Last week we kicked off our agent business planning program with part one of Planning for Profit: Getting Started. With the current economic conditions it is more important than ever for agents to develop sound, written business plans. However, it is also more difficult than ever.

The first ingredient in our business plan recipe is to set your production targets for the upcoming year. The uncertainty and concern from the agents was obvious. They asked questions like:

• Given the market, how can I possibly set production targets?
• Should I set my target lower then I actually want?
• Should I set my target higher then I actually want?
• Why bother, I’ve got no control over what is happening in the market. (Most are feeling this sentiment.)

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Posted by Sherry Chris

The whole team was buzzing yesterday about The Masiello Group announcement… chatting it up on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn while the office was jammed with pallets of marketing materials that were being prepped for a trip to New England.

In fact, the whole building was buzzing about it, and rightfully so. In a time of industry and market paralysis, here is another good news story of a real estate brokerage taking action to position itself for the future…  making plans and executing on them with the confidence that is the mark of the true entrepreneur.

There is so much good will coming from this announcement, especially from the Wilkins & Associates team in PA as they now look forward to the networking and information exchanges that will result with the addition of each new family member.

On behalf of the network, welcome to Chris Masiello and his whole team. It’s great to have you with us.

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It’s always amazing to me to read quotes, like the one below, from ancient geniuses like Aristotle and to realize how many ideas remain true throughout all of time. Over 2,000 years ago, Aristotle already understood that systems inherently help groups of people to reach their goals more quickly, more easily and with less stress. He wrote:

“Systems are inherently more efficient than non systems” – Aristotle

As a real estate leader, think about all of the systems that you employ on a daily basis.

a.    Recruiting
b.    Interviewing
c.    Retention
d.    Marketing
e.    Finance
f.     Online services
g.    Lead generation
h.    Referrals
i.     Legal
j.     Advertising
k.    Communications
l.     Public relations
m.   Seller services
n.    Buyer services
o.    Coaching

This list goes on forever, so complete it for yourself as it relates to your specific situation.

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This week we launched our Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate Planning for Profit program. This program is focused on providing our agents with a system to develop their personal written real estate business plan — something the majority of agents desperately need, but don’t have.

Keeping in line with the Better Homes and Gardens magazine formula, we’ve created our Planning for Profit: Getting Started program like a recipe. When you are cooking from a recipe, the first thing you do is gather all the necessary ingredients. Then you begin mixing them together in just the right amounts. Along the way, you make adjustments to get your preferred outcome.

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Posted by Alex Perriello
President & CEO, Realogy Franchise Group

On October 8, I sent a letter to all of Realogy’s affiliated brokers and sales associates to announce that we are launching an initiative to help our neighbors and local communities by trying to prevent as many foreclosures from occurring as possible.

The positive support I have been receiving from our brokers and agents in response to this letter has been overwhelming, and I wanted to share the message with the wider real estate community. When Sherry offered me the opportunity to talk about it on the Clean Slate Blog, I couldn’t resist.

There are now hundreds of thousands of families all across America facing foreclosure because they simply cannot afford their mortgage payments, or they owe far more than their house is currently worth. To make matters even worse, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports that an astonishing 50% of homeowners who do lose their homes to foreclosure have never once contacted their lender.

With this stark reality in mind, I have issued a “Call-to-Action” to the entire Realogy franchise community to help “Save the Dream” of home ownership. Specifically, I am asking every agent and broker to find just one family in their local community who may be facing foreclosure and help them reach out to their lender or a housing counseling agency so that they can begin the process of exploring a loan workout solution and hopefully stay in their homes.

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“I want to know you’re successful and that you work with lots of buyers and sellers, and I want to be treated like I’m your only client.”

Nearly 25 years ago, those words from a seller helped mold my professional future.

We work in a fee-for-service business. “I … I … I …” doesn’t work. Frankly, a seller doesn’t care that I was agent of the month for three months this year. They’re not listening when I tell them about my long list of awards or designations, and they certainly don’t want to hear about the wonderful, exotic trips I attended as a result. They only care about getting their house sold. And while our awards, designations, and accolades are products of our accomplishments, sellers don’t make the connection.

Whether upsizing, downsizing, decreasing debt or relocating, selling a home is a very personal means to an end. We have a responsibility to our clients to help them reach this goal so that they can move on with their lives. In Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service, Ron Zemke says, “Seeing and treating each customer as an individual helps you meet the needs of each on their own unique level.” Read the rest of this entry »

By reflex the answer is “yes.” But the answer really is, “it depends.”

Now more than ever it is important that we are extremely selective when hiring new agents. We owe it to them, we owe it to our current agents and we owe it to ourselves.

For the potential new agent just entering the industry, you have to admire their courage. In spite of the daily barrage of media, people all across the country are still becoming licensed and choosing real estate as their career. We owe it to them to make sure they have all the info they need when making this decision and we owe it to them to provide them with the systems, training and support necessary to make their new career work. If you are not prepared to invest in their success to a higher degree than you’ve ever done before, don’t hire them. They deserve better.

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Yes we finally sold our home and are out of attorney review after: 100+ days on the market, 2 price reductions and a price 5% below ask. This was one wild ride, but we are now officially STRONG buyers with a contract in hand, pre-approved and ready to find our new home. I thought it would be interesting to share our selection process for finding our seller’s agent as it turned out to be very critical in our house selling at all in these economically challenging times.

Below are the 10 Web marketing-related questions we asked prospective listing agents when we put our house up for sale:

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