People are buying lifestyle not a house.

It’s important to become a hyper local expert.

Start building a newsletter called How’s the Market.

Buy a Kodak video camera and do a monthly video market report. Send this out to our past clients. Your clients are now seeing you online.

Geographic farming.
It’s all about lifestyle. Record on video the same info you’d send in the mail. Create some market commentary.

Four most important consumer questions for a website
1. Use the term market statistics.
2. How much is my home worth. Share with them
3. What’s for sale. Add some coming soon listing (use your site as an exclusive launch pad)
4. Blog, which answers the question why should they choose you as an agent. Allow people to post reviews. Be open to negative reviews.

Open Houses
Drive traffic to your website. Get to the point where people say “I see you everywhere”.

Be social. Have lots of pillars to extend your brand.

Make your listing presentation consumer-centric. Show case your full team. Show that people are buying 8 for the price of 1.

Start your video blog.

Pre-qualify your vendors so your presentation can be customized for the individual seller.

Show up 15 minutes early. Video yourself doing a pre-sales video in the front yard. Explain to the seller the importance of the video to the sales process.

Q John McGrath How do you deal with fee discounters?
TF you’re not going to win every time. Arm yourself with info and stats. How many transactions do they do? List to sale percentage? Show why the seller is better listing with a full service firm.

JM Soft market, what are your suggestions to get the buyer to make a decision?
TF When, where, why and what’s your plan B? Buyers who are buying for lifestyle are motivated. Don’t waste time on the rest.

3 questions
What’s the worst case scenario? Don’t try the happy sale. Address their fears. Flush out, listen to their fears. Don’t defend.

What’s the most likely scenario?

What’s the best case scenario?

We want the emotion to come out and that allows the anxiety balloon to deflate.

[tweetmeme]Here are 5 simple tweaks you make to your website right now that will get you more free search traffic immediately. Not next week, not next month, now! More traffic means more sales, so get cracking.

Here we go.

1. Give every page a unique TITLE tag.

I see a lot of agent sites that include TITLE tags that don’t relate to what the page is about. Make them short (usually less than 60 characters) and descriptive (not just a bunch of keywords).

Most of the real estate specific content management systems provide for a way to customise the TITLE tag, even for each property listing.

2. Related to point 1, load the keywords you want to rank at the front of the TITLE tag.

Agents often place their business name at the front of the TITLE tag so that it reads “Smith and Jones | Real Estate in Upper Kabbah”. They repeat that on all of the pages on their site e.g ”Smith and Jones| For Sale | Real Estate in Upper Kabbah”.

That’s fine if the agency wanted to rank for the search term “Smith and Jones” but most agents would want to rank for “real estate [suburb name]“. As search engines place a greater emphasis on the first words in the TITLE tag using the name of the agency at the front is working against, not for, getting found in search.

3. Keep your TITLE tags short.

Every word you add that isn’t what you want to rank for dilutes the SEO impact of your TITLE tag so keep them to less than 60 characters. Stuffing keywords into your title tag makes your site rank worse, not better.

4. Add links to your most important products (services/properties) directly from your home page.

This will help search engine crawlers find your most important pages easier.

Provide a link to your main services (sales, property management, strata management) in the body of the home page. Also provide a link to the properties you have for sale and to rent in the suburbs you want to rank for using the search phrase as the anchor text.

For example, if you want to rank for “real estate Scarborough” add a section called Find Properties for Sale with “Real Estate Scarborough” linking to a page that contains all the properties you have for sale in Scarborough.

5. Write a good META Description.

The META description is usually displayed as a short paragraph in the search results. That’s called a snippet. A good snippet acts as an advert for your content and will increase click through rates leading to more traffic. Take the time to write a good one. Google will ignore a META Description if it thinks there are words in the page content that provide a better description, so make sure yours is accurate and meaningful.

If you enjoyed this article please click the Like button below or share it on Facebook or Twitter.

Since the launch of the new Facebook pages spammers are running riot. Their latest trick is to use Facebook as a page then post spam links and comments on the walls of other pages.

Their goal is usually to entice people to click through and Like a Facebook page. But it’s an amateurish tactic and does little to build a credible brand.

Related to this tactic is posting the same offer on multiple business pages. Neither works.

Why?

If I use a page to post something on another page it shows up in the newsfeed of my page’s fans e.g. John’s Bricklaying > Bob’s Plumbing [Post content]. Many marketers believe that posting on another page wall will show as an interaction in the newsfeed of the other page’s fans. It doesn’t.

The other place the post shows up is on the wall of the other page. Well only sort of. With the latest round of changes to Facebook pages, the wall is filtered, and that often consigns low value posts to invisibility.

Here’s what the Facebook Help Centre has to say:

People who like your Page may view a specific filter by default, depending on when they last visited your Page. For example, if they recently visited your Page, they will see Most Recent. If they have not visited your Page recently, they will see Top Posts. People who like your Page can choose to switch between the two views by toggling the viewing option in the top right corner of the Wall.

Spam comments rarely attract many Likes or comments so it’s unlikely they’ll ever reach the Top News filter and that means that people visiting the other page for the first time won’t even see the post unless a new page visitor takes the time to change the filter settings to Most Recent.

Too bad!

Facebook has another way of dealing with hyper-activity. If I use a page to post or comment a lot within a short period of time Facebook will display only one of those comments – possibly the one that’s had the most interaction – along with the notation ‘X more similar stories’. Rather than placing repetitive, low value content into the fans’ newsfeed Facebook surfaces only one interaction and leaves it to the fans to discover more.

Of course there’s a delicate balance involved here. It takes time and effort to build a sense of community using a Facebook page. Brands with a massive following may find it easy but for most small businesses it takes work. Reaching out and building relationships with related businesses is an important strategy. But relationships don’t start with selling and they definitely don’t start with spam.

Instead of using your page to write “Please follow us by liking our page .. click the link!” on another page start with using your page to add a genuine comment on a post. Do this regularly. Participate in the conversation. Add value. Support. Encourage. Earn your stripes first.

[tweetmeme]Remember, this is another brand’s space. Treat it with respect. That’s how to build a well-regarded brand that will last the test of time.

Photo credit: pandemia on Flickr

[tweetmeme]They were mature women, both well-groomed and articulate, elegant even. By contrast I was fresh-faced, full of dreams and brimming with youthful enthusiasm. Already I was well out of my comfort zone having moved from Kalgoorlie to the hustle and bustle of the big smoke.

And I was about to enter the cauldron of my first sales meeting as a principal. It was a moment I’ll never forget.

Within moments the prima donnas were at it, firing salvo after salvo of insults and allegations. There was hardly a moment to draw breath.

They were arguing over who “owned” a prospective seller. “They’re in MY farming area”, claimed one. “But they came through MY home open”, retorted the other. Back and forth they went, voices getting louder, veins on necks and temples set to burst. Soon they were standing, shouting at one another across the board room table. One shook her fist, lips quivering in anger.

It was sad to see.

What was especially sad was they were arguing over the wrong question: Whose client is this anyway? It’s a question that’s always drawn false battle lines and been resolved using equally false justifications.

The real question is: Who does this client want to do business with? That question recognises that no-one owns a prospect. No-one owns a client. No-one owns a farming area.

For as long as I can remember business owners lay claim to the client based on how much they spend on training, advertising and wages. As Ray Perkins, principal of RealSell in Wanneroo, observes there are a lot of costs that go into training an developing new sales reps that need to be recouped. “This is where an office can feel that work carried out by the rep over this period of time in creating a database of clients belongs to the office”.

But, according to Bunbury RE/MAX agent David Willis, it’s outdated thinking.

back in the dark ages, we relied on the company for leads in a way that doesn’t happen anymore. The argument was that the company paid for the phone to ring, therefore, they own the database that comes from it, and it was a good argument at the time. Most agents are now seen as semi independent, paying for and bringing in business via their own methods rather than waiting to be spoon fed.

And, for many agents, Willis is on the money. Times have changed, they believe, and it’s now a simple, incontestable fact: the sales representative owns the client. It’s a view held by Geoff Baldwin, Regional Owner and outspoken Managing Director of RE/MAX Western Australia. Baldwin asserts that “the relationships belong to the Sales Associate. Any Agent who thinks they can change that is kidding him/herself.”

Others see more nuance in the debate. According to Kylie Atkinson, a Perth based real estate technology trainer, it’s “a very grey area which can be viewed from both sides of the fence.”

But just how do agents separate the black and white from the many shades of grey? For Atkinson and others it’s all about rewarding effort.

She believes that one of the biggest mistakes an agency will ever make is not staying in touch with their database. In her view no-one can lay claim to ownership of a database that’s not being actively worked.

Based on years of industry knowledge she’s developed a solution to reduce friction about database ownership. “Databasing is all about ‘maintaining the contact’”, she says. “No less than 4 communications (verbal/face-to-face) per year and a variety of ‘relevant’ paper/email communication” is the minimum.

By her own admission, though, the reward for effort approach has it’s limitations. “You cant own a person full stop”, she says. It’s an observation shared by veteran Victoria Park agent, Jay Wood. He believes that claims of ownership over clients will always be moot because “the customer will shop where they like”.

It’s a pragmatic point of view, one that’s based on an understanding that no matter what agents say it’s the customer who decides. And with Facebook and Twitter making relationships between agents and their clients more transparent than ever it’s time to throw the idea of ownership out the door completely.

[tweetmeme]In reality clients would be right to laugh at the absurdity and hubris of agents attempting to claim ownership of their relationship. Regardless of the effort made by the agency or the sales rep no-one owns a client. All agents can ever own is their own actions. And if those actions are sufficiently focussed on building, thickening, extending and improving relationships then the result will be more business.

Image credit: Francis Carnaúba on Flickr

Agents often complain they don’t have anything to blog about. Or they’re just too busy. Both are poor excuses. Here’s why.

There’s any amount of interesting topics to write about. Dean Bradley writes about the latest Wembley property market stats. Michelle Aslander blogs about the effect of the NBN on rental prices in Victoria Park. Their posts are short and too the point and provide their websites with valuable keyword rich content.

Be prepared to write about non-real estate topics. Often the most commented on posts are quite personal. I’m on a year-long project to write a post-a-day. WordPress provides topics, tips and inspiration, or try out the 30 day blog writing challenge. And for fun try using a Plinky question as a blog topic.

If you’re “too busy” to blog there’s a solution. Grab your iPhone and download the Dragon dictation app. It’s free and works a treat. When you see something that inspires, annoys or just catches your eye dictate a note. Keep it less than 45 seconds. Thirty seconds is fine. Dragon will then turn your speech into text and, with a little tidy-up and a picture you’ve got a blog post. Easy, huh?

The takeaway here is to get active and start doing. Doing anything is always better than doing nothing. Especially on the Net.[tweetmeme]

I withdrew from my PhD studies today. Quite simply I’ve been unable to commit the hours of work needed to produce the work required.

A PhD is a big undertaking. It’s the Everest of academia and I have enormous respect for anyone who’s achieved either. It takes commitment and dedication and hours upon hours of patient, focused research. And with those hours come sacrifices of all kinds, many I was not willing to make.

Those who know me know I love learning. For me reading French philosophy is like eating chocolate. It’s indulgent and luxurious and I never want it to end. But too much of a good thing is just that: too much.

My supervisors, Tama Leaver and Michele Willson (yes, that is the correct spelling), were both marvelous. They were encouraging and supportive and yet academically rigorous. Having someone keeping my academic apetite in check was unreservedly welcome.

Will I go back? Probably but I’m in no hurry. For the moment I’m going to spend more time building my business and helping others build theirs.

Stay tuned.

I write this from an Internet cafe in Kerobokan, Bali.  It’s just around the corner from Chapelle Corby’s prison home, but that’s a story for another day.

I was reminded yesterday about building trust. We came to Bali primarily to buy for Rita’s gift-ware store. There’s lots of beautiful, hand-crafted jewellery to chose from over here and the people are always friendly and helpful.

We’re lucky to have two wonderful local “agents” who help us source the best product. Dedi and Yasi a young beautiful young couple with a young family. They fall over themselves to help us and we have come to trust and rely heavily on their advice.

At one point they took us to a place in Denpasar we wouldn’t find in a million years. It was tucked away behind a bunch of disheveled Balinese houses and we sat on the floor looking at rings and gemstones and pendants while chickens, ducks and children wandered happily around the yard. There was no security guards, no lurking sales attendant, no hint at all that there was many tens of thousands of dollars of jewellery sitting out in the open.

And Dedi and Yasi had the full run of the place. They were in and out of the house with trays and trays of product. No-one showed any concern that we might pocket some of the jewellery and it was an observation that Rita made out loud.

It was Dedi’s response that I thought was both insightful and profound. “He trusts me. And I will never abuse that trust”, he stated.  Sure he could make a few bucks on the side by stealing a ring or a pendant here and there. But in the long run he knows that, at a whole bunch of levels, he’s far better off nurturing that trust and building on the relationship.

For me it’s a great lesson for business. Honouring someone’s trust is a long term project with long-term dividends. It takes a long time to develop and can be destroyed in an instant.

I’m up for building a business based on trust and reputation just like Dedi is doing. How about you?

Photo credit mahayani1 on Flickr

Making Your Corporate Blog Presence a Strategic Priority « Bernaisesource

If you’re not so sure about the wisdom of letting your staff loose on Facebook during work hours, but see benefits in your business getting on the social networking train, then Ning or Kwiqq might be your thing. You can create your own social network that’s specifically focused on your needs and your group of associates. It may be worth exploring.