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Meetups bridge marketing divide

By Bernice Ross, Monday, March 15, 2010.

Cold calling and door-knocking are still viable ways to generate business. But why would you want to work so hard when there are better ways to connect with potential clients?

To succeed using these strategies, you need a hard-driving personality type that can also handle a 98 percent rejection rate. Because so many real estate salespeople are people's persons, this level of rejection is tough to take. Furthermore, if you are making cold calls, you have the extra hassle of having to make sure you don't call anyone on the National Do Not Call Registry.

So what are the best alternatives in 2010 to meet potential clients? more...

Coping with cranky real estate clients

By Bernice Ross, Thursday, March 11, 2010.

Flickr photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonohalloran/293312721/">Jason O'Halloran</a>.

No matter how good you are as an agent, sooner or later even the best of clients can go ballistic. Whether your clients are being cranky or have completely blown a gasket over an issue, here's how to cope.

Several years ago there were two multimillion-dollar properties in our market that had been listed with a number of different agents. The seller's pattern was to list for about 45-60 days and then dump the listing agents. Fortunately, when my partner and I won the listings, we sold the smaller of the two houses for $2.5 million. The larger house was brand-new, and in order to pay off the construction loans, the seller needed about $1 million more than the property was worth. We were hoping for a short-sale offer on the second house, but the lender was more interested in foreclosing. more...

2020: Better tech, faster deals

By Bernice Ross, Monday, March 8, 2010.

Flick image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/redlinx/1569470515/" target=blank>kun0me</a>.

What will a typical day be like for a Realtor in 2020? Obviously, there will be amazing new technologies as well as plenty of agents hanging on to what they were doing back in 2010.

Our fictional Realtor is named Ava. She was born in 1990 and is a college graduate. Ava started helping her boomer grandmother Linda with her real estate business back in 2010 as a way to earn some extra money during summer break. Unable to find a job after graduating and lacking the $500,000 it would take to complete grad school, Ava decided to follow in Linda's footsteps. Now with almost eight years of full-time experience, Ava owns the "under 40" market in her area. more...

Grow real estate clients for life

By Bernice Ross, Thursday, March 4, 2010.

For all the talk about social media and technology, the bottom line is that these tools provide you an opportunity to get you face-to-face with a potential client. Rather than fleeing from technology, embracing it opens up a whole realm of opportunities for new business.

Ten years ago I was training agents to engage in "circle prospecting." When you obtained a new listing, you would send out postcards to at least 100 homes in the surrounding areas. If you were holding an open house, you'd take Saturday morning to knock on the doors of 20 neighbors to personally invite them to attend. You could also pick up the phone and cold-call people to ask if they knew of anyone interested in buying or selling a home. more...

Top 20 reasons to fire your client

By Bernice Ross, Monday, March 1, 2010.

Flickr image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/debaird/466323394/" target=blank>debaird™</a>.

One of the biggest mistakes that most agents make is working with every type of client that comes along. Do you have a client that you need to "fire"?

When times get tough, it's tempting to work with clients that we might normally refer to another agent. More often than not, this choice results in poor outcomes for both you and the client.

I remember being asked by a woman I did business with to find her a house in Southern California's San Fernando Valley. I had a pretty good knowledge of the area. Nevertheless, because most of my business was on the Westside of Los Angeles, I wasn't actively previewing Valley properties every day. The result was that my client ended up buying a property on open house. Out of 200-plus properties that met most of her search criteria, she became very angry at me for not telling her about this particular property. I was the one who got "fired." more...

Are you making a $16M mistake?

By Bernice Ross, Thursday, February 25, 2010.

Flickr photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/neubie/2273635564/">Neubie</a>.

Are you feeling befuddled about trying to get better Web ranking for your real estate site? If so, you're in the best of company.

At Real Estate Connect, Vanessa Fox, formerly of Google and Zillow, gave a great talk on what agents and brokers need to do to establish their brand identity online. If the topic seems daunting, it really doesn't need to be.

On the other hand, some of the most sophisticated companies in the world have fallen victim to old-school marketing approaches that fail to recognize the basics of Web marketing. more...

Online marketing done right

By Bernice Ross, Monday, February 22, 2010.

Are you generating results you want from your online marketing efforts? If not, this common agent mistake may be the culprit.

One of my biggest takeaways from Real Estate Connect in New York City came from a discussion with fellow Inman columnist Gahlord Dewald. After hearing Tom Ferry's strong recommendation to use Posterous, I thought it would be smart to take a second look at this tool for agents.

Although I signed up for Posterous, I haven't been using it. The Posterous site allows users to create a blog using just their e-mail. This seems like a smart choice for agents who don't want to get caught up in using plug-ins and the other challenges associated with setting up a WordPress blog. Tom's recommendation that you could "skin" your Posterous site so it looks like your Web site seemed like a great plus that made total sense. more...

How agents stay relevant online

By Bernice Ross, Thursday, February 18, 2010.

Looking for some great ideas for your business? Today's column covers eight simple, common-sense "gems" from Real Estate Connect that can help build your real estate business in 2010.

1. Avoid this simple mistake many agents make
Have you ever visited an agent Web site with great community information, but with no reference to the city or the state? For example, if you reference "Sunny Hills" in Paris, are you referencing the "Paris" in California, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee or Texas?

When you describe the market areas you serve on your site, be sure to also reference the city, state and ZIP code(s) where they're located. Failure to provide this information means that search engines cannot accurately match your Web site with visitors who are searching in your area. If Google can't find you, future customers probably can't find you either. more...

4 hot Web tools for agents

By Bernice Ross, Monday, February 15, 2010.

What are some of the hot new technologies for agents in 2010? Here are four terrific resources, and best of all, they're free!

1. StatCounter.com
When it comes to Web site analytics, very few agents pay attention to this important data that tells them how visitors find their site, which keywords are generating the most visitors, as well as what causes visitors to surf elsewhere. Google Analytics provides great basic information. If you want a more detailed analysis, however, most companies charge a fee. In contrast, StatCounter.com provides analysis on 29 different factors at no charge. more...

Don't let mobile pass you by

By Bernice Ross, Thursday, February 11, 2010.

Are you ready to jumpstart your business in 2010? If so, here are some of the best "trends and gems" from Real Estate Connect New York City.

1. Everything in a pocket
One of the most important trends for 2010 is the portability of technology. Today's smartphones have more computing power than the desktops from just a few years ago. Who would have thought that your cell phone could take photos, shoot videos, read bar codes, find your exact location anywhere in the world, play video games, or do 10,000 other things?

Business tip: You have a Web site, but is it optimized for mobile technology? more...

A love-hate guide to profitability

By Bernice Ross, Monday, February 8, 2010.

Flickr photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zeke_/2709121418/" target=blank>madmolecule</a>.

Did you have a business plan for 2009 or are you like the 90 percent of all business owners who operated without a plan? If you want to have your best year ever in 2010, a solid business plan is the foundation upon which success is built.

Part 1 of this series examined how to identify your personal best practices. The next step is to create your business plan.

Research has consistently shown that achieving goals is tied to having a written

Walking real estate tightropes

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson

I recently watched the 2008 documentary "Man on Wire," a literally breathtaking retelling of Philippe Petit's illegal 1974 tightrope walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. At 110 stories and a quarter-mile above the streets of New York City ... more...

Best agents play to strengths

By Bernice Ross, Thursday, February 4, 2010.

Flickr photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/imagesbywestfall/3896838102/">greg westfall.</a>

What does it take to have your best year ever in 2010? A great place to start is by identifying best practices both inside and outside your business.

You have probably heard the old saying, "If you keep doing the same things, you will keep getting the same results." To make 2010 your best year ever, expand what is working well in your business and add two or three innovations to your business this year.

Keeping pace with change keeps your business strong. The reason people resist change, however, is that they view change as giving up something rather than adding to what they already do. more...

Is real estate ready to go paperless?

By Bernice Ross, Monday, February 1, 2010.

Ready to rid yourself of all those files and stacks of stuff on your desk? With cloud computing and a new generation of tablet computers, it may not be long before you can say goodbye to all those stacks of paper.

Last week, people eagerly awaited Apple's announcement about their new tablet computer, the iPad. I had high hopes that the Apple tablet would provide the impetus for the real estate industry to finally go completely paperless. While the iPad has plenty of cool apps plus a beautiful color "reader" for books and newspapers, it appears to fall short as a paperless solution for the real estate industry. more...

5 ways to corner your market

By Bernice Ross, Thursday, January 28, 2010.

Financing continues to be a major challenge in today's market. If you're struggling to find clients who are ready, willing and able to buy, the 2009 NAR Profile of Buyers and Sellers -- which is based on survey data from a sample of 9,138 participants who purchased a home between July 2008 and June 2009 -- contains some very helpful data.

Tighter underwriting requirements, appraisal issues and higher downpayment requirements mean fewer buyers today are able to qualify for financing. Credit-card companies are either lowering people's credit lines as they pay off their bills or canceling them completely. This has the effect of lowering the amount of credit the consumer has available.

It also results in the consumer having a higher percentage of debt vs. available credit. The overall effect is that it lowers consumers' credit scores, making it more difficult to purchase. Given the current situation, it's more important than ever to be able to identify the buyers who are the most likely to close a transaction in 2010. more...

Keep more of your commissions

By Bernice Ross, Monday, January 25, 2010.

In today's tough market, you have to make every penny count. While how much you earn is important, what really matters is how much you keep.

When you ask how much most Realtors earned in 2009, most report their gross commission income (GCI), which is how much they made before expenses. Profitability, however, is determined by how much you keep after expenses. If you want to keep more of your hard-earned commission dollars, here are 10 ways to do it. more...

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