Kimberly Zelena, Help-U-Sell Direct Savings Real Estate
Kimberly Zelena’s key piece of advice for all agents and brokers is “answer your phone.” She says this simple tactic has secured her office, Direct Savings Real Estate, four clients from other agencies in the past two weeks. “We have our phones 24/7. We don’t use an answering service or a machine,” she says.
Zelena’s tip may be basic, but her franchise office isn’t. Based in Waynesboro, Va., Direct Savings Real Estate doesn’t have the traditional broker/owner setup. Owner Zelena handles the marketing and the bookkeeping, along with Cathy Fields. Zelena’s husband, Mike, is the listing agent, and Leigh Anne Losh is the buyer’s agent. “Our office works as a team, I would not have it any other way,” Zelena says.
The franchise has existed since 2005; Zelena joined the office in 2007 with no real estate background. Back then, people suggested to the office that it close its doors because Help-U-Sell would never survive. Thanks to all the unlimited free training, the support of Help-U-Sell Corporate and their dedicated staff, Zelena says, “We are strong and moving forward.”
She values the training offered by Help-U-Sell, including her coaching calls with fellow franchisee Jack Bailey and the other franchisees. “Coaching calls are very important,” Zelena says. “I learn something new each week.”
Leigh Anne Losh, Help-U-Sell Direct Savings Real Estate
Losh agrees. “Without all the free education and weekly trainings offered by Help-U-Sell corporate’s office, I would have never made my goal of being the office’s principal broker in just three years!,” she says.
Zelena and Losh plan to take advantage of ProCoach-U, Help-U-Sell’s online university, when it’s completed early next year. “In my opinion, all agents need to go through university before they open their offices,” she says.
Losh’s goal is to buy the office one day. With her background in title work, she had the foresight that the REO market would be big in the area that the office serves. “She got into BPOs and REO companies,” says Zelena.“That saved us.”
She says prices have stabilized but REOs still represent the best opportunities. One of the office’s goals is to increase the number of REO companies they work with. Direct Savings also wants to increase business by 25 percent and increase sales of equity homes in 2012. The office has closed 30 sides so far this year. The biggest challenges are financing and decent offers. They also want to work on educating sellers to realistically price their homes to get ahead of the market.
While these goals are vital to her business’ success for next year, Zelena’s sights are set on a closer goal of raising enough money to pay for 4,000 meals for the hungry. Combining a hobby, favorite charities and her Help-U-Sell office, her Candles 4 Canned Goods fundraiser will benefit a local food bank and an animal charity. “I was trying to find something that the office can do to donate money back to the community,” says Zelena. “My mother received a set of candles as a gift, and I thought ‘Candles 4 Canned Goods’ is a great way for our office to give back.”
She and her mother make the beeswax candles and sell them for $6 a pair. One-hundred percent of the purchase price goes toward purchasing canned goods for humans and pets. The $6 price of a pair of candles will purchase 24 meals. She needs to sell about 167 pairs of candles to buy 4,000 meals, and she is more than halfway there. Zelena is spreading the word of the fundraiser through local events and is sending out candles to her clients with a letter of explanation about the project.
Through their prompt communication and charitable work, Direct Savings Real Estate truly serves the community. How does your office give back?
After we showed off our new banners from last month’s California REALTOR Expo, we heard requests from our brokers for similar banners aimed toward buyers and sellers. We’ve designed the two banners, one focused on buyers and the other sellers, for you to use at trade shows, events or even in your office.
Banners for Help-U-Sell brokers
We’re also working on business cards and two letterhead options, which we’ll get your vote on at next month’s Success Summit. Have you registered to attend yet? If not, go to our Seminars page, scroll down to the registration form, fill it out and select “Help-U-Sell Broker Success Summit” from the drop-down menu. We want to see you in Anaheim!
While other real estate agents are hibernating until spring, at Help-U-Sell we’re planning to stay warm by heating up the marketing efforts. That’s why we’ve initiated a contest to challenge our brokers and their agents to keep momentum going into 2012.
The Help-U-Sell Winter Warm-Up Contest kicks off Nov. 1, 2011.
The Winter Warm-Up is an 18-week contest, which will start Nov. 1, 2011, and wrap up Feb. 29, 2012. Help-U-Sell offices will earn points for each new listing, each closed buyer side and each closed seller side. The top three offices at the end of the contest win prizes in the form of admin fees, Help-U-Sell shirts and, of course, bragging rights.
Each new listing = 5 points
Each closed buyer side = 3 points
Each closed seller side = 2 points
There will also be prizes for the top finishers in three categories: Most listings taken, most closed listing sides and most closed buyer sides. Overall winners will not be eligible for these categories, so there will be six winning offices in total.
Winners will be announced during the March 7 Roundtable call, but we will be sending email updates throughout the contest on the 15th and the last day of each month during the contest.
We encourage you to organize a sales contest among your agents and kick up your marketing efforts in clever and resourceful ways.
The fine print: Relists and renewals don’t count. Neither does your personal property. The date the listing is entered into the OMS is the date that will be counted for this contest. First place overall wins a Help-U-Sell shirt and four months of admin fees. Second place overall receives a shirt and two months of admin fees. Third place gets a shirt and one month of admin fees. Each category winner earns a shirt and one month of admin fees.
Dan Desmond, owner of Help-U-Sell Bay Beach Realty in Forked River, N.J., has a key piece of advice for new brokers: “Never stop learning.” And he practices what he preaches.
“This market changes day to day and will for several more years. I [just] turned 64 and I am in the last of three parts of Graduate of the Real Estate Institute,” says Desmond, who has been in the real-estate industry for nearly a quarter of a century (and with Help-U-Sell Real Estate for five years).
He’s also keeping himself relevant in today’s market by specializing.
“I added four certifications this year,” Desmond says. “One [certification] was the Certified Investor Agent Specialist, and I am adding more and more cash investors to my database, plus encouraging some people to use their IRAs, etc. to get into good cash flow rentals.”
Another way he has adjusted to today’s climate is through his listings themselves. “I am having a much better year than last because I adapted to it. I list smarter and push for a reduction more,” he says.
His favorite part of the business is helping people buy or sell, and “especially helping people in a bind to get on with their lives.” To help him help sellers facing foreclosure, he is also a Certified Distressed Property Expert.
Despite the current challenges, Desmond is confident that the market will come back long-term and believes in the meantime that “Help-U-Sell equity sellers need us now more than ever.”
To new Help-U-Sell brokers, he advises, “Believe in Help-U-Sell – the Internet will help us tell our story more in the next few years than it did in the past 35.”
