The Inman Connect conference in San Francisco has come and gone. Not everyone was able to make it so I thought it would be valuable to do a recap of some of the things that came out during the conference.

 

If you’ve never been to an Inman conference before you should definitely plan to. It’s usually great content and the networking opportunities are second to none. The next one is in January in New York City. The hotel bar overlooks Times Square, its awesome!

 

Lead Conversion

 

The best part of the first morning was the panel on lead conversion with Rachel Adams, Jesse Zagorsky, and Keith Dunham. For reference, Rachel Adams converts online leads at 14%. That’s borderline ridiculous. The industry average is closer to 2%. The better agents are usually at 5%.

 

Anyone with skills like that is worth listening to.

 

Here are some of the things they do that you should adopt:

 

• 30 Seconds or Less. That’s how long it should take you to follow up with a lead when it comes in. You often hear five minutes or less but 30 seconds is even stronger.
• If you don’t connect in the first 30 seconds they’ve seen a massive drop off in the contact rate until about the 10-12th attempt at contact.
• The leads aren’t weak, you’re weak. This was a common thread. You have to practice converting leads. A lead is a lead. Leads aren’t always stronger or weaker, someone clicked a button for a reason. You have to uncover what it is.
• Rachel Adams said one of the main ways to contact a lead that gets a response is to call right away with a script along the lines of “Hey there, this is NAME with COMPANY, I just saw you registered on my website and just wanted to let you know that there’s a real person behind the website. I saw you were checking out ADDRESS, just calling to find out what’s going on in your situation.” and then go into finding out about them and their specific/unique situation. If you don’t get them on that first call, the one in less than 30 seconds, do a video of the same script and text it to them.
• I’ll repeat that, if you don’t get them on the call right away then take the opportunity to text them!

 

It’s also important when you’re talking to leads to remember that the majority of them have most likely been in touch with another agent within the last 30 days. You have to work around that issue.

 

Katie Lance

 

Katie Lance also jumped on stage to share some of her best 5 tech tips in 5 minutes. (Side note: As a speaker, these short ones are always the hardest to pull off and Katie nailed it!). She talked about tools to help systemize your business. Mainly Trello, Slack, and Asana. Our team uses Trello and Slack and I think I’ll be looking into adding Asana if it makes sense on top of those or not. There’s always the risk of trying to bring in too many different “solutions”.

 

She also mentioned how to 10X your content creation (which we all need to do) and to create micro content. Tools to help with Micro content include Canva, Wordswag, and Together.

 

I’ve mentioned it many times and Katie did as well, the gold is in your email list. You can make such a big difference in your business if you’re properly leveraging your email list.

 

Then the final tip was about turning the online offline. This is important to remember when doing your online marketing. If its not geared towards all these relationships you’re building to having a face to face meeting then you wasted your time.

 

Katie Lance has made her slides and some information available for people to get their own copy at KatieLance.com/ICSF2017.

 

Other great insights from the morning include making sure you know the local real estate market data like the back of your hand. This includes absorption rate, DOM, average sales prices, etc… You can do everything you want to generate leads but if you don’t have the expertise you’ll never last.

 

 

Facebook & Instagram

 

One of the speakers mentioned boosting posts on Facebook, which if you follow me know that I say you should NEVER boost a post. If you want to promote a previously made post I recommend using the ads manager anyways to do it. Don’t always take everything said on stage as gospel, it can be wrong.

 

Scott Shapiro, from Facebook, also came to sell the audience on using Instagram. He talked about the newly released tool that allows listing data to be fed automatically into dynamic ads. This is a really interesting development but for individual listings I don’t think its the right tool. After listening to Scott for a little while he even confirmed it himself, its really meant for brokerages and brands, not individual brokers.

 

For individual agents he recommended using Lead Ads, similar to Facebook. We use these for our clients and while he spoke about how great Instagram ads are we can say that from our ads we get anywhere from 5-10x more leads from Facebook Lead Ads than Instagram Lead ads.

 

 

What real estate CRM should I use?

 

Stop if you’ve heard this question before? It’s a running joke in some real estate groups about how many times this question gets asked. The real thing here is that the right CRM for you is going to be unique to your needs. What you want it to do and a variety of other factors will determine which CRM is right for you. After all, as one of the speakers pointed out, the CRM is the pacemaker for the heartbeat of your business.

 

When evaluating CRM’s you should ask yourself five questions.

 

1. What is the objective?
2. What results do I want out of the system?
3. What is your MUST haves?
4. What is the desired life expectancy for the CRM?
5. What is your budget?

 

 

Building a Proper Campaign

 

Jimmy Mackin, of Curaytor, spoke in a great breakout session that was so popular they had to open up the wall to the next room. He presented on what actually goes into a high performing campaign. It’s not a magic bullet that automatically gets you customers. It’s a specific strategy and series of ads.

 

The first round of ads goes to people who don’t know you to get them into your network. Then you run a second round of ads with valuable content to start building the know, like, and trust up. Then third round is a full retargeting campaign for everyone in the last 30 days who’ve been to your site or engaged with your content on Facebook. This is an oversimplification of the process but it was an hour presentation.

 

I can tell you from experience runnings campaigns similar to that with our clients, it works really well. Jimmy Mackin is one of the top Facebook marketers in the world for a reason!

 

 

Unmarketing

 

Scott Stratten performed one of the best keynotes I’ve seen in years. It wouldn’t do it justice to try and recap everything he said. You should just follow Scott Stratten and learn more about his thesis.

 

The big takeaway is simple. If you want people to talk about you, then do things worth talking about! It’s that simple. To get people talking about you then you have to give them a reason.

 

Are you giving them a reason to talk about you?

 

 

Thrive, Not Survive

 

I’ve joked with many people that I go to conference so you don’t have to. There’s a reason I say this is a joke, because you should go to a few each year. You have to be strategic about which to go to and there’s definitely a line you can cross into too many conferences but you should be going.

 

Why?

 

Sometimes the best experiences, the best learning, and the best connections are made at conferences. From the lobby bar to dinners on the town with other attendees. This year was no different.

 

Billy Ekofo – do you know Billy? You should look him up, he’s awesome – organized a dinner for a small group on one of the first nights of the conference. At this dinner I had the pleasure of sitting next to Jim Walberg, one of the nicest people in real estate as it turns out.

 

He has an amazing life story worth listening to. Jim had cancer many years ago and was not given good odds of survival. Jim didn’t want to just survive, he wanted to thrive for a long time. Then he tied it into an amazing motivational comment. Life isn’t about surviving, it’s about thriving. Surviving means running a marathon and falling across the finish line, throwing up, and then sleeping for 3 days. You should be proud of your accomplishment, but imagine instead, you run across the finish line with your head held high and ready to go further.

 

When you set a goal you should never aim to fall over the line and just get there. You should be aiming to run up to your goal, hit it, and then keep running.

 

Thrive, don’t just survive.

 

Thank you for the inspiration Jim!

 

 

Looking forward to the next Inman Connect conference in New York. If you don’t have a ticket, you should get it here. (That’s not an affiliate link, I don’t have any special deals on tickets, but I still think you should go.)

 

Do you know what the best in the business are doing to get even better?

 

Training events are the best place to find out. The key is to pick the right events. The events where top producers are going and the people teaching you actually know what they are talking about.

 

Get Better at Your Job

 

Attending training events will help you get better at what you do, at every level. When picking an event, it’s important to look at where you struggle. Are you struggling with generating leads? Go to an event that talks about online lead generation. Are you struggling with conversion? Go to one that helps you with your sales skills.

 

Hint: For most people, it’s a lead conversion struggle, not a lead generation one.

 

Learn from the best and shorten your path to success. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel in real estate. The industry is relatively simple once you know what to do. The true work is in implementing it. By attending the right training events, you can shorten the path. Learn what others learned from experience. They may have made 1,000 calls to prospects and learned what works. Now you can learn what they did before you even make a call! That 1,000 calls just got shortened by 900+ (you’ll still want to practice what they teach you after all.)

 

Network like a Boss

 

Our personal favourite reason for going to conferences? The networking. You can learn so much, sometimes even more than from the conference itself, by networking. Talk about how others run their business, learn from them, and build relationships. The right speakers are amazing to learn from but what you learn over a drink at the hotel bar can be just as valuable.

 

On top of learning from other agents, you get to build the relationships for referrals. If you work the agent to agent referral side of the business, you can do very well for yourself. I know many agents who do six figure commissions just by going to events, networking with other agents, and building those relationships. You need a plan, you need to stay in touch, and you need to be consistent (which is true of any business-building method). Do this and you can build a business based on referrals.

 

See the World

 

Keeping all that in mind when looking at events, where are the top producers going? Which event is hosted by someone or an organization that knows what they’re doing? Where is the event located? Some locations will draw more than others. That would be one of the reasons Inman Connect is held in New York City and San Francisco every year. Who doesn’t want to visit those cities?

 

We’re always working on clearing some space in our schedules to head to events. To see if we can pick up some techniques which we can leverage for our clients.

 

What other conferences are worth going to? Let us know in the comments!

 

Hosted a webinar with Katie Lance today to talk about How to Hone Your Social Media Strategy.

 

A lot of great tips, Katie is one of the best in the industry. Check out the replay below.

 

Resources Mentioned

Content Grid

Rev.com

Get a copy of the #GetSocialSmart book!

Want to generate 20+ buyer leads for every listing without exhausting your wallet?

 

It’s a lot simpler than you think, thanks to the many improvements made to Facebook Lead Ads over the years. These lead ads negate the need for a high converting website – it means people are converted into leads before even getting to your website.

 

However, Facebook Lead Ads haven’t always been so successful. We tested them when they first launched on Facebook. We found that the results were of very low quality and no different than other types of ads we ran.

 

But what about now? The platform has evolved into an incredible tool. We run lead ads almost exclusively for our clients’ listings. We procure leads for listings ranging from $0.75 to $5.00 on average. Rarely do we get leads with a cost per result higher than $10.

 

These low averages mean you can generate a high quantity of leads with a low budget for every listing; but there’s a method to this madness.

 

The trick is to combine some of the best practices for building other ads with lead ads.

 

To begin, don’t give away every detail of the listing in the ad. Include the basics – number of bedrooms and bathrooms, finished basement, in-ground pool, hardwood floors, etc. – and then finish it off with a call to action so the view knows how to get more information.

 

It doesn’t need to be complicated; something basic works just fine, such as “Click on Learn More below for more information .” This accomplishes two things: you get their contact information, and you don’t needlessly clutter up the post. The cliche “less is more” is very relevant here.

 

From a visual standpoint, it’s critical that your ad stands out in order to draw people in. Don’t make your ad look like every other post scrolling through Facebook. The most important thing is the image, as that’s the first thing people see.

 

High quality and high contrast is an important element. With this in mind, it’s a smart business decision to have professional photos taken – with a real camera and a real photographer, not you and your iPhone. If you decide to use a video instead of images, keep it short, concise, and always include subtitles.

 

We’ve also seen a significant increase in results since we started including emojis. Use with caution, however; choose your emojis wisely based on who you’re targeting. Keep it professional and organized, and definitely don’t overdo it. It’s a good practice to experiment with emojis and learn which ones work for you and your ad. Here are some emojis that we have used to great success: 📍👇🏡💰🗝🎯

 

This is an example of an ad that has worked well for us. It generated a name, email, and phone number for every $1.10 spent. How many ads have you run with a cost per lead that low?

 

However, there’s one problem with Facebook Lead Ads; you don’t get notified when a new lead comes in. Getting notifications is important if you want a reasonable chance of converting your leads as fast action is necessary. In order to accomplish this, a third party tool is needed that will bridge the gap between Facebook and your email or CRM.

 

Our top recommendation is Leadsbridge. It’s the easiest and most effective tool we’ve tested on the market to date. What makes Leadsbridge great is that you can set it up to integrate with many different platforms and CRMs, or even just simply emails you the lead.

 

Here are some of the integrations with which it’s comparable:

 

• Boomtown
• Fivestreet
• Follow Up Boss
• Real Estate Webmasters
• Realvolve
• Reality Juggler
• Top Producer
• Hubspot
• Infusionsoft
• Insightly
• Pipedrive
• Podio
• Realgeeks
• Streak
• Zoho
• Active Campaign
• Weber
• Constant Contact
• Drip
• Mailchimp
• Google Sheets
• Slack
• Twilio

 

…and still a lot more.

 

Get Leadsbridge here if you want to try it out and let us know in the comments how your results turn out!

 

There isn’t a lot of complications that go into building a successful listing campaign with Facebook Lead Ads. Try out our recommendations, make some adjustments yourself, experiment, and find out what works best for you.

We’re excited to announce we’re launching the 1st Annual Blue Mountain Real Estate Conference!

 

Support a great cause, network with your peers, and come learn a ton about the real estate industry!

 

100% of Proceeds from this event will go to support My Friends House, a local shelter to help families recoup and restart their lives free from abuse. (via Six Hours of Gibraltar).

 

Come learn from some of the best and brightest in the industry on how to grow your business, service your clients, and so much more.

 

On top of that, Tim Hudak, CEO of OREA, will be joining for a live Q&A.

 

Speakers & Panelists include Andrew Fogliato, Danny Wood, Barry Lebow, Tim Hudak, Paul Hannan, Tony Iacoviello, Jordan Walker Lin, Sandra Kirkland, John-Ross Parks and more to be confirmed later!

 

Doors open at 9:00am but it won’t start until 10:00am. Tickets are $50

 

Topics Include:

 

Panel: How to Grow your Business Through Agent to Agent Referrals. Panelists include Paul Hannan, Jordan Walker Lin, and Tony Iacoviello. Moderated by John-Ross Parks.

 

How to Leverage Paid Online Advertising to Grow your Business with Andrew Fogliato

 

Panel: Top Producing Agents Share Their Secrets to Success

 

Selling the Haunted House with Barry Lebow

 

Live Q&A and Update on OREA with Tim Hudak

 

Panel: What Works and Doesn’t Work in Digital Marketing. Panelists include Andrew Fogliato, Danny Wood, and Amanda Robinson.

 

More to be announced soon!