Category: Help-U-Sell

Moving Forward, Good Citizenship and the Upcoming Technology Summit

January 17, 2010:  we have arrived — which means, I guess, we’ve survived, we’re alive, we’re ready to thrive.  We’ve come through a very tough period of market collapse, huge changes and corporate chaos.  I salute those of you who continue to carry the Help-U-Sell banner high and are setting your sights on the next hill ahead.

We’re crafting a new kind of real estate franchise here.  All of us — there is no ‘them’ — are participating in its creation.  We are evolving to a place where franchisor and franchisee have the same objective, the same customer, the same soul.  I can’t tell you how rare that is.  I’ve worked for several of the national franchises and I assure you, behind closed doors they are very clear who their customer is:  it’s the franchisee.  And their objective is generally to sell as much stuff as possible to their ‘customer’.

Our customer, the customer of both the franchisor and franchisee, is the buyer and seller of real estate.  Our mutual objective is to serve as many of them as we possibly can.  We are in the real estate business first; franchising is just a strategy we are employing to reach the largest number of buyers and sellers.  We are partners with our franchisees and, as in every partnership, there are expectations on both sides.

Our franchisees expect us to protect the brand, the business model and the operating system they are working so hard to establish in their individual market places.  They expect us to be open and accessible to them, to communicate and to listen.  They expect us to anticipate and react to changes in the market and the real estate business.  They expect us to be as close to the cutting edge of our industry as possible without getting cut.  They expect us to constantly look for and find new and better ways to make our business model work.  They expect us to deliver training and tools that help them build profitable businesses.  They expect us to establish a forum where they can share ideas, brainstorm and solve problems.  They expect us to recognize achievement and reward it.

We have expectations, too.  And they all have to do with being  Good Citizens. (Truth is, we all share these expectations.  We all want to live and work in a society of Good Citizens).

I’ve said it so many times:  Help-U-Sell is a culture:  a unique, way of looking at he real estate business with its own values, goals and definitions of success.  It’s also a family: we care about one another and move together as a unit.  Our history includes periods of dysfunction in the culture and in the family, times when we were at cross purposes, where we couldn’t trust each other, where we lost our way.  We never want to go through that again.

We expect our franchisees, our partners, to participate, to attend meetings, events, seminars and teleconferences where we come together as a team.  We expect them to be open, to share ideas and to ask challenging questions.  We expect them to use the tools and stay true to our core identity:  that we are a set fee real estate company and we save consumers money.  We expect them to respect the Help-U-Sell marks, logos, colors, and other identifiers.  We expect them to report their transactions within 24 hours of closing.  We expect them to be current in their accounts or to make arrangements to become current.  We expect them to be truthful, not just with us, but with everyone.  We expect them to attack their business with passion and a sense of mission.  We expect them to speak up when they need support.  We expect them to reach out when others are in trouble.  This is all part of being a Good Citizen.

The Big Technology Summit is coming up the first week in March.  We’ll be in Sarasota March 1 & 2 and Las Vegas March 3 & 4 (by the way, the Vegas hotel is still not firm, but it’s looking more and more like the Palace Station, a very nice place with lots of dining options, great rates and even a free shuttle to the airport and the strip).  The meeting is very important to all of us as we take a giant step toward becoming a dominating force on the web.  The new Broker websites will be introduced and attendees will learn how to customize, localize, optimize and make them attractive to search engines.  The new websites will be one of the biggest tools we have and this meeting is where we’ll learn how to use them.

We’ve made the decision that attendance will be by invitation only.  And the invitation will be extended to Good Citizens in our Help-U-Sell family.  We have a good group now, a set of franchisees who all can be Good Citizens. Most already are.  But we still have some who don’t report their transactions and/or haven’t made arrangements to take care of their financial obligations.  Most of them are waiting to see what happens, waiting to see if the new company will survive, waiting to see if we will move forward.  To them, I have to say, the wait is over.  It’s been over for months.  We have a vision, we have a plan, we have tools and we are moving forward.  It’s time to get on-board . . . or get out.

Interesting.  Though we are not actively marketing franchises at the moment, our website kicks out new franchise leads on a fairly regular basis.  Last week we got 8.  In 2009 we received over 100.  These are outsiders who see the power of Help-U-Sell, who recognize the positive change and who may want to be involved in our next stage of growth.  If they can see it, why can’t you?

The train has left the station and it’s time to scramble to catch up and get your seat on-board.  Many Smiles . . .

What’s Happening . . .

Cool factor 8:  You can get internet on an airplane these days so I’m able to catch up on a few things as I travel across country to Sarasota.  It’s about time!  Wonder when they’ll break down and let us use cell phones?

THE BIG TECHNOLOGY SUMMIT is coming.  It’s March 3 and 4 in Las Vegas and at the moment, it looks like it will be at the new Springhill Suites.  That location is sorta firm but not set in concrete yet.  The hotel is across the street from the Las Vegas Hilton, near the Convention Center and is offering a room rate of $109.  The Sahara and Riviera are walking distance and offer better rates.  There is no charge to attend beyond transportation and hotel.  The meeting will start mid-day on Wednesday and continue until 5pm or so on Thursday.  While there will be updates and news and even a little training, the real focus of the meeting will be technology:  maximizing the effectiveness of the new Corporate and Broker websites, the Help-U-Sell.mobi site, using Social Media, Zillow, Trulia and other online tools to build your online presence and so on.  I anticipate 100 brokers will attend and am looking forward to this meeting as a kind of Help-U-Sell family reunion.  I hope you’ll get it on your calendar TODAY and start shopping airfare. 

There will be a smaller version of the meeting March 1 and 2 in Sarasota at the Help-U-Sell home office if that makes more sense to you.  The meeting will be the same but the opportunity to rub shoulders with a large group of your peers will not be there.  I’m expecting 6 – 10 attendees.  There is a nice LaQuinta a couple of miles away for about $80 a night and a Comfort Inn at about $60. 

Folks, I can’t say it strongly enough:  GET TO VEGAS for this meeting . . . Sarasota if that works better, but GET THERE.  We have a lot of work to do to get maximum benefit of the great new tools Robbie is bringing to us and this is where we’ll begin the process. 

Speaking of Robbie Stevens, I understand that yesterday’s Tech Tuesday Teleconference was a home run as he demonstrated the mapping capabilities of the new websites.  How exciting that Help-U-Sell has it’s own Google Maps app. and that all you have to do to see the listings in an area is to type the location and press enter. 

Maurine is cranking up the first ever Help-U-Sell Online University next Thursday.  It will run every Thursday for a couple of months (we’re not sure how many because this is the first time we’ve done it) and will leave attendees with a solid grasp of the Help-U-Sell system and, more important, how it works in today’s real estate market.  If you need a refresher, if you need to get re-energized or if you’ve forgotten what you learned in your old University, I urge you to sign up and attend. 

Tami Patzer, in addition to doing  just about everything, is starting to upload the Operations Manual to the Download Library.  You’ll be able to view it and pull it down by chapter.  There’s already a new Identity chapter and the plan is to update the rest of it, chapter by chapter, until it clearly reflects who we are today.  Tami’s also in charge of spearheading ou PR campaign and has already snared an interview with RIS Media for John.  I’m looking forward to new, positive press about us and what we’re doing. 

I’ll be working with Lori Warnelo over the coming weeks to develop a new job for her and a new function for us at home office.  Lori is going to be the first Help-U-Sell customer relations rep.  Her job will be to contact each office about once a month,  learn what’s new, get a production update, share information about coming events and new tools, and provide a conduit for transmitting requests for help and good ideas to the appropriate people.  We’re seeing this job as a part of the Coaching Program, being the first layer of contact in that system.  Honestly, I think it will be more than one person can handle, so I expect we’ll have someone else working with Lori soon.  Lori has a great history with Help-U-Sell and an understanding of who we are and what we’re doing, so I want the job to develop with her first. 

While we are not marketing franchises at this time — our focus remains on our existing offices — but requests for information come in regularly and receive a response.  We’ve also had a number of former franchisees who have asked about coming back.  Our plan is to be very careful and judicious about who becomes a member of the family, but to begin to develop a process for dealing with the leads that come in.  We’re considering a once or twice a month webinar to present the Help-U-Sell franchise offering to those who express an interest along with an introductory phone call and information packet. 

The Coaching Program continues to grow with Jack Bailey and Ron McCoy both bringing great value to the brokers they talk with once a week.  To get involved all you have to do is make the request.  You’ll be assigned a coach and will probably have several one-on-one meetings to get in the groove of the program after which you’ll join a small Coaching Group.  Feedback from the groups has been excellent.  Members seem to get as much out of brainstorming with each other as they do from interaction with their coach and positive change happens.

Trademark Infringement

All of us love the Help-U-Sell brand name and its registered Marks.  It communicates a message of Effectiveness and Value to consumers and remains a key to our marketing success.  That’s why it’s serious business when someone uses the Mark without authorization.  Sometimes it’s an independent broker who wants to trade on the name without paying for it.  Sometimes it’s a former Help-U-Sell broker who just can’t seem to get around to changing the signs.  Sometimes it’s a former member who was excluded in the bankruptcy of RIS and the transfer to Infinium (there were quite a few who were not assumed by the new owners and therefore those agreements died). 

Our course of action in these situations is clear: 

  • First the infringer gets a ‘Cease and Desist’ demand from Help-U-Sell Real Estate.  They may actually get more than one with the second being stronger than the first.
  • If changes are not made, we may go to court and secure an injunction forcing removal of the Mark from the infringer’s materials.
  • In these kinds of cases, it’s not unusual for the court to award a sizable chunk of the infringer’s revenue to the owner of the Mark as damages. 

I often come across violations on the Internet.  I have a Google Alert set for ‘Help-U-Sell’ so that anytime anyone uses the name on a site that’s indexed by Google, I am notified.  Every day I get a dozen or so and usually they are all fine:  just the activity of Help-U-Sell team members.  But every once in awhile I get a clunker:  someone who has no right to the mark using it without authorization.  I pass those on to the Legal Department.

It’s important for you to help us protect the Mark.  Fraudulent use hurts all of us and diminishes the value of the brand.  If you come across someone infringing on our trademarks, let me or anyone at corporate know.  If, in two months you continue to see the infringement, follow-up with us.  Because we are not in your local market, we may not know whether a Cease and Desist demand has worked.

America’s Real Estate Company and The Power of Intention

Years ago, after I’d sold my real estate company and embarked on my new career in the corporate side of the business, after I realized I loved what I was doing and would devote the foreseeable future to it, I did a little daydreaming about how I wanted it all to turn out.  What was I going to be doing in 3 years?  in 5?  What job would I have?  Where would I be living and what would I be making?  I wrote down a few of my key thoughts on a piece of note paper and tucked it away in my desk.  A move a couple of months later landed the paper and much of the rest of my desk contents in a box stacked away in storage. 

About five years later, in a fit of Spring cleaning, I came across the box, opened it and discovered the paper.  Every single thing I’d written down had come to pass, exactly as I’d pictured it.  It was such an eye opener for me because I’d forgotten all about the daydreaming and the piece of paper.  Suddenly I had proof that simply getting clear about what you want and focusing on that (not on what you don’t have) can cause your dreams to manifest. 

When I came back to Help-U-Sell last Summer, I wrote lots of things on lots of pieces of paper.  I’m having a ball watching these new daydreams slowly evolve.  There is one thing I wrote down that I’d like to ask all of you to help with. 

I look forward two or three years . . . and I can see Help-U-Sell offices in Walmarts across America.  Seems to me the fit is perfect:  we’re all about providing excellent service and saving consumers money.  So is Walmart.  And while the snootier bunch may snicker at Walmart, just as they snicker at Help-U-Sell, when it comes time to buy a Sony flat panel television, you can bet they shop there. 

When you think about who we are and what we do, we really are America’s Real Estate Company — just as Walmart is Where America Shops.  Picture yourself walking into Walmart, looking to the right and seeing McDonalds, looking to the left and seeing the Optical Department and then looking a little further and seeing . . . Help-U-Sell.  Isn’t that a beautiful picture?

Here’s where your part comes in.  I have no idea how this will happen, who will play a key role, where the contacts will be made;  but I do know that if 300 people have it in mind (rather than just little old me) the chances of that contact, that connection happening are much greater.  Spend a few minutes this week thinking about how this might work.  Picture it having already happened.  See the sign, see the agents, see the pictures of property, see the consumers milling about.  And then write it down.  And tuck it away in a box.  In January of 2015, we’ll all look back and see how the Power of Intention helped our entire organization achieve a goal. 

I realize this all may sound a little magical,  a little silly.  If that’s in your mind, just remember John Kennedy in 1962, speaking at Rice University in Texas painting a picture in the National Consciousness.  He said we would go to the moon and we’d do it in that decade.  As an entire nation held the vision, we achieved the goal. 

You can read the full text of Kennedy’s speech here.

(‘The Power of Intention’ is a great book by Wayne Dyer.)

Message in a Bottle

I spent a week around Christmas this year in Costa Rica.  It was a wonderful trip, full of volcanoes and white water rapids, jungles, waterfalls and indigenous people.  One morning, I was walking on the black sand beach just north of Puerto Viejo and came across a green bottle, rolling up on the shore with each incoming wave and then rolling back.  I noticed it was stoppered with a sturdy cork when I picked it up . . . and then I saw the paper inside. 

I had come across a true message in a bottle! 

I sat down on a log and pulled the cork, but the paper had unrolled to the point that it would not make its way down the bottle’s neck and out into my waiting hand.  I glanced around and spotted a medium sized rock in the sand.  Walking over then shielding my eyes I smashed the bottle down on the rock and it exploded – leaving the rolled paper under a sparkling green cover of broken glass. 

Nearly trembling with anticipation, I extracted the little scroll and unrolled it between my two hands. 

I gasped. 

There, centered at the top of the page, in glorious red, was . . . a Help-U-Sell Logo.  Was this a coincidence?  Or was someone playing some kind of joke on me?  I looked around for the hidden cameras, for the crew that would jump out declaring I had been ‘punked’ – but no one was there.  I returned to the page and began to read what was written there beneath the logo. 

I do not know who wrote this piece or even when – it was neither signed nor dated.   I do know that it appears to be a set of New Year’s Resolutions for a Help-U-Sell Broker somewhere.  I think there is some wisdom here and wanted to reproduce it for you, word for word, as I found it.  Perhaps you will find an idea or two to incorporate in your own set of goals for 2010.  Enjoy:

This year, I will update my market analysis in January, May and September.  I will pay attention to the mix of Short Sale, REO and Equity Seller transactions.  I will use the information I glean to focus and plan my activities in the coming months

I will create an affordable marketing plan that accomplishes four things: 

  • Keeps me visible in the marketplace
  • Generates new leads into my business
  • Enables me to take care of opportunities like FSBOS, and Expired Listings
  • Keeps me in meaningful contact with my client base

I will track every inquiry, getting as much contact information as possible and noting the source of the lead and its disposition through the real estate process.

I will evaluate my marketing by comparing the number of leads and dollars generated by each piece of advertising I do.  I will revise my marketing plan to maximize the return I get on every dollar I invest.

This year I think I’ll buy a cute car – a bug or a cube or something like that – and have it wrapped.  I’ll drive it, of course, but mostly I’ll just park it where it can be seen by the largest number of people in my marketplace.

This year, my minimum listing inventory is 20.  Pendings don’t count.

I will work at least one expired listing every day.

I will have 3 FSBOS working at all times.

This year I will take no listing priced more than 5% above market value.

This year I want at least 50% of my closed sides to come from buyers.  To facilitate this I will:

  • Learn as much about finance as my mortgage rep knows (check out www.realfinancesolutions.com)
  • Sit down and learn how Jack Bailey creates a ‘Real Estate Plan’ for his buyer prospects and how he uses it to cement their loyalty and referral business
  • Become lethal on the telephone.  If they contact me, they won’t hang up without my getting contact information and permission to call them back.
  • I will use Listingbook with all of my buyer prospects.  I will also spend a few hours in January learning the full range of Listingbook capabilities.

Right after the first of the year, I will contact my Sphere of Influence, Centers of Influence, Past Customers and Clients with news about the new tax credit.

In April I will contact them again with information about Homestead Exemptions, Mortgage Interest deductions, market trends and local market activity.

I will write and mail at least 3 personal notes every day.

I will plan each business day the night before.  I will note problems, challenges and primary objectives for each coming day.  I will allow myself to ‘sleep on it’ overnight so that I am focused and purposeful the moment I get out of bed in the morning. 

I will remind myself that real estate emergencies are rare and will carefully weigh alternatives before abandoning my plan to wrestle with the crisis of the moment.

I will spend at least 30 minutes each day (but no more than an hour) building my online presence in the following ways:

  • Taking advantage of my free Help-U-Sell Broker website as soon as it is available and learning how to personalize and customize it in the OMS.  I will make regular content updates throughout the year to maximize its attractiveness to search engines. 
  • I will set up my professional Facebook page, join various real estate related groups and invite my CI’s and SOI’s to become ‘friends.’  I will keep my posts friendly, short and always professional.
  • I will visit Trulia, Zillow, Activerain and other real estate related websites and participate in forums, Q&A and blogging. 
  • I will attend ‘Tech Tuesday’ webinars whenever possible to learn as much as I can about how to take advantage of the power of the Internet.

I will Plug In to Help-U-Sell.  I will not be an island.  I will participate in the Wednesday Broker Roundtable calls whenever possible.  I will also attend Thrusday training when I can.  I will call my peers and my corporate reps regularly.  I will investigate the coaching program and will become involved.

Assuming my plan produces the activity I expect, I will begin to look for a buyer’s agent in the first quarter.  I will contact new licensees and look for a good candidate there.  I will also target agents in their first year with my competitors, ones who may be disillusioned and therefore open to the Help-U-Sell opportunity.  I will not worry about the many seasoned agents who, alas, are likely already spoiled by the ordinary real estate world. 

In January, I will create a detailed list of all the reasons why an agent would be attracted to Help-U-Sell.  I will continuously expand, revise and study the list.

I will get a minimum of 30 minutes aerobic exercise – for me that means walking or biking — three times a week.

I will practice portion control when eating (I will start to regard Doggie Bags as chic).

I will snack between every meal:  on fruit, cheese, a few nuts and raw vegetables.

I will sleep soundly for seven hours every night.

I will remember to smile and laugh – especially at myself. 

And I will have faith that everything is improving and that I am poised and ready no matter what comes down the pike. 

I will be proud. 

 

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