Being a Successful Real Estate Brokerage

I attended a webinar today, “3 Building Blocks for a Successful Brokerage” to pick up some tips today. Participating in the webinar were Daniel Rothamel “The Real Estate Zebra”, a Virginia agent with Strong Team Realtors, Gretchen Faber of Kentwood Co from Denver, and Chad Hyanis of Keller Williams.

The 3 building blocks they presented were:
1. Lead generation – as you know, we already have a lead generation system in place. We are able to capture information on people who visit our website to conduct searches and provide that information to our agents to follow up with the visitors, to find out if they were able to find what they were looking for and to see how they can help in their search. We have distributed over 1400 leads to our agents since November 2010! We will continue to fine-tune the system over the next few months.
2. Technology – yep we have Chris Bonish, our tech manager to help us with every computer virus, email problem, etc. But we also have a website that has been adjusted so key word Internet searches find a way to the www.previewproperties.com , where we can capture their information and follow up to help the person with their real estate search.
3. Marketing/Culture – although marketing provides lead generations, they also talked about recruiting agents and employees. What culture are we, and how will we look in five years?

A few of the takeaways were:
• Gretchen Faber of Kentwood Co. said “prospecting is not an event, it is a process.” What is important is how you follow up with the lead, not the act of contacting them. Because sometimes it may be weeks / months before they are ready.
• A few virtual assistant resources discussed were: www.myoutdesk.com, and www.virtualoffice.com
• While the company should have a blog, the agents should be involved in blogging too. Whether they have their own blog or post on the company blog.
• Agents should also have their own lead generation systems, for example www.realtygenerator.com by Market Leader.