A Realtor’s Time is Precious
Author C.S. Lewis reminds us, “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”
Coco Chanel warns, “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.”
Getting things done faster and making the work day easier for us Realtors is on all of our minds lately.
Promoting our services takes up an enormous amount of our time.
Ideally we would love our marketing to just happen without us Real Estate Agents ever lifting a finger or even thinking about it much.
We want the tedious acts of promotion done for us… PERIOD!
“I did not spend all that time studying to pass the Real Estate Agent License Exam to end up being a fulltime marketer!”
AUTOMATION:
Automation is one of the most popular business buzz words now-a-days. But can Realtors automate their business activities when Real Estate Consulting has traditionally, for years, involved so many personal tasks and chores that seem to demand the personal, hands-on, touch and attention?
I cannot serve clients unless I get clients and clients have to know about me before they can hire me.
But the Marketing World is such a yucky place. I do not want to beg and plead, “Hire me! Hire me! Hire me!”
Everyone is talking about AI, artificial Intelligence and Robotics. Can’t we get some robots to help out us humble Real Estate Agents too?
A Realtor’s business day is long and so are our work weeks. We are always on call!
It is the little extra things that set us apart from our competition. When we give a little more, clients and potential clients take notice.
Can our secret sauce really be automated?
Will clients recognize that they are not getting our individual attention to details?
How do we assure that our new automation efforts do not alienate us from our clients and niche prospect pools?
Remember that convincing people to hire us often requires a lot of human interaction. Lots of phone calls and in-person follow up usually goes into sealing the deal.
What I am talking about is charm. The best real estate agents are charming, not just wise.
I want to automate but my business relies upon word-of-mouth promotion, glowing referrals and recommendations to gain business. I cannot afford to lower the quality of the experiences my clients have when working with me.
I need five-star reviews and cheerful testimonials from happy, over-satisfied clients.
I know I’ll have a better time competing with the big boys of the Real estate Industry if
I could get some assistance by automating but it seems so complicated. What is the learning curve?
I am a Realtor, not a tech nerd!
Automation sure sounds expensive… Very, very EXPENSIVE!
Saving Time and Energy!
What automations have Realtors been using successfully so far?
EMAIL: Emailing lends itself to being automated easily. If you send out regular email notifications (and you should) then you can set up auto responders to reply to the replies you get or do not get from whomever you are messaging.
You prewrite a series of emails. One message is sent every three days by your autoresponder software. Most of the email service providers have features for scheduling prewritten emails to be delivered timely.
Auto emailing helps a Realtor keep in touch with past clients. You can schedule friendly messages to go out on holidays, birthdays or to celebrate other special occasions. Your autoresponder can be programmed to keep your name and real estate brand in front of prospects eyes so they do not forget about you.
Ambitious Realtors can create and send an e-newsletter each to be sent to your fans and followers each month.
You can auto announce that your newest informative blog post is live and provide a live clickable link in your email so readers can travel directly to your post.
Past Client Reviews of your services and five star ratings are so important now-a-days for a Realtor’s reputation but many clients won’t give a review unless you remind them to. You can set up those review reminders to be emailed automatically and give them a link to the review site you’d like them to rate you on. Studies show that you get more reviews when you make it easy to leave a review about you.
You should be sending out polls, surveys and questionnaires periodically. Keeping your pulse on the markets you serve is essential for a Realtor to stay on top of their game.
Questions and how people reply, alert you to concerns and new developments in your market.
Your autoresponder can message the leads you get from the ads you post online too, especially ads on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. You want to weed out the tire-kickers from the serious leads that are ready to hire a Real Estate Agent right now.
The serious leads get a phone call from you immediately. The others can get your first email of a series of auto emails designed to get you more info about their needs. After you compile enough data on your prospects thru the responses gathered from your emails, you’ll be better prepared to call them.
Your automated emails can be designed to schedule in-person meetings between you and your prospects. You give them a few choices of what day and time is good for you and they click to pick what date is best for them.
After a Real Estate Deal is completed, you can have emails set up to be sent on a schedule. Follow up is very important. You want to hear how you did. Were your clients completely satisfied? Do they have suggestions on how you can improve your services?
Realtor Automation is Not Just for Emailing
Client relationships need to be nurtured. Prospective new clients that you are pursuing need to be given some special attention too.
Automation assures that important tasks do not slip your mind.
A Realtor could be communicating with a potential new client for weeks, even months, before they finally sign a contract making it official that you are their Real Estate Agent.
What if some or even most of those communications could be automated?
You would have a lot more time and energy to do what only you can do which are all the human interactions between a client and their consultant that keeps clients happy.
Yes you can get much more done if you learn how to use an army of bots.
“But I’m not very techie!” You complain. “I am all thumbs around a computer screen.”
That is not true!
Now repeat after me. “I am the local Super Real Estate Nerd.”
Louder!
“I am the local Super Real Estate Geek!"
LOUDER!
“I am the local Super Real Estate GURU!”
That is the one! Repeat that last line ten more times fast, until you start to believe it.
With easy automation you can become unbeatable, the best around, your local Real Estate area's champion.
With automation there will be an army of clones of you, accomplishing all kinds of annoying chores that you assign for your bots to complete.
Think about it. How can anyone compete with an army of bots and a Realtor that is up on all of the latest Real Estate Software Advances?
Automation can be set up to alert you of changes in your markets that you otherwise might not notice for another few weeks or months.
Timing is often a deal maker or deal breaker. Learning before all the other realtors that a market trend or market shift is happening can bring you a lot of business.
Think about all the Property Investor clients you will impress by always letting them know about new opportunities first.
You should not be scared of automation. Automation can and should be a Realtor’s best friend!
Think of automation as your right arm, your assistant, your secret weapon.
If you put your mind to it and apply a little imagination, you can figure out lots of unique uses for automation technology.
Modern tech can be doing all kinds of stuff for you to promote your real estate services that would otherwise cost you a fortune to get done.
You can really amaze clients by mastering just a little of the available Real Estate Automation tactics that are available for use.
Bare-in-mind, automation is here, and it is not going away. There will only be more and more automation apparatuces available to realtors in the future.
You cannot beat the bots...so embrace the bots and put them to good use!
There is no better time to get used to using automation to win at local real estate than right now.
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