Thursday, November 5, 2009

Seven easy steps to build your Twitter-sphere

1. Tweet often and interesting content. If it looks like you’re never on, or all your tweets seem to be mini sales pitches, you will not gain Twitter followers.

2. Follow more people. There are a lot of tools to help you find people who have common interests such as Twitter Search and Find People.

3. Make your Tweets interesting. Tweet neat facts or link to interesting blogs, articles and Websites you come across.

4. Let more people know that you are on Twitter. Add a link to your feed on your email signature or link to your Website and blog.

5. Upload a profile photo or logo. There are many people who will not follow or allow followers who do not have a photo. Having a picture or logo makes you look more legitimate.

6. Contribute to your feed as a personality, not just as a business.

7. Engage in conversations on Twitter. Direct Message (D) people, @ reply people, re-tweet (RT) interesting tweets, and participate in hashtag (#) topics.

Follow Keller Williams Realty on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kwri.

Gary talks Leverage!

In The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, we declared you could be just three exceptional hires away from having the organization of a Millionaire Real Estate Agent. That’s still absolutely true. However, our ongoing research for both MREA and SHIFT has given us new insight into how these key positions evolve. Some of you got a sneak peak at Mega Camp 2009. For the rest, here’s a quick look at hiring and compensating a Showing Assistant.

Leverage is ultimately about focus. You hire talent to keep you focused on your most dollar-productive activities and they focus on everything else. After entrusting your admin and marketing chores to another person, you look for help on the buyer sales side of the business. Successfully showing homes can be extremely time intensive and help here should keep you focused on leads and listings. So who do you hire?

In the past, research pointed us to a licensed buyer specialist paid on a 50/50 commission split. Today, some successful agents are first hiring an unlicensed Showing Assistant to keep their costs of sale low and their productivity high.

A Showing Assistant can literally jump into the driver’s seat with your buyers while keeping you in the driver’s seat when it comes to converting buyer leads, getting signed agreements, identifying wants and needs and eventually writing and negotiating contracts. A good one should be able to successfully show homes to around three to four buyers a month while earning bonuses based on 25 percent of each deal. Based on a $5,000 average commission, a good Showing Assistant could earn $60,000 a year. This is a terrific opportunity for someone. Better yet, you get to stay focused and 75 percent of the buy-side income stays on your side of the ledger.

You are still looking for someone who has the ability to grow into your Lead Buyer Specialist. So when you have someone with the ambition and proven ability to succeed with a high volume of buyers over time, your Showing Assistant earns the right to be promoted to a licensed Buyer Specialist. Your Buyer Specialist would then handle buyers from the appointment to closing and now earn 50 percent of the commissions. Again, a good one should be able to handle three to four buyer sales a month without burning out.

Burnout is a key word. Once you have identified a great Buyer Specialist, you don’t want to lose them! When they burn out and walk out, guess who gets their job? You do. And you’ve already got a job.

When your business is generating enough leads on a consistent basis to push a great Buyer Specialist past their ability to successful manage them all, the Showing Assistant concept reenters the picture. Now your Buyer Specialist has the opportunity to hire a Showing Assistant of their own. The Showing Assistant is still paid on a 25 percent bonus; however, that money comes out of the Lead Buyer Specialist’s half of each commission. Effectively, you continue to earn 50 percent of each buyer transaction, while the Buyer Specialist earns 25 percent and the Showing Assistant earns the final 25 percent as a bonus. Any buyer transactions your Buyer Specialist closes without the help of a Showing Assistant would still be on a 50/50 split.
Now your Buyer Specialist might successfully help four buyers on their own and another four with the help of a Showing Assistant. That’s now eight closed buy-side transactions each month. And with an average commission of $5,000, your Buyer Specialist has the ability to gross as much as $180,000 a year while just personally showing three or four buyers a month!

Showing Assistants may come and go—each auditioning for a shot at being your Lead Buyer Specialist. But once you find one, hiring and managing Showing Assistants moves from your plate to theirs. You have found your leader for working with buyers. Any additional help needed to keep your buyer transactions on track becomes their issue and opportunity.

Showing Assistants can save you money on the frontend, reduce turnover on the backend, all the while providing the best possible service to your buyers.

Click here for a video highlighting The Organizational Model and MREA.
(with Jay Papasan)

TEXAS METROS AMONG BEST TO LIVE, WORK

NEW YORK (Forbes.com) – Dallas, Houston and Austin are among the top four U.S. cities in which to earn a living, according to Forbes Magazine.

The magazine found Dallas to be the most desirable city in the nation to live and work, while Houston was second and Austin came in fourth.

Among the best reasons to take up residence in Houston or Dallas, according to Forbes, is the number of top-ranked companies headquartered in each city: 38 and 15, respectively.
The rankings were determined by median income, cost of living, job growth and the quality of the business environment.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Grow Your Business with Social Media...

Are you looking to grow your business by using social media?

Facebook is one of the sites that is powerful in the social media world. In fact, it is the number 3 most visited site in the world right now.

Agents ask me how to maximize lead generation through Social Media. The video below is the basics on how to get started with facebook.

Are you someone who doesn't know what social media is or how to use it? Do you understand social media but you are unclear on how to maximize it's potential to grow your real estate business? If you have answered yes to any of these questions, please email me at amberboyd@kw.com or call me at 972-772-7000 for a list of FREE social media classes or a one on one consultation.


Click below to take the Facebook 101:Getting Started.



Be looking for Part Two soon. Go and try it and let me know if you have any questions.
Do you have a great story of how you got business from a social networking site? I would love for you to share with the group. Please click on the comment button below to share.




Monday, November 2, 2009

Focus on Leverage – the Buyer Side

In The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, we declared you could be just three exceptional hires away from having the organization of a Millionaire Real Estate Agent. That’s still absolutely true. However, our ongoing research for both MREA and SHIFT has given us new insight into how these key positions evolve. Some of you got a sneak peak at Mega Camp 2009. For the rest, here’s a quick look at hiring and compensating a Showing Assistant.

Leverage is ultimately about focus. You hire talent to keep you focused on your most dollar-productive activities and they focus on everything else. After entrusting your admin and marketing chores to another person, you look for help on the buyer sales side of the business. Successfully showing homes can be extremely time intensive and help here should keep you focused on leads and listings. So who do you hire?

In the past, research pointed us to a licensed buyer specialist paid on a 50/50 commission split. Today, some successful agents are first hiring an unlicensed Showing Assistant to keep their costs of sale low and their productivity high.

A Showing Assistant can literally jump into the driver’s seat with your buyers while keeping you in the driver’s seat when it comes to converting buyer leads, getting signed agreements, identifying wants and needs and eventually writing and negotiating contracts. A good one should be able to successfully show homes to around three to four buyers a month while earning bonuses based on 25 percent of each deal. Based on a $5,000 average commission, a good Showing Assistant could earn $60,000 a year. This is a terrific opportunity for someone. Better yet, you get to stay focused and 75 percent of the buy-side income stays on your side of the ledger.

You are still looking for someone who has the ability to grow into your Lead Buyer Specialist. So when you have someone with the ambition and proven ability to succeed with a high volume of buyers over time, your Showing Assistant earns the right to be promoted to a licensed Buyer Specialist. Your Buyer Specialist would then handle buyers from the appointment to closing and now earn 50 percent of the commissions. Again, a good one should be able to handle three to four buyer sales a month without burning out.

Burnout is a key word. Once you have identified a great Buyer Specialist, you don’t want to lose them! When they burn out and walk out, guess who gets their job? You do. And you’ve already got a job.

When your business is generating enough leads on a consistent basis to push a great Buyer Specialist past their ability to successful manage them all, the Showing Assistant concept reenters the picture. Now your Buyer Specialist has the opportunity to hire a Showing Assistant of their own. The Showing Assistant is still paid on a 25 percent bonus; however, that money comes out of the Lead Buyer Specialist’s half of each commission. Effectively, you continue to earn 50 percent of each buyer transaction, while the Buyer Specialist earns 25 percent and the Showing Assistant earns the final 25 percent as a bonus. Any buyer transactions your Buyer Specialist closes without the help of a Showing Assistant would still be on a 50/50 split.
Now your Buyer Specialist might successfully help four buyers on their own and another four with the help of a Showing Assistant. That’s now eight closed buy-side transactions each month. And with an average commission of $5,000, your Buyer Specialist has the ability to gross as much as $180,000 a year while just personally showing three or four buyers a month!
Showing Assistants may come and go—each auditioning for a shot at being your Lead Buyer Specialist. But once you find one, hiring and managing Showing Assistants moves from your plate to theirs. You have found your leader for working with buyers. Any additional help needed to keep your buyer transactions on track becomes their issue and opportunity.

Showing Assistants can save you money on the frontend, reduce turnover on the backend, all the while providing the best possible service to your buyers.
Click here for a video highlighting The Organizational Model and MREA.
(with Jay Papasan) BY: GARY KELLER