REAL ESTATE AGENT NEWS

Online Marketing: Five New Year's Resolutions that Matter in Your Business.

by Michael Parker

It seems hard to believe that it's 'that time' again and that another year has passed. May I be among the first to say "Good Riddance" to 2007?

What a year! There just wasn't a lot of good news in this industry, and there surely was far too much bad news. That is also true for our spluttering economy, the U.S. Dollar, Oil Prices, our image to the world, and the many families who have loved ones fighting wars with no foreseeable end. As Auld Lang Syne rings out at midnight on December 31st, we can bid this embattled year good-bye and welcome in the New Year, as yet unspoiled and loaded with hope and promise.

This year, the song seems especially appropriate: 'Auld Lang Syne' (as written by Robert Burns, the Scot poet who wrote 'My love is like a red red rose...and Comin' through the Rye," among other hallowed works) means "Old long ago" or �the good old days." Lots of folks are pining for the good old days.

Trouble is, however, that �these are the good old days'. With apologies to Carly Simon, 'these good old days' haven't been so hot!

We all want things to go back to the way that they were when we were happiest. We all know that isn't in the cards. Change is among the only constants in life and in this business, it is coming hard and fast.

So, seeing as you probably already have a list of New Year's Resolutions concerning your personal goals for 2008, I thought I'd suggest a few for you to consider; you can put them right next to "lose 10 pounds" or "Quit smoking for good." The difference is that how you adapt to what should be your new resolutions about the real estate business will determine if you remain successful in it. So, here's a short list to choose from when thinking about the coming year and how to prosper in it:

1. Resolve to accept that the way things were for the past five years is not the way they are going to be again, at least for the foreseeable future. Sellers are no longer able to name their price; every buyer cannot obtain financing; serious price reductions will be the order of the day. These are the obvious things, and we all need to cheerfully let clients know that our expertise as real estate professionals is more valuable than ever. Remember that the best salesperson in the world cannot make a living with no one to call on. Get back to PROSPECTING every day.
2. Resolve to believe and to remember that your expertise as a real estate professional is more valuable than ever. Commit right now to educating your clients why that is so. The marketplace today is loaded with pitfalls and who better to guide a client through it than a knowledgeable real estate professional? Remember that in times of uncertainty, people look for solidity. They want to hear the truth and respect you for telling it to them. People want help in buying and selling a home and you are best equipped to provide it.
3. Resolve today to stop saying "Business is in the toilet" or other similar things to anyone. Misery loves company, but success attracts clients. Sure, it's slow, but exhibit the confidence in your ability to overcome these things with the accumulated knowledge and skill you have acquired through your years in the business. Clients like positive thinkers and doers and shy away from pessimists. Furthermore, I think many of us are in a collective hysteria about the marketplace. We shouldn't be because the marketplace lost touch with reality and an adjustment is and was in order.
4. Resolve to becoming an internet marketer because that is one segment of the marketplace that is still bustling and is likely to remain so. We are all lovers of tradition, but traditional real estate marketing is going the way of the music business and the travel business and the mapping business: it is internet-based, and you must be, too. Lovers of business school phrase would say "The Paradigm has changed." Folks, it hasn't changed at all, the process simply has migrated to the web and the web reinvented the way the business is conducted! Instead of hoofing it all over hither and yon in your car or theirs, buyers now do it virtually by searching from their home computer and with their email browser. They still evaluate property. They still evaluate agents. They still compare values. They still want to know everything about the town you work in and that they want to live in. A major difference is they research all that on the web PRIOR to even contacting you! That's a good thing! Embrace it and get on board with it!
5. Remember that 'interesting times' are loaded with opportunities that a smart and nimble broker or agent can exploit: Resolve to stop doing things the same old way! Stop mindlessly placing all your listings in newspapers and put them on your website. People, the newspapers are going to the internet! They hope to build big portals and be players in the business and they recognize that today, the internet is the major place people shop for homes. Have you realized that yet? Get a personal website and make it attractive, user friendly and search engine friendly. Stop paying big dollars for pages on websites that do not provide you with enough leads, visitors or buyers. Realize that the entry point to the real estate business for consumers is Search Engines and that it is likely to remain that way because Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL aren't going to abandon the segment that makes them tons of money. That segment is real estate. Real Estate is one of the top internet business segments today and consumers like the privacy, security and lack of pressure that looking for homes on the internet provides them. Stop fighting it! Grab on to it and prosper!