Technology TransactionsSome Time Savers for New Relocation Specialists
Because the timeline is speeded up for a relocation, you have to work smarter, not harder.
That means saving yourself trips, maximizing your communications, and making the most of online technologies to get business done.
Contact management
Since you want to track where you get your leads so that you can get more, it’s important to keep a client management system such as provided by Top Producer owned by Homestore or Realty Desktop owned by Homeadvisor. You need to know where the lead came from and with whom to share your referral fee. Sometimes you may get a client directly without going through a referral source to which you will pay a fee. You may get leads from your Web page, an online listing, a magazine ad, or word-of-mouth. On all your advertising, direct relocating families to your Web site(s) for more information. They will log on, pay you a visit and email you from there.
Leads from relocation companies must be acted upon immediately, but with other leads in which the consumer finds you to help them with a relocation, you can find out more via your email. Qualify the customer with questions such as when the move is going to take place, and whether they have visited your area yet or worked with anyone else.
If they are coming to town, send them to an online map and show them where they will be staying in the hotel, to where their employer(s) are, to where the bedroom communities you will be visiting are located. Many communities have Web sites, and you can include those links, too. Be sure to notify builders’ agents with whom you work that you have sent their sites along to a prospective client. Sometimes if the client contacts the builder first, the builder may refuse to pay you a commission. If they have been alerted, even if you haven’t signed the buyer in person, they will honor you as the client’s representative.
Information management
You can accomplish a lot with your Web site, and send your relocation families there for information. Instead of sending them relocation packets in the mail, you can put links to all the key places on your site with categories such as new homes, builders, community information, transportation information, and more.
Use The Brain, www.thebrain.com, to show the family what links you have found for them. Publish a "brain" for them under their family name with links to all their favorite activities and interests so the family will know that you have been working hard on their behalf. One of the "thoughts" of the brain can be links to homes you have found. The Brain can be an especially delightful tool for children, if you can find out what the child’s interests are and find resources to match. A little equestrienne may look more forward to the move if she knows in advance about the local riding stables and horse-related events. A teenage boy may be less dejected about being uprooted if he can plug right into the school or area sports and start asking questions about teams and openings.
If your client is not already approved for a loan, get them in touch with an online lender of yours and their choice who can handle the transaction. With digital signatures technology, the closing can not only be managed online through loan transaction software, but can close online also. Use the loan transaction software as a means of keeping in touch with the HR manager, or relocation company who hired you, so they can keep up with the transaction online. That will save you many emails. Anytime a step closes, such as inspection or appraisal, notify your contact anyway.
Listings management
Two actions are about to make it easier for you to send listings to your relocating clients. The N.A.R. has sponsored an initiative around broker reciprocity encouraging all MLSs to offer the service of online listings to its members. Broker reciprocity means that brokers who care to participate will share their listings and those who don’t care to, don’t have to. This could mean that in certain MLS zones, all brokers and agents could publish the MLS database of listings on their personal Web sites, with some seller-privacy restrictions. You could also send out the listings in your online newsletter.
Another new tool is that soon almost every home for sale on the Internet will have its own domain name. Many Web site builders such as Comstock Net Services and Best Image Marketing already offer this free to their Realtor customers. What that means is each home you send as a link will not be competing with other homes.
One way to save time is to either pay someone such as a teenager you can trust to take digital photos of homes you believe will be of interest to your relocating customers, or better yet, ask the listing agent of the property if s/he will forward digital photos to you for your client.
In your database of new home builders, ask the builders’ agents to notify whenever they have a spec home about to be finished. Forward these floorplans/listings to your clients, too.