I had the honor of being part of the panel at the Dallas RainCamp event this last week. A question was asked that I thought would be valuable to share with everyone on Active Rain. The question was, “How do you come up with content for your website and blog?”. What a wonderful question ActiveBrad, thank you for asking it. I would like to share my answer and expand on it a little more.

I am a big believer in SEO and writing with purpose. The purpose of writing content for your website should consist of one goal and one goal only… closing more deals and increasing your bottom line. Why else would you spend time writing when you could spend time on more effective income producing activities or, more importantly, spending more time with your family? READ MORE

Did you know that programs like Adobe Acrobat and Nitro PDF are capable of doing TWO types of signatures? Most people know about the electronic signature (which is the best way to digitally sign a document outside of a service like DocuSign or DotLoop) but there is another method I like even better.

I use Acrobat and at first, I was signing documents in Acrobat by creating my own digital signature and then attaching an image to the signature. Adobe Acrobat will use the signature image anywhere you place the digital signature so everything will look normal when it is printed. While this works, it is a LOT of work to setup. First you have to generate a public and private key and then import them into Acrobat, etc, etc. In addition to being a lot of work, it can be a little confusing when someone is looking at the PDF file. READ MORE

It’s important to keep your clients in the loop. Our sellers want, no, they need to know what’s happening with their listing. Buyers and sellers both want frequent updates after a contract has been accepted. Strong communication is vital to the success of your business and if you are not providing information on a regular basis then you’re not likely to get many referrals.

Email updates are okay but they are not as personal as a phone call. If you are only sending email updates then your clients may feel that you are impersonal. Phone calls are important to help you connect with your clients. The problem is, what should be a 5 minute phone call can easily creep into 20 or 30 minutes. If you are working with several clients at a time then it’s difficult to find the time to call everyone. READ MORE

Go ahead, bow your head in shame if you place every lead on the exact same drip campaign. Okay, that was a bad idea. You can’t read with your head bowed which means you can’t learn how to improve this predicament. All joking aside, if you are going to use drip campaigns to support your lead conversion efforts then it is VITAL to ensure those campaigns are speaking to your lead’s desires and needs.

If an effective campaign is supposed to speak to the recipient’s needs and every person has different needs then how can one campaign speak to everyone? That was more of a statement and less of a question. I would like to challenge you this month to devote time to creating a campaign for each of the following: READ MORE

It’s interesting to see how many people weigh in on the debate to force registration on your website’s IDX home search. You hear one side cry out to let the Internet free while the other side argues the importance of capturing more of your hard-earned website traffic as leads. I have my own opinion on this issue and with my 10 years of experience specializing in Lead Generation, Lead Conversion and Lead Management, I like to pretend my opinion matters. More important than my opinion, I have tested both theories in great depth, spending thousands and have a more scientific conclusion to this debate.

Let’s first look at each side of the debate to gain a better understanding of each and the value they bring. READ MORE

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Okay, that’s enough cliches for one day. It’s true though, great photography is vital to listing and selling real estate. It isn’t just important for a listing agent, it’s also important for the buyer’s agent. A buyer will scour though dozens, if not hundreds, of listings to find their short list. If the picture looks like a 5 year old took it, or worse, there is no photo at all, then the property will probably not make the short list.

Ideally, we would all have the perfect real estate photographer on staff to capture the perfect listing in the perfect light and life would be perfect. Unfortunately, few agents can even afford an assistant more less a photographer. The next best thing would be to hire a freelance real estate photographer which I would definitely recommend if you have the means, but not ever agent can. So then what? Are we stuck with embarrassingly amateur looking pictures? READ MORE

Do you ever find yourself sending the same email over and over again? Are you one of those people that keep a document with a bunch of pre-written/canned emails so you can quickly copy and paste them into your emails? Then here’s a quick and yet VERY cool tip to make your life even easier.

Ditch the doc and use your email signature instead. Many email apps like MS Outlook allow you to create multiple email signatures. Once you create your default signature, go back and create all of your canned messages. Then when you open an email, just select the alternate email signature and KABOOM, there it is. Sorry for yelling, I was going for effect. I personally have around a dozen canned messages set up as signatures in Outlook. READ MORE

What percentage of bad leads do you get from your website’s home search IDX? Bad phone number, bad email address or creative (and sometimes vulgar) name? The idea of how much money is wasted anytime someone registers with bad information is enough to make your hair gray prematurely… or just fall out. Let not your heart be troubled, good can still come from bad!

As stressful as a bad lead can be, some valuable information can come from the bad information. Did you know you can use a bad phone number to improve your email communication? There are times when you will receive a new home buyer lead where the name looks real, the email doesn’t bounce but the number is a fake (per the irritated person on the other end of the line when you try to call). READ MORE