Category: Marketing

Differentiation: Four Key Metrics

As a Help-U-Sell broker, you rarely have to deal with tie-breakers when it comes to listing. Usually when the seller hears your superior offer and is satisfied that you can and will deliver, he or she is ready to sign.

But there are metrics you can introduce into the conversation whether you are competing with others for the listing or not, that will boost your credibility and differentiate you from the rest of the pack.

Average Days on Market. That means from listing to pending status. How many days of marketing did your average listing endure last year before buyer and seller agreed on an offer?  That’s powerful information when you compare favorably against your peers. If your average days on market is 57, and the MLS is 85, that means you are 28 days faster (better) at getting your listings sold than your competitors. That’s huge! But even 10 days is worth crowing about. And here’s a clue: you will almost ALWAYS beat the MLS on this and the other three metrics. It’s just the nature of ‘average’ – your individual average should be better than their aggregate average. In fact, if it’s not . . . well you probably have a big problem in your business.

Average Sale Price as a % of List Price. On average, are you getting your sellers 97% of List Price in a sale? Or are you getting 95.3%? If your average Listing Price is $255,000 and your average price of a sold Listing is $253,000, you’re getting 99.2% . . . not too shabby! Now run the same calculation for the MLS. If you discover that the MLS average is 94%, you’re able to tell your sellers that you usually get your clients more than 5% more for their property than your competitors! Which is probably MORE than they are paying you! Now that’s powerful!    And, once again, if you aren’t better than the MLS in this metric . . . well, you’ve got a bigger problem.  By the way, it’s important that you count only Listing Sides here; comparing your average Listing Price with your Average Sale Price (including buyer sides) skews the results.

Per Person Productivity.  Take your total number of closed sides for last year and divide it by the number of licensed people in your office.  If you had 62 closed sides and 3 licensees, your per person productivity is better than 20 closed sides per year.  Now, compare that with the MLS. You’ll be shocked.  That average will probably be in the 6 to 10 closed sides per year range.  Now, think like a consumer for a moment.  Who do you think is going to do a better job of protecting your interests, of staying abreast of changes in the industry and finance, of solving notty problems when they arise in a transaction:  the guy who does 7 closed sides a year or the one who does 20?  Want to blow that 200 agent mega-office out of the water?  Use this metric.  You’ll beat the pants off them every time.

Fallout Rate.  Of all the sales you made last year, how many fell out of escrow?  Calculate it as a percentage and then compare that with the MLS.  Your figure might be 10% and the MLS will almost always be higher, and sometimes significantly higher.  If the MLS is 16% you can demonstrate to a seller that they are more likely to make it to closing with you than with a typical broker.

Put it all together and what does it sound like?

‘Mr. & Mrs. Seller, last year it took me, on average, 57 days to get a listing under contract.  It took the MLS – which is every other broker – 85 days, which is almost a full month longer.  So when you list with me, chances are we’re going to get this process over with quicker.  I also got my sellers, on average,  99.2% of their Listing Price.  In the MLS right now they’re only getting 94%.  So I’m getting my Sellers more for their properties than they are actually paying me!  The average agent in my office closed 20 deals last year.  In the MLS, the average was 8.  I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true.  Who do you think is better equipped to handle your transaction and solve problems when they arise?  Thank you.  Finally, last year only 10% of my sales fell through.  In the MLS it was 16%. Put plainly:  with me, you’re going to sell faster, for more money, with less likelihood of falling out of escrow, AND you’ll have the expertise of some of the most productive people in the local market making sure everything goes as planned.’

Slam Dunk.

Now:  DO IT.  Get out your calculator, log into MLS, and run the numbers.  And tell me what you find: I’m itching to share.

Using Zillow To Give Your Reputation A Boost

Hey! Check this out:

Here is an agent using Zillow Reviews (and she has plenty) on her Facebook Business Page. Pretty cool, huh?! Would you like to do this? It’s easy.

The first step is to get a bucket full of good reviews.  Go to Zillow and log in to your Agent account (of course, if you don’t have one of those, you’ll need to sign up, but it’s free).  Click on the down arrow next to ‘My Agent Hub’ and select your profile.  Just below your picture there, you’ll see a star and a link to ‘Request A Review.’  Click it.  Now, look below the form and click the link to ”Send Multiple Requests At Once’.  You’re now at a form where you can enter the email addresses of all your former clients!  Quick and easy.  I’d suggest you reword the actual request – what’s there is pretty formal.  But click the send button and give it a couple of days for results.

Those reviews will show up on Zillow and will be available there for everyone to see when they are trying to decide which agent to call.  Very powerful.  It gets even more powerful when you respond to the review, like Ken Kopcho did here:

(Great Job, Ken!)

Now, when you have your handful of great reviews, go back to Zillow, log in, Click the down arrow next to ‘My Agent Hub’ and select ‘Widgets/Facebook Apps.’  There you’ll find a link to ‘Real Estate Apps for Your Facebook Page,’ and the second one of those will put a new Tab on the front of your Facebook Business page, like this:

That new Tab will take your visitors to that wonderful page of reviews you saw in the first image. By the way, did you notice the other Facebook Apps Zillow has for you?  The Listings tab, Local Info tab and the Contact Form are all pretty cool and might also belong on your Facebook Business Page.

I learned this in about ten minutes on a Zillow Academy webinar this morning.  You really should check this out:  Zillow Academy.

So that’s it:  quick, easy and effective.  I’ve heard from so many of you that the Zillow Premiere Agent program produces LEADS, but I’ve also heard over and over that it is the agent with lots of wordy five star reviews that gets the call.  Now you can put some of that great power to work for you on Facebook!

Tame Facebook! Make Money!

I’ve ranted a bit about the overemphasis of Facebook and other Social Media in real estate marketing.  The ‘gurus’ would have us believe that we have to be all over Facebook and Twitter and Linkedin today to do any quantity of business at all.

While I still believe there’s a little too much emphasis on it, some recent stats gave me a reason to reexamine my beliefs.

NAR tells us the average member made about $34,000 last year and had about 100 friends on Facebook.

KISSmetrics interviewd agents who made more than $100,000 last year and guess what?  That group averaged more than 500 friends on Facebook.  And, oh, by the way:  82% of them have YouTube Channels!  74% have IPads (I think we have to face it:  there really is only one tablet on the market and it’s the IPad.  It’s very hard for me to admit that, but I’m afraid it’s true).

When ranking their top money makers, the $100,000+ agents cited the top three:

  1. Past Clients and Referrals
  2. Their Website
  3. Their Social Media Presence

Clearly there is something to this Social Media stuff . . . Clearly.

Yet most of us have given up on ever figuring out how to build our businesses with Facebook.  Still we’re spending, on average, 300 hours a year on Facebook (with no monetary return on that investment of time).  I think we have to examine why we’ve given up on Facebook and I believe I can explain it with one word:  CHAOS.

Facebook, by nature is Chaotic (Twitter, too).  I have slightly more than 200 friends and if I paid attention to everything every one of them posts in my NewsFeed . . . I wouldn’t have time for much else!  Imagine what it must like for those elite agents with 500 or more friends!

If you’re imagining that, your picture is probably wrong.

The difference between most of them and most of the rest of us is that they’ve taken the time to tame the Facebook beast.  They’ve done a few simple things to organize it, unclutter is and make it manageable.  Let me share a few with you right here.

Let’s do a little background work first.  When you login to Facebook, what you see is your NewsFeed. It’s what all of your friends and Liked businesses have posted and made visible to you.  Nobody else sees this but you, and you can get back to this NewsFeed at any time by clicking on the word ‘Home’ near the top right of your screen.  Next to that button is another button with your name.  Click that and you’ll go to your Timeline. This is what other people see when they seek you out, or search for you on Facebook.  The following tasks will all take place on your Home or NewsFeed view, so click that to get started.

Task 1:  Organize your ‘Friends’ into Lists

You have all kinds of ‘Friends:’ close friends, acquaintences, businss contacts, potential customers, past customers, and so on.  You want to keep up with all of them, sure; but not to the same extent.  For example, you probably want to see almost everything your closest friends post to Facebook but you probably only want to see the most important things your business contacts post.  We can control what hits our NewsFeed by first organizing our friends into Lists. 

On your NewsFeed, click on ‘Friends’ on the left column.  A list of your friend ‘Lists’ opens.  Most of these are default lists or lists that you inadvertantly created.  If you’re like me, you’ll be surprised you had any ‘Lists’ at all!  Check them out.  Remember, you’re going to be filtering the information that your ‘Friends’ post on your NewsFeed based on which ‘List’ they’re in.  If you find existing lists that work for you, fine.  I didn’t.  So I deleted Friends out of all of those lists (you’re just removing them from the List, not from your gang of Facebook Friends).

Next, create a few lists with names that will be meaningful to you.  Things like:  Close Friends (who will probably be the people who will restrict the least), Acquaintences (who you will probably restrict much more), Past Clients (somewhere in the middle) and so on.  You might consder a List for potential clients or for people who live in your target market.

Now, open the new empty list and click the link to Add Friends. Select people from your master List of all friends you’d like to put on this list.

Task 2:  Decide what kind of content you want to receive from the members of each ‘List’

Once the List is created and populated, click ‘Manage List’ and select ‘Choose Update Types’.  Then click ‘Manage List’ again and you’ll see the six types of updates you can get from this list of friends.  The initial default view will have all six checked, which is why (if you haven’t done this) your Facebook Newsfeed is crammed to the gills with stuff you don’t care about!  Simply unselect the items you don’t want to receive from this particular group.  For example, I elected to receive almost everything from my List of Close Friends.  Makes sense, right?  But not EVERYTHING.  I am not a computer gamer and have zero interest in the proliferation of games on Facebook.  So I unchecked that, even for my closest friends.  I also unchecked ‘Other Activity’ because this is usually your Friend accepting somebody else’s Friend request. Why would I care?

As you work through your new Lists, decide how much stuff you want to receive from each group and use the Update Types list to make your selections.  FYI, I ended up with four Lists:  Close Freinds (very little filtering of content), Medium Friends (a little more filtering),  Acquaintences (from whom I only receive Status Updates) and Help-U-Sell Family which is everyone in Help-U-Sell and is somewhere between Close Friends and Medium Friends in terms of filtering.

Task 3:  Fine tune your filtering

Now, back on your NewsFeed, you can do some further, more individualized filtering.  For example, I have a Close Friend who fills my NewsFeed with all kinds of political junk that he ‘Likes’ (thereby sending it to everyone on his Friend list who hasn’t done any filtering)!  I don’t want to demote him or, heaven forbid, Un-Friend him, but I don’t want the junk posts, either.  Find a post from that person in your NewsFeed.  Click the down arrow at the top right of the post and choose how much additional filtering you want to do for this specific person.  I now receive only ‘Important Updates’ from my political friend.  And it feels sooo much better!

That’s it.  Do those three things and I think you’ll find you can get through your Facebook work in 15 minutes or less.  And that’s a topic in itself.  Most of us login to Facebook and just react.  Maybe a better way to attack it (if we’re serious about using it to build our businesses) is to login with a plan.  We’ll do that in another post.

There is one thing that has nothing to do with Friend Lists and filtering I want to mention that will unclutter your NewsFeed as well.  There is a Facebook App called SocialCam.  Many people have it and it’s really rather insidious!  The default settings on the damn thing allow it to post a link to any video you ever watch on YouTube to all of your friends’ NewsFeeds!  I’m so sick of seeing what everyone is watching . . . and the few times the video seemed interesting, I couldn’t access it via the link without first getting the SocialCam app!

Please, go to your NewsFeed.  Click on ‘Apps’ in the left column and you’ll see your list of installed apps.  Look through it and if you see ‘SocialCam,’  open it up and change the setting that lets it post to all your Friends’ NewsFeeds!  Please!  And while you’re at it, why not review the apps in your list and eliminate any you aren’t using or don’t care about.  Remember, when you add an app, you’re usually giving that app all kinds of permissions to do things like post on your behalf.  That’s the kind of thing that can create tons of clutter!

Grousing About Social Media

I just got through with a webinar on the latest social media app – the one Zucherberg paid a billion for.  I say I ‘got through’ with it, not that I completed it.  After 32 minutes I could not find a compelling reason to invest any more time.  Oh, the presenter was good and information was . . . informative.  But I just couldn’t make the leap to understanding how this thing was going to make me any money.

Look, it’s true:   I’m old.  But I’m hip-old.  I can tech it up with the best of them.  I understand technology and use it constantly.  I get excited over the next great thing.  But there is a naked emperor in the room and I can’t believe I’m the only one who sees him!

Our industry is bombarded with ‘gurus’ touting the benefits of social media in our business.  I am not sure if any of the ‘gurus’ ever sold real estate or ever sold much, but they sure are talking and we sure are listening.  Still, I have yet to hear from anyone who can point at Facebook, Twitter, Printerest, Google+, Instagram, etc. and say without reservation that the app (all by itself) created a single new client who generated income.  I’m sure the stories are out there, but I haven’t heard them; which tells me it’s a pretty rare phenomenon.

Kirk Eisele taught me about the ‘Network Effect.’  That’s something that occurs when there are enough people in a group that the group becomes valuable.  An example would be Facebook.  A large part of their revenue stream comes from selling highly targeted pay-per-click ads.  When Facebook had just a few thousand members, the value of those ads – the value of Facebook – was minimal.  But when Facebook started talking in terms of millions of users, the ‘Network Effect’ had been achieved and each new member increased the value of Facebook as a marketing tool.  (The ‘Network Effect’ is something Facebook has all over Google +).

So, it seems to me that you’ll make money with Facebook not by having a page and posting and liking and commenting, but by tapping into Facebook’s strength – that ‘Network Effect’ – and buying pay-per-click ads aimed at homeowners in your target market.  Honestly, I think it’s one of the best marketing vehicles for real estate today.

Tammy Patzer helped me understand that, by themselves, social media platforms – heck, all electronic platforms – rarely produce adequate or consistent results. But there is a synergy that happens when you are in a dozen places online, and that synergy yields better results all around.  You have to think of it as a world wide WEB – just like a spider WEB – and the more strands to your web, the more flies you’re going to catch.  So Facebook, Twitter and Instagram aren’t the stars, they are the supporting cast.  Yet I see brokers investing time into Facebook who have done nothing to localize or optimize the star of the show:  their Help-U-Sell website.

When I got my first real estate license – you know, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth – I started noticing a lot of people coming into the business looking like they were going to set the world on fire.  And sometimes they did.  But more often, they’d get bogged down on organizing their farm or researching the market or mastering the MLS . . . .in other words, doing things that looked important but kept them from doing the things that would make them productive (like going out, meeting people and asking:  wanna buy?  wanna sell?).

Today I think we have the same group passing through.  But today they’re investing all of this time in social media, thinking that somehow it’s going to make them tons of money.  It’s not.  Face Time – time spent eyeball to eyeball with people in your marketplace – is what will help you maximize your productivity and your income. Your electronic life is there to make staying in touch easier and less time consuming so that you can have MORE FACE TIME.

I love what’s happening for Ken Kopcho this year.  Since January his production is way up.  He’s having a good year.  He’s using his electronic tools, his websites, his Facebook, and even jumped on Zillow with both feet.  But when you ask him why he’s doing so much better he’ll tell you:  More Face Time.  Not more Facebook time, more Face Time.

So can we please return to common sense?  This is a people business.  When people need help with a big project – like buying or selling a home – they look for knowledgable practitioners they like and trust.  Likeability and trustworthiness are rarely established through typing and clicking.  It usually takes a handshake and a smile.

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