Sunday, July 24, 2016

Mind Blowing Agent Case Study + Agent Poses in Panda Costume to Sell Home + much more...

885,391 daily readers and growing!


July 24, 2016
Mind Blowing Agent Case Study

Dear Reader,

There are a lot of things I like about my job, but without a doubt, my favorite part of the job is hearing from my readers (and users of my Ultimate Website system). I have received a lot of success stories over the years, and when I can, I like to share them. I believe that success is contagious. A great success story will inspire you to be successful yourself, and below is a great success story:

Matt Mouser’s practice is in Belmont, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids. One of the reasons I really like Matt’s story is that unlike the other two examples, he was starting at square one. He needed to make something happen immediately and had no base of referral business.

He had been dependent, not on Zillow or Realtor.com, but still just as dependent. He worked as an assistant on a large real estate team who handed him business. One reason I mention his story is that many agents today are working for companies, accepting very poor commission splits, and making much less than they should, because they feel trapped.

I’ve talked to many an agent who is working in their company’s relocation department, paying 40% off the top to the Relo company for the lead, then splitting the remainder with their broker 50/50. It might not be Zillow but it’s just as dependent. Matt’s story is great because it illustrates what an agent can do when he decides to become independent and start generating his own leads.

matt-m-150x150

Dear Levi and Support Team:

Two years ago I was starting from scratch. I had worked for years as an assistant to another agent until I finally decided to branch out on my own. The trouble was: I had no pipeline and no leads! But, I knew from reading the books from Matt Jones that I would be successful, because I could generate my own low cost leads.

Now only two years later, I feel like I am living the dream. I generate over 100 leads every month on the Ultimate Website System. I work from a home office and I’m able to follow up on all these leads as my schedule allows from home.

My income has doubled two straight years in a row by simply using the business plan provided by your system. I now have a virtual assistant who handles all of my transaction coordination and listing coordination duties. I’ve never had more freedom and free time, yet I’m earning more money than ever before. This system has allowed me to literally change my family tree.

The funny thing is that I was generating new leads within 5 minutes of my orientation coaching call! The process couldn’t be more simple and it’s so easy a cave man (ie: real estate agent) could do it. Over the last two years I’ve had many agents call me from around the country to get feedback on your Ultimate Website System. Some of them were current users and some were newbies.

The main thing I would tell them is, “Follow what the training calls say to the letter. Quit trying to tweak the craigslist ad or ad lib your follow up script. Model what Matt Jones has done first, because he’s more successful than you.” Thanks a lot!

Matt Mouser
Realtormouser@gmail.com
616-777-7376

What I like best about Matt is that he is optimistic, teachable, and hard-working — a great combination. And not only did he survive going independent, but he more than doubled his income each year while working fewer hours and having more freedom. It doesn’t get better than that. I think Matt is a perfect example of someone who came to a place in his life where he simply made the decision to become independent and then, just did it.

Get the Ultimate Website Now »

(First you'll need to check availability in your area of the U.S.)

Maybe you are like lots of other agents today who are saying, “Enough!” If so, I encourage you to at least give it a shot. The freedom, the additional income, and the personal satisfaction of being independent are truly worth the effort. In very little time you will be wondering why you didn’t do it sooner. Think about it… What do you really have to lose? The worst that could happen is you fail and become dependent again. But if you are like Matt Mouser and are optimistic, teachable, and willing to work hard, you can break free forever.

I-WANT-IT-BUTTON-300x75

As always, thanks for reading.

Matt Jones
Broker/President/CEO
FavoriteAgent.com



Matt Jones is the founder and CEO of FavoriteAgent.com, nationally syndicated columnist, broker, and best selling author. He has been profiled by major media outlets as an innovator and a pioneer in the industry, and CNN's Pulse on America claimed he and his company were "changing the way real estate is done in America."

I did not sign up for this

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This is the NewsGeni.us e-Brief, a collection of the best real estate news and advice in one place. To cancel your subscription, follow this link http://www.newsgeni.us/unsub.php?email=dsoldit.blogpost@blogger.com&s=2224.

©2016 NewsGeni.us, 212 Northstone Pl, Fayetteville, NC 28314. All rights reserved.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Follow Up to Zillow Report + Couple Urging Homeowners to Sell Fails to Mention They Are Agents + much more...

885,391 daily readers and growing!


July 23, 2016
Follow Up to Zillow Report

Your Five Steps to Independence

Population sign on Highway 395 leading into Independence, CA.

Wow! I think I struck a nerve. My report on Zillow that I published recently was one of the most widely-read and widely-shared articles I’ve ever written. I believe that REALTORS® today, as a whole, have a lot of anxiety about Zillow.

And rightfully so. Since my report, I’ve received dozens of emails, calls, and comments from agents who confirmed that the price of real estate leads is skyrocketing. I spoke to agents who use Zillow, Move, Inc. (Realtor.com) and others, and many of them were spending north of $3,000 per month. And the leads they get aren’t even exclusive, but are being sold to three or more other agents.

My first reaction is “Are you kidding me!?” But then I remember back to my first year in real estate; I spent up to $1,200 per month with one lead aggregator. And that was in 2002 dollars. We’ll try almost anything when we are desperate for business.

I think many agents today are trapped like I was in 2002, and that’s why my latest Zillow report struck a nerve.

“Okay, so I want off the Zillow train, but how do I go about it?  Sure, I don’t like being dependent on Zillow or Move, Inc. or anyone else for that matter, but the reality is that I need business.  I can’t live off the referrals I get from friends and previous clients.”

If that’s you, believe me, I completely understand.  I was talking to an agent just the other day who was spending over three thousand a month with “Big Z” and this is exactly where he was at.  It’s the old, “can’t live with them but can’t live without them” thing.

For many agents who are wanting to make the leap to independence, it’s much like what we experience with our clients — they know they should list and sell their home first, but invariably they start as buyers.  Why?  Because they don’t want to give up the “sure thing” (their old house) without first lining up their replacement.  Let’s face it — we are hard-wired with a security need.

The same is true for most agents wanting to break free.  They know they need to become independent but they don’t want to let go of the company that has them dependent because they are afraid they will have no leads at all.  The problem is, for many of them, after spending more than they can afford on Zillow or whoever, they don’t have any money left to try anything else.

When I heard from many of you, my readers, I suddenly realized that I failed to offer you a way out.  Sure I pointed out the obvious problem, and illustrated exactly how and why so many agents have become dependent on the large lead generators, and that it is going to get worse.

What I didn’t do, however, was offer a step-by-step plan for making the jump to independence.  I gave you the problem but not the solution. So today I’m going to give you just that: an escape plan that will move you from dependence to independence without making you go broke in the process.  And if you follow it, you will soon see that you can do it.  You can break free.

In fact, if you do it my way, you don’t have to spend weeks or even months getting free.  You can literally do it in a day.  I recently received an email from one of our Ultimate Website users, Matt Mouser, who wrote,

The funny thing is that I was generating new leads within 5 minutes of my orientation coaching call!” Read his entire email here. >>

So here are my five steps to breaking free from Zillow, Move, Inc., your broker, or whoever.  Follow them to the letter and you will be independent sooner rather than later.

Step One — Admit and Resolve.  Before you can solve any problem you really have to be brutally honest with yourself and admit you have a problem.  If you don’t have enough business coming in to make it without buying leads from some aggregator, that’s a huge problem.  You are dependent on them for your livelihood.

But you have to do more than just admit the problem.  You have to make a decision to solve it.  If you don’t resolve not to, you will kick the can down the road and you’ll be in the same place next year only Zillow’s prices may well triple again.  Now that you’ve admitted the problem and resolved to fix it you must…

Step Two — Take Inventory.  Inventory your current lead generation technologies.  How are you currently generating your own leads.  Be honest — if you are not, the only one you are cheating is yourself.  You really need to cover all four sources of lead generation to effectively be independent.   You can bet that the Zillows of the world are covering them in their lead generation.

  1. Web  Leads.  Today over 90% of all real estate customers are beginning online and what’s more, 75% of all leads captured today are internet leads.  If you don’t have leads coming in from your website, you are passing on three-fourths of the opportunities available today.  Be honest again — is your website doing the job?  If you are not capturing leads daily from your website, somebody else is.
  2. Phone Leads.  A full 17% of all real estate customers captured today are captured using IVR phone lead capture technology.  While nearly everyone is beginning online, still there are a good number of customers who will never register on a website.  For those customers you must have phone capture.
  3. Text Leads.  Think about this:  People don’t look at all their email, but nearly everyone looks at every single text message.  It’s fast, it’s short, and it’s easy.  Today a full 8% of all customers captured today are captured with text lead capture technology.  That’s twice as many as all the referrals and sphere of influence leads together.
  4. Social Leads.  Social leads, also known as sphere of influence leads amount to only 4% of all leads captured today.  Why such a small number?  Because by the time they get this far down the sales path, they have largely been captured either by web, phone, or text lead capture technology.  Still that is 4% of the business and you need to make sure you cover it with social lead capture.

Now it’s time to be brutally honest about how you’re doing with each of these areas.  Maybe you’re capturing leads by text but not getting anything from your website.  Maybe you’re capturing web leads but missing phone and text altogether.  Wherever you are lacking you need to plug that hole or you will never be independent.

Step Three — Get the Tools.  How would you like to build a house without a hammer, saw, level, tape measure, and all the rest of the tools you need?  The same is true with building a real estate practice.  It is important that you get the tools in place to capture your own leads.  If you don’t, getting independent is merely a pipe-dream.  If you want to build a house, you’ll need to buy a hammer.  Sure, get the best one you can for the lowest price possible, but get that hammer.  The same is true for your lead generation tools.  This is one place you cannot afford to skimp.

Step Four — Implement.  Now that you are committed to become independent, you have evaluated and acquired the necessary tools to do the job, you need to implement a lead generation campaign.  Pull the trigger.  Will it be easy?  No.  Nothing worth accomplishing is ever done without hard work, but you might be surprised just how easy it is.

Set up a system so that all your different technologies work together as a complete unit, then turn on the direct response advertising and watch the leads come in.  More importantly, set up your system so you can evaluate it regularly and see what is working and what needs more attention.

Step Five — Followup.  After you have solved the no-lead problem, the final piece of the puzzle is that you must followup leads immediately.  Of course when you are generating your own leads, speed is not as critical as it was when you were only one of many hungry agents calling that same lead, but even with unique leads, it is important to be prompt in your followup.  Otherwise those leads will be on to the next agent.  The shelf life of a real estate lead is hours, not days.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t plug my Ultimate Website system.  Of course you can get each of the tools I mentioned in Step Three (above) from any of a variety of different sources.  Maybe you already have some of those tools and they are working fine.  I’ve checked around and if you assemble a lead generation toolbox like I have outlined above, you can do it for well less than the cost of buying your leads from a Zillow or Move, Inc.

Since this is my business it is part of my job to know what the “competing” technologies cost.  You could assemble these lead generation and lead management tools spending about $300 per month on an ongoing basis.  Some of the companies require a one-time activation charge or maybe have long-term contracts.  Still $300 per month is better than spending $3,000 per month and more buying leads.

But my Ultimate Website system — complete with web, phone, text, and social media lead capture technologies, a self-posting auto-blog, Pipeline CRM contact manager, and a lot more can be yours for under $67 per month, and it comes with free setup and training, no activation fee, and no long-term contract.

Sure, you could buy all the other pieces and put together a “Frankenstein” system with various logins, admin panels, billing departments, and then whenever something doesn’t work quite right they can point to the other guys.  Or you can get my Ultimate Website system that is all fully integrated and designed to work together and your leads automatically entered into your client manager for you, and only one place to go for help with any problems you might have.

So let me finish by asking you a question:  What would it feel like to become truly independent?  How would controlling your own destiny change your practice?  Or your life?  I sincerely hope you come to a place that you decide to give it a try.  I hope you decide today to become 100% in control of your own destiny.  I promise you, you’ll never regret it.

Is the Ultimate Website System Available in Your Market?

I mention in today's post that my Ultimate Website system, a complete system for generating 2-3 leads a day while running free ads. If you're interested in using it, I encourage you to check it out. But first you'll need to check and see if it's available in your area. Click the link below to find out.

Get My Ultimate Website Now »

As always, thanks for reading.

Matt Jones
Broker/President/CEO
FavoriteAgent.com



Matt Jones is the founder and CEO of FavoriteAgent.com, nationally syndicated columnist, broker, and best selling author. He has been profiled by major media outlets as an innovator and a pioneer in the industry, and CNN's Pulse on America claimed he and his company were "changing the way real estate is done in America."

I did not sign up for this

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What systems do you have in place to double your business through referrals with each transaction? Read more »

This is the NewsGeni.us e-Brief, a collection of the best real estate news and advice in one place. To cancel your subscription, follow this link http://www.newsgeni.us/unsub.php?email=dsoldit.blogpost@blogger.com&s=2223.

©2016 NewsGeni.us, 212 Northstone Pl, Fayetteville, NC 28314. All rights reserved.