That's a big ole 5 Star Amen Mr. Farmer. Praise the lawd! Halleluiah!

About twenty five percent of my "sold" listings can be attributed to my website and internet ads. Not bad for pimping pictures and details.  So for now, I'm sucked into getting more listings and posting more pictures. I took a look-see at your website this morning; and look forward to you "re-evaluating" and "re-inventing" the wheel.  Let me know when you just sell yourself.

Are you constipated, Phil? I have heard that can give you a sh---- outlook!

Good Post Mike!

Phil,

On a personal observation note. Being relatively new, compared to some here, to P2A I have noticed that each and every time you make a post in a thread that you seem to have a very negative attitude towards your colleagues.

I understand that some of us aren't as smart, good looking, fact-filled and as perfect as you. We do strive for greatness on a daily basis though.

Well, since you have acheived this lofty goal of omnipotence we were all wondering if you could perhaps share with us some positive and caring bits of knowledge that would make us as great as you.

Would it help if I too were balding? I mean, is this full head of hair creating some sort of osmosis sheild so that knowledge will not flow into my brain?

Please Phil. Give us your perfect knowledge.

If you can't do that then perhaps you can learn the old saying:

"If you have nothing good to say...STFU!"

Scott - Watch those bald comments- You hurt my feelings! Remember grass doesn't grow on a busy street and in Phil's case it won't grow on rocks either.

Mike,

I am always interested in your astute comments and thoughts.

Could you clarify what you are saying here? Are you planning to change the wording in your decriptions in some way? If so, how?

Thanks!

Isn't the purpose of posting various pictures of listings to attract as many buyers as possible.  Along with the listings isn't there a phone number where you can be contacted.  Once they make contact, agreed we generally never sell the property that spurred them to initiate the contact.

I'm all for being different.  I also think that providing market expertise and personal service is something that comes natural to most of us. I'm also pretty sure that past clients have no problems judging you on performance.  I'm not sure if future clients will instantly see the value.

Good Post, food for thought.  You've made some excellent contributions here, but right now the only performance I'm judging is your reply to Phil.  Why?

Mike am also interesting in seeing how this works. Please give us an update in a month or two. I'm am thinking that by doing what you are attempting to do, it may just creat some of those buyers to call the agents that you have handshake agreements with. The ones that do go to your site and find your listings yes they may call you, but I am still in the mindset that they will just call your competitors when they see your listings on their site.

Todd

"STFU"!!!! 15 yr old daughter is ROFLOL!  Parental Unit is, too!  LOLOLOLOL

Mike, great post.  I believe you'll have at least some success at it.  My local pages are getting more and more traffic as people learn about them.  I was at a gathering last night and got a lot of positive feedback and requests for links on those pages.  It's definitely an angle worth pursuing.

Sorry Mike,

I thought you were taking away pictures and discriptions on your listings, just to get them to call you. So you are not saying you are going to give less pictures and discription. You are just giving more call to action pages?

My thinking was by removing pictures and discription on listings was others using your listings on their site would get the result in the other agents getting more calls just to find out more about your listings.

Todd

Mike, I keep coming back to this thread of yours. Let me start by saying that if you were an agent in the same office as me, I would watch you very closely. Why? Because I am sure I would learn a thing or two, not just about real estate, but about life. If we met in a gin mill, I would be glad to share a game of billiards, darts, or, shuffleboard along with some good conversation. I would not be concerned about leaving my money on the bar. In other words, I think you’re a stand up guy.

Having said that, I want you to know that I realize we are not peers. You are a Broker Owner of a small company. I am an agent, or associate. We think about the same thing differently. I try to put my self in your shoes, but they don’t always fit. However, the blog is (in my opinion) a collective effort of real estate agents (sales persons) trying to share ideas, problems and solutions that work for the betterment of our trade. And, at times, I walk away with a self congratulatory pat on the back that “I got it!” from a thread that someone has taken the time to post. At other times I have sometimes wondered if the person who posted the thread has not only missed the mark, but, if they continue will some how cause me and my profession grave problems now or in the future. Yet, sometimes it can be a place to air out our gripes and grievances about almost anything. The best, for me, are often those that are just fun so I can forget I haven’t made that sale or close I have been working so hard to get.

Because there are so many thoughts out here on this blog and we tend to jump from one post to another that we may carry a tone from one thread to another without realizing how that will reflex on our next comment. I, for one, never give too much information or detail. In short, many of my responses would come across as sarcastic or flip. And, some of those responses are meant to sound that way. I mean there are serious breaches of ethics going on with some (not yours) and then there are some crafty attempts to solicit business. I hate spam, don’t you?

Anyway, back to your post. I am not sure I get it. I have sometimes wished I could get the viewer on my web site to call me so we could talk. I mean, if they just told me what they were looking for, I could help. I have dreamed about a pop up that would make a person viewing a listing on the internet to want to click on it and begin talking to me. I could tell them all about the area and my qualifications for finding them the house that they have been searching for. If they gave me a chance, I would make sure they wouldn’t get taken advantage of and live happily ever after in the home I negotiated for them. It is not a Spiderman outfit I would wear but the red cap and blue tights with an S on the front.

By now, you may be thinking, “what is this guy talking about?” and “get to the point, already”. So, allow me to say that, with all due respect, your responses to Phil are out of line.

The way I see it, the exchange of ideas often needs someone to say what the other one does not want to hear. We are all big boys and girls. If someone gets their nose out of joint there is a telephone number or personal email that can used by the injured party to contact the guy.

Now, you ask, “Why didn’t I follow my own advice and call you on the telephone?” That is simple to answer if you look at the other agents and brokers who jumped in your exchange of words with Phil. This letter is for them as much as it is for you.

My first experience on writing on a blog was met by an instant dislike by Becky. I don’t care. I continued and met a spammer looking to drum up business. Still, I kept coming back because there was enough good stuff at this “water cooler” that I was not going to be denied the opportunity to learn from those who know. Even if it meant I would need to over look some short comings. Nor, would I shut up and just sit in the back of the room. I am here to stay. I hope Phil stays too. I hope everyone can over look by failings as well as I look past theirs. I hope you will call me friend.

I was surprised by the way you did it!

Mike,

Thou hast delivereth, onest more, the absolute truth to ich.

It is indeed evident that internet shopping, in general, plays a major role in the market place.  Internet searching is presently a commodity and soon it will be an imperative necessity.

However, pertaining to real estate, internet is a wonderful research medium loaded with wealth of information for potential buyers to facilitate their selections.  Equally, it eases Realtors® showing workloads because buyers have already discarded what they are least interested in.

Three years ago, I worked with an executive from Chicago through the internet before he and his wife were coming down to shop for a winter condo on the beach.  For two weeks I bombarded them with a plethora of listings.  They had chosen 16 condos to preview for when they’d arrive in town.  While in town, the first three days we worked together, we’ve looked at their selections including about eight of my own assortments.  Nothing gratified them.  We sat in front of my computer screen, we’ve selected more condos and off we went looking.  One condo finally massaged their hearts.  We made an offer which was later accepted after easy negotiations.  THAT CONDO THEY BOUGHT WAS A REJECT OF ONE OF THE INITIAL EMAIL VOLLEYS I SENT THEM.

You are perfectly right, Mike;  there is nothing like physically tour properties to understand the design, to feel the dimensions, to absorb the aesthetics, to touch the cabinets, to whiff its presence, to visualize how big that 2 car garage really is and etc.

Concerning your opinion about loading your website with lengthy explicit verbose contents, I am perplexed to that notion.  When I visit a website overloaded with stuff and buttons on the first page, I don’t even bother looking any further for I don’t have the patience to figure out the logistic of the page.  Recently, someone said in a post about real estate websites to which the first thing people want to see is listings.  If viewers like what you are offering, then, they will look up your profile and explore your site but if you have novels of text for them read you will lose them to a click of the mouse.  

That has a lot of validity because, after all, "WE" ARE THE MAIN PRODUCT WE ARE TRYING TO SELL;  THE HOMES ARE ONLY LURES TO ATTRACT POTENTIAL BUYERS TO CONTACT US.  That explains why you never read agent profiles that are austere, un-impressive or bleak.  Conversely, everyone is the best, the most honest, the hardest worker, the most diligent, and such (until they prove to the contrary during performance).  

I think consumers read through those cliché self-biographies.

A few years back I watched a program on the Discovery Channel about the study of the internet.  The report revealed that web design architecture is primarily borrowed from the concept of movie making.  A web site or a web page is essentially an alpha-visual presentation which is rapidly evolving to alpha-audio-visual entertainment. Early studies of movies, television and television commercials found that because of the human retinal eye movements connecting to brain functions, our visual attention span can only support approximately 5 to 6 seconds.  Hence, that is why we hardly ever see movie scenes go beyond that time-frame.  Web browsing is practically the same principle except that the reader/viewer has less tolerance to time stagnancy due interactive requirement process (mouse navigation).

Mike, all this treatise to say: SOMETIMES, LESS IS MORE.

(carpal tunnel syndromed) John

Mike,

I think one of the most important aspects of producing a web page is to know your purpose and your audience. (Just like any type of communication)

To that end, my site has been constructed to provide information, photos and the MLS primarily for out of town buyers. I want them to begin to trust me enough to contact me. I primarily work as a buyer's agent, and my web site reflects that.

Having said that, I agree with what you are saying here. I have been thinking that my site does not do enough to highlight "what makes me different."

You obviously are a very bright man, and very knowledgable in your field. I think you are on the right track.

Gregory,

I admire the way you have courageously evoked your sentiments. Very well done.

I think your eloquence outght to be a PRAYER FOR BLOGGERS.

From get-go, I perveived you as a "stand up guy", too. And I you have just proven so.

Thank you for sharing.

Greg I thought Phil’s last line was both condescending and rude. If he is goal is to only post negative things and finish them with some in appropriate remark than he should be able to take criticism for his post. There is nothing wrong in challenging someone’s opinion but to punctuate it with an uncalled for remark is without merit. It actually takes away from the message, I think he was trying to convey.

To be passionate about how you feel and get carried away with your rebuttal is one thing but to be mean spirited is uncalled for and he deserves what he received. Unless he posts something that adds to the discussion than what has he accomplished? I believe he is seeking attention by being rude since this is not his first post and they all convey the same disrespect.

If he continues to post, that’s fine but if he doesn’t I could care less! If you review the balance of the comments they lend information to the thread without the personal remarks.

Gentlemen, please refrain and play nice.  

Mike, I (David) don't think I'm with you on this one.

What I understand you to say is that you will not be focusing on providing maximum website home info content for your listings, and will turn your attention to area content instead.  Better area content is a great thing to focus on - no problem there.  However it sounds like you will be providing only "appetite wetting" level info specifically in hopes of getting potential buyers to call you for more information so you can engage them and convert them yourself.  If I'm getting this correctly, I think you will, as a result, be giving your sellers inadequate marketing for their property.

When I take a listing I am making a committment to the seller to get their house sold.  Period.  I don't care if I sell it or if some other agent sells it, I just want to get it sold.  In my area, resales are sold by another agent 87% of the time, and broker wise, it's 77%.  Statistically, I should be marketing TO the other agents because they are the likely ones to get the sale.  So, I do everything I can to provide maximum info, branded and not branded, wherever I can stick it, so that if one of the other guys gets the buyer they can get it sold.  I don't think it is in the seller's best interest to trick the system to get the buyer to call me.  I would *love* for them to call me instead of the other guy, but that cannot be my overarching objective.  

From a pure business quality perspective, I think it CAN BE a mistake to intentionally combine marketing methods for buyer side and seller side activities.  To explain; it's fine if you can leverage one for the benefit of the other, but NOT to the point of doing it so that one will be exclusively favored to the benefit of one and the disadvantage of the other.

I think that listing agents should be the marketeers for the property.  They should be the expert on the property and the best informed to educate the market in it's entirety on the features and virtues and values and benefits of the property both verbally as well as visually.  This should be a priority before all else, and holding back for whatever reason is just not cool.

If we are listers, why would we not want our websites to be working to our sellers advantage?

Mike I know what you are saying. Don't we all use the listings for bait anyway? They say the number one reason people go to our websites is to see listings. Do we want them just looking at our own listings? No, well, yes, I would like to sell my own, but if I am working with a buyer we will look at everything that fits their needs. It is not about selling my listings at that point, I am hoping then for a buyer agency agreement so at that point, I am selling me. Aren't we always selling good old me? I think so. I remember you were changing up your game plan to represent buyers only.

I think maybe you are just cutting to the chase and not dangling any bait. You are selling your services as we all are, you are just going to be upfront and head on about it. If I am right on, I think this is a good outside the box thinking.

ok I understand the only taking good listings part.  Now having modified your game plan, you want to only appeal to buyers?  (If that's the case,  then you want to be a buyers agent/broker  and market exclusively to buyers, correct?)  By marketing towards buyers you are expecting to reach multiple buyers instead of "sales/advertising" where you were marketing one listing at a time.  Have I got it?

I just took a listing appointment for tomorrow and will have to do my homework.  I'll be back!

Mike,

As a broker/owner, are you referring to "I" as a competing broker/salesman against your agents or as a non-cpmpeting broker leading his brokerage firm to success?

John

I worked for a "competing broker" for 5 years. We were a small, indpendant company and there was never a conflict.

"When the listings expired, I got a call from the seller stating that I seemed to have a lot of buyers, one thng led to another and I got the listings.

Sellers who aren't getting their homes showed want an agent who can attract buyers and activity."

Sellers who aren't getting their homes showed want to get their homes SOLD.  

We have gotten listings like this before too, but this is just an indicator of seller desperation and lack of market savvy in selecting an agent to sell their house.  This is not an indictment of the seller, just that when they make choices like this you know what the cause is.  

It is not a real quality of service they are seeing, just a perceived quality of hoped-for service.  The question here is; is there any kind of guarantee that by making this choice they will have a significantly better chance of selling their house?  Possibly if you can convince them to lower their price, but that essentially resets the market conditions to a place more favorable to you getting the house sold.  But will YOU be the one to get the buyer side of the sale regardless of HOW you use the listing to attract buyers?

Mike, unless you are telling me that you somehow have the secret sauce, and expect to have results that are significantly better than your market's performance, I'm not convinced, and neither would your sellers be if they knew the facts.  It is unlikely that one agent focusing on buyers is going to outperform the going market conditions.  If they did, I might be asking "why" a few times.

Be an exclusive buyers agent, Mike, and refer potential sellers to someone who will represent THEM.

David,

A good seller's agent - To whose standard?  I know agents who swear to the world that they work so hard; they always answer their phone promptly; they are always available to show their sellers home at the drop of a hat and, around the office, they are always sighing of tiredness.  

Call those people to make an appointment if you can.  Do their sellers know how their agent is doing during working hours?

Besides, in this market, even our great local mavens are losing many of their listings to "expired".  

I really don't think a seller's agent is necessary the key to sellin in this halted market.  The right price is what sells, even if Goofey is the selling agent.

John

John, the only standard I can speak to is mine, because it is the only one I know.  My original response to what Mike said at the beginning was the notion that giving (what I perceived as) limited listing information so that it would entice a potential buyer to call, is good enough to market a seller's listing.  This seems to me as less than adequate to market the listed property.  Even if this did cause a buyer to call, the chances that they would buy the house they called on is limited, so the end result would be more on lead generation than sale generation.

I agree that price is important, but that should not stop a listing agent from throughly informing the market of what the property has to offer.  

Mike, I agree that the more buyers you bring the more likely there will be one who buys.  I only have my market to refer to which is why I gave the 87/77% statistic.  I know that statistically in our market the buyer is unlikely to be represented by me, so I market the heck out of the property so that Goofy can sell it!  That is my only point - that if you are going to represent sellers, you owe them the best marketing that will support how the house is likely to be sold in your market.

I was very surprised by what I read in your original post, after so many others I have read before it.  However, in this forum there is no way to know where the emphasis is, and I zeroed in on the one point mentioned above.  It sounded like you were going to specifically market your listings to generate buyer leads for YOU and to your seller's potential detriment of not communicating best quality information to the market on their behalf.  I humbly stand corrected if this is not what you were saying.

Regarding our P2 site, it is one of three we use to market seller's listings, and probably the one with the least traffic.  The others have our marketing info and link via IDX and various advertising we are doing (including P2), and as a result generate more.  We are doing zero SEO now, although that may change after we complete our work on the listing presentation sites.  While on the P2 site we talk to buyers, we are not lead generating buyers from this site except in a very benign way.  There is no registration required and only a suggestion that they "contact us" if they want to get on a search drip.  We are working with an investor who sells pre-foreclosure homes, priced where the greatest number of homes are selling, and every time we list one of his homes, it is under market value, and we get bombed with potential buyers for weeks while it is slowly going to contract.  So, John, to your point on pricing, we think the best lead generator is homes that are priced well (and are in the market sweet spot).  But, with the higher priced listings that move slow because there are fewer buyers in those ranges, we have to focus on marketing.

Alright I understand what you're doing now.  It makes perfect sense. Now!   ....   Again the good listings only is a no brainer.  Marketing to higher income purchasers may be a bit more difficult. I don't foresee droves of millionaires lining up 5 or 6 deep to buy their homes.  You're certainly on the right track if you are going to provide expertise and information about neighborhoods these are the buyers that will make more use of the information you provide.  Good Luck Mike, you're probably ahead of the curve and in a few years we may be scratching our heads and wondering how does he do it.