How Can You Maintain a Personal Relationship With the Increase of Technology?

Today I wanted to cover something that has really come about in the last 5-6 years as the increase in freely available real estate technology and tools online for both buyers and sellers. How does the immergence of these tools impact our position as an expert advisor and if personal relationships with buyers and sellers even matter anymore? This is actually an awesome thing for us as experts (not every real estate agent is an expert). If you have your skillset dialed up with more information online, consumers need someone to figure it out for them. Technology does not impact our business one bit.

With the online home evaluation tools like Zillow, everyone thinks they know the estimate for their property. However, this doesn’t affect our ability to come in as a pro and do an equity evaluation on their property, educate them on the different ways to value property, how the market direction and interest rates can factor in, showing reports, price bracketing, tax analysis and a square footage analysis. We look at everything way more than Zillow or any other site can ever look at.

This goes for buyers as well. Every buyer has their go-to website they look at but this doesn’t mean they are able to go through the 200 homes that are they favorites, what they want/need, what they can afford, potential appreciation in their property and where the market has been. I think it is an awesome opportunity with the new technology that is out there to serve our clients on a personal level and deeply impact their lives and the lives of their families. The Lars Group has all the tools available to consumers allowing them to come into our fold and establish a business relationship. Many people fear technology and feel that the business is going away but we embrace it; we use it every day.

If you have any questions, call me at (704) 800-1200 ext. 106 and we can see if I can help you with your business of if you’re a fit for our team. God bless and go sell some houses!

We Invest So You Can Succeed

Today I wanted to talk to you about how we utilize technology to further our business. Early on, I learned a fundamental business principle about how to get people to take action. To do so, we use direct response marketing. The challenge when you’re a new or struggling agent is marketing your personal brand, but that’s not the basis of the business. Our marketing is done through a few channels; one of them is Boomtown, which we spend $3,000 a month to generate leads and appointments for our agents. The other channel is a newer option called Commissions Inc. This platform costs another $3,000 that has a great interface for generating leads as well.

This year, our average buyer agent will sell 35-40 homes and our average listing agent will sell 50-75 homes. We’re a really productive team and we attribute a lot of the success to the tools we invest in.

If you have any questions, feel free to call me and we can grab a cup of coffee. God bless and thank you!

Great Reads for Great Agents

Hello and welcome to my new real estate training and coaching video blog! On this blog, I will share with you the keys and strategies used at The Lars Group that have given us the advantage to dominate our market. The Lars Group is always looking for ambitious, hard-working agents to join our team. If you are interested in becoming a member of The Lars Group, give me a call at 704.800.1200 or email me at Lars@LarsRealEstate.com.

Today I wanted to go over books we have used because they’ve proved to be very helpful. The first book I wanted to mention is a book we just recently went through together and it’s called The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon. This book outlines 10 laws or rules to get the most out of life and work to ultimately build a team environment. This book was a hit in our office because we have many agents who are competitive and sell a lot of homes, but in the end it’s all done for the good of the team.

The second book is called The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews. It’s an awesome book that details 7 decisions that determine personal success. This book is a quasi-guide that we use to hire agents with. What’s special about this book is that it reads like a fable, so it is very easy to grasp and it provides a very cool way to run our team. Another book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, is the cornerstone of personal development books and encourages you to turn your thoughts into reality.

Our last book, one that we really work through as a team, is called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick M. Lencioni. This book also reads like a fable and is really cool because it relates your team to family, which we are here. We appreciate open communication, challenging each other and accountability.

Check out the website, learn about the team and contact me if you would like to get a cup of coffee. Thanks again and check back in for more tips to sell some houses!