Archive for January, 2008
Filed Under ( Marketing) by admin on January-24-2008
The ABCs of CRM
By Kate Kirby, HouseValues, Inc.
In a new year that’s as ugly as this one is shaping up to be, you may be tempted to shove your real estate business into a dusty corner and watch reruns of “Flip This House” until the market gets better.
Unfortunately, that won’t pay the bills. So let’s get back to the basics: your ABCs.
A is for acceptance. It’s time to acknowledge the situation and find a better way to pay the bills. In down times, agents in denial will be looking for a new career in a couple of months. Wise agents, however, see these times as the opportunity to reinvigorate their business.
B is for bonds and building relationships. As a real estate professional, you know the most important thing you do is build relationships with people. Whether they’re first-time buyers, investors, sellers, past clients… it’s the relationships you build that lead these prospects to become your clients. To be truly successful, it’s essential that you build many of these relationships at the same time.
Without any tools, relationship building is time-consuming. But a customer relationship management (CRM) tool can support you and save time, enabling you to dramatically scale your business and income.
C is for CRM. What is CRM, you ask? According to Wikipedia, customer relationship management “covers concepts used by companies to manage their relationships with customers, including the capture, storage and analysis of customer, vendor, partner, and internal process information.” It’s what you do every day, but with a tool helping you.
With a CRM system, today’s downturn becomes manageable—and much less scary—because you have a pipeline of potential future business and an easy way to tap into it.
YRI Update: Read how you can be the Difference in our "Ride for the Cure" Campaign–Click Here, NOW!
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Unique Insurance Policy Protects Against Home Value Loss
by Jeff Ward,
Almost everyone in the real estate world has represented a client buying a new home or condo, where there is concern over the unknown as it relates to potential rezoning….or even eminent domain type decisions…. in their new community.
Or how about the client trying to sell a house, where there’s a pending controversial decision being made by local government to widen a highway or build a new shopping mall down the street, which will cause all kinds of noise and congestion issues. These types of concerns and conflicts occur routinely around the country. We hear and read about them daily.
Now there’s a unique and affordable policy of insurance available to new homeowners, which will protect the value in their home if there’s a rezoning or re-planning type event causing their property value to drop. It’s called Home Value Safeguard (HVS) and is backed by certain underwriters at Lloyds of London.
This “Peace of Mind” protection was developed in response to the controversial 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain in the case Kelo v. New London. That decision gave more power to governmental agencies to repossess or condemn land for private or public use. After additional research on the issues facing many homeowners and lenders, the HVS coverage was then broadened to protect homeowners for any type or re-planning or unforeseen redevelopment type events, which have negative consequences to homeowners in a neighborhood or community.
Effective Jan 1, 2008, new homeowners or people refinancing their home or condo can purchase the HVS policy on line by visiting the HVS website…www.hvsinsurance.com. For less than $300 premium per year the policy provides up to $200,000 loss of market value when the home is sold….plus up to $50,000 in reasonable relocation costs…to help relieve the expense of moving.
The HVS launch has been closely watched by the large realtor firms, mortgage lenders, title insurers, mortgage brokers and homeowner insurance carriers. It’s not often we see new insurance products offered in the real estate market that have real value.
Want more information for your clients? Click Here for HVSInsurance
YRI Update: Read how you can be the Difference in our "Ride for the Cure" Campaign–Click Here, NOW!
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2008 The Opportunity of Education
By Howard Brinton
I’m always energized by the power I feel when surrounded by like-minded top industry professionals who are willing to share business growth tips and strategies that have helped them attain the kinds of careers they never imagined.
When I was coming up as a young Realtor, I would have loved to hear and see what the best in the business were doing to succeed. Back then, such tools were not available and it took me many years to compile the knowledge and experience that I needed in my peak selling year to close more than 470 transactions.
Then one day it hit me. I was fortunate enough to have met many of the top-producing Realtors in the industry and I thought that if they would be willing to share some of their techniques, we could be on to something. In 1989, I interviewed the very first STAR POWER Star and REALTORS® everywhere had the ability to hear these interviews on tape.
Now, 19 years later STAR POWER® Systems issues it’s Star of the Month interview via the STAR POWER Club and eager-to-grow agents internationally benefit from this wealth of collective knowledge.
We all have choices, and one of the choices is what to do about improving business in 2008. Those involved in the STAR POWER network would agree that there is perhaps no better model than learning from those who have reached the pinnacle of industry success and who continue to develop.
Just ask Todd Buckley from Brighton, MI who once drove more than five hours to attend a STAR POWER event with his business partner, Karen Jolley, and two of their team members to hear a group of 13 STAR POWER Stars speak. They went with the intention of improving their systems, learning new marketing ideas, and hearing strategies and concepts they already knew but had forgotten. Four days later, Todd contacted me to say that the team had compiled a huge list of action items that they had prioritized and implemented.
Todd’s is a great success story. He was a single agent for years closing an average of 15 units annually. Then in 2003 he made the decision to attend his first STAR POWER event and his business took off. He adopted this idea of sharing and was recently selected as a 2008 STAR POWER Star himself.
These days, when I speak to audiences of Realtors, I often like to ask audiences some of my favorite questions: “Write down the number of transactions you expect to close in 2008. Do you have that figure? Look at it. Is it realistic? Now, double it. How does that make you feel?”
I then ask the audience members to raise their hands if they feel that the revised figure is achievable. Only select few hands typically appear. The point of the exercise is to break down the glass ceilings we have set for ourselves – to move away from our comfort zones and to undertake initiatives that can actually take us to places we cannot even imagine. Todd is a perfect example of somebody whose ceiling was set (15 units per year), yet when he made the effort to attend our event in 2003 and was surrounded by that empowering group of top agents, he realized that the only thing holding him back from Star-like success was himself.
Now as we prepare for 2008, we all have an opportunity to shatter our glass ceilings and blast ahead into new and unexplored frontiers. Remember, the keys to attaining such growth are:
1. Find someone already achieving the results you want.
2. Do what they do, and the results will come.
Libertyville, IL Star Leslie McDonnell shared that she too had hit a glass ceiling until she attended her first STAR POWER event in 1999 at the recommendation of a friend. The following year, her business doubled. She credits the increase to the implementation of ideas she picked up from the STAR POWER Club.
I am, and have always been, an advocate for education – whether it’s through us here at STAR POWER or another entity – as long as it works for you. The important element is to ensure that your mind embraces change, because there is no “magic pill” that’s going to take you to the business heights you want to attain. Simply hearing the Star interview or attending the event doesn’t cut it. You need to listen carefully and take notes. Develop your discipline, character, consistency, and be open to scrutiny by peers and others. Are you willing to be the leader in your market? Opportunity doesn’t operate in scarcity, but rather in abundance.
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The Essentials of Real-Estate Success 2
by Doug Walker
Based on The Essentials of Success™ from A-Ha Performance: Building and Managing a Self-Motivated Workforce by Douglas Walker with Steven Sorkin
Have you ever wondered how silk fabric got its start? What about a doctor’s stethoscope? Do you know the origins of Velcro? Post-it notes? Microwave ovens? They all arrived through the same portal of success, a little known or thought-about law of the universe that we can learn and leverage in our own marketplace to enhance the chances of our own success.
Success isn’t achieved in a vacuum; it is yielded, or not, from a particular marketplace, a particular environment. Sometimes it comes because we see an opportunity and strategically pursue it. There’s no shortage of people offering 10-step-to-success strategies. In fact, next week we’ll talk about practices and process you might want to consider - some strategic, but some opportunistic for many non-strategic people have found enormous success… opportunistically. But this week we’re going to explore the nature of environments, marketplaces, in an effort to understand how they offer up success.
Success comes in two ways; through the direct approach, and through the indirect approach. The direct approach would include things like marketing, advertising, cold-calls, open-houses, following up on referrals… all specific things we can do in our marketplace to increase our success. The direct approach is valuable to know about and practice. But it’s not the only way success comes about.
Sometimes success comes quite unexpectedly from an indirect approach where we are engaged in some activity, expecting one thing to happen, and something different, yet enormously valuable, happens instead. Like the times we’ve been to some social event, maybe one we really didn’t want to go to, and quite by accident met someone who’s looking to buy or sell property. These happy surprise successes are called Serendipities. I claim Serendipity is a law of the universe because serendipities happen with such regularity and consistency that we can count on this law existing in any marketplace. We can learn about some of its characteristics and engage in practices that maximize the chances that serendipitous success will happen for us.
Examples? Silk… valued for centuries for its beauty and durability, but how did the idea first occur to someone? 5000 years ago, a woman in China was drinking her tea… a worm fell into her cup… but a worm with a strand of filament that caught her attention. The silk worm had been around, probably longer than people but she was the first to discover and leverage what it produced… and she discovered it, serendipitously. Doing one thing, something else happened… and she noticed the possibilities. Was she on a direct approach to inventing a new fabric? No. Silk, an enormous success story, came about serendipitously.
What about a doctor’s stethoscope? A French physician was having his lunch in a park when he noticed two boys playing, one at one end of a plank tapping out a code, the other with his ear on the plank, hearing that code. When this doctor saw those boys, the idea that sound could carry up something, maybe a plank, maybe a tube, occurred and, again serendipitously, another success… Doing one thing, something else happened… and he noticed.
The list of valuable products that have come into existence serendipitously is a long one; Post-It Notes, Velcro, microwave ovens, penicillin[1]… but the value for us is in learning the formula and leveraging it to enhance our own levels of success.
The formula is simple. As one author put it, Serendipities are a combination of chance and sagacity. Accident and sage-ness… wisdom. Another author observes that they are not the product of a lazy mind or a casual stroller. So what does that suggest for us if we are to harness the power of this serendipity law in our marketplaces in order to enhance and supplement the success we achieve by direct efforts?
1. Be on the road. Be doing something. Stay active in the marketplace, in our communities. Serendipities rarely happen when we’re sitting home in our underwear drinking beer and watching Dr. Phil.
2. Notice. Notice what other people are doing. Notice what results, intended and unintended, come from the activities we’re engaged in. Notice people in other disciplines; what they do, what they achieve. What successes are coming from use of technologies, both high tech and low tech? How are people in other industries utilizing in-person conversations? How are they using telephones and television? How are they leveraging the internet? And… how are they leveraging these things at little or no cost? How are kids leveraging these things?
3. Connect dots in new ways. Once you notice something that sparks an Aha in you, see if you can find a practical way to try it out; to put it to use.
All marketplaces are subject to the law of serendipity. Even when things look bleak, and we all know what’s going on in real-estate today, there are always hidden success surprises waiting around some corner but they’ll only be found by those of us who are on the road… noticing.
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Daily Deposits In Yourself
By Dirk Zeller
What is the most important asset you own? Is it that wonderful home you live in? Is it the beautiful car that you drive to and from your listing appointments? Is it your investment account of stocks?
We spend so much time investing in money and the tangible things we are trying to acquire in life that we fail to recognize the most important asset we own. Your most important asset is not your money . . . it’s you.
How much time and money are you investing in you? Do you have a set time every day to invest in yourself? Are you making daily deposits in you?
There are a couple of key areas in your life that you should make daily deposits into. Each of these areas is essential to building a better you.
1) Physical: We need to move physically daily to be at peak performance. There have been quite a few studies showing that our American society is more over weight than ever in our history. We ultimately eat too much and move too little.
How do you rate yourself physically? Are you on track or off track? What do you need to do to get back where you should be? What do you need to cut out? What do you need to add to your diet and exercise routine? Make a decision and a commitment right now to begin. Write down right now when and what you are going to do to change your physical attributes.
2) Relational: This asset of being able to interact with other people is truly a blessing. We often fail to invest the necessary time, energy, and love to create growth and abundance. Even the plants in our yard need attention to bring forth the explosive blooms we enjoy. Unfortunately, sometimes we can pay more attention to our plants than we do to our children, spouse, or significant relationships in our lives. My question is, are you on the mark with your relationships? Is there someone who needs more water and fertilizer in your life? What are you going to do about it? When?
3) Spiritual: I truly believe we are spiritual beings. Our spirituality can be the first part of our life to become neglected. The reason is we don’t have someone saying, “Pay attention to me.” Your body will often tell you when your clothes don’t fit. Your spouse or children often speak up when they are neglected. Many times spiritual beliefs will just let us stray. They don’t cry out, “Pay attention to me!” When we wake up later dramatically off the track in our spiritual life, we will say, “How did I get here?”
4) Mental: The asset of our mind is incredible. We have been blessed with incredible capacity. Most of us are just using a small percentage of our capacity. I truly believe the goal for each of us is to play the game of life to the level of potential that we possess. We have all been gifted with vast untapped resources. What are you doing to mine those resources regularly?
The barrier for all of us to achieve the abundance in all accounts of our life is lack of commitment. That lack of commitment is what stops each of us from achieving our goals and the life we desire. We have to be prepared to pay the price to achieve what we want in each of these categories: physical, relational, spiritual, and mental. We must be prepared to make that absolute stand and commitment that nothing is going to stop us from achieving our goals and dreams in life. Are you ready to start today?
Dirk Zeller is an Agent, an Investor, and the President & CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 250,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. He’s the widely published author of Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, and over 300 articles in print.
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YRI Update: Read how you can be the Difference in our "Ride for the Cure" Campaign–Click Here, NOW!
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100 Mile Ride for a Cure!
Did you know…
►Leukemia is the #1 Killer of children under age 14?
►Every five minutes, someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer
►Most of you reading this have been directly or indirectly impacted by someone suffering from Leukemia, Lymphoma or Myeloma
Did you also know…
►You can make a HUGE difference in helping to find a cure!
That’s why you’re reading this page. It’s my intention to enroll your participation in helping me raise $50,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to find a cure for blood related cancers.
Here’s the scoop: I have committed to completing a Century bike ride (100 miles-all on the same day!) to raise awareness and money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
I’m excited to participate in the 18 week training program and complete the 100 mile ride on June 1. (O.k., I’m nervous as heck—I rode 20 miles, slowly, and needed to recover the rest of the day!)
My goal is to raise a gigantic $50,000 for Leukemia research! If you give only $25, I’ll reach this outrageous goal! ($50 will get me there faster! And really motivate me in those early mornings!) And, I’m excited to report that 75% of every dollar goes directly to research.
I have a very personal reason for completing this 100 mile ride.
After three marathons with Team-in-Training, I was struck by cancer in the summer of 2005. It wasn’t a fun experience for me or my family. So, I am peddling for everyone who has had cancer. I am riding to find a cure so no one need experience what me and my family went through.
Will you help me raise awareness and Money to find a cure? I’m asking for your support–$25, $50, $100…(or more…I’m very o.k. with more!!!)
Giving is simple—the Leukemia society has helped us set-up donation websites via Active.com or you can write a tax deductible check payable to “The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society” and mail it to our office—I’ll handle the paperwork from there.
I know writing a check to help an important cause is sometimes a challenge. I realize y  ou’re approached by everyone and their mother for a fund raising effort. But please remember this, my honored teammate, six year old Kyle, doesn’t think going through chemotherapy every week is very easy either.
Please be an important part of my fund raising effort to raise a whopping $50,000! I promise to keep you posted on fund raising and training progress (I’ll spare you the photos of me in the lycra cycling gear!)
The next step is yours:
Thanking you in advance for your support and encouragement,
Mark Rosenberger, CSP
Your Realty Insider
760.602.1206 x1103
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