The RECoach Joins Pango Group! but Why?

First let me say that I love doing what I do. My Clients are all fantastic, and (for the most part) are all friend’s of mine. I WILL NOT ABANDON ANY CURRENT CLIENT!!! but, that said…

I ran across an amazing company about 3 months ago, who at that time I knew as, Glen Oaks Escrow in Glendale Ca. They are now “The Pango Group” to highlight their entire group of companies including; Glen Oaks Escrow, CV Escrow (Coachella Valley), American Trust Escrow, CMG Escrow (in San Fernando), & TC Solutions a Transaction Coordinator outsource. They are the largest, independent, escrow/closing services company in California. From the moment I entered their “stylish” yet simple office complex I knew I was somewhere special, somewhere “Unique”! I was greeted with a smile and a “welcome”, offered a cup of coffee or bottled water, and was seated on a very comfortable couch as I awaited my meeting with Jeff Russell, the Executive VP.

I was there, in part because one of the RENet’s own Stacey Harmon of Stacey Harmon Enterprises (a long time Real Estate Agent and now Social Media Consultant),  was hired by them about a year ago to push forward their “Social Networking/Social Media” agenda. This in and of itself was impressive. I mean, what other Real Estate industry company (Let alone Escrow), has had the forethought, initiative, and budget to do something like this? I could probably count them on one hand! but that’s what makes these guys so unique, they get it! Rather than be happy with being #1, rather than being complacent, rather than cutting back the budget…They “Go For It”, they see the promise and future in SM, and in the Internet as a whole and create an entire strategy out of being “First to Market”. I LOVE IT!

After my tour of the campus which included; Operations, Sales, Accounting, and most impressively the Service Center, I realized that the entire company had bought into, and perhaps even lives by, the Pango mantra “Execution Through Grace & Kindness”! and it is certainly working…Have you ever heard of any company, never mind an Escrow company (whose soul purpose is to monitor and stand guard over “The most important transaction of your life”; Your home purchase), maintain a Customer Satisfaction rating of 99.8%!!! (as confirmed by an independent firm) and that is from an average of over 1,100 surveys per month…1,100!

So after 3 months of learning, listening, and networking … I JOINED EM! I am now an Ambassador for Pango Group, a Business Development Representative, right here in my own “backyard” of Orange County! It is my intention to introduce the Real Estate professionals (Brokers, Agents, Mortgage Specialists, Credit Unions and Banks, Title Companies et al) of The OC and beyond to, what I honestly believe to be, The Finest Closing Services Company in California!

The Finest Service, The Finest Products, The Finest People, and The Finest Value…Period!

I dare anyone to show me different!

So join me, right here at MyRECoach.com, as I/we learn all about this “Mysterious” world of Escrow. A world that has somehow been so important to so many, yet less than 2% of all Home Buyers can tell you WHY DO THE ESCROW COMPANIES EXIST? and more importantly, WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT? We will explore this together, and I will bring my “real life” experiences from the OC here, to MyRECoach.com, and help you to understand them as well.

 Thanks for tuning in…

The Coach

Post #1 in the series…What is Web 3.0?

…or more to the point, what will it be?

I have suggested that Web 1.0 could be described in one word….Availability…meaning that in the beginning (sounds so long ago) websites were simply “Online Brochures”, they supplied visitors with information about what you do, where you do it, and how to find you.

Web 2.0 could be described with…Transparency…meaning the walls between you and your potential client were beginning to become transparent, they were able to see and understand so much more about you form your chat, your Tweets, your Facebook ect…They were also able to communicate with you through these same new technologies.

Now we begin to look at what Web 3.0 will look like. Why? Simple, if you are not ahead of the technology curve, you are behind and I mean WAY BEHIND! It was almost 3 years ago, when I suggested to some friends of mine in Real Estate to begin to look into Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Social Networking as a whole as well as some very cool tech tools like MLBroadcast, Trulia, Postlets, and many more. Now those things are either “mainstream” , “passe”, or have morphed into something even cooler In any event, if you are just now getting into these cool technologies, you are BEHIND! the best and brightest amongst us have already mastered them and have left you in the dust!

I like to think ahead, and thinking ahead right now means asking that question…What is Web 3.0 going to look like? I believe that the one word definition of Web 3.0 will be…Predictability…meaning that web presence’s will be riddled with predictability! They will know the answer before it is asked, they will provide information that the client didn’t even know they wanted, but they did! They will bring the client directly to the answer based on the actual need of the client, even if they didn’t even know it!

What does this look like in a practical sense? Follow along this scenario with me, I will use something very “common”, not really associated with Real Estate, so everyone can say “AH HA!” “I get what he means”

Our cars, our phones, and other electronic devices are equipped with GPS. This is a cool little feature that allows us to use our Navigation devices, set up map details, keep from getting lost, find cool lil stores, ect…but they are also leaving (creating) digital footprints of everything we do, everywhere we go. Our cell phone accounts have our ss# associated with them, so they can draw a clear picture of who we are from the information available via that ss#. Our income, our neighborhood, our education…starting to get it? The Internet now knows what I can afford, what I like to buy, what I drive, where I live, and with the GPS, now knows everywhere I go, and everything I do, via digital footprint. So if I am prone to buy Lexus automobiles, and I have an income of over $80,000 a year, and I drive down a particular street each day to get to work, and I buy new cars every 2.3 years, and I stop in at the Starbucks on the corner of 1st and Vine every weekday (See it, see it? Wait for it!) The local Lexus dealer will be placing advertising on the street I drive and in the Starbucks I visit 2.3 years after I bought my last car!

I can hear the skeptics amongst you right now, just as I heard the skeptics 3 years ago saying that Twitter, and Facebook were stupid kids stuff! The advertisements will be virtual in nature and specific to each driver, not just me. They will come in the form of holygrams..they will appear on navigation screens, and PDA’s they will come on my Starbucks receipt and the Guy or Gal behind me will get an ad for Irish Spring soap, because it has been 4.1 months since the last time he bought it at the Supermarket! SEE IT?

Now go back again and listen to Kevin Kelly’s YouTube video, and start to believe that WEB 3.0 = Predictabilty and start thinking about how you can use this to capture Market Share! There are some great ways to do it and we will be looking at them over the next 18 months to help you get started.

For now…Think! Use the Noodle! Have an open mind, and get ahead of the curve. Have any thoughts? leave a comment, love to hear them

Thanks for Listening…

The Coach

What makes a good Real Estate website?

Here are some things I think are important for your users IDX experience:
-    Easy to use for the consumer
-    Fast search results
-    Good interact map search that uses Ajax to display properties
-    Fully integrated solution – not framed
-    Consumer backend to manage saved searches and favorite properties
-    Simple sign up forms that do not bounce user to another page
-    Email alerts that have one link to new listings that are displayed on your site instead of the user having to click each individual property link
-    Detailed advance searches

Important website features:
-    Fully Editable pages and meta tags
-    Ability to pull in properties as content
-    Search engine friendly
-    Built for high conversions
-    Built in blog

Important Lead management features:
-    Lead Capture notifications
-    Agent lead assigning functions
-    Round Robin Lead assignment for teams or brokerages
-    Auto re-assignment of leads if agent doesn’t take action
-    Follow Up features and reminders
-    Prioritize leads by motivation or urgency
-    Easy exporting feature

The Coach

Another FREE “Cool Tool” from The Coach!

 

Before I start, let me just make reference to a post I did erlier today on GeekEstateBlog, about another Super “Cool Tool” DialMyCalls. This tool, with a lil ingenuity, can be used to design a “Drip Marketing” program utilizing potential clients cell phones and emails. Check it out!!!

Ok, now for The Coaches “Cool Tool”….

You guys who have followed me over the past year (yes, I know it has been on like 10 different Blogs and websites, but hopefully I am settled in now), know that I love to find FREE (or very low cost) “Cool Tools” that Real Estate Agents and Brokers can use in their businesses to help them “over-achieve”, as it were. Today, I am going to talk about xVideoServiceTheif, a FREE program that allows you to download videos from over 55 video sites, including the “Gorilla in the room” YouTube, and convert them to usable formats such as iPod, MPEG, and AVI. This will then allow you to utilize the videos in your website, Blog, and on line marketing.

It makes it simple, easy, and again…FREE! Don’t be afraid of utilizing this type of technology! It’s why you read this stuff, and its what will make you the easy choice of potential Buyers and Sellers of Real Estate in your market. You wanna be the best? You gotta work at it!

So anyway, I could tell you all about it, but instead, I am gonna let you watch this video clip (Nice use of technolgy on my part, huh?) by Duncan @ http://www.mob3.co.uk/. This guy talks super fast, and assumes you can follow along, but Dang! he does a nice job of explaining it in just 7 minutes….

 

 

Ok, so hopefully you saw what this program can do for you. Now go out and do something today, that will make your life beter!

Until next time “Moppets”,

Bets of Luck!

The Coach

Where ya been Coach? How about some good advice???

Good morning everybody and welcome back to The Real Estate Coaches Weblog. Missed ya! Quick Subject for today! …

….Naming your Photos properly. I did a post earlier this week at Geek Estate Blog, talking of the “little known”, and even “littler used” practice of naming your photos, slideshows, and videos before you post them to your website! It’s simple yes, but sooooooo very important for “Google Juice”….

Check it out here…

Talk to you soon,

The Coach

A word of advice to Real Estate Agents who Blog, the power of social networking can be a “double-edged sword”

In what can only be described as an amazing commentary on the true power of Social Networking, one incredibly ignorant RedFin representative, Carol Hian, wrote a scathing Blog post on her RedFin Blog about a fellow “Twitterer” and Facebook friend, Kris Berg and her husband Steve. In which she not only referes to them as “Barbie & Ken”, but oversteps the bounds of Blogging and good taste, by utilizing her privilege to complete a personal agenda of bashing through jealousy.

Miss Hian certainly found out the power of social networking and the closeness of a Social Networking community in which the Berg’s and many others belong. Within hours, nary minutes, of the Blog post becoming known to the Twitter and Facebook families the Bergs belong to, the post had 25+ comments scolding Miss Hian for her miss-use of the medium. It was truly amazing to see, and warmed my heart that even a consumer, who had read the blog post because he was researching RedFin to possibly use their services, chimed in with this diddy…

Jon said:

I am not a real estate agent, as most commenters here appear to be. I’m just a soon to be homeowner interested in real estate in San Diego.

But I do find this post not only childish, but insulting.

“Everyone ends up with a bad taste, longing for a barf bag and mouthwash.”

You’re right. That describes me to a T after reading this drivel.

I am considering using Redfin as my agency, but I wouldn’t ever consider using Ms. Hian as my agent.

“Biting back” at Ms. Berg is one thing, but you bit back at everyone that contributed to that food drive. How is that appropriate?”

Every comment was of the same ilk, except one, from Glenn Kelman President & CEO of Redfin, he wrote…

Glenn Kelman said:

This post makes me physically ill. It is not consistent with how those of us at Redfin who have met Kris Berg feel about her or her charitable activity. Kris is a wonderful human being and a credit to our profession.

We have a clear policy that the contractors who contribute local posts about the real estate market should focus only on the real estate market, not on competitors. We are clear with everyone with whom we work that Redfin works as a partner with other real estate brokers, not as an antagonist.

Had we known that Ms. Hian felt this way about Realtors, we would not have commissioned her to write for Redfin at all.

As much as we would like to, we cannot take the post down because it would be sneaky to do so. But we will take steps to ensure something like this never happens again.

I apologize on behalf of Redfin for this post, both to Kris Berg and to the real estate profession.
Regards, Glenn”

Kudos to Glenn, not only for his quick response in defense of Kris & Steve, but also for his eloquently stated apology. I am now a Glenn Kelman fan!

Be careful with this medium Bloggers, we should all be proud of what we do, not embarrassed by it.

The Coach

Real Estate Tools Too Good to Let Slide!

If your are a reader of my post on GeekEstateBlog, Zillow’s Real Estate Technology Blog, you may have seen a post titled “Link Love”, Peace, and Real Estate 2.0!!! I wrote on Monday April, 14th. It had some good stuff in it, but none more important than a web 2.0 Agent tool called “Postlets” found at http://postlets.com

I make my living bringing new, innovated, and mostly cheap (FREE) tools to the Agents in my company, Prudential California Realty, and I am more than happy to share them with my readers as well. This one you must use. Postlets, after you complete the sign-up and some simple data entry about your Listing, they will then not only distribute it for you to some “Heavy Hitters” in on line Listing site; namely Trulia, Zillow, Google Base, et al, but they will also supply you with an HTML code (Just like Vflyer) that you can use to post to Craig’s List!!!

Also, have you tried MLBroadcast yet?? If not, WHY??? Are you not understanding the significance of what it can do for your Listing’s visibility and the potential traffic to your website, not to mention some unreal SEO for you on Search Engines like Google and Yahoo? They design a video for you, from the Listing photos you already have, not to mention do “Professional” voice over narration to magnify the impact to the viewer. then they upload it to dozens of Video sites like, Yahoo Video, YouTube, Meta Cafe and many many more!!!! All this for $29, you can’t get a Virtual Tour anywhere for that! and with these you will get a code that you can place on the MLS in the box where you load a Virtual Tour. What the heck!!!!????

Come on guys, absolute neccessities in your business…Postlets and MLBroadcast…get them now!!!!

See ya next time, “The Coach“

Real Estate Agents, I have “Put my money where my mouth is!!”

To all my friends, especially those who are Northern California Real Estate Agents, I have started a YouTube Group for all your Real Estate Videos/Virtual tours, please consider joining in!!
http://www.youtube.com/group/realestatevideos
The Coach

The Real Estate Coach Goes “Viral” and so Should You!!!

The Coach was recently featured on a local Cable news program, called The Central Valley Report. After which, without doing anything, the clip hit the Internet (as far as we can tell it surfaced on Blip TV), and from there it was linked and embedded into Real Estate websites throughout our company, our area, and predictably the WORLD!! This is what’s known as going “Viral” (like a virus runs through your body). It is a real Estate Agent’s dream to go viral. With one click you can get anywhere.

Now imagine this was a video clip of your Sellers Listing?!?!?!? Hello, one click and it’s everywhere! Isn’t that the whole dang point??

What about a Blog? What good does that do me? Hello, once again “Viral” people, “Viral”! Try to stay with me here…You engage in web 2.0 practices like MLBroadcast, where you can have your video/virtual tour not only produced with professional voice over, but “BROADCAST” (aka – VIRAL) to dozens of the major video sites and made into a podcast for iTunes. Oh yeah, it’s only $29 bucks BTW, show me where you can have a virtual tour done for that and I will “eat a bug”!

Get on YouTube, get an MLBroadcast, Get a website, get your BUTT in gear, and GET VIRAL!!!

 The Coach

It’s Official! Yahoo & Trulia Unite (Web 2.0 meets Real Estate)

For those of you who actually read The Coaches Blogs (thanks to both of you BTW), you remember my post on March 10th stating a new relationship with Trulia.com . Well it’s official now as witnessed by this Yahoo post

What this means is we, at Prudential, will have the “inside track” with an advertising campaign formally known as the Trulia “Triple Play”, which incorporated Featured Listings, Brand Identity, & Banner advertising (geographically). I love this play for you guys. It will be extremely effective. We are getting more hits from a basic agreement with Trulia right now, than the next 4 companies combined on our Corp. site.

Don’t let this tip from the Coach go into the trash. Budget for it now, so you will be ready when it rolls out in May 2008!

More on this to follow later this week…

The Coach  

Published Tuesday, March 18, 2008 9:43 AM by Eric Bryant

Filed under: Real Estate, marketing, web 2.0, trulia, prudential california realty, prudential