I have asked this question of many people, most recently when I presented my eHomes Realty Network (www.ehomesrealtynetwork.com) to about 60 brokers in Orlando. What do you feel is the purpose of your website? Does anyone really know the answer. The answer, in my opinion, is to get visitors to become a lead so we can turn those leads into customers for life. That's the purpose.
What I have heard from almost everyone is that the purpose of a website is to provide information to the visitors. Sure, that's a purpose, but it should be THE purpose of your website. Most of the Agents that believe the purpose is information are usually the same Agents just waiting for someone to click on the "contact us" button on their website. I have read that the actual rate using this technique is somewhere around 1 out of 1000 visitors might contacdt you.
When I mentioned this at the presentation this morning, I saw many of the Brokers with the "aha" look on their faces. Personally that's one of my favorite sights when I teach this stuff. I love when someone really gets it all of the sudden.
After the presentation this morning I had several, about a dozen, Brokers come up to me and ask me about joining. In fact, the woman who had me come there, Lisa Harr, from IFREC, told me that the few people she talked to after I left were very excited about joining. In the end, when I do meet and talk with Agents, they do understand that I'm doing this Network to help Agents save a ton of money that they will waste trying to figure out the Internet. As I've said, why spend thousands of dollars in mistakes when I have already made them for you.
So when you start thinking about your Internet strategy, please be sure to look at your site for the great tool is should be. Learn to capture leads and then learn to convert them. It's the future of Real Estate...well actually it's now. As always, if you have any questions about the Network or about Internet lead capture and conversion, please don't hestitate to email or call me!
Very simple Mitch: the purpose of my website is to immediately impress upon people that I am 1) competent 2) professional 3) appealing and 4) the one realtor they decide to call or email. It is all about the first reaction the viewer has to your site and communicating to the so effectively that they never go "back" to the search results.
Hey Amy! All very important aspects of you being a Realtor, but if you don't capture them as a lead what makes your site any different than the million or so other Realtor sites. Once you capture them as a customer, you have the opportunity show them how competent, professional, appealing and the one Realtor they should use. If you don't capture them you most likely won't have that opprortunity.
Many Agents disagree with me on this, I will admit. However, our sales record (14 Agents with 193 sales in 2007 and already over 190 sales this year) is what I believe tells the story. All of my Agents are excellent Realtors but if I didn't spend as much time and effort on my end to capture leads for them, they wouldn't have come close to selling that many homes through the Internet. Ultimately, as a Brokerage and Realtor, it's about generating business to pay our bills and support our Agents so they can stay in the business. At a time when Realtors are falling out left and right here in Brevard County, our Agents and Brokerage continue to grow. I guess that was the purpose of starting The eHomes Realty Network. I wanted to give back to the Realtor Communtiy since we have been blessed with such a great program.
Mitch, for me my website has provided a constant stream of leads and has made it possible for me to start my own brokerage. It is a CONSTANT work in progress.
Marchel! That's awesome. It's how I started my brokerage. My background was the Internet so when I got into Real Estate it was an easy transition to me. You should check out our Network. My goal is to find independent brokers and Agents like yourself. I spent a small fortune figuring this stuff out so why spend money to learn certain things when I've probably already tried it! How many Agents do you have working for you? Do you supply them all their leads?
Hi again Mitch.. I find that internet "shoppers" want to retain the control of whom they initiate a business contact with and that anything that even smacks of aggressive turns these possible clients off. In my personal experience, if I am on the web and a particular site is a standout in terms of design, content depth, clarity of communication, visual appeal and general friendliness, then I tend to bookmark it: that is more likely to be the person I wil CHOOSE to contact......that is my approach at least ( though my numbers are not nearly so healthy as yours :) ....
Hi Again Amy! In the end it's really what makes you happy. I'm a numbers guy so building a business based on numbers is what I do. However, there are many Agents that prefer to run their business differently. The way I look at it, I can spend my money on TV, Radio, Magazines and any other source, they all have the same goal in mind to get, capture, retain, new customers. By doing our Internet program I can predict my business. That is probably the biggest benefit of how we do business. I know that if I spend x amount it will product y amount of leads. I know that my agents are going to close on average 1 out of 24 raw leads.
As I said, it's all about being happy. I just choose to get my business through the Internet. I also have an end game in my business plan. By building a team and now my brokerage, it allows me to at some point have a nice asset to sell or higher managers to give me a cash flow in my retirement. Im a workaholic so when I did sell homes, I sold a lot of them and I worked 80+ hours per week. It was only a matter of time before I was going to crash and burn! Since developing my Internet program I only work 60 hours a week, actually take weekends off, and can take off for a week or two on vacation and not have to worry about taking care of my customers.
Are you happy? That's all I want for you! If you ever have any questions about your Internet program, just in case you want to increase your sales a little, don't hesitate to send me an note. I'm always here to help! :)
Mitch, My brokerage is very small; (by my choice) there are just three of us and one is my husband who works mainly as my assistant. I have been working as my own webmaster since 2000 and have done my own SEO almost from that time also.
I did check your network out but it is hard for me to pay for something I have learned to do myself. I know it is geeky but I love tryping to keep up on the ever changing SEO. Active Rain has been a HUGE help in that regard.
I wish you luck with your network. I can see that you are filling a niche.
Marchel - No problem at all. Based on our quickly growing membership and the members I am already helping, it's definitely needed. It's nice to see someone who gets it! I'm going to drop you a note if you don't mind. Great job!