The coveted listing appointment: getting the appointment is only half the battle. What you do and say, or don’t do, once you’re in it is just as important, if not more so. With the real estate field being as crowded as it is, you will likely be one of several listing agents battling for the seller’s trust. So how do you stand out from the competition, impress the pants off the sellers, and ultimately win the listing without agreeing to an outrageous sales price? Here are some tips from the experts at Weichert on how to dazzle during every listing presentation.
Keep Your Ears OpenIf you are anything like most real estate agents, you probably feel a ping of nerves when walking into a listing presentation. Especially, when you really need to make a sale. All of those nerves can cause many agents to spend too much time talking and not enough time listening. In most cases, a seller will tell you everything you need to know in order to get the listing. Make sure you allow them to speak as much as they are willing and carefully fish out valuable information like their motives for wanting to sell. At Weichert, we recommend a two-step process, with the first step focusing on listening to the seller and getting to know them, their needs, their wants, their concerns, then going back to do the final presentation. Reinforce Emotional MotivesMost people don’t just randomly decide to sell their house and uproot their lives for no reason. In most cases, there is an underlying emotional reason tied to their decision to sell. Understanding this emotional motive will be valuable to you in your pursuit to attain the listing. As early as possible, you should ask the sellers what makes them want to sell and move. If they give a shallow reason, attempt to dig a little deeper. Once you know what’s motivating them, like a new job, retirement, a new baby, etc. you should subtly incorporate your understanding of, and experience with their goal in the conversation. For example, if they want to move because they’re starting a family, remind them of the comfort and relief they will feel if they’re settled into a new home before the baby arrives. At Weichert, this is also captured in the Getting to Know You portion of the listing presentation experience. Impress Them With a Polished PresentationIt is not enough to make promises about how professional you are. You need to prove it during every interaction, if you want to earn and keep the listing. A large piece of that puzzle is how you deliver your listing presentation and the materials that you use to represent your marketing plan. For example, Weichert agents are given access to a professionally designed and highly customizable listing presentation called DOORS, which is one of the tools most often cited by our franchisees as helping their closing rates. In DOORS, agents use an online design tool that is integrated with their CRM to customize the presentation with key details about the property. The 24-page presentation can be shown digitally, as well as in a bound presentation that talks about the details of the listing, outlines the marketing plan your agent will use to market the property and markets your brokerage as well. It is comprehensive, colorful, and informative in a way that most other presentations are not. There is a companion leave behind version as well that you can deliver as a hard copy or send them electronically. Our agents find that these easy-to-create and polished presentations win over sellers that may have been on the fence, and help differentiate them when they are up against other agents. Communicate Value With ClarityYear after year, buyers and sellers proclaim that clear, honest, and regular communication is one of their top three priorities in a real estate agent, according to a study done by NAR. Although sometimes nerves can get the better of agents, when they are armed with a great presentation and speaking points, it can make the most ordinary agent seem extraordinary in the eyes of the seller. That’s why Weichert focuses and invests so heavily in their listing presentation. By arming its offices and agents with a solid presentation and sales system, they can go out and rule their neighborhoods and win those listings! What type of listing system do you use in your brokerage? The more you invest in truly professional preparation for attracting and signing listings, the more confident, comfortable, and successful you and your agent team will become. For more information about how you can give yourself a competitive edge this year, visit www.weichertfranchising.com.
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One could argue that as a real estate broker, you are only as good as the people you surround yourself with. That being said, it is not only important that you build a strong brokerage filled with talented and motivated agents, but you need to cultivate a larger network filled with respected professionals with a wide variety of knowledge in diverse business areas. While most brokers have accumulated a good set of contacts over the years, it is important that you know how to leverage that network to get the most out of it in terms of leads, referrals, and insight. With some careful planning and a well-rounded strategy in place, you can easily squeeze a remarkable amount of value out of the network you have already built. Here are some proven methods of doing just that from the experts at Weichert.
Collaborate to Create Content Everyone knows that in the digital era of real estate, content remains king. Rather than making all of your content completely about your brokerage, you can expand your reach by including appropriate network partners in your content. Partner with other local professionals, charities, small business owners, and complementary real estate professionals (ie. Lawyers, title companies, home inspection, etc.) to create hyperlocal infotainment style content that helps both businesses to grow, showcase expertise and capitalize on one another’s following. For example, you could partner with your preferred home inspection company to create a blog post about the top 3 things to look for in a home inspection. Or create a post on the best local restaurants for “date night” and partner with the owners or managers of those restaurants to build the content. Typically, those businesses that you partner with will be more than happy to promote your content on their own websites and social media, resulting in greater brand reach, and awareness. Pay It Forward Being generous with referrals helps to grow your own referral business exponentially. Have you ever had someone do a favor for you or send you a referral without being prompted to? Didn’t you notice how compelled you felt to pay back that favor? If you take the lead by sending referrals to people in your network that you trust and believe in, you can bet that they will be likely to return the favor. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled on social media platforms like Facebook which will make it easy for you to tag and refer the other business owners in your network. This rule of reciprocity is powerful and will help you to stand out in any networking group you belong to. Attend Events With A Purpose It’s easy to attend networking events and stick to people you may already know. While it is good to further develop the connections that you have already made, you should also push yourself to form new connections and look for opportunities to make additional connections within your existing network. Develop a good “elevator speech” about what you do that doesn’t make you sound like every other real estate professional in your market, clearly communicates who you target, and defines the value you provide. Also, make sure to ask the new people that you meet what type of referrals they are looking for so you can keep them in mind when looking for ways to pay it forward. Look Outside Your Market Social media is an excellent source of other real estate professionals and entrepreneurs that you can connect with to exchange ideas and solve challenges that arise as you grow. One easy way to connect with other like-minded professionals is to look for groups on Facebook and LinkedIn that focus around topics that can help you to grow, as well as, offer you the opportunity to share your own expertise. Additionally, there are plenty of real estate groups out there that can offer referrals and relocation business which can be profitable if you’re able to act quickly. Leverage a Brand’s Internal Network One of the best ways to take your networking options to the next level is to consider affiliation with a national brand like Weichert. While networking may not be the first thing you think of when considering joining a franchise, it can quickly become one of the major benefits of affiliation. A brand like Weichert for instance, brings with it the family-like camaraderie of other experienced brokers, trainers, and a huge infrastructure of coaching and lead generation that is part of the power of our internal network and our many real estate divisions. Our internal network can translate directly into sales opportunities through our international relocation company, our national lead generation network, our network of Referral Associates, online chat boards, as well as the relationships you develop directly with other Weichert brokers across the country through some of the many management conferences and events that Weichert facilitates. At Weichert, we understand the power of networking because we’ve always taken a people-first approach to supporting every member of the team. To learn more about how Weichert brokers are empowered to develop and leverage our network go to www.weichertfranchise.com. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/5-ways-to-leverage-your-network/ Running a real estate brokerage is a rewarding business. You can do things your way from choosing a name and a location, training and mentoring a team, and driving your marketing. You know you’ll never forget the excitement you felt when your sign was hung outside your brokerage for the first time. You made the transition from motivated sales associate to independent business owner and with that, comes a necessary shift in your thinking, and your actions.
The Salesperson Within Most of the independent brokers we talk to were excellent sales associates. It’s why they made the move to being a broker. But a few years in, too many of them are still actively selling their own listings on a day to day basis. If this describes you, you have to know that you’re limiting your brokerage growth by continuing to actively sell. Before you hung your sign, the inner manager in you should have begun to change your focus from selling, to the process of managing. This means recruiting both experienced and promising new agents, and figuring out how to make them successful. Sure, it’s hard to break away from selling homes. After all, your sales prowess paid your bills all these years, but now it’s time to use your expertise to help other agents succeed and increase your bottom line. Salaried or contracted specialized administrative employees can help ease your work load and move you away from directly working with buyers and sellers to focusing on increasing agent transactions. The Case for Letting Go Many brokers mistakenly believe that they can’t stop selling or they won’t have the revenue to continue their operations or sustain their own income level. Inevitably this feeling is really due to another issue: you don’t believe your staff is able to do it as successfully as you. While this may even be true, if you want your brokerage to continue to succeed and grow, you need to invest in addressing that issue, not out meeting sellers to get listings. Train your agents to sell like you do, recruit new agents, and resist the temptation to slide back to old ways. Do that and everyone will reap the benefits and financial reward. In fact, non-selling brokers typically earn more than those that continue to sell after opening their own brokerage. National Association of Realtors member profile for 2015 showed that managing brokers who solely took charge of their brokerage earned a median annual salary of $102,200 as opposed to $86,400 for brokers who also were in the field listing homes and/or working with buyers. Handle Business Details Think back to when you were working for another brokerage as a salesperson. How do you think everything ran so smoothly? Through the broker’s hard work on the various day-to-day activities of running the brokerage as a business. Or maybe it didn’t run smoothly, because the broker was too focused on their own selling or not invested in developing their agents. Similarly, your mindset should only be on overseeing business details, such as continuing to foster your business and your brand to help agents get a leg up on the competition and your brokerage keep its integrity and sorecuieputation, among a slew of other operational tasks. If you are overwhelmed with the sheer number of tasks involved in managing your own brokerage and need a roadmap, you can consider an affiliation with a national real estate brand like Weichert. Our affiliates have the advantage of a blueprint for running a successful real estate brokerage, complemented with many broker tools to help handle business operations, marketing, recruiting and training that points you to the activities you should be working on for success. Build A Better Life When your entire brokerage is run seamlessly as a business, you are making a better life, not just for you and your family, but for all your agents. A successful brokerage means you can confidently take the family on vacation, knowing that the systems and people you’ve put in place will handle affairs while you are away. Weichert has helped hundreds of brokers build the business of their dreams, contact us today at 877-567-3350 or online at http://weichertfranchise.com. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/build-business-let-agents-sell-listings-2/ In a world where people are constantly being bombarded with marketing messages, it can be very difficult to stand out and build a dominant brand. It’s important that your real estate marketing plan is multi-faceted and consumers see you in more than just one context. It’s not enough to justadvertise on Facebook or justsend out direct mail. A good real estate marketing plan includes all of these and one often over-looked component: community involvement. This is a unique way to connect with potential clients in your community without directly marketing to them. And if you do it right, you can attain amazing results. More and more, savvy real estate brokers are discovering that clients and their community appreciate seeing the human side of a business through its community involvement and can be a great start to building those lasting relationships. Here are some actionable steps you can take to build those relationships and leverage them to win more business.
Three Ways to Engage With The CommunityThe first thing you need to do is find simple ways of becoming more engaged with your community. The following three strategies will not only feel amazing for you and your team, but also make good business sense and will build a positive brand perception. Align Yourself with A Local Charity By choosing an official charity to support, you have the opportunity to socialize locally in a meaningful way. This works best if you select a cause that you and your team feel passionate about and is well-recognized by the community. Being a visible sponsor for an active charity is a great way to keep your brand in front of the community while making positive contributions. Hold Regular Workshops Become an educator by hosting local workshops. You will build the perception that you are both an expert and an ally. The time before and after these workshops will give you and your team the opportunity to answer and ask questions that can spark relationships which can lead to future business. The key to success here is to choose workshop topics that are relevant and valuable to your neighborhoods, such as Home Buyer Seminars. Participate in Community Events Is your town hosting a parade, race, festival or other event looking for sponsors? Sign up! It will be great exposure for you, show the neighborhood you care and usually includes an opportunity for your agent team to be out interacting with active members of the community in some capacity. Shout Out Your Good DeedsIt always feels good to give back, but it’s important to let people know about it! Promote your work and accomplishments in order to gain the valuable recognition your real estate team deserves. Here are some simple ways to do that. Press Releases to Local Media A press release is a quick way to get the word out to local papers, magazines, radio, and television stations that there will be an event of interest. Of course, your participation in that event will be included and will help to raise eyebrows about your involvement. Press releases work well before and right after events, but if are looking to drum up attendance, plan to send one prior to the event. Feature the Event in Instagram and Facebook Stories With Local Influencers If you want to maximize the exposure of your event or involvement, invite local Instagram or Facebook influencers to help you promote it. In most cases, if it is a charitable cause, they will do this for free. This saves you from having to pay for ads, yet will likely yield even better results in terms of brand recognition, followers gained, attendance won. Don’t have an influencer? No problem! Facebook and Instagram are still great outlets to promote your company’s involvement, both pre-event and post-event. Include the Event in Your Newsletter Have a weekly or monthly newsletter? Be sure to let your subscribers know about your activities. In fact, you should consider devoting an entire newsletter to explain the cause and why it deserves their support or why they should attend that particular workshop you have coming up. This helps to remind your subscribers that you aren’t just here to sell real estate but that you truly care about the community where you do business. Highlight Your Involvement on Your Website If you are frequently involved in events of your own or others around the community, create a news section on your website to promote this activity. Be sure to include as many pictures and videos of each event displaying your team hard at work. You could also include highlights from the events right on your homepage. Getting Involved Goes A Long WayBeing intimately involved with the community is a principle that Jim Weichert understood from day one of his real estate career when he handed out business cards at the local train station. As an experienced broker, you know that there is no replacement for the human-to-human connection. It’s also one of the most valuable assets to building a successful real estate brand. A franchise system such as Weichert coaches on best practices for building relationships, connecting with the people in your community and provides things such as PR services to help you promote your company’s news locally. If this is the type of brokerage support you’re looking for go to www.weichertfranchise.com or call 877-567-3350 to learn more. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/get-involved-win-clients/ Don’t be so fast to say “no”. If there’s one thing we’ve learned at Weichert, it’s that every brokerage is unique and that success is found in surprising places. So many of our most successful franchisees first told us they weren’t looking to franchise. It’s not always experience, knowledge, or having some great agents that makes a brokerage successful: it’s also the ability to develop, follow and execute a well-thought out and strategic plan. This is the key to making franchising with the right partner a successful, profitable and rewarding business choice.
Analyzing Your Readiness for Real Estate Franchising If you’re running your own business, you probably set certain goals for yourself. How have you been progressing toward those goals? Are you getting there as fast as you’d like? Or maybe you feel like you’ve plateaued and are looking for a solution to get you to the next milestone. If you fall into either of those categories, you might be ready to consider a franchise. It’s important to evaluate different franchise options and find out exactly how the process will work for your business. Will the services they offer meet your brokerage’s needs and align with your company’s goals and values. Another thing to consider is that no two franchise systems are created equal. Some, like Weichert, offer a high level of support, while others offer little more than their logo. Certain franchises ask for a significant investment, while others require less capital to become part of their brand. It’s all about understanding what you as a brokerage are getting for your part in the specific franchise that you are considering, and that means plenty of research. Not only should you be certain that you are going to get the growth you want, you should have a clear understanding of their services as they continue after your partnership, the expectations on both sides, and the reputation of the brand and franchising system itself. Finally, you need make sure your new brand will support you in your market. The best real estate franchises will respect what independent brokers have built and the following they’ve developed. These opportunities offer high level support, ongoing services and a level of security in challenging real estate markets. This kind of support has often meant the difference between surviving and not surviving for many businesses. From real estate CRM and marketing tools to real estate coaching, Weichert in particular, has always been a franchise ahead of the curve when it comes to offering brokerages effective tools and support designed specifically for business growth. To Join, or Not To Join a Real Estate Franchise Tying your wagon to a real estate franchise is a big decision that demands serious consideration on the part of any broker. But if you have a vision for your success that includes listening, learning, and working differently than your competitors, you just might be next Weichert Real Estate Franchise success story. Contact us at https://www.weichertfranchise.com for more information. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/real-estate-franchise/is-franchising-a-fit-for-you-2/ 4/10/2018 Franchise Success Spotlight: Weichert® Affiliate Steve Wilke – Weichert, Realtors® – Triumph GroupRead NowAs Weichert® Affiliate Steve Wilke stands out in front of the construction site where he will build the new 5,000 square foot home of Weichert, Realtors® – Triumph Group, he can’t help but reflect on how far his brokerage has come in such a short time.
“I’ve been a broker since 2002, but my most significant growth has happened only since 2016. That was the year I became a Weichert broker. Prior to that we didn’t even have an office; my agents and I worked out of our homes.” While Steve may seem like an overnight success story, his real estate career actually began when he was just a boy knocking around Dublin, Ohio. “I used to cut grass for a guy whose son was a big real estate success locally. He drove a fancy car and he always wore a suit and gave off an aura of success. I kind of liked that. When I started as an agent, he’s who I went to work for.” Dublin, Ohio is really a Columbus suburb, so relocation into this major city and surrounding areas is a big business driver. When Weichert found Steve in 2016, he was a broker running a team of about 20 agents out of his home, doing a fair amount of relocation work. Like many independent brokers, he was also still the top producer in his agency. “I wasn’t really trying to get listings, but they came to me due to the reputation I’d established over the years. Generally, these listings were from my sphere of influence.” But in 2012, one of their largest relocation clients left them. JP Morgan Chase, a major banking client with national relocation needs informed Steve that they could only offer Columbus relocation work to brokerages with a national presence. Almost overnight, Steve lost a major source of business and began to consider what being part of a respected national real estate brand would mean for his credibility in the marketplace. Steve had heard from Weichert in the past, but when they called again in early 2016, Steve was ready to listen. Through prior contacts with Weichert and personal observation, Steve already knew Weichert was the only real estate franchise he would consider affiliating with. In a few short months Steve was ready to sign, but only one small problem remained. Weichert requires affiliates to have an actual office address. So for the first time, Steve rented office space in a local building and moved himself and his team in. Finding His Way With Weichert Steve’s agent team welcomed the change to Weichert. The Weichert “Fast Track” training program and its methodology around the automated DOORS listing presentation really sealed the deal. In Steve’s words “As a broker for almost 15 years I thought ‘what are these guys going to teach me that I don’t already know?’, but the bottom line is that you don’t know what you don’t know. I learned a ton.” In short order, Steve got back the relocation work from Chase. Then he added relocation work for companies like Disney, Pepsico, Lowes, Black & Decker, Dupont, Scotts Lawn, etc., all referrals to his brokerage through Weichert Workforce Mobility, a national source of referrals for Weichert brokers who are operating in relocation markets. Getting Results In the almost 2 years Steve has been with Weichert, Steve grew his agent team from 20 to 52 agents following the Weichert strategies for recruitment and training. Steve attributes the growth primarily to the increased credibility that being part of the Weichert brand has brought him. His brokerage is the place to be and attracting and keeping agents has become much easier. But even more amazing is Steve’s top line growth. In his first year, sales rose a respectable 18%. Then as his team became experts in delivering the Weichert sales methodology, the Weichert Lead Network driving more business opportunities, and the DOORS listing presentation driving even more listings and closings, sales in his second year are up over 500%. And so, Steve finds himself looking at the grounds that will hold the beautiful new home of Weichert, Realtors® – Triumph Group, an office he is building from scratch. “I could rent, but I’m in this for the long haul. Having my own place from which to run the business is really a dream come true for me.” See what Steve has to say about Weichert’s strategies for recruiting agents. For more information on how Weichert helps put brokerages on the path to growth, call our team today at 877-567-3350 or visit our website weichertfranchise.com. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/franchise-success-spotlight-weichert-affiliate-steve-wilke-weichert-realtors-triumph-group/ Running a real estate brokerage is a rewarding business. You can do things your way from choosing a name and a location, training and mentoring a team, and driving your marketing. You know you’ll never forget the excitement you felt when your sign was hung outside your brokerage for the first time. You made the transition from motivated sales associate to independent business owner and with that, comes a necessary shift in your thinking, and your actions.
The Salesperson Within Most of the independent brokers we talk to were excellent sales associates. It’s why they made the move to being a broker. But a few years in, too many of them are still actively selling their own listings on a day to day basis. If this describes you, you have to know that you’re limiting your brokerage growth by continuing to actively sell. Before you hung your sign, the inner manager in you should have begun to change your focus from selling, to the process of managing. This means recruiting both experienced and promising new agents, and figuring out how to make them successful. Sure, it’s hard to break away from selling homes. After all, your sales prowess paid your bills all these years, but now it’s time to use your expertise to help other agents succeed and increase your bottom line. Salaried or contracted specialized administrative employees can help ease your work load and move you away from directly working with buyers and sellers to focusing on increasing agent transactions. The Case for Letting Go Many brokers mistakenly believe that they can’t stop selling or they won’t have the revenue to continue their operations or sustain their own income level. Inevitably this feeling is really due to another issue: you don’t believe your staff is able to do it as successfully as you. While this may even be true, if you want your brokerage to continue to succeed and grow, you need to invest in addressing that issue, not out meeting sellers to get listings. Train your agents to sell like you do, recruit new agents, and resist the temptation to slide back to old ways. Do that and everyone will reap the benefits and financial reward. In fact, non-selling brokers typically earn more than those that continue to sell after opening their own brokerage. National Association of Realtors member profile for 2015 showed that managing brokers who solely took charge of their brokerage earned a median annual salary of $102,200 as opposed to $86,400 for brokers who also were in the field listing homes and/or working with buyers. Handle Business Details Think back to when you were working for another brokerage as a salesperson. How do you think everything ran so smoothly? Through the broker’s hard work on the various day-to-day activities of running the brokerage as a business. Or maybe it didn’t run smoothly, because the broker was too focused on their own selling or not invested in developing their agents. Similarly, your mindset should only be on overseeing business details, such as continuing to foster your business and your brand to help agents get a leg up on the competition and your brokerage keep its integrity and sorecuieputation, among a slew of other operational tasks. If you are overwhelmed with the sheer number of tasks involved in managing your own brokerage and need a roadmap, you can consider an affiliation with a national real estate brand like Weichert. Our affiliates have the advantage of a blueprint for running a successful real estate brokerage, complemented with many broker tools to help handle business operations, marketing, recruiting and training that points you to the activities you should be working on for success. Build A Better Life When your entire brokerage is run seamlessly as a business, you are making a better life, not just for you and your family, but for all your agents. A successful brokerage means you can confidently take the family on vacation, knowing that the systems and people you’ve put in place will handle affairs while you are away. Weichert has helped hundreds of brokers build the business of their dreams, contact us today at 877-567-3350 or online at http://weichertfranchise.com. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/real-estate-agent-recruiting/build-business-let-agents-sell-listings/ LinkedIn’s mission is to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.” As a broker, isn’t that essentially what you want, too? To ensure that your brokerage and your agents are more productive and continue to be successful? For your brokerage to thrive, quality recruiting is an essential element of growth. You know that acquiring talented agents who are hungry for sales form the lifeblood of your brokerage.
Think of the agent search as lead acquisition. Do you want to make Facebook friends or gain business leads? With its more educated and wealthier demographic compared to other social networks, LinkedIn is a viable social media platform for lead generation, so it makes sense to use it to search for quality real estate agents as well—new or seasoned. Plus, its smaller and more focused social platform is a prime place to showcase your brokerage and its needs. Use Free Features Your LinkedIn profile speaks volumes about your professionalism and business model and is what most agent candidates will review to vet brokerage prospects. Make your headline stand out from the crowd, as that’s the first thing members see right under your name. Take the time to review your profile to ensure your message is correctly portrayed. Directly messaging certain first- and second-degree connections is one way to interact with potential agents and make them take notice of what you have to offer, but there are additional options. With a basic LinkedIn membership, there are a few ways you can recruit at no cost: through posts and articles. These recruiting features use general targeting and may take some time to get results. Play To Your Uniqueness LinkedIn supports two kinds of content: Posts and articles. You can think of them as short form and long form content, respectively, and they each have a place in your LinkedIn marketing plan. You want to create post items on a more regular basis that highlight the uniqueness of your brokerage—specialized trainings, online resources, sales mentors, prime location—and describe why it’s such a great place to work as opposed to your competition. Quotes from other agents, photos of employees, or the maybe the fact that you bring on veterans that became successful agents are some suggestions. You can also syndicate links to other content from Realtor.com or other real estate sites that you know that may be of interest. This is called “curated” content and can sometimes be easier for the busy broker or their associate to accomplish vs. writing original content. Articles are different than posts and should be used to highlight areas of interest to agents seeking a first or new brokerage, such as “10 things every real estate broker should provide to its agents” or “what to expect as a new real estate agent”. Content should resonate with sales associates looking to make a change or just starting out. If articles rank high, recruits will be at your door. Take Advantage of Targeted Data You can up the ante and get more recruits by capitalizing on LinkedIn’s vast member information data—pulled from over 500 million members—and use it to specifically target interested candidates. Better results and less work for you, but a paid premium membership is required to unlock the features of both job posts and career pages. As these talent acquisitions are so focused, the price paid now should increase brokerage growth quicker and with better-qualified agents than previous methods. Post A Job Unlike other job boards, posting a job on LinkedIn is highly directed to your needs. Skills, qualifications, education and more are used to get your job in front of candidates that fit your specifications. This feature boasts of real-time analytics, so you can see how your job posts are performing, as well as easy candidate review and contact methods. Add A Career Page The LinkedIn paid Career feature boosts your visibility and functions like your very own website within the LinkedIn platform. You can showcase lots about the everyday work environment, interesting trainings or speakers, fun office facts or agent quotes, office layout and much more in words, images and videos. You can post more than one job opening—agents, office manager, marketing specialist—without paying for each job post. To easily assess your recruiting goals and determine how the Careers page is working, use the handy analytics tool provided. Recruit on Multiple Channels Don’t forget that LinkedIn compliments your current recruiting efforts, it won’t replace them. One of the major focus points of the Weichert team in coaching new Affiliates is, of course, Recruitment, and our process emphasizes a multi-channel approach that creates the right exposure and buzz around your brokerage in your local market. Our process gets great results but it’s not by doing one thing, it’s doing many. From having the materials to help attract recruiting candidates to the training to get them up and running quickly to be successful, having a system in place is critical to recruiting success and growth. The team at Weichert understands better than most that recruiting and retaining the best people is what will make you truly successful. If finding a successful recruiting plan is something you’re interested in for your brokerage, call today at 877-533-9007 and see how the Weichert tools and processes can give you an edge. Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/real-estate-agent-recruiting/use-linkedin-recruit-quality-real-estate-agents/ The New Year came fast and is already in full swing. Did you make any resolutions? It’s important to maintain your focus on where you want to be in 12 months. Continue to take the lead and decide what direction you want to move your brokerage toward this year. Just as in your personal life, January is a good time to set goals for your brokerage to help you stay motivated and to reinvent yourself a little bit.
To improve your bottom line and keep your agents in the forefront of their market, consider ringing in these five New Year’s resolutions for your brokerage: 1.Create Buzz Around Your Brand Think about your marketing plan for the year. After all, marketing should create buzz around your brand and should be well thought out and budgeted into your business plan. Use the amount of an average transaction commission as a base for determining how much you can comfortably spend this year. You want the most impact at the least cost. Whether that’s an ad highlighting your listings or a glossy ad in a regional or national magazine showing off what sets your real estate brokerage apart from others, your spending needs to build awareness, bring business in and grow your brand. As marketing is so crucial to business growth, Weichert® advises having a well thought out brokerage marketing plan in place each November for the following year. 2. Track Numbers Differently Every successful broker knows their numbers. Do you? It’s important to track sales, of course, but following the numbers of all your agent activities—new listings, buyer consults, open houses conducted—shows patterns that may suggest a change is needed to increase income. Keeping your agents accountable for their activities using hard data like this leads to better performance. 3. Introduce A New Technology Application Technology is ever evolving and is an indispensable part of the modern real estate enterprise. Try introducing new technology to your agents that can make showing listings easier in real time. For instance, Periscope is a live-streaming video application launched in 2015 that can be used from any smartphone to simply broadcast virtual open houses for those purchasing from a distance. Best of all, the app is free to use. 4. Use A New Marketing Tool It can be time-consuming to keep up with the latest marketing tools, but it’s important to remain competitive. We all use hashtags in our social media posts, but how do you know if your choice of hashtags is effective? This year, try Keyhole, which provides analytical details on various hashtags, including impressions, demographics and sharing. 5. Better Project Management Recruiting, training, checking budgets, answering agent questions, reviewing contracts and many other tasks must be completed to keep the office efficiently running. Simplify big projects and tasks with Todoist and save time. Used on over 10 platforms—web browsers, mobile devices, desktops, inboxes—and with lots of special features, projects and tasks on this application can be scheduled, broken down into manageable parts, and even shared and delegated to your office manager to keep you both in check. There you have it, five New Year’s resolutions to implement into your real estate business plan for 2018. Use of these resolutions can help you increase sales through smarter marketing, keep your agents accountable and productive, and, best of all, save you time. And if you are looking for one centralized solution to help you implement these types of resolutions, consider a franchise affiliation. Affiliations with a national brand such as Weichert® can offer you help with branding, tracking your numbers and have teams dedicated to researching and implementing new technology and marketing tools, so you can spend time managing other aspects of your brokerage. Final Thoughts New Year’s resolutions can be hard to keep, but your ability to set and keep some around your business goals are an opportunity to reinvent pieces of your business in the New Year and take it to new heights. At Weichert, we know something about reinventing real estate brokerages, it’s what we help owners do. For more information about becoming a Weichert franchise and its benefits, contact a member of our team today at 800-533-9007 or weichertfranchise.com. A Healthy and Happy New Year to us All! Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/five-new-years-resolutions-brokerage/ As a real estate broker, it’s expected that you know a lot about the business. The success of your brokerage is directly tied to your knowledge and experience. From picking a commercial location from which to run your business, to hiring new and seasoned agents, to marketing, you run it all. You keep abreast of changes in financial and real estate newstrain and carefully study market hot sheets each morning.
What New Agents Don’t Know But how do you impart your sales and marketing skills and expertise to new agents who may be eager, but still have a lot to learn? These fresh-out-of-school agents have a general real estate education, but don’t know the first thing about what it takes to work in the business—generating leads, doing a CMA, writing a contract or even basic marketing. By now you know what new agents consistently need to learn and can coach them on those topics. While teaching them real estate best practices can be a drain on your time, you understand that new agents can only be producing agents with the proper training. Taking the time to educate new agents toward success means they have a better shot at being the 13% who succeed, rather than the 87% that fail within five years in the industry*. But if you don’t have a dedicated trainer, where do you start? Create Q&A A question-and-answer format is a fun way to train agents new to the business. Create answers to the most often asked questions you’ve heard over the years. Keep your answers clear, simple and to the point to make it simple for agents to grasp the concept and easily act. Questions to answer may include:
Make Training Accessible Share your expertise with new hires in an accessible YouTube video or other digital platform. To make the information easier to learn, shoot a short video for each question. Doing a training video, for instance, is a good delivery method that frees up your time. You can create the material, upload and use it to train many agents with no extra work on your part. Just create updates as information changes. If you are lucky enough to be affiliated with a large real estate brand like Weichert, you may have access to some of the best real estate marketing tools in the industry like an online, e-learning center, which provides a wealth of material on important training topics. Best of all it is available 24/7. Motivate For Longevity Knowing how to attract and funnel leads, how to acquire listings and how to write a contract are all key parts of any real estate business. But, as all brokers have experienced, agents often have slow times or difficult buyers or sellers. Think back to what it was like when you were just getting started as an agent. What was that bit of wisdom, quote or daily affirmation that you’ve never forgotten and still use today? Share what keeps you going each day with your new agents to teach them the art of motivation. It will help keep them in the game for the long haul. There is of course, an easier way to train new agents that works around the clock every day, so you don’t have to–that is affiliating with a company who invests and provides you with these training resources. Weichert® realizes the relationship between education and success, and offers a full suite of training programs for new agents. These include an online university and ongoing interactive training sessions to get agents up to speed fast and keep them current with best practices. Call Weichert® at 877-533-9007 to learn more. *NAR Survey 2014 https://weichertfranchise.com Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/real-estate-coaching/training-new-agents-tap-best-resource/ |
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