Archive for November, 2007

Holiday Tip from The Real Estate Marketing Coach - Working your Center of Influence

Monday, November 26th, 2007

Hello everyone,

I wanted to remind everyone that it is about time to send out your Christmas/Happy Holidays Cards. If you are not using toolboxcards.com yet, run as fast as you can and get signed up for it right now.

As everyone here knows, I am huge into sending greeting cards for almost every occasion, many of you have probably received a card from me.

Anyway, I sent out over 4,000 Christmas cards this year through ToolboxCards.com and guess how long it took me?

Exactly 12 minutes for all 4,000 cards, Incredible!!

Real Estate Marketing and Referral System - Send Greeting Cards from your Desktop like The Real Estate Coach

Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

Ok everyone, Toolboxcards.com have added another unbelievable feature to the system.

They have added the ability to send actual gifts in addition to gift cards from Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Starbucks and many others right along with your greeting card, one at a time.

I encourage you to check out the gifts you can now send with your cards. I sent two today. The company has added a whole line of gift items. When sending a card, drop down the ADD AN INSERT and click on GIFT. In addition to the Avenue Sweets which TBC has been offering, there are now gourmet coffees and teas, as well as nuts and cookies….You can now send a gift to someone with a card inside without leaving your computer!
And there is more good news…especially if you have accumulated a lot of points in your account. You can now pay for these gifts with points, not with money in your expense account. You pay for the shipping from your expense account, but not for the gifts themselves. Think about what that means:

So, If you have accumulated points, you can use them for the gifts without having to pay more money for them;

And if you don’t have a toolboxcards.com account yet, go get one now, it is becoming one of the top tools in my arsenal. I met with a friend of mine a few weeks ago named Robb Campbell who was introduced to me by our very own Brandon Patrick with Re/Max Elite in Nashville. Robb was the Re/Max Broker of the year last year for the entire Re/Max system as well as a member here at BAP and a very, very successful person.

He is so excited about toolboxcards.com and has plans to take it to the national level with the franchise and has already got several of his agents in the program and it is now a profit center for him. Anyway, It is very, very powerful and I am totally in love with it:)

Real Estate Technology Minute - Toll Free Call Capture Marketing Hotline

Friday, November 9th, 2007

Let me first say that as far as I know I was the second person in the real estate industry to use a call capture system back in 1993-4. I believe Terry Hunefeld who is the former COO of By Referral Only, Inc., now retired, was the first. Since Terry has been retired from the real estate business for many years I can stake the claim to having used a call capture system longer than any other real estate agent in the world and I have definitely been teaching the use of call capture systems longer than any other human being alive now that Terry Hunefeld is retired.

Although there is little debate over who, what, when and where the call capture made it’s way into the industry, every once in a while I hear someone say that Craig Proctor, another real estate trainer in the industry brought call capture systems to the real estate industry. Although Craig has been very instrumental in spreading the word about the benefits of using a call capture system in the industry as I have been for over 13 years, he was a few years behind Terry Hunefeld and myself.

I have made more money in my real estate business from using a call capture system than any other tool I have ever used, including the Internet. Although my online marketing efforts are catching up, I still get 40% of my overall “new” business through my call capture system and I still believe it is the most powerful tool for lead generation and client retention in existence today.

Additionally, a call capture system has another unique advantage and use that most people completely overlook and I have never really heard anyone else talk about. And that is using a call capture system to sell your real estate business. In other words, the call logs that you can get from a good call capture system can be instrumental in proving where and how your income is being made within your real estate business. There is a lot more to this and I will dig deep into this subject in a later article, but keep that in mind when deciding whether or not a call capture system might be right for your business.

So, the number one question I get about call capture systems is, “What Company Do I Use?”

First, let me just say that there are some great companies out there and all are set up differently and have different pricing. These companies are very technologically advanced and do some incredible things. I still remember my first call capture system, it was two answering machines wired together and mounted on a wall in my office:)

I have used the same company since 1998, yes, nine years and I can honestly say I do not have one negative thing to say about them which is very rare in the real estate industry when it comes to service providers. They are one of the best priced services and their customer support is unmatched. Additionally, I am currently in negotiations with them to integrate with BusyAgentPro, which as you probably know by now is one of the fastest growing business management systems in the industry with tens of thousands of users worldwide.

So, the company I use for my call capture system is FreedomVoice and the name of the service from FreedomVoice is AdTrakker. You can check them out directly, not through an affiliate link at www.adtrakker.net and feel free to sign up from that site or you can call their customer support line at 1-800-477-1477.

When you sign up for an AdTrakker account you will get a complete training system, marketing toolkit and online training course all written by me for FreedomVoice that is unmatched in the industry. With FreedomVoice, they don’t just give you the technology, they also care about making sure you have all the tools you need to start generating commissions as a result of your new system. Between the training manual, the toolkit and the training course, you get over 2,000 pages of marketing materials and hundreds of hours of audio and video training on how to implement a marketing plan along with your new call capture system.

If you would like to sign up through me you can also do so at:www.toolboxhotline.com.

Regardless of which call capture company you choose, you MUST get a call capture system today and I highly recommend FreedomVoice.

If you have any question about using a call capture system please do not hesitate to contact me or post your questions.

Real Estate Technology Minute - Multiple Lead Capture Pages

Wednesday, November 7th, 2007

One of the best marketing tools I have used in the last 4 years to market my real estate business has been developing many lead capture websites and driving only targeted traffic to those sites. In this day in age if you are still only driving traffic to one main website you are leaving a lot of money on the table.

The problem with most main websites is that it gives way too much information about every topic imaginable. This confuses website visitors who are there for only one reason. What is the reason they are at your site? Well, unless you are targeting a single type of prospect and sending all of those prospects to a page with information only on that topic, you really have no idea.

Some agents are accomplishing this by simply created targeted pages within their main websites and using what are called re-directed domain names to send traffic to those pages within their main site. While this is better than just sending traffic to the main page of your website, it still doesn’t cut it. The pages you want to send targeted traffic to should not contain any navigation to leave the site until they fill out a form to identify themselves. Most main websites have navigation at the top or at one of the sides of the pages which will not work as effective as a single page with an opt in form and no navigation.

For further information on this topic and to learn about a system that will allow you to create as many as these lead capture sites as you would like to target many niches in your market click here Real Estate Websites

The Real Estate Coach Explains How To Use This Blog to Improve The Marketing of Your Real Estate Business and Systems

Monday, November 5th, 2007

Let me ask you a quick question.

What is the main propellant of practically any business — the mechanism that keeps it alive and thriving?

Marketing

If that was your answer….good for you. We’re off to a good start. It means that you’re one of the few people in our industry today who understands this fundamental truth.

Marketing is the groundwork for every business. After all, marketing is getting people to try your service, getting them to buy over and over, and getting them to buy higher dollar amounts as well as refer their friends and family to you. Marketing includes sales, advertising, pr and a bunch of other things that aren’t so apparent. Without marketing, you have nothing, you have no customers. And with no customers, you have no business.

You see, marketing is the lifeblood of a business. It can make it or break it. It’s THE most important part. Yet it’s the least understood and the least used part of the business. Doesn’t make sense to me…does it to you?

It is more important now than ever in our industry with these competitive times. You’ve got to have an edge to compete with consolidators, utilities and the rest of the big boys. You’ve got to have an edge or you won’t survive.

The more I work with real estate agents and study their business and our industry and how you can stay ahead in these very competitive times, the more I’m convinced it boils down to one principle — marketing.

A Marketing Tune-up

Lets make sure you’re getting new customers coming in, old customers coming back, and customers purchasing higher dollar amounts.

I’m going to teach you the simple fundamentals of marketing — easy (almost secret) marketing techniques that make a lot of money. After all, you can do all sorts of billboards, radio and T.V. 4-color postcards and other traditional marketing, but if you ignore the basics, the money just won’t come that easily.

So, new or old marketing, we’re going to get back to the basics. Lets put basic marketing into place (if it isn’t already). If it is in place, lets refine it into a profit machine.

You’re going to learn Profit Strategies to outmaneuver your competitors and gain market share.

You’ll learn how to leverage —use the assets you already possess —to increase your profits in multiples.

You’ll learn that growing your business shouldn’t be stressful or scary. It should be a fun and exciting time to look at what you can accomplish. It’s a time to have a little fun, be a little nontraditional in your thinking.

You’ll blow your competition away. How do I know this? Because only 1 out of 100,000 Realtors know the dynamic marketing Profit Strategies I have been and will continue teaching you throughout this blog — Profit Strategies that can increase your profits up to 20 times over—that’s 2,000% growth!

By the time I’m done with you, you’ll have learned hundreds of Profit Strategies that will give your business stability and growth, a continuously renewable cash flow, and the opportunity to crush your competition and become an industry leader.

It really seems far-fetched I know. But maybe you’re fired up right now just thinking about it. You should be….I am. It’s real alright. Trust me here. Your soon going to see the most simple, yet the most powerful, money-making Profit Strategies that will skyrocket your business. They may even be ideas which you think are obvious to everyone — but they aren’t. Only a very few know and understand them — and even fewer actually implement them. I happen to be one of them. My clients are some of the other few in this industry. I’m going to show you not only how to keep your business alive and thriving, but how to bring it to the forefront of this industry. That’s what you want, isn’t it?

Keep reading this blog and you will have your eyes opened to a whole new way of running a successful real estate business.