Guerilla Training Blog by Matt Jones

Business Plan 2014 (Part 2)

In part one, I shared with you the importance of having vision as the foundation of building your business plan. Every real plan has to begin with vision. Without it, there is no specificity, but only a nebulous general direction and not a quantifiable destination. If you haven’t taken the time to get alone someplace quiet to build your vision for next year, please go back and reread part one and then take the time for this vital step. Vision is absolutely critical to your plan. Now let’s talk about ... Read More »

Enter the Zero2Hero Agent Challenge 2010

Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s Agent Hero! Yes, it’s Agent Hero — one frustrated agent who, only months ago, was either starting from scratch or thinking of quitting real estate altogether. A total “Zero” in the eyes of other agents, and even in her own eyes. But then, just a few short months later, with the help of only a few super-technology gadgets, some ... Read More »

The Most Important 5 Seconds of Any Real Estate Transaction

For every closing… every single deal… there is that one moment… that one crucial moment where things can go terribly wrong but don’t. The “tipping point” of any transaction where if you handle it right the result is a commission check, and if you handle it wrong, there is the frustration of yet another missed opportunity. Sure, you may tell yourself that the lead was just a tire-kicker — a poor quality lead — but in your heart of hearts you know that it really came down to that moment… ... Read More »

Why Are Internet Leads “Bad Leads”?

As the President of a company who specializes in helping agents capture customers online, one of the things that troubles me is hearing agents say, “Internet leads are ‘bad leads’.” In fact, it bothered me so much that we commissioned our customer service department to actually conduct a survey. Here’s how it went. First we looked at the statistical buying cycle for the real estate customer. The average search time is 8 weeks. In other words, 50% search longer than 56 days and 50% search 56 days or less. Now ... Read More »

Bonus Podcast: Cindy Young Interview

In this exclusive podcast Cindy Young explains how, after several unsuccessful tries, she mastered technology-based real estate and went on to become a top producer generating the vast majority of her business online. Her success is clearly no fluke, but rather a string of seven consistent RE/MAX award-winning years, including five back to back years earning over $100,000 in the small town of Beaufort, South Carolina. Cindy credits nearly all of her success to the remarkable opportunity she found in doing online business, after setting her mind to learning the ... Read More »

You Spoke and NAR Is Listening… Or Are They?

Last week I wrote an editorial discussing the planned 50% increase in dues for all members of the National Association of Realtors® and then Friday I wrote a quick followup note thanking you for the outstanding response. I had no idea what was next. Over the weekend my blog blew up! Now there are 234 comments and counting! To put that in perspective, over the last 8 years I’ve written 10 books and hundreds of articles that have been syndicated on multiple industry websites. It is normal for an article ... Read More »

How to Turn Leads Into Deals with Jennifer Allan

National real estate trainer, Jennifer Allan interviews me on the topic of Working Internet Leads on a national Sell With Soul conference call. Years ago you could ask most agents and they would tell you that the internet was a passing fad. Today, nearly everyone realizes that it’s here to stay and those who master internet marketing will carve out a huge market share while those who don’t will continue to do less and less business. In the previous three installments in this series I interviewed agents from all across ... Read More »

How I Created a Drip Campaign that Pulls Like Crazy

Drips campaigns. I get asked about them all the time. Does your Ultimate Website System support drip campaigns? Can you share your drip campaign templates with me? What is the optimum number of emails to include in a drip campaign? No, no, and zero. Of course, the title of this post is somewhat misleading. How I finally created a drip campaign that pulls like crazy was to stop using drip campaigns altogether. Unfortunately, there is no free money in real estate. Real estate is a relational business, and therefore, our ... Read More »

Calculating Appreciation the Easy Way

In a minute I’m going to introduce you to a very simple calculator that will have you figuring appreciation rates in seconds. But before we get right into the calculator, let’s discuss why you might need to know an appreciation rate in the first place. Imagine yourself getting ready to go out on that listing appointment. You’ve prepared a good CMA (comparative market analysis) and you’ve looked at all the recent sales in that area fairly closely, making mental notes in case the seller doesn’t like your price. What if ... Read More »

Become a New Home Specialist

The last installment was more geared toward brokers and team leaders so I will make this one for agents. I’ll warn you: This strategy will not make you friends, but it will make you money. If you are like most agents today, you are struggling for sales opportunities. You know what to do when you find a new customer, and hopefully, you do a great job. The problem is finding enough customers. Here’s a great way to find new customers, and it costs almost nothing. It works best if you ... Read More »