Most people in the industry know that Homegain.com can be a powerful way to generate listing leads —if it is used consistently and creatively. That's a big "if" since most professionals simply don't have the time or skills to do it right. Well, Lara Jobe of RE/MAX Associates in Arlington, TX figured out how to tap into the power of this lead generating tool without taking away from her valuable listing and selling time.

In the last three months Lara used Homegain to generate two new listings (one which has already sold) and found several new buyers. Okay, "so what?" you might ask. Well, Lara did all this without spending a single minute on handling the initial inquiries that led to this new business. And as you know, responding effectively to a Homegain RFP can be time consuming and a lot of work.

Lara figured out how to do it the easy way after she heard Michael Russer (a.k.a. Mr. Internet®) speak about the virtues of Virtual Assistants. Soon after the session, she found Kim Hughes of Creative Business Concepts to assist with all her online marketing programs, including leads from Homegain.

Here are the steps Kim takes to help turn Lara's Homegain leads into commissions:

• She checks for new leads daily;
• Once a lead comes in, she uses creative writing, and custom HTML to immediately reply in a way that differentiates Lara from other respondents;
• She monitors each proposal to see if they are being read by the prospects;
• She sends Lara a weekly report as to the number of buyers and sellers that have received proposals indicating which ones have been read;

The key benefit here is that Lara is able to respond quickly (a must if you hope to generate business with Homegain) and in a personalized way that sets her apart from the crowd of competitors.

Kim's work doesn't stop there. Once a lead turns into a listing she then implements Lara's multipoint marketing plan for each one including: inputting the listing into the MLS, preparing the virtual tours, updating Lara's Web site with the new listing information, preparing just listed / just sold postcards, creating the CMA, etc.

At this point you might be asking yourself, "great, but what did all that cost her?"  According to Lara, just closing that one extra listing paid back her investment in Kim over that same three month period 4 times over! 

When you think about it, even these results are not the big payoff for having wisely used a VA. The biggest benefit Lara has realized is that working the leads that generated all this extra income didn't cost her any more of her time —which, at this point in her career, is something far more precious than dollars.

 

Michelle Thornton is our VA CORNER columnist and a RESS Certified VA. You can visit her web site at TheRealEstateVa.com and contact her via e-mail at michelle@vacorner.com

(NOTE: Mr. Internet, his company and staff receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors or service providers. Also any virtual assistant or consultant profile found in this publication is not to be construed as an endorsement of their services by Mr. Internet or his company.)