Business Planning

This is the feature article in this week’s RealtyBiz Agent Success Newsletter.

I’m now back from Spain and have spent the last week trying to catch up on email, contacts, client relationships, and everything else that I put on hold for my vacation. Getting away was great – and I made sure not to do any work on the trip – but coming home to an inbox filled with thousands of messages was not fun.

While I love the instant access to virtually anyone that email provides, that instant access can be a huge drain on my productivity – especially when 80% of the email I receive is not urgent, doesn’t require a response, or never seems to get to the point. read full entry

This is the feature article in this week’s RealtyBiz Agent Success Newsletter.

I’m headed to the Priorat region of Spain for a week on Friday. Of course, I still have a million things on my to-do list and a million more on would-like-to-do list. As I added yet another thing to the to-do list, I realized this just wasn’t working. Every time I crossed off something, I added two new things to be done. Sound familiar?

After taking a deep breath, I sat back down with my list and started prioritizing. It’s so easy to stress ourselves out with all the day-to-day problems that come up, that we often lose track of our goals. In my case, I needed to finish up a client project, write two newsletters, and pack for my trip. Everything else fell into the “would be nice but could wait” category. read full entry

I’m traveling to Northern Spain (Priorat) for a week in wine country the last week in May. The trip was somewhat of a last minute decision – I had wanted to go as part of a tour (through The Wine School of Philadelphia, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Seriously, if you love wine and you’re close to Philly, stop in for a class – you won’t be disappointed.), but the tour sold out before I could join. A few days ago, there was a cancellation and I seized the opportunity.

So now, I have less than three weeks to plan my trip (and learn enough Spanish to get by!) The tour is providing accommodations, but each of us must find our own way to the villa. Here are some tips I’ve picked these last few days about planning a last minute trip. read full entry

A couple of things –

New Site Design – I’ve completely revamped the RealtyBizCoach.com design and moved the blog off the front page. It’s now at http://www.realtybizcoach.com/blog/. I think everything is working, but if you notice any bugs while viewing the site, please let me know.

Free Marketing Guide – I’ve just released a revised copy of my free report, “A Marketing Plan Guide For Real Estate Agents” – just in time for Mother’s Day!

The Marketing Plan Guide is a complete revamp of the previous guide I have been offering for download to those who joined the RealtyBizCoach mailing list. In fact, I pretty much scrapped what I had and started over. The result is that the new Guide is double the pages and much more hands-on with worksheets you can fill out to help you plan your monthly marketing activities. read full entry

This is step 5 of a five-part series on how new agents can successfully break into the real estate market.

Yesterday, I talked about the importance of nurturing your prospect list. Today, I’m going to shift gears and discuss what you need to do to build a referral-based business.

Last week, Mike asked me, “Where do you get the most bang for your buck in marketing?” Personally, I think there’s no question that it’s referral marketing. So why did I spend the last few days talking about building credibility, educating prospects, generating leads and following up consistently? Because when you’re starting out, those are the steps to building a referral-based business. read full entry

This is step 1 of a five-part series on how new agents can successfully break into the real estate market.

Building credibility and expertise as a new agent is somewhat of a chicken or egg dilemma. You need clients to gain credibility and expertise, yet clients won’t hire you unless you already have that credibility and expertise. What is a new agent to do?

When your prospects analyze which agent to hire, they also weigh in risk – and hiring a brand new real estate agent who has only worked with one or two people is incredibly risky, especially in a down market. What if problems come up or you make a mistake that prevents them from buying the house they want? What if you don’t know about marketing techniques other agents are using? What if you fill out the forms wrong or any number of things that might possibly go wrong? read full entry

Mike asks:
I am new to the business, and I have about $2500 to spend on getting my name out there. Where do you get the most bang for your buck in marketing?

Thanks for your question, Mike. It’s a question I get pretty regularly from new agents who are trying to break into real estate, so I wanted to take a few minutes to answer the question.

Unfortunately, while I wish I could give you the one trick that will bring a flood of clients and cash in the door, marketing just doesn’t work that way. There is no magic bullet when it comes to growing your business. I wish there was, but the reality is that you are entering a difficult market and need to overcome quite a few obstacles before your marketing will start to work. read full entry

I was catching up on my weekend reading when I came across this misguided article published at RISMedia that describes the way to succeed in business: find an industry guru and follow his/her formula for success. read full entry

If you work from home or are a member of a small team, it can be difficult to keep track of all the ideas you come up with on a weekly basis, let alone implement them to improve your business. One way to organize your thoughts is to devote an hour each week or so to one business theme. Think of it as an accountability meeting, similar to a weekly staff meeting you might have if you worked in a larger business environment. Here’s a sample agenda: read full entry

In my last two posts, I talked about two ways to grow your business: how to increase your number of clients by increasing your conversion rates on your marketing materials and sales consultations and how to increase the average transaction value. Today, I’ll discuss the third way to grow your business: repeat business.

Buying or selling a home is a big decision, so regardless of what you’d prefer, you probably won’t be able to persuade people to move on a whim. That said, there are still opportunities to generate repeat business from past clients in the form of referrals. read full entry