Ask HomeGain – July-August 2011 Issue

Question:
I have been using AgentEvaluator for about a month but I’m not seeing the results I had hoped for. What gives?

When working with the Agent Evaluator service, it’s important to remember that this is a way of branding yourself online and establishing a relationship with potential home sellers/buyers in your area. Think of this as your business card that you’re handing out personally to serious home sellers/buyers; and yes, they are serious. When a consumer enters the website to “find and compare a realtor”, those leads are filtered through our AgentEvaluator service to be sent to several agents at once to allow the consumer to anonymously review and choose whom they might want to work with.

This is a long-term performing service where you’ll see the most success if you stay with it for a longer amount of time. If you calculate the amount you pay per month over the course of one year and figure out how many listings you would have to close to cover the expenses for this marketing solution, you will see that your Return on Investment will be very high in the long run.

Our most successful agents get the best results when their response is customized to that particular lead by responding to the details of the consumer’s profile that was provided. To assist you in winning the leads that you submit proposals for, here are a few tips:

• Respond quickly. Preferably respond within 24 hours or less. Timeliness is important, 1 in 4 consumers select their HomeGain agent within 24 hours while 8 in 10 take up to a week. A timely response is also one of the most important elements of success. It conveys professionalism and lets prospects know that you are eager to have their business. Often a consumer chooses the agent who responds first.
• Personalize your response. Nothing dissuades a consumer more than receiving a canned response from an agent. Your proposal can be a saved template, but be sure to change the Personal Response for each consumer to whom you submit a proposal.
• Follow up with a consumer. Whether they have read your proposal or not, you can send an updated proposal to the consumer. That will trigger a notification to the consumer advising them of the updated proposal from you. Please keep in mind that the updated proposal will replace the previous one that you sent. To avoid having the consumer lose all of your info, add the follow up content to your previously sent proposal so the consumer still has access to all of your info plus the new info you wanted to input. To submit a follow up proposal, click on the “Submit” or “submitted” link in the Proposal column next to the appropriate lead. You may either edit your existing proposal, or create a new proposal. Once you have completed your changes, click on “Preview” to see your proposal. Once you are satisfied with your proposal, click on “Submit Changes” and your new proposal will replace your original proposal in the prospect’s Control Center.
• Eliminate jargon. Although you are embroiled in the day-to-day business of the real estate profession, many prospects don’t know the first thing about real estate.

Remember the consumer can view your summary proposal the moment they log into their account. Once in their account, they have access to see and compare information you’ve submitted against the information that other real estate agents have submitted.

Hopefully these tips will help you achieve success while conducting business with HomeGain. You should also research the Agent Resource Center located on the HomeGain website for excellent tips and suggestions on the use of HomeGain’s services.