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2. How Are You Doing at Prospecting Your Warm Market?

The shakeup at Google in recent months has affected a great number of real estate agents. Google completely changed their algorithm for how Web sites and Web pages are ranked, and a great many agents who were enjoying top rankings no longer find their Web sites in the first 2-3 pages on Google when doing their searches.

Many search engine experts throughout the world agree that they don't like these new changes at Google. A great number of them feel that these changes now result in less relevant search results to the user when compared with the results obtained under the old system. Instead of going into all the technical changes that were created at Google to bring about the new algorithm, I'm going to provide you with information that I think will be more useful to you. 

First of all, my friends at www.searchengine-news.com have been following the changes at Google very closely. In their January 2004 online newsletter, they describe in detail to their subscribers exactly what Google has done behind the scenes to create such a shakeup in their search engine results. And they also discuss the strategies to effectively deal with these changes, too. If you're someone who may be interested in how to obtain top rankings in all the search engines, I strongly suggest you consider subscribing to their online newsletter.

In looking at the future, the people at Search Engine News recommend that now may be the time to look at alternative approaches to enhance your online presence. With this in mind, they have compiled a list of Online Yellow Pages services that are each now receiving more than one million visitors a month. These services involve monthly fees for advertising, but at the same time several of them could be a good option for you while you work at keeping your Web site at the top of the search engines and continue utilizing pay-per-click advertising:

Smart Pages:

http://www.smartpages.com/about/advertising/

AOL Yellow Pages:

yp.aol.com

Verizon Yellow Pages:

http://www.superpages.com/Advertisercenter/

Click here for a free Verizon Yellow Pages Listing:

https://snap.superpages.com/NASApp/Listing/control/ViewListing?LID=en

Switchboard:

http://www.switchboard.com/adproducts.asp

Yahoo Yellow Pages:

http://yp.yahoo.com

Info USA:

http://dbupdate.infousa.com/dbupdate/index.html

As we've seen in the past, who the leaders are in online technology can change very rapidly. Companies that once dominated their sector of the market years ago are now often a distant memory to us. With this in mind, many search engine experts now believe that the timing is excellent for new search engines to emerge and become major players in the industry in the months and years ahead.

As a real estate agent, you want to stay ahead of your competitors in your knowledge of online technology instead of being someone following behind them. Top agents were already making incredible money on the Internet long before many agents even had their own Web sites, and you'll do the same when you're continually a leader in applying online technology in your own real estate business.

2. How Are You Doing at Prospecting Your Warm Market?

There's an interesting phenomenon that I've been observing for many years with real estate agents. When they begin their careers they prospect because they don't have any clients. This makes perfect sense to me. Then what happens after they've been in the business for a number of years is they continue to prospect people they've never met before, and do a poor job of following-up on the people they've successfully closed transactions with.

Part of this is because real estate agents often learn a particular way to generate activity during their first 2-3 years in the business, and then they continue to duplicate this same approach for many years to come. Sometimes an agent will even continue this exact same approach for the rest of their career. So how an agent gets trained in their early years in the business often creates the habits they will then utilize throughout the rest of their career.

After an agent has been in business for a good number of years, they probably have a long list of people they've successfully closed transactions with. But if they continue to primarily contact people they've never worked with before for new business, they're missing some great opportunities by not staying in relationship with the people they've already successfully worked with.

Recently I read a statistic about a survey taken by the National Association of Realtors. The survey said that while 93% of all people were satisfied with the level of service they received from their agent, only 11% of these people utilized the same agent again on their next transaction. What this means is that many agents are not doing a good job of following-up with their clients and staying in relationship with them.

The people you've successfully closed transactions with represent some of your best prospects for the rest of your career. If you haven't been in contact with them for some time, it may be time for you to pick up the phone and begin getting back in relationship with them again. While they may or may not be ready for their next real estate transaction right now, they certainly can also be a great source of immediate referrals for you.

So don't be one of those agents who only receives an 11% rate of repeat business from the clients you've successfully closed transactions with. When you continually stay in relationship with your old clients, you'll constantly have a great amount of repeat business from them in addition to the new business that you're always generating for yourself.

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