Happy Friday Bellator Team! This week I'd like to make sure everyone knows the tools that you have to market your seller's home. Just as important, that we all know how to articulate that value to the seller to make it clear that YOU are THE best choice to listing their home, market their home, protect them with the contract, negotiate on their behalf and to efficiently get the seller to the closing table painlessly and without surprises. I'm focusing on YOUR value as a marketer today.

We must understand and articulate that this is a partnership. What sells the home is Price and Exposure. You can advise and educate the seller, but it is their decision on price, condition, the brokerage and agent that they hire to sell their property. A low enough price will sell almost any house; anywhere and in any condition. By maximizing exposure of the home to the most potential buyers, the seller gains more interest, more showings and typically the highest price possible in the current market for their home. If you are using all of the marketing tools at your disposal, NO ONE can match the exposure that YOU can offer to the seller. That is why they should choose YOU - because your skills and tools provide more value to the seller than your competition. It's vital to articulate this to the seller. I'd suggest creating a template (or use one already created by YOUR marketing department) in PITCH to accompany this consultation with your seller. Having the template ready allows you to swiftly create the presentation if the seller can meet with you in an hour or so. Be prepared!

Always understand that, while we are agents (fiduciaries) for our seller clients and we MUST look after their best interests within the law, each listing is also a commercial for us as Real Estate professionals to others. If your listings always look amazing, proudly show them to your prospective sellers to win your next listings. Many sellers will call on you because they've seen other listings of yours that were far better looking than your competition. Never waste a listing by half-a**ing your marketing.
 

Marketing tools to Utilize:

1. YAPMO Post - Post internally in YAPMO about your listing as soon as listing docs are signed, and again when you have pictures/video/etc. And then, every few weeks, thereafter. Benefit to seller:

• 200+/- of the strongest agents in the market are financially incentivized by Bellator to sell YOUR home.
• These agents have a combined thousands of prospective buyers that they can send your listing out to.
• Use marketing graphs to emphasize that Bellator is THE strongest sales force in our market.

2. Professional Photography - If you are setting yourself apart by using professional photography, video, 3D tours, drones, etc., let the seller know this. Emphasize that high-end, quality images and media are a must for presenting their home in it's very best light to internet shoppers. Benefit to seller: 

• Almost 100% of buyers check out a home on the internet before deciding to see the home. If it doesn't look great online, many buyers won't come to see it and if they don't come to see it, very few will offer to purchase If you're not currently doing this, strongly consider it. The more qualified buyers who are exposed to your home in it's very best light, the better chance the seller has of achieving a higher price for their home.
• Side Note: Remember, you're not just marketing this home, you're marketing for yourself and your future business. If your listings look better than your competition's, you're likely to beat them for the next listing.

3. Bellator's MLS E-Blast service - Once the listing has been entered into the MLS, create a flyer in Bellator Design House (found in Square One) and send it to YOUR Marketing Team to blast out to all agents in the county. Use links when possible to your clients home listing page on your website, to video and 3D tours (if you have them). Benefit to seller:

• We heavily market to buyers and buyers' agents. Buyer's agents will send the listing to and show the listing to their qualified prospective buyers. This exponentially increases your exposure, in addition send buyers marketing including Social Media, Zillow, Realtor.com and the other hundreds of websites that that we market your home on.

4. Social Media - Post listing in Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and any other social media that you use. Use links when possible to your clients home listing page on your website (yes, every property in the MLS has a property detail page that is auto-generated on your website), to video and 3D tours (if you have them). Benefit to seller:

• Increase exposure for their home, furthering your reach to potential buyers.

5. Adwerx - Become very familiar with this marketing tool. This seems to really impress the sellers and, to my knowledge, we are on of only a few using this tool in our market. Introduce it to them from their prospective. "When you, Mr or Mrs. Seller, browse the internet for a pair of shoes, ever notice how ads for those shoes follow you to other, unrelated websites? That's what I do." Bellator provides this online advertising automatically to you for 7 days after the listing goes live for FREE; I strongly recommend that you continue running the ads until the listing is pending or closed. It's roughly $58/week (less if you buy more weeks at once - Adwerx credits you back the unused portion of your time if the property sells quickly and you cancel earlier than what you paid for). This tool targets the internet browsers with a 15-mile radius of your home (Geo- fenced) only to those who have been looking at (Browser Behavior) real estate related websites (Zillow, Mortage sites, moving sites, etc.). Use the terminology; that's how I trick them into thinking I'm smart. ? Even further, add the seller's email address to the Adwerx campaign on the back-end of the Adwerx account in Square One and your client will be updated to the number of views and click everyday. Benefit to buyer:

• Even more exposure - targeted at folks actively interested in real estate. 
• Automated daily updates to sellers.

6. Just Listed Post Cards or Door Hangers for the neighborhood - Often times neighbors know someone who loves their neighborhood and would like to buy there. Engage the neighbors. Ideally, a "Just Listed" postcard accompanied by a door knock and invitation to a "Neighbors Only" open house the hour before your first open house. It's a good way to potentially find buyers and to prospect for other clients/contacts). Benefit to buyers:

• Pretty self-explanatory.

7. Open Houses - Host a Broker Open House within the first 2-3 weeks. Invite all agents via the MLS E-Blast (point #3 above) invite and then personally invite the highest producing agents and brokers for the area via text the morning of the BOH. I usually spend about two hours doing this. I cut and paste and change the name on each one. This makes a huge difference in attendance. Also, be mindful to attend other agent's BOH's; many will reciprocate. Plus, it never hurts to be exposed to properties on the market (and free lunch)! Also, consider periodic public open houses: those are selling homes these days (in addition to the obvious prospecting benefits to you). Benefits to clients:

• Agents are much more likely to search out buyers for homes that they've seen and experienced in person. They also have a great chance of selling the house. Always have a form for feedback from the agents who attend and sit down with those with your seller to read them over. This gives the sellers a real picture of how their home is perceived by numerous professionals (price, pros, cons).

8. Last but certainly not least, you employ a full-time marketing team that ensures that your clients benefit from the very best marketing tools and keep you trained on how best to expose your seller's properties. Benefits to client:

• Having the very best trained, best equipped Real Estate agent/brokerage in the market working to get them the absolute best deal possible on their home.

Again, superior marketing is not the only reason why sellers should pick you. Practice articulating your value in this area in addition to the many, many other items of value that you bring to the table. Competence and experience pricing, scheduling and qualified buyers, contract and negotiating expertise, experience in seamlessly taking the transaction from contract to close and using your outstanding communication skills to keep the abreast of their home's activity as well as the market's activity. Check out the slides in the new Pitch tool specifying all that we do. It's second nature to many of us and we assume the client knows what we do, but they don't. We need to be proficient in explaining to them all aspects of what we do behinds the scenes.

Protect these sellers from making a huge mistake and hiring a lesser agent/brokerage. YOU and Bellator are the best! Work at it everyday, be confident of it, be proud of it. And let your SOI and potential clients know.

Spring has sprung my friends and business is there. Go out and help buyers and sellers understand why they should use you for all of their real estate needs. If you don't, someone else will be calling on them.

Enjoy the weekend!