I am currently hanging out with Bob Pearson from Dell talk about how to leverage new media to your advantage.  Here are a couple of points…

• Need to thank your customers on a regular basis.  Create a campaign that thanks our customers.
• Create an area where customer can review your products/services
• Need to constantly know what’s being said online about your brand and choose where to break in and say something.
• By being where your customers search for major terms online you can determine who is creating the conversation on the internet about your industry… you need to become “friends” with those people… or be there yourself.

Bob’s talk was very interesting and informative.  It is really fascinating to see how such a large company is using such a micro marketing channel effectively.

Good stuff.

When it comes to your Pipeline!!

I truly do not care what the “state of the market” is nor do I care what CNN dictates as a dismal future in the real estate market. What I do care about is the size of my Pipeline! I know that every day houses are being bought and sold!! I must get in contact with as many potential buyers and sellers as possible and putting them into my ProspectMaximizer (CRM) and following up with them through Phone Calls, Visits, Emails and Mailings until they buy, sell or refinance.

In this market I must be adding AT LEAST 4 new prospects to my pipeline for every 1 lost and making sure that they are followed up with automatically and physically so that I can guarantee my 4+ settlements every month. I must use Online Lead Generation as well as Traditional Methods of Lead Generation to ensure that I meet my goal of the biggest Pipeline around. I must tell myself that the only Bogus or Bad lead is the one I do not have and I will do everything in my power to get those leads into my pipeline. I will spend money on Increasing The Size of my Pipeline because I believe in my abilities to turn those leads into clients and then commissions. My pipeline can never be too big if I am using the proper CRM tool and I have the right team of people in place.

So please, do me a favor, make sure the size of your Pipeline measures up to the demands of your goals and your current market conditions so that you can have a long and happy real estate career.

We encourage agents all the time to use the promotional power of the internet to their advantage. But we can talk about it until we’re blue in the face – are there any agents out there actually doing it?

One agent in Kansas City is using a series of blogs for ALL THE RIGHT REASONS. Chris Lengquist of Keller Williams Realty, Diamond Partners, Inc., operates one of the best blogs a real estate agent can about Kansas City Real Estate Investing.

Dating back to January 2006, Chris has used his blog to cover real estate headlines in Kansas City and create conversation about the community. Nearly every one of his blog posts generates multiple comments from his readers, which Chris then uses to build social relationships. Like we’ve said in our Real Estate Followup Plan podcasts, you never know when a relationship is going to turn into a lead or referral. Even if the person you’re speaking to isn’t in the market to buy or sell, it doesn’t mean they don’t know someone who is.

In addition to using his blogs to build relationships and show off his expertise in KC real estate, Chris does an awesome job of allowing his readers to get to know him. Without spending much time on Chris’s blog, readers learn that he is a genuine family man who loves Kansas Jayhawks basketball. How many of your prospects know information like that about you after your first meeting?

Chris uses his blog as a tool for marketing and lead generation by positioning himself as an expert and letting readers to get to know him as a person. Because he is so easy to like after reading his blog, he makes his services easy to buy… and remember, people would much rather buy than be sold to.

Keep up the great work, Chris.

In this podcast Rory, Steve, Dave and Marc Hargraves discuss a recent article highlighting the crucial points in servicing your customers. Don’t let your job control you, or you will quickly become overwhelmed. If you take care of your customers, success will surely follow.
Remember, the guys are very passionate about real estate and having the right attitude and they say some things and use some words that might make you blush…so please listen with an open mind.

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So, we have been back and forth with a customer we’ll refer to as Mr. Agent. His wife signed up with our service in September and did not do the things that we suggest. They are refusing to contact the people who are in need of help that come through our site. I could go on and on. Now, they are threatening to call the Better Business Bureau, The National Association of Realtors, and others to tell them how we have “wronged” them because they canceled on January 2 and wouldn’t refund them (we already spent marketing for January and our contract clearly states that you must cancel by the 15th to end your subscription for the following month).  Keep in mind, we don’t even have a long term contact like most of our competitors… so there’s never someone who’s “locked in”.

I was concerned that maybe we did something wrong so I investigated.  That’s when I found out that we have literally introduced them to 22 people, 12 of which were verified with a real estate need. These leads were not followed up with.

Mr. and Mrs. Agent did not follow up with these people and have made comments to us that we’re selling “swamp land in PA”, and that we’re not providing a valuable service.  The funny thing is, they haven’t even used the tools that we provided them with.  They did not view all of the educational webinars that we created either.

I don’t usually get directly involved in issues with customers at all any more, but because my personal character was attacked this time, I thought I’d share a letter to them publicly through our blog. Feel free to share your comments… this blog is an open, transparent book.

Mr. and Mrs. Agent:

You stated in your email that you are refusing to contact any of the leads that we send to you. That doesn’t seem like a very intelligent business decision. If you’re getting leads, why on earth would you not contact them? I will be sharing your emails with the National Association of Realtors as well as Long and Foster’s corporate team through our blog. We have a horrible ethics problem in this country with agents not following up with customers who request information. It is truly a shame. We spend hours on the phone apologizing to home buyers and sellers on behalf of agents like yourself who never contact them. It’s comical to me that agents purchase our service, don’t do the things that have been proven to be successful over and over again and then claim that our service is “garbage” instead of looking in the mirror and acknowledging that it’s their lack of follow up and desire to succeed. It’s always easier to blame someone else, I guess.

Do you realize you haven’t even logged into Prospect Maximizer since November 29!?!?!? How on earth can you state with a straight face that our service is garbage when you’re not even utilizing the thousands of dollars worth of tools we provide you with at no cost?

You also haven’t done a thing with the RemarkableAgents.com web site that we provided you with and you didn’t attend the educational webinars that teach you how agents that are making a lot of money with our service do things. The more I look into this, the more frustrated I get.

Regarding you not being with our service, your first email stated December 31, and the more recent ones have stated the 7th. I am staring at an email right now that you sent on January 2, 2008. You are set for cancellation on January 31, which means you will continue to get requests from buyers and sellers until then. We are contractually obligated to continue serving you through January 31, and will do so.  You will not be charged on February 1st.

I advise that you DO contact these home owners who have requested information from you. Not only is it a horrible business decision not to (it’s money in your pocket), but it is also EXTREMELY unethical to not serve the community that you promised to serve when you became a licensed Realtor.

I understand that you are retired, but even so, you have the time to spend typing an email over and over about not being with our service, but do not have the time to call Mr. Johnson regarding his request for your service? My associates and I have sold more than half a BILLION dollars in real estate between us, we are now in the business of helping other agents do the same. Some agents follow the system and are literally earning hundreds of thousands of dollars per year with our service alone, others don’t take the time to educate themselves on the internet consumer or how to be more effective with online lead generation and fail.

What do you suppose the difference is between an agent who is successful with internet leads and an agent who is unsuccessful with internet leads? We have both of those subscribing to our service. The difference that we see is that the ones who are successful understand how sales works, understand CRM (contact relationship management) and it’s importance and have an incredible grasp of the internet consumer and the differences between them and leads from traditional sources. I would encourage you educate yourself on the internet consumer through our siccess center and your concept of what a “junk” lead is will change.

I will be informing NAR of the veri-link that we had on the line who had an immediate need on September 28, which you elected not to contact. I will also be personally contacting all of the people we have introduced to you to find out if they received their home value reports that you comited to providing them with when you signed up. I will then be sending a report to NAR, NJAR, and Long And Foster’s executive team with my findings. We have hundreds of happy Long and Foster customers nation wide between our different services. Again, what is the difference between you and them?  Many of our customers are making money with our service and have received less leads than you have.

GetMyHomesValue.com is a company that my partners and I personally built from nothing which turned out to be one of the fastest growing companies in Pennsylvania. My wife, my children, my friends and those that I do business with know us as ethical, upstanding, charitable citizens with great integrity and character. I take it extremely personally when someone who should look in the mirror accuses us of something like “selling swamp land in PA”.

If your goal was to anger someone because you were angered yourself, you have succeeded because of your personal attack on our character. Congratulations. So, here we go… you contact the BBB, NAR, NJAR, Harrisburg, The attorney general, and whoever else you mentioned… I’ll do the same. I’ve got 22 people, 12 verified (and counting) that wanted your services that you refused to help after signing a contract that you would. Those organizations will be interested in hearing from each one of them individually.

There are winners and losers in life. Winners don’t always win the game… but they ALWAYS give it all they have. Losers come up with excuses for not giving it all they have.

Dave Conklin
President, Co-Founder
GetMyHomesValue.com

Rory, Steve and I are extremely excited! We are going to be hopping on a plane on Monday morning and flying across the country to Wenatchee, Washington to visit with Blaine and Erin Davidson. Blaine and Erin are clients of ours who have found extreme success with internet lead generation. As a matter of fact:

IT IS THE ONLY FORM OF MARKETING THEY DO!

We’re going to be videotaping a session with them where we want to discuss how they do what they do… so you can do the same!

After we visit with Blaine and Erin, we are then going to be flying into Scottsdale, Arizona to meet with Kelly Tiff and her team. Kelly is another all star client. We are going to be speaking and videotaping with Kelly as well to discuss how she does what she does.

Here’s where YOU come in… Yeah, YOU! Please post any questions that you would like us to ask these extremely successful agents and we’ll get the most common ones on video! How do you post a question? Simply click on the comments link at the bottom right of this post or CLICK HERE. Want to remain anonymous? That’s fine! Simply enter a fake name and email address in the comments area and we’ll never know it was you. (Hey, some of our leads do it… so why can’t you, right?)

We’ll be coming back into town on Friday, so expect to see the video by the end of next week. But stay tuned… we’ll be updating the site every day!

I just read “The Dip” from Seth Godin. If you aren’t familiar with Seth’s work, you’ve got to check out some of his books. If you don’t like (or in my case don’t have the time) to read… then go to Audible.com and get the download-able audio book. Throw it in your ipod and listen in the car. Zig Ziglar calls that “automobile university”.

Anyway… back to “The Dip”. Did you ever read something and you already knew what it stated… but you needed a slap in the face as a reminder? That’s precisely what happened to me.

A few months ago, we realized that our customer support at GetMyHomesValue.com was losing it’s “luster”. We started to wonder what was going wrong. After finishing Seth’s book , I was clearly able to identify this as GetMyHomesValue.com’s first “Dip”.

So, what did we do about it? We started planning. Rory, Steve and I put together an in depth action plan to re-configure, re-energize, and re-vitalize the department and in turn the experience that our clients have with us.

Now, once again, we’re getting incredible raves from our customers regarding our customer success team.

Agent note: With the market being different than it has been the past few years, I want to encourage real estate agents to acknowledge “The Dip”. If you have passion for the real estate business, and it fits your life style… BEAT THE DIP! I understand that while you’re “in” the dip it’s hard to see what it looks like on the other side of the hill. I also understand that climbing is hard work… but remember… there’s no elevator to success… you have to take the stairs. Don’t know how to beat your dip? That’s why we’re here. Give us a call and we’ll help you out.

If you’re a current customer of ours who had a negative experience in the past, I want to invite you to give us a call at 866-360-3440. If you ask us to, we’ll even sing for you. We don’t promise we’ll be good… but we try really hard.

I will be detailing some of the new things that have been going on over the next few days. So stay tuned!

Here’s another new flyer to add to the collection. We like to get right to the point, so here you have it. If you don’t follow up diligently on your real estate leads, you are going to hate us. If you DO follow up diligently, we’re going to have a long, happy relationship.

Have fun, enjoy life…and happy selling!

Great is just not good enough anymore…It’s time to be Remarkable!! Stop being Lazy, Scared or Stupid throughout your career and your life and take your own expectations to the next level and be the most Remarkable person you know. HOW??? Close your eyes, take a deep breath, let it out, open your eyes….now get your “Head out of your Ass” and take everything up A NOTCH!! Seriously….you usually work 50 hours a week, now do 60+!! You typically call a lead 50 times for an appointment, now call it 100 times!! You usually run 4 miles on the treadmill, make it 5-6 miles!! You typically blame 2-3 different people per day for your problems, now look in the mirror and see the real problem!! You usually hit 100 golf balls at the driving range, now hit 200!! You typically ask for the sale one time during a sales call, now ask for it until you get the sale!!

Guess what….when you have mastered that new NOTCH I am going to be back at you for more!!

Welcome to Rory, Steve and Dave’s weekly podcast. In their most lively and entertaining podcast yet, the guys are revisiting the concept of “Lazy, Scared and Stupid” as it applies to themselves, real estate professionals and life in general. Really, if you have any area of your life where you’re not satisfied, or if you just want to hear the guys sing “Stand By Me,” you don’t want to miss this.
In their fun and always no-holds-barred style, they apply the “Lazy, Scared and Stupid” ideal to a letter of complaint and give a big shout out to Eric Jones and Kelly Tiff…two of the many GetMyHomesValue.com success stories.

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