Category: Help-U-Sell

Survey Sez

I sent a short survey to our members yesterday to help in putting together the plan for 2012.  Though I may still get some responses, most are already in and I thought I’d update you on the results.

92.5% of respondents believe business will be better in 2012.

They ranked the biggest challenges facing them this year as follows:

  • Marketing:  45%
  • Staffing/Recruiting:  42.5%
  • Lead Incubation:  37.5%
  • Finding qualified & motivated buyers:  27.5%
  • Controlling expenses:  25%
  • Pricing listings properly:  15%
  • Financing and lenders:  12.5%

Write-in responses to the question were:

  • Keeping ahead of new technology & its cost
  • Selling homes that are NOT in a foreclosure or shortsale status
  • finding equity sellers who are willing to price at today’s values
  • Managing and following up on leads
  • Implementing everything I have learned
  • The number of sellers
  • Finding sellers. Really need listings
  • Focus on Highest and Best use of my Time
  • Getting my company back to where I was 2 years ago

As I look at these responses I can see that everyone is gearing up to do MORE in 2012.  We want to explore new ways of marketing because we believe marketing will drive leads – that hasn’t always been the case in the last few years.  We interested in staffing and recruiting because we know we’re going to need help as the market heats up.  We want to learn how to better incubate leads because, heck!  we’re expecting to have leads to incubate!  And so on.

When asked where we should hold the next Help-U-Sell Success Summit, respondents said:

  • A California Beach location:   40%
  • Las Vegas:  34.3%
  • Orlando, inconjunction with NAR:  25.7%

Write-in responses were:

  • San Diego
  • Somewhere in the Mid-West
  • Milwaukee
  • East Coast or Mid-Country location with inexpensive airfare
  • Santa Barbara
  • Driving Distance (!)
  • Anywhere

When asked about the time of day to hold the Wednesday Broker Roundtable call, the majority said 9am Pacific time – which is when we currently hold them!  8am came in second and 11am, third.

I was encouraged that when asked how we at Home Office could better support them, respondents gave us pretty good marks, saying things like ‘nothing,’ ‘support is adequate,’ and ‘you’re doing fine.’  There were also some meaningful comments relating to how we can better partner with our members to achieve greater penetration in local markets.  All comments are appreciated and we will consider everything you told us.  Thank you!

 

 

 

Why YOU Should Be On Tomorrow’s Broker Roundtable Call

I’ve said it before:  the biggest challenge we have as Help-U-Sell brokers is staying connected.  We’re spread out all over the country and have only occasional opportunities to get together face-to-face.  Plus, we work in a hostile environment – one where most of the real estate ‘professionals‘ around us wish we’d just dry up and blow away.  That can grind on you after a while.  It’s important to tune in every now and then just to keep your head screwed on right!

There are several ways to stay plugged into Help-U-Sell.  The company Facebook and Twitter pages are good.  So is our company newsletter, Help-U-Sell Connect, and this silly little blog (do you realize we’re approaching 300 posts here?).  But nothing is better than our weekly webinars/teleconferences.  Tech Tuesday – which will convene in just a few hours – is action packed with good information about how to build and manage your web presence and your technology in general.  And Wonderful Wednesdays are . . . well . . . .

LISTEN:  in the last six to eight months, the Wednesday Broker Roudtable Calls have been electric.  Every week, great new information has been disseminated and the group has grown increasingly comfortable with sharing what they’re doing, what’s  working and what’s not.  It’s one hour a week to be reminded how powerful it is to be Help-U-Sell (remember:  if you are a broke or agent in a Help-U-Sell office, you are Help-U-Sell).

Tomorrow’s call will be a little special in that we have a guest; two of them, actually.  Patricia Boyd, who everyone fell in love with at the Success Summit, will be there talking all things finance, and she’s bringing Chris Jackson of TurnScor.  TurnScor markets credit repair/improvement software to brokers who then can give it (for free) to as many people as they’d like.  It’s a wonderful thing to add to your value package.  I mean:  what buyer wouldn’t benefit from a 5% increase in their FICO score?  Even the one with great credit might qualify for a better loan thanks to the free program their Help-U-Sell broker gave them!

Best of all, TurnScor is running a special for the month of December: a 25% discount.  AND Patricia is offering her two part Certified Real Finance Advocate training program free to everyone who takes advantage of TurnScor’s offer.  It’s a ridiculously good deal.  And it’s all about increasing your knowledge and the value you bring to a transaction.  We have 11 days left in December.  I think I’d set a goal to complete Patricia’s training and get certified by the end of the year and then give the TurnScor software to everyone on my CI list as a kind of Holiday gift.  You know:  start the new year with a better credit score, courtesy of  Help-U-Sell.

You can learn more about TurnScor and the promotion on Patricia’s website:  www.cRFApro.com.

Also on tomorrow’s call, we’ll update the results of the Winter Warm Up contest.  Brokers are competing for points awarded for new listings, as well as  closed buyer and seller sides.  As of the end of November, Deb Schmidt from Minnesota is in the lead, followed closely by Richard Cricchio (Hawaii) and John Powell (Arizona).  But the field is very tight and anyone could hop into the lead before the contest ends in February.

It will be our last Wednesday call of the year, so we’ll take a minute to look back at 2010 and forward to 2011.  So think of it as your company Holiday Party; ok, that’s stretching it a little bit.  Think of it as your weekly sales meeting and TUNE IN!  If you haven’t signed up yet, do so now by clicking HERE.

Of Steve Jobs, the Music Business and Real Estate

Jose Perez of PCMS Consulting is on RISMedia today talking about Steve Jobs and the music industry.  What’s that got to do with us? you ask . . . quite a bit, I’d say.

Before we go there, however, let’s drop into Wall Street.  We often look at the history of the securities business in the last 15 years and draw parallels to real estate.  Remember?  Used to be, we had to contact a broker to trade a stock and we paid a percentage based commission for the privilege.  Stock trading was mysterious, complicated, beyond the grasp of most people and the commissions were, well, just the reasonable cost of entry.  Then along came Charles Schwab with $15 flat fee trades.  Consumers loved it and the industry took note.  The forward thinkers not only shifted to the new model, they enhanced it by putting powerful analytic information in the consumer’s hands on the Internet.

Sound like the real estate business?  You bet.

Perez is saying the same kind of change happened in the Music business.  Remember when we used to go to the music store to buy vinyl LP records, and then CDs?  That’s how music was distributed.  The whole industry was built around the idea of making and marketing these plastic objects called ‘records.’  But then, technology made it possible for people to take the records, digitize them and then share them (often illegally) over the Internet.  The industry reacted not by looking forward at how they might capitalize on this,  but by looking to the courts, suing the most prolific pirates.  Meanwhile, Steve Jobs – a music industry outsider – quietly invented the Ipod – nothing more than a solid state drive with a simple user interface – and the ITunes store for making digital music accessible to consumers.  For 99 cents you could buy a song . . . and, today, that’s what we do.

Just as in real estate, we had a music industry fighting to preserve the status quo . . . and losing; because you can never preserve the status quo.  It is impossible. In both cases we have industries struggling to keep information out of the consumer’s hands . . . and losing.

Want another example?  How about the Travel industry.  Not too many years  ago we used to call a travel agent to book a plane trip or a vacation.  They had all the information:  schedules and fares and so on; and they earned a nice commission for helping us navigate this mysterious process.  How many travel agents do you know today?  Really:  they have become largely extinct!  And how do we book travel today?  We go to the Internet where all the information is housed and make our decisions for ourselves.  Unfortunately, the pricing model for travel has not changed significantly . . . which makes me wonder:  whose getting that commission today?

And here we have real estate:  an industry that justified its percentage based commissions for decades largely by hoarding information.  Then along came Don Taylor (and by the way, he came along a good ten years before Charles Schwab had his epiphany).  He saw a way to do the real estate business not for a nonsensical percentage based commission, but for a Low Set Fee.  He saw all of this hoarding going on and decided that Information Without Obligation would be one of his new company’s core values.  The maturation of the Internet twenty years later put that value on steroids . . .

And how did the Industry react?  It ran in terror for the hills, dug foxholes, locked up the valuables (the information), put its fingers in its ears and refused to hear what consumers were saying.  Even today, with a real estate market undergoing complete upheaval, with change swooping down around us like a Tsunami, how many of the big national brands are talking about their pricing model?  Um . . . none.  Even today, when consumers can (with the click of a mouse) get all the information REALTORS used to hoard, how many are talking about how we can use that fact to streamline the process and make the experience better for the home buyers and sellers?  Um . . . none.

All I can say is:  get ready.  We’re about to witness a magnificent collision.  The vision of Don Taylor is about to come to full fruition as it collides with the reality of today’s consumer, the Internet and the upheaval in the marketplace.  Five years from now as brokers collect their Set Fee at closing, they’ll scratch their heads, look back and wonder:  ‘Did we ever really do business that old fashioned way?’

 

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