Real estate agents are constantly told that they need a great website. And for the most part, they’ve listened. Today, over half of REALTORS® say they’ve had a website for over 5 years. Of course, that’s only half of the story. After all, the vast majority of real estate-related traffic on the web goes real estate websites like Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com, with the first two accounting for 64 percent of that traffic.
When agents get into this business, they always ask that one crucial question: “What’s the first thing I should do?” You build a data bank. Period. Nothing else matters.
— LISA ARCHER
With that in mind, real estate professionals must consider the next step: once you have a great website, how do you convince consumers to visit and use it? That’s the million-dollar question, and Lisa Archer believes she has the answer.
“The one thing [consumers] really want to do is look at homes,” Lisa told us. Instead of limiting their access with forms or registrations, she explained, agents give them a totally unrestricted experience. “Whether they’re ready to buy now, or know somebody that’s ready to buy now, or just like to look at property, if you give them a place [to] look at beautiful pictures, and look at homes, they’re going remember you.”
For a lot of folks in the real estate industry, Lisa needs no introduction. She’s been a favorite speaker, panelist, and tech geek on the conference circuit for years. But Lisa also has a killer real estate business that’s generated over a hundred million dollars in sales volume over the past three years.
Her secret, she says, is a healthy stream of relationships and referrals. Many agents “don’t prospect enough, and they’re becoming reactive instead of proactive,” Lisa pointed out. “When agents get into this business, they always ask that one crucial question: ‘What’s the first thing I should do?’ You build a data bank. Period. Nothing else matters.”
Something else every agent needs? A social media presence. “I’ll get one or two people [who aren’t on Facebook], and their reasoning every single time: ‘I don’t want all my information out there.’ I say, ‘Well then you’re in the wrong business.’ If you’re willing to hand out a business card and plaster it on the side of your car…but you’re not willing to put it on Facebook where you control who gets to see it and who doesn’t…good luck.”
In this interview, Lisa reveals her secrets for driving website visitors, offers some surprising open house tips, and explains how social media can either be a major asset in your business, or hazardous to its health.
– Seth
