At last year’s Broker Summit, the idea for a Help-U-Sell cookbook germinated. We have since collected recipes from offices throughout the country, from Pennsylvania to California and Minnesota to Texas. Thank you to everyone who submitted a favorite dish! The final cookbook contains almost 50 recipes in four categories: Appetizers and Side Dishes, Soups, Entrees, and Baked Goods and Desserts.
All the offices whose recipes appear in the book have their contact information in a directory toward the back of the cookbook.
It is now in the early stages of being designed. We plan to have a couple of hard copies to each office early next month. Each office will also receive an electronic version that you can have printed by a local vendor. The cover can be personalized for your office.
The cookbooks will make great housewarming gifts for buyers and sellers, thank-you gifts for testimonials or referrals, or holiday gifts for former clients. How will you use your cookbooks in your marketing plan?
The new Facebook Timeline for business pages will become mandatory on this Friday, March 30. If you haven’t set up your page for the changeover, we can help.
One of the most important and easy ways to prepare your new Timeline is by adding a cover photo. The recommended dimensions are 850 pixels by 315 pixels. We have a cover photo on our Facebook timeline that you are welcome to use until you have your own image. You can access our cover image in the download library. Open the folder named Broker Website Tools, where you’ll find another folder called New Website Artwork. The cover image is in the NewSocialMedia subfolder.
Help-U-Sell Real Estate Facebook Timeline cover image
When you are ready to select your own cover image, keep these rules and suggestions in mind.
Facebook does not allow promotional or text-based cover images. You also can’t include pricing or your website URL. Avoid stock images and try to incorporate the Help-U-Sell colors. A couple of ideas: a quality photo of your office building or an image of you and your friendly staff wearing Help-U-Sell shirts.
The new profile picture dimensions are 180 pixels by 180 pixels. You can use a logo or a photo of yourself. The key is to be consistent with your branding and be identifiable.
If you have any questions or want feedback on your Facebook cover image, please contact Kendra or Tony.
We are excited to announce that our new broker websites will be available next Thurs., March 1. The new look is modern, clean and very user-friendly. On the homepage, the top section below the search bar showcases your office listings, featured properties or open houses. Beneath the carousel of listings is where your personalized content appears. We encourage you to record a 30-second welcome video if you don’t have one already. You can also use text and images in that open space to the left of the banners. We also suggest incorporating your office’s Facebook account into your page so that users can comment on your site and you can start a dialogue with your potential clients.
Here's the standard version of the new Help-U-Sell Real Estate broker website homepage.
The new website design’s search functionality, which will be on every page of the site, combines the best of the intelligent search and the filtered search. Users will be able to type in what they’re looking for and choose from drop-down menus for property type, status, number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms. The user can also enter a price range and the farthest distance from his chosen city(or cities) he wants to see results from.
Users can search in multiple cities and filter the search results in a number of ways from any page on the broker's website.
Brokers will have more freedom to control their sites to suit their markets. You will be able to change the names of the navigation headers, such as “Buyers” and “Finance.” Also, if your office doesn’t deal with commercial property or if you have no rentals, you can remove those options from the type and status filters, respectively.
On the map page, users can further refine their search results.
Like in the map view, the properties in the list view can be sorted by Office Listings First, Latest First, Price: High-Low and Price: Low-High. You can select which sorting category is the default. On mouse-over of a listing, three buttons appear: Contact Agent, Save Listing and View Listing.
Upon mouse-over in list view, a property's agent can be contacted and its listing can be saved and viewed.
The features featured in this article just scratch the surface of what the new website offers. We invite you to try it out before it launches next week. Go to www.testoffice.helpusell.com.
If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please share them with us in the comments or personally via email or phone.
Help-U-Sell Real Estate won a 2012 Franchisee Satisfaction Award from Franchise Business Review.We are honored to announce that we have been selected as one of the top real estate franchises in North America for 2012.
The designation is based on franchisee satisfaction as determined by a survey conducted by Franchise Business Review, a U.S. franchise market research firm. You can view the list of real estate franchise winners on the Franchise Business Review website.
What we love most about receiving this award is that it means our franchisees believe in our business model and, more importantly, believe that we at Help-U-Sell Real Estate are serving them to the best of our abilities.
To our franchisees, we say “thank you” for your votes of confidence. To prospective franchisees, we encourage you to contact us if you want to learn more about the Help-U-Sell franchise opportunity. You can learn more about Help-U-Sell and also contact us via our Franchise Opportunity Center.
Being smaller has its advantages, such as the ability to offer the personal touch. Schmidt maintains a database of past clients and sends them an item of value each month. This usually consists of timely information about home-care topics such as winterizing your house. Her office takes this one step further and occasionally goes door-to-door with gifts. Recently, Schmidt handed out pizza cutters emblazoned with the phrase “great service any way you slice it” and the Help-U-Sell logo. In the past, she has delivered Christmas cookies, Valentine’s candy and pumpkin bread.
Her eventual goal is to get 90 percent of her business from referrals. For now, half of her business remains foreclosures and short sales. Schmidt said the market is picking up in Owatonna. Her goal for 2012 is to increase the number of listings and sales by 50 percent over 2011.
Schmidt attributes her office’s success to and pins her future growth on the following simple-but-effective tactics: “Do what you say you’re going to do. Keep in touch with buyers and sellers. Know what’s going on in your market.”
For new brokers, she advises, “You need to be in real estate for more than just the money.”
If you have advice for new brokers or agents, please share it with us in the comments section.
