Using the “Embed” Code from Pinterest

May 4, 2012 By April Leave a Comment

I love that you can embed “pins” from Pinterest (that’s a link to my boards) which just makes everything so much more shareable (spell check HATES that word). I thought what better way to show you how easy it is, than to use this picture I pinned today of my French Bulldog, Maggie Mae:

Source: twitter.com via April on Pinterest

To do this, find a picture that you want to share from Pinterest and click on it. You’ll get a pop-screen with that pin on it, with some choices off the the right such as “Like”, “Tweet”, “Embed”, “Report Pin”, and “Email”. Click on “Embed”, choose your dimension, copy and paste into the HTML editor of your blog. Super easy, and now everyone gets to enjoy Maggie.

Filed Under: Coffee with a VA, Real Estate S & M Tagged With: how to, Pinterest

Creating A Real Estate Niche

March 19, 2012 By April Leave a Comment

Wanting to work with everyone is common. You’re a Real Estate Agent, and you want to be able to serve as many people as possible, and that’s great, but you want to market to one specific group at a time. When you Creating a Real Estate Niche cast a wider marketing net, you end up diluting your message.

Not only does your message end up getting watered down, but you also become just like everyone else in your field. What are you doing to differentiate yourself? How do you stand out in an overcrowded market that has everyone clamoring for the same business?

You need to speak to people directly. Last week I wrote about getting face to face with expireds, but today is about speaking directly to a lot of people at once. Creating a very specific target market that when they see your advertisement, they feel a connection with you. For example, I was at an epropertysites seminar at the Mission Viejo Country Club last week. As an example, Chris Bates threw out (as a joke) having a poodle niche. That’s right, only marketing to people who have poodles. Silly, yes, but apply it to your business. Horse property, beach-front property, condos, retirement communities, vacation homes, military families. You need to choose something that works with your demographics, your expertise, and your personality.

When you found this article, were you searching for a Virtual Assistant? If you were a lawyer searching for a Virtual Assistant and you read the title “Creating a Real Estate Niche” would you have clicked on it? No, probably not. You clicked on it because I was speaking directly to YOU, the real estate agent.

My challenge for you: The next blog post you write, your next tweet, or status update on your Facebook Page, direct it toward a specific group of people in your target market. Does the house have a huge backyard? Write a post to dog lovers in Huntington Beach, California. Does it have a pool with a swim-up bar and a dance floor on the deck? Call out to the party people. When you write your message for someone specific, they’re much more likely to find it.

Filed Under: Coffee with a VA, Real Estate Info Tagged With: agent, blog, client attraction, how to, marketing, Real Estate Marketing, real estate virtual assistant, REVA, work smarter

Help, I Don’t Have Any Listings!

March 14, 2012 By April 2 Comments

Today I want to talk to you about listings. Since I do a lot of online marketing for listings, I work with a lot of Listing Agents, so a lot of my content is written for them. If you’re not a Listing Agent, that’s okay, I have plenty of information for you too!

But today is about listings. In speaking with my clients all over the country, one thing seems to ring true no matter where you’re from: nobody ever has enough listings. They always want more. And that’s great! Home sellers have a lot of choices to make when it comes to finding the right listing agent, so successful agents have found a way to stand up and be seen in the crowd. How do they do this, you ask?

First, let’s look at what they don’t do. They don’t do work that gets in the way of being successful. Did you know that, according to a study done by Active Rain, agents who make more money are 153% more likely to use an assistant to help with their advertising efforts?

Let’s take that a step further. I constantly read in the various Real Estate groups and on blogs about an agent being stuck building their website. About an agent trying to troubleshoot yet another new program. An agent desperately trying to get her newsletter out, but the formatting is wrong. Spending money on this or that, inserting this AwesomeNewFantasticGottaHaveItCauseAGuruSaidIDid plugin. Whatever it is, what you should be doing instead is getting out in front of your market in a really big way.

What you should be doing to get listings is following up with every lead that comes in. Talking to people (FACE TO FACE) whose listing has just expired. Build relationships within your community so that when the time comes for someone to sell their house, they think of you.

It’s all been said before. Of course it’s been said before; it works! It’s effective! Most importantly, it can’t be done by anyone but you. That’s what makes it important, and that’s what makes it your purpose in the real estate world. Everything else can be delegated to your Real Estate Virtual Assistant (and hopefully that’s us) but you need to hone your purpose and be amazing at it.

One of the most important things we do with our clients when we first start working with them, is we create an action plan. An action plan is a process of steps from point A to point B with a “who does what” twist at the end. If you don’t have action plans in your business, then you’re not leveraging your time or your support system the best that you can.

If you need an action plan, fill out my Work With Me form and we’ll schedule some time together to put in place the one tool that makes partnering with a REVA a no-brainer.

Filed Under: Ditch Your Desk, Escape the Paper, Real Estate Info Tagged With: Action Plans, Active Rain, agent, client attraction, Client Relations, Delegate, how to, marketing, process, processes, real estate virtual assistant, REVA, ROI, Systems

Sharing: 7 Reasons to Start Blogging More Now

November 4, 2011 By April Leave a Comment

Read it on Jimmy Mackin’s site, TheMLSApp.com to read his comments.

Hubspot’s 100 Awesome Marketing Stats, Charts, & Graphs highlights statistics on why every business should be blogging early and often.

Here are my favorites

#1. More Traffic

#2. More Leads

#3 – Frequency Matters

#4. Volume Matters

#5. Get Found on Google

#6. More Indexed Pages = More Leads

#7. Save Money!

This guide was packed full of AWESOME statistics on Blogging, Social Media, and SEO. I highly recommend downloading it.

Filed Under: Facebook Marketing ·

Return to top of page

Filed Under: Real Estate S & M Tagged With: blog, how to, mindset, priorities, Real Estate, Real Estate Marketing, social media, tech savvy, website, wordpress, work smarter

Top 10 Ways to Lead by Example

May 20, 2011 By April Leave a Comment

Good leaders must lead by example. Through their actions, which are aligned with what they say, they become a person others want to follow. When leaders say one thing but do another, they erode trust, a critical element of productive leadership. Here are 10 of the dozens of ways to lead by example.

1. Take responsibility. Blame costs you your credibility, keeps team members on the defensive and ultimately sabotages real growth.

2. Be truthful. Inaccurate representation affects everyone. Show that honesty really IS the best policy.

3. Be courageous. Walk through fire (a crisis) first. Take calculated risks that demonstrate commitment to a larger purpose.

4. Acknowledge failure. It makes it OK for your team to do the same and defines failure as part of the process of becoming extraordinary.

5. Be persistent. Try, try again. Go over, under or around any hurdles to show that obstacles don’t define your company or team.

6. Create solutions. Don’t dwell on problems; instead be the first to offer solutions and then ask your team for more.

7. Listen. Ask questions. Seek to understand. You’ll receive valuable insights and set a tone that encourages healthy dialog.

8. Delegate liberally. Encourage an atmosphere in which people can focus on their core strengths.

9. Take care of yourself. Exercise, don’t overwork, take a break. A balanced team, mentally and physically, is a successful team. Model it, encourage it, support it!

10. Roll up your sleeves. Like Alexander the Great leading his men into battle, you’ll inspire greatness in your company.

Filed Under: Coffee with a VA Tagged With: Client Relations, Delegate, Delegation, how to, Lists, process, responsibility, virtual assistant

New Twitter vs. Old Twitter – “Who to Follow” Feature

March 23, 2011 By April Leave a Comment

The absolute best thing about Twitter is the connections you make with other people. The new version of Twitter has a new menu item called “Who To Follow”.

Old Twitter

Old Twitter included the following options under “Find Friends”.

New Twitter

The new version of Twitter now calls this “Who To Follow” and it does not include the option to “Find on Twitter” or “Invite By Email”.

In the new version, click on Who to Follow.

You are given three options: View Suggestions, Browse Interests, and Find Friends.

Let’s look at “View Suggestions” first. Click on the link that says “interesting accounts” to see some suggestions from Twitter.

The next “Who To Follow” option is “Browse Interests”. As you can see in the screenshot below, there are categories to choose from and Twitter will also suggest certain twitter accounts.

The final option under “Who To Follow” is “Find Friends”. This option allows you to connect to various email accounts you own as well as LinkedIn. When you click on one of the choices, you will be presented with a screen to enter your login information. For example, if you choose Gmail, you’ll need to enter your Gmail login to access that account. Only those people who have agreed to be found by email address will be shown.

Filed Under: Coffee with a VA, Real Estate Info, Real Estate S & M Tagged With: Automate, Delegate, follow, how to, social media, twitter

Delegation Series – Social Media

February 18, 2011 By April 2 Comments

I’ve never been one to say that I can do it on my own. In fact, I would be a total liar if I even eluded to that, and I’m not ashamed one bit. Not only do I freely admit to delegating tasks that I don’t enjoy or do well, I also admit to not trying to figure out how to do it on my own either.

I have my mentors that I follow: very successful female entrepreneurs who may or may not be in the virtual assistance industry, but do have virtual business models. Fabienne Frederickson, Ali Brown, Beth Schneider to name a few. In my industry, they would be Donna Toothaker and Erin Blaskie.

Erin has written a free ebook called 30 Days to Delegation that I’ve used for a while now – both for finding tasks that my clients can delegate to me, and also things that I can delegate to my team.

Day 1: Social Media

Social media is one of the first things that my clients want to delegate to me, and with good reason! With so many social networks out there, especially for Realtors, it’s so easy to be overwhelmed with all of them!

The tech side of things are usually a little difficult for real estate agents, or else they just don’t want to deal with it: getting all of your social network profiles set up properly, linked together and as automated as possible.

Most people I speak with are good with Facebook. They have a personal profile set up, they understand how it works and they use it regularly. The first thing I’m checking for when looking at their personal profile is if they’ve been posting their listings there. If you’re one of the MANY agents that still do this STOP!! STOP IT RIGHT NOW!! There aren’t many things that annoy unsuspecting “friends” more than this, and it should be saved for your business page/fan page.

That being said, there are some clever ways that you can show off your listings in your personal profile and not appear all spammy.

Be conversational about it – you wouldn’t walk up to a friend and just hand him a flyer and walk away, would you?
If there is something different or surprising about it, share that. ”I can’t believe my new listing on 1st street has a secret passage!”
Use FourSquare or Facebook Places and check in at your open house. Post something interesting.
On your Fan Page/Business Page, show off your listings, local area information, pictures, video and get your fans involved. Ask questions, answer questions, give away movie tickets, encourage people to share information.

Fan pages are a great place to start delegating to your real estate virtual assistant:

They can read your local newspaper online and link up interesting news.
After they create a virtual tour for a listing, they can link that as well.
Did you do a video walk-through? Your fan page is a great place for that.
Ask a local photographer if you can share his work on your page with a link back to his site. Nothing gets discussions going like pictures!

Most real estate agents that I consult with are intimidated by, or don’t understand the use of Twitter. Just like everything else, when it’s set up properly it’s purpose is to drive potential clients back to your website. To delegate this to your real estate virtual assistant:

Make sure that your Facebook Fan Page / Business Page is set up to automatically tweet your status updates.
Make sure that your blog is also set up to automatically tweet your posts.
Use my new favorite service Timely.is to pre-schedule tweets. The system will find the most opportune times for your message based on what has worked best for you in the past. I can’t say enough good things about this site!!
Work with your real estate virtual assistant on putting together a file full of tweets that you send out often: links to great blog posts, local area info, market updates, ebooks you’ve written, products that you sell, etc. You’ll quickly see what works and what doesn’t.

I personally don’t use LinkeIn that much as aside from making connections with people in my industry and real estate agents that may benefit from my services. I know a lot of people who make good use of answers, groups, sending out messages, etc. but I haven’t gotten into that too much. I do however:

Have my twitter account (which already picks up my blog posts and fan page updates) feed directly into my Linked In account
Connect with people on a regular basis
Request recommendations from people that I’ve worked with
Freely recommend people that have done work for me
Join relevant groups in order to connect with more people.

Keep only 3 social networks in your “core”. For most people, this is Facebook, Twitter & Linked In. I suggest not using Linked In as much, and getting into Active Rain or Bigger Pockets if you’re a Realtor®

If you’re having issues getting all of this set up, or you understand that you should delegate this, give us a call or send us an email. We’ll be happy to help you out!

Filed Under: Coffee with a VA, Real Estate S & M Tagged With: Automate, Delegate, facebook, how to, linked in, organization, processes, social media, Systems, twitter

5 Benefits You’ll Receive When You Work With Me

January 12, 2011 By April Leave a Comment

I started going through some of the coaching material that I purchased in 2010, and began reworking some of the assignments in my home study system today. Boy am I glad that I did! Things that I thought that I had already done in my business had drastically changed in this past year. My ideal client, my “benefits”, my USP. Just about everything. My business has taken quite a few twists and turns since I opened my doors in 2007!

My assignment was to create a series of statements that explain the benefits my clients receive when working with me. Here are my top 5:

A lot of our clients feel that they are able to take on more listings after trying out our Listing Coordination services. We are able to automate a large part of the process and reach a very wide online audience with our Internet Marketing and Social Media expertise.
2. On that same note, our clients are also able to work with more buyers. Not having to worry about listings or paperwork frees up a lot of time for other more important things – like working with people who want to buy houses!
3. Agents that aren’t rushing around and are confident in themselves and their support system are much more “Client Attractive” than other “busier” agents. Don’t be busy, be profitable!
In 2011, my role within my company is changing. I’ll be taking on more of a Strategist/Consultant position, helping put actual systems in place for my clients that will be carried out by my team. I’m very excited!
As always, I really want to be the first and the last place an agent will go for real estate: from idea to implement.

The 4 main ways I help people are right in line with the top 4 reasons people are motivated to buy:

To make more money
To save money
To save time
To avoid effort

What benefits do your clients receive when they work with you? Why should they choose you over the next Realtor?

Filed Under: Real Estate Info Tagged With: Automate, Delegate, Delegation, Expired Listings, facebook, how to, marketing, Mobile Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, real estate virtual assistant, Systems