Last night- Classic teamed with 2 other RE/MAX companies and the region to put on “60 min with RE/MAX”. It was a huge success!!! Jeff Snyder (Regional owner) talked about RE/MAX and what it means to the agents, there was a technology demonstration on all the great tools we have and then a few RE/MAX agents talked about what RE/MAX has done to help them reach their personal goals. I want to personally thank all the Classic agents who came and helped spread the RE/MAX word. What I got out of the evening was that most of our agents only tap into a small percentage of what RE/MAX has to offer, so I have a few suggestions!!

1. Take the time to really learn what is possible with the design center.

2. Go to Main Street and discover all the great things it has to offer. Including how you can maximize the effectiveness of your lead street site, all the great programs RE/MAX is currently doing and sooooo much more…..

3. You should all start getting together to watch some of the GREAT programs on RSN. There are so many programs on every topic you could imagine.

4. Network more with Realtors outside our area, referrals at RE/MAX are a great way to get and give business in this challenging market. (and of course at RE/MAX you keep all of the referral commission)

Dwight sent me this Q & A from a top producing agent, its worth a read….
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing you did yesterday and expecting different results!

1. What are you doing to get sales? I am getting back to basics- working my sphere, farming my neighborhood, calling on FSBO’s / Expireds, working on my scripts for better presentations.

2. How are you marketing your business & listings for less expense? Learning to make better use of internet/email. Calling my SOI instead of mailing/drop bys, being more particular as to the clients I work with- “A” clients get in my car, anything else gets referred or moved to a drip campaign. (I work mostly with buyers.) I no longer will work with a buyer who has not signed a buyer agreement/contract with me. What free sites are showing results for placing your listings on (Portals, social media, etc?) Personally I don’t have any listings, I work mostly with buyers. As a team we are just getting into using the internet as a tool for our listings.

3. Are open houses worth the time of day, right now? I always love to do opens, I find Sunday afternoon to be the best time. I bring my laptop and some work to be done, or a RE book if it is slow. And I usually pick up at least 1 prospect per open house. The key is to make sure you follow up, and maintain contact with them after. We are cutting down on our print advertising and experimenting with some other methods to drive people to our open houses. Some of the things are inviting the neighbors and putting up open house signage early in the week, stating the house will be open, making sure that we put the opens on Craigslist etc. We are just starting, so I really can’t tell you how this will work for us. One of the things we are doing is making sure to ask everyone in the door- where did they learn about the open house.

4. How are you using the new tax incentive for first time home buyers to your advantage? I haven’t really pushed the tax incentive. I mention it and I think I will send a reminder letter to all my qualified buyers in January. Don’t forget to remind that this does need to be repaid over the next few years. So it really is more like a loan than a rebate in my opinion.

5. How are you staying positive in a challenging environment? As I have mentioned before, I am very fortunate that my market area is really holding pretty steady. We are seeing a slight (I think 3% is the number) decrease in sales price. And our foreclosure rate has gone up just .25%- to 1.25%. So really the only challenge I see in my market is overcoming the massive amount of negative media coverage about the market in general. There is a benefit (? Maybe) to all this negative focused media- the sellers are hearing what a bad market it is and my buyers are getting some very good deals right now. My sales are up considerably from last year- I am very thankful.

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