Real Estate Team 2.0: Marketing, Information Management and Specialized Knowledge

The three components of the team's real estate practice are marketing, information management and specialized knowledge. If a home owner has buyers, the homeowner can sell their own home -- what they lack is marketing, information and specialized knowledge. This is where the real estate professional adds value.

A buyer can look around and find a home -- what they lack is information and specialized knowledge ( they beneift from marketing in the sense they can view homes that are marketed well with plenty of rich information, so marketing can be included with the buyer's needs).

Creating a system that strengthens these three components will be the primary task when building a team. Some say we are in the business of selling homes, but to me that is a byproduct not a key component. Homes are sold in the process of providing the three components. I would rather have one agent who is adept at the three components than three good salespeople who are only good at selling one buyer at a time when they happen to call on a sign or an ad.

The goal is to attract many buyers through marketing, provide good information to both buyers and sellers and use specialized knowledge to create successful transactions in a way that impresses clients to the point of becoming fans and lifelong clients. The team will be working with buyers on the buyside, sellers on the listing side. The team will be working with investments and property management, and the team will be providing consultation services. These are what I envision as the services provided to create streams of income.

Information management will include information related to neighborhoods, schools, services, vendors, zoning, taxes, trends, new construction sites, sales data, statistics, building codes, hotel rates, and anything else the team can think of to gather that will be useful and easily accessed. The necessary money will be spent on developing a sophisticated information management system that each team member is taught/trained to understand and use. The marketing person will be communicating weekly with team members on information needs and monitoring the flow of information, along with the leader, to ensure information management continues to be top priority. The team will have expert knowledge of the area they cover at their fingertips at all times. The system should present the information in a sleek package that's branded, visually attractive and easy to read and understand -- whereever analysis can be included, it should be.

Having more and better information is a competitive advantage. Although it will be good to ask clients what they want, what's more important is the team deciding what's useful and creating a thorough information management system -- sometimes the clients don't know what they want or need until it's provided.

Marketing should be guided by a system that tracks results. The marketing person should be constantly tracking where clients come from and analyzing each marketing strategy for cost-effectiveness. Internal information management is as important as the information gathered for client usage. Lead conversion from different marketing strategies should be analyzed on a regular basis so that the team is updated on what's working or what's not working -- to detemine if it's the marketing strategy or the conversion efforts that need to be improved. Reports should be given to team members on a monthly basis. Monitoring marketing efforts is vital to being flexible and possessing good information to make quick changes.

Again, the company that learns the fastest has the advantage. Marketing should be a mixture of traditional and 2.0, with constant elimination and additions and experimentation based on the monitoring reports and feedback from team members. Every response from the internet should be recorded and analyzed to determine if social media marketing is leading to recognition and transactions. Every call from a sign, every inquiry from a magazine, every email from a blog follower, every referral from a past client - EVERYTHING should be recorded, monitored, analyzed and reported.

To me marketing is an ongoing function performed by everyone on the team. Making local contacts on a regular basis and building the sphere of influence is a time honored practice. Social media marketing online will be just as important and should be geared toward including the participation of consumers into the converstaion. Each team member will be charged with expanding their online presence and developing creative plans to use the online tools to brand themselves and the team and advertise the services. Six or seven people virally penetrating the cyber-world will have a powerful effect. If more teams are created it will only strengthen the branding process.

To me good branding has a personal touch, it's being known personally rather than by company. I'm sure that Re/Max gets milage from national exposure, but there isn't that much distinction from, say, from Coldwell Banker or Century 21. And if a seller or buyer has any sophistication at all they realize that company name doesn't ensure quality at the agent level. So branding the team should go through individuals who are then associated with a team, but the branding will have more impact at the personal level first. I liked Wendy's because of Dave Thomas -- it's silly, but I trusted Dave - there was a personal connection -- before, when I heard "Chrysler", I thought of Iacocca. I think many companies are missing the boat by not having a personal spearhead, or several who represent the image of the company -- with this team in real estate, I would want everyone to have a face, personality and presence. This pertains in a big way to turnover, though, and that can be a problem -- it's why choosing the team carefully is so important -- little or no turnover can be a powerful statement of stability.

More later. ( I didn't even get into specialized knowledge, but I don't want to make these too long)