Category: Brokerage

Episode 031: What’s Up With Social Media Part #2 Must Know Changes

July 10, 2017 rems Brokerage, Coaching, Education, Mindset, Niche Marketing, Personality Styles, Software, Sphere of Influence 0 Comments

A few other things we need to embrace as real estate agents:

  • Which other social media platform should we be using? Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest!? Deanna is not particularly a fan of Snapchat but if you do love it, they have just opened up new advertising abilities and there is a bunch of different tutorials circulating online, opening up new opportunities that we can now better afford.

Instagram is finally finding a place into Mike’s heart with their feature Instagram Stories. How should we, real estate agents, utilize Instagram?

If you are already doing native advertising on Facebook, make sure to link your account to Instagram to add tons of extra eyes on your ads! It is also a no brainer for real estate agents to make your Instagram account business and personal.

You can now already upload pictures you’ve already taken to an Instagram story, so you will never run out of ideas to post and you will look like a fun person to follow!

So if you really want to make an impactful story, just take 20 minutes to curate something creative from the photos you already have!

Another thing that is changing with Instagram is a new, easier way to promote content on Instagram, adding really cool ways to target people and look at statistics. So we want to encourage local businesses to make at least one story a day because they are becoming such an important part of advertising! And if you are going to be promoting through Instagram, you want to at least keep your feed updated and so post at least once per week to keep yourself ‘rolling’ on people’s feeds.

So make sure to connect your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter account. The great thing with Twitter is that you can real an entirely new audience with your advertising; there are people who get on Twitter because of how accessible and mobile friendly it is. Twitter is also trying to compete with Facebook, create all kinds of new advertising features. For example, they have made it easier to get followers, fast, with very easy and sharp ads, by improving for example targeting or potentially increasing the number of maximum characters per post, and opening up their API to a lot of different places and you can even actually now go live on Twitter!

As for Pinterest, it’s embracing video and making it easier in general for us! So if you love Pinterest, take advantage of this new feature. So pins with video or pins that lead to video get about 40% more interaction. They have also started improving their advertising. So you can now upload your amazing videos and create an ad around it and then turn around and look at the statistics from your videos! Pinterest also allows you to now automatically share your pins with Twitter.

  • If you are using a service that is ‘automatically generating content’ for you, you may not always be able to pick the images they will use, but try to get them into doing something that is a little more personal for you, or just take the time to do it yourself! For example, by using Adobe Spark Post or just Buffer.com
  • Another app that is great for video is Denoise, which allows you to cut off the background noise from your video. Typomatic is also another great app to add text to your videos and Quick by GoPro is great time lapses!

Episode 030: What’s Up With Social Media Part #1 What You Must Know About FB!

July 10, 2017 rems Brokerage, Coaching, Education, Mindset, Personality Styles, Property Management, Software 0 Comments

We’re going to talk about a few things that have been changing and evolving in the social media world. To *survive* in this industry, you need to be listening to this entire podcast!

We have a wonderful guest today in the studio: Welcome Deanna Leigh Miller, co-founder of Stark Social Media, who’s in charge of our social media/web design and with whom we’ve been doing the Stark and HomeSmart Social Media Series, which you can all find on her StarkSocial app. They are life changing; you should go and listen to all of them! You can also listen to her on her own podcast, The Social Life.

5 things that we need, as real estate agents, to embrace:

  • Facebook Live Videos; this is your moment to reach whoever is on Facebook/likes you page/is following you etc. So you need to make sure that you are targeting your audience, which hasn’t been that easy in the past. In the coming months, there is going to be the opportunity to build and create a more tailored, ideal audience. Facebook rolls things out to page that are the most active; so do something with it!

So is a 2min video that gets about 500 views a successful live video? –Yes, that’s fantastic! 500 people got to engage with you and kept watching your video (Facebook only tracks a view after the viewers watches about 30 seconds of it and more). Plus we don’t always want to be seeing you at your open house; we want to get some snapshots from your life, to get a sense of who you really are. If hundreds and thousands of people get to see your video, this is working for branding as it gets your name out there!

You want to make sure that you are connecting with people in your community who are supportive of your business and give them a shout out from time to time. For example make a video at your favorite restaurant; anything that can benefit your local community.

  • Facebook has been developing new ways of advertising. We so the addition of the Lead Generation Ads. Lead ads let people show their interest in a product or service by filling out a form in the ad with their details and allowing a business to follow up with them. That was huge for real estate agents and changed the way we think of advertising.

Facebook is going to continue to roll out more and more features like the lead generation ads. And there will be more cool stuff, like doing ads with videos!

  • So how much should we be spending on Facebook per month? I spend about  $3,000/month, which gives me a return on investment that is quite good. Should we be spending about $10,000/month? Deanna recommends to spend about $300-$500/month if you are just getting started and you should be looking at what your goals are and what you have accomplished so far in terms of sales. And this is also part of building your brand identity!
  • It’s always going to be a thing and it’s just going to continue getting better on Facebook because they’re always improving their algorithm for that. For example, I have noticed that they have added more interests, hobbies and other options to better target your audience. You can even better pick the income level of your audience now!

Facebook has also opened their API to a lot of new tools. That means that there are a lot of new tools you can use to retarget and ‘set and forget’. Outside Ad placement is also offered more and more though Facebook so you can actually now see you ad on, say, Home Depot or LA Times blog! But remember it all depends on your budget; the bigger the budget, the more prominent the placement of your add will be!

  • LinkedIn has updated their targeting so you can now target zip codes and area codes now as opposed to just, say, Los Angeles or California, which is really big for real estate agents! It is now way easier and budget friendly for those of you who have set up a business page, to boost individual posts and it works like Facebook’s boost. LinkedIn will guide you through the steps once you login to your account!

You can do all kinds of ads on LinkedIn, like a market update or write a blog post and then make it an ad campaign. You can also update a video directly on LinkedIn!

Episode 029: How To Get Your Offer Accepted Every Time! No More Bidding Wars!

July 10, 2017 rems Brokerage, Coaching, Mindset, Niche Marketing, Open Houses, Property Management, Sphere of Influence 0 Comments

“Mike, how in the world do I get my offers accepted?” Buyers are getting heartbroken because their agents can’t get them houses!

Writing The Offer, Negotiation, and Setting Buyer Expectations
If you’re going to work so hard showing homes, you might as well get it to the closing table.

Writing A Strong Offer
• Ask the listing agent what they want
• You should double app with the listing agents lender
• Fax machines screwed up our market! This turned into emails and so forth! Hand deliver and try to shake hands with listing agent, it just gives this warm fuzzy feeling and gives you a chance to get to know them a little bit. It’s important sometimes to use old school family values in our business.
• Give a small but yet somewhat valuable gift (‘guilt presents’) to listing agent with offer (wine openers for example are great!)
• Send a package that’s meaningful and fun
• Your letter about the buyers should include a FAMILY PICTURE – Nothing more powerful! This shows that you are a serious buyer to the listing agent! If the person has no emotional attachment to your home, how hard do you think they’re going to fight, to close this escrow?
• A second letter should be from a BUYER
• Point out what buyers love about the HOME or YARD
• Let the agent know the buyers have had the chat about not ASKING FOR NONESENSE REPAIRS.
• Buyers are willing to BE FLEXIBLE AND SENSITIVE to all sellers needs; this is always a breath of fresh air and makes your statement so much stronger, minimizing contingencies!

The Details Matter Most
• So, minimize contingencies
• None is best
• Pre approval subject to appraisal and clear title only
• Earnest money should always be 5% OR MORE

I like to think that deposits do matter; it’s another step on your ladder that proves that you do have the money and you mean business and, at some point, you could be risking that deposit. So the higher the deposit, the more it will mean to me, and the more it will mean to that seller.

• Make the deposit NON REFUNDABLE
• Write an as-is clause in the offer or some call it PASS OR FAIL within 48hours
• Write an ESCALATION CLAUSE; what we write is ‘Buyer has the right to pay $1000 over the highest offer, not to exceed ___’. You got to protect your buyers with that, so that they don’t find themselves in situations where they can’t afford the house anymore.
• Include a COPY OF BUYERS CREDIT REPORT; when I am a listing agent, I always want to see that! Obviously get buyer permission
• Always provide PROOF OF LIQUID FUNDS; this is a big one for me as a listing agent!
• Write in a DELAYED CLOSING PENALTY Try $50-$100 per day; If you really love that house, this is just another piece of that ladder to get to the top!

Costs Paid By Buyer
• Have buyer pay selling agents COMMISION; there is nothing wrong with the buyer paying the commission!
• Buyer to pay sellers CLOSING COSTS
• Listing agent bonus PAID BY BUYER; it doesn’t really matter how it’s done. Check with MLS and State laws however.

How To Write Full Price Or Above
• Set up expectations at the initial BUYER CONSULTATION
• Price you offer like you were LISTING IT FOR SALE
• Go over all 90 DAYS COMPS
• Prep buyer for MULTIPLE OFFERS
• Remind the buyer that just because today there is only one, tomorrow could HAVE MULTIPLES. There could be another family writing as you speak.
• Agents might not always TELL THE TRUTH! Agents want to double end homes and male YOUR COMMISSION; they need to understand that.
• This is one of my favorite lines: Remind the buyers that a couple grand to save their dream home is pennies over the life of a tax deductible interest rate. If you only went out to dinner one time less, it will only make up for the difference!

REAL ESTATE MARKETING SHOWPersonality Styles for Real Estate

Episode 011: Real Estate Mindset

November 2, 2015 rems 2015 REM Show, Brokerage, Coaching, Education, Mindset 0 Comments

 

Are you doing 10 deals a year and want to start doing 20, 50, or even 100 deals or more per year.  In this episode we explore how you can make a quantum leap in your real estate career.  Before you start down this path, you need to ask yourself a few questions.

Mike’s Top 7 Real Estate Mindset Changes

Here are seven real estate mindset changes you are going to need to be willing to make if you want to see your sales career explode.

  1. How far are you willing to go?
  2. Are you willing to practice like a professional?
  3. Are you willing to give up the Sunday bar-b-cue?
  4. Taking risks is going to be necessary
  5. You need to be coachable
  6. Are you willing to change your ways
  7. Are you willing to put you and your family first?

Practice Makes Perfect

Scripts and dialogues will help you handle rejection.  You need to internalize them.  They become part of your mind, body, and soul.

You can practice in the mirror or in your car.  But to take your game to the next level you’ll need to find a practice partner and roll play.

What Are You Willing To Give Up

Are you willing to give up sleep?  If you want sleep more than you want to succeed, you won’t be successful.

Are you willing to give up expensive hobbies?  You need to be willing to trade your boat (or horses, or whatever) for investing in yourself.  Go on that mindset retreat.  Record those videos.  Place those Facebook ads.  You need to be willing to sacrifice short term satisfaction for long term gains.

Are you willing to leave your company?  If your brokerage isn’t adding value to your business, you need to be willing to move to a brokerage that will add value.

Successful People Are Willing to Take Risk

You need to spend money.  And spend your money on the right things.

Too many agents spend 100% of their commissions on themselves.  If you want to make a quantum leap in your business you need to invest some of those dollars (and maybe even an uncomfortable amount of those dollars) in your business.

Successful People Are Willing to Ignore the Negative

When you make changes in your own life, you shine a light on those around you.  That light can cause jealousy and envy.

People you thought were your friends might turn against you.  Not because they don’t like you.  But because you’re making them see themselves in an uncomfortable light.

Be Honest With Yourself

Do you come home and say, “I’m exhausted!”?  But on reflection you know that you didn’t do half of what you could have, or should have, done today.

If you were going to prospect an hour each day.  And you only got a ½-hour in today.  Then you owe 1½-hours of prospecting tomorrow.

Hold yourself accountable.  Because no one else is going to do it for you.

Get an accountability partner.  They don’t need to be in the same industry.  But they do need to be available to you.  Especially when you are just starting to make a change.

Any of the “Anonymous” groups have daily accountability built in.  And when you’re trying to form a new habitat of success you too need daily accountability.

Be Transparent

Never lie, never blow smoke, never guess, and never hide anything.  From yourself, your family, or your clients.

When you’re making these kinds of changes you need to be upfront and honest with your family.  You may not have the money for vacations or a new car.  You might miss out on family dinner, or a child’s sports game, because you’re committing to exploding your business.

Set those expectations up front.  Because these changes can be life affirming, or life damaging.

Be Accountable

If you lost a deal to a competitor, it wasn’t because the client was “stupid.”  What did you not do, that your competitor did do, that enabled them to close the deal.

Be 100% responsible for each of your outcomes.  Things don’t happen to you, they happen because of you.

Be Willing to Compete All Out

You don’t have to be angry, mean, or vicious.  But if you legitimately care about your clients, and you want them to make the best decision possible, then they deserve to work with you exclusively.

Other agents are not, or will not, do the things necessary to help those clients.  You need to be willing to adopt the mindset that you will do everything in your power to help those clients.

Also Mentioned In This Episode

 

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