Dollar-Productivity: What to Start, Stop, and Continue in 2024
Real estate moves fast, and in order to keep up, you have a lot to manage, maintain, and strengthen. With competing priorities and new goals for 2024, it's more important than ever to zero in on the strengths, weaknesses, and areas of opportunity for your business. This helps ensure you're maximizing dollar-productivity, or the tasks that will generate revenue for your business. By having a strong lay of the land for the current state of your business, you have ample opportunity to know what to start, stop, and continue to ensure success. Let's take a look at how you can execute this exercise. The First Step to Determining Ways to Maximize Your Productivity Before you dive headfirst into deciding what to start, stop, and continue in 2024 to drive more income, it's important you first get a lay of the land. Without knowing exactly where you're starting, it can be difficult to identify where you can pare down, and other places you can scale up. First, take a look at what daily tasks you're performing for each revenue-generating area of your business, like lead generation, marketing, and follow-up. Then, measure your own success metrics directly related to generating revenue. As you review 2023's performance, make sure to measure things like: How many leads are you generating? What are your best lead generation sources? How many phone calls are you making? How many calls does it take for you to have a conversation? How many conversations does it take for you to get a meeting? What's your client conversion rate? How about your lead conversion rate? By understanding the current state of your business, you'll have a strong grasp on areas of opportunity, things you can eliminate, and what you can strengthen this year. Doing this early in the year helps you gain the right footing on the path of planning ahead, especially since you're equipping yourself with a year's worth of fresh, recent data. How Exactly to Determine What to Start, Stop, and Continue in 2024 Now that you're deeply familiar with your key success metrics, you also have a good view into what's working, what can stay the same (or be kicked up a notch), and what you can cut out completely. Remember: the goal is dollar-productivity. This means you need to assess exactly which activities you're doing are ones that are either helping, hurting, or maintaining your revenue goals. Use each of the following areas to assess what you can start, stop, and continue for the year ahead. We recommend getting a piece of paper and creating columns for each of these actions and categorizing your efforts appropriately. Marketing and Lead Generation When it comes to deciding which of your marketing efforts are worth starting, stopping, and continuing, you have a lot of opportunity to refine in this space. Since we're approaching this from an income-based perspective, start by looking at your top-performing marketing sources from a lead volume and conversion perspective. Where are you generating the most leads? What is the conversion rate on those leads turning into clients? How long does it take for them to go from "client" to "closed deal"? Knowing what's working well will help you understand what you can continue. To know what to stop, flip these same questions on their head by looking at your lowest performers for marketing. Is there anything viable? Can anything be improved? If you answer "no," it's a good idea to trim the fat and stop those efforts. But if there's a chance things can be improved, like if you've transitioned to a new market, hired marketing help, or have acquired a higher marketing budget, formulate a game plan to continue these efforts, and set a timeline to ensure you're staying on track. Then, revisit these questions above. Follow-Up and Conversion Rates Your approach to follow-up is what gets looky-loos to become leads, who then turn into clients. Earlier, we recommended you measure your phone call volume, how many calls it takes to get a real conversation, and then the amount of chats that lead to an actual meeting with the prospective client. It's also important to assess your follow-up via email and text message. How many email and text touches does it take to get on the phone? How many to get a meeting? Analyzing these averages will help you find the sweet spot of turning casual conversation into committed clients. If you find your outbound phone call volume is sky-high with limited success, consider adding in email and text touchpoints. To view the original article, visit the Inside Real Estate blog. Related reading Double Down on These 5 Marketing Basics to Start Your 2024 Out Strong 24 Fresh Lead Generation Strategies for 2024 Top 5 Hot Tech Trends in 2024 and How They Will Benefit You

The Future for Real Estate Professionals: 8 Ways to Stay Ahead
While we can't take a sneak peek into a crystal ball to see the future of the average real estate professional, it's no surprise there's a lot changing in — and around — the industry. Instead of playing guessing games, we're breaking down the top best practices you can expect to leverage as we move into the future. Staying Ahead of the Curve Oftentimes, it seems like the latest device or technology is coming up and out at breakneck speed. It can be tough to stay on top of the latest and greatest, but the agent of the future is already ahead of the curve — and on the cutting edge. To get ahead, stay on top of the most helpful, innovative tech used in real estate, and invest in learning how to use it, and make it work for you. Expanding Your Influence and Network The modern agent knows the importance of networking and building influence. By investing thoughtfully into networking opportunities, their personal brand, client experiences, and professional connections, you can expand your reach and recognition. This will help grow and develop your prospect and client database, as well as help drive opportunities to expand professionally. Distinctive Personal Branding Nowadays, everyone is positioning themselves as some type of expert online. To stand out from the competition in your market, and also from countless other online users, agents need to have strong, distinctive branding for themselves. In a social media-centric age, having a clear identity online is a must. And in real estate, ensuring that identity transcends online and offline channels is non-negotiable. In the future, agents will need to invest in their personal brand, monitor its performance, and audit and refine their brand as needed. Macro — and Micro — Market Understanding In the future, agents need to have a key understanding of the market beyond their own ZIP code. With national market shifts and trends not seen in decades becoming more and more common, the modern agent needs to understand what these changes mean, how they impact their local market, and how to translate it all to the average consumer. While you're typically dialed into your local area's happenings, you also need a deeper understanding of the state of the national market to bridge the gap and educate consumers. Investing in Transaction Tools Agents shouldn't hold themselves back from the latest and greatest technology, especially when it helps them work smarter, and not harder. One of the most useful pieces of tech for agents to use in the future is transaction tools. Transaction tools are software specifically designed to make the transaction process seamless from start to finish. By leveraging these tools, you can streamline the transaction process as a whole, and enjoy the benefit of them taking manual work off your plate. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Automation As artificial intelligence tools and automation features become more and more commonplace, the modern agent can work with these tools, rather than against them. For a powerful approach, they can anticipate using technology to do things like manage daily tasks, meetings, or documents. Tech can also be leveraged to automate things like tracking, marketing, and lead follow-up. In turn, agents are able to use their extra time to build a unique client experience for each lead and client to strengthen and grow their business. Ensuring Strong Client Relationships Real estate pros are experts at providing an excellent client experience — but how can they keep the connection strong long after they leave the closing table? By investing in strong client relationships and staying in touch with them, long after the transaction is over. In the future, agents need to continue building upon the trust and rapport established during the transaction. This can be done by creating customized email nurture campaigns for past clients, hosting exclusive appreciation events, and sending small holiday or anniversary gifts. The modern agent knows maintaining strong client connections can lead to future business and plenty of referrals, and invests in these relationships meaningfully. Creating Unique Client Journeys Not every transaction is a one-size-fits-all, and agents' approach to each and every client journey must be unique to reflect this. By personalizing the client journey, you can build stronger relationships, empower your client, and ensure a stellar customer experience to drive repeat business and referrals. Take stock of the details and characteristics of each client and use it to tailor their journey accordingly. Leverage the power of customized email nurture campaigns, personalized educational resources and content, and always aim to be transparent and open in your communication. To view the original article, visit the Inside Real Estate blog.

Hey, Agent: Want to Own a Brokerage? 4 Questions to Ask Yourself
As a real estate agent, one of the most exciting (and pivotal) points in your career comes when you decide it's time to move from working as an individual agent to running a brokerage. There are a few ways you can take this step, and Finley Hair, a merger-and-acquisitions expert at WAV Group, has some questions to ask that will help you determine which path is the right one for you. Taking the next step to grow your business is always a big turning point for any company. For producing real estate agents who want to grow, there might be no bigger turning point than when they decide they're ready to operate their own brokerage. The big question at this stage in the process is: Should you build your first brokerage from the ground up, or should you consider buying or acquiring a business that's already launched? There are benefits and drawbacks to each approach. When I'm working with clients who are trying to make this decision, here are the questions I encourage them to ask themselves. Do you want to own a company or operate a business? The main premise that many agents who want to grow don't understand is that the joy they get from their careers does not come from working on the business, but in the business. However, working on your business as an entrepreneur is the only way you will ever build anything of significance. Many agents who become top producers would be better off with someone else running their brokerage for them. There are exceptions to this rule, of course. Every big company in America began as a startup, and while some startups can be tremendously successful, the majority end in failure. If your focus is not on operating a brokerage, but rather owning a piece of something that's larger than your own production, then there are ways to maintain your own career and stake your claim of ownership in a real estate business without building a company from the ground up. (A good consultant can help walk you through those options.) Who's going to run the brokerage? Operating a real estate brokerage is a full-time job. While owning a brokerage might seem attractive, brokers who still want to focus on their own sales careers are going to have to make sacrifices on one side of the fence or the other, which tends to be bad for both the brokerage and the agent's individual sales. Agents love a good brokerage manager, and that is the hardest position to fill. You need to find someone who understands real estate (and who enjoys it), and who can also read and evaluate a profit-and-loss statement. That's a rare find, and it might be easier to buy a brokerage with a manager already in place and operating than to try to hire one for a company you're creating. What amount of capital do you have to spend? The common understanding is that buying a real estate brokerage is expensive — and it can be, depending on your ownership stake and how the deal is set up. However, launching a business is at least three times as expensive as you are estimating it is. You'll need a lot more capital than you think you do in order to open your doors. Many top-producing agents who want to grow might be better off building a powerful team under a brokerage, even one with a high split, especially if you can negotiate an agreement to keep 100% of your earnings after you reach a certain level. Which brokerage might you want to acquire? This is one area where it can get tricky, and one reason why many agents opt to build a brokerage instead of to buy one. Some of the best brokerages in your market are almost certainly not for sale, and well-run brokerages often have a succession plan in place with existing long-term agents. Another important variable is culture. You want to make sure that you're looking at companies that fit your own personality. Making sweeping cultural changes after purchasing a brokerage is a good way to lose a lot of money when your top-producing agents decide they can't stand working there any longer. Whether you decide to buy your first brokerage or build one from the ground up, one resource that can be infinitely beneficial for any agents who want to grow is advice from a seasoned consultant. We work with dozens (even hundreds) of clients who have similar questions, and we can help you make an objective decision that will help support your dreams for years to come. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

2 Steps to a 2023 Social Media Plan You'll Actually Use
We want to make planning and executing a social media strategy for 2023 as simple as possible for you. So here are two easy steps and 100+ post ideas to help you do just that. Step 1: Build a Content Calendar with this Template Putting a social media strategy in place involves some serious scheduling, and that means using a calendar. But don't start from scratch—save time by using this Social Media Content Calendar template. Learn how to customize the calendar and decide what to post in this video: Step 2: Schedule Out Your Posts Once you set your calendar up, it's time to schedule your posts. Get post ideas from these 116 resources: 42 Customizable Posts for Social Media 10 Market Update Templates 64 Graphics for Promoting Your Listings Strategize Better Up your game by learning how to integrate social into a broader promotional strategy. Meet (and beat) market challenges by using social media to thrive in a low inventory market. Need inspiration? Check out these 12 Real Estate Influencers Who Built a Business on Social Media, or read more articles about social media.

Friday Freebie: 2023 Real Estate Lead Generation Plan
You've got your overall 2023 business plan down—now it's time to hone in on the nitty-gritty details of your lead generation strategy for the year ahead. To help you do just that, we're highlighting a lead generation planning guide in this week's Friday Freebie. It's completely editable and helps you focus in on your strengths, weaknesses, lead gen goals, budget, strategies and more! Read on to learn how to download your FREE copy. Free download of the 2023 Real Estate Lead Generation Plan, courtesy of Zurple There are 44 days until the new year. Are you ready to meet the challenges of the 2023 real estate market head on? Put your best foot forward with a solid strategy for generating and converting leads. The 2023 Real Estate Lead Generation Plan helps you define your goals and strategies in order to give you solid, actionable steps to take in 2023. The Plan is editable and acts as a worksheet to help you think about and map out your lead gen strategy. Here's what's included: SWOT and competition analyses Lead generation goal setting worksheet Lead generation initiatives worksheet Worksheet for identifying your ideal customers Lead generation plan with space to detail strategies, lead gen channels, performance, budget, etc. And more Get ready to drum up all the business you can handle. Download the 2023 Real Estate Lead Generation Plan now!

Building a 'Rinse-Repeat' Real Estate Business
Real estate is all about being in the moment -- being in the right place at the right time.  As you're focused on landing that next big win, your business can easily become fragmented. However, the best real estate businesses are able to establish an organized strategy for generating, engaging, and converting leads. This is achieved by repeating productive actions that push a business forward, ensuring success in both the "right now" moment and the long-term future. Ultimately, this sets an organization up for a continual stream of business. Optimizing your sales funnel through proper lead generation, engagement, and follow up: Builds brand recognition and a loyal customer base Improves the experience your clients have from first impression to closing Opens the door to opportunities for repeat business Invites referrals from past clients If you're interested in accessing these benefits, the first step is to create a seamless operations protocol for communicating with — and converting — your leads. Here are strategies for building consistency and establishing a "rinse and repeat" model for sustainable success. #1. Understand the Lead Funnel (and Work It Appropriately) How well are you working with your lead funnel? If you're only investing attention and outreach into the leads in your database that are conversion-ready, you're missing out on the chance to warm up colder leads. One of the best ways to keep your sales funnel running smoothly is to have a strategy in place to nurture the leads that are further out from buying. Even if a lead is not ready for business, you can become a pillar of support by sharing valuable information and relevant real estate advice. By doing so, you'll be building trust and staying top-of-mind — so that when the lead is ready to buy, they will choose you instead of a competitor. Pro Tip: Stay in touch with your leads by adding them to your email marketing campaign. If you tag your leads based on how far along they are on the conversion timeline, you'll be able to send targeted outreach emails for buyers in their position. Real estate teams who tag all of their cold and lukewarm leads will be able to curate bulk emails to engage buyers until they're hot. 8 Types of Content to Send Cold and Lukewarm Leads: Market reports Home buying guides Mortgage preparation packets Glossary of real estate terms Tips to prepare for a stress-free move Strategies for navigating a buyer or seller market Things to do in your community Small business shoutouts #2. Leverage Automated Marketing To save time, automate your email marketing outreach. Working with automated email campaigns allows agents to work closely with their current clients while still warming up their colder leads. This builds a cycle of momentum that can prevent "dry seasons" in your business — as deals close, other leads convert into business. BoomTown's SmartDrip reimagines traditional email marketing campaigns by: Creating more personable messages Optimizing email open rates Eliminating awkward experiences Grading effectiveness of the campaign Creating a "cheat sheet" for success based on your community of leads SmartDrip is efficient, allowing agents to engage their leads even if they're on vacation!  BoomTown's eAlerts introduce added value to your buyer leads by sharing instant updates anytime pertinent changes are made to listing data based on their customized search criteria. Your leads will receive emails on your behalf, alerting them to the most current listing updates relevant to their home search. This gives your clients a competitive advantage over other buyers in the market! #3. Train Your Team to Seamlessly Repeat the Process One of the biggest challenges to developing a true "rinse and repeat" real estate business can be adopting the new processes and technologies required to keep the flow going. Adopting new technologies and committing time to their use is the only way to activate the full potential of the tools you're investing in. As you're building the model that will result in noteworthy wins, make sure that you're training your team members and spending time working with the assistance teams from your new tools. The more your team masters the technology, the more seamlessly it can be integrated into your real estate workflow to generate the best results. Pro Tip: When it comes to engaging with leads and reaching out to your database contacts, consistency is the key to success. Agents and teams need to commit the time and effort required to warm up new leads until they're ready to convert, as well as stay in contact with past clients to gain repeat business and referrals. To view the original article, visit the BoomTown blog.

Friday Freebie: 2022 Real Estate Business Plan and Strategy Guide
Here we are in the fourth quarter of 2021 with 2022 looming on the horizon. Is it too early to plan ahead? Not in today's market! With ever-tightening inventory, now's the perfect time to create--and budget for--strategies that will elevate your business in 2022. To help you out, we're highlighting a business planning guide in this week's Friday Freebie that comes complete with worksheets and performance calculators that will help you prepare for a profitable 2022. Free download of 2022 Real Estate Business Plan and Strategy Guide, courtesy of Zurple "If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going." That's a Maya Angelou quote, but it's applicable to planning for your business' future. The 2022 Real Estate Business Plan and Strategy Guide offers worksheets to help you understand your performance in 2021 so that you can better plan for 2022. In addition, this free guide offers: Real estate news stories to help your clients understand the current market Tips for success in 2022 Lead generation strategies Worksheets for calculating your performance in 2021 Worksheets for helping you set goals and strategize for 2022 Tools, including lead generation and performance calculators Get ready to tackle 2022 and download your FREE copy of Zurple's 2022 Real Estate Business Plan and Strategy Guide now!

Close the Year Strong: 5 Ways to Regroup, Recharge and Reach Goals
Summer is sailing by and Q4 is looming. Are you on track to hit your 2021 goals, or is time to reevaluate your actions and priorities to catch up? Here are five ways to make sure you're doing everything, and have everything you need to achieve in 2021. 1. Double Down on Lead Generation Many are scaling back on their ad spend, but this is prime time to build that database, and prepare for the market to shift. So many claim this as the "height of the market," so consumers are stalling, but the buyers will be back, and you need to have the tech and the teams in place to make sure you're there first. Many of our top-performing clients have begun doubling their ad spend for buyer leads. They're playing the long game and front-loading their database to get ahead of the market. 2. Audit Your Technology Solutions Are your tech solutions working for you? Has your team adopted the systems? Now is a key time to take a hard look at the systems you have in place to see where some gaps might be. An issue we see a lot is disparate systems and point solutions that aren't communicating with each other, and keeping data in the corner. Audit your software and services and make sure you're leveraging them to improve your service offering. Make sure they're taking work off your plate, and not adding to it. Investing time in getting this right this means you can step back from the whirlwind. It means your direct involvement in every fire drill is unnecessary, and the fire drills are few and far between. It also means that your team understands the expectations and they "why." They know that when A happens, the next step is B, and then we move to C. Streamlining your systems with a state-of-the-art CRM that houses everything and connects to your favorite point solutions is the way to win. It's one log in. One data dashboard. One place for your database and marketing tools. One winning business plan in one place. 3. Optimize Your Time and Delegate Tom Ferry often talks about the "It's Gotta Be Me" mindset. You need to make sure you're not in it. If you're bogged down in the administrative work in your business, not focusing on your dollar-productive activities, then you're stifling your growth. For example, Ferry shared that there are 11 hours of work involved to close out a file during every side of a real estate transaction. How many of those 11 hours are you involved in? The best answer here is "None, Tom! I outsource it all!" On average, BoomTown customers report that they are empowered to spend 50% more time on dollar-productive activities. Hot leads are prioritized, systems are optimized for accountability, and agents are freed up from admin work. There's a proven formula for success: prioritizing your time based on your most dollar-productive activities, leveraging the value of your database, and diversifying and growing your lead sources. Most real estate professionals are experts in their field, but that doesn't mean they're experts at digital marketing, or necessarily need to flex their expertise to nurture buyers and sellers who are far-out in the buying or selling process. 4. Reinvigorate Your Marketing Markets are crowded, competition is fierce, and you need to differentiate your real estate business. So how can you cut through the noise and set yourself apart from the competition without putting more work on your plate and trying to make time appear out of nowhere? Smart tech and customizable marketing can cut through the digital noise, differentiate you from the competition, and build trust. Launch custom landing pages to target buyers and sellers in refreshing ways (digitally!) Create automated drip campaigns keep your leads engaged, and you top-of-mind Engage and re-engage with social media ads that you can create and promote with just a few clicks 5. Surround Yourself with a Success Network Partnership power. Make sure you're surrounded by the people who will support you and drive you forward. Team members, industry peers, coaches, and tech partners that help you learn, grow, and give you the opportunity to collaborate with like-minded professionals you can learn from. Attend real estate conferences, join social media groups, and networking meetings, sign up with a coach or mentor to get the support and accountability you need to go higher. We're fresh off of our user conference, Unite, and it's incredible to see what can be achieved when you're surrounded by people who can lift you up, and share their success. Ready to put that in place in your business? Let's get started. To view the original article, visit the BoomTown blog.

Ask the Industry: What Are Your Top Negotiation Strategies?
Today, we're kicking off a new series called "Ask the Industry." Here, we'll talk to real estate professionals -- brokers, agents, MLS executives, and more -- to hear their thoughts on timely topics related to the real estate industry. Today's post features: Andrew Cristancho, Director of Marketing at Northern Nevada Regional MLS (NNRMLS) Lauren Matera, Agent with Coldwell Banker Realty in Annapolis, MD Bernice Ross, CEO and President of BrokerageUP!, Inc. and RealEstateCoach.com Joy Aumann, Co-Founder of LuxurySoCalRealty As the market remains highly competitive, what are your top negotiation strategies? Buyers should bring their best offers, but sellers should exercise patience Andrew Cristancho, Director of Marketing, Northern Nevada Regional MLS (NNRMLS) "Currently, our Northern Nevada market is as competitive as any have seen it. That — and the fact that we launched NAR's Clear Cooperation Policy in April 2020, causing us to also launch an Active-Coming Soon-No Show listing status — is causing the perfect storm of sellers accepting offers before they are ready to show. This has caused so many concerns with our brokers that our board has voted to employ a 12-month pause on the status. With all of this swirling change in our market, I would advise any buyer's agents to counsel their buyers to be ready to come with their best and finals early in the process. "In the market I mentioned above, it seems that some sellers might be tempted to jump at the first offer since those offers are coming so early in the process. I would advise listing agents to counsel their seller clients to do their due diligence and wait for the market to work. If the listing starts in Coming Soon, or is simply Active but not available to show yet, and there are several offers before showings, allow that listing to switch to a Showings-Allowed active status before deciding on a final sell price. Patience can be its own reward in this market. "Third, and this is not necessarily a negotiation tactic, but it can help you think on your feet as a real estate professional: KNOW YOUR BUSINESS TOOLS! Whether you use Homesnap, or other real estate software, decide which tools you need, then learn to be proficient with those tools. It will help you with decision-making and negotiations from contract to close." Be the most flexible, convenient offer: It'll go a long way with anxious sellers Lauren Matera, Agent, Coldwell Banker Realty, Annapolis, MD "With all the intensity in the market and buyers bringing their highest and best, I've found that one of my go-to negotiating strategies is simply flexibility. Sellers are eager to sell, but I've found that they are just as anxious as the buyer knowing they too will soon enter the market on the buying side. "If my buyers have flexibility in settlement or move-in date, giving the sellers some peace of mind is priceless. Sometimes we aren't even the top-dollar offer, just the most convenient." Keep this adage in mind: "The first one who speaks loses." Bernice Ross, CEO and President, BrokerageUP!, Inc. and RealEstateCoach.com "When it comes to negotiating, there's an old adage: 'The first one who speaks loses.' For example, if someone asks you to lower your commission, you can say, 'No.' Sit there and wait for the seller's response. They will often go on to another question. "If they press you on lowering your commission, respond by asking this: 'You do want an agent who can negotiate the highest possible price for you, is that correct?' (Wait for their response.) Assuming they say yes, respond with, 'How effective do you think I would be in negotiating the highest possible price for your property when I couldn't even negotiate a full commission for myself?' Again, 'The first one who speaks loses.'" Make a great first impression with the seller's agent — the little things make all the difference Joy Aumann, Co-Founder, LuxurySoCalRealty "Your first impression with the seller's agent starts from the minute you are requesting the showing. Build rapport with the agent so they know you're the type of agent that they want to work with. Find out what's most important to the sellers. Sometimes things like a 30- to 60-day rent-back can make all of the difference. Be prepared with proof of cash funds or pre-approval letter leaving a great impression of a prepared and motivated buyer." To view the original article, visit the Homesnap blog.

5 Strategies To Grow Your Real Estate Business
If you have the goal of increasing your revenue every year, investing the time and energy to grow your real estate business is crucial. Growth is in your hands. There are several strategies you can implement to help you reach more clients and close more deals--you just must commit to them.

5 Simple Steps to Scale Your Real Estate Business to the Next Level
Aren't you tired of being too busy? If you're drowning in work, can't give your clients the attention they deserve, and can't find free time for yourself or your family, that's a good indicator it's time to scale your real estate business. By scaling your business, you can reassess your processes and create the infrastructure necessary to properly manage and facilitate its growth. If you scale successfully, you'll increase your income, have more time for clients, family, or yourself, exert less energy on less important tasks, and ultimately increase your market share in your area. In this article, we'll show you five steps to scale your real estate business:

7 Advanced Strategies to Grow Your Real Estate Business
When it comes to advice on how to grow your real estate business, there's no shortage of suggested strategies and how-tos out there. The problem? A lot of it can be pretty basic. If you've been in real estate for a while, do you really need someone to tell you to "know your target market" or "work on perfecting your sales script"? Of course not. If you're successful, you've had that down for years now. That kind of advice cluttering the internet is more suitable for an agent just starting out. Instead, we'll focus on more advanced strategies for growing your real estate business that might not be so obvious—and can give you an extra edge in winning clients and dominating your sphere.

How to Thrive in Challenging Times
As we handle the day to day running of our lives and businesses in a time where the everyday has been thrown out the door, some people find themselves missing tasks that they thought of as a burden, like door knocking or grocery shopping. However, times of adversity are often when we see the best from the people in our communities. Even while members of our communities are looking for ways to distance themselves from one another physically, we're also looking for new ways to connect with one another. In the coming weeks, we'll see people leverage their technology to network and communicate with their friends, family, and business contacts more than ever before. Here are a few tools and resources you can use to thrive personally and professionally in these unpredictable times.

5 Ways Real Estate Agents Can Hit the Ground Running in 2020
Real estate agents know there's no such thing as a slow season for them. During the winter months when most markets are quieter, agents need to be ramping up their marketing and prospecting efforts so they have a deep well of leads going into the busy spring season. While the season is slow for your clients, move fast to hit the ground running in 2020 with these five real estate tips:

Make Giving a Part of Your Business Strategy
Whether it's running a charity 5k, serving lunch to the homeless or simply fundraising for a cause close to your heart, having a social giving strategy in your business is a must. It's also an easy and fun way to motivate and inspire your team while giving back and connecting with the local community you serve.

How Business Strategy Can Help You Stand Out in Real Estate
Have you ever come across a billboard you thought was ridiculous? It may have made you chuckle a bit, or you may have thought it was corny. Regardless of your feelings, the fact that you remembered the billboard was an attempt to stand out from a business--and it did its job. But doing something outlandish is not the only way to stand out in real estate. Yes, you can go the billboard route and do real estate parodies on Game of Thrones, the Lego Movie, or "Thinking about moving to Canada after the elections?" However, is that how you want local homebuyers and sellers to think of you?

Risk Management for Your Real Estate Business
As a real estate agent, you should be focused on two main things: your success and the happiness of your clients. Part of creating a successful business and keeping your clients is being aware of and managing the risks you and your clients face.

[Infographic] Planning Your Best Year Ever
Was your first year in real estate everything you hoped it would be? What about your fifth, tenth, or fifteenth? When you launched your career in real estate, you likely set some goals for yourself, ones that you've tweaked and refined with experience and a better understanding of your market. Now you can probably make a decent estimate of the transaction volume you'll achieve each year. However, that's about to change. In a Secrets of Top Selling Agents webinar, Tom Ferry explained how with the right planning you can double, triple, or even quadruple your business!

5 Steps Real Estate Agents Can Take to Finish 2017 Strong
While our strong summer market continues to keep agents busy across the country, fall is just around the corner—and you have only five months to close out 2017 with a bang! Below are five foolproof ways you can assess your business goals, tweak your projections and ramp up your business so 2017 is your best year yet. 1. Start with the goals you might not meet

How to Set Your Goals Now for More Commissions in 2017
It's a safe bet that most agents would like to earn more money in the year ahead, but do you have a plan for how you can step up your game in 2017? We're not talking about simply having vague goals in mind, but instead formulating a tangible plan that includes hard numbers for how many transactions you need to close to hit your income target, as well as how many leads you need to engage to generate those transactions in the first place. Or, as we say in the RE Technology offices, you need to plan your work and work your plan! Fortunately, with a little guidance, this is simple to do—and, it's a great time of year to start planning ahead. Here are a few things you need to keep in mind when formulating a plan for 2017: 1. Establish your baseline Before you figure out where you want to go next year, first you need to figure out where you've been. How much commission did you earn last year? From how many closed transactions did you earn this commission? How many buyer transactions closed? How many listings? Once you've figured this out, you can begin to visualize how many more transactions you need to close in 2017 to hit your income goals.

The Weather Outside is Frightful – Now What?
It's well-known that winter can be a very slow time for selling real estate. So what can agents do with this downtime? Well, we've thought of a few ways you can leverage this cold weather slowdown to prepare and start the spring selling season off with a BANG—and position yourself for your best year ever! First, it's important to take some quiet time and think about what goals you would like to set for yourself in 2014. What revenues would you like to generate? How much money can you invest in yourself and your business? There are great business planning tools out there that can help guide you through the process of creating your own strategic plan. What are your key strengths and weaknesses? Have you asked your customers this important question? They can give you clues about the best ways to improve your service levels and create lifetime loyal fans. You can create a simple survey with just a few simple questions on an inexpensive tool like Surveymonkey.com if you want to get a quick read of your performance. Send it out to the customers you have worked with in the past twelve months and see what you get back. Ideally, you may want to think about going even further by signing up for a program like QSC that allows you to track client satisfaction for every transaction you're involved with. Once you identify your key strengths and weaknesses, you can think about the type of training you would like to participate in. Winter is a great time to complete some education courses so can take on 2014 with new skills. What kind of training would you like to engage in to make you a stronger real estate professional? Check out the attached list of training solutions to find some ideas. It's also important to check your Association and MLS websites for training courses. Many of them offer a variety of great courses that are free or very inexpensive.

Best of 2013: 4 Steps to Becoming a Stronger Listing Agent
With only 10 publishing days left in the year, we're counting down our most popular articles of 2013. This article was posted back in January and is #10 in our countdown. How balanced is your business? If you're a buyer's agent with few or no listings, the strength of your real estate practice may be suffering. A healthy real estate strategy includes cultivating both buyers and sellers. After all, the two groups have a symbiotic relationship with each other. A robust pool of buyers to market to enables you to sell listings faster, while a set of solid listings helps you attract higher quality buyers. Growing both sides makes for a stronger, more well-rounded business. With the housing market making a recovery, plenty of buyers are searching for homes while interest rates and prices are still low. This can be a double-edged sword, though. While there's no better time to be a seller's agent, competition for listings is fierce. And it's no wonder—listings take only one-third of the time and effort of working with buyers! Fortunately, Market Leader's free Listing Agent Guide has outlined four strategic steps you can take to attract listing leads, convert them into clients, and sell their homes. Read on to learn more.

5 Questions to Ask Yourself for a Successful 2014
"What's written is real, what's planned is possible," says real estate coach, author and speaker Mike Lindstrom. According to Lindstrom, too many agents only talk about what they want to do when it comes to marketing their business without investing time into setting specific goals and plans to achieve those goals. To help agents get started crafting a plan for success in the new year, he recommends that every agent asks themselves five questions: What is my purpose? What is my outcome? What is my business plan? What can I do this year to invest in myself? What can I do to change my mindset? Lindstrom was one expert selected to provide one-on-one training sessions to the winners of the 2013 HomeFinder.com Agent Makeover Sweepstakes. For more from Lindstrom on goal setting for 2014, read the transcript on the next page.

Friday Freebie: Business Plan Builder from realtor.com®
Now is a perfect time to reassess and calculate what you need to do to get your goals on track! As we move towards mid-year, it's time to put pen to paper to figure out what is working (and what isn't). A business plan isn't set it stone, nor should it be a heavy burden. Rather, it's a roadmap that helps clarify your objectives and how you're going to achieve them. Success stems from having established goals and a plan to achieve them. Fortunately, our latest Friday Freebie makes creating a plan with achievable goals simple. Read on to learn more. Free Business Plan Builder from realtor.com® Realtor.com® offers a free tool that allows you to review last year's results, set goals for the next year, and calculate just how many activities you will need to engage in to reach your objective. This free tool is designed for agents who have set an ambitious goal for prospecting, sales and closings. It includes recommendations for the following, based on your unique business objectives: Webinars Downloads Tools If you're looking for a strong foundation to get your goals back on track, spend five minutes with this free tool from realtor.com®. It'll help you assess the tools you're already using so you can plug in solutions that deliver results. You will see how many prospects you need to acquire each month, and how many follow-up calls you need to make to position yourself to meet your goal. Click here to learn more about this free benefit from realtor.com®.

4 Steps to Becoming a Stronger Listing Agent
How balanced is your business? If you're a buyer's agent with few or no listings, the strength of your real estate practice may be suffering. A healthy real estate strategy includes cultivating both buyers and sellers. After all, the two groups have a symbiotic relationship with each other. A robust pool of buyers to market to enables you to sell listings faster, while a set of solid listings helps you attract higher quality buyers. Growing both sides makes for a stronger, more well-rounded business. With the housing market making a recovery, plenty of buyers are searching for homes while interest rates and prices are still low. This can be a double-edged sword, though. While there's no better time to be a seller's agent, competition for listings is fierce. And it's no wonder—listings take only one-third of the time and effort of working with buyers! Fortunately, Market Leader's free Listing Agent Guide has outlined four strategic steps you can take to attract listing leads, convert them into clients, and sell their homes. Read on to learn more.

Holiday Deal: 2013 Business Plan (and Training!) from Market Leader
It's December--the year is winding down, and savvy agents are beginning to look ahead to 2013. Our latest holiday deal aims to help REALTORS® do just that. Market Leader's 2013 Real Estate Business Plan is a free-to-download guide that empowers agents to achieve definable goals. It does this by helping agents: Understand consumer needs - By understanding potential clients, you are better able to connect with them. Today's consumer begins their real estate search online, but are often overloaded with information. Market Leader shows you how to differentiate yourself online and learn how to communicate with tech savvy consumers. Identify challenges facing the agent - It's all about the leads. Learn how to generate leads, engage them, and win their business, all while having fun. See what bad habits are holding you back and how to evaluate your online presence. Explore the tools needed for success - From a straightforward website to diversified lead generation, Market Leader shows you what you need to connect with the digital consumer. Most important, though, are action-oriented goals that are clearly defined.

An SEO Strategy That Pays Back
Guest contributor Delta Media Group says: With so many 'voices' out there, how are real estate companies supposed to know who to listen to and what to believe when it comes to their websites and online placement (aka Search Engine Optimization)? You would think that some of the sources who tout themselves as SEO experts should have the best interests of these companies at heart. I'm here to let you know that they usually do not! With doing so many websites around the country, I think we've seen just about everything and heard just about everything as well. We see real estate companies receiving 'advice' on how they should handle customers and what should be emailed to them. We see 'advice' telling real estate companies how to handle data feeds and where to link the traffic. Well, here is some free advice that, if listened to, can generate your company millions of dollars in transactions. All links must link back to YOUR site You can not compromise on the fact that every link from all possible sources must link back to your website. This includes links from any portal, links from any emails. All traffic! While there may not be any link value and while search engines may not be able to follow some of these links, it is well known that search engines do favor sites that get more traffic. There is no way you should ever link any visitor to any website other than your primary website.

HomeGain Releases 2nd Quarter 2011 National Home Values Survey Results
Guest Contributor Louis Cammarosano from HomeGain Says: Fifty percent of surveyed real estate professionals nationwide expect home values to decrease over the next six months; Sixty-five percent disapprove of Obama’s performance as President. HomeGain, the first company to provide free instant home valuations online, announced the results of its nationwide second quarter 2011 home values survey. Over 750 real estate agents and brokers and over 2,600 homeowners were surveyed. Most real estate professionals and homeowners continue to expect home values to decrease or stay the same through the middle of the year. Fifty percent of agents and brokers and forty-two percent of homeowners think that home values will decrease over the next six months. In the first quarter 2011 HomeGain National Home Values Survey, thirty-nine percent of agents and brokers and 30 percent of homeowners thought that home values would decrease over the next six months.