It is no secret that in most families when it comes to decision making or for better terms – money spending- the woman “wears the pants”. If you are a home builder or real estate agent trying to sell these homes – you need to know the deal breakers in this process. So here is a glimpse inside the female mind when it comes to finding a real estate agent and a home, from the smartest woman I know, my wife Cori:

My loving husband asked me to write this blog- he wanted a blog about my home buying process and experience. I say “my experience”, because I am the one who does the leg work, decides where we want to be, looks at the homes, narrows it down, then has Mike come for final approval so I don’t feel so bossy.

Schools Rule

The first thing I do when home shopping is to decide what schools we want. I use GreatSchools.net to research schools in the area and to find the exact school I want my kids to go to. After narrowing down the schools, the home shopping starts.

Unfortunately, there aren’t websites out there where you can search for a home by a specific school (school district- yes- but not specific school). In order to narrow your search down to a school, you have to use a realtor. I get the zip code for the school I want and go to Realtor.com and I conducted my search there. I also tap into my social media resources- go on Facebook and say, “Anyone buy a home in _____ district? What about ______ school district?”

Give Me the Details…like now!

If I’m looking for a new home, I will search online for home builders, check out their website-focusing on floor plans, price ranges and locations. My husband teases that marketing was created for people like me. I choose services and products based on the website. I have two kids and not much time. If the site is confusing, I won’t stick with it to figure it out. If the information I need isn’t on the site, the chances of me calling to find out the basics are slim to none.

“Do you know who I am?” – Be Professonial and Follow Up

Once the list is narrowed down based on the information I find online, I will call for specifics or make an appointment. Again, I have two kids. If I don’t get a response in the following 24 hours, I will probably forget I ever called and I will mark you off my list. If I make time to contact you, it means I am ready to buy and I will not wait around for a response. Email is wonderful- I can get information while juggling kids, but phone calls are also great.

I once looked at over five homes by calling each listing agent and scheduling an appointment. Not one person was on time, let alone early enough to prepare the home for a walk through. If I am able to be there on time with my kids in tow, I expect the same courtesy. On the sixth home, when I got there the home was open and ready, the agent handed me info on herself and the home, she was able to answer all my questions and right there on the spot she became my agent. Everyone is busy, timeliness is vital.

Another thing that drives me bananas, are agents and sales people who don’t know the answers to my questions or do not get the information to me in a timely manner. Know the basics and if I ask an obscure question, no biggie, but get me the info and soon!

Most importantly- follow up- it really does work. If I contact you, I want to hear from you. AND I will remember you. I will go about my day- think of a question to ask you, forget that question and then I get an email from you and BAM, I remember.

The internet was invented for women like me. I can get more done with my kids. If you are in the places where I am, I will see you. If you have a good website, good follow-up and helpful sales people, I will love you!

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Are you looking like Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell. Time to lose the “dumb” phone and upgrade your primary communication tool.

I even wrote this whole post using the WordPress app on my iPhone. Grabed a screenshot of the Zack pic, tweeted out the link, sent to facebook and posted on linkedin. A true miracle of modern technology.

Leave your comments below. What do you love most about your smartphone?

(on a side note, I use my iPhone so much my wife has threatened to flush it down the toilet multiple times. Guess that is the side effect of a connected world. Does anyone else experience this?)Similar Posts:

• Doyouconvert.com iPhoneified
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Is follow-up a lost art? Can you guarantee your agents are responding and following up with your prospects, the ones you paid $1,000′s to get to walk into the door? In this short video I review a study conducted on this topic (details below) You be the judge. If you are wondering what is going on with your internet leads, it’s time to secret shop your agents. Submit a lead from your website and listing services, not once but several times. Track the response time, quality of the message and how many times they follow up. You will be surprised.

Take a look at this at this whitepaper released by Red Tree Resultants and Qgenisys. They conducted actual on-site evaluations acting as motivated prospects to learn if there would be adequate follow up on the visit to try to persuade the prospect to become a purchaser and what builders and developers can do to improve their market share. What they found out:

• Despite spending millions of dollars to attract them…In only 36% of the visits did an agent bother to follow up with the prospect who visited the community and expressed immediate purchase interest.
• In only 14% of the cases did agents follow up with personalized information about the community that reflected anything they discussed with the prospect.
• Builder agents from the higher-priced homes/communities actually followed the prospect more aggressively than did the lower-priced homes/communities.
• Of all homes visited during our research, unless a prospect followed up with the builder, nearly 60% of all prospective sales would have been lost due to lack of follow up by the builder or the builder’s representative
• We estimate that up to 75% of builders’ emails, both from sales reps and marketing teams were caught by our researchers’ spam filters.

Their findings clearly show that after spending all those marketing dollars to get potential buyers into their homes, motivated buyers were largely ignored and received almost no relevant follow up from the builder’s site agent. On-site builder agents allowed prospects to walk out the door, but also allowed them to slip through their fingers with little relevant follow up…or in many cases ANY follow up after the visit.

The Conclusion – Builders who implement the changes we have recommended here will be better positioned than those that do not to take advantage of the inevitable turn around that will eventually come in the housing market.

Thanks to Brendan and his team for the timely and powerful info.

Download the White Paper >>

Contact:
Red Tree Marketing Resultants

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Photo by joshbousel

Be sure to let me know you are coming – it is a great topic.

Here are some of great reads from this past week:

• The Brand You is Dead. Long Live The Brand You Build. Talks about the importance of creating value in your personal brand – not just having one for self promotion. Good stuff!
• Wondering about Twitter – check out this prediction – Why Twitter Will Go Mainstream In 2009 with 10 reasons to support it.
• This article is from 2002: As the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Go Online Yes, that is from 2002 – message translates to today…gotta love business cycles.
• On the predictions train: Seven Predictions for 2009 Internet is still the victor.

Here’s to a successful and prosperous new year. Look forward to your comments on these articles. What do you think about Twitter?
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Myers Barnes has a great post over on his blog – Visits are Out. Encounters are In—And Encounters Can Occur On-site or Online.

He comments:

In the old economy, prospects shopped by the process of elimination. They would drive around, build their short list and eventually settle on their new neighborhood and home. In today’s economy, new homebuyers shop by the process of exclusion on the Internet. They build their short list and then visit only the neighborhoods they are seriously considering. In building a list of places of interest, they will have many encounters. Each time they log on to your website, it’s an encounter. So they could easily have had 10 encounters with your new homes/homesites before you ever get the first opportunity to meet and greet them.

I can’t agree more. A good percentage of our prospects will spend more time on our website than we will! When researching one of the largest investments a person will make, the website and other listing sites become a “power tool” for the prospect putting them in driver seat.

Don’t give them a reason to eliminate you. Keep your site fresh, up to date and full of useful information they are looking for.
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I stumbled upon a neat little hack by accident and I’m pretty excited. Most cell phone companies have a free option of email to SMS. This is the ability to send an email which converts to a text message on a mobile phone.

Big deal right, I get email on my iPhone already. Well, like most people, I disabled the email notification/buzz/alarm on my phone, so I actually have to check for new emails. This helps me stay focused and not distracted by emails all day (3rd step from my Crackberry Anonymous meetings). If not, I would probably be locked in a room pasting up newspaper articles like Russell Crow in "A Beautiful Mind".

Anyway, so here’s the trick. Again, I don’t want a text message for every email I get… but I would like to receive a text message when someone submits a lead from our website, because these are usually the hottest and most qualified requiring the absolute highest priority. To accomplish this, you need to program in your standard email on the web contact form and copy your new mobile SMS email address and voila, you’ve got an instant text notification when you have a hot lead! If this is Greek to you, have your web design firm help you out. (note: you need to have text messaging set up on your phone or they charge you a pretty penny per text)

As you can see, it doesn’t take much to excite me. But, in a challenging market – response time matters right? Like Ricky Bobby says, "If you ain’t first, you’re last."

Also, a little side note. Check out Jott – it’s a FREE service that transcribes voicemails to emails automatically. I use it to take voice notes and leave reminders that funnel directly to my email – which helps me stay organized. A true lifesaver.

Below are the email addresses of the most popular carriers.

T-Mobile: phonenumber@tmomail.net
Virgin Mobile: phonenumber@vmobl.com
ATT: phonenumber@txt.att.net
Sprint: phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Verizon: phonenumber@vtext.com
Nextel: phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com

phonenumber = your 10 digit phone number

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Wow – I just returned from the longest vacation since college. It was truly refreshing. Still setting those appointments over the holidays, but had a great time hanging out with my family, reflecting on 2007 and planning for a great 2008.

I wish everyone a prosperous new year and look forward to the great things to come!
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If you haven’t heard of Redfin yet, here you go – this video sums it up. A “online” brokerage business harnessing the web and providing a unique service to internet savvy customers. As a result, freaking out some Realtors (see 60 minutes video) in the process.
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Last week I attended the Myers Barnes New Home Sales University. What a great educational experience! I thoroughly enjoyed the 3 days of education and sales training along with the chance to associate with so many superstars from all over the nation. If you haven’t attended one of Myers’ conferences yet, you are missing out.

Here are my 4.5 reasons you must attend next year:

1) Excellent Content – Focused sales training for the homebuilding industry

2) Powerful Delivery – Never a dull moment in this house – Myers’ high energy keeps you engaged

3) Great Networking – There is something powerful about surrounding yourself with high achievers

4) Personal Development – Myers gets to the heart of the matter, encouraging a change that affects every aspect of your life

4.5) Sweet prizes and tasty food

It was great meeting everyone and I’ll see you next year!

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An Online Sales Counselor manages hundreds of leads per month by email and phone. Around 80% of these “people” won’t even respond. The ones that do, you will most likely never meet face-to-face. The sheer volume of rejection and lack of personal interaction can lead to apathy if you are not careful.

I must constantly remind myself that there are real people out there behind the emails and they need good information from someone they can trust. You must stay sharp, every day and every lead is a new opportunity to help someone with one of the largest investments they will ever make. In a digital age, personal interaction is happening all the time – online, on a cell phone, by email – it is not just in person anymore. So take heart and know that you are the first contact in one of the greatest decisions someone will make – building their new dream home.
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