For more information about Agentbox, Click here
Video Notes/Transcript
00:00 Introduction and Session Overview: Samantha McLean
00:50 Be Tomorrow’s Agent
Our motto at Agentbox is for you not to be yesterday’s agent, not even to be today’s agents but to be tomorrow’s agent. That’s completely in line with what AREC’s theme is this year, about making new rules. We work with a lot of the top agents throughout all of Australia. They give us feedback on our product and as a result, we can then build that into the system and pass those tools on straight to you. I’ve been listening to Stu, I was listening to John McGrath, listening to Claudio and I was able to see a lot of the learning that you’ve encountered, you’re now going to be able to apply through our system.
01:30 Goalsetting & Targeting with CRM
In regards to being a professional agent, in regards to databasing and Agentbox, what that’s going to be is being able to provide up to date and relevant information to your clients. Not just doing blast marketing, you’re not doing it to huge amounts of areas, but targeted prospecting with relevant information and I’ll show you how you can do that in the system. The second, and if you look on the screen, within our system specifically for your business, I’m going to show you how you can actually put in your own goals here and you can track that.
In regards to your targets, you can break this down from per month, per quarter, per year, how many contacts you want to put in the system, how many appraisals, presentations, listings, sales and your total GCI. You can do it down per month so you’re not obviously just doing a broad overview, and you can then track this yourself through our performance tab. On a daily basis, you can bring it up and you can see exactly how you’re performing.
02:25 Managing the Agent Rollercoaster
Have you all heard of the ‘agent rollercoaster’? The peaks and troughs that you go through as you list property and then you don’t have time to prospect so you drop down, and all those kind of things.
Now what we can do by properly operating a database is minimise that or completely eradicate it. Operating a clean database is the key to consistently performing in any market. You’re always going to have the overall property market go up and down, but if you’re providing people with up to date, relevant information, you will always have a constant pipeline of people coming through. Regardless of that market, you’ll be able to effectively create your own market and always have a constant stream of listings.
You can very easily type the description and you can then include them, so very quickly you’re building your database, you’re including them in your sales communication, you’re nurturing them and putting in follow-up trails for them, all within a couple of clicks. Now what that’s then going to mean is when a buyer then comes down to your open house, they’re already going to be in the system. They’re going to walk up to your front door, you’re going to be able to type in the number and they’re going to appear here and you’re going to auto-populate their information. There we are.
From here you can then add on more information as well, so if you haven’t got their email addresses you can grab that. You can again, if this is the first time they’ve come through the open house, you can then subscribe them to automatic property alerts for a requirement around the property they’re looking at. You can get their feedback, you can take all their comments. When we go to the ‘All Viewers’ tab, you’re going to have an entire list of people so if we go to the person that enquired earlier, we can click on that and we can see that they’ve inspected and they’ve actually enquired a couple of times on the property.
04:29 Improved Communication
You can have a better communication with them and say, great, thanks very much. What was it about this property in the enquiry that you sent through that made you come down to the open house today? They might say, it was the price feedback, whatever it happened to be and they might then say, I really love it, I want to get some more information. At the click of a button, you can then email their contract, any building and post reports, any documentation you need straight from the system to their open house.
Very, very quick and that is what is expected in today’s real estate industry, information straight away in the palm of their hand and this is what can do it for you. No going back and waiting, and spending two hours on a Saturday, having to do it from the office, you can do it right there in front of them. You can also submit offers through here as well, so all this information is ready for you to go, to follow up to the vendor.
05:20 Building and Managing Contacts
Again, being a professional agent is following up with these people, so at the end of the open, at the click of a button you can hit send an SMS, thank them for coming through the open home, but if you’re doing three open houses a weekend and let’s say you get an average of maybe 20 people through there, over the course of a 40 week year, you’re going to have a database of 2,500 people that you’ve been nurturing, you’ve been following up. Now if you work on the rule that everyone’s going to sell maybe once every ten years, that means next year you could potentially have 250 potential sale leads already in your system that you’re nurturing there.
It takes up to about 13 contacts sometimes to build a qualified lead, so you have a choice, you can do that over a course of 12 months or you can try and squeeze it in to a couple of weeks when you finally meet them and they become a buyer. This is just one part of the system where you would be able to really nurture all of your clients as well. Once they’re in your database, you can do much more refined searches. You can refine this to specific areas, specific streets by doing advanced searches and then easily doing e-newsletters and it doesn’t always have to be property information.
It can just be information that’s relevant to them. A lot of current users will make the mistake of saying, well I’ve got two or three thousand people in my database, I’m going to send them all the same information. What happens is that they get unsubscribes, they lose traction and people don’t wish to receive your alerts any more. By targeting it to a more refined area but being able to do it very, very quickly, you’ll be able to have better retention and have better interactions with your clients so they see you as a professional in the market.
07:10 “Targeted Marketing, not Blast Marketing”
To kind of summarize what I’ve been saying is, targeted marketing, not blast marketing. Refine it to the person and get them with up to date, relevant information. Then following on from that, a clean database is the key to consistently perform in any market. You don’t always have to ride through the troughs and waves like everyone else does. That comes from doing ad hoc business as people only walk through your open homes. By focusing on a core area, keeping in touch with them, you’ll be able to make it a nice smooth sail and make sure that you’ll be able to consistently perform as a top agent for many, many years to come.
The agent with the buyers gets the listings. By the time a client becomes a buyer, it’s too late because they’re already being nurtured with the tools I’m about to show you. Over the last six to 12 months, people have been sending them up to date, relevant information and they’ve already chosen that agent because they’re professional and they’re going to be their agent of choice.
