5 reasons your sellers are looking for another agent

Your reputation earned you the client, but are you sure you can keep them? These days many sellers are coming down with cases of the wandering eye. The changing tides and urgent needs that come along with selling real estate mean you have to pay attention to keep your clients and avoid your hard work going to waste.

Here are five reasons (and signs) your sellers might be shopping for your replacement:

1. You leave them with more questions than answers

If you find yourself explaining or unexplaining advice your clients have found elsewhere, you might be in grave danger of losing them. This usually means they feel both unsatisfied and uneducated. Both of these mean your commission’s in danger.

2. They’re flying blind

Now, clients and customers want to feel like they understand the process and what’s happening with their transaction. If you haven’t explained what the “road to closed” looks like, you’re leaving your client relationship and commission in danger. No one likes flying blind.

Sharing insights into how the home selling process works gives you a great opportunity to get back in your sellers’ good graces. Incorporate these statistics that sellers love into your explanation of the process to reinforce the fact that you’re an experienced real estate professional.

3. You’re hard of hearing

Repetition is a great tactic for making sure your audience gets the message … unless you’re paying that audience thousands of dollars to listen. Beware of repeat conversations, email exchanges and debates. These are clear indicators of client frustration and that they may soon be looking for your replacement.

4. You’re too nice

Smiles, gifts and great conversations are all a part of great client service, but they mean nothing if you can’t close the deals. Don’t mistake your great rapport with a client for a great working relationship. Ultimately, sellers want to work with the agent who can actually move them home.

 5. They’ve fallen in love with Google

The days of consumers passively waiting for service providers to meet their needs are long gone. When any or all of the above are true, your clients will start hunting for answers and help elsewhere. This is dangerous for your relationship because it means you’ve been officially dethroned as the “real estate expert” in their minds.

How to win back the client you already have ?
We want to hear from those of you who’ve dealt with this challenge.

How do you win a client back when you sense they might be slipping away?

Tips to Improve Your Social Media Skills

Just the facts!

Did you know the fastest growing market on Twitter is people aged 55 to 64? Or that LinkedIn has the lowest percentage of active users? Before spending your precious ad dollars or sinking your valuable time into social media promotion, make sure to identify which social media site will get the biggest bang for your buck/time. Do a bit digging for some hard stats, you won’t regret it.

Facebook and Twitter and Instagram…oh my!

Social media is constantly evolving. One of the most important things an agent can do to improve their exposure is to stay up on changes to the changes and be contently on the lookout for new opportunities. Emerging social media sites such as Pheed, Bubblews, and Sulia are worth taking a look for promotion and lead generation.

Do it often—just not TOO often

Try to find the sweet spot of the frequency of your posts. Posting too little will have no effect on your business but post too much and you will come off as annoying. According to Track Social, the sweet spot is posting twice a day for most social media sites. Customer and fan engagement tends to drop off significantly anything after that two a day average.

Your email address is an ASSET of your business.

You need to own your own domain, not a domain you may have to surrender some day. What is the value of your future business?

Here are a few thoughts on the use of a permanent e-mail address for REALTORS or any business:

1. Your e-mail address is an asset of your business and you invest in the e-mail address you use every time you give out a business card, piece of marketing material, or run an ad with it included in the ad. You are teaching the world that to communicate with you by e-mail, send e-mail to that e-mail address. If you ever changed e-mail addresses, for any reason, you would probably not receive e-mail sent to the "old" e-mail address. What about a customer who sends e-mail to you at the "old" e-mail address? If you do not receive the e-mail, you can't respond. What is the cost of potential lost business?

2. Anytime you use an e-mail address with a domain you do not own, you are investing in someone else's asset, you are a "renter" and not an "owner"...would you rather rent or own? If you use an comast e-mail address, who owns your e-mail address? If you use an AOL e-mail address (LOL..yes there are a few who still do...and I must mock them), who owns your e-mail address? Not you. The "owner" can raise the rent at their option. Maybe you think that they would never do that, but it is in their power to do so and not yours, whether you think so or not.

3. Who do you want to brand...you or gmail (or any other domain you do not own)?

4. Dot Com (.com) is the "800 number" of Top Level Domains...would you rather have an "888" toll free number or an "800" toll free number? New top level domains represent a risk to your business. Stick to the tried and true.

It makes good business sense for all businesses to own their own domain and to use it not only for their web site address, but for their e-mail address.

WHAT MAKES A STRONG CALL TO ACTION?

Before we get started it is important for your website to have a goal, that is, what is it you desire from your users? That may be to gather email addresses, capture leads, or get your visitor to enter their credit card information to buy something.

A call to action makes use of a banner, button, or some kind of graphic or text to lead your visitor down a predetermined path that results in them completing your goal. In the instance of real estate, a call to action to could be as simple as a button on the home page that says “start your home search” or “find your home value.”

So, how do we get a functional call to action? These are the some best practices:
Know a need – When first thinking about creating a call to action, you need to have a purpose in mind. Essentially, a need that you want to fill for your potential customer. Most call to actions make use of terminology like, “Buy this now!” or “Sell your home with us.” These are clear paths that you can start your new customer. Also, you will know how to fill their need.

Sweeten the deal – What’s in it for them? Why should they click that button, in other words? These people need to know why they should click that button on your site rather than someone else’s. Maybe you don’t take the normal amount of commission when selling a home. Or, maybe you give an amazing gift at closing. Let them know what they’re going to get out of their click.

Focus the language – Just as when creating a resume, everyone is always told to use action words. The same applies in this case. The focus is what you want them to do, not what you want from them. “Call, Buy, Register, Subscribe, Donate” are largely used active words. Essentially, they make the button say “Do This!”
Put it where it matters – This is easier said than done. The more important the Call to Action, the bigger it should be. Not only that, give it a contrasting color that will bring even more attention to itself. Lastly, it will need to have some space. Don’t butt it up against something else of less importance, this is distracting. These things are usually best left up to a designer because, honestly, they know what they’re doing and do it for a reason.

Call to actions are an essential piece to having a successful lead-generating website. It is the easiest way to help steer the potential customer into your new client.

Do you have any best practices that you have found that work best for you?
Please, feel free to share!