On Monday, in anticipation of the HomeGain Live Nation Real Estate Forum on August 3rd in San Francisco, HomeGain will recognize several agent and broker members in a press release for their success with the HomeGain’s BuyerLink™ per-per-visit marketing program.

The press release will recognize Mitch Ribak of The eHomes Realty Network and Tropical Realty of Suntree in Florida, Debra Gravelle with RE/MAX Home Team Realty in Washington, Rosemary Mancuso of Keller Williams in Massachusetts, and Ron Petzel of Realty Executives in Florida.

Mr. Ribak is on track to sell 350 homes in 2009 with the help of the BuyerLink marketing program. “BuyerLink has helped me increase my business revenues year after year – it brings in over $110,000 per month,” said Mitch Ribak. “We get double the click-to-lead conversion rate using HomeGain versus Yahoo! and Google. We expect to earn over one million dollars in commissions coming from BuyerLink this year.”

Debra Gravelle stated, “I just calculated that I am now over $50,000 in commission from BuyerLink! That’s amazing considering a $600 a month budget.”

“Since September of 2008 I have spent $5,400 and have made back $72,355 in income just from BuyerLink,” said Rosemary Mancuso. Plus, I have 24 home sales pending. HomeGain’s leads are very high quality and I rely on the traffic they send me.” Continue reading this post

Here we are, half way through the year almost. Have you looked in the mirror lately?  On a daily basis I receive emails from Realtors all around the world struggling to succeed in this business.  I am a little perplexed at all the emails actually.  As soon as I ask them my first question, though, the answer is clear.

My question is usually something like, “How are you doing compared to your yearly business plan?” or “What are you doing to ensure you have implemented your business plan?”  I always get the same old answer: “Well I don’t really have a written business plan” or “Sure, I wrote my goals down, I always do…what’s an action plan?”

So what seems to be the disconnect between Realtors and running a business?

Firstly, let’s look at yourself.  Do you run your business as a business?  I had a great letter from an Agent of mine this year, it was for me to read to all my Agents.  Anna May has been in real estate for 20 years and has had many successes.  I don’t have the email handy, but I’ll paraphrase it:

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I know that most everyone looks at me as an Internet guy who is good at lead conversion. As much as that is one of my strong points, one of my favorite things I do is teach my agents about Customer Education. Over the past few months I have spent a ton of money to educate myself on new concepts I could bring to the real estate world to help my company increase our business.  

One of our biggest obstacles, and most likely one of yours, is the lack of commitment that many home buyers are making these days. When I started my search a few months ago, I had no idea what I was going to learn.

I learned how to use Customer Education in our business to help drive sales.

Usually, as Realtors, we are quick to blame everyone and everything else about why a customer didn’t end up buying a home from us. I have observed this since I got into the business in 2001.  Since then I have realized that in order to become successful in this business, in fact in any business, is to accept responsibility and learn from our errors. Over the past year our Real Estate Agents have averaged 8 new buyers per month but only sold 1 home per 8 buyers per month.  

After analyzing these numbers, I realized that the reason Buyers were not commiting was because of the lack of information or more importantly their misinformation. After all, we are all products of the media these days and if they say the Real Estate market is bad, that’s a great excuse for Realtors not to become successful.  

If the Realtors don’t believe in the market, how can the buyer believe?

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Join HomeGain for its quarterly event LIVE on Thursday, March 19.

During the session you’ll hear strategic advice from a panel of experts essential to your success in real estate in 2009, having an opportunity to ask the experts questions specific to your own business. Due to the growing popularity of the event, there will be a new format, which will allow more time for questions, and you can even send your questions in advance!

When: Thursday, March 19, 2009

Time: 10am — 11am PST

Cost: None

Meet the Experts: Continue reading this post

Hi everyone! It’s been some time since I have written. The good news is I have been busy developing new skills to teach my staff. Any of you who know me know I’m very into training and keeping my staff updated

on their training, etc. Of course, most of the time, I have been teaching others how to do what we do here at Tropical Realty in Melbourne, Florida. Recently, however, I have decided I needed to work a little more on my business than traveling around the country. 

Since the beginning of the year I have been working on how I can take my team of 20 Real Estate Agents to the next level.  One of my goals is to help all my Agents become successful. I’m so fortunate to have such a wonderful group of Agents working for me. Even though some might be struggling and not working as hard as I like, they are all great people. With that said, I also have a business to run and to grow.  I won’t be happy until my Agents are all doing at least 36 transactions per year each or more.  I know they can do it, and I’m learning day by day how to be a better teacher. Up until recently I had always blamed my Agents for not working our system strong enough. But, recently I realized that I have been training all wrong and have to change the way I teach. 

Here are 6 things about training that I’ve learned so far:

1. The only way you can become better is to commit at least 1 hour per week to training and becoming an expert in just a few skills.  Just 1 hour per week can have a profound benefit to your business.
    
2. It’s not about knowing 4,000 things a few times.  It’s about doing 3 or 4 things 4,000 times.  Once you do, you are an expert!

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Hi Everyone! I hope you all had a great holiday season and are on your way to success in 2009. 

I have been working on a lot of new stuff lately and new training programs for The eHomes Realty Network.  Most of what I teach are things that I have learned through my business at Tropical Realty or from books or seminars. 

This past December I had the opportunity to go to see Tony Robbins perform his miracles.  He was truly amazing and I took so much away from his teachings.

So much of what he says relates to our business. 

Here are a few points:

Change the Meaning and Change the Outcome

I’ve learned so many things in my life and never realized how simple something is to change and implement.  As easy as this sounds is as easy as it is.  Here is the deal.  Right now almost every real estate agent I deal with around the country is complaining about how bad the Real Estate market is right now.  I hear the same story from everyone. ” I have 25 home listings and they are not selling.  The home sellers are yelling at me and blaming me because their home is overpriced”.  Everyone is talking about this terrible Real Estate market. 

What if you took a second and looked at it differently?  Firstly, if you are a seller it’s a tough market…no question.  Believe me, our office is in Melbourne, Florida, one of the worst hit in the country.  What if you looked at our business from the buying side?

Continue reading this post