RealtyChat.com Blog

Recently had one of those discussions with an MLM hawker who keeps saying that real estate agents must “leverage” themselves. Guess “leverage” now means “focus on something other than your speciality”.

My question was left unanswered…

If you went to a doctor’s office, was told that you had appendicitis and you were to have a scheduled operation to remove your appendix, and went home only to find a message from the doctor offering to sell you soap or plastic storage containers, how would YOU react???

When I was first exposed to the real estate business I was astonished in that everyone in the local real estate business had some other type of “program” going on…

Plasticware, make-up, vitamin sprays, you name it, they had it.

I thought that they would go away, but they haven’t. How would you look at your attorney if they tried to sell you soap, telephone calling cards, or kitchen products? I’d RUN!

So what is the allure for those desperate few? Seems to be a Catch-22. They need to do something to supplement the income they are sabotaging.

Sigh… There are few things that get to me like some company trying to pitch the same stupid product and bombarding me with endless repetitions of the same message. Even better when they get an affiliate program going and offer some hapless fool the ability to make more money by bombarding me more!

Do they seriously think that sending me the same message 40 times will make me more eager to buy???

Latest culprit:

ComeListMe.com

Unbelievable! I get 3-4 of their stupid emails every day. They do everything to keep ahead of spam filters. They make up email addresses, people, testimonials, etc.

I would NEVER do business with any company that advertised this way.

And while Proquest technologies might not be a bad product (I don’t know personally), the people that use their affiliate program are relentless. Every single week I delete dozens of posts from people pretending to be offering “advice” to other agents in the forums here only to get people to use their affiliate link.

Never ending stream of “hey does this really work?” and “I heard about this, is it legit?”.

But I guess fortune favors the irritating.

I have always felt that the Google Page Rank was a brilliant marketing idea for Google. Get everyone and their brother to only care about how Google ranks your site. Worry only about your incoming links to get your rank up.

There are more myths about Google’s ranking system than I can even begin to comprehend.

My wife’s site HomesInBoston.com is a PR4. Comes up in the top 5 results for “Boston Real Estate” on Google. Above PR5s and PR6s. How funny is that? LOL

The rank that people see in their toolbar isn’t really accurate and shouldn’t be relied upon for quality.

I don’t get it… Never have and probably never will.

People that are selling leads are just setting up websites, marketing them, and getting you to subsidize their advertising.

These are the same consumers that COULD be going directly to YOUR website! (whether your website works is the topic for another discussion)

Why not build your own “lead generating” site? Don’t know how? LEARN, or as so many in this business tell their own clients “hire a professional”. Why pay someone a ridiculous sum to get BETWEEN you and a consumer?

How much are you paying for leads and percentages? 100 leads @ $30 = $3,000. Figure $1,500 for a good custom website from MANY places and another $1,500 for advertising on Google or wherever the generators are advertising and you’re underway. If you don’t get 100 leads then you should be questioning what you are doing wrong in your marketing and advertising.

What they are doing isn’t a miracle, isn’t magical, and certainly isn’t divine. Simple promotion and advertising. No matter the new approaches they take to the classifying of leads whether ranking or whatever, Website + advertising + forms = “leads”. Simple.

I am AMAZED that people will pay referral fees to companies that are really only setting up websites! I just don’t get it. They are competing for the same leads but their website deserves 30%????

I’ve always felt that many in this industry have a self-confidence problem. They are convinced that someone else can do it better, get better people, and make more money and that they only way they can keep up is to join up.