Tag Archives: real estate

How AI And Automation Is Changing How We Use Customer Relationship Management

There is no doubt that Artificial Intelligence is improving in every aspect. Whether it be in everyday technology or in business, the changes in AI are clear to see if you know what you are looking for. When it comes to the real estate industry, Artificial Intelligence is changing the way we do things. More and more of our daily business becomes automated, and it is changing the way we use customer relationship management or CRM.

How AI will drive real estate’s evolution in 2018

In the very near future, machine learning and artificial intelligence will play a much larger role in the industry, and there are no signs of AI growth slowing down anytime soon. Global AI revenue is constantly growing, and roughly 75% of all developers currently use some form of AI technology in one form or another. This means the creation of the digital end of your business will soon be majority reliant on AI technology for your daily business operations.

In real estate especially, the time-saving benefits of AI technologies are priceless. What was once a tedious process of manually sorting through data to try and identify opportunities, leads, prospects, and trends is now all performed by automated artificial technological beasts. Most of which are very easy to come by, as well as being affordable enough to factor into your everyday running costs.

AI Focus

Having technology available, that knows who is ready to buy, when they are ready, what neighbourhoods are booming and how to connect the dots between these elements is invaluable in the real estate industry. The most time-consuming tasks have been automated, allowing any seller to do their job of selling. Gone are the days of paper trails and endless researching and data crunching, to match buyers with sellers. AI has simplified your job. It has changed the way we do business to the extent that we are far more productive, and far more efficient.

Artificial Intelligence brings all the available resources together, allows you to focus on direct customer focus, and achieve far better sales targets. AI saves time. It’s plain and simple. An agent’s role requires balance, and AI helps to achieve this balance by allowing you to focus on the things that cannot rely on Artificial Intelligence.

Lead Generation

AI helps to generate a higher quality of leads through the data that is compiled and sorted. AI data crunching happens in a matter of seconds, where it can take days for a human to do the job, especially when you have face to face meetings with existing prospects and leads. AI can pinpoint the people who are ready to buy or ready to sell. Every year more and more people buy and sell homes using the internet, and this is where AI truly shines through. Artificial Intelligence gathers buyer and seller data from the internet and knows who is ready to buy or sell. Everywhere from social media to property databases offer a plethora of information that AI uses to make your job simpler.

What Lies Beyond?

Beyond the generation of leads, AI helps to also enrich and validate them with data, provide insight into lead preferences and behaviours to allow you, the agent to approach with a considerate and strategic manner. AI has also opened new possibilities for targeting and behaviour analysis and will scan social media to find the people most likely to respond to a specific type of marketing campaign. From there it can create ads for the specific person based on their search data.

There are hundreds of ways AI and automation can help your real estate business boom, and this just scratches the surface.

FACEBOOK: A guide for real estate business owners starting out

If you’re just starting out in the online world as a real estate agent, it might seem a little daunting. The good news is that it isn’t as scary as it seems.

Once you learn the basic fundamentals of social media, it can become a magical tool that will not only help you to promote your business to the right audience, but also a place where you can share your best properties, sales and leases, and general tips you might have picked up along the way.

Facebook has almost 2 billion active users per month around the globe, and there are currently more than 50 million business pages on the platform. This number increases daily as more and more businesses (including real estate agents) recognise the value.

If you’re one of those businesses and want to start your own Facebook profile, here is our guide to getting your page up and running:

STEP ONE: Create your page.

There are two ways you can create a business page on Facebook. First is to log into your personal account. On the left hand column at the bottom you’ll see a tab that says CREATE, then underneath is a link to PAGE. Click on that then follow the instructions. Second option is to start completely fresh, and create a brand new profile for your business. This is a bit more tedious and can be harder to manage; so we recommend the first option.

STEP TWO: The basics

Decide on your page name and write a short introduction to your business. Page name is usually just your business name.

STEP THREE: Design

Choose a great profile photo and cover image. You want something that represents the business, whether this is your logo, an image of your office or perhaps a property you’re currently marketing (or a mixture of all of these). Fill out all the About Us details on your page, including your website, phone number, address, and so on. Use as much detail as you can.

STEP FOUR: Get people contacting you

One of the great things about Facebook now is that they provide a CALL TO ACTION button that you can include on your page. This goes at the top of your page and can direct people to your website, newsletter signup, or to directly phone you. It makes it easier for people searching your page to contact you.

STEP FIVE: Start posting

You might like to create some photo albums of properties you have for sale or lease; write some short tips for people; introduce yourself and your business; share your website blog posts or information about your services. The key is to get creative. You want to grab people’s attention, so use creative descriptions, great imagery and ensure you include your website or phone number in any call to actions.

STEP SIX: Share

Now that you have your page set up and your content ready, share it. Send it to your personal page and ask your family and friends to LIKE your profile, and to share the page and posts as well. Share the page link on your company website, your newsletters and your emails. This will help you get more likes. And when you’re ready, you might like to consider boosting a post (paid advertising) to reach your preferred audience.

Once you have done all of this, you’re on your way to Facebook success.

If you need any help setting up your page or with ongoing maintenance services (updating information, images and creating regular posts), let us know!

The New And Changing Face Of Customer Service

Good old-fashioned customer service never goes out of style. No matter what industry you work in, the clients you work with, or the products you sell, a simple smile, hello, and a helpful nature go a very long way.

As real estate agents, we meet and greet hundreds of new faces over the course of a single week. It can be hard to keep track of everyone and all the associated paperwork on top of running an agency and attending to other matters. Unfortunately, customer service seems to be the first quality to slip. But don’t let it! Patch it before it cracks, because as soon as you lose your customer service skills, the reputation and reliability of an agency can suffer dramatically.

Want to know the easiest way to lighten the daily load and improve customer service? Robots. Let me explain…

Technology is a wonderful thing when used to help humanity get back on top. Those little robots living inside your computer are here to help manage and automate daily, autonomous tasks so that you can spend your time working more efficiently.

How Customer Service Software Can Help

Software like Aro is designed with this helpful nature in mind. In fact, it is the exact reason Aro was developed. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs/tools are designed to get you out of the office and spending more time with clients. That means faster, smoother sales, happier clients, and less working time for you. Best of all, the program is simple, user-friendly, and does not require high-level computer skills to operate – leaving you free to do what you do best:

Administration staff become more effective and efficient because many of their day-to-day operations are instantly taken care of;
Sales consultants can provide accurate information to clients confidently and quickly, so they have more time to do what they do best – listing and selling properties;
And you and your managers no longer need to be in the office every minute of the day to oversee outcomes and staff contributions.

Think of these programs as an extra set of hands (like an assistant), helping you get back on track and out from under a massive workload. The system can:

Store documents, generate letters/forms, and send notifications;
Enter all your office’s letters for easy management of regular correspondence for all events; and
Create automatic reminders for all correspondence.

Customer service is a crucial key to success in this industry. How are your skills ranking? Time is money, so why not start using your time to your advantage to network, communicate, and collaborate with new and exciting clients. Speak to our friendly team at Aro today to find out more about CRMs and how they can help your business. We can even set you up with a FREE seven (7) day trial, at no obligation so you can test it for yourself.

Found this article helpful? We’d love to hear from you. Contact us today for a chat.

How to use your CRM for more vendor paid advertising

One of the most challenging things you will do, as a salesperson in real estate is have a seller pay a sufficient amount for marketing so their property has the appropriate exposure to sell.

When we were in real estate we had over 100 salespeople and using the below method, our entire team averaged just under 1% marketing investment from the vendor of the list price. For example, on a $500k sale, there would be a $5,000 marketing budget allocated.

Here’s how we did it…

The first thing you need to ask yourself is what is the importance of marketing, and why are you seeking funds from the seller to support it? There is only one answer: to achieve a higher sale price for the property which results in more than covering the marketing dollars spent.

Real estate marketing is all about increasing the exposure of the seller’s property beyond the street address. Without appropriate marketing, how will people know that your client’s home is for sale? Or, how will investors seek out new properties? Simply put, they won’t and they can’t. Not without marketing.

Ideally, you would be using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool that has the functionality to produce the following data and reporting. Make sure you consistently enter every buyer enquiry into a system that allows you to tag where that enquiry came from (i.e. walk in, signboard, realestate.com.au, local paper, etc.)

Once you have entered a considerable amount of buyers and the source of their enquiry, hopefully, your CRM has the ability to provide the following reports. If not, these can be done manually.

The number of enquiries from each source. How many buyers saw properties from a signboard and enquired? Or, how many enquired through realestate.com.au?
The number of sales from a single source. This is the number of enquiries that came in from a single source and of those enquiries resulted in the purchase of that property.

These two reports will give you valuable information on what is actually working in your marketing strategy and what is not. For example, you may find that enquiries directed from your local paper have never resulted in a sale and therefore you’re probably wasting your money unless you’re getting another benefit like listing enquiries. You might see that a certain website is generating more genuine enquiries that are converting to sales. It could be that a higher percentage of enquiries resulted in sales thanks to this medium instead. If more genuine buyers look at that website, you should probably increase the dollars spent there.

The third and final report you need will visually display the previous results (see a sample below). Ideally a pie chart and your CRM, will be able to produce this report with ease. You will be able to visually and easily represent the number of sales you have achieved from buyer enquiries across each source.

(Click chart to view larger)

Based on the information from the pie chart you will be able to launch your marketing plan, allowing for well-measured exposure across the different mediums. When discussing with your client, provide them with hard copies and good visuals of what each marketing piece in those categories will look like.

The aim of these reports is to persuade your client further of the benefits of marketing. Out laying funds upfront can be daunting for clients; therefore, you need to ensure you have all of your facts in order so that they can see the ‘bigger picture’.

When explaining to the client, the first point you need to make is that you have put together a strategy to give them the best opportunity to achieve the highest price for their property. The objective of this strategy is to get more than one really interested buyer on their property, so they can compete against each other and drive the price up.

At this point, you should have the seller’s full attention and you move into explaining how your company over time has identified the areas where the best buyers come from by keeping accurate data. This is where you show them your well-calculated reports. Work your way through the reports and visuals, showing them the marketing medium that relates to the pie chart.

Once you have finished, state that you have taken the conservative approach by making sure that no area where your company has attracted genuine buyers in the past has been left out. This would give the best opportunity to leave “no stone unturned” in finding the best buyers for your client’s property and hopefully more than one.

At this point one of two things will happen:

They will agree with your strategy and the budget you have allocated, or;
They may agree with the strategy but not the budget.

In this case, do not defend or try and convince them to pay the entire budget. Simply ask them what budget would they feel more comfortable with. Once you have a figure, ask them which marketing they would like to remove. Make sure to point out the percentage of buyers from that category that will not see their property. You should ask here are they okay to take those buyers away? Then wait for an answer.

Use the same dialogue for each area that they want to remove. However, do be cautious. In many cases, the client will ask for your recommendation as to which mediums to remove. Regardless of your research, your response to this question should allow for the client to make their own decision. Reply that you cannot comment, as you do not know where the best buyer might come from that will pay the most for their property. This is the reason you made your recommendation to cover all the areas to have the best chance of attracting a sale.

The moment you suggest to remove something you will lose credibility. The client will start to question why you recommended that medium in the first place and what else can they also remove. Stand by your marketing plan and don’t involve yourself in changing things if you believe in it.

This process is consultative and at no point to be about selling advertising. It’s all about a strategy to get your client more money. If they decide to remove items, then it is at their peril that they have limited what they could achieve.

When/if a seller has decided to remove any marketing, then down the track if the property has not sold then you can suggest to them to add what was originally removed back to the marketing strategy.

You should stick to this process remaining consultative in nature and make your sellers part of the strategy then you will be far more successful in getting the correct marketing for a property to sell at a higher price and have a lot of happy clients.

If you need further advice on accessing a great real estate CRM to assist you with building the reports you require for a successful marketing strategy you can find out more about how Aro can support you here.

Why Asking ‘Why’ Is So Powerful

Why us? Why me? And why my company? These are very important questions to ask yourself, to understand why clients should choose you.

Competition in the real estate industry increases every day. If you can confidently answer those questions above in a way that has meaning to a seller, you will always have a very valuable, competitive advantage over your competitors.

If most companies in your area offer ‘excellent service’ or photo ads or agent contact twice a week, then these are not things that are going to impress a seller as special or advantageous. You cannot sell the generic. The fact that you put a sign up and so does somebody else creates you equal. In other words, you cannot say:

I give good service
We try harder
We use photo signs

The key is true differentiation.

Differentiation is the only other way you can gain a strategic advantage in any business. So it comes down to the question of ‘what is the difference between you and anybody else in your area?’

Ask yourself, ‘what can your company offer a seller that is clearly different or superior to your competition?’ What do you have more of? What do you have the best of? You are the only ones who have…? You are unique because…?

Now make a list of what you personally have to offer a seller. One obvious area is your track record. How long have you been in the business? How many sales have you made? What percentage of your listings do you sell? What special training have you had? Have you had training or experience in another field that contributes to your work?

All of these key selling points that you come up with for the company and you personally can be used as a beginning to build your profile and also all of the messages and advertising you do throughout your listing presentation. Extracts from this can be included on your website, back of cards, fliers, and so on.

Below are two examples, one for your business and another for your own agent profile:

Business: By listing with our agency we will arrange a professional photographer and have a specialist copywriter prepare the advertising to ensure your home looks the best and not only attracts more buyers but the right ones.

Agent: I have lived in this area for the last 20 years and worked in real estate for the past 10 years – I really know how to get people excited about our region. Having negotiated millions of dollars’ worth of property over this time I use this experience to get you the best possible price for your property.

It is vital to understand the reasons for a seller to list with your company and the reasons why they would list with you, personally. Understand the answers to these questions, and work out what sets you apart from the crowd. Asking why provides knowledge – and knowledge is power. The more you know, the more you have to work with, and the more your competition will struggle to keep up.

Taking such a genuine approach towards your lead generation will provide you with a long lasting understanding of your personal and company core values. All of which will be reflected in your customer relations, giving you a comfortable competitive edge.

Now all you need to do is go ahead and create your lists. Once completed make sure you use these key selling points in everything you do!

Content brings clients to YOU!

We real estate agents can get a bad rap sometimes. We have been painted as too salesy, too pushy, and even too busy! That’s just not fair! The human element of real estate needs to be restored once and for all, and what better way to do it than through content?

You don’t have to be a graphic designer to produce an engaging website, nor a writer to create a persuasive email that will generate leads. All you have to be is a team leader, an innovator, with just a touch of tech savvy in you.

Content creation is all about thinking dynamically.

Here we have a few simple tasks you could start doing today to engage further with your clients and bring potential clients to you:

Add a newsletter signup form to your website and regularly (but not too often) send your database an update on your business and the industry, keep it simple and interesting.

Create an eBook to provide your clients with the tools to make more educated real estate decisions. Your first eBook topic could be about the top 5 things to look for when buying a property in your area.
Get engaged on social media, set up a Facebook and Instagram page and start posting and hashtagging your activity to engage with current and potential clients.
Create a blog on your website. This can be used for latest news for your business, helpful hints for clients and industry trends.

The trick here is making the time you spend on creating content worth your time by placing this content where it will be seen by as many potential and existing clients as possible. If you have a great blog or eBook be sure to share it on your social media pages and include it in your newsletter.

With our support you can go the next step with your content and customer service.

A simple automated email response can make all the difference to a client. The ideals of traditional customer service have not been forgotten by your clients; however, understanding how to provide the same level of service digitally will make all the difference.

If you would like to engage more with your clients using the suggestions above but find yourself time poor (like most busy agents) we have automated some of these steps to streamline the process. If you would like to find out how easy it could be to implement these ideas into your business with support from Aro click here today.