Sunny and 93 degrees outside right now. This is warm for April, but not hugely so. I rode my bike when I should have been writing this post. Dock my pay. I deserve it.
There was a lot of great stuff on the nets this week, but nothing totally slayed me, so I’m not awarding an Odysseus Medal. We’ll see what next week brings. (I’ve already see one insanely great Black Pearl.) Here are this week’s awards:
The Black Pearl Award this week goes to Russell Shaw for I Want To Be A Lister – The Listing Presentation – The Objections:
About a year ago I wrote what was really part 1 of The Listing Presentation. Anyone wanting to increase their listing skills will likely find time spent on this post and that first post time well spent. I have mentioned the short list of different things a seller might say (or objections they might have to listing) to you. All good listers know these objections and are not startled or thrown off by the seller bringing them up. In fact, great listers know the objections so well that they want the seller to bring them up and if the seller does not bring them up the agent will bring them up. That’s correct. If you already know what they are thinking, why not just address it before they even mention it? It is usually fun to hit a softball when it is a slow underhand pitch.
As the nature of the objections has never really changed it is really sort of silly for any agent wanting to take a lot of listings to not know – in advance – that these are the concerns of the seller. I know that the internet and these new-brand-new-all-new-discount-really-really-low-maybe-even-no-commission companies have changed the very nature of life on earth, as we know it – but I am pretty sure the main objections that you could hear from a home seller back in 1968 were still the same in 1978. They are still the same in 2008. I am thinking they may be still quite similar in 2048. Just a guess, but if you are planning on sticking around in this business for a while, perhaps it might be a good idea to know how you are going to respond when they bring these up.
As a really humorous aside, there were also discount companies in 1978 that would list and sell homes for practically nothing. Those companies too were going to change the very nature of how real estate was done. Life just wouldn’t be the same anymore after consumers found out about the existence of those lower cost companies. No one was ever going to pay 6 or 7 % again. Not now, not with them here. Those companies expanded and prospered during the hot seller’s markets and then went broke and shut down completely during the later, much longer buyer’s market. Just like now. If you’re young enough you will get to see this again a few more times before you retire.
I believe that almost all long-term successful residential Realtors in the English speaking world have a listings based business. The three component parts of getting listings are: 1. effectively market oneself or effectively prospect for customers (note: these are the only two methods of getting customers – so get good at one or both). 2., The listing presentation. 3., Closing techniques. I believe that any agent who relies on closing techniques has a crappy or non-existent listing presentation. I also believe that any agent who will not effectively market themselves or effectively prospect for sellers has a crappy or non-existent listing presentation. This stuff is simple to learn. No heavy lifting. None.
This week’s People’s Choice Award goes to Courtney Tuttle with 10 Ways to Improve Blog Traffic in 30 Minutes or Less:
5. Edit your post one more time
How can you improve your title? How can you improve your first paragraph? Small details in your post, especially in the beginning of your post, can make an enormous difference in its ability to draw social traffic and links. You can definitely improve your title, first paragraph, formatting, and grammar within 30 minutes.6. Stop writing about yourself. Start solving problems
Surfers become readers when a blog provides something that is wanted. A casual visitor may read your blog because they find training, answers to problems, entertainment, or something else they want. This more than likely will mean that they won’t want to read about you, your girlfriend, your cats, your kids, or your catastrophes (unless you have a personal blog that your friends read). Discontinuing the off-topic posts will help you to develop more repeat traffic and takes exactly 0 minutes to implement.7. Subscribe to the feeds of your industry’s major players
That way, you won’t miss important news releases. When news breaks in your industry, there will be a lot of extra traffic searching for information on the event. Adding your thoughts will almost always generate extra traffic. Subscribing to the feeds of your industry’s top sites should take no more than 15 minutes.
If you didn’t check out this week’s nominees for The Odysseus Medal, you should.
We have a brand new tool for promoting The Long List of Odysseus Medal nominees. The Long List will be shown in that little gizmo until the current week’s Short List is announced and then I’ll update it with the new week’s nominees. This is link-love back from BloodhoundBlog, but my reason for building the tool is to promote the best ideas in real estate any way I can. To that end, read this post so that you can learn how to echo The Long List on your own site.
The Long List also has its very own weblog, a link blog of the latest Long List nominees as they are nominated. Feel free to visit, but probably the best way for you to keep abreast of the best in real estate weblogging is to subscribe to The Long List RSS feed.
And as always, if you hear a great objection, close on it and then nominate it.
Deadline for next week’s competition is Sunday at 12 Noon MST. You can nominate your own work or any post you admire here.
Congratulations to the winners — and to everyone who participated.
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
Brian Brady says:
Classic Russell Shaw. i could get wealthy just writing his book for him
April 14, 2008 — 8:18 pm