2 weeks ago I was holed up in my office and didn’t listen to or watch a speck of news. As I left for church that Sunday morning, my gas tank was on fumes. On the way home, I was shocked to find that the city of Atlanta was OUT OF GAS! Are you kidding me? How can a city of 5 million people be out of gas? My mind drifted as I vaguely remember my dad complaining about gas prices in the ’70’s, but I was a kid. This week, no gas again for 2 days!

It has gotten very expensive for agents to survive in this market with the increasing costs of energy. Not only are the sales few and far between, but it looks as if the financial turmoil is going to cause banks to hoard cash and not lend as easily. Agent survival has taken center stage and now is the time for agents to move into new frontiers of generating income as professionals.

24 months ago I started encouraging agents to charge retainer fees and the biggest comment I heard was this: “People will just go out and find an agent that won’t. There are enough agents out there that will put someone with a pulse in their car for the sheer hope of a sale.” While that might have been the case 24 months ago, I see a huge reality check in our industry. With all of the financial upheaval, now is the time for retainer fees.

Here are a few dialogues for you to use with your buyer:

For the buyer who has a house to sell, and you’re not the listing agent. (ex-relocation, out of market area, etc)

Mr. & Mrs. Buyer, I understand you would like to come in and view properties this weekend. Would it be OK if I explained to you how I work?  I charge a flat consulting fee of $40 per hour to show property. That fee covers my expenses and time as I consult with you about the local real estate market, home values, and the best neighborhoods for you. It also covers you previewing as many homes as you would like in the time we are together.  If you decide to purchase a home, your entire consulting fee will be reimbursed at closing because the seller then pays my fee. Why don’t we meet at the office on Friday at 9:30.

At the office, you’ll have a consulting contract that they sign and approve the consulting fee. My recommendation is that you take a credit card # right there if your office accepts one.

Buyer who refuses to be pre-qualified:

Mr. & Mrs. Buyer, I understand that you want to view homes this weekend correct? Have you had the opportunity to call the lenders I gave you? No? No problem. I’ll meet you at the office to arrange our showings and we’ll go out and preview the homes you’re interested in. I want to let you know that I charge $50 per hour for showings and consulting. It covers my time and expense while I consult with you about the best neighborhoods, houses, etc. The good news is that once you close on your new home, I’ll reimburse 100% of your consulting fees. Let’s meet at 9:30 tomorrow.

If they absolutely, positively refuse to call a lender, push for the showing/consulting fee. You literally have nothing to lose at this point. If they refuse to pay you the consulting fee, then forget them. They are just going to waste your time and money.

I’m a firm believer that it’s time for real estate professionals to become real estate professionals and demand to be paid for your work like an attorney, doctor, or fee based financial planner. Best part of all of this, it costs the buyer nothing if they buy a house. Good luck, and let me know how it goes.

Post submitted by Terry Burger, President and Founder of The Search Factory–a search engine management company that teaches the real estate industry how to be successful online marketers through website coaching, internet marketing, and lead incubation. To learn more about how we can help you get more leads by driving quality traffic to your website, click on the logo below.

Last month I wrote an article based on research that shows only 8% of internet searchers go past page 3 when running a search. As an agent, you know it’s important to be on the search engines don’t you? I mean, 84% of buyers are there right? Why, in spite of all of the NAR research, are such a small percentage of agents are taking all of the internet based business?

Let’s assume for a minute you are an agent in Atlanta, GA. Did you know that in July of 2008 there were 368,000 searches for “Atlanta Real Estate”? That does not even count the thousands of combinations when factoring in suburbs or other Atlanta keyword search phrases like “Atlanta homes for sale” which had 201,000 searches.
 
We know this: Google is searched 250,000,000 times per day, and it is important to be seen when people go looking for real estate. Entire books have been written about the title of this article but in a few short paragraphs, the best answer has to do with time.

SEO is the process of taking your website and optimizing it for the search engines in order that your ranking will put you on the first page, This process can take months until you’re seen on the first page of the “natural”, or organic search results. It can be optimized by you adding relevant content to your site, developing and maintaining a blog, exchanging links with other real estate websites, etc. As long as you’re optimizing better than the existing competitors on the organic listings, you will slowly climb up the organic ranking ladder until hopefully, you’ll be on the first page.

But you need leads NOW, not in six months. With PPC, or sponsored search, you can appear on the first page of Google within 24 hours. Who uses paid search you might ask? Barack Obama, John McCain, car washes, pizza shops, Honda, IBM, and the list goes on and one. Oops, I forgot real estate agents. Those agents get the fact that 84% of buyers are online, and they want to be there with them.

Look at your marketing budget and try to find a way to allocate a larger percentage of that budget to online methods. Read the success story in this newsletter, results like this are possible to everyone who is willing to work.

To learn more, call one of our Search Factory representatives at 877-567-3272 today to discuss the best solution for your business. We offer affordable solutions to search engine marketing, and best of all, over 90% of our clients are from the real estate industry. For more information, visit us at http://www.thesearchfactory.net/products-intro.html