SellingMyHomeSucks.com is unlike any real estate website you’ve ever laid eyes on before and it took nearly 6 months of planning to make it that ugly. Also, you’ll find no IDX, no property search, no tips for buyers or sellers and it contains not one word about local neighborhoods yet I will stake my reputation on this becoming one of the most profitable websites in the real estate sales industry. And that’s even after my wife took one look at it and declared it “tacky”!

So what’s happened here? Has the market change so much that we suddenly find ourselves in a “bizarro world” where ugly is good and beautiful is bad? Well, not really. If you substitute the word “distinctive” for ugly you get at the heart of what Mark was really trying to accomplish. You see, he understood immediately that the key to success online was standing out and being as different as possible from any of your competitors.

And after about six months a rigorous planning on what would appeal to his target market of sellers who have listings that expired, he empowered “distinction” with effectiveness. What makes SellingMyHomeSucks.com so powerful is that it is designed for one thing and one thing only: to have any and all sellers who experienced the failure of not selling want to immediately contact him to take over the marketing of their home. If you put yourself in the position of the expired seller and feel their frustration, anger and confusion then look at SellingMyHomeSucks.com with those eyes, you’ll get the point.

SellingMyHomeSucks.com was “soft launched” (i.e. mostly completed but with a few minor refinements still yet to be done) on May 17, 2011. Mark sent the link to his site to a few of his friends, one of whom forwarded to a friend of theirs who was going to expire in about three days. That person immediately contacted Mark for a listing appointment. Not a bad early indicator.

The take away here is don’t assume anything when it comes to building a website. If there are any fundamentals they are: a) make sure your website speaks to the needs, wants, fears and desires of your intended target market, and b) make it stand out as much is possible from the rest of the competition.

Effective marketing is not about being beautiful. It’s about being seen, standing out and compelling your intended target market to want to do business with you. From this perspective, ugly certainly can be quite beautiful.

Music Travels Uphill Too

Long time Online Dominance students (and eTEAM members) Marie Sue Parsons and her daughter / partner Stephanie Young had a listing in the very exclusive “Riviera” section of Santa Barbara.  The only problem was (and it was a big one), it directly overlooked the famous outdoor Santa Barbara Bowl.  This is where some of the biggest musical acts in the entertainment industry come to our fair city and play under the stars.  However, as everyone knows, sound travels quite effectively uphill.  Anyone looking for a nice quiet neighborhood wouldn’t ever consider this property, despite its breathtaking views.

This is when Marie Sue and Stephanie started thinking out of the box, way out.  Understanding that if sound travels well uphill music will too, they decided to host an exclusive invitation-only open house during the evening that the Steve Miller Band and Stevie Nicks were performing.  They headlined it as the property that offered a free birds-eye view of every Bowl concert (which typically charges big $$ to attend).  Well, the response was incredible and the sellers thought Marie Sue and Stephanie were geniuses for coming up with the idea.

What’s so cool here is that they took the very reason why the average consumer might shun this house and turned it into a unique benefit that a certain segment would kill to have.  This is really smart marketing.  Kudos to Marie Sue (who I’ve known for over 30 years) and Stephanie!  CLICK HERE to see the write up they received in the local Santa Barbara press = great PR…

Don’t Blink…

When I share Doug’s Facebook numbers with audiences the very first question I get is “Great, now what has it done for his business?”.  I can tell you this; Doug gets over 95% of his business online and traffic to his SignificantHomes.com site is up dramatically since last Fall (when his Facebook membership was zero).

Now if you are one of those folks who still doubt the power (and necessity) of social networking within your business, check this out:

And in terms of impact on your business:

EdgeRank optimization appears to be an order of magnitude greater than search engine optimization…

TechCrunch

*EdgeRank is Facebook’s algorithm that measures social networking relevancy.

Clearly Doug’s Facebook numbers put him as an Outlier in the realm of Realtor social media.  Be that as it may, his success on (and as a result of) Facebook is something we all can aspire to.  Just don’t expect to play the online game well without this part of the equation.  Mainly because it IS the equation for success online.

Hi Michael

Just wanted to say I’ve loved what having a niche has done for my business from a personal enjoyment point of view. (it sucks to hate your job). Tomorrow I meet with my broker to go over my business plan for 2010 and I am excited and proud of what I’m doing.

I just had my second annual VIP Client appreciation party, and put pix up on my photo blog. I got a lot of community involvement (donations of prizes) which generated awareness of my business, re-grouping with old clients (who now really love me) and the photo evidence is now further marketing material… so I am sure things could be improved upon, but I wanted to share it with you – here’s the link to my latest photo blog entry: http://photos.dreamhomearlington.com

But the point of this email was to tell you how much I’ve personally enjoyed developing my niche of working with First X Buyers – it totally gives me focus, and something more interesting to talk about than “I sell houses” My broker thinks I’m brilliant.  (blush) and credit to Mr. Internet!

Also, something I just did that others may find interesting: I had $50 American Express gift cards made up with my logo on them - and I’ve been giving them to buyers at Closing, along with a bottle of champagne. I have also used them as “THANK YOU!’s” for referrals. People remember me when they spend the money, and it’s kind of a hit – so I thought I’d share it in case you think others may want to do this. Thanks again, and I welcome any input on my blog/ site, or whatever!

Bija Satterlee
Bowes GMAC
1010 Mass Ave, Arlington 02476
781-354-4835 c
781-643-1741 f
www.bowesre.com
www.dreamhomearlington.com
http://photos.dreamhomearlington.com
http://blog.dreamhomearlington.com

I received the above email last Wednesday.  Bija has since had her annual business review with her broker and followed up with this (received just a few hours ago):

“…I had my annual business meeting review with my broker, and he said not only was I among the top producers in town, and in our office, in his words “Ive never seen an agent put the ‘whole package’ together quite like you have – with your niche, your web site, your blog, the seminars, the whole deal.” I have areas I need to improve in, but he said he was very impressed and proud to have me as an agent in his office. So that was like hitting the jackpot – to get recognition like that from him.”

Do you get a sense of how much she loves the process?  That is actually one of her most powerful success secrets.  If you don’t believe me, just read the following post…

The following is an excerpt from an article posted on the National Association for the Self Employed Website.  If you ever questioned whether VA’s are right for you, this should convince you…

By Phillip M. Perry

For Laura MacDonald, running a successful real estate agency always meant maintaining a full-time staff. And why not? Her two office workers responded efficiently to a flood of housing inquiries from buyers and sellers.

Then the recession hit the real estate industry with the force of a freight train hitting a wall. Her profits threatened, MacDonald knew she had to do something to preserve the viability of her 17-year-old St. Louis-based firm. <continued…>

Given that most people in real estate sales barely make a living, perhaps a better question would be “What do most sales people fail to do?” And I can answer that in a heart beat, they fail to implement the ideas and strategies they already possess.

During last week’s Live Group Coaching session we had one of my very long-term and highly successful students, Douglas Newby share the secrets to his incredible online success. He went from doing practically nothing online to having it comprise 90% of his continually growing business.

If you listened carefully for the “theme” behind his success, it was his committed persistence to implement what he learns. Now imagine that, actually putting into practice new ideas —who would have thought…

A good idea is about ten percent and implementation and hard work, and luck is 90 percent.

Guy Kawasaki

In speaking to the industry for over 15 years I have found that perhaps 1% – 2% of sales associates in any training program fully implement what they learn. So what do the rest do? Well it seems that they are on a never ending quest to find the elusive “silver bullet” that will solve all their problems by simply writing a check. Good luck with that.

The good news is that the ability to consistently implement is a learned behavior. Which means that you can choose to use this sure-fire success strategy at any time. It’s simply a matter of making the choice and then, well… implementing it )

For example, Lee and Noel Bittinger (long time students of mine and now part of my ULTRA eTEAM) work in the Canton, Michigan area.  In case you were wondering, that is a suburb of Detroit —you know, the place where the U.S. car industry imploded and is currently experiencing a 19% unemployment rate (near Great Depression levels).  YET, they shared during today’s eTEAM meeting that they have so many online leads that their buyer agents can’t keep up
—go figure. 

Then there’s Chris Coveny of Ottawa, Canada.  His situation is a bit different and in a much better economy than the Bittinger’s.  However, prior to implementing the Critical First Response email script (required by all eTEAM members to use), he was finding very few online leads bothered to return initial replies from his staff.  Today he reported that in just over 10 days, his secondary responses to this proven email script has exploded to about 80% of every lead that comes in!

So what gives?  How is it these folks thrive when so many others are flailing and floundering?  In working directly with these two (and many others that share the same qualities) I can say that it is simply the fact that they see real estate sales as a business, not a job.  A huge distinction that results in incredible differences in bottom line and quality of life.  Now here’s the best part of all —no one but you has the power to prevent you from treating real estate sales as a true business.  So what’s it going to be?…

What is so great about Helena (among many other things) is that she is not afraid to try new things –a quality I rarely see in Broker / Owners.  As you can see from her letter below, her foray into the world of virtual outsourcing has already paid off in many ways…

Michael,

I just wanted to send you a sincere thank you for the invaluable information obtained from the eTEAMS classes. Most valuable to me thus far has been the unit on virtual assistants. Since joining as an eTEAM member, I have hired a writer through iFreelance to help me write weekly articles and post them to my social networking sites. This has helped my visibility greatly. Additionally, I hired the gals at Real Support Inc to help me out with marketing of my listings, helping me to develop my new web site “TheEmptyNestHomeowner.com”, and also helping me with agent recruiting.

Your weekly tips have been right on as well. The newest one I have used successfully is iPromote.com.

Thank You!
Helena

Helena Talbot, Broker
EXiT Realty Talbot and Company
44121 Harry Byrd Hwy, Ste 205
Ashburn, VA 20147
703-574-3800
703-727-9885 cell

You notice how Helena hired different virtual resources for the different kinds of support she needed?  This is a hallmark of the successful integration of using Virtual Assistants and Consultants.  Find the best specialist to handle a specific and well-defined process that needs to be done.  This way you free yourself up to do more business, or in Helena’s case grow your business as well.

Well, he took the ideas of using Virtual Consultants (as given in the ePRODUCTIVITY™ Course) and really ran with it.  Here’s a portion of the email I just received from him:

Hey Mike
I have found something really good. To make data entries and update my website, I am using through Elance, people in India for $1.50 per hour. They are entering all my keywords, page descriptions, loading pictures, creating pages. For free I dowloaded CAMSTUDIO which allows me to record my screen movements, so I send it as a tutorial to the VA so that they know what to do, rather than spending an hour to write down the keystrokes. See the email below that I responded to and click the link. best part is that when I go to bed, I assign it, and when I wake up it is done.
[CLICK HERE to watch the video]

Warmest Regards,

Roman Pavlik
Team Leader/Broker Associate
Pavlik Real Estate Group
Keller Williams
24/7: 305-965-6947
Cell: 305-343-3910
Fax: 305-675-3809
www.PavlikGroup.com

If you look at what he did carefully, he actually accomplished two very significant things for his business:

1. He outsourced an important task that most sales associates do themselves to a group that does it for $1.50/hr (trust me, Roman’s time is worth many hundreds of times that);
    
2. He quickly, easily and cleverly documented the process he wanted done by using a tool like Camtasia to record the actual process as he does it once on screen.  This gives his VAs an unambiguous process to follow when doing the work.  And it probably took less than 10 minutes to document and upload the entire process this way.

BTW, Roman is so on fire about Virtual Outsourcing that he created a course for his fellow sales associates called “How to Stuff 30 Hours of Productivity Into an 8 Hour Day”.

So what’s the take-a-way here?  Outsource, outsource, outsource anything that is not your core competency and document the process you want done in a way that cannot be misinterpreted.  You lose big money every time you do the work that can be done by someone else.  Lastly, one of the qualities that makes Roman such a great success is that he implements unfailingly.  Is it perfect every time? —no way.  Does he make mistakes? —you bet! Does he always move forward? —without question!!  So now that you know this is such a great idea, what are you going to do?

NOTE: the Camtasia free trial only lasts for about 30 days.  If you want to purchase it you can save a lot of money (if you have a kid in school) by purchasing it through Academic Superstore.

We are proud to announce Valerie Fitzgerald as our next Guest Expert as she shares how she started out in this business making as many (or more mistakes) as anyone and not selling a single thing her first nine months.  She will then cover what she did to radically turn this around to become a multi-millionaire sales professional, corporate executive, philanthropist, speaker and coach all while raising her daughter as a single mom.

There are so few opportunities to experience “the real deal”, and this is one of them.  If you want real world experience on how to change challenge into opportunity and build a business that serves you, DO NOT MISS THIS SESSION!

IMPORTANT: You must register to view the live Webinar. Just go to the following URL: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/448680696 and complete the registration form. The registration confirmation e-mail will give you instructions on how to login to the Webinar.

When: Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 – 7:00pm (EDT)

Call In: Will be given at time of registration

NOTE: This Webinar is part of the regular Online Dominance Live Group Coaching Guest Expert series which is usually for Online Dominance members only.  However, since Valerie is a personal friend of mine I have decided to open this up to Mr. Internet News subscribers as well.