As eEdge approaches its one-year birthday, close to 1,000 Family Reunion attendees gathered to celebrate the impact of this award-winning, innovative, and powerful system that changed the game of real estate forever. Not only has the leverage that eEdge provides saved associates countless hours and dollars spent on administrative tasks, but agents have reported an 84% increase in leads since eEdge launched at Family Reunion 2011!

Key representatives of KWRI’s IT and Marketing teams led the “What’s New with eEdge” breakout session to show how eEdge has evolved since its launch, and to give a sneak peek at some exciting new features that are coming soon.

• Mike Malinowski, Product Management Team Lead, opened the session by highlighting the enhancements made to the eEdge myLeads and myContacts components over the past year, including easier contact importing, full IDX feeds to eEdge websites (where available), and shared access for teams. Mike previewed the soon-to-be-available action plans, which will put critical to-do tasks front and center on associates’ KW dashboards.

• Ellen Marks, Executive Director of Marketing and Communications, presented the myMarketing component, which launched with all the MREA campaigns and was expanded to include campaigns for KW Commercial associates as well as leadership. At last count, 67,000 KW associates have activated their eEdge accounts and are running 28,384 automated marketing campaigns, reaching 2,529,456 consumers! Ellen reported that agents running an eEdge 33 Touch to their database averaged a 71 percent increase in units closed, a 117 percent increase in volume and an incredible 67 percent increase in gross commission income. Finally, Ellen unveiled a sneak peek at the new myMarketing platform to be released next month, which features streamlined navigation, video marketing campaigns, and a WYSIWYG editor—all part of KW’s goal to provide agents with a highly customizable system that allows them to brand themselves and target their markets.
• Continue reading ‘KW Technology Breakout Session: What’s New with eEdge’

A 7:45 a.m. session didn’t faze any of the attendees at the Win More Listings with a Pre-Listing Packet that Packs a Punch Breakout Session on Sunday.  And their first stop: A Family Reunion breakout session covering powerful sessions agents can implement to position themselves as knowledgeable experts who are prepared to earn their clients trust and WIN MORE BUSINESS.

“Don’t be afraid of the competition,” says one panelist. “Most will not be as prepared as you are. Be confident; and remember, you are the expert.”

Based on Ignite, Keller Williams University’s latest course, the session broke down into three parts: Preparedness, Knowledge & Rapport and the components of the Pre-List Package.

What do you do to prepare?

Start gathering knowledge about the client and their home from the initial discussion. Build rapport with the client from the initial discussion. Don’t be afraid to ask questions during the initial discussion. Confirm that all of the owners will be present for your CMA presentation.

What is your knowledge of the neighborhood?

• Inspect all active listings that are in direct competition for the client’s home before your appointment.
• Make sure that you have a general understanding of recent sales activity in the neighborhood.
• Make sure that you know the schools, parks, builders, builder models, community centers, and general amenities in the neighborhood.

What do you know about the potential client?

Continue reading ‘Hot Breakout: Win More Listings with a Pre-Listing Packet that packs a punch’

Does video marketing generate actual leads? As marketing budgets decrease, and easy-to-use video editing tools pop up, it’s a question many agents are asking. Tackling that topic early Sunday morning was Adam Hergenrother, associate with the Green Mountain (Vt.) market center, Kevin Kauffman, associate with the Tempe – Scottsdale market center and Seychelle Van Poole, associate with the Dallas Preston Road market center, who all agree that video is worth the time and small upfront investment.

“The results are impressive,” says Kauffman, who’s been blogging with his 46:10 business partner Fred Weaver since 2009. “The system we’ve set up has paid for itself over and over again.” Here are their top tips for using video to generate a solid pipeline of business.

Set Goals

Kauffman: Our goal is a fairly simple. We collaborate with our marketing firm to define a variety of mediums to attract short sale sellers to our videos. Then, we identify with the viewer and demonstrate to them why we are short sale experts and finish with a strong call to action, trading information that the seller values for their contact information. Currently, our Short or Stay calculator is the strongest call to action we have. That has basically turned our video blogging from a good source of seller leads to a good source of motivated seller leads that are HOT.

Hergenrother: Our lead generation systems with video encompass everything. We use video for informational services to blast to larger audiences on social media, news, YouTube and site we can attach our content. We send a pre-listing video to every client prior to them coming into the office. We use video to fully leverage our listing and buyer video’s to ensure every buyer/seller understand the full services of our team. This can also be emailed/drop box to clients outside of the state which is extremely helpful. We use video for price reductions, FSBO and expired campaigns. It’s the best leverage tool.

Leverage yourself

Hergenrother: We use Animoto for quick videos, professional editing for anything that will be mass produced, Window’s Movie Maker, and Comf5. Many of my videos, however, are shot without editing on a Logitech HD camera.

Kauffman: We just do the “turn on camera, talk, turn off camera” part (learned this from Gary Vaynerchuck in the book Crush it) and hand the video off our marketing firm. Our time is better spent on other tasks once the video has been shot and Direct Business Marketing is better at the techy stuff than us. We have an agreement with them. We won’t tinker with the websites and the videos if they promise not to negotiate short sales. It’s a good task to delegate to someone else.

Van Poole gave three simple tips for making sure your videos generate action from your clients. We got her on video!
Continue reading ‘HOT Breakout: Using Video to Generate Leads’

Keller William Realty is Shouting the Culture in its market centers, regions and the world in 2012! Led by Mo Anderson, Vice-Chairman of the Board and Kay Evans, regional co-owner in the Southeast Region and North Florida Region, the 7^th Annual Cultural Summit honored the deeds of kindness, acts of giving and spirit of sharing that associates display across the United States and Canada every day.

“In 2012, Keller Williams is shouting the culture in our market centers, regions, and the WORLD! Our culture gives us energy, builds enthusiasm, creates team spirit, and drives our momentum as we do business every day,” said Anderson from the podium.

Welcoming the Cultural Ambassadors to the stage Evans announced:”There is wave of cultural momentum moving across our company – soon we will welcome 60 additional ambassadors!”

“The recognition as a Cultural Ambassador is awarded to you by your peers.  You have exemplified the culture of KW at a high level through giving unselfishly of your time, your smiles, and your helping hands. Your passion for demonstrating the Culture to your fellow Associates is an inspiration. Thank you for your deeds of kindness. May you be blessed as you have blessed others. Please come to the stage to be honored with a gift.”

Afterward, to their surprise, several Cultural Ambassadors were asked to come forward to recognize them for their incredible stories of culture they’ve exemplified in their market centers.

La’Dweena Smith, of the Mid-America Region got creative with her culture. She writes:

Culture is taking positive talk a step further by making it a positive action.

When the disaster in Joplin hit, our office was just sick! We felt so close to those agents. We wanted to do anything we could to help.

I called and emailed until I was finally told, “thanks for your concern, however, there are no more families to be adopted.”

My heart sank! I decided I was not taking NO for an answer. Our office came up with the idea for “Treats and Eats”!

With donations from agents in our MC, once a week for 4 months, treats were provided to the Joplin agents.

The culture in our MC grew – Knowing that every week we were helping the Joplin agents in some small way.

Mo and Kay then welcomed the Katy market center to the stage to share their story about their 501c3 non-profit organization Cinco Charities, a project started by associates in 2008, which provides temporary housing to patients and their caregivers as they come to Katy for life threatening treatments to save their lives. “We wanted to create a community of care and support in our market center and through our community,” said Fred Wright, team leader. “It’s amazing what has happened. Agents, title and mortgage companies, the medical industry, strangers and countless volunteers,” he added. So far the organization has raised more than $100,000 through their annual charity golf tournament and provided more than 170 people free lodging.

Rounding out the Cultural Summit was recognition of those associates, market centers and regions who have given to KW Cares. Congratulations!

Tell us: WHAT DOES CULTURE MEAN TO YOU?