Realtor Market Expert Q&A: Scarlett Green and Josh Taylor
In the spring of 2022, RPR's Broker Services Team put together a special training series for Howard Hanna agents. To receive their "RPR-Howard Hanna Market Expert" certificates, the agents were required to complete four classes on four different topics (available in an on-demand video webinar format available to them via the RPR blog). After each session, they were also asked to complete a "homework" assignment to get full credit. After four lessons and completed "homework," the agents received their certificate. They were also asked to fill out a survey, where they were asked to "Share Their Story" about their RPR training experience. In this Q&A, we speak to two RPR Howard Hanna Market Experts about their experiences taking the training, what they learned, and how they plan to apply their new RPR skills to their business. Scarlet Green Here's what Scarlet Green from Allen Tate Realtors, North Carolina had to say about the training sessions: I have been using RPR for months now and I love it!! Reasons why: 1) the more you use it, the easier and faster it becomes as the best and latest tool in real estate 2) the simplicity of RPR, user friendly 3) RPR offers so much info that you are able to choose exactly what you want/need so you may customize the reports/info for your client(s) 4) RPR offers material and info that are appropriate for both buyers and sellers! 5) Love having a mobile app that actually works! This app was well planned out and created to be user friendly. I also love that you are able to send the info the way your clients like to receive it; example, by text, email, airdrop, etc. I plan on continuing using RPR and appreciate all those who were involved in creating this. Thank you! Q. Hi Scarlett, thanks for joining us. How long have you been in real estate and what area do you specialize in? Ten years, I'm a residential agent, and I mostly work with sellers. A few buyers here and there… Q. How did you get introduced to RPR? Another agent in my office uses it. I heard that doorbell "ding," the sound effect from the reports being generated, and I wanted that! (LAUGHS) I love that doorbell chime of the notification. It's brilliant. It's the small things, you know? Then I started using it for doing comps. I love (and hate) doing comps, but RPR makes it easy. You can't go rogue, the program keeps you right on target. For clients, buying or selling a home is a milestone in life. And they trust us to watch their wallet through the process. I appreciate RPR for helping me create CMAs. Q. In the testimonial you sent us, you mentioned that RPR is simple. Can you give me an example? Sure, I was messing around in RPR last night… and I started looking into Opportunity Zones. As I started, these little prompts came up and I was able to follow along with the pink boxes. So helpful! It's a wizard/teacher to help and guide you. It helps me not waste time! Every time you get on RPR you learn something new, and the more you use it, the more knowledge you get for your clients. Q. You also mentioned the RPR app; how do you like using it? I love it. Whoever came up with it should teach other programmers how to create user friendly tech. I use it in the field all the time, because I can easily pull stuff up. I can instantly send reports and answers to my customers. I have the tech in my hands and it works every time. Tech that works makes me a huge RPR advocate! Q. We love hearing that! What else did you get from the training? Basically, I felt refreshed about navigating the comps and it gave me more confidence. I now tell other agents that I can't believe they're not using RPR. It's a whole different level of experience in real estate. Josh Taylor Josh Taylor from Howard Hanna Pennsylvania had this to say about his Market Expert training series: I'm a newer agent and still learning and growing everyday. I have really enjoyed this series as an introduction to getting more in-depth with RPR. I have used the research pieces and some of the reports already, but I have many new ideas now. I have learned how to drill down in a much better and more efficient way. I love the micro-neighborhood reports to really have that access to learning about even the smaller neighborhoods in my area. RPR helps me to present my expertise and show clients the knowledge base that I have access to in order to show my value add for them. Thank you for this learning opportunity and I look forward to learning more! Q. How long have you been practicing real estate Josh, and what area do you work in? Just over a year and a half, and I work in residential. Q. How did you get introduced to RPR? I had used it on my own a bit, and I was getting monthly emails about the training and webinars from my brokerage, NAR, etc. But I must admit, this Market Expert series was more of an incentive, the certificate was appealing. As a new agent I need help learning CMAs and RPR helps with that in a lot of ways. Q. You mentioned new ideas for using RPR, how are you doing that? So many! I didn't know about mailing labels, or how to search neighborhoods and subdivisions for specific owners. It's great for direct mailings and new listings. Drilling down into neighborhoods and uncovering the demographics, that stuff is really helpful. I like using the neighborhood search and the neighborhood reports. And the maps are great for prospecting. I've used that a few times since the training took place. Q. How does RPR help you in your business? I like that the CMA has different ways to achieve the goal to get the right pricing. Some info is outdated and you can add updates to the home using the Refine Value tool. That gives me a framework to the price, and then I can pull up really specific values and features, like a pool. The flexibility is controlled, and I get more accurate results using RPR than just my MLS. The other thing I really like is when you print something from RPR, the branding and the cleanliness of the report is important. And that it looks like it comes from me! Having my picture and my information in the reports makes it well branded. To view the original article, visit the RPR blog.

Realtor Sees RPR Commercial as a 'Game Changer' Based on the Size of His Market
This month's installment of RPR's (Realtors Property Resource) Success Stories welcomes Dave Ferro. Dave is the Managing Broker and Vice President of Watson Realty Corp in Gainesville, Florida. Dave is a REALTOR®, a practicing commercial practitioner, and an investment real estate specialist. He's also been active in leadership roles, including being the past President of the Gainesville Alachua County Association of REALTORS®, and the past District Vice President of Florida REALTORS®. He is currently the Florida REALTORS® Commercial Alliance Committee Council Chair. This latest role is how we heard his story. The RPR Member Experience team recently attended (via Zoom) one of those Florida REALTORS® Commercial Alliance Committee meetings and heard some eye-opening tidbits about RPR from Mr. Ferro. When it came to discussing using RPR Commercial as a resource, he said, "RPR reports really 'wow' my clients. I see RPR as a game changer based on the size of my market." Speaking to him about using RPR in his commercial business seemed like a no-brainer! Here's our Q&A with Dave Ferro... Q. How long have you been a REALTOR®? And what area do you specialize in? I've been a REALTOR® since 2004. I'm a broker and manage an office, but I also do deals myself, both commercial and residential. Q. How were you introduced to RPR? I'd heard about it, but I wasn't exactly aware of what it could do for me, as far as my commercial needs. But then I found out that RPR had collaborated with and was receiving listing info from CREXi and other listing sites. That access really got me to pay attention. For me, I use RPR to see stuff in the market. Not just MLS stuff, but everything. The commercial members of our board wanted better exposure nationally, and they were paying for third party services. I advocated for our users to use RPR and integrate with RPR. I said, "Let's keep our commercial guys happy and adopt RPR. It's free!" I also run three offices that are residential, and they all use RPR, too. The reports are really impressing all the sellers that we work with. Q. How are the reports doing that exactly? Well, in our offices, we really support, nurture and encourage old school farming. We like to canvas an area or neighborhood, do a quick intro, and then provide some info for the homeowner. The leave-behind we hand them is an RPR Seller's Report. They just make us look so smart! They're beautifully packaged and it looks like you spent a ton of time on them–but you really don't. It's a huge time saver and gives us a bunch of credibility. They're especially great for newcomers and really make the practitioner look brilliant! Q. What are some of your go-to features or tools? I use the property reports a lot. For a listing appointment, I come in with the property report, I personalize it, and it gives them something to chew on and read. It's a great leave-behind. And when it comes to property valuations and that type of thing, I usually know the number in my head because I know my local area so well. But when I present this data as backup to show I know what I'm doing, it's proof! The reports show I'm informed and I'm credible. All of it makes me look professional: "Here's info you may not have seen." I have to admit, sometimes commercial guys don't always put together the best presentation packages. We just don't have the time. And most smaller mom and pops don't always have that ability either. But RPR Commercial gives you that quality. It's very useful to small and mid size shops, that's for sure. Q. Does RPR relieve any commercial pain points for you? Search! RPR Commercial allows me to do a quick and dirty report for listing appointments. Sometimes it goes like this: I get a call and someone says, "I want to sell my building. Can you swing by this afternoon?" So now the pressure is on me and I don't have a lot of time. That's when RPR comes through. It shortens the amount of prep time I need. When there's zero time for a fancy presentation, I can create a report on the fly. And I come off as relatable and informed. I do them on my desktop in the office right before I head over. Then I bind them, show up and present them to the potential client. It makes for a really impressive deliverable. Q. How do you use RPR in regards to the current market? Where do you find yourself most when you're on the site these days? Again, it's searching for properties and listings. RPR really simplifies my search. We have a lot of partners, all these websites, and it just takes up a lot of time. I go to RPR Commercial to save time and simplify. That perfectly sums it up for me. I don't have to go to each individual's website for listing info. RPR Commercial gives me a head start. I can see all my properties and deals in one location. It's such a great place to search, every commercial agent should try it. Q. Knowing what you know now about RPR, how would you have integrated it into your workflow back when you were running a small commercial brokerage? I would probably base all my decisions on what I get from RPR. It would've saved me a lot of time back then. If I had to go back, I would've pushed for RPR sooner in my market. I'd go to the board and explain that the flexibility to go from these other sites to RPR is unreal. There's just too many benefits to not utilize it. Q. Any good RPR "wow" stories? I have some customers who are really analytical types and they just love the reports. It's perfect for people who are data driven. They love it. Detailed folks, it gives them so much to chew on, it really satisfies their need to back up a decision with data. That certainly "wows" them and appeals to their personality. Detailed property data "wows" is something we always like to hear! Great insight Dave, and thanks for sharing. RPR Commercial: big, small and everything in between As you can tell, RPR can help commercial practitioners in so many different ways. Whether it's searching over 800,000 listings, researching over 56 million properties, creating property reports for presentations or tapping into site selection and trade area tools, RPR can help you and help your business grow. Try it today at RPR or sign up for this free webinar to learn more and see RPR Commercial in action. To view the original article, visit the RPR blog.

DeHoff Realtors: When Opportunity Knocks
It started with an opportunity. And perhaps, just a hint of hope. Hope that purchasing a small real estate company in Northeast Ohio was the right choice. Hope that the venture would succeed. Hope that all the work would turn into something wonderful. Turns out, all that hope was well placed. More than 50 years after Ardis DeHoff decided to buy what would become DeHoff REALTORS®, the North Canton-based company continues to thrive. "[She] decided that this'll be fun, let's try it," President Linda DeHoff says of her mother-in-law's initial decision. "Then my father-in-law, who was with the Hoover Company for many, many years, decided that choosing between Hoover and his wife, no problem. So, he joined her, and the two of them built the company. We were so blessed to have the right foundation." At DeHoff REALTORS®, that foundation has rested on the principles of uncompromising ethics with a dedication to serving every client, customer, employee, and sales professional the company interacts with. This is a local, family business, yes — and it likely always will be, but there is more to DeHoff than its name. There is always the next opportunity, the next chance to provide exemplary service, and it's the drive to seize both that has defined the company for generations. "The brand, the name, has been built, is known, is respected, and it works," says Dave Maltese, General Sales Manager. "It's who we are. What we do, how we do it, and how we're connected to our community so much, it works because it is local. We think local, but still are global in our outreach." "[CEO] Robert DeHoff uses that quote a lot," Technology Coordinator Ty Colucci adds. "Live locally, think globally, and I'd say that's on point with our brand." Setting a Foundation Quality is key when it comes to DeHoff REALTORS®. Whether it's maintaining the company website, designing the FOR SALE signs that sit on lawns across the greater Canton area, or even deciding how to bring new agents into the fold, the dedication to quality is persistent. In fact, it's right there in the company's mission statement: "To provide high quality, ethical service to you, our customers, and clients that exceeds their expectations." Building a brand and a company-wide culture is never easy. Changing with the times is a prerequisite for success — especially in an industry as constantly evolving as real estate. What might have worked in the early 60s wasn't feasible in the 80s and is little more than memory now. But what doesn't change, at least for DeHoff REALTORS®, is that commitment to quality service, striking a balance between a local real estate office and big-scope business. And while the line can be a fine one to walk, DeHoff has managed to, all while maintaining a focus on the inherent humanity of the real estate industry. Because, at its core, real estate is about people. "Can a big corporation have the core values of a small family company? Yes," Linda DeHoff says. "They don't have to be different. If we think about them, they're the same. It's just the mechanics of it all." "It's in the DNA of who we are," Maltese adds. "Our core values have been around since the start. We haven't strayed from those. We're always looking to do the right thing, be involved in the community, and encourage our agents to be involved. It's about doing the right thing." Finding agents who mesh with that DNA has made all the difference for DeHoff REALTORS®. As Linda DeHoff explains, "this is not a headcount company." And, of course, it always comes back to quality. "We look at quality characteristics, and I think because of who we are and our reputation in the community, we attract those types of people, and it's a nice blend," Maltese says. "We're a large company, but yet still a family company." Part of DeHoff's family feeling comes in the form of training — the kind that Colucci says is "constantly evolving." "We are always reviewing our training, talking about our training, if we're fitting the needs of our agents," he adds. "And so, that training process is constantly evolving with the industry." Much like DeHoff itself — striking that blend of family and far-reaching — the company's training is a well-balanced mix. New agents can shadow those more experienced, getting a hands-on look at the ins and outs of the markets DeHoff serves and how best to interact with clients. By the same token, more experienced agents, those who didn't start their careers with technology as it is now, may get some tips and tricks from DeHoff's burgeoning real estate stars. "We provide a lot of different levels [of training]," Maltese says. "Which is also the way the consumer likes to receive it. We have consumers that are going to want to see a piece of paper and sit down and talk, and then we're going to have the other spectrum where it's like, can you email me that, and I'll sign it electronically, I'll get it back to you, and I don't need to see you today. So, we as a company try and deliver those same services to our agents so that they can, in turn, do it to the consumer." From the Ground Up Ardis DeHoff used to have something of a motto; one Linda recalls she would share with her quite often. She'd say, "Linda, don't worry. You get the car and worry about the garage later." What did that mean, exactly? It meant that concerning yourself with where to put your new car wasn't the most pressing issue. First, you had to get the actual car. The same held true for real estate and, in the case of DeHoff REALTORS®, growing that real estate business. Since first opening its doors in 1962, DeHoff has embraced growth and change in stride, but the key to successful growth came from a natural progression. Much like the company's beginnings — needing a new owner before Ardis purchased it — DeHoff's view on growth is a mix of organic and opportunistic. "Growth, oftentimes, comes not just organically, but from a need," Linda DeHoff says. "Somebody will come to us and say, 'There's a couple of people that want a certain product here that we are not delivering yet,' and that's almost how we grow. By people coming to us and saying we need this or need that. Obviously, we're looking out for opportunities too." From its beginnings with only a handful of agents and a brand-new name, DeHoff REALTORS® has grown with, as Maltese details it, "quality in mind," adding that "we've adapted along the way to market factors." In addition to buying and selling residential homes and consistently bringing in new agents, DeHoff has also developed 20-plus residential neighborhoods, plus apartments, and shopping centers, while offering multiple real estate services, including buying, leasing, and investing. Offering so many services to so many people not only allows DeHoff to become a one-stop-shop for clients' real estate needs but cements the company's reputation as a partner and presence in the community. For years, the DeHoff name has been synonymous with the Northeast Ohio real estate world, and that's only become more obvious with DeHoff Developments. Currently, the development division has about half a dozen people who work on commercial and residential projects. As part of those residential projects, DeHoff has literally been on the ground floor of single-family houses, condos, villas, apartment complexes, and assisted and independent living centers. Working on these projects offers DeHoff the opportunity to be part of the communities and neighborhoods from the very start. Same goes for the commercial side of the division; these buildings will become businesses that all those people in all those homes will visit. And for as much as it's been a natural part of DeHoff's growth to venture into development — including over 3,000 acres of land in Stark County the company developed for neighborhoods — it isn't an opportunity taken lightly. There's a certain responsibility that comes with building; one DeHoff is more than willing to shoulder. "I give the DeHoffs a lot of credit because they give thought to their developments: sidewalks, street trees, street lighting," Maltese says. "You go through a development that's ours, it has a look and a feel, and they, over the years, have looked at what characteristics people like. It almost goes back to, well, we're not just building a development, we want something that we can be proud of that is going to serve the community well, and it's going to be here a long time." DeHoff developments also add to the Northeast Ohio community in a way that some may not expect — with job development. Someone has to build those buildings, after all. "Even in the residential realm, it creates jobs," Colucci says. "Then when you get into industrial parks, and they're putting up these buildings, they can say, 'Well, listen, this is going to bring 600 jobs to the area. This is going to bring 900 jobs to the area.' So, I think that goes back to the community deal, and it's cool to be part of job creation in the local market." Building Together Those metaphorical people who come up with clichés say that home is where the heart is. For DeHoff REALTORS®, the cliché might be true. Home is where the heart of the company is, and that home is a 20,000 square foot corporate center in North Canton, Ohio. Built about 20 years ago, the office came from a need for a centralized space, one that allowed everyone associated with DeHoff to work side by side, building relationships, and that all-important company -wide culture. Executive offices are few and far between here, and if they do exist, their doors are often made of glass. Open floor plans create a sense of community as soon as someone crosses the office threshold. "When this [space] was developed, we did a little research and found that salespeople, in general, tend to be social," Linda DeHoff explains. "We developed that. And you'd never know necessarily the number one agent by where that person is positioned. "We did a lot of observation, and we have four rooms that are for conference centers. And one of them has an attached children's room," she continues, "so this room is attached with all kinds of things to play. The other rooms were developed in other styles. And the lobby was designed so that everyone is welcome. Agents see each other by means of the design. We wanted it to be friendly. It's developed by style and not production." The DeHoff office provides plenty of what Colucci calls "congregation areas," making it easy for anyone to sit down, start a discussion and form some sort of plan. What that plan centers around is constantly changing, but the most important part is that it's being talked about and worked on together. "This is not an 'I'm going to come in here and sit down at my desk, and I don't want to talk to anybody' place," Colucci says. "Part of the magic here is that we all can communicate. We all hang out together and talk business, and I think the development of this building allows us to do that." With so much going on, DeHoff's office allows the company to keep everything on track. Clients can be brought in to detail their real estate transactions, agents can work as a collective unit, and the DeHoff leadership team is only a few steps away. "Linda, Robert, and President Dan [DeHoff] are all in here every day, so if you have something that you need to go to them with, they're here," Maltese says. "It's not like we have a hundred offices, and Linda's here once a month, and we've got to wait for her to reply, so it certainly has a family atmosphere." The office is also another way DeHoff can give back. Opening the corporate center to the public simply made sense, with two conference rooms that area non-profits use as often as three to four times a week. And it's not just organizations using the space, either — one of DeHoff's agents recently hosted his family's Thanksgiving meal there. A Pillar in the Community For decades and multiple generations, the DeHoff family and the business that bears its name have become synonymous with Northeast Ohio and the communities that make up the area. Service, as far as the DeHoffs are concerned, is simply another facet of the real estate industry. To some extent, it's the company's invisible partner, and the company has long made good on that partnership. "We've said meaningfully that the career is an excuse to do what we're supposed to do anyhow," Linda DeHoff explains. "In many ways, certainly financial, [the career] helps us keep these lights on, but we're compensated in other ways, as well. By friendship, by support, by seeing that the family's happy, if it's a client in retail, that they're successful. "It's not an obligation; it's an opportunity," she continues. "We feel an opportunity to support those who helped us become who we are." DeHoff agents and leadership team have lived up to that mindset for years. A survey of those agents found that over 90% were involved in not-for-profits, either participating by giving of their time or money. As a company, DeHoff REALTORS® also regularly works with the United Way of Greater Stark County and Arts In Stark, which uses the arts to inspire local children, create new jobs, and establish healthier communities. "We've been successful raising funds for the United Way through our agents and staff," Colucci says. "As long as I've been here, 100% of [DeHoff has] given something to the United Way." In addition to Arts In Stark, DeHoff's corporate center is home to its own art gallery, showcasing the works of Lowell Ellsworth Smith. The 50 or so original paintings showcase the greater North Canton area going back almost a century, providing a window into the area's history. No matter how DeHoff is giving back, the crux is that the company is giving back. Service has always been part of the company's very fabric, and that isn't about to change anytime soon. "We care about people, and it starts there because we can teach [agents] how to sell real estate, we can teach them how to do certain things, but you can't teach people to care," Maltese says. "And if you have your heart in the right place, things are going to evolve in the right direction." Tandem Tech: DeHoff & Delta Media Group® Live locally, but think globally has been DeHoff REALTORS'® unofficial rallying cry for years. It's also one that Delta Media Group shares. And that's what ensured the duo's technology partnership has worked so well for over a decade. "Delta has continued to expand their services with the real estate community," Maltese says. "They're real estate focused, and we're real estate focused. It started with a website many years ago, and then they've added client follow-up and call services and showings and everything else. They're progressive, and we feel we're progressive, and that has blended well." Together DeHoff and Delta Media Group have paired up on the company's website, providing detailed information on everything DeHoff offers prospective and current clients. The DeltaNET® 6 CRM also provides DeHoff agents a simple, user-friendly way to organize and maintain all the information that goes into a successful real estate career. And with Delta's regular updates, DeHoff REALTORS® is confident the technology it's using is as good as can be. "We get the updates in our emails from [Director of Partner Success] Harley [Wolfarth]," Colucci says. "And occasionally I'll call [Dave] like, 'Do you see that new thing that they put in there?' So, I think one of the key things for us is that they're constantly evolving and upping their game." Growing with the technological times is more a necessity than anything else these days, but DeHoff, as usual, takes the twists and turns in stride — especially when it comes to social media. With a diverse group of agents, there's plenty of know-how to share, and that's led to plenty of success. "It's formed this unique partnership [between agents]," Maltese details. "On the surface, way back five years ago, it seemed like, well, that may not work, but then it does, and we embrace it, and we figure out how to leverage it to grow our business and service." Taking the Next Step Looking to the future of DeHoff REALTORS®, there is no specific plan. No blueprint for what comes next. After nearly 60 years in business, the best way to prepare for what comes next is simply to embrace it. Because, at its core, DeHoff is a people-focused business, and while anything else may change, that certainly won't. "It's about relationships, absolutely," Linda DeHoff says. "But maybe all businesses, if they meet their potential, are relationship businesses." In the end, it's not about the money. Not really. Or the business cards handed out. Or the social media interactions. It's about providing something for someone to call their own — a home, a business, whatever the case may be. It's about building, sometimes from the ground up, and giving dreams a bit of a shape with the four walls around them. "We had a campaign once, called buying a home is like falling in love, and it is," Linda DeHoff says. "There's a lot of parallels that go with that, and no one, I bet, has ever looked back and said, 'Oh, I had such a big family room!' That's not what it's about. It's not the mortar but the neighborhood. It's the memories. It's all the other things that go along with it." To view past Real Estate Marketing and Technology articles and read more from the February 2022 issue, click here. To view the original article, visit the Delta Media Group blog.

Technology: The Cutting-Edge
It was about 35 years ago when Jeff Pust was a young man, newly married and starting a career in real estate, working on mortgages and appraisals. He transitioned into sales, and 15 years ago, along with his wife, took over Van Dorm Realty from his in-laws. Today, the Olympia, Washington-based firm has over 120 agents and has remained an independent brokerage. "We're a large independent, which is rather unique," says broker/owner Pust. "The way we provide tools for our brokers is also unique for an independent, as we invest a great deal in technology. We are recruited heavily by franchises, but we have all the tools they have." That's where Constellation1 comes into play. Van Dorm Realty utilizes the software tech company for its CRM, websites, marketing services and back-office management. "We became a Constellation client when they acquired a tech firm we worked with a number of years ago. Since then, they have morphed into Constellation1. We have stayed with them the whole time and found success working with them," Pust says. "They have grown from providing our website to CRM and all types of other contact management systems they have, and now we're working in their accounting module." In 2021, the firm became a Constellation1 Commissions customer, which helped integrate all of Van Dorm Realty's back office tools and have them work together. The firm even used it with a different provider's transaction management platform, and it worked perfectly. It's just another way Constellation1 partners with its customers to provide what's best for the brokerage. "The reason we went with Constellation1 Commissions is to simplify our bookkeeping," Pust says. "We have this transaction management system, and we needed a way to link that information to our accounting system, making us more efficient and providing more tools to our brokers in a way they can track their income, and perhaps set goals for themselves." Still in its infancy launch stage, Pust notes that so far, it's doing exactly what he hoped, and he foresees it saving the firm a tremendous amount of time. The firm has about 25 brokers who use Paradym by Constellation1, a digital marketing tool, to help them with their social media platforms. The tool assists those who aren't as adept at the process of managing a social presence, which has been a big plus for those taking advantage of it. Another reason Van Dorm Realty has stayed with Constellation1 for so long is because of its commitment to providing the best service possible. "We've always been able to call them and talk about what we're seeing with our competition and ask if they can make it happen for us. And they've always been able to find a way to accommodate our requests," Pust says. "We have a lot of tech firms up here in the Northwest, especially in real estate, and Constellation1 has been able to keep up with the cutting-edge changes, keeping us cutting-edge as well." With more than three decades in the business, Pust has seen real estate transition from brokers coming into the office to working from anywhere, a change made more impactful by the pandemic. For that reason, innovative technology has been a big part of the firm's strategy. "Our mission along the way has been, 'How do we provide systems where brokers can get that same level of service and attention and not have to come into the office but stay just as efficient?' Constellation1 has been a great partner in helping that transition be a success. They help me be competitive in the tech part of the business," says Pust. To view the original article, visit the Constellation1 blog.

Ushering in a New Era of Real Estate in New York
Work hard, play hard, and give back. Simple and straight to the point, the words, and the meaning behind them, have served as a guidepost for Coldwell Banker American Homes' company-wide culture -- particularly this year. Because before this year, Coldwell Banker American Homes didn't exist. At least not in its current form. Following two and a half decades of success in the Century 21 system, as Century 21 American Homes, co-brokers and owners Michael Litzner and Thomas Gallagher, in April, announced the acquisition of Coldwell Banker Realty, a residential brokerage in New York owned and operated by Realogy. Suddenly, two of the top 10 companies in one of the nation's most competitive markets, Long Island and the New York metro area, were one. Coldwell Banker American Homes was born, and with it came plenty of changes. More than just the name. Agent totals nearly doubled, with more offices across Queens, Kings, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties, giving Coldwell Banker American Homes more opportunities than ever to provide clients with the best real estate experience possible. "We took two of the top companies and put them together, which is no small feat," Litzner says. "We went from 650 agents to [over 1,100] agents in 24 locations overnight. And here we are, learning and growing and continuing our path in real estate." Through all the headline-making changes, not one of their agents lost sight of the end goal or the simple words defining the company. And it's that mindset that's continuing to inspire the entire Coldwell Banker American Homes family as it settles into its new name and new position in New York real estate. Because culture is still culture, no matter what the name on the office door is. Even when there are two dozen offices. "We have a fantastic leadership team, and I think they do a fantastic job of extending those values into the local offices and bringing them down to the agents, the admins, the support staff," Litzner says. "So it's in every fiber of the company. It's okay to have fun while working; as long as you're not so busy having fun, you take your eye off the ball. The work hard always comes first, so we have a culture of hardworking people." Joining Forces The opportunity to merge two of the most prominent real estate names on Long Island only comes once a certain amount of work has been completed. Decades worth, really. In this case, Coldwell Banker American Homes began when an 18-year-old Litzner started taking classes to obtain his real estate license and, in 1983, began his career at a small independent company in East Meadow, New York. A short train ride from midtown Manhattan, East Meadow is still suburbia through and through, but it was more than enough for Litzner to get his real estate feet wet. Fast forward a year and a half, and Gallagher joined the company. As time went on, it became clear that the company's owner was looking to retire, and it didn't take long for suggestions to come regarding what should happen next. "One of the guys said, 'Why don't [you and Gallagher] buy the office?'" Litzner recalls. "That's how it started. We bought the first office in East Meadow, New York. I was 23. And we were learning the business, and we were pretty good producers, still growing into our roles and were now office owners." From there, the partners continued to hit their stride, buying a second office that Litzner calls "the big pivot" in their careers. "As we continued to find our legs and work our way through," Litzner says, "we started to generate a certain level of activity that caught the attention of a lot of the brands." One of those brands was Century 21. At the time, the company had been part of "a loose affiliation of brokers under this banner called Home America," but the chance to join their two offices under the Century 21 name was simply too good to pass up. With the move came a new name, Century 21 American Homes, and all the tools provided by a nationally recognized brand. "We got a lot of support and insight, many friends and fellow brokers that we've networked with over the years," Litzner says. "When you join a brand, you can have access to its branding tools. It could be technology; it could be training; it's numerous things, especially over the years. It's a matter of taking the best pieces of what they offer you and applying them to your company." With 10 offices and more than 650 affiliated independent sales professionals, Century 21 American Homes had grown into a dominant presence over its 25 years, but, once again, an opportunity presented itself that simply could not be ignored. Bringing together Century 21 American Homes and Coldwell Banker Realty made sense, a significant move not only on Long Island and the surrounding New York areas, but across the country. Combined, the two companies boasted 5,096 transactions and $2.7 billion in sales in 2020. Now, with two impressive names combined, Coldwell Banker American Homes is on the precipice of unparalleled success, with agents and a leadership team who are determined to stay at the top of their game. From October of last year to the end of this September, a 12-month span, the numbers were an astounding 5,975 sides and $3.5 billion. As of this printing, the 2021 year to date is $2.6 billion and 4,330 sales. "It's critical to have trust, loyalty, committed professionals as part of the whole team," Litzner says. "And we've exhibited or enjoyed the loyalty and commitment of many long-standing professionals in our company. I think two of our agents, or two of our management leadership team, have been with Tom and me for over 30 years now. That's a big part of it." Knowledge Is Power If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. That's what they say about New York, after all. One of the world's most competitive and constantly evolving real estate markets, New York and its surrounding areas present a distinct challenge for sales associates and the companies they work under. The same holds for Coldwell Banker American Homes. To find success in a market like New York, the key is to use every tool at your disposal. Training at Coldwell Banker American Homes begins by making sure agents understand what their job entails. It's not just about helping a client buy a house. It's about helping a client find a home they love, about finding a foundation, both literal and metaphorical, on which they can build the rest of their lives. "We talk extensively about our tools, system, and support," Litzner says. "I need agents to be the most productive, with the most professional reputation. We often say the easy business for an agent to convert is the referral business, and referrals happen by design, not by accident. So again, part of our core value is it's a service industry." No matter where an agent is working, from the most competitive markets to small towns across the country, real estate has always been a deceptively human industry. Sure, there's plenty of money to be made. Properties to be bought and sold, too. But, at its core, real estate is an opportunity for people to help people. To be a partner in one of the biggest moments of their lives, and for Coldwell Banker American Homes, it's that opportunity that continues to be the driving force in everything the company does. "It's not about trying to sell [clients] something they don't want," Litzner explains. "It's about understanding what's important to them, and help them wade through the choices in the marketplace, and help them find the house that best meets their needs. "It's a rewarding business in many ways, economically, but also emotionally," Litzner continues. "When you're helping people, and you see the excitement when they buy their home or the relief when they sell a property. When you see that come to fruition, closings happen, and it's rewarding on many levels." Of course, there's more to Coldwell Banker American Homes than simply ensuring everyone's operating with the same mindset. That's where Coldwell Banker American Homes' comprehensive training program comes in. With support at all levels for both new and experienced agents, the company covers everything from the fundamentals of a career in real estate to deep dives into technology offerings and the ins and outs of the market. Coldwell Banker American Homes provides agents with marketing and technology-driven productivity tools, including those offered by Delta Media Group®, as well as professional mortgage and title services. No agent is left on an island to understand those tools, either. Support comes from the management and leadership team, assisting agents every step of the way as they find their niche. So, whether an associate wants to pursue residential or commercial sales, leasing, business brokerage, property management, branch management, new homes sales, or relocation, the opportunity to tailor their career to their interests is there. "The goal that we have for all of our tools, systems, and support, including our training, is to give our agents the highest rate of return on their investment, which is their time," says Chief Technology Officer and Associate Broker Chris Manteria. "That's their biggest investment at the end of the day. I don't care how much money you put into this business; you can't generate more time. You can generate more money. You can't generate more time." And training doesn't end with those initial instructions. Coldwell Banker American Homes' Educational Program offers multiple classes, allowing agents even more chances to learn and fine-tune their approach in the real estate world. From Agent Success, a weekly 2-hour module for both newly licensed and experienced associates, to commercial training and coaching, agents never have to worry there isn't an answer to whatever questions they may have. Soaring to Success, a 10-session program written by national real estate coach and speaker Debra J. Asher, now a member of Coldwell Banker American Homes' leadership team, is also a top-rated course and one that's relevant to agents with every sort of background and success level. "As an experienced agent, I took it after being in the business already [for many] years," Manteria says, "and I was able to capture a lot of different pieces of the puzzle that I had missed before, or it changed my thought process on how I presented information to my customers and clients, which allowed me to have a higher rate of return." In addition to company-wide training offerings, managers also do trainings in their specific offices. It's that sort of unique training that cements Coldwell Banker American Homes' support and allows agents to interact one-on-one with those they work closest with. "There is a very personal touch, a high touch in all of our offices," Manteria says. "Every single one has a full-time non-compete manager, who takes the agents by their hands and walks them through the process. No matter what level they're at, whether they're a brand-new agent, experienced agent that needs to get to that next level, or the top agent that comes in or has been with our company for a long time, that just needs support. Those managers are there for them. I truly believe that our leadership team is top-notch." Litzner echoes the sentiment, adding that it's the ability to connect with agents that makes training all the more impactful. Providing that specialized focus, taking the time to truly understand what agents want out of their careers — that can make all the difference. "Where the rubber meets the road is on application," Litzner says. "So, by having centralized training, we can control the messaging, the information, the flow of information to our agents in scale. It's having those high-level professionals in our office work with those agents, saying, 'What did you learn? How are you going to use that in your business?' That's phenomenal." Success in a New York Minute Ask any person what they imagine when they picture New York City, and the odds are pretty good that you'll hear conjured images of Times Square. Flashing lights and yellow cabs, bumper to bumper traffic, and sidewalks covered in pedestrians and tourists. And that's true; Times Square does look like that. But that's far from all New York and its surrounding areas are. With so many different characteristics to define so many different boroughs and neighborhoods, every area Coldwell Banker American Homes serves presents its own distinct opportunities and challenges. In Brooklyn, clients may be looking for brownstones, or condos and co-ops, while Queens generally runs a bit more residential and rent-prone. Then, take a drive out on Long Island, and depending on what town or village you stop in, you'll find distinctly different real estate markets. Nassau County is full of suburban living, but keep going east out the Long Island Expressway, and you'll quickly find farms, vineyards, and the beaches of the Hamptons. "We have such a diverse marketplace," Litzner says, adding that the acquisition has only increased that scope. "We've acquired offices in some of the highest-priced, global luxury markets. So we have this North Shore/South Shore dynamic now that we didn't have prior. We also have unique markets. Like we have the leading REO guy on Long Island as part of the company. "We also have probably the top rental person," Litzner continues. "We have relationships with management companies that we control thousands of units of rentals and represent them in that end of the market." Learning what works and what doesn't in any given micro-market is crucial to an agent's success. Each area comes with its own idiosyncrasies, both good and bad. Understanding what clients expect and want when searching for a real estate partner in Brooklyn won't always be the same as someone in Suffolk County. Coldwell Banker American Homes' associates understand that, and thanks to the training they receive as soon as they join the company, as well as the individualized and hyper-focused information from their specific offices, those same associates have proven time and time again they're ready for the challenge. Then, of course, there is also Coldwell Banker American Homes' Commercial Division. What Litzner calls "a very different discipline," from working in residential real estate, the Commercial Division operates under Coldwell Banker Commercial AMH as "a separately licensed office with separate tools and systems." And while the Commercial Division adds another bullet point on the list of everything Coldwell Banker American Homes offers, it's also another chance for the company's agents to truly specialize their careers. Ultimately, no matter what an agent decides to do or where they decide to do it, Litzner says two defining factors will determine someone's success: Personality and passion. "They hold true in every single market," Litzner says. "Having the right commitment to professionalism. Do they attend training classes? Do they learn the tools and systems? When you partner with companies and vendors like Delta Media, who support us with their suite of websites, company, office, agents, the CRM at the center of their Open House App. It doesn't matter which one of those markets you're in; the fundamentals hold." Making a Difference in the Community Since first deciding to partner together, Litzner and Gallagher have made it a priority to provide every opportunity for anyone looking to begin their careers in real estate. With the Recruiting America's Heroes initiative, that also includes United States veterans. "It's about helping provide benefits to America's heroes," Litzner details. "That's the people that have served our country, and so it's about helping them transition back into a life and explore career opportunities and essentially the entry-level to a real estate career." Getting into real estate can sometimes be seen as an easy career move, but Litzner is the first to point out that there are a handful of steps that can quickly become obstacles. Thanks to the Recruiting America's Heroes program, however, those obstacles are a bit less intimidating for those who have previously served, ensuring veterans have a structured plan for the next phase of their lives. Complimentary continuing education courses are offered, as well as first-year registration for the Global Conference, a multi-day event that brings together some of the top Coldwell Banker names from around the globe, in addition to discounts on pre-licensing and new agent materials. "The concept was a way to thank the service members who are transitioning back, to try to reach out and offer them the ability to transition into a new career," Litzner says. "And they say that discipline, the service-minded mentality that service members have, translates well into the real estate business." Recruiting America's Heroes is just one instance of Coldwell Banker American Homes' core values in action. Work hard, play hard, give back. Those were never hollow words and, over the years, the company has made sure to place a clear emphasis on the last two in particular. "We've always been a service-minded company," Litzner says. "My business partner and I have been in our local Chamber of Commerce [for years]. We're very, very involved in the Kiwanis organization, a non-denominational charitable organization." Through their past affiliation with Century 21, the company frequently donated to Easterseals, a charity focused on responding to the needs of people with disabilities, their families, and communities, with a variety of services. Coldwell Banker also fostered a strong relationship with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Giving back has long been one of the fundamental building blocks of the company that is now Coldwell Banker American Homes. Still, although Litzner says it's fantastic to work with national charities, the company's presence across Long Island and in the New York metro area makes it ideally suited to give back at home. Because Coldwell Banker American Homes helped thousands of people buy those homes. So, about four years ago, the Heart of American Homes Foundation was formed through a collaboration of like-minded individuals, both agents and brokers, who were working under the Century 21 American Homes umbrella at the time. "[The charity] is fully housed within our offices," Litzner says. "There are no paid employees, and a hundred percent of the money that we raise in that organization goes back into our local communities." The Heart of American Homes Foundation continues to host multiple fundraisers throughout the year, all with a specific hometown focus. For example, lottery fundraisers are held, as is the annual Night at the Races, and company-matched donations whenever an agent contributes a certain amount from their closed transactions. This year alone, Litzner says, Coldwell Banker American Homes has matched agents with $50,000 in donations to various causes — all as a result of closing transactions. Deciding which causes to highlight and how to give back is also a true company-wide effort. Each Coldwell Banker American Homes office elects an agent or office member to sit on the Heart of American Homes Foundation board of directors, so, as Litzner explains, "they all have ownership in it." Each member of the board has taken that ownership to heart with different programs and causes supported each year. Not every initiative has to be a $50,000 donation, either. Sometimes it can be as simple as putting in handicapped ramps or as impactful as helping people afford life-saving medication and assisting with funeral costs. So long as it benefits the community — the same one Coldwell Banker American Homes has helped so many find a home in — the company wants to ensure it happens. "It's had a profound effect on the agents and the culture of the offices," Litzner says, "because one hundred percent of that money goes back, and they see it. It's something that I'm proud to be part of. I believe every member of the American Homes family shares that sentiment." Coldwell Banker American Homes still regularly donates to those national causes, of course, but being active and present in the communities the company services, in the neighborhoods that, although so strikingly different from one end of Long Island to the other, are home to so many clients, is something that cannot be overstated. Nor can the impact this mindset has had. "The agents, since this has started, have entirely changed their engagement," Manteria says. "They've increased their engagement tremendously because [they] do want to give back to their communities. When we have fundraisers, we'll have a couple of hundred people at a fundraiser, and 90% of them are from our company." The Next Step in Technology Bringing in hundreds of new agents and combining the long-term successes of two dominant real estate companies may have become official seemingly overnight, but the path leading to the creation of Coldwell Banker American Homes was a much longer one than some may assume. "Realistically, we've been on this path for about a year and a half," Litzner says. "Something of this magnitude, you don't just wake up and say, 'I think I'll buy a billion and a half dollar sales company in the morning.' We took a long, hard look at our company, where we were, what we were doing, how we were doing it, where we wanted to go, and said, 'What's our vision for our company in 10 years?'" While preparing for the future, Litzner says the company that would eventually become Coldwell Banker American Homes also realized it needed a technological facelift. Calling their previous platform "outdated," Litzner adds that the tech "didn't communicate well; everything was separated. And we said, 'You know what, this is not good enough. We can do better.'" So, much like preparing for its headline-making acquisition, the company took all the necessary steps to find the perfect tech fit. Researching multiple platforms and vendors, Litzner says certain factors were "non-negotiable, and Delta Media Group® was one of them that checked every one of those boxes." Still, nothing was decided on immediately. Instead, a committee was formed, including Litzner and Manteria, and about 15 demos were held between a handful of companies to ensure that every aspect of the platform was worth the effort to implement, integrate and ensure adoption with the company's agents; what would be all 1,000-plus. Because, as Litzner put it: "If you do all this and the agents don't use it, what's the difference?" Luckily, Delta Media Group continued to stand out throughout the process, a platform that wasn't only an excellent fit for the company when it was still Century 21 American Homes but one that would be there every step of the way through this next stage. Combining companies is as challenging as it is exciting, and with Delta Media Group in its corner, Coldwell Banker American Homes knew it had a tech partner in the truest sense of the word, one that would operate within the framework of the company and assist, rather than hinder, throughout the hectic nature of the last year. "Since we've implemented our relationship, [Delta has] continued to work with us on further integrations," Litzner says. "We've laid out a wishlist, our roadmap, and Delta's at the center of it. Delta has been a partner that's developed their product to play nice, to communicate well with all the other technologies we're able to bring in. So we've been able to develop our own technology that works for us." Delta worked with Coldwell Banker American Homes to function with its Just Engage Today (JET) Platform, a company-provided turn-key productivity platform meant to propel agents directly into a profitable real estate career. With all of Delta's best features directly at their fingertips, agents have tech tools that are undeniably real-estate focused, something that hasn't always been the case. "One of the things that I've often found myself saying is that in the past, we knew technology would come in, but a lot of the technology came in, and it didn't work the way we work," Litzner says. "What we feel we've been able to do for the first time, through this transition, is get the technology to work intuitively and follow the natural transaction pattern that an agent goes to when generating a customer or client to converting that client, to signing up contracts to mortgage, title, closing. Delta has been a great partner." Ease of use has been a major factor in Delta and Coldwell Banker American Homes' partnership over the last year or so. Often, Manteria says, multiple agents work with the same client, and Delta allows them to do that without "any sort of cross-contamination." "[It doesn't lock] out the agent from being able to work with [clients]," Manteria adds, "and the open architecture, the ability for us to bolt on other technologies into it and have data transferred back and forth using APIs made a lot of sense." With so many agents operating in so many different markets working on so many different transactions, DeltaNET® 6's one-stop-shop format has also proved crucial. Instead of bouncing between X or Y to do multiple tasks, Delta has integrated almost everything an agent needs in a singular spot, allowing them to focus on the task, not the technology. "Let's be honest, our agents are good at selling real estate," Manteria says. "They shouldn't be worried about being technology experts. It's not their job. And Delta is the closest technology out there that lets our agents use their natural workflow and allows us to integrate multiple tools to work together." Manteria also commends Delta for its willingness to work with Coldwell Banker American Homes. If the company wants something new, Delta does its best to make it happen, a trait that isn't always true of other tech providers. "The reality is, we needed a partner in this and [Delta has] been a great partner," says Manteria, who also serves on Delta's Coldwell Banker advisory committee. "I can't tell you how many times I call [Product Development Manager] Harley [Wolfarth]. [Vice President of Sales] Franklin [Stoffer] hears from me all the time, looking at how we can make Delta better because the better you become, the better we become, the better it is for us. So the fact that [Delta] looks at this as a partnership, as opposed to a vendor-client relationship, that alone sets it apart." What's on the Horizon This has been a year of change for Coldwell Banker American Homes. Of embracing new and building on a reputation that was already impressive. It is also a jumping-off point for what comes next. With sights set on the future, Coldwell Banker American Homes has no plans of slowing down. How can it when the company is so firmly entrenched in the markets it serves? Listing Concierge, a new program that allows agents to access new marketing tools and professional photography for their listings, is already underway. Lessons learned during COVID-19 won't soon be forgotten, as agents took their marketing and engagement games to the next level even from a distance. In fact, throughout the pandemic and 2021, the shift to virtual has been a success, particularly when it came to things like training. Manteria credits Coldwell Banker American Homes' local leadership for keeping the company on track recently, "because many of them were quasi-comfortable with some of the technology going into COVID, but they stepped up, and they embraced the technology, and once they did, they were able to get that extra engagement from their agents." Having a manager for every office location provided personalized leadership and assistance that has become the norm for Coldwell Banker American Homes at a time when nothing was truly normal. Whether it was changing franchises or contending with an international health pandemic, every single person with Coldwell Banker American Homes on their business card was still able to work with confidence, thanks to the support they received. "We have engagement with a leadership team that cares about their agents," Manteria says. "And at the end of the day, everybody agrees that giving our agents what they need is what this comes down to. Having that support that you won't get in other companies, having that training, having that company culture, where we give back to all of our local communities." Getting the best of both worlds can sometimes seem like an impossibility when combining companies, but Coldwell Banker American Homes has made it a reality: Providing agents with the sort of professional home that inspires growth, backed by decades of experience with leaders who embrace the company culture every single day. And that won't change any time soon. "We are taking the best and picking and choosing and bringing it into the new ecosystem," Litzner says. "So I think our opportunity is to improve our company and transform it into something that is best in class. I'm excited about where we are and our opportunity to go forward. I think we hit it out of the park. And honestly, if I do say so myself, I'm excited about what the next 10 years bring." To view past Real Estate Marketing and Technology articles and read more from the December 2021 issue, click here. RE Technology readers can try the technology mentioned in this article, DeltaNET 6, FREE for 30 days. To view the original article, visit the Delta Media Group blog.

Q4 Concerns? Get in Front of the Real Estate Market and Don't Chase It
Chaotic markets leave many agents stuck in reaction mode, but that's not how Q4 real estate success is achieved. How can you shake that and prepare yourself to seize opportunity in Q4 and future-proof your pipeline? We've honed in on the top four things that win in today's market, and tomorrow's--and $500 million agent, Mary Simmons-Maloney, the Founder/Owner of Hometown Realty, powered by eXp in San Diego, is weighing in with her wise words too. Maximize the Client AND Agent Experience Always deliver with an unparalleled website experience, a branded consumer app to keep prospects searching and interacting with your brand, and make sure your team is equipped with the tools to deliver effortless white-glove service. "When we brought BoomTown into our organization for our agents, it was about having a centralized, easy-to-use system," says Mary. "The consumer interface is so easy for our agents to use. It's not overcomplicated, it's not over-cumbersome. It's super easy to use. And that was very important for us at the time, to be able to have a way for our agents to track their leads, for us to be able to hold them accountable, and then, at the same time, to have a system that allowed us to track and measure our spending." Lean into Your Lead Generation for Q4 Real Estate Success While so many are scaling back on their ad spend and lead generation efforts, now is the time for savvy agents to lean into their lead generation efforts, build that database, and prepare for the market to shift. Because it will shift. Consumers are being discouraged from buying right now since it's the "height of the market," but they will return, and you need to have the tech and the teams in place to make sure you're ready to seize opportunity. "A lot of agents are pulling back on their online buyer acquisition spend, but we doubled ours because we're in this for the long game," says Mary. "We look at the relational side of the business, not just the transactional side. And when you're in it for the long game, the market is going to shift. So, if you're front-loading your database with the client, that will be ahead of the next market shift. When the market does shift, you're going to have amazing business." Cut Through the Noise and Stay Top-of-mind News reports are a constant reminder that the field is crowded and competition is fierce. Smart tech and customizable marketing can cut through the digital noise, differentiate you from the competition, and build trust Arm yourself with customizable tools like: Landing pages to promo new and featured properties, "Coming Soon" properties, home valuation report generators, new-buyer seminars, you-name-it! Automated drip campaigns to send the right message at the right time, and keep you top-of-mind A branded consumer app to keep prospects searching and interacting with your brand An ad-creation portal that makes customized social media advertising a breeze Consumers want to work with a brand that they feel like they know, so make sure you have the tools to make it easy to compete, stay relevant, and grow your business. Prioritize Your Time Everyone has reached a new level of busy, and this will probably continue. You can't add more hours to your day, but you can certainly streamline your workload and make your time management more effective. Mary's no-fail routine centers around BoomTown. Predictive insights, reminders, and to-dos to keep you on top. Automated bulk marketing plus expert teams can offload the heavy-lifting of qualifying new leads and engaging your database. "My favorite feature is the NOW Wall. It allows us to monitor our leads and make sure that we're not missing anyone. If they're showing interest, calculating a mortgage or coming back to the site after being just a 'browsing' type of lead, we know we need to follow up." Make Real Estate Success Easy in Q4 It's time for the system that gives you an edge and the tools to keep you on top. See how BoomTown makes it easy. To view the original article, visit the BoomTown blog.

How One Chattanooga Brokerage Tripled Their Business in 2 Years
In real estate, two things are true. (1) The industry can change at lightning speed and (2) delivering incredible customer service is absolutely critical. A modern real estate business needs to evolve and adapt fluidly without ever losing sight of that premium customer experience. Doug Edrington, CEO at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices J Douglas Properties, does those two things incredibly well. He stays ahead of the curve, anticipating and embracing change while staying laser-focused on the client. Evolving with Technology "If you continue to evolve with the technology that is handed to you, seeing it as an opportunity instead of a headache, you're going to stay ahead of the curve," says Doug. Doug partnered with BoomTown to function as the central technology hub of his business. In addition to lead generation, the predictive CRM and lead follow-up capabilities allowed Doug's team to stay consistent with their lead communication and sales flow. The hidden value in a database comes from the wealth of leads that convert over time. They're entered in the system, and over time through smart, automated touches, leads that you generated six months or five years ago will start to pop back up and convert. "Implementing BoomTown opened our eyes to really see all the possibilities," says Doug. "BoomTown has all the tools you need to nurture your leads to get them where they need to be: ready to talk to you." A good leader knows that it's critical to get their team trained properly on a system. Adoption is necessary to use a tool to its fullest potential. And Doug Edrington works hard to provide value to his agents. BoomTown was a natural fit, being easy-to-use, intuitive, and designed to make agents successful. "Every single team member embraced the BoomTown system very quickly. We soon realized how much we wished we had it a long time ago. It just made a lot of sense. I think we would go crazy if we ever lost it." Good Leadership Means Focusing on Relationships We know the classic adage in real estate: Clients work with people they know, like, and trust. And Doug has built his business around living up to those expectations. Real estate home buyers and sellers want someone to solve their problems and rise to the occasion. For Doug, that means setting up his agents for success with the right training, processes, culture, and technology systems. "We can't forget the basics, we still continue to do all the foundational things. But we also understand that one person cannot do this business by themselves anymore. It has to be a team. BoomTown gives us the tools to gain the advantage of all the people surrounding us that make us successful." When you are scaling a real estate business, you need to deliver excellent service at a high volume. That's a lot of touchpoints and a lot of opportunities to drop the ball if you're not careful. With BoomTown's predictive CRM and lead insights, he can assure that leads in the system are being engaged with the right information at the right time. Quality and quantity. Accountability Wins the Race A high-functioning team can only thrive with strong accountability measures in place. Even for the most diligent of self-motivators, some type of accountability will not only make sure they're accomplishing their goals, but it will push them even further and make your business more profitable. Even with powerful technology, a tool is only as good as the one who wields it. Doug relies on BoomTown's To-Dos, follow-up and nurture plans, and accountability dashboard to keep his team productive. "BoomTown has been a really great platform for us all around. From a team leader perspective, the Dashboards have given us a whole new level of accountability." With insights from the Accountability Dashboard, Doug can make sure his team is engaging with the right leads at the right time. He also knows when there's room for improvement and how to work with the agent to help them succeed. Triple Your Business BoomTown clients have a tendency to triple their business in the first five years working on the platform. Once again, Doug is ahead of the curve, tripling his business in just two years. The best part is that the system is designed to grow with you. So as Doug's team expands and his agents take on higher and higher volume, Boomtown grows alongside him to fit his evolving needs. "We've evolved quite a bit from when we first started our business in 2004," says Doug. "The market has changed a lot as Chattanooga exploded from a small town into a bustling city hub. As the city continues to grow, customer needs will also change. It's important to adapt and evolve with the market in order to efficiently meet your client's shifting needs." Innovation is no longer a technology buzzword but a critical component of a thriving real estate team. Consistently rising to the demands of modern real estate consumers and adapting to better serve his unique team structure is why Doug trusts BoomTown to power his business. To view the original article, visit the BoomTown blog.

BHHS Towne Realty: Savvy Social Media Marketing
In today's digital age, brokerages that aren't harnessing the power of social media are getting left behind. Learn how BHHS Towne Realty partnered with Constellation1 to upgrade their online presence and create a social media marketing team 400 agents strong. Making social pay dividends for brokerages Real estate marketing has undergone a monumental shift from paper to digital. Today, the majority of homebuyers begin their property searches online and are active social media users. If your listings aren't being heavily marketed online, the gap in your strategy is likely costing you leads and affecting your bottom line. Typically, 65% of an agent's new business comes from their sphere of influence, but only one in ten agents is marketing to that sphere effectively. The solution? Social media marketing. A cohesive social media strategy is a must for brokerages, but creating one from scratch or optimizing an underperforming one can seem daunting (especially for those who aren't great with computers). With the right tools, social media marketing can actually be effortless. In our newest customer story, BHHS Towne Realty talks about how they automated their social media marketing with Paradym by Constellation1. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Towne Realty is the leading local real estate brokerage in resale and luxury sales in Southeastern Virginia, with 17 offices and 400 agents. They have been offering premier real estate services to Virginians for more than 35 years. "It worked so well we decided to make it available to the entire brokerage, about 400 agents," says Rolston S. Audain Jr., Marketing & Luxury Collection Director, BHHS Towne Realty. After testing Paradym by Constellation1, a fully automated, multi-pronged, and multi-network digital marketing suite, with their 50 top luxury agents, the team was hooked. "It worked so well we decided to make it available to the entire brokerage, about 400 agents," said Rolston S. Audain Jr., Marketing & Luxury Collection Director at BHHS Towne Realty. "Paradym's social media marketing solution lets us post consistently every single day, and all the posts are solid," he went on. "My philosophy is to give our agents the best tools, then get out of their way. Treating our agents like internal customers is the driving mission behind what we do," says Barbara Wolcott, Chairman and CEO of BHHS Towne Realty. A powerful agent retention tool Management decided to make the full suite a brokerage-paid benefit for all agents. "My philosophy is to give our agents the best tools, then get out of their way," said Barbara Wolcott, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Towne Realty. "Treating our agents like internal customers is the driving mission behind what we do." With automated social media marketing, BHHS Towne Realty's team of agents can drive leads to their listings, market effectively to their entire sphere of influence, and give homebuyers what they want: a seamless online marketing experience. By taking digital marketing off agents' plates, BHHS Towne Realty found an easy, cost-effective way to support the entire team. Read more about how BHHS Towne Realty has harnessed Paradym by Constellation1 to level up their social game and turn 400 agents into a coordinated posting team. To view the original article, visit the Constellation1 blog.

Getting Time Back, with Tech
Caitlyn Mulligan, Team Leader of RE/MAX Revolution, values one thing above all else: time. She knows that all too often in real estate, agents get swept up into the chaos and end up spinning their wheels without making much progress. It's why there's such a high turnover rate for new agents. And after overcoming a major health event in her personal life, she gained even more clarity and determination to build a business that would allow her to live the life she wants (and deserves). But she is determined to accomplish two things: Be financially successful. Have time to enjoy her life. And she's balancing it all with BoomTown. Dollar Productivity You hear a lot about productivity, but what does it mean to be "dollar productive"? It means focusing on activities that are the best for your bottom line. By focusing on the dollar productive activities, you can avoid spending time on things that don't bring much value to you or your business and instead invest your time and effort where it is needed most. "My routine has totally changed. I actually have MORE time to myself because I'm not doing the tedious tasks." Caitlyn didn't get into real estate to send email alerts or hand-build marketing campaigns from scratch. She got into real estate because she wanted to help people find their dream home.So, she sought out the technology that would allow her to focus on just that. Operation Delegate and Automate With BoomTown, Caitlyn was able to automate: eAlerts, sending properties to leads based on their search criteria Long-term lead nurture through Smart Drip Campaigns Pipeline management Lead qualification and concierge services with Success Assurance Powerful Database of Leads + Easy-to-Use CRM In real estate, agents and brokers often plateau a few years in. At that point, what separates the average agents from the top producers is building a framework for your business that allows you to passively generate, qualify, and nurture leads. As your database grows, the pool of leads that have been nurtured over time grows as well. The consistent pipeline becomes the gift that keeps on giving. For Caitlyn, having a database of organized leads is something she can't live without. "I'm generating new business and I can easily reach everyone in my database. It's all on my phone – the instant someone registers." Predictive lead insights are what make conversions skyrocket and keep agents productive. Don't know the next step? Don't worry, BoomTown does. The system will tell you exactly where to focus, what leads are hot right now, and exactly when to reach out. Or, better yet, BoomTown's lead concierge service will reach out for you, 24/7, in as little as 90 seconds. This assures that your leads are being engaged as soon as possible while allowing you to focus on other, more pressing tasks. (Remember when we mentioned dollar productivity?) Visibility into lead activity is what really changed the game for Caitlyn. "I love how I can see where my clients are looking and where they continue to look. I can see how many times they're looking at a property, which helps me gauge their interest or home styles." Beyond the lead generation and automation tools, Caitlyn appreciates the ease-of-use with BoomTown. After trying another, she experienced first-hand the stark contrast between the 12+ years of innovation behind BoomTown and other solutions that simply don't compete. "The other system? I hated it. I won't put my clients into it. The user face isn't as easy and I can't see where my leads are looking! I love my BoomTown features." Weighing the Value At the end of the day, it's all about getting value out of your system. Caitlyn wants to accomplish two things in real estate: be financially successful and have time to enjoy her life. Looking for a new real estate technology partner? Follow Caitlyn's lead and don't settle for less than the best. Consumer-facing websites designed to attract and convert leads Full-circle pipeline management Expert lead generation Lead qualification and concierge services Predictive CRM Success management and legendary support services An ecosystem of integration partners "If you're on the fence about BoomTown… do it. Don't let the cost scare you. It will 100% pay off if you use it!" Discover what's possible with BoomTown! Request a demo. To view the original article, visit the BoomTown blog.

Lamacchia Realty: Our pivot from portal leads to PPC and $1 billion in sales in 2020
In the summer of 2018, Anthony Lamacchia, nationally renowned speaker and CEO of Lamacchia Realty in Massachusetts, had decided that enough was enough. His main "big portal" lead provider had just informed him that not only were they going to significantly raise the price of leads, but they were also going to force him and his team to work those leads via the portal's own proprietary system. According to Lamacchia, "We had spent a lot of time and money developing our own CRM, so we weren't interested in being forced onto their system and the cost of the leads were just getting plain crazy!" But, since online leads comprised about a fifth of his business, he also admitted that dropping the portal leads was a "very difficult decision." The amazing news is that two years later, his business would generate over $1 billion in sales volume. Portal leads: A growing problem There are two facts critical to understanding the relationship between real estate businesses and the major publicly traded lead portals. The portals know they can produce very valuable leads. Every year, prices will go up as the agent's demand for these leads outpaces supply. This inevitable "market efficient" pricing strategy by the portals ultimately means that their real estate clients will eventually stop seeing large, profitable ROIs on their marketing spend. What agent wouldn't love a lead that picks up the phone and says, "Yes, please show me that XYZ home this afternoon." And because of this, real estate agents and teams got completely hooked on portal leads. In many cases, a portal lead provider could provide 100% of a real estate team's leads. But each year, the price of these leads has risen dramatically and many of those over-reliant companies have gotten squeezed out. Now we are at the end-game, where instead of "selling" leads to agents and teams, the major portals are now forcing them to fork over hefty "referral fees" — and only if the portal deems the agent or team worthy of receiving the leads. In most instances, the agents are "graded" by their follow-up efforts, and only those agents with the most pristine lead follow-up practices will continue to get "rewarded" with leads. Thus the portals have effectively disintermediated the agent by controlling the initial contact and connection with the consumer and, in effect, only asking the agent to help close the deal. As such, the portals can start taking hefty referral fees and getting a much larger share of the ancillary revenues like mortgage, insurance, moving, etc. Anthony Lamacchia has a national reputation for his ability to see what's coming: "We didn't like the fact that they were becoming a competitor. When it became clear to me that was going to happen, we completely pulled out." The Solution: Enter "Google Pay-Per-Click 2.0" Transitioning from a lead source can be difficult. After vetting the alternatives available to him, Lamacchia chose Ylopo, which generates leads through Facebook and Google Pay-Per-Click. Specifically, Ylopo's "Google PPC 2.0" lead generation technology was integral to Lamacchia Realty's transition away from the more "down funnel" portal leads. Lamacchia chose Ylopo because the platform could integrate with his company's current custom-built CRM solution on which he had spent a ton of time and money. Second, Ylopo generated leads that his agents could transition to very easily, that would actually convert at high rates, and which had the same "flavor" as the much more expensive leads that they had been accustomed to buying. Due to the much lower leads costs, he could, as he says, "feed a lot more mouths" for the same cost and provide 10 to 20 times the number of leads that he was buying before with the portals. "I also loved the fact that every dollar that I spent with Ylopo was going to advertise my own company's brand and not the brand of some big portal!" he said. Even more than the lead generation, Lamacchia came to really love Ylopo's proprietary lead follow-up digital marketing technology. It includes dynamic remarketing, which he calls the best tool he's seen for online leads, branded video advertising across social media, and an artificial intelligence based texting chatbot assistant called Raiya. As Lamacchia details, "The follow-up technology is specifically designed to convert leads based on a ton of intelligence about exactly what the consumer wants to do and is highly automated in the manner in which it triggers a key follow-up event. Between Ylopo's agent Priority Alerts and the automated RaiYa text conversations, our agents can save a ton of time by being able to focus on the highest priority and most likely to transact opportunities." While the transition was certainly not without stress, Anthony Lamacchia feels more confident in his business than ever before. Not only is Lamacchia Realty highly diversified in its lead sources and digital marketing technology, but the company is now much less dependent on the whims of these large portals and much less exposed to their sudden changes in their pricing and potentially competing business models. Lamacchia quips, "I've never slept better and the future has never been brighter!"

Drawing Clients in with a More Immersive Experience
Founded by Bill Lawton--productivity coach and Keller Williams Mega Achievement Productivity Systems (MAPS) coach--and his mother, Karen Lawton, The Lawton Team has been in the real estate industry since 1998. With over 22 years of relationship building, the Lawton Team has helped countless members of the community buy and sell homes. Over these years, The Lawton Team has proven nimble in implementing innovative new practices, having started the business when "there was no internet" to now using Matterport to market properties and strengthen its customer experience. By bringing prospective clients to properties virtually with 3D tours, the team has been able to win even more listings, increase traffic to those listings and garner higher engagement with clients. With this success, Bill and his brother started TLT 3D, a 3D tour photography and drone service company, to capture properties with Matterport and share the advantage of 3D tours with other real estate professionals. We met with Bill to dive into how creating an immersive customer experience has helped his business over the years; 3D tours almost act as an "information resource" with all the details in one place. Matterport 3D tours allow anyone to explore a home and put themselves in the space. Bill found that they were incredibly useful for eliminating unnecessary in-person visits to the home. "What Matterport does so well is it gives people an opportunity to actually put themselves in the house. It's a really unique experience...It gives them an opportunity to look at the house from every angle and do it from the comfort of their own home. It's a 24-hour open house," said Bill. Real estate has been, and always will be, a relationship business. Thanks to Matterport, The Lawton Team has increased the length of their client interaction by 10 minutes—from four minutes to 14 minutes—because they use their 3D tours to connect with its customers and enhance their experience. To view the original article, visit the Matterport blog.

Commercial Market Chat with Deena Zimmerman
With many businesses shutting down and workplaces realizing that their employees can easily work from home, it seems that commercial real estate will most likely look quite a bit different moving forward. Even with these not-so-hopeful indicators, there are some silver linings and positive signs on the horizon...

Premier Listings Broker Owner Jordana Tobel Shares Her COVID-19 Growth Story
RE Technology is constantly on the lookout for inspiring stories about businesses that have performed remarkably well in extreme circumstances by leveraging technology in the best possible way. Thanks to a tip from CINC, one of the leading technology platforms for top performing agents and teams, RE Technology had a chance to connect with Jordana Tobel, broker owner of Premier Listings with an office of 50 agents in Delray Beach, Florida. Her transactions span the southeast Florida seaboard from Port St. Lucie down to Miami Beach. In Jordana's early years, she focused on the REO market and worked with Carrington Real Estate before starting her firm in 2015. Her business model is based on an idea she cultivated while at Carrington: providing value to her team members in a way that impacts their bottom line—in the form of actual buyer and seller leads. Through resources like CINC, Jordana can provide her agents as many as 50 leads per month while implementing a unique accountability program and a culture conducive to productivity. With any goal, you're going to perform better when you're held accountable by someone who cares. Jordana's model keeps agents on track using tactics such as call minimums, a scrolling leaderboard, and other policies. From 2017 to 2019, the company experienced a 33% annual growth each year. Premier Listings' growth from 2017 to 2018 was 33%; and again, coincidentally, from 2018 to 2019, the same growth, 33%. Out of the gates, 2020 was going strong and Jordana was on track to hit her GCI goal of $2 million when the world changed. In Florida, real estate was declared an essential business. But, operating as an essential business was fluid. Often the information about showing conduct was changing daily. Jordana rose to the occasion by staying connected to her team using regular Zoom meetings, recording YouTube videos, and continuously communicating with her agents. She began emailing agents to share information, engage team members, and ensure their mental health, all while doctoring deals and maintaining the agility to keep everyone on track. (Many of these videos and meetings are available on the company's YouTube channel). Of the myriad challenges faced by agents, one of particular interest was the lack of inventory coupled with a belief, by buyers, that real estate must be on sale since the stock market was in the tank. In reality, low inventory and high demand are driving multiple offers in the $500,000 to $700,000 price range with many homes trading at prices over the list price. Premier Listings carries about 50 listings at a time and that saw a little dip in this number during March and April. Although the company missed Jordana's projections in April and May, things were quickly back on track in June, and July is looking like an $8 million month, which will be a company record. Jordana's brilliant strategy not only carried her company, but created the opportunity for growth through a pandemic. RE Technology learned from Jamie Quenzer, VP of Marketing at CINC, that companies who maintained or even doubled-down on lead generation and digital advertising budgets in Q2 saw enormous returns. Cost per lead for Premier Listings, and others, actually dove down 47%, as many firms put their lead generation budgets on hold. This also provided an abundance of opportunity to set the stage for a fantastic rebound. At Premier Listings, Jordana Tobel has some key observations about her lead funnel. Her goal is to find a middle ground where 50% of company transactions come from agent relationships, and 50% comes from broker generated leads. For Jordana, that sets a lead generation goal of 500 to 800 leads per month so that she can guarantee at least 40 leads for each member of her lead team. She writes the check, CINC delivers high-quality leads. For agents not on the lead team, production comes from client engagement. Premier Listings has been able to keep up their transaction pace by enabling agents through constant communications, ongoing training, and many, many, many live webinars that help agents maximize the opportunity in using their CINC platform. The biggest bottleneck in the funnel has been challenges related to buyers not being able to look at homes due to travel restrictions or buyers competing against multiple offers. Premier Listings has been a client of CINC since 2016. Over the years of lead generation, they have developed a pond database of more than 17,000 leads. In 2019, at the CINC Summit in Orlando, Jordana and her team were able to sit side by side with other CINC clients to learn best practices, tips, and strategies for conversion. She and her team have also developed friendships with other brokers and agents that create a steady flow of inspiring new business development tactics. These friendships carry on though the private CINC Owners Mastermind group on Facebook. Whenever Jordana needs new ideas, she jumps on Facebook with a question and gets a wealth of responses from likeminded business owners who share a technology platform and the same commitment to success. It's the support of this community of other CINC broker owners, along with the hard work of her team members, that have yielded top results, even during difficult times. Jordana is 100% committed to CINC and advocates strongly on their behalf. Feel free to reach out to her directly to learn more about her experience (*or to join her team, as she is always hiring). As a small business owner, rather than employ her own tech support, Jordana is able to utilize CINC's support line to field technical questions from her agents. In addition to a support line, email, and dedicated account manager, CINC provides a constant source of training opportunities such as live webinars, recorded webinars, as well as 1 to 3 day events throughout the country. This enables broker owners like Jordana to focus on growth, while CINC trains and supports her team. From a certain perspective, life can happen to you or for you. In Jordana's case with Premier Listings, hard work, dedication, and access to the right technology gave her a competitive edge in a crisis that resulted in record growth. With a new investment division in the works and an upcoming 3-Day Training Event exclusively for Premier Listings agents, there's no doubt that you'll hear more from Jordana and the Premier Listings team in South Florida.

Success Story: Brokerage Leader Forgoes Franchise Tech in Favor of "Most Effective Tool I've Ever Used"
Here's a conundrum that many brokerages face: What do you do when your firm uses a technology solution that works great for your needs… but then your franchise rolls out a similar product? Do you stick with your tried-and-true platform or switch to the franchise solution? That's the situation that recently confronted Jimmy Burgess, an executive at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Beach Properties of Florida. As his firm's Chief Growth Officer, his number one priority is to empower 170+ agents. When his franchise debuted their new products, his brokerage had been using BoomTown to manage their client relationships and lead generation needs. But rather than seeing the two tech options as competing products, Burgess looked at the situation as one that could only benefit his agents. "I don't see it as taking the place of BoomTown at all. I think it actually gives our agents options," he says. "Our job is to put our agents in the best position possible. As a company, we're adding as much value as we can with the best technology that's out there outside of the brand. Our job is really just to provide them with the tools to be able to do their jobs more effectively. So in reality, I dont think it's an 'either/or'… I think it's an 'and.'" Lead Strategies that Get Results Though the franchise technology diversified the options available to the agents of BHHS Beach Properties of Florida, BoomTown was the option that netted results for the firm. This, in part, is because of Burgess' hands-on approach. On a daily basis, he carves out time to help his agents hone their marketing campaigns and maximize the tools to discover opportunities. "Any way that we can speed up our processes, then that's a tool that I want to have in my arsenal." For Burgess, success boils down to two main concepts. Number one? Acting quickly on hot opportunities. BoomTown helps them do just that. "It tells us if somebody calculated the mortgage. It tells us if someone has emailed that certain place to their spouse. I mean, it tells us if they've gone and seen a place seven times from four different devices. It literally gives us the ability to know who's hot when they're hot." Burgess' second strategy is to nurture and engage leads who are further out in the process. The results speak for themselves. Last year, for example, one of his agents closed 12 deals through BoomTown. Nine out of 12 of those leads had come through the system over a year and a half earlier. BoomTown's automated marketing and drip campaigns kept them engaged and nurtured them until they were ready to act. Playing the long game is important not just for nurturing prospects, but for getting the most out of their investment in BoomTown. "We're just starting to see almost like a snowball effect. The longer we use the product, the more we use the product, the better the product gets for us. There's no doubt it's made a huge difference. And to me, it's the most effective tool that I've ever used in real estate." Watch this product tour to learn how BoomTown can become your partner in success. Can't decide which BoomTown product is right for you? Compare packages.

77 Year-old Brokerage Has Modern Approach to Lead Generation
Talk about longevity: founded in 1943, Keefe Real Estate has been selling real estate in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois for over three-quarters of a century. One of the keys to their success? They know how to adapt--and that's just what they did with their lead generation program. But as any brokerage manager will tell you, not all agents are willing to adapt and change at the same pace. Some agents already have their own lead generation programs in place, while others would need to be held accountable on lead follow-up in a new system. So Keefe Real Estate teamed up with realtor.com, which manages accountability for real estate firms and distributes leads in an unbiased manner. Tom Keefe, President and CEO of Keefe Real Estate, shares how they introduced this program into their firm, its track record of success so far, and how it's helped their most motivated agents close on millions of dollars per year. You have definitely been in it for the long run. What's changing at the company now that half of all homebuyers are finding the home they ultimately purchase online? We're in our 77th year now. The whole culture has been more referrals and more traditional marketing to build business. Some of our agents would invest in purchasing and working leads, but it was really an individual thing. We had been talking about doing more leads, but we had a lot of concerns about our ability to successfully manage the accountability side of it with follow-up. What made you decide to go with the realtor.com lead system? We had been talking about doing something, and we liked realtor.com and what we heard about the lead development aspect of their program. It takes on the management of leads and demands accountability from agents. It is performance-driven and unbiased in how leads are distributed. We've been successful for a long time and didn't want to completely throw out what we were doing, but we wanted to add this into our business. Change is sometimes difficult in an industry dominated by independent contractors. How did you weigh the risks and benefits? When we decided to go for this, we started out with a test. Now we have the results for about nine months. The program "self selected" a group of agents who are showing proficiency and success. They love the results and we've extended the contract for another year. We also like the benefits of changing the culture a little bit within the company and that also benefits the agents. Typically when a program goes well in a brokerage, that gives some lift to recruiting and retention. Has this been the case? We haven't really focused on the recruiting side of it so much because we wanted to make sure we were going to be on the program long enough that if we recruited someone, we could ensure they would have it. But recently, we brought on an agent from a different company who has taken to the realtor.com lead program very quickly. She said in the months that she's been at our company, she's gotten more leads than she had received in two years at her previous brokerage. As far as retention goes, when the agents succeed there is a retention benefit that has been positive for us as a brokerage. As examples: One agent will end up closing two or three million dollars this year through just the realtor.com lead program. I think that's what he would normally close in a year on his own, so for him it's really transformed his business. I think his first deal was $800,000 and he closed on it. He loves the program. Every time I talk to him about it, he just raves about it. He is someone who is definitely taking his business to the next level. There's another guy in our Illinois office who is a brand new agent in a second career. We did not know how this would work out for someone learning a new business from scratch, but he is one of the top three to five agents on the program. He could potentially be struggling without it as a newer agent. Now he can obviously convert and he is getting enough opportunities to develop really good closing skills. Is overall acceptance positive? How did you bring your agents along with you in this? Before we signed the contract, we called a special advisory meeting with about eight of our agents who have been with us for a while and vetted it through them. We got them in a room and talked through what we were going to do with referrals. We met with agents by going to all of our offices and presenting on it. Support people from realtor.com came out and we got as many people signed up as we could. In the first couple of months, we monitored it closely and called people consistently to find out what was going on and shared what was working or needed adjusting. We seeded the program with enough engaged people to build success and gain momentum. It took a bit of involvement from our management in the first two or three months, but since then it more or less will run itself until a new person joins. We will do maybe two or three trainings a year just to keep it fresh and keep best practices going. So overall a success? We see more agents are going to move in the direction of engaging with the lead system than away from it. Some agents are great at going out and getting their own business and some agents are great at handling it when we provide it to them. That's what we like about the program and why we want to keep it and continue coaching our agents to be better at it. Learn more about lead generation opportunities with realtor.com here.

Long-term Relationship with Tech Partner Leads to Long-term Client Relationships for Florida Brokerage
The Holy Grail of real estate is maintaining long-term relationships with clients--and reaping referrals and repeat business from them over the years. But what about long-term relationships with your real estate technology partners? We talked about the value of a years-long relationship with broker Mike Larocque of LaRocque & Co., Realtors. He shared how his seven-year partnership with realtor.com has benefited his family-owned company. While the technology and consumer habits have changed, one thing has been consistent—realtor.com has been a steady source of quality leads for LaRocque & Co. for the better part of a decade. Read on to learn more about how this long-term relationship with realtor.com has helped this brokerage build long-term relationships with clients. Is the magic still there after seven years? Yes, it's true we've been using realtor.com leads for seven years now. There have been consistent quality leads and it still represents the lion's share of the business that we do at a company level. I've managed to expand into three counties and I've hired more agents. I'm in a growth spurt again at this time. I'm actively recruiting because I have so many leads that I need more agents to service them. I can only recommend it after seven years of a really profitable relationship with realtor.com. I'm a very happy broker. Do customers you met there back in the beginning come back as repeat and referral business, or do they just go back online? 100% of our goal has always been to get the best quality leads from realtor.com and set a relationship as a customer for life. We acquire their referrals and their repeat business, friends and family. It is very common that we're doing multiple transactions with individuals originally sourced from realtor.com. It's an exponential rate of return over time because you're not just doing one deal and done. You're doing multiple transactions with them over the years. Absolutely it's a big component of our business, as well as the repeat business from originally sourced realtor.com leads. Do they need a nudge to remember you if they do go online again? We are now using realtor.com®'s Local Expert(sm) for branding, knowing the importance of continuing to brand even to our past customers. We use this to catch them when they start looking at properties anew on realtor.com. The consumers are fickle and they want what they want when they want it. They don't oftentimes realize that we work in a contingency based environment, and so unless we consistently brand to them and remind them of who we are, they start looking at properties online or go to open houses and such and could wind up stepping foot across other brokerages and agents. Then it complicates our business model and our ability to get paid. Is this the only branding you do? I have no branding at a company level anywhere else. But Local Expert(sm) is giving me an opportunity to acquire some brand-new business. Because consider when the public hits "enter" to get more info about 123 Elm Street on realtor.com (or any site for that matter), they don't really realize who is going to be reaching out and contacting them. It's then that we need to set the hook and let them know who we are. With new customers, branding comes into play after our agents have contacted them and we need to stay top of mind. When they go back to realtor.com, and they do, they're going to start seeing our smiling faces on and also crossing their feed on social media. It's going to click and trigger their memory a little bit and it's a good use and deployment of branding. This is a neat tool and kind of a niche tool for us as a complement or sidebar to the tremendous amount of business we're doing from our realtor.com Connections Plus lead program. This is a nice little addition to that. Is this all focused on buyers? Actually what may be the most significant part of this is the "wow" factor under the auspices of acquiring listings. We can showcase how we can draw attention to a homeowner's property on realtor.com in a listing presentation for the purpose principally of acquiring that listing. The likelihood of actually acquiring a buyer using this tool is awesome. It certainly becomes a more powerful tool in your arsenal than posting things like open houses, for instance, because you'll never get the exposure doing that. I know a lot of agents whose whole business model is hosting open houses with little more than lawn signs. Well, pitch that to the curb using the tools as we just described. If you can showcase a listing across a user's feed on realtor.com, that's a powerful tool.

Success Story: San Diego Team Triples Their Transactions with Software Switch
We're back with the second entry in our "Success Story" series. This week: Scaling your business with the help of the right technology. The "right technology" is what made the difference for Kyle Whissel and his team. One year after changing software, the team nearly tripled their number of closed transactions. What caused the need for the tech change, and which platform did the Whissel Realty Group switch to? Read on to find out!

See the Real Estate Social Media Tool Contest Backed by Reality Capture
It's impossible to ignore. Today, people spend an average of 122 minutes each day viewing social media and real estate companies are taking notice. In fact, some companies are even creating their own platforms, designed for getting more use out of these social ones. Better Homes and Garden Real Estate (BHGRE) is one such company as they recently launched their own social tool that's integrated with their current intranet portal, "Greenhouse." It was a launch that featured a contest to encourage its use and offered a unique prize for creating unique content designed for making the most of the unique opportunities provided by social media.

Premier Sotheby's International Realty Partners with RPR to 'Connect' with New Recruits
Even the biggest of brokerages can use a little help when it comes to onboarding and training new agents. The team at Premier Sotheby's International Realty recognizes that RPR provides unique services, dedicated support and a user-friendly interface. That's why the Naples-based firm, with more than 1,100 agents in West to Central Florida and North Carolina, is utilizing the analytics and custom-branded reporting tools they're able to tap through RPR to elevate their own brand.

How One Brokerage Gets More Listings and Referrals with Online Branding
Robert Slack, LLC uses branded property portal and retargeted ads to attract clients, recruit agents, and win listing presentations. In this interview, Robert Slack, Founder and CEO, and Dan Walters, Partner and COO, share their secrets to online marketing success.

How One Real Estate Agency Is Increasing Engagements with Immersive Listings
It's an increasingly difficult task gaining client attention in today's digital landscape. Establishing differentiation with your brand and listings can now take place on many different levels. As a member of the Keller Williams Infinity Group, we at The Kite Team are always looking to find differentiation with innovative ways to improve our client's experience and create efficiencies for everyone throughout home search process. The real estate tech boom is changing the way we do businesses

The TRIBUS Case Study: RESO, Brokers and a Million New Voices
Membership among brokerages in the Real Estate Standards Organization – RESO – has exploded in recent years. With nearly 1 million agents now RESO members through their brokerages, we have a million new voices helping us further our mission to create and promote the adoption and utilization of standards that drive efficiency throughout the real estate industry. Recently, we collaborated with real estate brokerage technology provider and RESO member TRIBUS to better understand the practical value that standardized data can deliver to real estate brokerages. We also wanted dive deeper to understand better the vital role that broker technology partners perform in addressing many of the crucial challenges that brokerages face today. More importantly, we wanted to put a spotlight on our findings and share them broadly.

One Brokerage's Key to Success
Starting a real estate brokerage from scratch is no easy task--especially in one of Canada's biggest housing markets. It takes hard work, dedication, and resources. But that didn't stop Michelle Napieralski. As a Realtor in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada's largest metropolitan area, it didn't take long for Michelle's drive to kick in. She wanted more from the brokerage she was working at; she wanted to be able to grow as a team with her partner. So she and her partner started a brand-new brokerage—and before long, Manor Hill Realty was on its way.

A Boutique Brokerage's High-Tech Secrets for Beating the Competition
"Small, but mighty," is how broker/owner Erica Ramus describes her firm, Ramus Realty Group. The numbers back up her claim: with just seven agents, this rural Pennsylvania brokerage closes over 200 transactions each year. Though their team is small, Ramus Realty Group's productivity dwarfs that of their larger competitors. So how do they do it? That's what we wanted to find out when we sat down with Erica during a recent webinar. Here's an in-depth look at what we learned: High Productivity Means High Expectations One key to Ramus Realty Group's success lies in their hiring philosophy: "I don't want people who don't want to work," says Erica. And work Erica's agents will. Ramus Realty Group only hires full-time agents and has a minimum production level of 24 sides per year that each agent must meet. The bottom third of her agents meet the goal of 24 sides, while the top third complete a whopping 60-70 transaction sides per year. When hiring new agents, Erica screens for a willingness to try new technologies and to follow their system. "We believe in slow to hire, quick to fire," she says. Even if someone says the right things, if they do not start using their processes and technology immediately, Erica is quick to let them go. "I want someone to fit with how we roll, and we're high tech," she says. Erica also considers the cost of someone who doesn't fit their culture. "She's costing you not just the systems and the tools that you're paying for, but she's costing morale. When people see that other people are not pulling their own weight in the company, or are not buying into what everyone else is doing, it hurts everybody." Smart Tech for a Small, Mighty Firm For agents that are willing to work hard, Erica offers plenty of support to help them meet their production goals. As an early adopter of technology and "a geek at heart," Erica began blogging and using ActiveRain shortly after her office opened in 2007. As a result of over a decade of blogging and promoting her firm's website, the site has excellent SEO, or "Google juice," as Erica puts it. Because the site brings in tons of organic leads by itself, Erica doesn't have to pay for leads. Her agents can cherry-pick the hottest leads and incubate the rest. Erica was also an early adopter of online forms. When zipForm debuted, Erica worked as an agent for another brokerage that, she says, "was still doing paper and carbon." She paid to use zipForm herself because "I knew that was the technology of the future." Technology like that, she says, makes her brokerage faster, better and stronger. Erica offers zipForm and DocuSign Transaction Rooms to create an online transaction that's not only more efficient, but also more transparent to the consumer. Her company prides itself on combining this technology with live guidance to clients about key elements of the documents they've been sent. For Ramus Realty Group, DocuSign makes it easier to close deals faster and give consumers full transparency on the steps needed to complete a transaction. "Paper and carbon and meeting someone in a coffee is great, but it's also great if my buyer is two towns away and they want to put an offer in immediately. If we can not only send it over through zipForm, but then have them DocuSign it, that's win-win." So what's on Ramus Realty Group's tech shortlist? According to Erica, it's: zipForm and DocuSign Access to the MLS Marketing tools for creating collateral like flyers and ads Trello for checklists; each listing has a Trello board RE Technology.com Two virtual assistants "[Agents] want to know that they bring the listing in, they bring the buyer in, and we're going to do the rest so that they can get in the car and go do the next deal," Erica says. Ensuring Agent Adoption Because she invests in so much technology, how does Erica ensure that her agents actually use it? "I think it depends on how important the program is to the broker. So, for example, zipForm and DocuSign -- to me, that's a drop-dead. They have to use it. If they're not using it, they're not going to be in the office." Erica is more lenient on other things, like their online lead generation program. She can see when agents are logging in to the system and collecting leads. When they don't, the system cuts them off from receiving more leads. If that behavior doesn’t change after training and coaching, the agent is let go. The key to agent adoption for Ramus Realty Group begins with agent recruiting. Erica doesn't recruit agents who show a reticence to using technology systems and processes. That's not just about efficiency, she says. It's about how today's consumer wants to do things. Selecting New Technology Erica has some advice for brokers who struggle with evaluating the myriad new technologies that debut every year--think about comfort. Are your agents comfortable enough with the technology to use it daily? The program they will actually use is the best. Also, consider if the technology solves all of your pain points. If not, look at others. As for Erica, she limits her experimentation to the types of technologies that will help her agents the most and that they are willing to use: CRM, marketing tools, lead gen and online transaction processing. The Pennsylvania Association of REALTORS® provides zipForm as part of her membership, so it doesn't cost extra to provide it to her agents. Looking Ahead to Tomorrow's Tech When it comes to the technology of the future, Erica is intrigued by the promise of the blockchain. But "not necessarily for real estate sales," she says. Rather, it's the title and mortgage side of blockchain that she thinks could speed up transactions dramatically. "It could make our closings much faster if we don't have to worry about all these title issues and verifications because blockchain has enabled every step of the process." Want to hear more of Erica's thoughts on leading a tech-driven brokerage? Watch our webinar for the full-length interview. To learn more about building a technology platform for your brokerage, download this FREE guide from DocuSign.    

Bradley Real Estate Going after Listings with Effective eProspecting Campaign
Jason Lytz, Vice President at Bradley Real Estate, operates in Northern California, a market experiencing extremely tight inventory. He spent time with us to explain a new process their company is putting in place to engage potential home sellers. Jason explains Bradley's company-wide campaign to help their agents build relationships with potential sellers by arming them with detailed neighborhood data and teaching them ways to encourage homeowners to contact their agents if they are considering selling. Read the interview here:

Doubling Sales Volume Six Years in a Row -- By Following Up
From agent follow-up to leveraging the right tools, broker JP Piccinini, Founder and CEO of JP and Associates REALTORS, shares the secrets that have helped his firm double in size every year for six years. Check out the the interview below to learn more:

"How about now?" Broker's quick thinking leads to listing
Questions about the accuracy of real estate information is every RPR user's dream. It gives REALTORS®, like Neal Oates, Jr., a chance to shine. Neal, an independent broker/owner in the competitive south Florida market, is "that guy" in real estate. Taking to data like a duck takes to water, he capitalizes on what many small brokerages do to remain competitive in the information age––using the most reliable, accurate and cost-efficient resources to propel his business in the direction he wants it to go, while positioning his brokerage, World Renowned Real Estate, against larger, and more leveraged, national franchises. "In real estate, there's always something new and shiny that we have to pay for," says Neal, "but then we forget about the foundational things and the value of accurate info."

Case Study: Showing Service Delivers Key Ingredient in Broker Success
WAV Group has just published a case study examining specialized showing software. WAV Group works with real estate brokerages to assess back-end technology solutions. Real estate brokers have been working with specialized back-end showing software like Centralized Showing Service (CSS). This paper examines two very different customers of CSS.

How One Brokerage Cured their Weak Conversion Rate (and Brought Their ROI Back to Life)
When Pat McCandless and Chris Earl bought Stephens Real Estate in 2013, they became the instant owners of one of the top firms in their area. They knew, however, that the company could perform better. "Our reputation is excellent," says Pat McCandless. "But we did realize our support systems were out of date. In order for our agents to maintain our standards of service, we had to update those support and tech systems." One major underperformer was their online lead generation effort. Their ROI was weak, with leads converting at just half the industry rate. Obviously, something was wrong—but what? McCandless and Earl had to dig in deep to find out.

Client Engagement Leads to Early Buy-in
Glen Moss, a broker from Austin, Texas with more than a decade of success in the real estate industry, takes client engagement seriously. He believes securing an early buy-in from would-be homeowners gives them ownership of the process. And he uses the RPR app to do so. "As soon as my clients are in the car, I give one passenger my wifi enabled tablet and ask the other to use his or her smartphone," said Glen, who holds several leadership positions with the Austin Board of Realtors®. "One touch opens the wide world of RPR." Glen first directs his buyers to the app's map feature which is guided by the phone's GPS. He explains the color-coded icons ("for sale" or "recently sold," among others) and shows the client how to move the map around to reveal on-and-off market properties in surrounding areas. Frequently, a client will find a listing not included on their tour. Right there in the car, Glen will show his buyer how to pull up the property's characteristics, photos, taxes, history, and hundreds of other datasets. "They are simply amazed by what they see," he said.

Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Turns Buyers Into an Asset
About the Firm When outlining broker excellence, it is always helpful to begin by painting a picture of the company that is executing an effective strategy. There are many dimensions to operating a successful brokerage. Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International real estate finds its success by serving consumers along the North Shore of Long Island from Manhasset to the North Fork where they operate 25 offices to support about 850 agents. Real Trends ranks the firm 59th in the nation across all brokerages for volume, and fourth in America among Sotheby’s franchises. They are among the first brokerage firms in the nation to develop buyer data as an asset. We met with their CTO, CIO and CMO to understand their buyer as an asset strategy. Pursuit of Buyer Data as an Asset We interviewed Susan Poli, Chief Information Officer for Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty to learn about a new strategy that we are beginning to see brokers execute around making buyer data an asset of a brokerage. For Daniel Gale, data assets have long been understood in terms of listing data. “The management of a broker’s listing inventory continues to be a center of excellence for Daniel Gale,” says Poli. They have long understood the value of supply side management in real estate. Now they have branched out to improve the demand side of data asset management. They are moving beyond lead management into buyer asset management.

Lean, Mean Brokerage Machine: Technology Empowers Firm to Operate with Zero Debt
Cory Kammerdiener is a military veteran who applied the technical skills he honed as an Electronic Technician in the U.S. Navy to running a real estate brokerage with minimal overhead and no debt. He accomplishes this by operating his company, NewHomePrograms.com, virtually. The firm has 55 agents and eight brokers in six major cities across Texas and Florida. Rather than leasing physical offices and hiring staff in each of those places, Kammerdiener leans on technology to close transactions, engage his agents, and bring in new business. "If you look at any other real estate company that has offices in as many cities as we do, they probably have a broker, an office manager and someone answering the phones," says Kammerdiener. "But I'm pretty much a one-man operation. I'm the accountant and lead coordinator. I do payroll and transaction management. I'm literally filling in for probably 10 different people that a typical real estate company has to hire. I can do it all because of the software I use." Kammerdiener uses four programs, all integrated with each other, from Lone Wolf Real Estate Technologies to achieve this: brokerWOLF, for accounting needs like managing commission structures, tracking expenses and listing inventory, and real-time reporting. WOLFconnect, a virtual front office management system that helps agents working remotely stay connected to the brokerage. loadingDOCS, a document and transaction management platform. globalWOLF, a website solution that automatically syncs online leads to WOLFconnect's built-in CRM. "We first built the company with the idea that brokerWOLF and WOLFconnect were going to be the foundation," Kammerdiener says. "We wanted to be able to grow not only in our city, but in other cities, as well. Lone Wolf allows me to expand our operations without having to hire a bunch of employees."

RPR® Commercial Serves Multiple REALTOR® Specialties
Word about RPR®'s commercial platform is popping up across the nation and, sometimes, in surprising ways. In the apex of a finance course at REALTOR® University's Master of Real Estate program, Adrienne "Abe" Wagner needed to identify, analyze and then bring to market a commercial property in order to pass the class. "I'd been using RPR for my business for a long time, but only for my specialty, which is residential," said Abe, an associate broker with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Donegal, PA (pop. 165). "We don't have city sewer on our main road, so our commercial properties are very limited. So I knew this assignment was going to be a challenge." Never one to back away, Abe, who holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics, a Master's in Real Estate, and a robust line up of real estate related certifications, set out to become an expert in RPR Commercial. "'Know what you don't know' is common parlance among commercial REALTORS®," she said, "so learning to use the tools provided by RPR Commercial gave me everything I needed to generate an amazing array of reports on my income producing property. I couldn't believe the wealth of information and tools provided on the site." Increasingly, rural-centric agents like Abe are turning to RPR to identify marketplace opportunities for business owners, property managers and developers intent on moving into their areas.

Case Study: Targeting Consumers Curbside Boosts Brokerage's Leads
We talk a lot about online leads and the technology used to capture them--everything from broker websites, search portals, email newsletters, and beyond. Today, we're going to switch gears and look at how one brokerage automates their main phone numbers to capture leads at the moment of peak interest--right at the curb. "It's the new point-of-sale," says Charles Hunt, General Manager at Hunt Real Estate in upstate New York. "Everybody for years has said that you've gotta have the best online presence.' Well, I think you just need the best lead capture tool for where people are." Capturing Leads Right at the Curb Hunt Real Estate has boosted their lead conversion rates by eliminating agent and broker phone numbers from all their yard signs. Instead, the firm's signs now offer only a single automated number provided by VoicePad—no small undertaking for a firm with 38 offices and over 1,000 salespeople. This automation is an important factor in Hunt's lead conversion success. A recent study has shown that only 48% of leads are responded to and, of those, the average response time is over 15 hours. By tying their yard sign number with VoicePad's Interactive Voice and Text information system, Hunt gives their leads an instant response and even the option to connect directly to the listing agent to schedule a showing. Consumers at the curb can either call to hear an automated audio recording with property details, or request a text message to receive a text with more information and a link to Hunt's GPS mobile site (also provided by VoicePad).

SEO and Marketing Tips From the Pros - Part 3
This is the third article in a series on the value of SEO (read Part 1 and Part 2). Today, we're continuing the series with the second of three case studies that explores how top performing brokers leverage SEO for success in real estate. LIV Real Estate Sheldon Johnston – Broker/OwnerSara Mac Lennan – Director of MarketingEdmonton, ABhttp://www.edmontonrealestate.prohttp://www.livrealestate.ca This Edmonton, Alberta company was founded in 1975 by Ken Johnston as a small family owned and operated real estate firm. By 1985, the brokerage had grown to become one of the largest independent real estate brokerages in Edmonton. In 1993, headed by Ken's son Sheldon Johnston, the firm joined an international franchise, a relationship that lasted nearly 20 years. In 2005, Sara MacLennan joined the team to establish the brokerage's online marketing and is now the firm's marketing director. In 2012, the franchised brand was no longer a good fit for the personality of the brokerage. So Sheldon and Sara repositioned the firm, developed its brand strategy, and created its new identity: Liv Real Estate. People Are The Brand Sheldon and Sara love living in Edmonton and feel one of the reasons Liv Real Estate is so successful is because they truly embrace the great changes they see in their city. They feel that energy and spirit is very similar to their company. Sara explained, "The way I see it, every person in our company is an extension of our brand. We recruit agents that share the same values and come to work with the same energy and enthusiasm that Sheldon and I have. It's contagious." When I visited the Liv Real Estate website, I actually commented to Sara on their agents and the fact that the team looks so energized and happy. You can definitely feel the vibe on their website, which is a great marketing tool.

Case Study: Creating the Local Search Experience
Most people searching online are looking for something local. They're searching for real estate or restaurants or parks in a very specific geographical region. A smart broker will be aware of this and will respond with appropriate online marketing strategies. But how do you create the local search experience? One of our local brokers is doing it right. Century 21 Hometown Realty ("C21 Hometown") is a leading broker in San Luis Obispo County, with a presence in Ventura County and Southern California as well. They use technology wisely – for consumers, their brokerage, and agents. They've created community pages to satisfy their customers' desire for the local search experience. Here's a peek at one of their community pages. Since this image is pretty small, you may just want to check it out here. So, what's on this community page? Copy. At least 300 words describing the area and detailing any factors that might influence the local real estate market. Graphics. People love visuals. Using a graph or chart to depict real estate trends is a great way to capture your visitors' attention. Photos of the area are also nice – just be sure they look professional. A custom search. A button that leads them to a custom search for that specific city, zip code, or neighborhood is a MUST.

Some Brokers Really Suck
WAV Group is blessed to work with some excellent brokers. We have never worked for an agent unless it was through their broker. Regardless, we try to keep the agent in clear perspective because agent retention and recruiting are the mantra of the best brokerages in America. Yesterday, I ran across the path of a brokerage that really sucks. Here is the story. A young family with three children struggled with a stay at home mom who nurtured each babe through adolescence and into first grade. The mother was raised a dancer and supplemented her sanity and the family income by teaching dance classes at night. This is how we met. When her youngest child entered school, she added more part time jobs to help the family. Eventually she found her way to becoming a real estate agent. Still in her first year, she worked as a buyer's agent in six transactions, procured two listings and sold one. Clearly this gal has skills. We were sitting together last night when a tweet popped up on both of our phones from Point2, something about a sale on leads. We both chuckled at the irony of following the same company on Twitter, but she asked me about leads and Point2. I retorted with questions about how she generates leads today, how many leads her current listing is pulling in per month, and how she follows up on leads. To my surprise, she said that she did not get any leads. Since I am a "fixer," she and I set out to see what was broken. We checked online and saw her listings syndicated everywhere. I suggested some improvements to her profile and told her how to modify the description text on portals to generate more calls and clicks. Then we tested the lead routing solution from her broker. I inquired about her listing and we watched her phone for the lead to come in.

Trend Spotting: How to Recognize Trends and Act
Do you ever feel behind the eight ball when it comes to figuring out changes in the market? For example, you hear of a sales associate who is killing it in the REO market when you just realized that it was a niche you should pursue? Most of the time, if you're reading about trends in the newspaper, you've already missed your chance to be an early adopter. But, if you know what to look for in the market, you will see the signs for an emerging trend. Leo Pareja, a team leader with Keller Williams Realty in Reston, Va., is a master of knowing what to look for when spotting new trends in the market. Pareja got wind of the market shift a couple of years ago before it even occurred and pared down his team from 18 people to 10 people in anticipation of the slow market. He started personally investing in several rental properties well before prices started heading upwards. "I bought as many as I could. The last four years were your best buying opportunity in years," he says. In the past several years, Pareja has focused on REO and short sale properties, but now shifting his business to the future—traditional sales. How is he able to spot trends and act? Here are his secrets: 1. Watch business trends. "I read a ton—macro and micro economics, indicators, trends. I also mastermind with business owners outside of my industry," says Pareja. In fact, he noticed a trend with some business owners that it was getting hard to find good talent. "That's a good indicator that real estate will get better in the next few years." Pareja reads the Washington Business Journal, and The Wall Street Journal, and he uses the Flipboard newsreader app, which allows him to pick different feeds of news to read. "I get a lot of trends through social media. I read the posts by other professionals."

Monday Morning Mobile: There is no “i” in FRUSTRATED
As we all know, technology giant Apple recently released the new iPhone 5 which hit stores a little over a week ago. Now, I don't necessarily consider myself an "Apple guy"--although I do love both my iPhone and my iPad and have learned to look past their limitations--but have to admit I was disappointed by the release of the iPhone 5. I feel it lacked the "wow factor" I have come to expect from Apple product releases. That being the case, the following is a personal account of a five day period starting Monday, September 24th and ending Friday, September 28th. Feeling unexcited about the release of the iPhone 5 and its lack of new features, most notably NFC (near field communication) technology, I began researching other devices on the market. I had seen a number of commercials over the weekend for the Samsung Galaxy S-III. The ads highlighted many of the features missing on the iPhone, which were--conveniently--present in the Samsung device. I was impressed. The more I read about the S-III, the more intriguing it became to me not only for the mobile features, but for its presentation capabilities. I finally convinced myself that I owed no loyalty to Apple or its iPhone. I deserve to have the best technology on the market today and shouldn't limit myself to just Apple products if the S-III can give me all the iPhone can and more. Monday night, I waltzed into the Verizon store and used my upgrade to purchase the Samsung Galaxy S-III. I took it home and began to experience firsthand all the features it had to offer.

Give Buzz Another Look
Twitter and blogs have their own online magic. Tweets are perfect for sending out short bite size messages, but they aren't ideal for engaing in a conversation. Blogs are far more effective in getting a thread online and drawing in comments and conversations. But they are more laborious to post, and writers often feel pressure to fine tune and make sure the post is the best reflection of them.  Is there something in between?  Yes!  Matt Cutts, Google's SEO guru, keeps his reader up to date with his latest technology recommendations; recently he wrote about Google's Buzz. This could very well be the tool the real estate community has been waiting for.  To give a quick snapshot of this emerging social media platform, Google Buzz allows Google users to publish their ideas to the world or just to a few of their closest friends or favored business contacts. This platform is integrated into the user's gmail account; comments get sent right to the inbox so it's easy to keep the conversation going. Users can post pictures to enhance their posts, and it can import information from their Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, and Google Reader accounts. Buzz is available on mobile devices, to keep the conversation alive, with real time updates to the conversation. See a screen shot of Google Buzz to the right. Matt Cutts certainly favors this Google product, and wrote an insightful blog.  To read his thoughts, continue....

SureClose Wins Wright Kingdom's Vote
Wright Kingdom Real Estate recently deployed SureClose® within their company, and they have already begun to enjoy the benefits of their decision. Lew Kingdom, managing broker of the firm, spent time researching various transaction management software, available to real estate professionals.  Lew Kingdom choose SureClose for his firm and then recorded a video to spread the word about why SureClose worked for him. He explains the process he went through to decide on SureClose, and the specific technical needs SureClose meets. Continue to view the video...