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In my opinion economic data will continue to be conflicting and confusing over the next few years .
Interest rates are going up, inflation is raising its horned head, and :
U.S. New-Home Sales Rise
At Fastest Pace Since December
There was an increase of 4.6% in May, as sales climbed sharply in the South and the West. Economists were expecting a 4% decline.
WHAT!? Someone appears to be transacting sides.
When I was in the business, I was a Mike Ferry devotee.
My partner, Mike and I even took Ferry's rantings about door knocking to heart. I recall one HOT summer day, going into a desirable neighborhood of Westchester, CA. We got out of the car. Mike took one side, I took the other. After about three blocks, I recall looking across the street at Mike.
He must of had the same revelation as me as we both walked toward the middle of the street and mutually decided to go to lunch.
It was there while we delighted in the spices of our favorite Indian restaurant, that we decided we would never door knock again.
"No one is ever home in Westchester we pontificated. Our market must be different than the area Mike Ferry talks about."
This story has flooded my recent memory much over the last few weeks and as early as ten minutes ago. I was interrupted by two Jehovah Witnesses. After politely saying no thanks, my marketing mind immediately turned on.
"Why are they door knocking on a Tuesday?" Hmmm.
"Someone must be home. Heck, I am home! So maybe there are prospects out there."
I would be very interested in hearing how many "prospects" these two ladies talk with today. How many doors will they knock to get a real live prospect they can "save"?
My ex-partner and I agree to this day that the door knocking thing was a bad idea. Yet, we both can rattle off names of top producers that use their rapport skills to intrude on people daily at home.
They sell themselves and eventually get buyers and sellers. They know how many doors it takes to get to a prospect and how many prospects to get to a showing or appointment. And how many appointments to get to a sale.
Mike and I chose another path. Perhaps if I would have been more diligent in my prospecting I would still be in the business. Who knows.
But there are at the end of the day, two ways to run this business. And they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
One is selling. One is marketing. And Marketing does not mean placing a website out on the web hoping to get a phone call because you were so nice to offer your content. In my view that is delusional and expensive.
Marketing is capturing, and then selling, selling, selling until they buy or die.
Will you piss some people off? No doubt. But you can let them go waste your competitors time.
TAGS: real estate blog // real estate marketing // doorknocking //tim okeefe // real estate blog // real estate blogs
I always try to make one of my blog posts tie somehow into a marketing lesson or opinion.
This is a rare exception. I just received this notice from one of my SEO and Blog clients who received it from their local Board of Realtors.
It has to do with your safety and is not talked about enough.
An agent has been attacked in the region. A listing agent received a call directly. The caller stated he and his wife were looking for a home and were from out of town and would like to see this house. The agent went to the listing to meet them. The caller arrived in a ski mask and brutally attacked her. The police have been contacted and are working on the case. They were able to trace the number he used from the agent’s cell phone records; however, he used a pay phone.
Please review these safety precautions.
Some safety tips:
- Meet clients at the office first. (A real buyer would not mind meeting you at the office then following you to the listing).
- Have your cell phone programmed for one touch local emergency numbers. (Often 911 calls go to a centralized bureau).
- Make sure someone knows where you are, when you will return and who you are with.
- Above all, if you have a strange feeling, DO NOT IGNORE IT.
I would guess there are more precautions one could take. But this is a fair warning. Just be careful. If you have any other ideas please post them in the comments below.
I picked up on an interesting marketing lesson while reading a recent May 2006 of Wired. In the article, Rise of The Neo Greens, the author quoted a UC Davis educator. Ken Kurani learned when studying hybrid car owners that the cars were purchased not for efficiency or savings. Because they didn't save any money. It was for what he called a "symbol of identity".
Now, get this next part. It is deep.
He said that, "the project of our lives is to tell a more interesting story of ourselves...people construct their identities as narrative".
These people want to be known.
Tying this into real estate, aren't there markets whereby the homeowners want you to know they live in this section or that? Often we sell it as prestige. But perhaps these desires are more deeply rooted.
We have been put up into the MarketingSherpa Readers Choice Blog and Podcast Award.
All you gotta do is vote for us. We are about half way down the row, under Marketing to a Specific Consumer Demographic.
The criteria that they ask you to vote by is:
Really, more important than anything be aware of some of the great blogs outside of the real estate industry. I find that usually following the pack in any industry is a sure way to "Suck Just a Little Bit Less" (there is actually a story behind this phrase that I will share soon. It was one of the major business lessons in my life). By studying other approaches, you often can find breakthroughs that you may have never considered.
The real estate industry is under pressure to change because of a couple major arguments.
1. Freely distributable MLS data
2. Price gouging
Actually both fronts stem from the idea that the NAR is running a monopolistic organization, where prices are fixed and the listings data is controlled by the organization.
And it isn't totally manufactured either. I know of a local discounter that has been blackballed by local buyer agents. Its not official of course, it is subtle.
And, I know of local companies that have opted out of IDX!
In fact a leading consumer rights group, the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), on Monday issued a report charging that real estate industry members act as a cartel to stifle competition, resulting in higher prices and poorer service for homebuyers.
The argument goes that it is cheaper to operate a brokerage today because of technical advances.
...and most of your licensee friends sleep as the rug is being pulled right out from underneath.
I have always used other industry data to help lead us in dominating in the real estate and mortgage industry which comprises most of our client websites. By looking at other markets we can take inferences that lead us to understand new opportunities and solidify hunches.
A new study conducted by Compete Inc. for Yahoo Search Marketing concluded that consumers reached with search are attractive for financial services companies since they are both wealthy and of strong credit quality.
Now, this isn't exactly your direct client, but they share some similarity for sure. The finance industry is pretty closely related to real estate sales, and especially Mortgage Brokering.
"A third of people who are searching on brand terms are looking to establish a new relationship or expand their existing relationship" with financial service providers, said Mike Bailey, managing director of financial services at Compete, Boston.
The study found that 31% of all searchers online are looking for loans.
Now what I find interesting is that however, 80 % of the prospects researching a bank are competitor's customers.
"From a search marketer's perspective, when I establish a portfolio of terms to put a listing on, I want to make sure I have coverage across general terms, specific terms and brand terms to reach all of the consumers investigating the products that I'm marketing," said Justin Merickel, director of the finance category at Yahoo Search Marketing, Sunnyvale, CA.
This is exactly the approach that we at Spider Juice Technologies use to capture more brand and lead generation for our Realtor and Mortgage clients.
Another interesting phenomenon is that Credit card prospects find it more convenient to apply online -- 83 % via the Web, 5 % through the bank branch and the rest by telephone.
But of those consumers who research their checking, savings and loan options online, one-third to one-half of those who open accounts do so at in-person channels. For example, 56 percent of checking account openings resulting from search were consummated at a branch versus 43 percent online. For savings accounts it was 38 percent in a branch, 60 percent online and the rest on the phone. For loans, the branch's share was 36 percent, the Internet's 42 percent and the phone's 22 percent.
This follows one of our Search Marketing Truths: "People research online and buy offline" . This is why I have argued over and over again that your website must serve one master, that is to capture online searchers names and personal information. All the branding and loyalty building is done after the capture.
Thanks to DMNews.com for much of the information for this post.
A survey commissioned by ING Direct found that three-quarters of respondents had 'very little concern' about the prospective value of their homes, the company said Friday.
The survey found that 85 % of homeowners believe that their house increased in value during the last three years. Many of the owners felt their home`s value will go up by about 4% in the next 12 months.
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