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Keeping It Real - Real Estate Growth Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

Keeping it Real is where the best Real Estate Brokers, Real Estate Agents, Real Estate Coaches, and Real Estate Marketing Professionals share their best hacks for growing real estate business. Get actionable insights that will drive the growth of your real estate business today! Learn cutting-edge hacks to drive your social media marketing, email drip, inside sales to put you ahead of the competition. Top Realtors and Real Estate Brokers share their proven strategies for earning more GCI.
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Now displaying: Page 7
Jun 11, 2021

In Keeping it Real: How to Hire Virtual Assistants for Your Real Estate Team with Dave Friedman, Frank Klezitz and Greg Harrelson explore options for hiring virtual assistants to enhance productivity in real estate. Learn practical advice on growing a team through training and utilizing overseas talent and resources in the Real Geeks training.

 

Friedman explains how he grew his business and sold over 400 homes in 2020 with the help of his hybrid US and overseas based teams. Having created a business which is 93% team generated,Friedman’s insight and expertise in using virtual assistance overseas is unmatched. Listen in to hear real examples of ways to train, teach, and create systems that will streamline your business through the use of virtual assistants in this video.

Jun 10, 2021

Keeping It Real LIVE with Frank Klesitz of Vyral Marketing, Greg Harrelson of C21 The Harrelson Group, and Lindsey Jackson of Real Geeks examined Facebook lead-generation ads and what makes each work!

“I went through the top 100 real estate agents,” Klesitz reported, “looked at what they were running and took note of themes.” In doing so he was able to see a clear picture of what works and doesn’t work in today’s market. Accessing the Facebook Ads Library as a tool is a game changer. It can be accessed at: https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/

This episode details current ads, targeting methods, and landing pages that are generating leads right now, and explains why they worked so well. ROI and actual cost per lead type are discussed, allowing agents to have the info they need to plan and run successful Facebook marketing campaigns. 

Discussing ways to retarget audiences, Harrelson also explained the basics of the advertising he runs. “For the best conversion,” he said, “I’ve been running seller leads ads. Harrelson does this by creating specialty community Facebook pages, rather than using the main company page. Jackson explained that ads can be very market dependent and that it’s best to have 20K people in each audience, if possible. She also shared that more expensive homes meant more expensive ads in most cases, due to increased competition.

Harrelson agreed about the competition and the need to adapt advertising to the market. He urged agents to not be complacent and said that even he didn’t have “magic ads,” which means his team is always testing to see what works best in a given market. Harrelson suggested paying attention and accumulating an audience of people who didn’t fill in the form (known in retail as  cart abandonment) to retarget.

Generally speaking the group agreed that it was better to have the lead taken to a lead capture page with a sign up form rather than a general  website page. Jackson shared that funneling leads in through a property detail page where a lead signs in through a Facebook login, results in a highly effective campaign, “especially when you’re on your phone,” she said. These ads create a pattern which has the lead returning to the site on a daily basis. When A/B testing, Jackson said that the aggressiveness of the copy is a key area for testing. Klesitz introduced the idea of dynamic creative, where the ad or ad image is chosen based on performance.

Jackson said ad fatigue is real and that you have to constantly be testing new ideas for ads. Homes with pools work really well, she explained, “but just make sure that it matches.” For instance, if you’re advertising pool homes, don’t share a picture with snow, show a home with a pool.

Klesitz shared his view on the 4 tiers of advertising. 

 

  • Tier 1 - Uploading existing past clients and databases and using a pixel to retarget your warm audiences. Harrelson uses ExactDial to find out client contact information. Klesitz suggests a budget of $5/day and unique messaging since they’ve had contact already.
  • Tier 2 - Send to Facebook cold audiences all throughout the city, within the restrictions Facebook places on housing ads.
  • Tier 3 - The Greg Harrelson level which targets a cold audience in a specific community. 
  • Tier 4 - Next is cold leads. This is radius based (15 miles), age and gender are set to broad. Look at interests that are in the home owning process. “Broad is better,” explained Klezitz and Jackson. The algorithm creates the audience based on look-alikes. “In smaller towns you can get away with a small audience,“ said Jackson.

 

In discussing the metrics, Harrelson knew that it cost him $2.40 for each seller lead  in his custom audiences. “When you’re capturing  seller leads online, you’re capturing them very early in the funnel,” he said. Adding that most people give up too soon on seller leads because they are trying to speed the process too quickly. Using a non custom audience results in a high cost per lead, between $3.50-4 per lead. More competitive areas will have more expensive leads. Currently Jackson said the least expensive cost per lead is Florida and the most expensive is in San Clemente, California.

Harrelson believes 1-3% is normal for agent ad conversion though his reporting shows that 14% is possibly convertible from all of the ads. Real Geeks clients can use the Facebook tool or reach out to RealLeads@RealGeeks.com to have advertising set up for you. 

Klesitz shared his favorite 3 seller lead ad calls to action:

  1. Get a cash offer on your home, click here. 
  2. Or offer a seller workshop and ask: When was the last time you sold your home? 
  3. Find out what your home is worth?

As the segment concluded, Harrelson reminded agents to take notes and choose one action to take and do consistently. He believes doing this each week could make a huge difference in an agent’s production for 2021, even if the changes are small.

Apr 7, 2021

April’s first Keeping It Real Training offered by Real Geeks and hosted by Greg Harrelson and Frank Klesitz explored direct mail strategies for lead generation in affluent real estate markets. Featuring Brett Jennings, a real estate agent and team leader in the Silicon Valley, this episode provides direct answers to the question, “How can I generate seller listings now?”

Establishing credibility through sending direct mail to property owners and following up with phone calls, targeting mapped school areas, and circle dialing were all ways Jennings suggested staying in front of sellers. “All will sell at some point,” he said.

Recalling the words of his mentor Tony Robbins, “Wealth exists in the gap between ideas and their implementation,” Jennings explained that exploring that gap has been the key to his success. He sells real estate in a very affluent area, Silicon Valley, and has found that consistency as a team effort has allowed for predictable results. He targets an area of at least 2,000 homes and defines it by school district boundaries in his MLS. Using Remine or Realist, he then downloads the contact details of those homeowners and sends hand addressed, stamped letters to each. He mails one to himself so he knows when the letters are received. After they’ve been received, typically 3-5 days later, his team begins calling as follow up.  This technique has allowed Jennings and his team to secure listings in a low inventory market.

Jennings said the direct mail campaign works alongside his digital efforts. Every lead also is set up to receive a monthly Corefact postcard, monthly e-market report, and he has seller alerts set up for his CRM, showing pending and sold homes within 2 blocks of the property owners’ address. In addition Jennings uses HomeBot for his entire SOI and reports a 70% open rate using that tool. Jennings said his focus is to become known in a variety of ways. “Not just digital, but do digital and print to make you unforgettable,” he said.

It’s More Than Direct Mail Alone - You Need a Team

These techniques alone are not the cause of Jennings GCI jumping from $3.9 million to $12 million, however. He had a plan to scale and said he only did that through hiring a “rockin' admin,” scaling lead generation, scaling to 50 quality agents, and scaling quality support.

Listing Realtors Property Resource (RPR) as another tool, Jennings, Harrelson and Klesik discussed how this could be used to print out market updates for all buyers and send personal messages congratulating them on their increases in home values. The note could also provide the “most universal offer to sellers” which is the idea that you have a buyer. Jennings suggested leveraging your most committed buyers by finding out from the agents on the team who the buyers are and what types of homes they need. 

As you mail to your farm areas, Jennings advised to intentionally choose a hand written font, even on the envelope. He explained that using a service such as Addressable, which uses a real robot pen to write addresses, can achieve a 50% open rate for mailings. Jennings then shared that his team accentuates results with mail and a followup call in a 3 tap system, “either call, mail, call or mail, call, mail,” he said. He also recommended using a short url for zoom to make it easy for people to get on a video call, such as zoom.name.com.

Jennings acknowledged that this approach is large scale and cost-prohibitive for soome, but encouraged agents to look for partnerships on the mailing. He suggested including a 2nd page with a referral to a financial advisor offering a seller tax implications webinar, and having them cover a portion of the postage.

Explaining that letter frequency mattered due to message fatigue, Jennings said that in his market, “the ideal cadence is every 3-4 months,” and explained that this way, “if you call behind the list, you may get advance news of seller plans so you can add them to CRM.”  Harrelson and Klesitz agreed, with Harrelson adding, “Never do direct mail unless you're willing to prospect behind it.”

Direct Mail Stays in the Home Longer

Harrelson spoke from experience saying he’s found that sellers take a letter and “put it in a property folder to access in 6 months,” and encouraged agents to do multiple things, as Jennings does, not only direct mail. Speaking of Jennings, Harrelson said agents needed to be more like him, "He's not a dabbler. He's a doer, he's a get-it- doner. He goes deep." Klesitz suggested more tools for agents to use if they need to find buyers, explaining that institutional buyers are available through multiple companies, including Offerpad, and Opendoor. Klesitz also mentioned Homelight as a trade-in way to access equity and then sell the property as an "Exclusive Partner."

In wrapping up this episode of Keeping It Real, Klesitz mentioned his “Magical Seller’s Email” and offered it to agents. He recommended personalizing it and emailing the letter to an entire database as a way to get conversations started. Download it here.

This Keeping It Real episode shows you best practices for staying in front of potential home sellers. 

Utilizing these concepts and tools with your Real Geeks CRM is sure to increase your seller leads and grow conversion in 2021. Let us know what works for you and reach out if you have techniques you’d like to share in Real Geeks training. We’d love to have you on LIVE event!

Apr 7, 2021

This Keeping it Real got deep into “The Optimal Economic Structure for a Small Real Estate Team w/ Anthwon Thomas.” Hosted by Greg Harrelson and Frank Klesitz, the episode talks about the realities of agent splits, staff compensation structure, marketing budget percentage, and setting up an overall economic model when planning for a small team. More importantly, you’ll be inspired as you hear the passion, commitment, and joy evident in Thomas and Harrelson as each shares the journey of becoming a leader.

As a passionate entrepreneur seeking a life in real estate, Thomas spent hours preparing for his career as an agent, but more importantly as someone who could lead a team. In the beginning it was just him, but from the day he hired his assistant, he knew he would be a success. He knew it, because he could see it. Thomas had prepared by watching hundreds of hours of training ahead of time, in the form of Keeping it Real episodes and related Real Geeks training. This coaching helped Thomas internalize the message, “Whether I was going to fail or succeed, it was a win for me,” Thomas said.

Klesitz and Harrelson were amazed at his drive, and Harrelson recognized it as a key to Thomas’ success. Harrelson says: “Anthwon minimized his risk by maximizing his learning,” he said. Thomas attributes his success to his supportive wife and the knowledge gained as he internalized the role plays shared in those video trainings. I had to have focus and the belief that I was a winner, and a competitor,” he said.Thomas went on to explain that success is about working smart, “It’s not about how intelligent you are, it’s about how many times you were being intelligent,” he shared.

Your Market Does Not Determine Your Success

With a business based in Lafayette, Indiana, Thomas shows that “you can still be profitable in any market” as his small team consisting of three sales agents, a director of operations, closing coordinator and virtual assistant generated 120 deals last year in a market with a median sales price under $200,000. Thomas himself is no longer closing deals, and instead serves in a management role, helping his agents stay focused on prospecting and closing deals. 

Part of Thomas’ success lies in keeping costs low (marketing budget was $53,000) and morale and expectations high. His company has published standards for work efficiency and production for their agents which include:

  • Have a minimum of 25 contacts per day (125/week).
  • Close a minimum of 2 transactions each month.
  • Attend all team meetings (2 grace days permitted).
  • After 6 months, agents pay $495 unless monthly transaction goals (2) are met in the previous month.
  • If the above goals are not met, the agent agrees to participate in a system of change. 

Thomas finds that his system provides clarity, incentivizes, and works well for his motivated team, and shared that the agents hold one another accountable. “When we bring agents on the team,” he explained, “We future pace them… We let them know what to expect.” Believing that the amount of contacts you have per day will be the number of closings you have per year, Thomas provided insight into why his system works. Even knowing this, Thomas felt building systems and processes was the value he could best contribute in his business, so left transactions to his agents.

There Is No One Answer to Building a Team

Impressed by Thomas’ system, training, and team, Harrelson and Klesitz discussed how approaches may be different, but that success happens with consistency. Harrelson shared that his team approach is unlike Thomas’ in some ways. For instance, Harrelson requires no minimum sales standard, but guides individual agents based on their own goals. “My job is to help them accomplish what they want to do,” Harrelson said. Harrelson encouraged agents seeking to grow a team to make their first hire an assistant and suggested they convert 50% of time saved into lead generation time. When growing their businesses, Harrelson and Thomas took different approaches. Thomas reinvested his time into building a business. Harrelson reinvested his time into listings. “Both of us probably did it right, based on our vision of the model,” Harrelson said.

Thomas explained that he didn’t do everything perfectly in the beginning. Talking about his failures, Thomas acknowledged, “Even though I sold homes, I didn’t lead correctly. The first agent I brought on didn’t stay with us long. I needed to prove myself a little more and make sure I was gliding, not grinding, everyday.” He realized he had to be more of a team player and changed his process so he could deliver more value and add more support, Thomas explained saying, “At that point things started taking off.” Harrelson agreed, “I’m a big believer in leading by example,” he said. Harrelson shared that he doesn’t have his own office, though he does make use of a conference room, because his goal is to build and teach his team. “I want to be with agents,” Harrelson said, talking about his leadership style.

Leadership Success is About Accountability and Drive

“The reality is if I need to sell a home today, I can,” Thomas said, adding that his role and value is in building out “a strong bench of great players” to contribute to the team’s success. Thomas believes in accountability. He shared that his son checked in with him everyday when he was getting started at building his business with the question “Dad, did you follow or execute on your obligations today?” 

Explaining that leading a team is about feeling led, Harrelson said, “Let your passion and your heart take precedence in your decision. The economics will magically disappear.” A true leader puts in the effort required to see the dream through, Harrelson explained as he shared a story about ditch digging. “It’s not about being a resource,” Harrelson said, “It’s about being resourceful.”

If you’re planning to grow your team in 2021, or anytime in the future, you’ll want to watch this amazing episode. Internalize these practical tips and insights to ease your transition and have you seeing success from the start!

Feb 9, 2021

This month’s Keeping It Real hosted by Frank Klesitz and Greg Harrelson summed up Brendan Bartic’s “Bulletproof Real Estate Lead Follow Up Plan.” Discussing the value of each lead as a person, and the need to nurture individuals on their home buying journey, Harrelson suggested a standard for agents to aspire to with clients. "If we courted all of our new leads like they were a new relationship,” he said, “it would be amazing!"

What is a lead?

Before discussing the details of follow up, Bartic stressed the need for agents to understand that a lead is someone that has interest at some point. "Every single person that comes in has to ‘be processed or nourished 100%’," Bartic said, though he added that all need to be nurtured in different ways.

Bartic uses giveaways, radio ads, workshops and seminars, and traditional signage and advertising, alongside online advertising to attract and capture leads. Retargeting has been particularly successful for his team (who closed 230 transactions in 2020), and Klesitz suggested agents search The Bartic Group use the Facebook Ad Library (linked in the resources section below) to understand effective advertising language and images.

Once a lead comes in, Bartic’s team segments that person into one of two database categories, “met” and “haven’t met”. Describing online leads as “top of funnel,” Klesitz had Bartic and Harrelson share their nurturing processes. Harrelson suggested that understanding a person’s motivation was important. “Do they really want to buy a property?” Harrelson asked. “Yes. Then they’re a good lead… Let the timeframe dictate what you’re going to do to incubate that opportunity so you’re still at the top of the mind whenever that time frame comes.”

Bartic further explained that as every lead represents a person with family and friends who could later be referred, his team responds as such. “We are looking at just trying to get into relationships and look at not every single person, not just as a turn and burn ‘Hey, I got this lead. They need to buy in the next 30 days. If not, I’m on to the next’.” Instead, Bartic evaluates whether the person’s needs can be “met” now and needs immediate engagement or if the person is considered an “unmet lead” and needs to be nurtured through automation. 

Harrelson and Bartic agreed that the relationship is very similar to courtship and, in most cases, requires time investment and multiple, consistent touches. "If we courted all of our new leads like they were a new relationship,” Harrelson explained, “it would be amazing!" Bartic agreed. “We have to court them over a period of time for that relationship to occur,” Bartic said.

Klesitz delved into the financial aspect of lead generation, asking Bartic for real advertising spend numbers in Bartic’s Denver area. Stating that his team spends $5-8 per general Facebook lead and that specific ads such as making an offer on a home, are about $15. Google adword PPC leads are closer to $40 per registration form completed. Bartic’s cost per lead numbers are determined by how much is spent on advertising, divided by how many people opted in.

Bulletproof, solid lead follow up is critical.

Bartic shared his process for training his sales teams on follow up by referencing his flowcharts (linked below). “We’re going to call them [leads] immediately… right out of the gate,” Bartic said. “If they answer, then there’s a path that we’re going to take that allows us to move forward with them. If they don’t answer, we hang up immediately, and then we call back a second time. In the industry we call this a “double tap.” The key to that call is that it is ‘unbranded,’ with no company or call details being shared in the voicemail as that often causes people to call back.

Bartic went on to describe his F6 lead follow up plan where the agents put in 6 days of consistent effort with daily calls for 6 days. If there is no response then the lead is placed on a weekly automated contact list using a Mojo dialer. Typically Bartic said they see interest from a lead on the 5th or 6th call attempt where guilt is often used to get leads to respond and engage by asking the lead to call and let the hard working agent who wants to help know if there is no interest. Often, his team finds they’ll get a response.

Nudge your leads

Bartic describes another technique called the ‘nudge text’ saying, “People respond to it like butter.” The nudge text results after no response is given to a voicemail. The voicemail is followed up with one text. When that text doesn’t produce a response, a second “Did you get my last text” message is sent 6 minutes later. Bartic explained that the nudge text is phenomenal at producing a response from a lead.

Once a lead is engaged, other tools are used such as customized market reports and hand written notes (addresses are looked up through a service). Bartic explained that it’s important to use the lead’s name in all contact, from the personal note to the custom home search alerts. "We know that the personal touch part is critical," Bartic said. Using these techniques, lead response grows and percentages change. He shared that if only 1 call is made the response rate is 1-3%, but after implementing F6, that rate changes to 73%. "We have to go deeper, not wider,” Bartic reminded. 

As a review, the F6 plan includes the following steps:

  • Call them immediately.
  • Call a second time (unbranded).
  • Call once every day for 6 days.
  • On day 1-2, look up the lead’s physical mail address and send a handwritten note.
  • After 6 attempts, with no response, categorize the lead as “unmet” and begin that follow-up sequence with email campaign drips and automated property searches set up which include the lead’s name, and personalized market updates and a market report.
  • Once the lead responds, build rapport and set an appointment asking, "...are nights or weekends better for you?"

Bartic feels that, "People jump off the phone way too early,” rather than recognizing every call as an opportunity to build a relationship. He said that he’s had people who've never bought or sold a home with him refer ten people to him.

Overall, Bartic wants agents to know not to give up too early. "It takes time to convert internet leads," he said. To Bartic the lead always has potential, even when wrong information is given. "That's not a dead lead to me,” he said, “it's an 'I gotta do more work'." Harrelson and Klesitz agreed that gaining details about each lead and creating that relationship, is most important and helps agents stand out. "We've got to bring some of that personal connection back into our lives," said Harrelson.

 Bartic Group Shared Resources

Jan 12, 2021

It’s a new year, and Cindy has cracked the code on how to maximize her business opportunities! Through great marketing and lead gen strategies, she has created a successful model where multiple businesses feed one another. From property management to vacation rentals to home sales - learn how she has utilized creative property marketing and open house strategies to dramatically grow her business.

 


We want to thank Todd Tramonte and Dr. Cynthia Tant for sharing their knowledge with us and the real estate community! It’s important for us now more than ever to band together and support one another through these uncertain times.


You can follow us and get updates on more upcoming events on Facebook, Keeping it Real, Twitter, or now on iTunes as well.

Dec 4, 2020

Keep your foot on the gas pedal, the year isn’t over yet! In this episode, “Enter the New Year with a Listing Inventory” these leaders in the field of real estate, share the strategies they’re implementing to finish the year off strong and enter 2021 with a full listing pipeline!

Some of the things we cover include: 

  • Working your database to generate more listings
  • Why you should use a multi-channel marketing approach
  • How to have the right conversations with your prospects
  • Speed to lead - the art of following up fast to win more business

 


We want to thank Lisa Chinatti, Greg Harrelson, Kevin Mills, and Jeff Quintin for sharing their knowledge with us and the real estate community! It’s important for us now more than ever to band together and support one another through these uncertain times.


You can follow us and get updates on more upcoming events on Facebook, Keeping it Real, Twitter, or now on iTunes as well.

Nov 16, 2020

There’s no doubt that 2020 has been full of ups and downs for all of us. As the year comes to a close, this is the time to reconnect with your clients and follow up with them on their real estate investments. There’s gold in your database, you’ve got potential sellers to nurture so that you can list more homes.  

So brush up on your follow-up skills and tune in to this episode. Bill is a master of communication and continues to keep up with market changes, technology, and smart communications to provide his clients with the knowledge they need

We want to thank Bill and Jason for sharing their knowledge with us and the real estate community! It’s important for us now more than ever to band together and support one another through these uncertain times.

You can follow us and get updates on more upcoming events on Facebook, Keeping it Real, Twitter, or now on iTunes as well.

Oct 2, 2020

Single-agent, Buster Levin, has cracked the code of balancing technology and human interaction to make meaningful connections with his clients. Learn about the tools Buster uses to follow-up with his database by land, air, and sea so that no one gets overlooked.

Here are some of the things we cover:
- Staying organized by segmenting your leads based on urgency
- Leveraging workflows to nurture your leads and maximize conversions
- How to drive traffic to your lead gen website
- Understanding the lead conversion times based on lead sources
- How to “make today a masterpiece” by staying focused and setting attainable goals

Sep 9, 2020

In this episode Al Lewis shares with us how after a 30 year career as an Illinois broker, then moving to Florida to retire he soon found himself back in real estate! In a new market, he doubled down his efforts, built a small team, set up a new system to start building his database, and started closing deals all over again! 

Here are some of the things we cover: 
– Leveraging email, text, and live chat to build relationships with your clients
– Building a database from scratch
– Hiring and training an efficient team
– Having an exceptional work ethic and a positive mindset to succeed

We want to thank Al and Jason for sharing their knowledge with us and the real estate community! It’s important for us now more than ever to band together and support one another through these uncertain times.

You can follow us and get updates on more upcoming events on FacebookKeeping it RealTwitter, or now on iTunes as well.

See you at the next event!

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