VA CORNER: (full story)
Stand
Out On Realtor.com® Without Even
Trying ...
It's no big secret that Realtor.com® is
the place where millions of real estate consumers look for properties and services. The only problem is that it contains so many listings, it can be next to impossible to stand out among the crowd. Well, not any more.
The key is to let a Virtual Assistant who has
been specifically trained to help you with your
Realtor.com® website do the work so you see
results. In September 2002 Realtor.com® designed a
special Virtual Assistant training program and
more than 20 VAs took advantage of going through
it. Many Virtual Assistants provide this valuable
service for agents that need to get more done in a
day, but just don't have the time to worry about
maintaining their Realtor.com® website.
Elaine Stewart is one of those Virtual
Assistants. Cindy
Dwyer, Elaine's REALTOR®
client, sent me an email about how wonderful it is
to work with Elaine. Cindy Dwyer has been an agent
since 1979 and her yearly volume is around
$10-12M. That's a lot of business and it would be
just too much to manage on your own. Cindy's
northern Virginia housing market is very strong
and almost all of her business comes from
referrals. Her goal in using Elaine was to
"delegate responsibility and have more time
to myself." She told me, "Prior to using
Elaine and VA
Karen Drebes, I had done everything
myself with no assistance. Looking at my
Realtor.com® site and adding headlines, photos
& extra text sometimes fell to the bottom half
of the totem pole in getting things done."
Cindy said that most of the changes recently
made by Realtor.com® were transparent to agents
that didn't keep up-to-date or have a VA helping
them. Cindy feels confident when she tells
prospective sellers to check out her site. What's
the biggest problem that Cindy is experiencing?
Nearly all her listings sell within 2 weeks so she
doesn't have enough listings on her site!
How does Eva Morrow of The Eva Morrow
Residential Home Consulting Team save time and
stress? According to Eva, it's because she knows
her VA is taking care of the Internet marketing
side of her business in a timely and efficient
manner. Melissa Boyd, Superior Office
Solutions,
has recently started working with Eva to help with
the updating of her listings and XLerator™ leads.
For an experienced VA such as Melissa, keeping
these things updated on Realtor.com® is effortless,
but for a Real Estate Agent busy selling and
prospecting, it takes a lot of time away from
customer contact.
Eva stated that Internet marketing is crucial
to being able to get "top dollar" for
her listings in the shortest amount of time and
her Internet marketing must stand out from the
rest. She loves the idea of working with a VA. She
has even made this a part of her listing
presentation so her sellers know what a crucial
part of her team Melissa has become.
VA Peggy
McCabe-Schmitz, the proud owner of
Mountain Solutions, assists Ginger Christensen and
Julie Topel-Evans,
Coldwell
Banker/Cogswell
Real Estate in Great Falls, with their online
marketing as part of her menu of services. Peggy
is responsible for the maintenance and updating of
their websites, including Realtor.com® where she
enhances listings and provides bi-monthly reports
to track success. In their crazy market, many
homes are sold before they hit the MLS and Peggy
feels that part of her job is to "help
control the chaos." Peggy and her REALTOR®
clients feel that, "These services are a
benefit because the agents can concentrate on
their clients and not worry about the little daily
details of websites." In a recent email
from Peggy she told me they had
received yet another lead just that morning… compliments of Realtor.com®.
Another gem in the Realtor.com® assistance arena
is the team of Carrie Gable,
RealSupport,
Inc.,
and her Real Estate Professional,
Joan
Prout (see this month's SUCCESS
STORY).
Joan's Realtor.com® ads are uniquely enhanced far
beyond what other agents in her area are doing.
Joan is receiving a number of inquiries via email
for each of properties. As a result of a
successful-buyer email campaign managed by Carrie,
these prospects are being turned into clients!
Utilizing a VA is how Joan is able to effectively
handle her online inquiries and convert them to
transactions, all while she is freed up to do what
she does best.
If you still aren't convinced that working with
a VA to help you with your Realtor.com® support is
a good return on your investment, you need to talk
with Patrick
Ireland, RE/MAX agent in The
Woodlands, TX. Patrick and his wife, Dusty, are
absolutely thrilled by the efforts of VA Kay
Miller of Sharper
Listings. The results they are
getting from using Kay's Realtor.com® enhancements
are just amazing. Here are some of the comments
Kay has received since helping Patrick and Dusty:
"We have a lead from our website… this has
never happened… the guy said he liked all the
performance links.. thank you very much!"
That was just the beginning, there is more:
"Patrick showed a couple today from Chicago…
reason why they picked him… because our website
was so detailed and meticulously presented." "Patrick is on a listing appointment
tonight because someone saw the website and all
the ads we run on our listing." "Patrick just closed on a home for a Buyer
that came to us solely on our website's good
looks!" Of course, Kay got a nice certificate
for a dinner out on that one!
Exposing your listings to the widest audience
of possible buyers on Realtor.com® is no longer an
option if you want to stay competitive. However,
it is how you implement this powerful tool
in such a way that you maximize your return on
investment while freeing you up to do what you do
best - list and sell. And using a highly trained VA
is really the only practical solution to achieving
both of these goals.
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