Is Your Social Media Strategy in Need of Saving?

Looking to improve your real estate career? I'm here to help you make a smart decision when it comes to growing your business, improving your bottom line, and choosing a place to work in real estate sales. If you'd like to learn more about working with The Lars Group, contact me at (704) 800-1200 or Lars@LarsRealEstate.com.

Today I wanted to speak with you about social media. Essentially, I will tell you the good, the bad and how to use it in your business by making it productive and lead to sales. At this point you should know my main goal with these videos is to provide help and as much educational content as possible. If you’re thinking about making a move or just want to sit down over a cup of coffee to go over your business plan confidentially, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

In terms of your social media strategy, the usual contenders like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. can be useful; they can also be a huge time vacuum. To avoid this, we have very specific and deliberate ways of coaching our agents on how to properly use social media in order to connect with people and build rapport. You should not be selling your services via these channels.

As for making time for social media in your day, you should aim for two time blocks throughout your day that are a minimum of 15 minutes to dedicate to social media. We try to make social media a more personable experience; this could be like congratulating a client on a recent closing. We also use Facebook to post listings and generate traffic by linking those posts to Twitter and LinkedIn. Yelp has been great for reviews and generating traffic as well. My warning for social media is that it is not the “end all, be all”. Each of our agents average 40-50 closings per year and only a small part of those come from online activities.

At the Lars Group, we do things differently and you would be surprised on how much enjoyment our agents get out of what they do! Until next time, God bless.

Is Your Life Truly in Balance?

Today I wanted to speak with you about the importance, and the challenge, of balancing work with your personal life. No matter what stage of your career you may be in, real estate tends to be that type of profession that can really seep into all areas of your life. If you’re busy selling homes, your schedule is certainly busy and hectic. On the contrary, if you are not producing, the stress of inconsistent income and lack of results will seep out into your personal life.

To help keep the two facets of our lives separate, our entire team practices fundamental tools and strategies around time management and time blocking. Time blocking is probably the best thing you can do for yourself. For those growing their own business and don’t have the luxury of having a team prospect and setting appointments for them, this can be especially difficult. To handle this, we have tracking systems and other tools that allow our agents to organize their time and turn off their business when they leave the office so they can spend time with family and friends.

You should have a schedule that includes critical tasks you need to complete for the day like prospecting, lead follow-up, showing and listing appointments. The area you must consider is leverage in the form of technology, marketing, people and systems. The agents on our team are highly leveraged in these which helps their work-life balance so they can avoid handling small tasks at inconvenient times.

If you want to sit down with me to optimize your schedule so you can produce more, or if you’re looking for a different way to practice real estate, we are always look for top talent. Our buyers agents will close 40-45 sales per year on average and our listing agents will sell from 50-70 homes. I would love to help you and your business grow and our meeting would be confidential.

Thanks and have a great day!

Are Your Goals Set for the New Year?

It’s that time of year again; it’s time to talk about goals! In real estate, we’re selling 30-45 days out and our team is going through the process of goal setting. We have 6-7 buyer’s agents, two listing partners and a group of inside sales people that are all in the process of goal setting as well. 2008 was my first full year in the business and I’ve managed to grow my team to sell 325+ homes this year. To do this, I’ve always had a roadmap for success that is broken down into quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily goals. This helps me stay accountable to myself.

The importance of goals really boils down to some level of accountability. If you’ve been in the business for a long time and you’re not achieving your goals or if you’re new the business and have big plans, you have to do a few things really well. We go through a process with most of our agents in which we identify four pillars or areas where they get there business and we focus on specific action items in each of those areas.

Doing this also helps to give you a clear vision of what you want your life to be like. It’s not all about business; if you don’t have an idea of what you want your life to look like, you won’t get to your destination if it isn’t laid out ahead of time. Everyone’s heard of goal setting but to actually go through the process and writing down concrete goals. I like to use the old acronym, S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measureable, attainable, relevant and timely). Make sure your goals fit that criteria or else attaining them will be a frustrating process.

If you would like to get together confidentially and go over your business plan how I can help achieve your goals, please contact me. Take some time to view the article below for six reasons why you need to set goals. Have a blessed holiday season!

On The Importance Of Goal Setting: 6 Reasons Why You Need To Set Goals