Six ways an assistant should market listings

Marci Sepulveda Leave a comment

Attracting qualified buyers to purchase properties is one of the most important skills that sellers expect their agents to have. As an assistant, you can be very useful in helping your agent reach the right customers. In this post you’ll learn more about how to help marketing listings to sell a home.

#1. Multiple Listing Service (MLS)

The first place your agent will want to put a listing is in the MLS, or multiple listing service, a task that is often the responsibility of the assistant. This database of listings offers agents a centralized location to post details on the properties they have for sale and is an industry standard.

Accuracy in preparing a listing cannot be overstated. Not only is the MLS the central location for your listing, but websites that are accessible to any potential home buyer, such as Trulia, Zillow and Realtor.com, use the data directly from the MLS. So remember to check and double-check that the specifications and descriptions for the property are exactly as you want them.

Besides the standard form data, which includes details on the home such as square footage and the number of rooms, you’ll have an opportunity to provide a description. This description will appear on the listing sheet and on any websites that pick up MLS data. It’s important that this copy be focused on selling the home, and as such, it should be treated like any other marketing material.

#2. Uploading and Optimizing Photography

Photography is one of the most important parts of your marketing plan and should be handled with care. You may consider outsourcing listing photos to a professional company. Along with ensuring that your photographs are of the best quality, there are a number of other concerns when preparing your photos to upload. 

Photos should be beautifully lit, color-corrected, cropped properly and able to show off your property’s best qualities. In addition, your MLS may have limits on the size and dimensions of the individual images you upload, so familiarize yourself with its requirements before you begin.

Most MLSs allow a maximum of 25 photos, but don’t confuse quantity with quality. A photo of the exterior of the home is standard, and it’s a good strategy to have at least one photo per each feature mentioned in your description. For example, a description that mentions an attached garage, a bay window and high ceilings should have photographs that show each of these features.

#3. Social Media

The most popular social media platforms used in real estate are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest. Your agent might use one, some or all of these. Each platform comes with its own set of analytics, so you can easily see if your posts are effective in driving engagement and, ultimately, sales.

Facebook and Twitter allow you to schedule posts, but if you’re using more than one platform, a dashboard like Hootsuite allows you to generate all your posts from a central location. Depending on your subscription level, you can easily replicate posts across platforms and receive great analytics to help you determine how well your posts are performing.

#4. Traditional Advertising

In many cases, traditional media is still very effective for the real estate business. Your agent may be getting great results from direct mail postcards and advertising in print and online.

Using postcards to let neighbors know what was just listed or just sold works because it offers market information, as well as exposure for listings and the agent. Make sure that the photos look great, the message and the call to action are clear, and the brand is properly reflected. Advertising in print is effective in certain markets, but not in others.

Online advertising allows potential clients to click through the ad to the agent’s website or send an email. And don’t forget to look into marketing opportunities on syndication sites like Zillow. These can help with lead generation. Ultimately, advertising works best when you know who your target market is and how best to reach them.

#5. Surveys, Testimonials and Reviews

There is much more marketing that you can help with as an assistant. A completed transaction is not the end of the relationship. There is still marketing work to do! It’s a good idea to send a survey to clients after a transaction is finished to let them share the pros and cons of their experience with the agent. This information is useful to agents so they can make improvements to their systems and services.

And getting testimonials and reviews on sites like Yelp can really help an agent get new clients and stand out from the competition.

There are third-party survey services that are simple and inexpensive to put into practice. This should be part of your operating procedure at the close of every sale. 

#6. Participate in the Neighborhood

Lastly, one of the best ways to market the business is by simply being top of mind when it comes to real estate in a given neighborhood. The simplest and most effective way to do this is by actually spending time participating in the community. Consider volunteering at the local school. Suggest that your agent sponsor neighborhood events, or simply make sure to get a table at them. Seek out opportunities to put your agent in front of the right target market.

No one likes someone who only talks business, but there’s nothing wrong with being helpful and relevant. If you keep your ears open and engage with people, you will find organic ways to help market the company and make it truly feel like part of the neighborhood.

It’s important to remember that selling homes is only one part of an agent’s business. It’s just as imperative to ensure that agents have a future flow of potential customers and that the brand and reputation are being managed in the best way. To learn more about an assistant’s role working with an agent, sign up for AgentEDU’s Assistant Certification Course, an eight-part course designed to teach assistants everything they’ll need to set their agent up for success.

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3 tips for dealing with burnout

Special Contributor Leave a comment

By Ashley Harwood

It’s only February, yet many agents are already struggling with burnout. Without consistent rest and recovery time, of course these agents are exhausted. Who wouldn’t be? We’re humans, not real estate-selling robots. So, why is there so much guilt around taking a day off? As small-business owners, we experience a very common “hustle and grind” mentality in this industry. “Work hard, and you’ll be successful.” “If you’re not meeting your goals, put in more hours.”

Yes, hard work is important, but what’s even more important is strategically doing the right activities (lead gen) and balancing those activities with plenty of rest. Now, rest doesn’t necessarily mean taking a nap, although it absolutely could mean that. The definition of rest is allowing your brain to unplug and your energy to recharge.

It will look different for each of us. It could be taking a walk, reading fiction, binging a Netflix show, going on a little road trip to explore a new area or having a long lunch with a close friend. You choose your own adventure. The point is to do whatever it takes to step away from the details and stress of real estate and allow the brain to focus on something else for a day.

Consistent rest has several benefits: It allows the brain to tap into creative problem-solving and better handle stressful situations in a rational manner, it helps us be more patient, it’s vital for our physical health and building a healthy immune system (yes, getting enough sleep at night is a big part of this, too), and it simply makes us nicer people and better agents. When we are well rested, we are able to keep our clients and co-broker agents calm.

Taking days off is easier said than done, yet it’s critically important to building a sustainable career and avoiding burnout. Extreme burnout can lead to getting physically sick, which will force you to take time off anyway, and you’ll lose valuable momentum. And wouldn’t it be more fun to take a planned day off than a sick day?

So, here are three tips for taking days off consistently:

1. Use the buddy system.

Taking days off is easier for agents on a team — there’s always someone to cover. For solo agents, it can be challenging, and for solo agents without the budget for an admin or a virtual assistant/transaction coordinator, it can be extra difficult. So, partner up. Find another agent in your office who’s in a similar situation and cover for each other. Make sure you include their contact info in your email auto-responder and change your voicemail message.

2. Pick a day of the week strategically, and plan it in advance.

For most agents, weekends are busier with showings and open houses than weekdays. Look back over the past few weeks and decide which day of the week is typically slower for you. That’s a good day to choose as your day off. Of course, the day can change, and it doesn’t have to be the same day every week. But choosing your day off in advance, getting it on the calendar and protecting that time is key.

3. Realize there are very few real estate emergencies.

Most things can wait a day. They really can. When you have a solid, trusting relationship with your clients, they won’t fire you because you didn’t answer them for 24 hours. For anything that really is time-sensitive (like an offer), well, your colleague in the office is covering for you. No problem. There’s no science behind this, but most agents find that whenever they go on vacation or step away from their business, that’s when referrals tend magically to pour in.

If you’re currently feeling exhausted or burned out, I’d highly recommend scheduling a few days off ASAP. Find someone to cover for you. Tell your clients you’ll be unavailable but that they’ll be in your colleague’s extremely capable hands. Then, when you come back to work, you’ll have fresh eyes and a renewed spirit, and your productivity will skyrocket. Try it and let me know how it works for you.

Ashley Harwood is the founder & CEO of Move Over Extroverts, a coaching/training company for introverted agents. You can reach her at Ashley@MoveOverExtroverts.com and check out her website at www.moveoverextroverts.com.