Combining the Internet and Agent Innovation to Trump Any Market

His story is a demonstration of how simple technology makes agents free—able to succeed anywhere (including the market you are already in), despite market conditions—and how—in this Internet-enabled world—innovation by an agent can trump bad markets.

Background

Although I have spent some quality time in and around Breckenridge, I was surprised how little I actually knew about the market there. Upon reflection, I’ll wager that Breckenridge is not unlike a great many other vacation-oriented towns: feeling the burn of the now-recovering economy deep down in all things. Andy soon confirmed that my feeling was correct.

“The market in Breckenridge gets the “double whammy” because it took a hit from the recession (like all markets) and it also is a second-home market,” Andy explained. “90% of transactions here are second-home buyers. To give you an idea of just how much we were affected by the economic fallout, our transactions here have decreased by 75% since 2007. 2008 was about 35% down and so far in 2009 it is about 40% down. In this economy, who has money for a second home? We are all hoping that this turns around in 2010, but in reality, nobody really knows when full recovery will come. The market here lags a year or two behind most regular markets. If that holds true, we should be ready for a turn. I came into this market for a lifestyle change and I knew what I was getting into from a business standpoint. I knew it was going to be tough and I knew that I needed innovation and technology on my side to get going in this type of a market. Although I had experienced great success with my personal website over the years, I was at a point where I knew I wanted an outsourced lead-generation system because I wouldn’t have time to play webmaster and technician once I got here—I would need to be prospecting. I had several good discussions with my longtime Internet marketing services company and to my surprise, found that they had been hearing this from a lot of agents, and that they were about to roll out a beta (test) version of such a system. I signed on to be a test subject.”

Quick Results

“The very first month my system went live I began receiving leads. I created a systematic approach to responding to internet leads and I have a systematic approach to following up and staying in touch. (The market here requires this or you will be swallowed because a lot of second-home buyers can take a year or more to purchase.) Starting in July (the first month) I had 100+ unique visitors on my brand new website. I am now approaching 200 unique visitors every month. From these visitors I have received about 40 good leads. I have closed two of these opportunities that came directly from the website. The total commission from these sales is almost 10 times what it cost me to join the program. I am also conversing with 30 of these leads, 10 of which I believe will be purchasing or selling within six months. I am extremely happy that all this has occurred within about a four-month timeframe—two sales made and 10 sales working—from nothing!”

Bottom Line

“The bottom line is that over a five-month period in a market where transactions are down 75% from two years ago that is “frozen” from a transaction standpoint, I have closed two transactions: both generated solely from my lead generation system that farms the Internet for me. When the market turns I will be positioned well with buyers as a direct result from this lead generation system. I also think it is noteworthy that of the two closed transactions, one was a listing, and of the 10 prospects that are near, two of those are also listings. I am getting about 20% listings from my leads. I have done all of this without having to play webmaster and techie even one day; in fact, without doing anything but following up the leads that the site generates for me. To do all of this within a few months of relocating here continues to amaze me and to convince me that my choice to stop prospecting the web the same old way was the absolute right choice. Here at the Breckenridge Real Estate Group, we don’t sell or list real estate the same old way, and we think that is good for our clients. We know it’s good for us.”

Tough Times Spur Innovation

The innovative system Andy chose uses intelligent paid advertising as well as organic search to bring solid traffic to your individual account, fast. Unlike ordinary websites, the conversion rate of Internet visitors to sign-in registrations is currently running at 8+% system-wide, with several hundred users and more joining daily. With such high conversion rates, it is not necessary to have huge traffic: even 100 unique visitors monthly can bring a very nice living. The system was designed to accomplish Internet marketing from a fresh perspective, namely: is the purpose of your website to provide information to everyone or to provide interested buyers to you? The lead generation system that is Compass PROLeadS™ believes that purpose is to provide interested buyers to you.

Taking a different approach to the answer to that question has made a huge difference in performance. The real purpose of your website is to help you sell homes. To do that, it must produce real leads in sufficient numbers to build a practice. Chances are that most agents’ websites were not designed for that purpose, but instead, to inform, to provide information to any visitor that happens to visit them. PROLeadS™ exists to have Internet shoppers find your site and request information from you as to exactly what they are looking for. Combining organic and paid search, the site builds traffic, converts it to leads, and does so without your daily involvement—except to follow up the leads properly.

Andy moved 1,000 miles but you can succeed right where you are.

If you started innovating today, would you be pleased to have made a couple of sales, have another 10 seriously incubating, and another 20 in process four or five months later? That is what succeeding online can do for you. Succeeding there brings you a whole new source of real leads and sales that you simply can’t access any other place.

You have all the skills you need to sell homes to Internet buyers. In fact, we could parachute you into anyplace in North America and you could sell homes provided you had interested buyers, couldn’t you? Well, that is the point of innovation and online marketing: to assure you of a steady stream of interested buyers to talk to. It’s not necessary to move to Colorado; it’s necessary to move your marketing online.

It’s almost 2010 and if you refuse to listen to the naysayers and the pessimists, you can make it into a wonderful and successful year. Andy moved his family during the worst market ever, into a market down 75% and succeeded. He did this—not with magic—by planning and executing his online marketing strategy. Please—make this the year you do the same.

Mike Parker (mparker@theblackwatercg.com ^[2]) advises thousands of agents and brokers on the subject of online marketing services for Realtors. If you’d like to investigate this new innovation that is bringing success to hundreds of agents and brokers—or to find out if your website is set up to deliver buyers to you, click here and fill out the form. We’ll tell you confidentially and for free.


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