As we countdown to a new year and new decade I am reflecting on what has been effective in my business for the past year. I want to continue to do what works and gives me proven results and dump the rest.
Thankfully when it comes to my business, it is pretty easy to track what works and likewise, what doesn't.
My blogging efforts have had a huge return on investment in 2009 in many ways. My blogging efforts have established me as a local expert in my market, my market reports are widely read, I have been interviewed by my local newspaper, I have gained many clients through blogging and had three of my largest closings in 2009 directly attributed to my blog on Active Rain, so my AR blog gets to stay in my repertoire.
Reading AR posts has given me so many new ideas to try; some have worked out really well.
Here's a few that gave me good results:
- RealEstateShows.com virtual tours where I can post an unlimited amount of pictures
- Single listing websites
- youmail.com voicemail (if I forget my phone at home, I can listen to my voicemail's on my computer at work!)
- Using Twitter
- Using Facebook
- Learning SEO (search engine optimization)
- Adding postlets to my sidebar on my blog
- How to beef up my AR profile
2009 was my first complete year at my new office, RE/MAX Coastal Redwoods. This move has proven to be extremely cost effective. I left a large, thriving office to go with a start up RE/MAX office. The owner at RE/MAX loves all the new marketing efforts that I learn about and is willing to invest with me in them. My office is, in my humble opinion, on the cutting edge of internet marketing in comparison to our competitors. I believe much of that has to do with what I learn from my fellow bloggers on Active Rain.
My office is ringing in the new decade with a bang with our first annual client appreciation event. It is going to be RE/MAX Coastal Redwoods way of showing our clients and the vendors and other professionals that we work with, how much we appreciate their efforts. I believe this is also a cutting edge effort as I am not aware of any other office in my market, including the office I worked at before RE/MAX, that does anything similar.
I expect 2010 to be an even better year than 2009 for me and my office. We are experimenting with signage and other new marketing efforts that will clearly show RE/MAX Coastal Redwoods is ahead of the competition. I will share these new efforts throughout the year and of course, give you feedback on what gives proven results.
As I continue to contemplate business practices that gave a good ROI for 2009 and where I would like to put my marketing dollars for the coming year and where I would like to expend my valuable time I allot to my business, I know this for sure, Active Rain has proven it gives back more than I give.
I would like to thank the Active Rain staff and some Active Rain members who have helped me in so many ways either directly or by providing consistently informative posts:
Active Brad
Broker Bryant
Missy Caulk
Marti Garaughty
Lenn Harley
God Bless all AR members in the coming year,
Fran
Thank you for stopping by. Your comments on this post are welcomed and appreciated.
No one sold more homes in Del Norte County in 2009, 2010 and 2011--*in units sold and volume--than Fran Gatti. Put Fran to work for you!
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Brought to you by Fran Gatti at |
*PER DNAOR-MLS
Fran, this is a good summarization of what sounds like an excellent year for you. Best wishes to you in the New Year.
Hi Fran,
Congratulations on your successes in 2009 and best of luck to you in 2010. I am somewhat new to the social media space. I am enjoying blogging and reading other people's posts, but am curious as to how I will gain business from my blog?
Specifically, with regard to you mentioning that: "I have gained many clients through blogging and had three of my largest closings in 2009 directly attributed to my blog on Active Rain," do you have any specific suggestions for me as someone fairly new to blogging?
Thanks in advance.
Fran congrats on your success. I have been at RE/MAX for 10 months and it has been a great place to be. I am also new at the social Media concepts and look forward to learning more from all the great trend setters on AR.
I too would appreciate any suggestions you might have.
Fran
Your positive outlook for 2010 should ensure a great year for you and the tools you are using will ensure it!
Ty
Great post Fran, I have booked marked to review some of the sites mentioned that I was not aware of. thanks for the info and have a great 2010
Nick and Daniel,
I reeled in a client early this year who started reading my market reports. She liked what she read and interviewed me for her listing. Because I do a comprehensive monthly market report, I know my market, perhaps better than anyone else. I know what's selling, the median price, how many sales each month, in other words, the trends. I can talk intelligently about my market at any time and when I go to a listing appointment, I generally get the listing. An agent who shows up to work a few hours a week, never follows the market trends and sells few listings is going to look pretty silly in comparison to a well-prepared expert.
I email my market report every month to my client and prospect list and select vendors and professionals I work with. I have been told by many people that they use my stats for their business. I CAN NOT STRESS ENOUGH THE IMPORTANCE OF DOING A MONTHLY MARKET REPORT AND SENDING IT TO YOUR SPHERE OF INFLUENCE. Here are examples of market reports. Go back several months to see the different lay-outs I have used, the different information I put in my reports, and how I always answer the question, "What does it all mean to you, the consumer?"
Another thing I do that is working out well is to spotlight local businesses. This has worked out well. I received a wonderful referral from a local businessperson. I found the client a home within a day or two, one week escrow, cash, purchase price over $400,000. It was sweeeeet.
Another thing, answer your phone and return your messages that day. Agents who don't, p--- off their colleagues and lose their clients to me. I return all phone calls and emails as soon as I possibly can. That's how I want to be treated and that's how I treat not only my clients, but the professionals that work with me to get my deals closed. I have had over 30 transactions this year and could not have done it without the help of some really talented people. My office is going to show their appreciation with a REALLY nice party. Check back for my post of how the party turns out and pictures.
Merry Christmas,
Thanks for the link love and kind words Fran. I too am looking forward to an awesome 2010.
Have a great Christmas.
Fran, there is so much that I've learned here, with the help of others. My business continues to change every year, but I still use the basics. Good luck with 2010.
Fran I totally agree. We have been in the top 5% in sales volume the last 2 years and really work hard to keep on top of the market. Looking forward to the link you provided for your market reports.
Fran, I use many of your same tools and love them all. You are so sweet to mention me, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your husband and children.
Hi Fran, I'm new to the business and AR. Thank you for sharing your successes in marketting. Margaret C.
Fran: Great Post and congrats. I love the look of your post and was wondering if you would share how you got your listings on this post they look great.
Fran, very nice job and best wishes for 2010.
As an agent with 4 years, part-time, experience who moved to a new geographic location, I have been looking at how I want to establish myself in this new community. It appears that I would be wise to follow your lead. Thanks
Congratulations on your successes in 2009, and best wishes for more of the same in 2010.
Thank you so much Fran. You have reinforced one of my goals for 2010 and that is to get my head back into the statistics. I always was ontop of the numbers and then when the figures became so depressing I like many I believe found it difficult to be positive when the figures were oh so negative.
Thank you for sharing your wealth of information. I am new to Active Rain and am just so amazed by the information, tips and commentary available to me. Happy New Year.
Hi Fran, Congrats on the successful move and building your business. Evaluating what works and what doesn't is critical. Happy 2010 to you !
Hi Fran, congrats on your success and hope 2010 is even better! I was just wondering, you mentioned a lot of things that helped your business this year, were there any things you tried that were NOT successful? We like to know what works for people, but we can learn a lot from what doesn't work, too! Thanks for the great post!
Thanks so much for all the great information, Fran. I've been finding my voice here on Active Rain among my colleagues/peers, but have yet to try to find my voice among consumers. One of my goals for 2010 is to include much more consumer-focused posts, with market reports obviously being a key piece. I've bookmarked this post and will look at your market reports for some inspiration. Just out of curiousity, Fran, how did you determine the size/scale of what would be your market/area of expertise? Many thanks for all the great info, and all the best to you for 2010! -- Tanya in Montreal
What a fantastic blog! thanks
Fran,
Thanks for posting what's working. I can't wait to see the ROI from blogging.
Great post & thanks for reminder that it's time to sort out my voicemail strategy
Thanks for a neat list of what works. This is a great week to organize our plans and strategies before the new year.
Thanks for sharing, and I'll check back on the party!
Fran- I have also learned so much here. What great idea about client appreciation event. Love it when people think out side the box! Best of Luck for a great new year!
Awesome Information. Your 2010 sounds like it will be better exponentially! I hope you dont mind if I "borrow" a couple if your ideas. May everyone's 2010 be blessed!
Thanks for sharing your 2009 success strategies with us Fran!
This is Allison again logged in! Thanks again!
Fran - There is new techology by a company called augme that is big in japan, where your signs have barcodes so the buyer with a cell phone can point their phone at the bar code and all the mls info comes directly to there phone! It is amazing and i think the wave of the future. I wish you much success!
Good to hear another AR success story. Keep blogging!
Fran, I have just subscribed to your blog - your posts are so informative! I love your market reports, and I am very impressed with your results.
Since you are an Ambassador, can you tell me where on ActiveRain I can find a user-friendly tutorial on putting those nice widgets at the bottom of my blog posts (e.g., "Search for luxury homes," "Search for homes under $300,000) etc. Thanks so much!
Thanks for sharing this good inforamtion.
Thanks for sharing this good inforamtion.
Fran - Thank you so much for sharing what helped your business. I, too, have been helped greatly by the wealth of info here on AR. I am curious about your signage experiment as my company is working on a change in that area also. Could you elaborate on that? Thanks and best to you in 2010!
congratulations on the Banner Year. The customer appreciation day is a lot of fun and a great way of showing your gratitude. We do one every year and everybody enjoys it and has a lot of fun. We do it before Christmas and have the Marine Corp involved, we collect for the "Toys for Tots" program.
Have a great 2010.
Fran: Thanks for sharing what is working for you. May this year be an even better one for you. Tere
Awesome post! I just subscribed to your blog... I have also been thinking about how I will spend my marketing dollars this year...one thing I'm certain of is that all my marketing is going to be Active Rain, and SEO, etc. I'm not budgeting anything for print advertising... in this day and age there just is so little ROI with print... Thanks for the great post!
Fran,
Happy New year! Great post. I completely agree with you about returning calls. Also, I do market updates weekly on inventory and how it relates to price and that has worked really well for me.
Marcy
Fran - Thanks so much for sharing this valuable information. You have inspired me to get started with blogging in 2010.
Becky,
I use postlets.com for posting my listings on my sidebar. On the postlets page where it gives you the opportunity to sydicate your listings, I use the medium link, copy and paste into my AR settings page. If you need more help, email me directly at frangatti@remax.net.
Tanya,
My geographical area is my entire county, which is the northernmost county in California bordered by the ocean, the Oregon border and miles of wilderness on the east and south. Every agent in this market, there are about 50 that are at varying degrees of active, have the same market.
Pat and Wayne,
Yes, for the money, realtor.com did not give any return on investment and I dropped it in July. I can track how consumers get to my website and I think I had less then 10 come from realtor.com for the first half of 2009 and more than 1000 from ActiveRain. Here is a post I wrote, Are Realtor.com Enhancements Worth the Money. It obviously struck a nerve because it was featured and had over 300 comments. I would say 99% of the comments agreed that realtor.com is not worth the money and many had decided to drop it as well. I am all about putting my money where it gives PROVEN results, not where, "Everyone is doing it."
Melissa,
i put those cute buttons on myself. My website provider, Top Producer (awesome tech support by the way) made them for me. If you check out my website, www.frangatti.com, you will see what I mean. I made up the searches on my IDX page for my website and then copied and pasted the buttons into my signature on our AR settings page. You are welcome to copy and paste my buttons and link them to your own searches. I would be happy to assist you more with this if you like, just email me direct at frangatti@remax.net.
Scott,
What a fabulous idea. I may have to "borrow" that one from you.
Barbara,
We have just started using single listing websites for our listings and they have the capability of the consumer being able to text a certain number with the website address in the body of the text and get instant information texted to their phone while standing in front of the sign. We have purchased sign riders with the "text to" info and are monitoring the results. This service made the first few clients we have done this for, very happy. The websites are affordable, you have to purchase a domain name for your website, about $12, but you can reuse the domain name over and over again. The obvious URL name would be the address but then you wouldn't be able to rename, so we are experimenting with that as well. I intend on writing a post on this when I have a few months of tracked results.
Thanks for posting this information. I did go to postlets in the past, but didn't really do anything with it. I will have to look into that. Also, looked at your website and found it very helpful.
It is so nice to hear that some RE/MAX franchise owners are supporting the move to social media. I am the only agent in my office that is making an effort. While it's good to be on the leading edge, it would be nice to be part of an office that got it.
My husband and I have also held an annual Client Appreciation Party of our own for the past 4 years. Even those that cannot come always remember the invitation and it's become quite a tradition.
Fran, Thank you for all your helpful and useful information. I, too, just dropped my Realtor.com enhancement last month, and have been trying to decide if I should go back to it or not. After reading your posts, I think I made the right decision. I can certainly use that money to put into another tool for my business. I joined Re/Max a year and a half ago, and love it. I must admit this last year was a learning curve for me, trying to get used to all the different technology available. I have been selling real estate for 24 years, so its big changes for those of us that have been around a long time. I truly appreciate reading how you tech savy Realtors do your business, and I have so much more to learn! Keep those great tips coming, thanks.
Ok, I just figured out why my photo wasn't in my comment, I wasn't signed in! Thanks again!
Great job Fran! My Active Rain activities have helped me in untold ways too. Keep up the great work!
You advice is perfect. I am subscribing to your blog to keep myself motivated! :)
Great post. Thanks for sharing your success story. You are bookmarked!
Fran, my RE/MAX region offers a great website with all the newest features that they just upgraded this last week also. Hopefully you get to take advantage of that also. Congrats & thanks for sharing your success stories here on AR. Best to you in 2010!
Thanks Fran, we ditched our Realtor.com enhanced sites a while ago, too. They provided no ROI at all. Thanks again!
Hi Fran,
Congratulations on your 2009 success!
You are an inspiration to many of us and we appreciate the time you take to share your knowledge.
Cheers to a great 2010 to all!
Fran - thanks for motivation...I am working on my marketing plan for next year...and monthly market reports are on the board...LOL...
I am also waiting on your post about "single listing websites for our listings and they have the capability of the consumer being able to text a certain number with the website address in the body of the text and get instant information texted to their phone while standing in front of the sign."
With smiles from snow covered Oklahoma
Bo in Yukon
Fran, very informative. I like the SpongeBob image you use in some of your market reports. I agree doing these reports are informative and a good thing to point to when meeting new clients and getting new clients. Good luck in 2010.
Here is the link to a post on how to put postlets in the sidebar of your AR blog. I had so many people ask how its done that I decided to do a tutorial.
Thank you for all the kind comments.
I am marking your post to try a few of the things you tried. Crescent City is beautiful, but have not been there are a long time.
Fran,
Just look how many people comment. Tell you a lot. Very good post. And you know what; you sound like you are a co-owner of this franchise
Good luck and a Happy New Year
It sounds like you were a breath of fresh air when you arrived at your new office. What a wise owner to see that your ideas would be beneficial to all. You sound like a true company" girl and team player. I like that and believe we have that in common.
I too have been pouring over all of my marketing efforts and reviewing what I can shore up and what I can lose. In these economic times we need to be so much smarter.
I spent quite a bit of money just this last month in order to see great quality changes take place starting January 1. I can write off the expenses and hopefully see the great returns just as you did by the end of next year.
Thanks again!
Thanks for the suggestions Fran! I currently send out a monthly newsletter to my sphere of influence and will add the monthly market reports as well in 2010!
All the best,
Danny
Fran,
Came over to your blog after seeing a reblog of your side bar widget tutorial...looks like you have lots to share...and I love to learn...I am subscribing! I too find it is best to stay ahead of the curve...
Hi Fran. Congrats on a great 2009.
I look forward to following you in 2010.
Thanks for writing,
Ken
Great Job Fran, Keep up all the good work. I look forward to reading more about your success.
Fran, nice job and continued success for you. One of the things that has always been a challenge for me has been how to directly correlate my blogs and comments from AR to more business. I have yet to see any business come directly from AR. Any thoughts or ideas?
Paul
Thanks for sharing all that great information Fran, you have out done yourself for 09, best of luck in 2010
Excellent post Fran,
Thanks for sharing. Best of luck for a great 2010
Thanks for great learning material. I absolutely agree on the thought of being ahead of your competition. Great team is the way to go.
Double your sales next year and share your knowledge with AR.
Thanks again,
Honorata
This is very encouraging! It reminds me to spend some more time this year with AR for my appraisal business!!
Fran,
Great post...it does pay to track what works and what doesn't work so that the following years planning can be effective...thanks for the postlets info...I had no idea you could do that! Good luck next year..sounds like you are ahead of the game.
It is smart to review what did and didn't work at the end of each year when making goals for the New Year. Thanks for sharing!
Love the year end wrap up and review. I am doing the same type of reflection for my Mortgage Practice. Enjoy your posts and look forward to reading them this next year.
Fran thank for the information on what worked for you in this past year. The information on the newsletter was great and gives me a good starting point on what t and how to start one. Be looking forward your your posts in 2010.
Great post Fran! You have shared so much fabulous information and I know we all do appreciate it. I was happy to see you are using one of the new tools that I just recenlty discovered and have implemented just this week- the singles property website with texting service. The site I used was: epropertysites.com and I am happy to have found them. I too am waitng to see if it worth the investment.
Thanks so much for all you have shared and best wishes in your new office and for a fantastic 2010!
Fran, congratulations to you on a successful 2009. Your work this year is certainly placing you in position to excel in 2010. Best wishes!
Hi Fran: You feedback is valuable. I'm subscribing to your blog and wish you all the best in the new year!
Sharon Bruner
Fran,
Wonderful post! I also used realtor.com and found that it was not worth it's costs. I was just wondering do you have a website that you do recommend? I also tried Move.com and found out it too was not worth it.
Thanks,
Tanner Brewster
Great post! Thanks. Having more years in marketing than I do in real estate, I can appreciate the need to carefully evaluate what is working and make the necessary changes. And clearly, it's not always the most expensive stuff that is the most effective. It's important to evaluate in terms of time spent, also -- not just dollars.
Thanks Fran. I have just started posting my markets statistics, but you have shown me that I could do better.
thanks for the great blog. I haven't tried RealEstateShows.com - I'll look into that one.
I will be looking for a Blog on your First Annual Client Appreciation Event. I believe that is the best way to build a sense of community... and loyalty. Keep us posted on your progress!
Fran....Thank you for sharing. I like the way you presented your thoughts, and ideas. Keep them coming.
Jerry Gray CRB,CRS,GRI / Allen Tate Realtors / Winston Salem, NC / 336-918-2433
Fran,
Thank you for re-energizing me to continue blogging. For me, it gets hard to blog when you are busy and more fun to do other things when you are not. I am inspired by your business success with blogging. I hope to emulate your success!!
I love all the ideas & have bookmarked for future reference! I too have had a large return on property webites & Social Networking. I am excited to amp it up in 2010!
Great post! It's very inspiring to hear of your social media success. I plan on focusing a great deal of resources towards social media this year, and look forward to a similar testimonial at the end of 2010!
Thanks for sharing all your great ideas and congratulations on your success in 2009. I especially like the client appreciation day. What a great way to say thank you and to encourage referrals.