The AgentMapIt Blog

Within days we will be launching beta testing of a new blogging program we are calling “BlogEasy”.

BlogEasy is meant to do just what the name implies: make it easy to create and post to a blog. Apart from a lack of traffic, the biggest problem with having a blog is creating and posting content. That is what BlogEasy is meant to (at least partially) solve.

We will be providing blog content in various categories – real estate related categories to begin with. These will be short articles – approximately 250-300 words – focusing on specific key words relevant to your area of interest.

The system will “spin” various components in each article so each downloaded version contains unique wording. Articles will also contain “location variables” so they will reinforce the local relevance of the article to your local area.

Subscribers will have access to approximately 20 unique articles a month drawn from our article library. The library will grow each month as new articles are added.

Current AgentMapIt members will be able to sign up for the beta program which will give them free membership for some time period between 3 and 6 months (depending on demand). Interested members can sign up by leaving a comment here.

Based on several months of intensive testing, we’ve made extensive revisions to AgentMapIt Feedback and are rolling out a FREE One Month TRIAL OFFER.

The most important purpose of AgentMapIt Feedback is to help you automatically collect feedback from other agents who show your listings.

You know as well as I do that getting feedback from other agents can be difficult and frustrating. Agents are busy people and usually won’t give you feedback unless you ask them. That takes time and effort on your part and is a nuisance you’d rather not have.

So it often doesn’t get done.

But that doesn’t make it less important. Feedback helps you provide a better service to your clients. It shows your sellers that you are actively promoting their property. And it can help you convince your sellers to adjust their listings so they are more attractive to buyers.

That means your listings will sell faster, your clients will be happier, and you will get more recommendations, referrals, and repeat business.

AgentMapIt Feedback lets other agents request a showing for a specific listing by filling out a simple online form.

Then once a showing date is entered into the system AgentMapIt Feedback automatically takes care of collecting feedback
for each showing.

How does it do it? Well, a few hours after the showing time an email is sent to the showing agent requesting feedback. And if they don’t respond it keeps sending emails – up to four days in a row – until they do.

This process is so simple, showing agents can usually submit their feedback in less than 30 seconds. All a Showing Agent has to do is fill out a simple online form, click “submit” and their feedback is recorded in the Feedback log for that particular listing.

So you can see how powerful this is. Once you start using AgentMapIt Feedback you will have a record of every showing for every listing. And you will have a complete showing log for each property you have listed.

Needless to say, most sellers are very impressed with this. So it’s actually an important feature to help you get listings. Each of your sellers can log into their own listing page and see how many times their property has been viewed, and they can see the exact feedback submitted after each showing.

Talk about revolutionary. This lets you provide your sellers with a superior level of service that only AgentMapIt Feedback subscribers can offer.

So that’s a brief summary of how Feedback works. Now it’s time to give the system a try. And to make that as simple as possible, we are offering a FREE One Month Trial. When you sign up you will have full access to the system but won’t make a payment until a month later. This will give you plenty of time to see how easy it is to work with.

So go ahead and sign up by clicking on the signup link on the AgentMapIt Feedback home page. Your first month is absolutely free, and after that there’s absolutely no long term obligation. You can continue working with the program for as long as you like, and if it doesn’t do everything we claim you can cancel at any time.

Go ahead. You’ll love how easy this program is to use, and your sellers will love the instant information you can now provide them.

AgentMapIt Feedback – offering your clients a completely new level of service.

As a Real Estate Agent, when a seller lists with you one of the things they are most interested in is Feedback from people who have gone through their property.

Agents tell us over and over again that feedback is one of the things that sellers most want from their agents.

But you know… many agents simply do not like giving feedback, and unless you make it as easy as possible, they usually won’t bother. That’s not a good way to impress your client is it? They want information and you can’t give it to them. They want to know what people think of their property, and all you can give them are vague answers based on your own hunches.

Even if you take the job of gathering feedback very seriously it can be a major nuisance. Tracking agents down is often difficult. Getting honest answers can be equally difficult. And and then once you have the information, putting into a useful format to show your clients takes valuable time.

AgentMapIt Feedback solves these problems. It tracks your showings, automatically collects feedback from showing agents, and enters it into a feedback log that sellers can access and see at any time.

What that means is that AgentMapIt Feedback is not just a powerful tool to help organize your business. It is also an important addition to your marketing strategy, and gives you an edge on other agents who can’t provide the same level of service.

Accessing AgentMapIt Feedback is surprisingly inexpensive. There is no long term contract. Go ahead and sign up for a month, and if it doesn’t do everything we claim it will, just cancel your subscription. To learn more about AgentMapIt Feedback, or to give it a try, visit Feedback.

If you are an AgentMapIt Gold member, as of July 15 you will have access to a new program called AgentMapIt Feedback. If you are already a Gold Member you can get started using Feedback by going to the Feedback Members Area and creating your listing agent profile. You’ll find a step-by-step description of how the program works.

How Feedback Works
Getting Feedback from people who have visited and toured your listing properties is often difficult and frustrating. Yet this is valuable information that can help you do your job more effectively and show your vendors how their property is being received.

AgentMapIt Feedback is an automated Showing Manager and Feedback System that solves the feedback problem. It helps you book and record showing dates, automatically collects feedback from prospective buyers, and enters that feedback into a feedback log attached to each listing. This gives you a summary of all showings for each of your listings as well as a convenient feedback summary accessible only by you and your vendor.

How Feedback can help you…
You need AgentMapIt Feedback because it makes collecting feedback so much easier. Here is what this system can do for you…

* Books and verifies showings of all your listings
* Keeps track of individual showings
* Gives you a record of showing agent contact information
* Automatically collects feedback from showing agents
* Keeps a convenient log of feedback for each listing
* Lets your sellers see the feedback summary

If you are already a Gold Member you can get started using Feedback by going to the Feedback Members Area and creating your listing agent profile. You’ll find a step-by-step description of how the program works.

You’ve probably heard that you should consider starting a blog. The purpose of a blog is to create interesting content to build a following of regular readers.

Real Estate Agents can use a blog to create an identity, reinforce their expertise and stay in touch with clients and prospects.

But the truth is, most blogs do not work. No matter how good the content is, if it isn’t promoted properly it is basically a waste of time and energy.

This report offers tips on how to come up with interesting things to write about. But much more importantly it provides a common sense way to get targeted traffic to your blog.

Without traffic a blog is pointless. This report describes how to create a blog that your most important people will read.

AgentMapIt members can download Blogs That Work from the members area.

Non-members can sign up for the report here.

Green Tips for Homeowners is another service available only to AgentMapIt members. Green Tips is a series of short articles about “hot” green topics that agents can use for publishing in newsletters, blogs and other promotional materials.

Subscribers to Green Tips will immediately receive 5 original articles at absolutely no cost. New articles in this series are sent to subscribers every month.

Future monthly installments will also be sent to you free of charge as long as you remain a member of AgentMapIt.

The package also includes suggestions on using these articles in email promotions, reprinting them in your own blog, or incorporating them into our own special Blog and Email program.

Members can get these articles right now by logging into the Members Area.

Non-members can subscribe to Green Tips for Homeowners. This subscription includes a free (Silver) Agentmapit membership.

In last week’s post we briefly touched on the importance of creating as large and as active a network of referral agents as possible. This week we want to make some suggestions for “working” your network.

By “working” your network we mean staying in touch with your network partners, putting your face in front of them, reminding them on a regular basis that you’re still around and still looking forward to sharing information and doing business with them.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Create a Network Partner List – Build a “formal” list that includes the name, postal address, telephone number, email address and other relevant information for each network partner. By a “formal” list I mean something written down or stored in your computer somewhere.

Most agents have access to all kinds of “contact” software. Many of these programs are overkill for this purpose, and force you to spend more time figuring out the software than actually using it. Whatever you do, don’t get caught up in the “system” at the expense of actually corresponding with your network partners.

A good place to start looking for referral network partners is right here at AgentMapIt. To use AgentMapIt as a source for building a network list you should look through as many member profiles as possible, and then make a list of the ones you want to contact. Then you might try sending an introductory email something like this:

Hello Alice,

All the best,
Renaldo Realtor

2. Contact Method and Frequency – Decide how you’re going to contact your network partners, and how often. If you like using the telephone, probably a call every couple of months is sufficient. Or if you prefer email, a regular email every two or three weeks is probably not too often.

Either way, try to have something interesting to say. If you have a blog it is always effective to refer to a recent post in your email messages. Blog posts don’t have to be long and involved – perhaps something of interest about the real estate market in your city, recent trends or sales figures, or an interesting video you stumbled onto. Remember, one of your objectives is to demonstrate that you are an expert when it comes to your local market.

3. Other Networking Websites – As you probably know, there are many social networking websites you can take advantage of to stay in touch with different groups of people. Some like ActiveRain and AgentMapIt are specifically for real estate agents. Others like Linkedin are for more general business and professional networking. Still others like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are not specifically for business networking, although many people claim they can effectively be used for business.

None of these sites will be effective networking tools for you if you don’t put some effort into them. As I have said elsewhere, “As with all other social networking sites (Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), the benefit you derive from them is completely dependent on the effort you put into them.”

And personally, although I am a member of many different social networking sites (Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, ActiveRain, to name a few) I find it impossible to spend enough time “networking” in this way to get any real benefit from these sites.

In other words, don’t bother with sites like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and ActiveRain unless you intend to spend some time working on each of them. You won’t get anything out of them unless you put quite a bit of time and energy into them.

I have come to the conclusion that the best way to use social networking sites is to choose one (or maybe two) and concentrate on that one alone. That means you should take a close look at the objectives you want to accomplish, the people you want to “network” with, and the opportunities for exposure within each of these sites.

That is one important reason why we have designed AgentMapIt to have a very narrow focus. AgentMapIt is primarily meant for networking with other agents for the purposes of generating referrals. So if that is something you think you should be focusing on, then AgentMapIt is the ideal place to help you build and “work” your network.

Can’t find a basic Referral Form when you need one? Here is one that is always at your fingertips. To use it you will have to print it out.

Agent-to-Agent Referral Form