Tag: Maurine Grisso

3 Objectives of Marketing

Visibility – Lead Generation – Client Base Development

In that order.

First rule of Marketing:  Be Visible! Which means to be seen . . . frequently.  In real estate we do that largely with signs: For Sale Signs (listings!), directional signs, open house signs, Blitz Signs, Car Wraps, Billboards, Bus Benches, office signage.  You are visible when you hear the magic words:  ‘I see your signs everywhere.’

However:  Visibility can be accomplished in other ways as well.  Richard Cricchio (whose office is on an ISLAND, which is a pertinent detail) has used a weekly radio show for the past 9 years to boost his visibility.  Maria Powell and Michelle Morgan have become active on local television to be more visible.  Kim Zelena and Kimber Regan have used community involvement and charity events to increase their visibility.  Julie Wright is deeply into her Chamber of Commerce.

Lead Generation is all about Targeting, which means honing in on the people most likely to need your services in the future.  Lead generation might take the form of direct mail or door hanger distribution.  It used to take the form of newspaper and homes magazine advertising (and still may in some cases).  Increasingly, lead generation is about maximizing your web presence . . . essentially being electronically VISIBLE and easily found online.

Many of our folks are generating leads by optimizing their Help-U-Sell websites.  Good News:  if you haven’t done that yet, call Tony – he’ll help you.  Others are pulling them in regularly via premiere agent programs at Zillow, Trulia  and Realtor.com.  Robin Rowland is using Facebook to create new business.  Maurine Grisso has 5 websites (and counting), each targeting a different segment of the market.

Client Base Development means we look backward as often as we look forward.  As we move contacts to contracts and closings, we move those clients back into our cache of fans.  We cultivate the relationship with regular meaningful contact.  We seek and get their help in further developing our business.  You are doing client base development right when you have former clients functioning as advocates in the field for your service.

Rather than single out anyone doing a good job of client base development I’d simply congratulate all Help-U-Sell brokers.  Truth is:  nobody is making it through the tough market of the past several years without the help of a strong client base.  No matter how many leads you are developing, the power of a personal referral will almost always be your best option for doing business.

Help-U-Sell Marketing

I’ve been stewing over Help-U-Sell Marketing and how to present it powerfully to a potential Seller.

By nature it is already powerful compared to what goes on in ordinary offices, where marketing/advertising has largely become the responsibility of individual agents.   It didn’t use to be that way.  A long time ago, real estate companies created, orchestrated and paid for marketing to benefit their agents.  But back then, agents were usually paid 50% – 60% of the earned commission.  Today, most ordinary brokers start newbies out at more than that and 75%-80% splits are not uncommon.  When ordinary companies gave in to the pressure to pay more to their agents, they had to cut somewhere to make up the difference, and marketing budgets took the biggest hit.

So at brand X down the street, you have dozens of little agents whizzing around willy-nilly ‘advertising’ on Craig’s List here and a homes magazine there, and dropping an open house ad in the local rag when the seller gets antsy.  There’s no coordination, no maximization of the power of INVENTORY, no grand design to marketing, and the results are negligible.

At Help-U-Sell, marketing is the purview  of the Broker.  It is an office responsibility.  Our brokers do deep research into the local marketplace so that they can make informed decisions about where, when and how to market.  They design, implement, monitor and constantly refine a coordinated marketing plan that generates a strong flow of buyer leads into the office.  New listings are simply plugged in to the marketing program and marketing featuring any of the office listings will benefit all of the office listings.   It is the strong flow of leads that causes our listings to sell.

We used to talk with potential sellers about the components of the marketing plan:  ETMs, Brags, Weekly Lists, Bootlegs et.al.  and while I’m sure those things are important today, I think sellers want to hear more and more about the Internet.  Since everyone knows that buyers are all over the Internet looking for houses, sellers want to know what you’re doing to get their property noticed in that arena.

I think saying you syndicate to 28 websites and sharing a graphic of what those websites are is helpful.  But it’s not a differentiator.  Most main line real estate companies are syndicating in similar fashion.  (By the way:  this does not mean you shouldn’t talk about it and show the graphic.  You should.  It’s still impressive.)  I think what’s more important is to show how you’ve maximized your web presence to be most attractive to the Internet buyer.

Here:  have some fun with this:  Open Google and type in ‘ Sell Real Estate’.  The top few responses are paid ads.  But after that, Help-U-Sell is often the first main-line real estate company that shows up.  Every time I’ve ever done it we are in the middle or near the top of the first page.  Of course there’s a reason:  our name is Help-U-Sell real estate!

But if you’ve done your homework, if you localized and optimized your website, if you’ve bought good domain names to point to your website, if you’ve created new pages of localized content for your website and so on, there should be search strings that have your office appearing near the top of the first page.  Why not spend a little time trying to discover what they are?  Then start sharing those search string results with sellers when you sit down for a listing consultation.

Want to see someone doing a very good job of this?  Go to Google and search for ‘Santa Rosa Homes.’  See who the first several results are.  Now try ‘Santa Rosa Real Estate.’  Maurine Grisso has created several websites, each targeted at a different kind of consumer in her marketplace, each optimized and localized;  and she’s further boosted their effectiveness with a little pay-per-click.  She goes onto to the Internet and casts a net made up of all the places a home buyer might find her, and comes back with leads.  This is great stuff.  And it’s the kind of thing sellers want to see today.

News from the Short Sale Rumor Mill

Short Sales continue to be a huge part of our business, and while I hear little of the ‘I wouldn’t touch one with a ten foot pole’ attitude common a couple of years ago, they remain a challenge.  I consulted a team of experts about the current condition of this part of the business yesterday . . . ok:  I talked with Ken Kopcho and Maurine Grisso . . . and here’s what I learned:

Banks are getting easier to work with.  It’s as if they finally realized that, as remedies go, a foreclosure can cost them upward of $50,000 more to accomplish than a short sale.  It’s taken a long time, but they seem to be getting their processes organized so they can move more quickly in legitimate short sale situations.

Wachovia was the first to become more reasonable.  They have been easier to work with for months.  Recently Bank of America and Welles Fargo have followed suit.  Chase seems to remain ‘difficult,’ sometimes becoming non-communicative.

Bank of America’s Equator system – which was a bear when initially introduced – seems easier to navigate.  It is unclear whether this is the result of a system adjustment or the growing familiarity of broker-users.  (!)

While many short sale attempts don’t work out, there are things a broker can do to increase his or her conversion rates.

Spend time on legitimate short sale candidates only.  Remember:  being upside down by itself does not qualify a homeowner for a short sale; there has to be a real, legitimate hardship: loss of a job, medical expenses, lost income . . . something.

Don’t take short sale listings unless you think you can get it done.  Seems simple, I know, but Maurine – whose conversion rate on short sale listings is remarkable – says she walks away from almost as many as she takes.

Don’t forget about the non-short sale candidates who are still in trouble.  For example, Maurine is targeting homeowners who are 30-60-90 days late but who still have a little equity.  They may not be short sale candidates, but they probably do have a problem.  Plus:  they have some ‘skin in the game,’ something to lose if they don’t get the problem solved.  The broker becomes the solution.  (By the way:  if you don’t know how to find homeowners who are late on their mortgage payments, but who haven’t yet received a Notice of Default, ask me).

It’s January 2011, and real estate market indicators continue to improve slowly.  Pending home sales are rising — they’ve been doing so since October — and even new construction is showing a little life.  Meanwhile I hear that a lot of agents, faced with a fat Board Dues statement and nothing pending, are getting out of the biz.  That’s sad.  (But for the survivors, it’s good:  less competition.)  The sad part is: they’re probably getting out just when things are turning around.

This is a time to squeeze a little more, pay your Board Dues and get busy.  Hold open houses, find 4 or 5 legitimate new buyers to work with, get your blitz signs out and start reminding people you are here to help them save some money.  2011 will be a year of More.

Something New

There is a new training experience available on the Help-U-Sell Download Library.  In ‘Take Ten Training,’ Maruine Grisso has created short — usually about 10 minute — training sessions on how to use some of the Help-U-Sell tools.  Currently there are three sessions:  The Easy Way, The Client Qualifier and The Seller Savings Comparison.  Each session comes with a video presentation of the slides with audio and a PDF handout.  Many more sessions are planned, so check back regularly.  The folder is in the Download Library under ‘Training Sessions.’  If you don’t know how to find that or have forgotten your login information, send an email to support@helpusell.com.

 

Why We Charge A Set Fee

The Low Set Fee is the heart of our identity.  It is the engine that produces the result we are known for:  consumer savings.  There are several reasons why we charge a Set Fee instead of a percentage based commission.

  • It is logical. If you know how your market behaves at any given time, if you know how long it will take to sell a properly priced property, if you know what you’ll be spending each month on marketing — you are able to know what it will cost to sell the typical home.  That, plus a ‘fudge factor,’ is your carrying cost.  Add a reasonable profit for your company and you have a Set Fee that makes sense to you and to the consumer.
  • Percentage Commissions, on the other hand, make no sense at all.  Think about it:  if your company charges, say, 6%, the guy with a $200,000 house is going to pay $12,000.  His friend, two blocks away with a bigger house, worth $300,000, is going to pay $18,000.  What did the friend get for the extra $6,000 he paid?  $6,000 more advertising?  I don’t think so.  Is his agent going to work $6,000 harder?  Doubtful.  Truth is:  they’re paying hugely different prices for the same thing.  It’s nuts and the consumer knows it.
  • It is a differentiator. Differentiation in the real estate business is a good thing.   The California Association of REALTORS has been asking consumers for years if they’d use the same agent again in a real estate transaction.  In 2004, 79% said ‘yes.’  In 2009, only 22% said ‘yes.’  If that’s not a confidence crisis, I don’t know what is!  Seems to me, the smart thing is to look as little like the rest of the pack as you can.  Charging a Set Fee instead of a Commission says you’re different.
  • It drives more business to your door. The Low Set Fee that produces savings over what ordinary brokers charge has great appeal to Sellers, resulting in large numbers of listings which create a strong flow of buyer leads through the office.  More Sellers = More Buyers = More Business.

Maurine Grisso, on the Broker Roundtable Call today, presented the Set Fee as well as I’ve ever heard it presented.  She talks in term of 3 ways your home might sell:  You Sell – We Sell – They Sell.  No matter how it sells, you always pay the Low Set Fee.  If you find your own buyer (You Sell), that’s all you pay.  If our Help-U-Sell office finds the buyer (We Sell), you pay your Set Fee plus our Selling Fee.  If you elect to go into the MLS and another Broker brings the buyer (They Sell), you’ll pay your Set Fee plus whatever % Commission you offer to the selling broker.  In all cases, the Seller saves over what they’d pay a traditional broker.

The Set Fee is who we are.  It’s what sets us apart from the crowd.  It’s what motivates consumers to call us and ask, ‘How’s that work?’  Set it wisely and re-evaluate it regularly, and wear it like a badge of honor.

Accessibility Toolbar