Provide Monthly Updates, with Real Numbers

One of the questions to which consumers seek answers is, "What is the real estate market doing?" Make it easy for consumers to find the answer to that question on your website.

Each of the MLS systems of which you are a member will generate a snapshot or summary view of what your chosen real estate market has done, for any recent time period that you specify. I recommend that you establish a specific page or tab on your website, on which you summarize this information.

You can provide the information in tabular or bullet form - as long as it is easy for consumers to understand. Here's just one example: Watchung Borough, NJ (07059)

Be sure to update your market snapshot, faithfully, every month, so that consumers know they can count on you, to provide the latest information!

Previous Jobs Can Help You Get Business

I know: you're saying to yourself, "Robin is stating the obvious, again. I have already milked my previous jobs dry, in building my Sphere of Influence (SOI)."

But wait - there's more! Along with previous jobs, you also get ...

... skills, knowledge, and experience.

In a previous post, I asked "What do people see in you?" Through this post, I'd like to help you direct people's attention to the skills, knowledge, and experience you gained through previous jobs: the richness of your life experience, if you will.

So, your first task (after entering absolutely everyone into your SOI database) is to enumerate the skills and knowledge that you gained at the various jobs. Then, consider how you can adapt each skill or class of knowledge to improving your real estate business. Admittedly, some (such as running a particular machine) will be a stretch. But others (such as managing inventory, collective bargaining, or filing business papers) will readily generalize to real estate.

Apply that selected list of skills and knowledge to improving your business plan, your prospecting and marketing plan, your customer relationship management, your presentations, and your web site.

Next, inform the world of how your rich, varied experience enables you to work better with people, to market listings more effectively, and to provide first-class customer service. In your web site biography, describe how your work experience makes you a more effective real estate professional.

My own background is a tapestry of different kinds of work in various businesses and industries. Yet, I can honestly say that I have used practically everything I learned, along the way, in each successive career. I hope the same is true for you.

Your Website Represents You!

As an active real estate agent, you must have a website, of course. You may have a website that is provided by your company, an independent website, or both.

Each of these websites represents you, your services, and your company. It is your virtual ambassador, in a sense. How can you ensure that your website represents you in the best possible way?

At a minimum, your website(s) should include this information:

• About Me (your background, approach to real estate, and a little personal information, too)
  
• Your Listings (all of your active listings, preferably as a feed from your MLS)
  
• Your Solds (display all those for which the buyer has given you permission)
  
• Contact Me (an easy way for consumers to reach you)
  
• Your Marketplace (information about the marketplace you serve, including financing options, schools, recreational facilities, and so on)
  
• Blog (a key way to communicate to consumers).

Make each of your websites as powerful as it can be by, first, learning as much as you can about the features and functionality of the web template. Then, maximize your use of all of the capabilities of the template you have. For example, are there special widgets that show current housing prices in your marketplace? Can you link to your MLS listings? Is there a widget that supports podcasts? Use such special features to make that website stand out in your marketplace.

Investing time to polish each of your websites will ensure that you will be proud of your virtual ambassadors!

For additional ideas on keeping your websites current, visit Robin's Ruminations.

Don't Neglect Your Professional Development!

To maintain your professional image as a knowledgeable real estate professional, you must remain current on what's happening in the real estate business - even if your state does not have CEU requirements! There are many options available to you:

• State association workshops
  
• Broker-group-sponsored rallies
  
• National or regional conventions
  
• Online training.

When you complete any professional development activity, be sure to write about it in your blog. Also, post formal course completions on your website, to demonstrate your expertise.

It's a good rule of thumb to plan to participate in a formal professional development program, at least twice each year.

Remembering Your Clients & Customers on Special Days

I hope that, as part of your Customer Care program, you acknowledge your clients' and customers' special family days, such as birthdays and wedding anniversaries. But what do you do, the rest of the year?

These weeks are important for Jews (Passover) and for Christians (Holy Week). Would you send cards to your clients and customers, at such times? I think the answer depends on how well you know them. If you are confident of their religious practices and believe they would be pleased by such greetings, then, by all means, do send a card or hand-written note. If you are not confident that these wishes would be welcomed, then don't send them.

On the other hand, I do encourage you to acknowledge:

• Secular holidays, such as Thanksgiving (US & Canada - on different days) and the Queen's Birthday (U.K., Canada, & Australia); and

• National holidays, such as Independence Day (US), Canada Day (Canada), Cinqo de Maio (Mexico), Bastille Day (France), and Anzac Day (Australia).

Being remembered on general days of celebration helps make your clients and customers feel they are part of a larger community - a community in which you play a significant ongoing role. Seasonal greeting cards also break the pattern of business-focused contacts, such as Open House notifications and monthly newsletters, thus giving your clients & customers a more three-dimensional perspective on your character.

Not only do people like to be remembered, they may actually remember you, if you incorporate Secular & National holiday cards into your frequent-touch account.

For information about the holiday or celebration of the day, have a look at

• Holidays on the Net Blog
• World Holidays Blog
• Greetings.ca

3 Reasons for Optimism

Are you succumbing to the barrage of bad news about the housing market, home financing, and the stock market? Is all that doom and gloom affecting how you perceive your chosen career in real estate?

Let me offer 3 reasons for optimism and, therefore, 3 reasons to renew your efforts:

1. Mortgage rates are affordably low for many people who might not have qualified at last year's rates - even under today's more stringent qualification rules. Although it may take more time, people can qualify for loans. Qualify first, so that buyers and sellers can proceed with confidence.
   
   
2. Most first-time home buyers - and there's a fresh group every month - are in better financial shape than those from older generations, who have run up mountains of debt. First-time home buyers are good prospects - as are many recent immigrants. Focus on niche markets like these.
   
   
3. Real estate professionals have been closing transactions throughout this downturn, and the pace is picking up. Every day, my TwitterStream and Facebook Status reports describe listings sold, offers accepted, financing granted, and closings concluded.
   

To rekindle your own business, build these 3 reasons for optimism into your prospecting and marketing materials, and blog about examples specific to your marketplace.

Have you observed other reasons for optimism? Please describe them in a Comment!

Two Little Words

When you were growing up, a parent or guardian probably taught you the importance of saying "please" and "thank you." At the time, you were being taught to interact with people, politely. If you were like most children, that's a lesson that had to be repeated many times, before it 'took."

What you didn't learn until later, is the power of those words - particularly, "thank you" - in day-to-day business transactions. We rush through our busy days, hardly even seeing many of the people with whom we come into contact - yet all of them should be treated with the same politeness that we offer friends and family. Routinely thanking someone for performing a task for you - even if it is a regular part of the job - is a good way to generate support, when you need it.

However, the most important people you should thank are your clients and customers. Thank them in person, at closing day. Take them a gift with hand-written note, immedately thereafter. And put them all on your frequent-touch cards-and-newsletters program.

Thanking customers and clients ends the transaction (which may have been difficult) on a positive note; you have indicated that they were not just names on contracts, but people with whom you were pleased to work. You have also just increased the probability of getting repeat work and referrals from these individuals.