RE/MAX Executive Realty

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I was thinking about titling this post .”..Our Daily Beard” but I had to shave it off. Buddy Bankston said I was a hooded sweatshirt away from looking like the Unabomber, I was collecting too much pollen and I’m pretty sure everyone got at least one lead by now.

Post a comment to this blog if you do not have a lead!

Hopefully by now everyone is aware of the issues we are having with LeadStreet. We’ve seen a dramatic slowdown in the amount of leads provided by remax.com. Based on your feedback the reason for the slowdown two-fold: registration isn’t forced on the visitor soon enough and the system itself is slow and cumbersome to use.

With our MLS region’s “one IDX feed per company” rule, we have no choice but to keep our company’s feed with remax.com and eNeighborhoods. Our one feint in this debacle is the strong search presence charlotteproperty.com has achieved. We are getting close to 400 visitors a day with over half of those coming off the search engines.

Furthermore, we force registration on visitors that go to our company site. They can view our listings freely but must register to see anything else. The results have been amazing. We are back up to RIMS-level leads and generating about 150 a week. The downside is that you may start seeing more fake registration info. We made this change about two weeks ago.

In stark contrast is the number of leads provided by remax.com. in March, remax.com generated 186 leads (less than 1 per agent). I’ve been in contact with other area RE/MAX franchises and they all reported similar results (about .7 leads per agent per month). During that same time, CharlotteProperty.com generated 381 leads. I expect that number to grow for CP.com because of the registration change we recently made.

So far for April (through the 10th) we’ve created 201 leads and remax.com has created 72.

We are also looking at other options. We will not leave LeadStreet but we want another system in place to make up for its inadequacies. We have narrowed our selection to a few vendors and look for an announcement on this in the near future.

Again, feel free to post any questions in the comments.

The new LeadStreet system has caused some confusion with regards to how leads are created and assigned to the individual agent. This article’s goal is to provide an overview of the lead routing system and provide possible answers to some frequently asked questions.

Leads are generated four ways: remax.com, charlotteproperty.com, yourAgentSite.remax.com, or manual entry. For the sake of discussion, assume all leads imported from RIMS were manually entered and treat them as such.

It is important to note that visitors are not forced to register from remax.com to look at listing detail info like before. This means that you will get fewer leads but you should try to contact them immediately because they are registering because they want to speak with an agent.

Remax.com Lead Routing

When a visitor enters search criteria at Remax.com, the system looks to see what city the property is located. It then pulls a list of RE/MAX offices that are either located in that city or who have put that city as one of their areas of specialty. Each office has a  chance of getting the lead proportional to the size of the office. This means that an office with 200 agents has twice the likely-hood of getting a lead as an office with 100 agents.

Listing inquiries on RE/MAX properties always go directly to the listings agent and do not need to be accepted…regardless of which office the visitor originally landed on.

CharlotteProperty.com Lead Routing

Once the lead is assigned to the office, it behaves the same way as a lead directly generated by CharlotteProperty.com. The lead is randomly fired to one of our agents and the system treats each agent like they are a member of every office at RE/MAX Executive. The down-side is that Rock Hill, SC agents could get a lead from Concord, NC. The upside is that every office gets a share of the leads that CharlotteProperty.com is generating.

So a lead is randomly offered to one agent for 2 business hours. After the time expires, the process repeats twice more…each time offering the lead to a random agent. If the three agents that were consecutively offered the lead all fail to accept it, the lead becomes a Last Chance Lead Offer and it is blasted to every agent in the company on a first come, first served basis. If it says Last Chance, you’ll have to be the fastest to get the lead. Most missed lead complaints are due to agents missing the subject line of the email: LeadStreet Pending Lead - Last Chance Offer.

yourAgentSite.remax.com

If a visitor comes to your individual agent site and they have never registered on another LeadStreet website before, the lead is yours. There is no acceptance procedure and the lead is never pending. This is completely different from the old system and is causing some confusion. Agents are getting notification for this type of lead, logging in to accept it, and finding the lead already in the “Priority Leads” (which means accepted recently). You do not need to reply and send an email to accept this lead. In fact, when a lead notification comes in from a contact already assigned to you, if you reply to it ,ou are replying directly to the client

Manual Entry

If you have a contact database and you import those records ~or~ if you manually enter a contact into LeadStreet it is your lead no matter where the visitor goes in the LeadStreet system. This can cause tons of confusion! One way you can get confused if an existing client that registered with you while looking for real estate in Charlotte decides to look elsewhere. Even if the lead looks at property in Denver, CO, you will still be their agent. Another way this can cause confusion is if you send someone to your site but their email address is already on record with another agent. In this case, you need to contact the other agent and ask that they delete the record or transfer the client to you.

Greetings!

Each month I am going to write a newsletter to bring the company up to speed on recent technology developments. While the main thrust will be to keep you informed of RE/MAX Executive’s web program, I will also seek to identify important  opportunities to promote you and your listings and learn about trends in real estate IT.

Look Both Ways When Crossing LeadStreet.

There is so much to cover regarding the migration that this entire article will be dedicated exclusively to LeadStreet.  I will break this down into three sections: training opportunities, account setup, and lead migration. Feel free to use the comments section at the bottom to ask any questions not answered here.  If I don’t have the answer, I have access to people who will.

Training Opportunities

All is not lost if you didn’t read Cindy’s KYI at the end of January or missed my blog article on the RE/MAX International training schedule. International is providing weekly online LeadStreet training every Tuesday and Thursday as detailed in the Carolina Affiliate’s (top left from remax.net) link on remax.net:

March Training with RE/MAX International:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/576683470
• Mar. 4 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Mar. 6 - 3-5p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Mar. 11 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Mar. 13 - 3-5p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Mar. 19 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Mar. 20 - 3-5p - Introductory LeadStreet

You can also find tons of help documentation on LeadStreet itself. Just go to the menu item, “My LeadStreet” and select “Help Docs” from the drop down menu.

RE/MAX Executive Workshops

This will mark the last week of daily workshops as we go back to our regular Tuesday/Thursday schedule. All workshops are run from the Ballantyne conference room and agents must email technology@charlotteproperty.com in advance to attend. The workshops will not replace the training offered by International. If you do not get training from International on LeadStreet, the workshops will not be helpful.

LeadStreet Account Setup 101

This is my first attempt at a step-by-step guide of what you absolutely need to do to make sure you are getting leads from remax.com and charlotteproperty.com. To get into LeadStreet, go to remax.net and login. Then select LeadStreet from the link list in the top left of your screen.

The first screen we need to check is located by selecting the “My LeadStreet” menu item then clicking “My Agent Options”. My instructions are highlighted in red.

Lead Options

Make sure you have option #1 checked at all times….even if you are forwarding your leads to someone else. Only fill in option #2 if you wish to give your leads to another agent.

1. I am accepting leads at this time:
   
2. I am currently forwarding my leads to this Affiliate:
   
   

Lead Notification Options

Email lead acceptance email will not work unless your “reply-to” address matches the email address LeadStreet has on file. So, if you are using yourName@remax.net, that address forwards to something else…more than likely keeping you from accepting a lead.

Use your remax.net (or whatever you market) as the primary email address but use the secondary email for lead notifications and have it sent directly to your actual email address.

Make sure you enter the phone number and carrier into the text message notification box. While you can no longer accept leads via text message, word is that the text messages go out faster than the emails so you’ll get more warning and be in better position to grab more leads.

1. Primary Email: toddbrower@remax.net
   

   Secondary Email: todd.brower@yahoo.com

   [Check] Use secondary email for lead notifications and primary for all other communications

2. Send text message notifications to the following number:
   
   

   yourPhoneNumber & cell phone carrier

 IDX

Enter only your CMLS or Piedmont MLS Numbers here. Do not enter the MLS code for anyone other than yourself.

If you have more than one IDX code, you may enter the values separated by a comma.      

Ignore the rest of the settings unless you have had training from International and you know what you are doing.

Click “Save & Continue” at the top right.

That’s it! If you setup this screen right, you are ready to receive leads.

Migrating Your Leads from RIMS to LeadStreet

When RIMS went down on Feb 15th, all of your existing RIMS leads lost access to yoru website. Both Executive and International backed-up and attempted to transfer your leads for you. For the most part, we were successful but some accounts still don’t have their contacts moved over. Luckily, we have a backup of everyone’s RIMS leads and we can help.

Were your leads moved over?

To check this, go to LeadStreet and find “Contacts” in the menu and select “Search Contacts”.  Without entering any search criteria, click the search button near the top right corner. This will show you all of your contact.

Will your old leads be able to login to the new system?

No! It is VERY IMPORTANT to realize that your existing RIMS clients that were moved into LeadStreet do not have a login and password assigned to them. This effectively blocks them from using LeadStreet. The next bit of this article will detail some recommended steps on how to reactivate your RIMS leads and notify them of the changes. It is the number one topic discussed at our workshops.

1. Obtain an excel spread of all your RIMS leads. If you don’t have one, send an email to technology@charlotteproperty.com asking for your RIMS lead. Please give your office location to help speed up the process.
2. Remove the columns for street address, created date, and notes. This helps shrink the document to one page width.
3. Sort the entire spreadsheet by “Last Activity Date” in decending order. This puts the leads that were most recently active at the top of your spreadsheet.
4. Select how far back you want to go (I recommend going back to the beginning of 2008) and print the spreadsheet for as far back as you wish to go.
5. Log into LeadStreet and search your contacts for the first person on your spreadsheet.
6. Click the edit button  next to the correct client record.
7. Click the “Advanced” tab just below the client’s contact and email record.
8. At the bottom of the advanced screen, there is an option that says, “Allow this contact to login to public features.” Click the button next to that statement.
9. Copy the client’s email address into the field for username and enter “remax” as their password.
10. Click save and close from the top right of the screen.
11. Repeat until all your recent clients from RIMS have been setup. Use the client’s email for the username and “remax” as the password for every client.
12. Send an email to each client (it is fastest to just copy the column from Excel into Outlook’s bcc field). Telling them that your website has moved. It is now at AgentUserName.remax.com. Tell them that their login is their email address and their password is remax.

Everyone should be set. Feel free to post questions or comments below.

All the international training is over. We’ll try to get more but until then, the only training they are providing is detailed in items #1 and #2 in the previous post (and for #2, the only thing available is the Accelerator training detailed at the end).

So your only option left is the 10 to 12 workshops that we’re running every weekday (except Tuesdays) at the Ballantyne office. We don’t know all the answers but we’ll try to find them.

I’m sure most of you have received several communications from RE/MAX International regarding the upcoming migration to LeadStreet and relevant training opportunities. You may have also heard that RE/MAX Executive Realty will conduct workshops to specifically address the concerns regarding importing your RIMS leads into LeadStreet.

This communication is an attempt to summarize each of your training opportunities.

It is important that you read this entire memo to review every option available or you may not transfer your RIMS leads correctly.

You can post comments and questions at the end of this post.

1. Online Help Docs on LeadStreet.

To access these, login into MainStreet (remax.net) and look for the “Technology” menu tab in the blue bar at the top of the screen. When you point to the tab, a drop-down menu will appear. Click “LeadStreet”.

The menu items in the blue bar will change. The second one to the left will be “My LeadStreet”. Point to this and click “Help Docs”.

There are additional help documents available directly in Mainstreet (remax.net). Go to the “University” menu tab from the main screen and select “Technology Training”

2. Online webinars

You can get online training on LeadStreet basics by following the links below for the appropriate day and time.

February Training for LeadStreet:
• Feb. 5 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 5 - 3-5p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 6 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 6 - 3p-5p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 7 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 7 - 3p-5p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 8 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 8 - 3p-5p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 11 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 11 - 3p-5p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 12 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 12 - 3p-5p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 13 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 13 - 3p-5p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 14 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 14 - 3p-5p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 15 - 11a-1p - Introductory LeadStreet
• Feb. 15 - 3p-5p - Introductory LeadStreet

You can also receive online training for the Agent Accelerator (LeadStreet’s terminology for individual agents websites) by going here: http://www.gotomeeting.com/join/408011088

Classes are held Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3pm EST and Fridays at 9pm EST.

3. Hands-on Training

RE/MAX International has rented computer facilities across the state for hands on training. These sessions are limited to 24 each and will likely fill up quickly. The Charlotte location is:

New Horizons
9140 Arrowpoint Blvd. Suite 400
Charlotte, NC 28273

They will run training sessions at the following dates/times. Email your name and which session number you would like to attend to Cara Cloppas at carolinaevents@remax.net

Feb. 6 — 11:00 am to 1:30pm (Session #1)
Feb. 6 — 3:00 pm to 5:30pm (Session #2)
Feb. 12 — 11:00 am to 1:30pm (Session #3)
Feb. 12 — 3:00 pm to 5:30pm (Session #4)
Feb. 14 — 8:00 am to 10:30am (Session #5)
Feb. 14 — 11:00 am to 1:30pm (Session #6)
Feb. 14 — 3:00 pm to 5:30pm (Session #7)

4. LeadStreet Seminar

On February 13th at the Marriott Executive Park (5700 Westpark Dr. 28217) International will hold two agent seminars covering LeadStreet basics (getting started, working with contacts, setting up drip email campaigns, etc..). Again, email your name and which session number you would like to attend to Cara Cloppas at carolinaevents@remax.net

Session A — 9am to 11:30 am
Session B — 1pm to 3:30 pm

5. Lead import/export workshops

RE/MAX Executive Realty will be holding workshops for agents everyday of the week from 10 to 12. Email vincent@cltproperty.com to check availability and schedule a space. The focus of these workshops will be how to best migrate your leads from RIMS to the new system and not lose important web activity data.

Tuesday’s classes will be held at the Lake Norman office and there will be no classes on Wednesday, Feb. 6th or 13th due to conflicts with International’s training schedule.

Introduction

RIMS can do many things to help you grow your business online. It is not, however, the silver bullet that will turn you into a mega-agent and it is not a complete replacement for robust contact managers like Top Producer or Agent360. Still, it offers powerful tools that combine MLS data and client contact management in one simple interface. Think of it as one of the more powerful tools in your bag that will gradually increase your yearly transactions.

I tell new agents to expect 1-3 additional transactions per year from RIMS if they do nothing and just let the system work for them. If they add their own contacts or leads, transactions will dramatically increase.

RIMS provides a lead capturing website to every RE/MAX agent in the region. RIMS also routes leads directly to you through remax.com and remax-carolina.com. RE/MAX Executive provides an additional source of leads to our agents by marketing charlotteproperty.com.

Leads can then be sorted into groups and be assigned campaigns. RIMS provides a contact manager so you can record interactions with individual clients. It provides a listing manager that you can use to enhance your listings by adding additional (or larger) photos, floor plans, virtual tours, and more.
Thursday’s class covers the system’s advanced capabilities.

Vincent Ammirato
technology@charlotteproperty.com
704.717.5374

Setting up your account

Your first website address will be yourLoginName.remax-carolina.com so choose a good login (Note: only an admin can change this.) If your login is bill, your website is bill.remax-carolina.com (Ask me why this is a good thing.) Beyond the login name, here’s a list of the important stuff on setup:

• Contact Info (especially email & MLS IDs)
• Zip Codes
• Instant Acceptance
• Photo
• Domains

Leads and what to do with them

You can accept leads through the website, via email, or text message to your phone. You can configure RIMS to automatically begin campaigns when you accept a lead. We will create some basic groups and assign leads to those groups. We will also configure RIMS to start sending email campaigns to your leads. Then, we will access an individual lead’s information and setup a client gateway-like search. Lastly, we will create a test dummy lead. (Ask me why.)

Listings

It is important that you take control of your listings (ask me why). You can also set which listings appear on your RIMS site. We will use the listing manager to upgrade some photographs, add a virtual tour, and make it more noticeable. We will also use the listing manager to generate a seller report.

What else
1.) For more on RIMS go to my blog at www.cltproperty.com/blog (links to help documents are on the right). 2.) Thursday classes are mainly Q & A. 3.) My role here at Executive. 4.) Cool things to try.

Hello everyone. It has been a long time coming but I would like to announce upgrades in several key areas of RE/MAX Executive’s web infrastructure.

1.) We’ve upgraded server capacity.

We host all of our virtual tours and agent websites individually and the sheer number of sites was beginning to impact the overall system stability. By upgrading to a private server, we have the capacity to smoothly server current sites and better hand future growth.

2.) We improved the IDX search & lead capture.

The new IDX property search improvements allow you to search by zipcode, school (elementary, middle, and high), Realtor comments (for keywords like foreclosure). We also added many secondary criteria that were sorely missing (like acreage and year built). The lead capture can now be customized to require registration (or not) and require phone number (or not).

And remember, searches can be saved and used to create “one click searches” which can highlight various neighborhoods (i.e. Dilworth) or property type (i.e. waterfront) or any combination. We can even filter the results by Realtor (i.e. show all my South Charlotte listings on golf courses).

3.) We’ve got new Charlotte relocation information.

We’ve got updated content for our Charlotte relocation guide. It includes new pictures, updated area descriptions, new tax rates, and other improvements.

The new content will gradually be rolled out to existing sites and is included in all new websites create since Dec. 1st. The roll out should be complete by Jan.

I’ve redone the pricing packages for agents that want a different property search than RIMS but don’t want me to host or design their site or do much else than provide an idx search and drill down links.

The new package descriptions, prices, and examples are here.

This is a typical response I give an agent who is thinking about using my services but not sure where they want to best spend their money:

Feel free to bring your issues and ideas to the Tuesday/Thursday training classes. I don’t push my services above other options and it is my job to help support you. I’ve helped advise and guide agents for over a year before we felt their production was enough to not only afford my website but to market it as well.

I completely run Debbie Beam’s website now. It was an expensive design and built with a very old web editing software…the developer’s equivalent of hammer and chisel. It is a beast to operate and, until I can fully port it over to my method,  one of the biggest pain in the neck projects to maintain and update.

My template (scottsadler.com) is what I recommend. If you want to make it look and like debbiebeam.com, we can do that. I would recommend against drop-down menus because they don’t work in all browsers and the search engines can find them. But again, if you want them, we can do that.

Once I study a topic intently, I form very strong opinions on how things should be done. Scott’s site and variations of it are my opinion on the way to go.

Other examples (everything can be customized…have patience and a clear idea of what you want)..

some templates (always growing):
template.carolinahomedata.com
template2.carolinahomedata.com
template3.carolinahomedata.com
blank.north-carolina-charlotte-real-estate.com

custom sites:
charlottelakefronthomes.com
yourcharlotteagent.com
carolinalakerealestate.com
charlottelakefronthomes.com
stormiesellscharlotte.com
yadkinavenueproject.com
jamestownecommons.com

Hope this helps, I am working this into a blog entry (so I never have to this again) and updating some info at www.cltproperty.com (click the examples link at the top).