Your Honest Agent - The New Partner In My Success

I have recently become a part of the "Your Honest Agent" Network - A Network of professionals that provide Real Estate & Financial solutions. As a member of Your Honest Agent you receive your own personal assistant (for FREE) along with a complete set of tools and solutions to rocket you to the top of your game.

There is so much value from YHA, more than I could explain in a single post, that I felt I had to post this video - I highly recommend you watch the video. This is the future of my real estate business as I see it. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks,

John Mc Kenna
Real-Estate-Success.org
Email Me: john@real-estate-success.org

I Have Finally Cracked My Time Management Issues!

Ever since I ended up with 95% of the listings in our office back in Spring of 2007, I realized that I had to master my time management. And I have been trying different things over the past 2 years to organize myself, get more out of my time and relieve the stress associated with the life of a Realtor.

Well, I think I have it now! TIME-BLOCKING!

Time-Blocking is not a new concept and certainly not something that I have created and deserve any credit for. I came across the concept of Time-Blocking while reading Success As A Real Estate Agent For Dummies" by Dirk Zeller - and from perspective Dirk is the person that I am giving the credit to for getting me finally on track with my life. And although I am not fully there yet in a complete time management system that I adhere to every single day, I am pretty close - I WILL be there by the first of the year!

For those of you that haven't heard of time-blocking - Time-Blocking is really looking at your schedule each day and creating blocks of time that will be allocated to doing certain tasks. For Realtors, it falls into 3 main categories (and I hasten to add that these are Dirk Zellers categories that I use in my time management system!). The 3 main categories of tasks are Direct Income Producing Activities or DIPA, Indirect Income Producing Activities or IIPA, and Production Supporting Activities or PSA.

Now without rewriting Dirk;s books here on my blog, I will give you a brief idea of what falls into each category:

DIPA: Prospecting; Lead Follow-Up; Listing Presentations; Buyer Interview Presentations; Showing Property to Qualified Buyers; Writing and Negotiating Contracts.

IIPA: Making Client-Development Marketing Pieces; Producing Direct Mailings; Creating or Fiddling with your Websites; Optimizing Your Search Engine Placements; Publishing Hardcopy or Email Newsletters; and a near-endless list of other efforts that agents invest in to indirectly produce income.

PSA: Office Hours; Administrative Work; Errands; MLS Searches; MLS Input; Home Flyer Creation; Filing; Copying; Faxing; Meeting Home Inspectors or Appraisers; Getting Feedback from Showings; and purchasing supplies are only a sampling of the necessary tasks that support your production efforts.

Now the key to effective time management is to create a plan/schedule that works for both your business life and personal/family life as well. I have a wife and 3 kids (all boys!! - Riley whose just turned 1 year old and has been sick since he was born - Gain whose 3 years old and Jacob (my stepson) who is 9 years old and has Asperger's Syndrome) - so to say the least, my family life is somewhat demanding and I have to admit was eating into my business life! This is why I needed to master tie-management - my business was growing immensely but so were my family commitments. TIME-BLOCKING has allowed me to do this.

I firstly block off time for my family, for example: every Friday from 5 pm onwards is time "Time With My Wife" (which 98% of the time includes the chldren). And I take Saturday as my day off - no real estate at all!

But when I stated in the heading that I have finally mastered my time management issues, I not only meant that I needed to first put my family life into my schedule, but also realize that you cannot just draw up a schedule and expect you are on your way to time management success. I tried this - drew up a schedule, basically copied the one that Dirk Zeller provides in his book, and tried to work this schedule for me and it didn't work.

First problem was, that was Dirk's own schedule. And secondly, in my opinion, it doesn't work that quick or easy. You need to take it bit by bit. The key is to make sure that you put as much time as is possible (70%) to the DIPA tasks mentioned above. If you can't do 70% - make it a goal to work towards that!

My schedule, as soon as I get up, is DIPA tasks and I intend to do as much of those tasks each day as is possible to ensure that the IIPA and PSA tasks don't eat up all my time as they have been for years. IIPA & PSA tasks, while necessary, do not increase my bank account to the same degree that DIPA tasks do!

I have uploaded a copy of my schedule to my website www.real-estate-success.org . From there you can download a copy and use it yourself or work your schedule to be something similar.

Let me know how you make out.

Free Coupons From Lowe's!

Here is a really neat marketing tool available to Realtors - and the best thing it is FREE!

Lowe's have teamed up with the National Association of Realtors to provide Realtors an exciting new real estate marketing tool.

With the Lowe's Realtor program, you'll have access to a FREE online real estate marketing system that allows you to give sellers and new homeowners coupons and rebates to use at Lowe's. Cutomized, high quality, professionally produced direct mail is sent on your behalf - FREE.

Offers include:

Seller: 10% Lowe's Coupon and exclusive rebate offers

Prospective Buyers: Online dream book with project tips and ideas on how to turn prospective property into their dream home

New Homeowners: Congratulations postcard with 10% Lowe's savings coupon

There are other benefits such as a 5% discount on Lowe's gift cards but that doesn't interest me - that's not really FREE.

I am sure some readers are already aware of this program and may already be using it but I felt this was worth posting on my blog as I don't seem to be able to easily find it on Realtor.org - though if you search Lowe's in the search box it will come up.

I use this program with everyone: buyers, sellers, friends, people I just met - they all love it. Sure I know that Lowe's are making out great in this but still it's a neat free tool.

One drawback, though, is that you cannot import a list into their system. So it gets a bit time consuming entering lots of clients and/or prospects into the system. On the other hand, however, you can export your list out of this system into a spreadsheet. What I am starting to do is enter all NEW clients and prospects into the Lowe's program first and then take it out into my database so as to avoid double data entry. Just an idea.

The website for this program is www.LowesRealtorBenefits.com. Let me know what you think.

Good luck,

John Mc Kenna, MBA
Realtor

Remember to log on each week for additional inexpensive tips and ideas to help build your real estate business. Or visit my website for free downloads that might be of some help - go to www.real-estate-success.org. And please share what's working for you - that's the whole purpose of this blog and my website. Also, visit The Best Real Estate Systems for additional great tips.

How A Call Capture User Multiplied Profits By 500%

I really have to commend one of Proquest Technologies' clients for this one. He took the idea (below) of $1 per lead and leveraged it to pay virtually all his marketing costs.....now and in the future.

What he has done is arrange a relationship with five different affiliates who pay him $1 per lead....EACH. He has his lender,his title company, his abstract company, his inspection company and a water treatment system company all pay him $1 per lead.

So this Call Capture User is getting $5 for every lead he generates before he ever followsup on a single lead. If he generates 150-200 leads per month, he's getting $750-$1000 every single month.

That means virtually all his marketing costs are covered. And what does he pay for his Call Capture System through Proquest? $49.99 per month. Not bad.

Now here's one of the big keys to success in doing this...

Entice People To Want To Work With You
This is crucial when considering the way this user has multiplied this concept by five. He's able to do this because of the way he adds value for his affiliates.

What you need to do is this: on EVERY fax-back document you have on your hotline system, make the last page an advertisement for all five of your affiliates. Break the page up five ways and put an ad for each of them on that page.

You also can give each affiliate several extensions on your hotline if the affiliate would like to use this approach in their marketing.

Remember, each extension can page it's own pager and call transfer to its own call transfer number. So each extension the affiliate uses, the Proquest system pages them and call transfers to them.

Another value-added tool you can use is on your fliers. For every flier you have going out (by mail, from a brochure box on the sign or whatever) you include the five affiliates on the back of the flier.

So each of the affiliates feels like they're getting a decent bang for their dollar. You add value and give them multiple exposure...each of them feels like they're making out well. Plus, because they're paying by the lead, they're paying only for results.


If you're not already using a Call Capture System in your real estate business - you should be. On my website, I detail the 800 Call Capture System I use in every part of my business. You can actually sign-up from my site and Proquest will waive the $299 setup fee!!!! More great savings through Real-Estate-Success.org!!

How To Have Someone Happily Pay All of Your Marketing Costs

This is so exciting and down-right simple.....I just had to share it with everyone.

If you have been on my website ( www.real-estate-success.org ), you will know that I encourage agents to consider partnering with a lending affiliate for certain strategies. In fact, a tip I received from my 800 number provider (Proquest Technologies) was to arrange a co-marketing strategy where you fax your day-old leads to your lender and have them put $1 per lead into the kitty for 'co-advertising'.

The idea works great. Its ad money the lender would allocate in most cases anyway, so why not have them allocate it to buying leads from you? They can purchase lists from any one of a thousand list brokers...so why not broker your list to them for $1 per lead?

If done correctly, this is not only a win-win deal for you and the lender, but your call capture system becomes a profit center before you ever follow-up on a single lead.

Often at this point agents ask, "Well, how would my lender take these leads and follow-up on them if the prospect call about one of my listings?"

Click here for a sample script that your lender could use - Real-Estate-Success.org (This is my website - Go to the Marketing Tools page - These are all free downloads that anyone is welcome to use in their real estate business).

One Of The Greatest Benefits Of Using Call Capture In Your Business Today

I use call capture in all my marketing, and I mean ALL my marketing.

With the call capture system that I use, I have a 1-800 number, and one thousand extensions. But more importantly, my call capture system allows me to track where I am receiving my business from.

In other words, I can track the success of each marketing piece that I put out. This system is absolutely vital within my business today. It allows me to gauge the success of each marketing dollar that I spend.

For example, if I decide to send out 100 postcards, 100 letters, place a weekly ad in the newspaper and advertise in the Homes Magazine, I can put my 1-800 number with a different extension number for each marketing source. The last digit on the extension indicates where I have advertised – e.g. postcard might be 1 at the end of the extension 2001. This then allows me to monitor how many calls I received from the postcards, how many calls from the letters, how many from the newspaper ad and how many calls came in from the Home Magazine ad.

The reason that is so vital to me is that if the newspaper ad costs me $200 and gets me 10 calls, yet the 100 postcards cost me $48 and resulted in 20 calls then I am going to stop spending marketing dollars on the newspaper ad and move it over to sending postcards - $200 can pay for 416 postcards which could result in 83 calls.

Do you see now why the call capture system is such an important part of any successful real estate business model?

So How Do You Become A Successful Real Estate Agent In Today’s Tough Market?

The answer to the above question consists of several main components which are quite simple and straightforward. In brief, the things you simply must do to ensure success are as follows:

1. Realtor = Business Owner - Treat your real estate practice as a business – you are running a business – never forget that!

2. Time Management - Due to the workload and possible chaos involved with our business, you must master Time Management.

3. Automate Everything - To assist you with your time management and to keep on top of all the tasks and activities involved in real estate transactions, you must automate everything where possible.

4. Prospecting - You must train yourself to prospect at least 2 hours per day (every day that your real estate practice is open for business).

5. Lead Generation is the lifeline of your business. You must have a system that generates good quality leads and plenty of them. And this system should be automatic – working for you 24/7, even while you are sleeping.

6. Testimonials - You must use testimonials with all of your real estate marketing – this includes your real estate postcards, your realtor business cards, any and all sales copy, your real estate website, your listing presentations, and even, if you can, include it when you advertise your homes for sale.

7. Referrals – you must have a system for getting referrals. We, as consumers, will prefer to do business with someone we know or with someone who has been referred to us by someone we know. So, every time you are talking to someone you know (whether in person, on the phone or via email) ask them this question: “As you know I am in real estate, I need you to think for a minute – who do you think are the next 3 people you know that might be considering buying or a selling a home.”

8. Professionalism & Personality – Finally, dress professionally every minute of each day that you are practicing real estate. Be likeable – it is a proven fact that consumers do business with people that they like. More importantly in today’s economy, be upbeat and positive. No-one wants to be around a real agent who is full of doom and gloom about the housing market – I know I don’t!

My opinion has always been “Why reinvent the wheel?” At my Real-Estate-Success.org site you’ll learn the best, most inexpensive practices and systems for your real estate business. Over the years, I have bought them all, subscribed to them all, reviewed them, tried and tested them, used them, and when necessary, dumped them in the garbage.

With Real-Estate-Success.org there are no strings, no fees. Nothing but solid, real estate information and advice.

So take a visit and learn what you’ve been missing.

Don’t reinvent the wheel – SAVE YOUR MONEY - I have it all done for you!

John Mc Kenna

john@real-estate-success.org