1. IDX maximized and leveraged. Gone are the days of just one link to search properties and forcing the visitor to do a cumbersome search each time they visit. Have an interactive MLS search on the front page of your site and include quick searches to specific information and ways to register for hot property alerts like www.KristanCole.com. Visitors to your site want to see listings and they want to see them quickly!
2. Reflecting and specialized areas. If your area of specialization is the Alpharetta area of the Atlanta, GA market, then you must have a page about Alpharetta that includes information about market conditions, homes in specific price ranges and more. This enables you to establish yourself as an expert with buyers by having the information they’re looking for, and with sellers by showing you’re the expert in their neighborhood. A great example is www.MarkSpain.com/alpharetta.
3. Visible contact information. Your contact info should be in an easy-to-find location. Side panels and side bars are great for this type of information and help eliminate scrolling.

4. Check links and eliminate where needed. Broken links are not only irritating to consumers, they’re also detrimental to your search engine rankings, your brand and how you are perceived in the market. Go through your site with a fresh perspective and make sure your links are going where you want them to go.
5. Social media tools. Make it easy for people to see how you are different from your competitors, your unique offerings and what your business culture is all about. Have clickable sections to your Facebook business page, your LinkedIn profile and your Twitter account so others can share your message.
6. Niche area and trending opportunities. Is there a niche market that you could accentuate on your site to show you are the expert? For example, if you see a growing trend like investors wanting to buy in your market, create a foreclosure buys section on your site to compel them to engage with you.
7. Offline and online promotion. Fifty percent of your website’s success depends on how well you promote it offline. Take a look at your marketing materials and make sure each element has a specific call to action to drive visitors to specific sections on your website. While a great website can be a powerful tool, a congruent online and offline marketing campaign working in a streamlined manner is real marketing at its finest.

Herb’s (the coach) vision was 3 core elements that would create a win:

1. “We have to change the way we play the game.” The same strategy can not withstand the test of time. It must be free to move and evolve. We have to look at our competition differently and view our business differently too. In doing so, how has your target market changed? Is there different niches or opportunities that you should focus on this year? If so, make sure that your website has “calls to action” to engage the person and show that they can get information on those types of properties. Leverage your call to action messages on every marketing piece and that includes social media channels like Facebook, You Tube and more. Remember, people have changed in the way they get information.
2. “I am not looking for the best players…I am looking for the right players.” This is the POWER in team synergy – the value of working in motion as a team. Business is more than just about you as an individual. It’s about the people you choose to work with everyday, the people you choose to attract into your business and into your life. Leverage the people on your team so they play to their strengths. Is someone on your team a natural connector and great negotiator? Perhaps they are perfect to handle the Short Sale client. Is another person the creative in lead generation strategy? Let them lead in a brainstorming session that allows this to blossom. Also remember that if you are the rainmaker that is the lead to generate the business, focus on those tasks that you know would be impossible to duplicate (like lead generation, listing presentations, etc). If you are one agent and running your business, surround yourself with like minded companies and people that can help you to reach your business goals and maximize what you do best.
3. “We are a team of uncommon men. Because common men go nowhere”. Be willing to do what the competition is not willing to do. If it’s where you prospect every day for 2 hours a day, do it. If it’s walking your farm area and personally connecting with each homeowner, do it. If it’s personally following up with every lead first for 30 days (even though you have a buyer specialist) so that you have a vision of the market, do it! That is the uncommon element to success.

You’ve probably heard Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Of course, it is human nature to resist change and it generally takes 21-30 days to form new habits. If you aren’t consciously focusing on making positive changes in your life, they probably won’t stick. Here are 8 ways to make positive changes in your business.

1. Review your successes – Look back over the last six months and ask yourself which activities generated the most clients. Was it advertising? Your website? Networking? Staying in touch with your sphere of influence?
2. Identify your strengths – What activities do you do well? Which come easy to you? What do you like doing?
3. Improve your weaknesses – One way to improve your business is to turn a weakness into a strength. What is one thing about your business you wish you could improve? Now, look over your list of strengths – how can you turn this weekends into a strength? Do you need to learn a new skill or hire an assistant to do it for you? How can you shift your mindset so this weakness isn’t so tedious or unpleasant? What would need to happen for you to dramatically improve this area of your business?
4. Mirror successful agents – Look at the most successful real estate agent you know. What does he or she do that you aren’t doing? How might your business change if you added one of this agent’s activities to your daily to do list?
5. Find a coach or mentor – Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you don’t know what is wrong – or worse, you know what to do, you just don’t do it! In these cases, it can be helpful to find a coach or mentor to help you become unstuck. Who do you know that can help guide you through your difficult challenges and hold you accountable for your results?
6. Schedule business review sessions – As an independent real estate agent, you have complete control over the success of your company. You are its President and responsible for its long-term strategic vision and making sure you achieve the results you want. Schedule time each week to review your accomplishments and solve any problems that have arisen. If you ignore problems, they will only get bigger.
7. Create an action plan – Start with one part of your business that is “good” but could become “excellent” if you put in more time or effort. What, exactly, do you have to do to transform this part of your business? Make a list of action steps that you will complete over the next few weeks.
8. Eliminate your least productive tasks – What activities do you do that suck up all your time, leave you feeling drained, and don’t directly impact getting or keeping clients? Identify your biggest time wasters and commit to eliminating them over the next month or finding someone to do them for you.

By following these eight steps, you can keep what is already working in your real estate business, add a few innovative tactics, and get rid of all the things that aren’t working or no longer work. Consider the 80/20 rule: 20% of your activities account for 80% of your results. Focus on those 20% of your activities that dramatically impact your bottom line.

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.

If you’re struggling to manage your email, here are seven tips to help.

1. Only check email at certain times. While it’s tempting to leave your email program open at all times, that’s a huge productivity killer. You don’t need to check every email the second it comes in, thus interrupting whatever task you were doing. Instead, set aside 20-30 minute blocks of time two or three times per day to check email. If this type of non-responsiveness makes you nervous, create an autoresponder that states the specific times you check email, when the sender can expect a response, and what to do if they have an urgent need.
2. Make sure those times aren’t when you are most productive! While it’s tempting to check your email first thing in the morning, this isn’t always the most productive. Instead, Brian Tracy suggests in his book, Eat That Frog, that you should look over your to-do list and find the biggest task that will yield the most positive benefits if you complete it now – and do that first thing in the morning rather than start off the day with email. Your email can wait. Use your most productive times to work on the stuff that matters most.
3. Delete liberally. You can delete a considerable portion of your email before you even open it just by checking out the sender and subject. Scan both, and then ask yourself “Do I really have to read this today?” If the answer is no, hit delete. Don’t keep it around in hopes of reading it later – it will probably just sit in your inbox unopened.
4. Scan for action steps and deadlines. Much of the email we receive can be classified as junk mail or notifications and doesn’t require action on our part. Look for email that does require a specific action that must be done within the next week or two and set these email aside. These should be your top priority.
5. Take action immediately. If the email requires you to take action and you can do that action in less than two minutes, do it now rather than putting it off. It’s better to get things done quickly than to put them off until you prioritize everything. For action steps that will take longer, move the email to a prioritized folder so you can easily find it along with all the other action-oriented emails. Searching for buried email lost in a sea of unimportant email is a huge time waster.
6. Send concise replies. When you respond, keep it as short and to-the-point as possible. Start off by summarizing the key point you are responding to and add your reply, so your recipients understand your response in context. For instance: “You asked if I can attend a meeting on Monday, June 16 at 3PM. Unfortunately, I’m not available until 4PM. If that doesn’t work for you, I can also meet Tuesday morning.” You don’t need to write a book here. Limit yourself to a few sentences at most – or better yet, if you can answer the question in the subject line, do so.
7. Outsource your email. I don’t actually do this (yet) but if you really want to take this concept to an extreme, check out this blog post by Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, on How to Outsource the Inbox and Never Check Email Again.

Time is your greatest asset, and learning to manage your email effectively can really give your productivity a boost.

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.

What is Your End Goal?

If you also find yourself with the dreaded never-ending to-do list, it may be time to ask yourself, “What do you really want to accomplish?” Setting goals keeps you focused on what truly matters to you. Goals keep you motivated to slog through the daily grind knowing that you are building your business into an asset that will one day work for you.

Ask yourself:

• Do most of the tasks on your to-do list move you toward your goals or take up time that you could be devoting to achieving your goals?
• Do they really need to be there?
• If they absolutely must be done, do you have to do them, or can you delegate them to others?

Use the 80/20 Rule To Get More Accomplished

In 1897, the Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80 percent of income in Italy went to 20 percent of the population. While you can argue that the 80/20 principle isn’t exact, it works quite well as a general guideline for business. Roughly 20 percent of your clients will account for 80 percent of your profits. Twenty percent of your daily activities will account for 80 percent of your business’ success. Twenty percent of your inputs produce 80 percent of your outputs. So, if you want to be more productive and grow your business faster, look for the places where you can get the maximum result.

Often, our day is full of things that don’t do much for our business. We might pick up the latest business book, check email, organize our desk, fill out paperwork, surf the internet, chat with co-workers, take calls from family and friends, deal with distractions and interruptions, and so on while only a small chunk of our day is devoted to working with clients or marketing our services – those activities that actually build our business and bring in revenue.

Ask yourself:

• What can you do right now that will take you a step closer to your goals?
• What are your most productive activities?
• Which activities take up a significant portion of your time but leave you with little to show for it?
• How can you do more productive activities while reducing your time-wasting activities?

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.

Logistics

Of course, you can’t travel out of the country without a passport these days. I already have one, so thankfully, I don’t have to worry about applying for one and hoping it arrives in time.

As a safety precaution, I’ve checked the CDC website to make sure I don’t need any obscure shots or medicine to take with me. Spain seems to be fairly safe, but having traveled to Belize and Guatemala previously, I can say it’s best to get your appropriate shots well in advance – and stock up on any medications you might need (like Malaria drugs). I’ve also been assembling a basic medical kit.

Currency

You hear how bad the US economy is every day, but it doesn’t hit you until you go to exchange your Dollars for Euros. The going rate today is $1 = .648 Euros. (Last year at this time, it was about $1 = .74 Euros.) And if I’m reading this website correctly, a gallon of gasoline (3.78 liters) is around $7.00. On the bright side, AAA doesn’t charge you an exchange rate.

Getting Cheap Airfare

Trying to get a cheap flight without too long of a layover has been a fascinating experience. I’ve learned that there really isn’t much rhyme or reason to how airlines price tickets – other than they’re seeking to fill as many seats as possible at any given time. What that means is that in a matter of hours (or the next day), you can be quoted a drastically different price for (seemingly) comparable flights.

On Sunday/Monday, when I checked various airline sites (Sidestep.com, CheapTickets.com, CheapOAir.com, Priceline.com), I was looking around at least $1100 for a flight from Philly to Spain with unless I was willing to take a 12 hour layover (no thank you). Tuesday morning when I checked back, I found a brand new option – I could fly through Paris with a four hour layover for around $750 (but I only found this deal on one site – all the others are much more expensive.) Not wanting to press my luck too much, I jumped on that. (For comparison, that’s about one-third the price of a non-stop flight.)

Some other things I picked up on saving money besides shopping around:

• If you can, be flexible with the dates you’ll be traveling.
• Try flying to a cheaper airport.

Neither of those applies to my trip, but they’re good to know.

Rent a Car

I had no idea that virtually all cars in Spain were manual transmission (I guess it’s not surprising, given the gas prices) – which means renting one is considerably cheaper than renting an automatic transmission. Compact, manual transmission cars start at about half the price of the cheapest automatic car I found – and most were much more expensive than that. Most of the travel sites have car rental options, but the cheapest site I’ve found (so far) is AutoEurope.com. I’m also told that it’s far cheaper to book your car in advance than at the airport.

On another note, if you plan on renting a car, it helps to pick up an International Driver’s Permit from your local AAA. I talked with someone on the phone today, and she said the process is fast and painless – you just need to bring two passport photos and the $15 fee. They can create them on the spot in about 10 minutes.

I’m still looking into options to save on auto insurance. I believe AAA and (possibly) some credit cards will cover you so you don’t have to pay the outrageous rental insurance prices.

Learning the Language

If only there was more time… I admit, my choice for a crash course in Spanish isn’t cheap, but so far, the lessons have been pretty good. I bought the Pimsleur Spanish series, and have been practicing for one-to-two hours each day. My goal is to at least be able to give taxi-drivers directions to my villa (not that I’ll be taking a taxi, but I’ve had some crazy experiences in Mexico with Spanish-only speaking cab drivers and I’d prefer not to go through that again.)

More..

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So, have any of you been to Northern Spain? The place where I’m staying is about a two hour drive west from Barcelona, so I’m open to suggestions for day trips, restaurants, wineries, etc.

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.

In the report you will find:

• A quick overview of marketing that clears up many of the misconceptions I hear from agents every day
• Techniques for setting goals, identifying your target audience, creating a marketing message, developing education-based marketing materials, and implementing a referral system
• Worksheets and exercises at the end of each section to help you take action immediately
• A two-page fill-in-the-blank worksheet you can use to create your monthly marketing plan and keep track of your results

If you take the time to read this guide and complete the exercises, you should be able to put together your marketing plan in just a few hours.

To get your copy, click here -

http://www.realtybizcoach.com/free-marketing-guide/

Feedback Request – I spent a lot of time on this guide, and I’d really appreciate your feedback.

If you have anything to say (good, bad or indifferent) after reading the Marketing Plan Guide, please add your comment to this post – or if you prefer, you can fill out this survey. Thanks!

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.

Most successful agents will tell you they get most of their clients through referral – and yet, a large portion of them spend considerable resources on prospecting and lead generation with only a small portion of their marketing budget going to cultivating referrals from past clients.

Initially, yes, you have to prospect because you need to build credibility and expertise. You need to learn the business cold, how to manage client expectations, and how to provide exceptional customer service. In other words, you need to get through The Dip (as Seth Godin calls it) – “the long slog between starting and mastery.”

Why Referral Marketing?

Most people erroneously believe that referral marketing doesn’t require much work. After all, if you do a great job, your clients should automatically refer people to you, right? If only that were true.

The truth is, creating a referral marketing system still requires all the basic principles of relationship marketing that I’ve previously talked about – except instead of focusing your attention on prospects, you create education-based marketing around past clients and continually follow up with a keep-in-touch strategy.

You might be asking – what could I possibly need to educate my past clients about? There’s always the local real estate market, local neighborhood events, or home improvement tips … but there’s also a great opportunity for you to promote other local businesses to start building a network of referral partners.

Once people move into a new home, there are quite a few things they might need: lawn care, landscaping, a swimming pool, new home additions, interior decorators, plumbers, electricians, and so on. You could easily interview any number of local business owners who would love exposure to your client list. With a bit of negotiation, you may even be able to get a referral fee from them for anyone who buys their services from your recommendation – thus giving you an added source of income.

Just as with prospecting, the more you follow up with clients and provide them with valuable information, the more likely you are to continue your relationship with them well after their home buying or selling process – and the more likely they’ll be to refer others to you.

How To Build a Referral Business

Building a referral-based business means you must focus on long term relationships rather than short term profits. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Decide who your ideal clients are. – This is incredibly important because you must be able to communicate what types of people you want to work with to others. If you simply ask for referrals, chances are, you’ll get referrals that aren’t a good fit for you or who won’t translate into business.
   
   
2. Fire (or refer out) any prospect or client that doesn’t meet your standards for an ideal client. – This can be difficult to do because no one likes to pass up work, but from a long-term perspective it’s essential. Bad clients are essentially psychic vampires – they consume as much of your resources as they can without giving you anything in return (aka referrals, positive recommendations, testimonials, or even a “thank you”). These types of clients might nickel-and-dime you, berate you for not doing something “their way,” complain about everything, or seem incapable of making a decision. In worst case scenarios, they demand so much of your attention that you don’t have time to provide exceptional customer service to those clients you like best – which doesn’t bode well for getting referrals in the long run, either.
   
   
3. Focus on delivering an exceptional customer experience worthy of talking about. – In order to create Sneezers, Raving Fans, and Customer Evangelists who spread the word about you to everyone they know, you must make it easy for them to talk about you. You must give them stories to tell where they’ll look “cool” to their friends and family while showcasing what great client service you provide.
   
   
4. Create incentives and make it easy for clients to refer business to you. – Give people a reason to refer business to you – such as by holding contests, offering free services with their vendor of choice (i.e. refer three clients and receive six months of lawn care), and holding client appreciation events.
   
   
5. Keep in touch consistently – Just like with prospects, following up is key. At minimum, you should add them to your newsletter, but also add bonus perks and personal correspondence that they’ll appreciate.

Creating a referral-based business can be extremely rewarding personally. It also costs less than prospecting because these people already know who you are, have worked with you, and know why working with you was an excellent choice. And having others tell your story, rather than you telling it, adds considerable credibility – you must be good if others are talking about you.

Tomorrow, I’ll give you a bonus sixth step – how I’d spend Mike’s $2500 budget as a new agent.

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?

There are a couple of ways to overcome these fears:

1. Get testimonials – If you have worked with some clients, ask them for a testimonial. Testimonials act as social proof that you can do your job – and that you’ve successfully helped others with similar concerns.
   
   
2. Use client stories and case studies – Along with testimonials, use client stories to further boost your credibility. When prospects ask you a specific question, tell them a story of how your previous client had that similar problem and the steps you took to solve it.
   
   

These two techniques should be fundamental components of any marketing campaign, and as you work with more people, you should always look to collect testimonials and case studies to demonstrate your credibility.

But what if you haven’t gotten your first client yet?

You can still start gaining experience by partnering with more-experienced agents:

1. Apprentice with an experienced agent – Ask the busier agents in your office (or your broker) if you can go along with them on appointments for a period of time so you can learn the ropes. Keep in mind – if they agree to this, they are doing you a favor, so make it worth their time. Negotiate tasks you can do for them in exchange for the hours they mentor you – or even offer to pay them for their time. The hands-on experience you’ll receive is invaluable and one of the best ways to start learning the tricks of the business. It will also provide you with a few client stories you can use when marketing your services.
   
   
2. Partner with an experienced agent – Most agents are always looking for new business opportunities, so many may be open to partnering with you for your first few clients. Again, they are doing you a favor, so make this worth the agent’s time. Offer to do all the grunt work – generating leads, driving buyers around to show houses, etc. – as well as a portion of your commission if they can help you with the logistics of the transaction like negotiations, paperwork, and any problems that come up. In other words, you’ll do virtually all of the work and still pay them a nice fee to back you up and offer their credibility and expertise. This can go a long way to help reduce risk in the eyes of your prospect.
   
   

The goal with both of these options is to get you up-to-speed on your local real estate market and how real estate transactions are done as quickly as possible. These are the basics that you need to know cold to stay in business and compete in today’s real estate market. Without this fundamental knowledge, any advertising and marketing you might do to promote yourself is pretty much a waste of money because you won’t be able to close the sale.

On Monday, I’ll talk of another way you can demonstrate your credibility by creating education-based marketing materials that prospects will want to read.