July 2011 – Help-U-Sell® Connect

OMS Upgrades – Leads Management Module Additions and Time Zones

We have been working on building a new Leads Management Module for the past two months, and the last pieces are nearly complete.

Once you’ve claimed a web lead, it moves to your leads section. From there, you can now select if the new lead is a buyer or a seller, and you can manually add other leads that you acquired via phone, walk-in, ETM or other source. If the lead is a seller, you can set an appointment to view the property and include appointment notes. The appointment will then show up on your dashboard calendar.

A seller moves from a lead to a contact when you’ve clicked on “Convert,” or “Confirm Appointment.” You can also opt to delete the lead.

On another note, we’ve added the ability to select your office’s time zone in the OMS so that all of your alerts will be localized for you. It’s easy to change your time zone. On the Setup tab, click on “website.” You’ll see the new drop-down menu called “Set Office Time Zone.” There you can choose from Central, Eastern, Hawaii, Mountain and Pacific.

All changes should be live by the end of the week. Let us know if you have any questions or problems with the system after you’ve tried it out.
If you’d like training on anything during Tech Time Tuesday, leave us a comment. We’ll be covering movie editing in an upcoming webinar by broker request.

Broker Focus: Jack Bailey

Jack Bailey

A Help-U-Sell veteran, Jack Bailey has owned his franchise in Greensboro, N.C., since 1988. He’s seen many changes in real estate since then, from technology to the rise of buyers’ agencies, but his goal remains the same.

“I love exceeding expectations,” he says. “I get a lot of satisfaction from taking a client, listening to their objectives and overcoming obstacles.”

One of his secret weapons is his buyer consultation, which he created more than 20 years ago when he realized his buyers didn’t have knowledge of real estate basics. “You have to become more of an adviser in these tough times than just someone who lists houses,” Bailey says.

To that end, he coaches his potential buyers in the terms and the tricks of the industry that they’ll need to know. “It’s important for buyers to be educated as best they can,” he asserts.

During the consultation, Bailey explains the buying process, negotiating techniques, types of loans and basics like closing costs and escrow accounts. “By the time we’re done, we’ll have a strategy for them,” he says.

Not only does the consultation inform his clients, but it also inspires their confidence in themselves and in him.

On the seller side, Bailey advises that you need to know your statistics and your facts. “Explain what’s going to happen in the market and how [you and the seller] need to strategize,” he suggests.

His techniques and practices come from the heart. “I sincerely want to help people. I put their interest before mine,” he says. “The results always work out for everybody.”

For new brokers, particularly those new to Help-U-Sell, Bailey offers the following advice:

Make sure you pick the best business model for you. Consider your strengths, your objectives and your market before deciding between running your office as a manager with agents and doing it all yourself.
Build a good knowledge base of real estate and be constantly aware of what’s happening and what is projected to happen.
Market very smartly, especially to your Centers of Influence.
Focus on profitability, not just closings.

Top Producers for June 2011

We’re pleased to announce and congratulate Help-U-Sell Real Estate’s Top Producers for June 2011.

1) Galleria Realty had a repeat of May and closed another 12 sides in June to clinch first place.

1) Tied for the top position, Help-U-Sell Select Services moved up from last month’s #3 spot.

2) Prestige Properties remained at #2, closing 11 sides.

3) Honolulu Properties made the top 3 again with 10 closed sides in June.

[Figures are as of July 11, 2011.]

Help-U-Sell Success Summit

As many of you have already heard, we’re hosting the 2011 Help-U-Sell Success Summit from November 14-16, immediately following the NAR Annual Convention. The summit will be held at the Hotel Menage in Anaheim, Calif. You can find the details about the hotel and booking a room on our Set Fee Blog. The room rate is a great deal, and the summit itself is free.

As for the summit’s content, we thank all of you who contributed your ideas via our recent survey. The top two topics were:

Technology
Creative Financing

We also received a lot of write-in topics as a result of the survey. In order to accommodate as many of these as possible, we plan to hold many roundtable-type discussions simultaneously. Participants will be able to hop from one table to the next and soak up as much knowledge (and impart as much knowledge) as they can.

We hope you can join us in November!