Featured Real Estate Agent of the Month

“Your Personality Drives Your Online Business”

Brian Block, Esq., REALTOR / Attorney
ABR, CRS, ePRO, GRI, SRES
Block Real Estate Group, LLC
RE/MAX Allegiance

A large part of a real estate agent’s success is being likable. We all prefer to work with people we like. The same applies to selecting a real estate agent.

Met in person, it’s easy to assess an agent’s personality right away. But business over the Internet may not always be so simple. Writing styles don’t always translate – it could be too dry, too silly, too short or too casual. Plus, not all agents are aware of Internet best practices. An agent might email too often, not reply fast enough or come across too short. A website might have an unclear font, unattractive colors or show too many photos.

All this speaks to the agent’s personality. It’s an interpretation of who you are and what you can do for your client.

One HomeGain agent, Brian Block, has found a mix of online marketing tools where he can efficiently and effectively show his personality, and communicate via the Internet to the degree where he can convert online prospects into clients – resulting in over 70% of his business.

His personality and online expertise shines through in his website, emails, his Blog and AgentEvaluator proposals.

His success with online business wasn’t overnight. It took time to get the right balance and the know-how. For instance, Brian’s blog, VirginiaRealEstateNews.net, now receives an average of 300 visitors per day, but it used to get 300 for the entire month.

Brian stated, “ The more I write, the more I’m out there for people to find me. People I meet with after they’ve seen my blog have already gotten to know my personality, my philosophy, my business, my processes. So not only are they well-informed and educated about getting started, but they feel a connection to me and aren’t meeting with other agents.”

He was recently interviewed by CBS News in a segment titled, “All Aboard the Foreclosure Bus”. A reporter read an article that he wrote on his blog about foreclosures and invited him to be a part of their segment. This is further proof that Brian’s online communication methods are working well!

As a HomeGain AgentEvaluator agent since 2006, Brian is able to show his personality in his proposals that he sends to potential clients.

“HomeGain offers a great marketing system,” said Brian. “I have created a few proposals in which I describe my business, balancing professionalism with personality. I’ve adjusted and improved my proposal templates so that now I see a good response rate. I currently have a few buyers I’m working with as a result!”

Brian also has multiple tiers of emails set up to communicate with clients and prospective clients. He keeps a database of emails and manages them closely. One of his regular emails is a daily update of homes for sale. See his lead capture web page at www.SearchHomesbyEmail.com.

Visit Brian’s website at www.BrianBlock.com to learn by example for how you can improve the way you show your personality online.

To learn how you get started with your own Agent Blog, send out drip marketing emails, and better communicate with potential clients, visit www.homegain.com/source4sellers!

Using AgentEvaluator to Win More Deals – Part 1

The Role of Competitive Proposals

Real estate professionals who participate in HomeGain’s AgentEvaluator product provide homebuyers and sellers with a wide variety of choices—buyer vs. seller specialists; new vs. experienced agents; agents who focus on relos, condos, vacation homes, divorces, and pretty much anything else you can imagine.

While having an array of options from which to choose can be a good consumer value proposition, it also can create stiff competition among our agent customers, especially in large, active markets.

Agents may propose their services to 1% of their HomeGain leads or 100%; on average, agents propose to 73% of the consumer leads they receive from us. HomeGain has the responsibility to ensure that homebuyers or sellers receive an adequate number of agent proposals from which to choose.

This is one of the reasons why HomeGain originally elected not to implement limits on the number of agents who can sign up for a given market area.

This method seems to work, at least from the consumer’s viewpoint — in an April, 2008 survey of consumers who bought or sold a home using a HomeGain agent, nearly 9 out of 10 said they received “Enough” or “Not Enough” agent proposals from which to choose. Just over 1 out of 10 felt they received too many.

In both the offline and online worlds, the competition for consumers is getting tougher.

The good news for those who use our website is that the percentage of consumers who select a HomeGain agent is up 26% over the 4 th quarter, 2006. Consumers who buy or sell a home with a HomeGain agent read 86% of the proposals that are submitted to them. That means that your proposals are being read by our highest qualified buyers and sellers. Of those who eventually decide not to use an agent other than one found through HomeGain, 85% read at least half of their proposals before reaching this decision.

That means most are reading and comparing the proposals to find the one that’s best suited to their needs, but many still find that the proposals don’t do that.

Competition in some HomeGain markets can be challenging. To succeed, an agent must effectively differentiate themselves or potential clients won’t select them to be their agent.

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Question of the Month

Please help, HomeGain!

What does a consumer see when they get a proposal (AgentEvaluator) from me? I saw a screenshot in the training session where it looked like the consumer could read a summary of my proposal. Where does this summary come from?

-- Tom Vercetti, Miami, FL

Good question, Tom!

Like you, the consumer has their own control center where they can review all of the proposals that have been submitted. On this control center, they see your name, level of consumer feedback, business history, designations as well as your proposal summary. The proposal summary consists of the first 120 characters from your proposals personal response section. These 120 characters will include any spaces, special characters and punctuation  you may have entered into this section. Be smart with what you put in this section though! These first 120 characters (about 2 sentences) give you a great opportunity to catch your consumer’s attention and differentiate yourself from your competition. Instead of talking about how many years you've been with a local brokerage or how many hours of community service you completed last month, talk about how you can help that individual consumer achieve their goals! Maybe you have a unique listing and selling program, or a special cash back offer for buyers that can be mentioned instead. Remember, the focus should be on the consumer and what you can do for them; let your competition talk about themselves while you get the business.

Here's an example of what this control center looks like:

Best Regards,
Client Services Team

Poll of the Month

Help your sellers get their home ready for sale. Request your free Home Sale Maximizer™ guides!

HomeGain Adds 2 New Features to Source4Sellers

This month, we are excited to announce that we’ve released two, in a series of three, planned enhancements - Agent Profile and Agent Blog.

Agent Profiles improves the way visitors and agents meet and interact. Source4Sellers agents can now display their contact information, business history and professional biographies.

Agent Blog enables all Source4Sellers agents to have their own blog to communicate with consumers and show their expertise, experience and personality.

HURRY–The first 25 agents to start their blog will receive a FREE MAX!

A Gorilla In Real Estate’s Midst

1000 Watt Blog talks about the value of a good brand and HomeGain’s Max campaign. “Good brands reinvent themselves according to the evolution of their clientele,” a blog reader commented.

Give Your Listings a Boost! As a HomeGain member, you can upload your home listings for FREE.

HomeGain Clubs

Congratulations to HomeGain's newest Platinum Club, Gold Club and Silver Club members. These members represent our top performing real estate professionals nationwide and receive a reduced referral fee rate.

To find out if you may qualify for Silver, Gold or Platinum status, please contact your Regional Manager or send an email to agent@homegain.com.

March New Members

Agents who have closed $125,000 in gross commissions from HomeGain leads

Agents who have closed $75,000 in gross commissions from HomeGain leads

Agents who have closed $50,000 in gross commissions from HomeGain leads

Customer Advocate of the Month

Each month, HomeGain recognizes one person who upholds and represents HomeGain’s high standards of customer care.

HomeGain is pleased to announce the Customer Advocate of the Month is Llena Hemsley, Senior Regional Manager in the Triangulation Department.

Llena excels at building customer loyalty on a regular basis. Llena has forged many long-term relationships with her customers during her time with HomeGain. Most recently, she has been driving the Classified Ventures Employee Agent Referral program. Through this program a good number of CV employees across all verticals are being connected with a HomeGain real estate agent to assist them fulfill their real estate needs.

Llena is extremely service oriented and creative in developing solutions that help her agents. Just recently, one of Llena's accounts had a case of identity theft. Llena was able to find a workable solution to allow this agent to continue to receive leads and close HomeGain business while resolving her personal issue. That's only one example of many in which Llena goes above and beyond for her customers.

Find the estimated value of homes. Try our new instant home valuation tool.

In This Issue

• Feature Story
• ‘Win More Deals’ Article
• Question of the Month
• Monthly Poll
• HomeGain News – Start Your Own Agent Blog!
• ‘Value of a Brand’ Blog Article
• New Club Agents
• Customer Advocate of the Month

Marketing Solutions

• AgentEvaluator
• BuyerLink
• Source4Sellers
• AIMS

Top 5 Blog Posts

• Mortgage Rate Truth
• HomeGain Cries Flattery On Zillow
• What AgentEvaluator Buyers and Sellers Want
• HomeGain Invents Agent Profiles
• Real Estate 2.0: 1 - HomeGain: 0

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