Don’t let Leads Go Cold Part 1 – Being Responsive

As an experienced real estate broker, you’ve spent your time in the trenches as an agent doing whatever you had to do to create buying and selling opportunities for yourself.  How do you help your agents approach their business with the same level of excellence?  You can probably think of instances where  buyers or sellers slipped away because follow up was a little late, or even non-existent.  Perhaps some competitor was just a bit quicker on the draw or had the right message at the right time and so a nice opportunity quietly disappeared because there wasn’t a safety net to ensure that it didn’t.

At Weichert we are razor-focused on the nurturing of leads and we can confidently say that ability to keep leads warm until they are ready to act comes down to exactly two things: responsiveness, and follow up.

The Definition of “Responsive” In An Online Age

If a client has taken the time to make contact by phone or through the internet, that’s a big step toward opportunity. What they want is to speak to someone, and generally the first person to do that will have the best opportunity to work with them.  While online leads now bring most new business opportunities, studies have shown that online leads go cold incredibly fast. A study by Harvard Business Review shows that companies that contacted leads within an hour of receiving them were nearly 7 times as likely to engage with the lead vs. companies that took just a ½ hour longer—and more than 60 times more likely to engage with the lead than companies that waited 24 hours or longer!

When you look at how leads are handled by your office and agent team, there are a few questions to ask:

1. How often does an initial phone inquiry go to voicemail?
2. How long does it take to follow up on these leads?
3. How many calls are unanswered and then no voicemail is left at all?
4. How long does it take for your team to respond to form inquiries from internet or website sources?
5. How quickly are after hours contacts handled?
6. Do you have a process for assigning leads that come into your brokerage?

If you don’t have a good real estate lead-handling system in place for your brokerage or know how well your agent team is keeping up with incoming leads, you could be letting good opportunities slip away.  This is an area you may want to look at bolstering within your brokerage.

Large real estate brands often centralize their contact handling to ensure all of these scenarios are addressed and handled in a timely and efficient manner. Weichert for instance, has a national call center which responds to internet and phone leads typically within minutes of receiving them. The leads are pre-qualified by our trained representatives and then immediately forwarded to qualified agents across the country for follow up. This occurs 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. By having this contact occur promptly, and screening for only the serious inquiries, our system creates the right first impression, and does not waste agents’ time with unqualified buyers or sellers.  It is an invaluable resource to our affiliate brokerages.

In Part 2 of this topic, we’ll talk more about what happens after you make that first contact with a prospect who perhaps isn’t ready to move forward.  How do you insure that you are the one that is there when they are ready, and how do you maximize the value of that contact in the meantime?
Stay tuned!

If you are a growth-minded broker looking for other ways to make your brokerage more productive and get to the next level of results, talk to the Weichert^® franchise team today.

For more information visit https://www.weichertfranchise.com

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/dont-let-leads-go-cold-part-1-responsive/

Real Estate CRM’s – A Must Have Tool For Your Brokerage

The leads generated for your company and your agents are one of your most valuable assets. Anytime a prospect moves on to another brokerage or doesn’t close because your agents did not actively nurture them and convert them to clients, you are losing potential revenue that could have come into your brokerage and your team. A real estate Customer Relationship Management tool (CRM) is designed to help solve this problem. The best real estate CRM tools provide sophisticated contact management and automated communication. These systems help experienced agents manage their past clients and referrals and help new agents who are cultivating prospects and trying to grow their business. There are a lot of real estate CRM’s to choose from. You need a powerful system that is user-friendly and will help your agents advance your business.

Benefits of Real Estate CRMs

The ideal CRM saves time and functions as an automated personal assistant. It should provide agents with notifications from clients and prospects along with reminders, calendar alerts, and insightful data about clients all in one easy-to-use platform. Agents should also be able to tell if there are any buyers seeking information and take steps to ensure they receive that information in a timely fashion. It must be complex enough to manage all the nuances of real estate sales and marketing, but do so in a way that simplifies the agent’s workday.

Better CRMs will also have a comprehensive system for managing the contacts made at open houses. Beyond just contact information, these systems will contain fields for searchable notes, scoring of lead potential and urgency, and be able to use leads to create scaled marketing campaigns. These systems keep agents front of mind and work to show prospects your listings to keep their pipeline filled, while they focus on closing the deals at hand.

Other important features of modern Real Estate CRMs include:

• Full Mobile Access: Real estate agents are frequently on-the-go and need the ability to access their contacts, calendars, and clients at all hours of the day. Real estate CRMs with integrated mobile functionality help your agents maintain a healthy work-life balance by keeping them connected while they are away from the office. It provides peace of mind to know they are not missing any vital communications.
• Automated email marketing: New and experienced agents can create impressive email campaigns in just a few minutes, regardless of their level of technical skill. The best real estate CRMs include branded templates for holiday greetings, special promotions or allow agents to create their own templates.
• Increased conversions of prospects to clients: Converting prospects into clients is a skill that agents do not develop overnight. Even the best agents are always working on improving their conversion rates. CRMs can dramatically increase the number of clients for each agent through improved contact management.
• Integration With Your Lead Sources: Having a CRM that integrates into your lead generation system and supports your workflow makes it even more powerful. For instance, WeichertPro, the tool used by Weichert Franchisees, is fully integrated into its national lead generation system. When a lead is assigned, it goes directly into the agent’s profile, preventing the need for manual data entry or assignment of initial lead data.

Final Thoughts on Using a Good CRM in Your Brokerage

Sometimes the most valuable clients start as just an email address of someone seeking more information. Every contact can be valuable and it is not always clear initially which are serious buyers and which leads are going nowhere. An effective CRM allows agents to view all prospect data and easily identify the stage of the buying process for each person. It prevents enthusiastic agents from burning themselves out chasing dead ends and provides both agents and their brokers with insights that can help them close more sales.  If you and your agents are not already using one, take a look at the many options available and see what’s right for your business. At Weichert, we were fortunate enough to be able to invest in our own CRM technology to ensure it had all the functionality we needed and support our real estate business model.

Long-term success in real estate requires constant improvement. If you’re looking for solutions to build your business, partnering with Weichert with all its resources may be what you need. We provide proven systems, expert advice, and coaching that benefit you, your agents and your brokerage. Contact https://www.weichertfranchise.com  today for more information.

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/real-estate-crms-must-tool-brokerage/

What You’re Really Paying for When You Invest in a Real Estate Franchise

When you’re considering purchasing a real estate franchise, brokers inevitably focus on the costs of the investment trying to understand if gains made by the relationship will ultimately outpace costs of the relationship. While each franchise is different, here are some of the key things you should expect from a real estate company offering a franchise opportunity.

• Brand Recognition: National real estate brands all have varying degrees of name recognition among consumers. Much of this depends on the area of the country you live in. While some level of name recognition in your area is good, equally important is that people perceive that you are part of a larger national organization. They may further understand that a large national real estate company has resources to offer that many independents may not. For instance, Weichert has nearly 500 corporate and affiliate offices in over 39 states, giving franchisees considerable brand reach to leverage in most areas of the country. Equally important however are the assets that Weichert offers you to build brand in your local area. If you still wonder just how transformative a good brand can be for your business, try speaking to a few franchisees about their experience.
• Lead Generation: Some real estate franchises offer you little more than their name. Look for a franchise that not only has an excellent brand, but supports it with a proven system that puts you in contact with buyers and sellers in your local market. A bonus if it also has referral resources across the country and around the globe. Your ability to derive additional sales from such a system, is one of the key considerations in determining how much you can grow your brokerage under a franchise model.
• A Franchise Should Give you A Blueprint for Growth: The best real estate franchises will offer a proven system for success and sophisticated tools, training and people that support it. This means the system and its steps are a tested recipe, which you can plug into and follow. Make sure the system has a track record of broker success stories and that you can talk to them about their experience.
• Ongoing Support: Too many real estate franchises, start with a flurry of activity, but then leave you alone in the woods to find your way on your own. You need to be sure that any training and tools you receive are actively supported by both digital and human resources. For instance, Weichert Franchise Brokers and their agents are exposed to comprehensive, systematic training on the Weichert processes and systems as part of our onboarding program. They have 24/7 access to “Weichert University” our online e-learning portal and our resource centers filled with sales and marketing tools. Plus, they have access to expert, experienced support, through regional business coaches, corporate training, marketing and technical expertise, as well as best practices derived from our own brokerage business and an active network of peers who aren’t shy about giving you the skinny on things. When looking at franchises to invest in, make sure the one you choose offers this type of proactive, energetic support in all areas to help you build your real estate brokerage.

With the Right Partner, Franchising Benefits Quickly Outpace Costs 

It’s easy to get caught up in the numbers when you’re looking at a franchise opportunity, but it’s important to never lose sight of what each franchise is really offering you in return for your hard-earned money. Pay close attention to the totality of each brands’ offering and remember that what’s cheapest isn’t always the best deal – the returns on your investment and the scope of training and support that is offered are what really counts.

At Weichert, we believe in the power of the handshake, supported by advanced technology and proven processes. With Weichert you have both digital assets and expert real estate professionals that provide you training and coach you through your specific challenges every step of the way. If this sounds like a good fit for your business, we’re happy to chat with you in more detail visit https://www.weichertfranchise.com for more information.

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/real-estate-broker-marketing/youre-really-paying-invest-real-estate-franchise/

Blogging: Why Brokers Should Jump on The Bandwagon

Blogging – It’s something that it seems like everyone does now. You’ve probably already heard that you should be doing it and maybe you even have a twinge of guilt that you’re not or not doing it enough.

So, what is it all about? And how exactly does it help you market your brokerage?

What is Blogging?

Simply put, this is publishing a series of short articles on a website. It’s a bit like an online chronicle of interesting subject matter or stories related to real estate in general. You can publish images and video along with your stories too and they can be viewed by anyone on the internet. While it’s often used by people sharing their hobbies and interests, the fact is that blogging is one of the best, low-cost marketing tools available for promoting the visibility of a brokerage in their local market.

Why Blogging is One of the Best Online Real Estate Marketing Strategies

When you do it right, or even mostly right, the regular production of content on your website can produce additional visibility for your brokerage. And with over 90% of homeowners looking online for information during their home search, the right blog content can help get you in front of clients. With a good blog, you’re also able to:

• Attract A Younger Generation Home Buyers And Sellers: Think about how millennials and first time home buyers will search when looking for a home, like “Tips for first time home buyers” or “Schools and amenities in Fort Worth area” or even “Eco-friendly homes in Tampa Bay”. Search engines will present your blog if it aligns with phrases commonly searched, increasing the visibility of your brokerage.
• Give Your Blog Content Multiple Lives: By syndicating (distributing) your blog on your website with comments enabled, off your website, and excerpting it on various social media channels, you can often get readers to engage with the content. Engagement should always be responded to and these interactions can form the basis of a lead funnel.
• Blogs Can Feed Your Email Campaigns: Your blog can be the source of content for an email campaign, effectively killing two birds with one stone. Using an email campaign, you can forward your blogs to a wider audience driving them back to your website. This helps keep your brokerage at the forefront of the minds of potential clients.

• Increase Your Authority: Well written blogs will convey to consumers that you are an expert in your field and involved with all aspects of the buying and selling process. That’s good for your brand and can help differentiate your brokerage in a crowded local market. It also helps break the ice making potential clients more comfortable dealing with you because they feel they know you through your writing.

Blogging Is A Key Part Of Online Real Estate Marketing

Some people hate to write, some people love it. To begin blogging you don’t have to take this on yourself.  You can find an associate on your team who loves writing. Or have it be a round robin responsibility within the brokerage. However you do it, it is important to establish a plan and do it consistently to reap the benefits of real estate blogging. What should you write about? Anything a consumer might find valuable, whether it’s a real estate topic or simply tips and advice for homeowners.

If you are a growth-minded broker looking for Online Real Estate Marketing Strategies and other ways to make your brokerage more productive and get to the next level of results, talk to the Weichert franchise team today and visit https://www.weichertfranchise.com.

Original content posted on https://www.weichertfranchise.com/blog/blogging-brokers-jump-bandwagon/