put this at the top of your list. 100 people will cost about $600 a year for a direct mail campaign. What budget ? You can’t be in the real estate business without a budget. So start there. When I interview a new agent we discuss budget. It lets me know as a manager what we have to work with. If your budget is $5,000 or more a year then this is no biggie. If your budget is $0……….Don’t laugh……. some agents have a budget of almost nothing but they are in the business. Well I say go get a part time and make $600 to have at least a direct mail campaign to 100 people. The flip side is when an agent has a large budget and they spend spend spend on everything but a direct mail campaign to their sphere. It makes me want to pull my hair out.
My sphere of influence usually needs me every five years. But they can send me referrals all year long. So for 100 people you have the ability to make 10 to 20 closings or referrals. Some don’t use me because they are out of state but they call me for advise and I refer them to another broker and get paid. It is a beautiful thing.
So if you are spending spending spending on all this other crazy stuff, just stop it. Make a plan of action to start a direct mail campaign. Just listed post cards and just sold post cards are the very best because they show your sphere what you do. SELL REAL ESTATE !!! I am not cook so I don’t need a recipe card. I don’t need a card reminding me to change my clock back for daylight savings. I do want people to know I sell real estate.
Real estate marketing basics. Get a data base of family, friends, neighbors, spouse’s freinds and relatives, past customers. Then start a just listed / just sold post card campaign to them. Call them. Go see them. Email them. Work your sphere. Have a party and invite them. If it is in your budget. You want them to think of you when they think of real estate.
oh yeah. You have to give great service as a real estate professional or you are waisting your money and their time.
More to come on working your sphere and the basics. Start your plan right now !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and send me a referral for Lake Norman, NC
June 10, 2008
I love youtube.com
I use youtube.com for my real estate sales business. I also use it to to learn new songs for my guitar playing. I use it for doing research for any upcoming trip. I have noticed that more and more web sites have youtube.com videos. If you are in sales you must. I say ” MUST !!!” get with the program.
Check out www.youtube.com then search for Rick Knight ERA Wilder Realty
The commercials in red were produced by Time Warner cable for my TV ads on the local cable channel. I just then post them on youtube.com.
