Why would you use a pending sign? A lot of REALTORS use a pending sign because they want to encourage people to list their home with them. And they want to show off to the marketplace that their marketing actually worked.

But a pending sign can actually be the worst possible thing you can do for your marketing.

Why?

Because when homeowners in your neighborhood see your listing go up, that's when they're most likely to call you and be curious about the home. The pending sign can help a little bit, but you're going to miss out on the most qualified buyers you can have. 

And I'll give you a classic example:

My wife and I have identified an area of town we want to live in called Echo of the Pines. It's a beautiful area with some nice homes in the neighborhood but very few homes come on the market. The other night when we were driving home, we saw a new for sale sign. As a REALTOR, I get all these alerts, but they become noise and I tune them out.

And so I saw the sign and ...

You are sitting on one of the best CRMs on earth — but you probably know that.

Facebook is absolutely your best CRM on earth. And then Instagram comes second and LinkedIn is third.

All of these social media platforms give us an insight into what's happening in people's lives.

Now how do you use that information? A lot of us just get up, drink our coffee every morning and scroll through social media meaninglessly. But you don't actually look at it as a CRM.

I want you to look at your social media differently. Look at it like it's a CRM Strategy Feed.

That means, I want you to look for "life changes" — meaning new jobs, new babies, retirements, and college graduations. Or people that are sick or going on vacation. There are many different scenarios where people have life changes — even divorces and engagements.

There's so many different life changes that people go through and today it's all public. Every single thing is public.

Now, when you see an opportunity, it's a cha...

Do you use a Social Media Blitz every single time you take a listing?

If your answer is no, you're missing a huge opportunity to create energy and excitement around your listings to capture more buyers and sellers and potentially add more closings and referrals.

Here are six posts you should do for every listing you get:

1. The Coming Soon Post

First thing you do when you take a listing is you record a raw, no edit walkthrough video of the house. This could be an Instagram story, a Facebook story, or both. This shows people you're actually taking listings and that there's a new listing in your market.

Now, in some markets, you may have to adhere to your MLS rules before you start marketing the property — it's usually between 24-72 hours in most markets. But in some markets, you can't do it at all. Hopefully, you can do that quick, raw, no edit video where you're doing the quick walkthrough in your market.

2. Launch it into your social media when it goes live in the MLS.

One thing we're all challenged with right now is the speed of the market — or how fast listings sell as soon as they hit the market.

When you listed a house in a traditional market, you would have 90 or 180 days of market time. During that market time you'd able to be able to put out just listed cards, call and farm neighborhoods, host multiple open houses, and receive sign calls from your marketing. And with all that marketing, you would be able to convert those interested people into more buyers and sellers.

So every listing could easily lead to five or six more opportunities for more buyers and sellers.

But today things have changed. Every time you put a house in the market, it's generally selling within a few days with multiple offers. So you're getting robbed of that extra marketing opportunity.

But you can change that by using what I call a Marketing Sequence.

A marketing sequence simply means that you have a strategy about how you launch a listing into the marketp...

We see so much marketing that is irrelevant and meaningless — it doesn't resonate with anybody. It's trying to be ironic, cute, and Instagram perfect.

But nobody really cares so these marketing gimmicks fail.

What do our potential clients care about then?

Learning something new — which will always make them stop dead in their tracks and consider your message.

That's the basic idea behind my "Educational Marketing" strategy.

Now let's think of it in terms of real estate:

Not everyone has an interest in real estate. Buyers and sellers usually only get interested right before they're ready to sell their home or buy a new one.

So when a buyer starts to think that they should buy a house, that's when they start to look at all the terms and processes around real estate. Or when a homeowner gets interested in selling, that's when they suddenly get tuned into the market conditions.

That's the power behind using "Educational Marketing" to engage people instead of doing the same...

Would you buy a house sight unseen? According to a new study done by NAR, 1 in 20 purchases during COVID has been a done by a buyer who did not physically view the home they purchased.

When buyers are looking at homes through the lens of their devices according to the same study the most important digital search preferences are photos, the description, property floor plans, virtual tours, interactive maps, videos, virtual open houses, and virtual listing appointments.

Buyers also looked on average at nine homes over eight weeks. But surprisingly, out of the nine homes they looked at, five were viewed virtually. Yes, today buyers look at a virtual showings as being almost equal to live showings. This shift could fundamentally change how we practice real estate going into the future.

Questions for You:

Can someone virtually tour your listings and would somebody pull the trigger and buy that home based on how good you've done in terms of marketing?

Do you have a virtual home t...

It's likely that you know someone who has had a business close this year. We're seeing this across the country; about 8,000 businesses have already closed in 2020 . With Covid-19 and to online shopping - small business are suffering. Shockingly - 61% of retail purchases this year were done on a mobile device and that number is likely to grow in the coming months.

So what can you do to help people in your database who own a business that are struggling right now? First it's important to understand that we are all small business owners. We are all in this together. When a local business closes - it hurts the owners sure, but it also hurts the suppliers, the building owners, the employees, vendors, and countless other people who rely on small businesses in the community.

Four Ways You Can Help:

1) Endorse them on social media. 

"I'm going to feature a local business every single week on my social media throughout this COVID crisis. I want to make sure that we're supporting local b...

What if I told you that there's a new opportunity in the market and no one's looking at? It's what I call a New Delta. A Delta is a point between two markets statistics which creates a gap, and that gap is opportunity. 

What is a Legacy FSBO?

This is someone that put their house on the market but then they got cold feet, or they got tired, or maybe frustrated so they removed their yard sign and threw in the towel.....but they forgot to remove their listing from all the places they may listed their home, places like FSBO.com, and others. (Google FSBO's in your city for a complete list of sites that may contain Legacy FSBO's)

This provides you with a unique opportunity to reach out to these potential sellers. For instance you might say something simple like:

"Hey, I just was doing some deep research in your neighborhood this morning and I noticed you had your home on the market last June. Just a quick question, would you still consider selling to a cash buyer? Would you still consider selling for the right price? Would you still consider selling to a qualified buyer? Because I've got a really strong group of buyers that are out in the marketplace looking right now. If you've ever considered, still ...

My friend and superstar REALTOR Adam McGrew recently shared a unique concept that he uses when talking commissions with sellers. He focuses his script around what the competition is offering and how the seller can be more competitive in the market.

His first step is to print a map of the area along with a list of properties that are currently for sale near the new listing. He then researches the compensation offered to buyers agents and highlights this information in his presentation. Next he asks the seller a simple question "So, you do want to be competitive, right?"

Not only do most sellers want to match the current compensation offered to buyers agents in the market, many want to incentivize buyers agents and encourage more showings by offering a higher compensation percentage.

Watch the video for more details...