I was excited to get a preview link from Amazon of my friends Craig Perrine and Joe Vitale's new book, "Inspired Marketing". (You all know Joe Vitale from his bestselling books: "The Secret", "Attractor Factor", "Hypnotic Writing", and more).

We were given advance copies and asked to review it. Guess what??!! Our review from Big Bad Home Sale is actually printed in the book and even on Amazon's page! It's very exciting for Joe and Craig to acknowledge the Big Bad Home Sale. (I'm told that the Inspired Marketing website will have a case study of how the Big Bad Home Sale helps realtors and homeowners sell their homes fast, even in difficult markets!).

It really is a great book.  Take a look at our testimonial and go ahead and preorder it. You will definitely be inspired to list and market homes much more affectively.

Topics: ActiveRain, Blogging, Creative Real Estate | Give Your Two Cents »

I had a great comment from a reader of my recent post,

"This one tip can save

your client $150,000 on their home sale". The reader asked "How does one turn

an average home into something sleek and
stylish like an iphone or ipod"?

This is where you can really set yourself apart from all other
realtors and help your
clients market their home in a way that attracts buyers.

Watch this video:

Do you think this video got people’s attention? Why?

The house is nothing special. But the "Lifestyle" is special. And the video
uses clever
techniques to capture prospects attention and draw them in. You
won’t believe how
many times the video got watched, and how many prospects came
to view the home
and actually commented that they had watched (and laughed!) at
the video.
 

Of course, this shows that they actually paid attention to the video, which
makes it a 
"Home Run".

By showing people what it is like to live in the home, instead of selling the
physical house,
the video appeals to prospects and does an excellent job of
setting this house apart from
all others.

Blogging on Active Rain is a great marketing tool for showcasing homes in this way… and

videos like these get
watched (and paid more attention to) than sleek studio productions.

What lessons can be learned from this video?

• Every home has unique selling points that make it special

• Using humor and other persuasive techniques capture attention and make a
  home stand out

• People relate well to "amateur style" videos

There are some other techniques I’ll write about that ad value to homes and
make them more
desirable. 

Let’s hear your comments about how you would use video to make a home "sleek
and stylish"

Regards,
Steve

Distinguish yourself from all other agents. Sell your clients’ homes
faster for top market price. 

http://BigBadHomeSale.com

Topics: ActiveRain, Blogging, Creative Real Estate | Give Your Two Cents »

WOW! You won't believe the call I had tonight. It's a great story that
illustrates so well why blogging and real estate marketing can set
you apart from all other agents.

 A man called me because his home has been on the market for 4 months.
He has had only 3 showings.

Get this… He lowered his price $150,000.
That's right ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Guess what happened?

You guessed it… Not one showing in 3 weeks.

Sound familiar? You and your client are not alone. In fact, that's the
problem. Everybody is lowering their price. People will have you
believe that the only way to sell a home is to lower it more
than the next guy. But tomorrow, he'll lower it below you.

There's a better answer. And I'm going to start sharing it with
you right now. But the best way is for me to have you think about
a couple of things:

Would you rather own an iPhone or a SCH-U740?
Would you rather have an iPod or a Zen Xtra?

I'm not trying to trick you. I picked 2 Apple products for a
reason. Why do people wait in line to pay Apple more money, while
other companies have to slash prices and even give their products
away for free with new contracts?

Do you get my point?

What would Steve Jobs (from Apple) say about your client's home if he were
trying to sell it?

Tonight's homework: Come up with the 5 Most unique features you
can about the home. Think about ways you can blog and market
these features.

Regards,
Steve

Distinguish yourself from all other agents. Sell your clients' homes
faster for top market price .  http://BigBadHomeSale.com

Topics: ActiveRain, Blogging, Creative Real Estate | Give Your Two Cents »

Once again, our Big, Bad Home Sale was featured in a prominent business publication.  The Austin Business Journal featured a very nice story about us today.  You can read about it at:

http://bigbadhomesale.com/abj

Topics: ActiveRain, Blogging, Creative Real Estate | Give Your Two Cents »

There was post on Zillow that really tugged at my hearstrings today.  Somebody wrote: 

"Just curious to know if anyone else out there is in a similar boat…  My husband is in sales and is now in a new territory.  Its a great opportunity for us, but like a lot of people, we have to sell before we can all move…"

Boy, we've been to this movie! I really wanted to give some good advice to help these people sell their home, so I spent almost an hour putting together this post.  I want to share it with you because I know there is so much pain out there with people needing to sell their homes fast.

 (My Response)

TJ, I know exactly how you feel. We wanted to avoid this situation when I got relocated which was the impetus for us creating our home sale system.

First of all, I want to commend you for a great website, then I'd like to make a few suggestions that I feel will help you make it more effective. Is that OK?

Here's what I like about what you are doing:

• You do a great job showing why your home is unique (great pictures, descriptions, etc.)
• You are open and transparent (Disclosure Statement prominently displayed)
• You are a very articulate communicator… even a great storyteller (for instance, your Zillow post about your giant pine tree is fantastic!)
• You have your own descriptive web domain http://1212brownstreet.com… Excellent!

Let me ask you a few questions:

• How do you know who (not how many… but WHO) has visited your site?
• What happens if somebody sees your site and leaves without bookmarking it… How will they remember to come back?
• What are you doing to keep your site fresh and updated often?
• How do you follow up with somebody if they don't initiate contact you via phone or email?

Can you see where I'm going with this. You're site is like 99.9% of the other websites. It's static and unidirectional… for instance you give a lot of great information, but do not request or require anything back from the visitor.  It's like driving past a billboard at 70mph on the "information superhighway" and saying "yeah that looks interesting, I have to remember to take a look at that later." Has that every happened to you? How often do you remember to go back?

With some slight modifications, you can use effective Web 2.0 techniques and incorporate a 2 way communication dialog with your visitors that will benefit you in the following ways:

• You can capture email addresses to identify your prospects, and know exactly who is interested in your home. Do this via a "squeeze page" that makes people want to give you their email address for more information, rather than simply asking them to email you. It's a subtle difference that will exponentially improve your results.
• You can employ an automated follow up system that reminds people of your home well after they visit your website.
• You can put up a blog, update your constantly to keep it fresh and give people a reason to come back often.
• Your follow up system can give people the info they want, 24/7 and still allow them to remain slightly anonymous… This is real important in the early stages of looking for a lot of people.

Finally, Video, Video, Video. "Sell the Lifestyle, not the house." Actually show your home videos of your family making memories. This is especially effective when used on a blog.

Be creative, be yourself, use humor… Here is an example of my video, that received TONS of hits for my blog and brought a lot of prospects to my house.

http://bigbadhomesale.mpwr.tv/news/?p=14

As you can imagine, people were shocked, intrigued, and curious about what I was going to say when they saw my picture! The video was a huge hit, plus it showed off the neighborhood and gave people an idea about our "Lifestyle" and what it was like to live in our home.

OK, I've probably overwhelmed you with information. Take a while to digest this and let me know if you have any questions. You can find my contact info in my profile.

I hope you sell it soon, TJ. I really feel for you and your husband in your situation.

All my Best,
Steve

Topics: ActiveRain, Blogging, Creative Real Estate | Give Your Two Cents »

Here's some great news:

Jim Remley, who just released his latest book, "Sell Your Home In Any Market" will be our guest on Thursday's Teleseminar. I've been reading the book and am very impressed with his great tips… Of course you know that my favorite chapter is the one about web marketing!

Don't miss this one.  Jim is a Real Estate Veteran, and author of 3 books on the subject.  We're going to hear some great stuff!

Join us at http://BigBadHomeSale.com for more information about the call.

Topics: ActiveRain, Blogging, Creative Real Estate | Give Your Two Cents »

Once again, Austin, Tx, is a favorite destination for people migrating from other states. Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio also landed in the top ten.

“People are running away from unaffordable housing, from the economic slowdown,” said Karl Eschbach, a state demographer in Texas. “I would expect Texas to stay at the top of a slowing game.”

With scores of people arriving into our city, it’s important that you position yourself so that they easily find you when doing their research.  Here are seven things you can do to capture new clients relocating to Austin

1. Pick a Niche, Become and Expert – The market is full of agents, but how many of them are “Experts”. Pick something you’re passionate about, and market yourself as the authority on the subject (of course, you do have to know what you’re talking about!) You can be an expert on “Living on the Lake”, Corporate Relocation, Dell, UT, Medical, Hiking and Biking, Green Building…
2. Search Engine Optimizaion – SEO is much easier when you market yourself as an expert. Do your keyword research on your field of choice and add the word “Austin” to your keywords. You can also select only to advertise on Google in our geographic area. Both these strategies will help you achieve top rankings easier than promoting yourself simply as a real estate agent… Lots of people are doing that.
3. Blogging – People love Blogs, and so do search engines. Use your keywords in your blog title and also in your posts. I recently received #1 rankings on Google in less than 30 minutes after posting a blog post! (Yes, It can be done and I’ll demonstrate that on a future post!) 20 years ago, I did research on Compuserve before moving to Savannah, GA. Obviously the web is much more prevalent and has much more information today.
4. Write Articles – Another strategy to position yourself as the expert and get the search engines to fall in love with you. Make sure to use your keywords in the headline and sprinkled throughout the article.  Make an offer in the Bio section that brings people to your squeeze page and captures their email address so you can follow up with an autoresponder, for instance “7 Great Places to Hike and Bike When you Relocate to Austin”
5. Post Videos – Break out your camera and shoot these beautiful surroundings.  Post your videos on YouTube and include a call to action at the end of your video that drives people to your squeeze page.
6. Take out a Toll Free Number – People still like to use the phone. They’re cheap and it’s easy to put up a message that drives people to your blog 24/7.  Follow it up with a free DVD offer (all they pay is shipping) that tells all about relocating to Austin (and of course all about your services and your areas of expertise!)
7. Network and promote – Where do people go when they come to town? They go to new jobs, churches, temples and other places of worship. Welcome Wagon, Chamber of Commerce, Hair Salons, Rudy’s for Breakfast Tacos! Get to know people at all these places and let them know that you specialize in helping people relocating from other areas.

Any of these strategies will help people find you while they’re researching their relocation.  But if you do them all, you will position yourself as the expert!  Watch the leads pour in!

Topics: Blogging, Creative Real Estate, Internet Marketing Secrets | Give Your Two Cents »

Congrats to Joe Vitale and Craig Perrine! Their book new book Inspired Marketing has crashed through the Amazon Top 100 all the way to number 62 in it’s very first day… Making it a certified Amazon Best Seller.

As my readers know, I am very proud of this book, having contributed our story to the project and even having my testimonial (Steve Rosenbaum, www.bigbadhomesale.com) in the front.  You’ll even be able to read our story in the InspiredMarketing.com member area that launches Friday.

P.S. You can get a free 30 membership to inspiredmarketing.com plus many other unannounced bonuses at the launch pad. 

Topics: Big Bad Home Sale Publicity, Guests, Internet Marketing Secrets | Give Your Two Cents »

“Inspired Marketing,” a book written by two very dear friends, Craig Perrine and Joe Vitale, is launching today. Please join me in helping “Inspired Marketing” become a number 1 Amazon best seller, right now.  

I’ll tell you how you can help in a moment, but first let me explain why this book is so important, and what it can do for you.  

Many of you know Joe Vitale. He has written dozens of best selling books such as “The Attractor Factor” and “Hypnotic Writing”. He is also one of the featured experts in the mega best-selling book and DVD “The Secret”. You have probably seen him on TV on Larry King and Donnie Deutsch. Craig Perrine is part of Joe’s mastermind
group and a masterful and highly sought-after business builder…
He is also my personal mentor.  
Read the rest of this entry »

Topics: Big Bad Home Sale Publicity, Creative Real Estate, Guests, Internet Marketing Secrets | Give Your Two Cents »

Clients pay me top dollar to create marketing strategies that attract more business for them. But truthfully, I’d much rather teach somebody new skills, than do the work for them.

That’s why I want to share with you my absolute favorite internet marketing event. Watch this video and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.

This April will mark the third time I’ve attended Armand Morins Big Seminar. Last year I generated over $250,000 in revenue within the first 6 weeks. In fact, the principles l Iearned were a big influence on our entire BigBadHomeSale.com business model that was written about in the Wall Street Journal online and also the Austin Business Journal. So mark your calendar now, and meet me in Atlanta for Armand Morins Big Seminar 11

Topics: Blogging, Creative Real Estate, Home Selling Tips, Internet Marketing Secrets | Give Your Two Cents »