Craig Schneider has been a driving force in Rochester’s new construction residential real estate sector for more than 15 years.
Craig was a Real Geeks user but left after frustrations with building his brokerage around the website and CRM. He experimented with using many different platforms for his business that eventually didn’t work out either. He'll discuss what he was looking for, why some of the platforms he tried didn’t work for him, and why he eventually came back to Real Geeks. PLUS, how he’s using it now!
Join host Todd Tramonte as he dives into how Craig has been able to maximize the Real Geeks platform for lead generation and distribution for his entire team with a very high return on investment.
Join us for this Keeping it Real where you’ll learn how to reconnect with your neglected past clients, sphere, and lead nurtures so more people call you without spending a lot of money.
You’ll learn a simple process to export all your contacts into one file - properly de-duplicated and scrubbed - so you can email them a re-connect message about the latest local real estate news. You'll get a copy of this message on the show.
Then, you’ll put everyone on a “36 touch” plan so you’re top of mind as their go-to real estate agent. You’ll even be able to track who engaging with you so you can follow up.
The strategies you’ll learn to do this are inexpensive and simple. As a bonus, not only can you reconnect with your database, but you can also work the databases of other agents in your market for a referral fee – a low-risk way of generating high-quality leads for yourself.
Join Frank Klesitz this week to learn everything you wanted to know about how to get the most business from your #1 asset – all those emails, phone numbers, and mailing addresses sitting in your Gmail, Outlook, mobile phone, and CRM(s).
Kevin Kauffman and his business partner Fred Weaver have 25 agents on their real estate sales team in Phoenix. They sold 306 homes last year ($110 Million).
They originally set their agent splits based on what’s taught in the Millionaire RealEstate Agent book. Their bottom line, however, was only 10-20%.
After reflecting on that, they decided to actually increase their agent splits to 60/40 and70/30 (in favor of the agent), while cutting all the fixed, hard costs their agents saw as “low-value,” but in fact were very high cost to them.
Kevin says his agents are happier than ever, keeping more money, and his business is now more profitable than ever. This is a topic we wanted to dive deeply into with you!
Join Frank Klesitz and Greg Harrelson for this insightful Keeping it Real.
We talk about the optimal way to pay your agents if you have a real estate team. Kevin shares how he did it, how his numbers work, and why it was the best move for their agent/team model. This is a hot topic with a lot of opinions - this is an exciting discussion!
To hear even more from Kevin:
Join Kevin's Facebook Group
Listen to Kevin's Podcast
Watch Kevin's Youtube channel for Realtors
Dan Noma is on the show this week to share how he created EasyStreetOffers.com to help homeowners know all their options when selling their home.
It's working - he sold 1,800 homes last year with this simple message in hyper-competitive Phoenix, which is ground zero for all the iBuyer disruption.
Dan uses direct mail, Facebook, TV, and phone calls to let homeowners in Scottsdale know he has multiple buyers ready to go for their home.
When homeowners call to learn more, he asks them to send in photos of their home (or an agent goes on an initial discovery meeting to get the photos), which he submits to his institutional buyer relationships for a real, actual offer right away. The offers are very competitive, not low-ball investor offers.
Now armed with those offers upfront, and an accurate CMA, his agents guide the seller on the next steps best for them (i.e. you can sell it yourself, take the instant offer, or list it with us).
Join Frank Klesitz and learn how to tweak your seller lead-generation message for the best response (get an instant offer), and how to actually help those sellers when they call from your Guaranteed Offer messaging. Dan fills you in on how to partner with institutional buyers who will make very competitive offers too, so you're honest and authentic in your message.
Spring Bengtzen’s real estate team of 27 agents – located about 20 minutes outside of Salt Lake City, Utah – has already sold 259 units as of August 2021. If things continue in this hot housing market, they will likely sell around 450 homes by the end of the year.
Spring got her operational costs down considerably by hiring an international team of virtual assistants, so she can invest more resources into her agents and the customer experience (5-star agent communication, which is the #1 complaint of homeowners working with an agent). She’s also working on the ancillary side of things, like opening a title company, to stay competitive.
It was only five years ago she was ready to leave the business entirely and go back to being a hairdresser – barely making any money with a very small team. Since then, she’s been watching Keeping it Real and implemented the systems(and philosophies) of our guests. Spring shares what she’s learned about seller lead generation, recruiting, hiring agents, selling homes, and streamlining your operations. She also just transitioned her brokerage to ΓEA⅃ this summer. You’ll hear her thoughts on that decision, too, with the recent explosion of brokerage options in the space.
Join Frank Klesitz for this Keeping it Real and learn how you too can model what Spring’s doing to grow your real estate business!
Are you thinking about hiring your first buyer or listing agent? Maybe you've increased your real estate agent recruiting given the demand for real estate this summer?
If that's the case, join us for Keeping it Real this week to learn the optimal way to onboard a new real estate agent to your team or brokerage.
Frank Klesitz will interview Greg Harrelson (our guest this week) on how he gets a brand new real estate agent with minimal resources up to speed so they are selling homes within weeks.
This is a great interview if you're a brand new agent - you'll learn how to get yourself up to speed! This is a step-by-step instructional interview with the exact steps for a new real estate agent to take.
In this episode learn how Steve Kozlowski from Irmo South Carolina, was able to take his business from only 16 deals to 60 in just 12 months by shifting his business.
Hear how he was able to shift from a buyer-dominated business into a seller-dominated business and how in the last week alone he took 4 FSBO listings.
JP Wells is a sales manager for a team of overseas telemarketers who make 600+ dials a day each to find someone who may be thinking about selling their home.
Once they speak with a homeowner who is interested in getting an offer on their home, they pass the lead to a licensed agent for a conversation.
Join us for this Keeping it Real where we’ll dive deep into the numbers of prospecting homeowners directly over the phone. While we are not attorneys, we’ll discuss the legalities we are aware of (DNC, TCPA, state licensing requirements) along with what calling lists work best, how to append phone numbers, hiring and training a virtual assistant to make the calls (with general pay ranges), the proper scripting, and what metrics one should hit to have a reasonable chance of success where you make 4x+ back in commission income.
If you have a CRM with a lot of archives in it, it’s also great idea to have them call all the people who haven’t bought or sold a home with you. You can also put them on Home Value email updates when you get permission to stay in touch over the phone.
Join us for a deep-dive on outbound prospecting for seller leads when hiring a virtual assistant to do most of the heavy lifting for you.
JP’s Scripts:
Circle Prospecting
FSBO
New Buyer Leads
In this episode of Keeping it Real with Greg Harrelson of Century 21 The Harrelson Group and Frank Klesitz of Vyral Marketing features Ashlee Nath. Discussing, “Getting Started as a Brand-New Real Estate Agent in 2021,” you’ll hear tips on how to hit the ground running as a new agent and strategies approaching the market in a new way, even if you’ve been in real estate for decades.
Nath began her real estate career as a home stager and transitioned into becoming a transaction manager, and then determined that she could be an asset as an agent, and decided to take the test for her license through Kaplan online in three weeks. She didn’t plan to rush through, but while doing it realized that she could be learning scripts and reaching out to clients to let them know she was in school. For others that would like to get started, Nath suggested that soon-to-be agents can learn scripts, start conversations, and set up their social media. “They can start learning scripts before they have their license,” said Nath.
Nath was strategic in building her client base. She chose to start with Instagram as a lead generation tool and searched for people posting near her in Colorado Springs. She’d make comments and like their posts and start following people, and they would do the same. She would like up to 200 items per hour. “I started focusing all my time and energy on social media,” explained Nath. “I learned everything from webinars!” Nath would look at someone’s Instagram page and make sure they were a local who had posted recently and had interests similar to hers and then she would send a personal message, using their name and referencing something from their profile which sparked her interest. To her the key was that she “made it beneficial for them as well as me.”
Over time, Nath learned what was good to post live vs. as a story, and found that an 80:20 ratio, with 80% of posts relating to her life as a mom and 20% of posts involving real estate was a good mix for her audience. “I want them to see I’m a human as well as a realtor,” Nath said. “You were proactively recruiting and prospecting,” Klesitz said,“reminding listeners that Nath “would make 50 attempts a day to reach out to people in Colorado Springs.”
According to Nath, her main message was not about real estate, it was about creating local relationships and “getting to know people in my community.” And, it worked. She doesn’t spend as much time prospecting on Instagram now because she is really busy with referral business and past client repeat business.
Nath also used Facebook but does not consider it her main source of social media. She posts home listings in groups and on local buy, sell, trade pages, but only shares a price and size range rather than exact details. The reasoning is that then the viewers had to click links to her unbranded Real Geeks property landing pages which required registration before showing home photos. Once she saw the leads sign up on Real Geeks, she would engage them in conversation. She felt they were warmer leads since they were already looking at homes. This strategy alone resulted in her selling 10 homes her first year.
Nath said she used a landing page on her Real Geeks’ website and would post a short description and link the page to 5-10 local groups a day. She did not post to the same group every day, but rotated between 15 groups. Of those 15, Nath said 5 had the largest audience and better traction, but that posting to all made it more comprehensive. Klesitz noted that in doing so, Nath uses Facebook as an inbound strategy, whereas she uses Instagram as an outbound strategy. Harrelson and Klesitz were impressed as they calculated that she generated 150 free leads off Facebook where ten of those turned into deals, giving her close to 7% conversion through organic posting. Harrelson appreciated her approach in using forced registration when the leads came to her page. “They volunteered their information, now that’s a qualifier,” said Harrelson, adding that the qualifier brought conversion. Harrelson reminded that every Real Geeks user could generate leads using the property pages on social media. “Property pages have share buttons that make sharing it simple,” he said.
In addition to social media, Nath said she built her database from looking through her phone, checking who had come to her home for dinner and who she knew from volunteering at her kids’ schools. She contacted people she already knew to have more face to face “let’s go get coffee” interaction and was involved in “Mom groups” which allowed her to meet more people and grow her sphere of influence. “It’s all about keeping those relationships and nurturing those people,” Nath said. Even if they didn’t need her services, she knew, “they may know someone.”
Nath uses gifts to stay top of mind with past clients and contacts, delivering about 300 gifts each month through what she refers to as monthly pop-bys and events. She shared an example of a personalized art card + flower seeds that was sent and explained that at Thanksgiving mini bundt cakes were hand delivered by their real estate team with the message, “we’re nothing bundt thankful for you.”
Harrelson mentioned that she’s created a formula and that “she came across the formula naturally.”
“She chose something that fit her personality style.” He described it as authentic, intentional, simple, and consistent. “She created a routine and she delivered value,” he said explaining that it works as she, “leads with the give and lets the take come in some sort of reciprocity.”
In this episode of Keeping it Real, Frank Klesitz of Vyral Marketing and Greg Harrelson of Century 21 The Harrelson Group interview Jon Carbutti on the topic of “How to Start Your Own Independent Real Estate Brokerage”. Jam-packed with actionable advice, you’ll find this Real Geeks training will have you considering the advantages and challenges that come with creating a team and/or brokerage, and accepting responsibility for its success.
“You gotta be a little bit of crazy to start your business,” admitted Carbutti, “to be your own broker. But the right kind of crazy, the right kind of risk taker. You've got to believe in yourself and you’ve also got to have a written plan.” Listen to the story of how Carbutti went from being a top producing real estate agent to a business owner, broker, trainer, and leader of a top producing team. This Real Geeks training will show you why Klesitz, Harrelson and Carbutti agreed that “not everyone should become a broker,” but it also may inspire you to build a team.
Carbutti purchased his brokerage from his father in 2010 and recalled that he had no idea what he was doing at the time. “No one told me I was getting into the human resource business at the time,” he said. Carbutti also found that the company was filled with agents who didn't respect the son buying the business, as many of the agents had been with the company longer than he had. This required him “to step up and take a leadership role” and shift his mindset from being the top producer to being the leader and broker.
“I used to think nobody could do it better than me, and I was wrong.” Carbutti revealed. “I used to think I was the best at listing presentations, somebody else couldn’t possibly do that.” However trying to do it all and micromanage everyone else on his team was not a successful solution. He had to learn that other team members needed success and could be responsible for listing presentations and didn’t need to be micromanaged. He learned that you need to hire the right people to make systems work and that risk is a critical element to success. “Definitely do not... hire the wrong people,” urged Carbutti. “Don't be desperate to fill the seats.”
Carbutti shared that he was able to make these changes by gaining accountability through working with a coach. “I've always been a doer,” explained Carbutti. “Even if I didn't know what I was doing, I took action and I implemented.” He said that in the beginning of running his business, he “created a lot of monsters” because he started relationships based on money and thought profitability was based on volume. However, Carbutti had to reconsider his approach because his business model wasn't working. He added that he realized he needed to be a leader for his team and not mix roles, once he understood that “The agents that are in production can feel threatened by the sales manager.”
Klesitz asked Carbutti about his biggest mistake and Harrelson and Klesitz both nodded and related strongly when he said, “signing a lease with my Dad.” Harrelson added that building lease arrangements, family linked or not, is “one of the biggest challenges as the owner of the brokerage.” Harrelsoon warned anyone thinking of signing a building lease to think it through. "Be careful and be cautious," Harrelson said, “It's one of the hardest things to unwind if things start going south.”
One of Carbutti’s successful first steps was running radio ads. “Nobody in my marketplace was doing it," he said, so he signed up for three spots a week and a morning show and the phone started to ring. He shared that conversion from listings to signed contracts is over 85% from his radio ads. His call to action on the show is to call or “Google us,” Carbutti shared, explaining that it makes it easy for clients to connect.
Carbutti also shared that he’s often surprised by what interests his clients, so he tries to be consistent on all sides because it all works together and yields results. “A lot of these buyers coming in are actually sellers disguised as buyers,” he said. Then he told a story about a couple that needed help with a transaction and how he wasn’t sure how it was going until the end when the client turned to him and said, “By the way, I really like your videos…” Carbutti said he went back and reviewed the clients’ record and found that the couple had been in their system for 3.5 months, but had never responded to emails or calls, even though they’d been actively paying attention to his messaging. He then said that particular client has done six transactions since!
Moments like those teach Carbutti that he doesn’t know everything about client behavior, real estate, or how to run a team. He uses a recruiter to hire and train and says his role is to inspire and attend huddles. Talking about his teammates, Carbutti said, “I want to know the name of every single person that works at my company and I want to have a relationship with them.” It’s very important to him that his agents feel they are a part of the team. “They understand that at the end of the day, we have their back,” explained Carbutti.
Inspired by Carbutti’s methods on team building, which seems to be a cross between a team and a brokerage, or “teamerage, ”Harrelson said, “We shouldn't be trying to build a brokerage. We shouldn't be building a team. We should be following the pattern of Jonathan.” Klesitz agreed, adding, “A brokerage is an extension of your character,” which is what Frank says explains Carbutti’s success.