Feb
11
Posted by JasonDaley
Transaction Coordinator services are growing fast in the real estate world. There is high appeal of only paying an assistant when you have a transaction and freeing up your time so you can concentrate on money making activities. The proper transaction coordinator / Virtual Assistant services can not only save you money and time but can create more opportunities for you to capture more business.
Most Transaction Coordinators simply manage the transaction, and then spend the rest of their day trying to convince you to use their services. They manage the real estate transaction for the Agent, but most don’t directly help the Agent cultivate Repeat and Referral business. A wise Transaction Coordinator will put their energy into assisting in the Agents’ success as a primary goal. The Transaction Coordinator realizes by creating opportunities for the Agent to do more repeat and referral business, they are also creating opportunities for themselves to do more business as Transaction Coordinators / Virtual Assistants? Unfortunately most Transaction Coordinators / Virtual Assistants don’t get that parallel.
Misconceptions!
One study says the average agent spends 19 hours managing the transaction themselves.** So it is true that just by using traditional Transaction Coordinator Services you could have more time that could be used to prospect for more clients.
In some agent’s eyes there was no real benefit to paying for Transaction Coordinator services because they wasted the extra time. The sad truth is time management mastery is difficult for most of us and that life always seems to get in the way with the phone ringing with people trying to sell you on their services instead of providing opportunities for your success
Utilizing the extra time created is key to accelerating your business, if you save 19 hours, then make the commitment and time block 19 hours for lead generation elsewhere. If your goal is to have 19 more hours at home with your family then time block those activities. That way you are getting the maximum benefit out of the services you are paying for.
Additional Included Services?
What if the Transaction Coordinator / Virtual Assistants Service you use is also sending out Touchpoints during and after the transaction on your behalf? What if those Touchpoints are designed to cultivate repeat and referral business for you? Then the Transaction Coordinator has not only freed up 19 hours** of your time, the Transaction Coordinator has also helped you to foster a relationship with that client that can lead to future business. The best part for you, the agent, is that it was all part of the Transaction Coordinator services anyways.
Shift Your Thinking
If, for example, you take an average sales price of $250,000 at 3% commission that is $7,500 for the Agent, now if you took the cost of typical Transactor Coordination Services at $325, then you could use our services 23 times to equal the cost of that transaction.
$7500 / $325 = 23.076
If Touchpoints were being sent to your clients at every one of those 23 transactions, don’t you believe that you could get repeat and referral business out of those efforts?
Now picture your business if you used that 19 hours** wisely and fostered more referral moments, or prospected for more new clients?
23 transactions x 19 hours = 437 hours
19 hours over 23 transactions equals 437 hours of pure prospecting time that you can use to create more business. How many transactions do you think you could get with 437 hours of targeted prospecting? That $325 should be looking like quite a bargain to you right now!
The point is that we are still providing the same or better Transaction Coordinator Services, but helping to make you a success in the process. Our hope and goal is that you will increase your business so much using our services, that it will increase ours in the process.
We believe and understand the true power of Repeat and Referral Business. If we invest our time into our clients, we no longer need to spend our time looking for more business. We know the more time and effort we invest making Agents (our clients) more successful, we will receive repeat and referral business from our happy Agents.
There are many questions to ask before hiring a Transaction Coordinator or Virtual Assistant like “What can your services do to increase my business?” And in any wise change in your business plan you need to seek out the pros and cons of the return on your investment. But you should NOT just be asking yourself “How much do Transaction Coordination Services cost?” Instead you should be asking “How much is it costing me not to be using Transaction Coordinating Services?”
Go to our website www.web-tcs.com and see how we offer more than our competition for less money.
** Time Savings and Opportunity Costs
**“While the TC spends an average of 12.5 hours on a typical transaction, the average agents spend approximately 19 hours managing a transaction. The time spent managing the transaction has significant financial implications on the agent. Assuming the average full-time, experienced Real Estate agent earns $75,000 a year (equal to $37.50 an hour); the agent will spend in excess of $700 in his/her time managing a transaction.
**Reference: “The Transaction Coordinator An Underutilized Asset to Residential Real Estate” Clareity, Consulting & Communications, June 2003
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All data and information provided on this Blog are for informational or entertainment purposes only. It does not reflect the opinions of any affiliated Brokerage(s). Web TCS, LLC makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, correctness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this Blog and will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use; including, but not limited to, blown gaskets, body odor, Computer and Keyboard Rage. All Blog posts are the constantly changing opinion of the author(s) and may occasionally contain bad opinions. They are not approved to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Copyright® 2008-2009, Web TCS Transaction Coordinator / Virtual Assistant Services “The Hidden Costs Of NOT Using a Real Estate Transaction Coordinator”
Tags:
Cost,
Real Estate Virtual Assistant,
TC Real Estate Transaction Coordinator,
Transaction Coordinator,
VA,
Virtual Assistant
Jan
29
Posted by JasonDaley
Abbreviations are so common anymore with the popularity of text messaging, but should they stay in the text messaging realm and stay off your Blog posts?
(I have put some common abbreviations in parenthesis after their full versions throughout this post to show how easy it is to simply replace those words with abbreviations.)
I was reading an ActiveRain (AR) post last week, and someone wrote ROTFLMAO, and I stared at that for several minutes scratching my head, and then had to search it online and found the answer on Wikipedia.org. ROTFLMAO meant “Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Arse (clean version) Off”. After finding the answer I was not ROTFLMAO or LOL, and I thought to myself has all this abbreviation stuff gone too far. Personally I can’t stand the abbreviation LOL, is ANYONE actually Laughing Out Loud when they use that abbreviation, I mean really belting out a roaring laugh? I think it is way overused, like the “Fist Bump” (Another Rant for another day perhaps)
Then today it just hit me, is all this abbreviation hurting your Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
The answer is Yes and No!
So, how can these abbreviations hurt your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM)? Let’s say that you are trying to brand yourself as a Keller Williams (KW) Real Estate (RE) agent but you are always using “KW RE agent” instead of the full version. However when most people search online they likely would put in the full version because KW RE agent is not a common and well know abbreviation. Another example would be someone looking for a Real Estate (RE) Transaction Coordinator (TC). Most searches would be done for the full version, so if all my posts abbreviated those terms as RE TC, then I may save a second or two while writing, but it could cost me many pages of placement in Search Engine (SE) rankings.
When I search “Utah Real Estate Transaction Coordinator” in Google our business comes up (at the time of print) #1, 2 and 7 on the first page and even the 18th result that shows up on the second page of the results. On Yahoo! We are #2, 6, and 7 on the first page. However if I use the term “Utah RE TC” in either search engine, not only do we not show up in the first 100+ results, and the results are not even closely related to Real Estate (RE) or Transaction Coordination Services (TCS). So, just because I know what RE and TC mean, that doesn’t mean that others are looking for my services using those abbreviations.
Now that we have seen how using abbreviations at the wrong time can hurt your Search Engine Marketing/Optimization (SEM, SEM). Let’s look at how the use of abbreviations can be appropriate.
If I am an expert on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) then only using the term “Search Engine Optimization” and never using the term “SEO” could actually hurt me in the rankings, because in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) world the term SEO is very common. In this case I would want to make sure to use each version equally in my blogging endeavors so I would show up under both of those terms. Again if I was an expert on “Real Estate Owned” (REO) properties, I would probably want to use a mix of the full and short version, so I can be found under both search terms, since they are both well used and known in the REO world.
In short, don’t use too many abbreviations just to save a second or two, but if your abbreviation is also well known and commonly searched, then mix it in your posts so you can get placement juice with both the full and the lazy, I mean short version 
Now why didn’t I abbreviate the word abbreviation in this post with the abbreviation “Abbrev.”, because I had to type abbreviation a lot of times in this post and it is a really long word to describe shortened abbreviated words?
Written by your Awesome KW RE TC on Web TCS talking about SEO and SEM. OMG I am LOL!!!!…Not really, just SOL (Smirking Out Loud).
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All data and information provided on this Blog are for informational or entertainment purposes only. It does not reflect the opinions of any affiliated Brokerage(s). Web TCS, LLC makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, correctness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this Blog and will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use; including, but not limited to, blown gaskets, body odor, Computer and Keyboard Rage. All Blog posts are the constantly changing opinion of the author(s) and may occasionally contain bad opinions. They are not approved to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Copyright® 2008, Web TCS Transaction Coordinator / Virtual Assistant Services “Abbreviating Your Blog Posts Can Cost You in Search Engine Placement”
Tags:
google,
search,
search engine marketing,
search engine optimization,
sem,
seo,
yahoo
Jan
29
Posted by JasonDaley
Coming up with fresh ideas to blog about can sometimes take more time than writing the blog itself.
When I think of ideas for a blog I write them down in one place. That way later when I am ready to actually commit the time to writing, I can look over my list and choose one idea that sounds good at that particular moment in time.
I was teaching a Blogging class at my local real estate office. I was looking through my Website/Blogging placement tips, tricks and Bookmarks that I have noted in the past and came across an article that I bookmarked earlier this year, and then promptly forgot about.
It is 106 blogging content ideas specifically for Real Estate Agents. If you Think you have nothing to write about, or just can’t conjure great ideas at the drop of a hat, then it is a great article to reference when thinking about your next post.
A couple of the ideas to write about, from the article, include:
“4. New businesses coming to area”
“5. Job market in local area”
“17. Do I need to worry about radon?”
“23. What is curb appeal?”
“33. What homeowners can do to save on energy costs”
“56. Fire Safety Tips for your home (also discuss 2 story homes, condos/high-rises, small children, the elderly, etc.)”
Here is the link to the full article:
106 Content Ideas for the REALTOR who has Nothing to Write About
(Written By: The FamousAgents.com Staff)
What are some other places you have found great ideas to blog about?
Share your links…
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
All data and information provided on this Blog are for informational or entertainment purposes only. It does not reflect the opinions of any affiliated Brokerage(s). Web TCS, LLC makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, correctness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this Blog and will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use; including, but not limited to, blown gaskets, body odor, Computer and Keyboard Rage. All Blog posts are the constantly changing opinion of the author(s) and may occasionally contain bad opinions. They are not approved to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Copyright® 2008, Web TCS Transaction Coordinator / Virtual Assistant Services “106 Blogging Ideas For The Realtor With Nothing to Write About“
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Tags:
Blog Writing,
Blogging Ideas
Jan
26
Posted by admin
Welcome to the Real Estate Virtual Assistant / Transaction Coordinator Services Blog
Tags:
Transaction Coordinator,
Virtual Assistant