For Real Estate Sales Professionals

August 23, 2004 E-zine

August 23, 2004
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read by More Than 30,000 Agents

Always be determined to become the
best real estate agent in your territory!

In this Issue:

1. Beware of the Internet Advertising Pirates!

2. Changing The Language Problem With Your Presentations

1. Beware of the Internet Advertising Pirates!

When I realized about a week ago that I was going to be writing an article on this subject, I had no idea of the events that were about to occur that would completely transform what I would be writing about...

First of all, I'd like to update you on a subject I wrote about two years ago. There are companies out there purporting to sell you the exclusive rights to keyword search terms on the Internet. About two weeks ago I was once again contacted by one of these companies telling me that they could have my Web site come up in the top position on all the major search engines. And to the uninitiated person, this often sounds like it could be a great deal, too. But what these companies often avoid telling you is that you have to install their special software patch in order to produce these search engine results on your own computer.

Keep in mind that 99.99% of all Internet surfers will not be installing this patch on their own computers, and you'll begin to get the picture. You'll be seeing your Web site come up in the top positions, but nobody else will see the same thing on their own computers. So any advertising dollars you spend in buying the exclusive use of any real estate keyword search terms will be a complete waste of your money. And, in summary, this is like paying someone who promises to get you on television and then they hand you a video of yourself to pop into your VCR to fulfill their end of the deal.

As the plot thickens here, two days ago I was preparing to write this article and something bizarre happened to me. I began noticing that my Internet Explorer browser both looked different and was behaving differently than it was before. For one thing it now had an additional window in it to type in keywords for Internet searches. This was very strange as I often do keyword searches directly into the browser window itself which then takes me to the search engine results on the MSN search engine. So for me to continue to do Internet searches like this, no additional new window for keyword searches would have been necessary.

Second, my Internet searches were now being hijacked and taken to a search engine I'd never heard of, where people were paying money to advertise their Web sites in the top search engine positions there.

And third, my computer began feeding me a barrage of popup ads at an unbelievably feverish pace whenever I would activate my Internet Explorer browser and begin surfing the Internet.

What I recognized was happening was, despite the award-winning protection of my firewall software, someone from a remote location was able to install files on my computer's hard drive without me knowing about it. And the files that were installed were completely changing the results of my Web searches in order to serve the interests of that company's advertisers. Needless to say, I was both stunned and appalled at what I was witnessing.

So I then downloaded and launched a different browser and did a Google search under the term "spyware test." After reading several reviews of the products available there I opted to take a free scanning test of my hard drive with the Aluria Spyware Eliminator software. And in the process of doing so I found that I had 148 files containing spyware and advertising software on my hard drive!

I simply had no idea that all these files were on my hard drive relaying my surfing habits to third party companies, influencing my searching results, and causing targeted popup ads to appear on my screen according to my Web surfing habits. So once I found out about this it was a no-brainer for me to then purchase the $30.00 software product to get all of these files off of my hard drive. (You can do the same free spyware scan of your own hard drive by visiting www.AluriaSoftware.com. But the irony here along with what I'm talking about is you'll need to download their free software in order to do it!) 

Fast forwarding now to your current business as a real estate agent, your computer is definitely one of your most valuable tools. If your data is ever corrupted, or if there are problems with your hard drive, it could end up costing you a lot of money in both lost time and information. So you need to do everything you can to make sure that third parties are not interfering with the information you're storing on your hard drive. What concerns me greatly here is that if I could have 148 spyware files on my computer without even knowing it, what could potentially happen to my hard drive if people began installing much more dangerous files onto it? For those people who know what they're doing, this can be accomplished through our Web browsers whenever we're surfing the Internet. And it can be done without us even knowing that it's happening.

As a result of this experience, I've now changed my Web browser from Microsoft Internet Explorer to the Mozilla Firefox browser (www.Mozilla.com). I absolutely love Microsoft and its products, but because their software products are utilized by the greatest number of people worldwide, these products are often the number one target of hackers, too. (if you're a hacker and you want to inflict the greatest amount of chaos worldwide, doesn't it make sense to target the software programs that are being utilized by the greatest number of people?) So in recognizing there's no major reason why I have to continue utilizing the Microsoft browser other than it's become a habit, I'm opting for what I perceive to be a higher level of security with a lesser known browser instead. (In checking my own Web site statistics, Microsoft Internet Explorer is utilized by 70% of the people who visit my Web site, while the Mozilla Firefox browser is utilized by only 15% of my visitors. As a result, I'm sure the hackers would see more value in targeting the browser that's utilized by a far greater number of people.)

So you can see that while my original intention in writing this article was to warn you about people promising you top search engine results through installing their software, the irony here is that one company's version of this software was covertly installed on my computer before I even sat down to write the article!

So if anyone contacts you and offers to sell you the exclusive rights to keywords on the Internet, or promises you the number one position in search engine results for your Web site, you're most likely dealing with what I would consider to be a scam. In this situation, ask the person you're talking to if their service requires you to install any software on your computer in order to make it work. And if it does, your best move will probably be to hang up the phone as quickly as possible!

Click here for downloadable E-books and live audio interviews with top-producing real estate agents. These interviews are with industry experts who show you exactly what they do to continually make hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year.

2. Changing The Language Problem With Your Presentations

How you utilize language in your presentations to your clients and prospects plays a big role in determining how successful you will be in your real estate business. With this in mind there's a simple yet major mistake that many agents are making when trying to get their clients and prospects to take action and move forward in different situations.

The words that we utilize produce different pictures, sounds, and feelings in our clients and prospects. Therefore it's very important that we choose the words that inspire our clients and prospects to move forward in wanting to work with us.

In looking at this further, if I were to pick one phrase that represents the biggest and most common linguistic mistake that I see so many agents making when talking with their clients and prospects, it would be asking a question similar to this one:

"Do you see any problem in moving forward?"

Or even worse:

"What problems do you see in moving forward?"

Out of all the things you could ask your clients and prospects to focus on, why would you want to direct their minds towards looking for more problems? Because if you utilize phrases like the ones above, this is exactly what you're directing their minds to do. And since your clients and prospects are involved in making major financial decisions while working with you, there will almost always be some problems that will come into their minds from time-to-time. These problems and uncertainties can also lead to what we've come to know as buyer's and seller's remorse.

So now let me ask you the following question about how your business is going as a real estate agent:

"What problems do you see in closing all of the real estate transactions you're currently working on?"

Notice where you're mind and emotions begin to go with that one, and recognize that you definitely don't want to move your clients and prospects in a similar direction! And also notice that the direction your mind and emotions began to go in resulted directly from the specific question I asked you. So you'll want to make sure to ask your clients and prospects questions that put them in the ideal mental and emotional states to move forward in doing business with you.

Returning now to what you could say to your clients and prospects instead of the questions we discussed earlier, consider some questions like the following:

"Can you see now that everything is in place for us to move forward?"

Or:

"Do you definitely feel ready now to move forward?"

Just a slight adjustment in how you phrase your questions and language to your clients and prospects will make a huge difference in kind of responses you receive from them.

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Delphi Business Properties

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