Internet leads, referrals, and Personal touch!
Today was such a wonderful day I got to spend the morning with my 3 year old daughter, take her to school, reenact our favorite story the kissing hand and then head off for another wonderful day at the office.
As I drove to the office i realized I had a luncheon to attend and it's times like this I'm always questioning what's the best use of my time..Should i got to the office and do "work" or go to an event someone took the time to invite me to. Well I attended the luncheon and had a wonderful meal filled with enlightening conversation and good humor. This was another affirmation of the importance of building relationships and the personal contact.
As Realtors we are constantly battling what's the best way to stay in business. We go out of our way (and out pocketbooks) to pay for nice websites (http://www.westlawrencehomes.com/) , go on top real estate websites and battle out with our collegues to own the most shares of leads and spend even more money on google/yahoo/realtor.com just to show up on the first page of search engines. Now this is all great and in this age where buyer's are searching online are well informed of everything on the market before they call an agent and typically come to us pre-approved. How do we as agents make ourselves stand apart and get these anonymous shoppers to walk in our office doors?
Now as a newer agent looking to triple my sells for 2011 I have employed all the options availiable to me..I advertise on Trulia.com, Homes.com, Homegain.com, Realtor.com and pay for google ad words and have the fancy website! But I have learned that these items are great as a supplement but when it comes to the putting food on the table it comes from referrals! Nothing sounds better than hearing a message from someone who knows you, likes you and trust you and they have referred you to someone they care about. This is the only true way to build a long-standing relationship and gain a customer by being the agent that someone wants to share with the people they care about.
As I drove to the office i realized I had a luncheon to attend and it's times like this I'm always questioning what's the best use of my time..Should i got to the office and do "work" or go to an event someone took the time to invite me to. Well I attended the luncheon and had a wonderful meal filled with enlightening conversation and good humor. This was another affirmation of the importance of building relationships and the personal contact.
As Realtors we are constantly battling what's the best way to stay in business. We go out of our way (and out pocketbooks) to pay for nice websites (http://www.westlawrencehomes.com/) , go on top real estate websites and battle out with our collegues to own the most shares of leads and spend even more money on google/yahoo/realtor.com just to show up on the first page of search engines. Now this is all great and in this age where buyer's are searching online are well informed of everything on the market before they call an agent and typically come to us pre-approved. How do we as agents make ourselves stand apart and get these anonymous shoppers to walk in our office doors?
Now as a newer agent looking to triple my sells for 2011 I have employed all the options availiable to me..I advertise on Trulia.com, Homes.com, Homegain.com, Realtor.com and pay for google ad words and have the fancy website! But I have learned that these items are great as a supplement but when it comes to the putting food on the table it comes from referrals! Nothing sounds better than hearing a message from someone who knows you, likes you and trust you and they have referred you to someone they care about. This is the only true way to build a long-standing relationship and gain a customer by being the agent that someone wants to share with the people they care about.
As I begin my journey to build my real estate career and triple my sales from the year I would like to share with you, the readers my successes and failures. If you are thinking about getting into real estate let this serve as a testimonial for how to jump start your business.
This is a short post but I feel like this is a great way to get us started on our journey! Hope you enjoy and feel free to follow my on twitter.
Crystal Swearingen
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