Ninja Mom’s Meeting Notes February 2010

Thank you to all that attended last Friday and for sharing as much as you do!  We had a great meeting and talked about all sorts of relevant topics from how to get the word out about the tax credits and interest rates, what is working for us right now and with all of us working with less support than we are used too since many people have laid off assistants in the last 2 years, how are you managing your business to ensure that new clients are coming it while you take care of your current clients.

Here are some of the great things that were shared:

How are you getting the word out about the homebuyer tax credits that expire at the end of April and the fact that interest rates will likely start to rise here in the very near future:

~ Mary has been putting the information about the tax credit on her flyers so that Buyer’s see that as a reminder.
~ Laura actually was in competition for a listing and ended up getting it because she knew about the credit and was able to articulate it to the client.  You can go to www.irs.gov for more information.  Either way, don’t assume that everyone knows how the credit works. I am amazed at the number of Buyers and Sellers I run into that either don’t know about the credit at all or have incorrect information regarding it.
~ Laura also suggested putting in your Spring forward postcard for the time change March 14th.

How are you staying on track with your business to make sure that you are taking care of current clients while staying in touch with others and adding to your hot / warm list?

~ Vicki is great at maximizing her Outlook calendar and has pro active business activities prescheduled for each day.  Her goal is to make sure that she completes at least 2 out of 3 each day.  These activities come from calling clients to wish them happy birthday or happy house anniversary, pop bye’s etc.  One tool that she really loves is the ‘blitz program’ from Brian Buffini http://www.buffiniandcompany.com/blitz/non-member.aspx.  It is a system that takes the guess work out of what to do next.  Each day you have an assignment of what to do weather it is note cards, calls, pop byes, etc.  Another thing that she does is keep a printout of her database with her at all times and she highlights a persons name when she talks to them so each day she will look at the list to see who isn’t highlighted and will make it a point to connect with that person.

~ Laura likes using the 50 contact a week sheet and the monday morning meeting forms which allow her to review what she did last week and also plan out her contacts for the coming weeks.

~ Our MLS allows us as agents to post our public open houses that we hold on the weekends.  For clients that I have maybe met at an open house and have a ‘warm’ relationship with and they are not ready to have a consultation meeting I email out the open houses that might be of interest to them every Friday for that weekend and then follow up on Monday to see if there was anything interesting.  It has been a great way to keep the dialog going when it would have otherwise faded.

How are you making sure that you are connecting with people either with lunches or other get togethers?

~ Vicki has had a lot of fun with girls nights. One of her recent ones involved everyone getting together at a local cafe for pizza and wine and then heading next door to watch a movie.   It was great fun and everyone paid for their own movie ticket and threw some money in the kitty for wine, so it ended up being very inexpensive.  As far as numbers go, she said that for her if she invites 50 about 25 will confirm and then 15 will actually show up which is a manageable number for the get together, but she gets to be in contact with 50 people which is great.

~ For me, I have been having a hard time fitting in lunches during the week because I feel like I am doing a lot more running around and office work that I am used to.  We have started having Saturday night dinners at our house though and they are a blast.  We invite one or two families over who have kids about the same ages as ours and all hang out for a couple of hours.  It has been a great way to get to know some of the other families from the kids pre school, our new neighbors and other friends that we enjoy hanging out with.  We keep everything super quick and simple. One of our favorite dinners is to get pizza dough from the local pizza places and then the kids can help with putting all of the toppings on.  I also love all of the prepared things at Trader Joes and Whole foods is awesome too.  I get some pre seasoned chicken breasts, pasta and sauce from the fresh section and one of their fancy salads with the candied nuts and cranberries and we are all set.

~ Tammie had a great idea of using your holiday cards as reasons to touch base with people.  You could even still do it if you have the cards handy.  Most people send picture cards these days so it is a wonderful reason to call and comment on their vacation picture, how big the kids are getting, etc.

Pop By’s, what do and how to do them.

~ Vicki  had a great pop by idea.  With the Census this year there is concern about scam artists showing up pretending to be census takers.  Vicki did up a great sheet with information about what to look for and what information you should give and what should be a red flag.  She dropped them off to her clients  with a red ribbon and scissors that said ‘cut through the red tape with this years census’.  The feedback was fantastic and one client actually photocopied the information with Vicki’s business cards and passed it out to her entire neighborhood!  For more information go to www.census.gov and click on fraudulent activity and scams.

~ In terms of how to do the pop bys so that they are quick Vicki will call her client on the way and just let them know that she is stopping by for a quick minute to drop something off. This way they know she is coming and she catches up with them while she is on the phone.  One of her favorite times is the Monday of the three day weekend since a lot of people are home.  She then writes a note card to the people that she missed.

Reverse Offers:

~ Vicki and Brianna have had luck doing Seller generated offers. When the Buyer is interested but isn’t committing to actually writing down an offer.  The Seller puts together and offer of what they would accept and they have had Buyers accept the offers and move forward.

Many of us are doing more with less help now both in our businesses and at home, how are you managing that?

~ Faline really takes advantage of using her checklists right now to stay organized and make sure that everything is getting done.  She would rather delay a listing launch a few days to ensure  that everything is done prior to coming on the market.

~ Mary is doing more of a phased listing launch now with launching a listing, but then adding the selling agent packets a few days later and some of those other things.

~ All of us are reaching out to our office staff more to see what they can help with, often with pleasant surprises that they are able to do more for us than we had realized in the past.

Lots of great ideas to use. Thank you again to everyone that attended and shared as much as they did.  Our next meeting will be in April so post a comment here if you would like to attend, otherwise stay tunned for more great meeting notes.