Turn Listing Drudgery Into An Unbeatable
Competitive Weapon
Taking a new listing is always a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand you have new potential business, on the other there are a ton of details to address while managing the listing through to its sale. Depending upon how elaborate you are in supporting and marketing your listings, this can take up a major portion of your time. And the more listings you take, the more likely details will fall through the cracks and the echoes of sellers screaming "What's going on with the sale of my property?!" becomes louder. This "do it yourself" approach creates a major barrier to the number of new listings any agent can handle at one time. The good news for you however, is that you are about to learn a strategy that will free you up to take as many listings as you want, have total control over what needs to get done, and even gives you an unbeatable competitive edge during your listing presentation. Sound too good to be true? —read on... Systemize, Delegate, Automate Listing Marketing Coordination (LMC) is the process of handling all aspects of marketing a new listing and keeping the seller informed up to and including the point of sale. Effective listing marketing coordination consists of these three parts:
To illustrate how these go together, the following is an example of how one of my students, Joan Prout of RE/MAX Villa REALTORS® in Jersey City, NJ uses virtual assistant Carrie Gable of Palatine, IL to handle all of her listing marketing coordination details:
It's exhausting just reading this list isn't it?! Yet, nearly every item here is done for Joan by her Virtual Listing Marketing Coordinator. This frees her up to take as many listings as she wants while knowing that all the details will be handled expertly. Now that is what I call "control"! Yet there is more... Turning Drudgery Into A Competitive Weapon Clearly, most other sales professionals don't have a prayer of competing with Joan for listings if they try to do it all themselves. Also, what kind of reaction do you think a prospective seller is going to have when they see that Joan has her own dedicated "Listing Marketing Coordinator" that will execute a huge array of marketing activities and give them comprehensive reports on a weekly basis? With the help of her VA Joan has effectively turned listing "grunt" work into a powerful tool to beat out other listing agents and free her up to do what she does best. So what does this kind of support cost? According to Carrie Gable, Joan's VA, typical listing marketing coordination packages executed by her team will run from $150 - $450 per listing, depending on your required list of tasks for each listing. NOTE: The Prelisting and Marketing Presentation tasks are extra. Keep in mind that each VA specializing in listing marketing coordination will have their own pricing schedule. Is it worth it? If you ask Joan I think you will know what the answer will be. As a real estate sales professional you have two choices: you can either be a slave to your business, or you can have it serve you —which is it going to be for your business? Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He's dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. You'll see his column on REALTOR® Magazine Online every month and in the magazine quarterly. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Web site at http://www.russer.com This article is reprinted in its entirety from the May 2005 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright 2005. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark and Ask Mr. Internet!™ is a trademark of RUSSER Communications. |