Admit it. You've purchased a system or a marketing program that you thought was going to revolutionize your business-only to find that it was so complicated that you simply gave up and never looked at it again.
Yeah, I've been there too!
However, I have to tell you that if I were in the mortgage business today, single property websites and co-branding with real estate agents would be the main focus of my lead generation efforts. All the marketing and consumer direct stuff would feed off of those leads. (In fact, I posted my vacation home for sale using a single property site.)
At Mortgage Girlfriends Mastermind Event with women from around the country, Danielle Miller (Amerifirst) and Marcy Briggs (Nova Home Loans), both street originators, have each been using this single property website system for over a year now.
I asked Danielle and Marcy the hard questions-basically the good, the bad and the ugly-and what they would have done differently.
This interview is for you:
to help you decide if this system is for you;
to help you avoid the same mistakes they made;
to help you internally set up your own lead generation system;
to help you get more from search engine optimization; and
to help you generate more leads for both you and your agents.
Karen: I understand that the beauty of single property website is that each listing has it's own website, the loan officer's name appears on every website, it increases your SEO (Google juice) and it automatically posted to 14 websites, including Craig's List, with just one click of the mouse. What made you to decide to try the system in the first place?
Marcy: The reason I looked at the
Danielle: We were falling into a rut, visiting offices dropping off business cards and newsletters. We wanted to add value to our relationship and bring the agents something that was going to help them (and us) build our businesses together.
Karen: How many properties and home many agents that list properties with you right now?
Marcy: We have 45 to 50 agents with just over 200 properties. The time I spend is two-to-three hours a week.
Danielle: We have 104 agents with 749 properties. I also have an assistant and the time we spend about 30 hours between both of us.
Karen: What were some of the problems you had to overcome when you first started using the program?
Marcy: I was a bit afraid of the technology. I had no idea what a widget was. I had to force myself to sit down and spend some time with the system. I had to overcome my fear.
Danielle: I was overwhelmed with the extent of the technology. There were so many good features that I was really excited to tell the real estate agents everything, but they were also overwhelmed with the magnitude of it all. I really had to learn to scale back and start out simple-teach them the basics-and then gradually introduce more bells and whistles as our relationship grew.
Karen: What was your game plan on getting agents to buy into the program?
Marcy: I started with agents that I was currently doing business with. Then, I started to mention it when I attended sales meetings. I have flyers about the program. And I've sent out e-mails.
Danielle: We started with a list of 40 agents and internally said that we would "test it" with the first five who signed up. However, it grew faster than we thought it would and everybody wanted to use the system. We got bogged down because we had too many people involved before we worked with it ourselves.
Karen: Each of you has a unique way of working with the real estate agents. Would you share what you do internally to get each property listed on the websites?
Marcy: When an agent agrees to work with me on listing a property, I teach them how to use the admin section to get their property listed. After the training session, I provide them with a user name a password and they have to enter their own information. I don't want to liability of entering the wrong info-or take responsibility of deleting it after the home has been sold.
Danielle: We enter the information for them. They send us the MLS data and we manage everything. But it's a struggle because the agents are not taking "ownership" of it-and expect us to do everything for them.
Karen: Have you "fired" any real estate agents from using your single-property website?
Marcy: Yes. They may have posted one property and I've never heard from them again or did not respond when I tried to call them. I'll just mark their account "inactive" and several months go by, they try to log on and they tell me their password is not working. Then it opens up another conversation with them. I also got a call from an angry buyer. When the home was sold, the agent never deleted the property or reported it sold, and the new buyer had people looking in their windows-thinking the home was still for sale. They had tried to call the agent about it and the agent wouldn't even return their calls.
Danielle: We deleted a guy because he had one listing and wasn't active. We told him that we were going to de-activate his account to make room for other agents. He ended up not being a very pleasant individual to work with-enough said.
Karen: Many people have asked me about the RESPA issue-that the agents have to pay "their fair share" of the costs. Since it's the same monthly fee if you have two agents or 200 agents, I recommend that you check with your manager, compliance department or company attorney. You will have to decide the dollar amount they have to pay to participate because if you offer this as a free service, you're going to be in big trouble with the RESPA police.
Karen: How to do you use the "tracking system" in the admin portion of the website?
Marcy: I can check how many times an agent has logged into their account. That's how I determine how active they are.
Danielle: I also check to see how many phone calls, e-mails, text messages and requests for showings that each property/agent gets. It also tracks how many online loan applications we get.
Karen: What are the top three "widgets" that you use to manage the real estate agents activity?
Marcy: The ease of posting the properties on Craig's List-it's so easy. Second, the texting feature and third, the report on how many time people have viewed the properties from various websites.
Danielle: Texting, the call-capture tool and the personal website option because so many of the agents don't have their own website-they are just listed under the company's site. There is a new feature that allows the agents to easily print open house flyers from the info posted on the site-including color pictures. Agents can also download brochures, property disclosures, and maps or surveys that potential buyers can easily download and print.
Karen: Have you thought about contacting the seller or each of the homes and offer to get them pre-approved for a mortgage?
Marcy: In our market, we have a ton of REOs and short sales-so I wish we had an actual seller on a transaction.
Danielle: We call the listing agent and ask them if they have had their seller pre-approved for another home, before the old one has sold. Even if they have already been pre-approved, we want to give them a second opinion.
Karen: Thanks so much!
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