Kim Hughes

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Archives for August 2015

August 28, 2015 By Kim Hughes Leave a Comment

Listing Coordination – Get It Out There

Listing CoordinationMarketing technology can be your best friend or your worst enemy these days. People are pretty savvy when it comes to the internet. In order to compete, technology had better be your best friend. Not much is more embarrassing than having clients ahead of you in the marketing game. They have entrusted you to have that property in most every place they’re looking, and hopefully, some places they haven’t discovered yet. Your sellers’ marketing reports many times either confirm what they already know about your marketing campaign, or demonstrate to them that they are already ahead of you. Sellers are smart and they’re all over it!

Listing coordination is comprised of initially listing properties in the myriad marketing sites available, as well as the MLS; managing the status of each listing, exposing the listed property to as much of the real estate community and the public as possible, actively and adequately promoting each listed property, and updating clients on all these areas. This is called due diligence, and it is the responsibility of every agent upon accepting a listing. How well you do it determines your future as the leader in your market as the “go to” listing agent.

Don’t neglect your local service area. The Internet should be an impressive addition to your local market area. It is the greatest opportunity to get your brand out there to the consumer and future clients, both buyers and sellers. Remember, your clients will come mostly from your community because you’re local, and they know you. Right? Your name recognition and reputation literally precede them right through your door.

When you work a lead, the majority of your persuasion to list with you will be the demonstration of your ability to market the listing. It needs to be impressive. Clients are already familiar with on-line marketing sites. They expect updates to be frequent and specific regarding interest in their property. They expect to know exactly how it’s being marketed.

Hopefully, you have many listings, as well as many prospective buyers to connect them with. If you do, you have succeeded in your marketing responsibilities. Your satisfied seller becomes your prospective buyer in the future, and vice versa – your satisfied buyer becomes your seller down the road. This is the heart of your profession as a real estate agent, and if it becomes more than you can manage to the detriment of your client and your business, invest in assistance. It’s that important. It’s everything!

Take a look at your listing presentation to make sure you have it updated, customized as well as taking them through the process after they hire you to sell their home. Then look at your marketing strategy for the listing to ensure you have an impressive system in place. Having these two areas of your business organized will give you the confidence to walk in armed with the answers to your sellers questions. Not to mention to blow their socks off with your marketing strategy and follow-up.

Do you find that with your busy schedule you don’t have time to update your listing presentation, put a system in place and mange these very important marketing tasks? Get in touch with Kim Hughes today and learn how listing coordination can be made simple, with no burden to you.

P.S. Imagine you were offered the opportunity to be coached both on-site and virtually – by the leading expert in the real estate assistant industry through the 10 most important areas of a real estate agent’s business. Introducing the Real Estate Assistant Playbook. Designed for both real estate assistants and agents, The Playbook offers the training you need to excel in the business of real estate today! Visit TheRealEstateAssistantPlaybook.com for more information.

Photo courtesy Morguefile/FlashBuddy

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Filed Under: Blog, Internet Marketing, kim hughes, kim hughes and company, kim hughes real estate virtual assistant, real estate agent, real estate agents

August 27, 2015 By Kim Hughes Leave a Comment

Self Confidence

Sunlit Woman smallLet’s face it, life requires a lot from us. Most of what we do daily, we have to do. Some of it is self-reinforcing; that is, we know we do it well, or at least well enough to get by. It is easy to get caught up in the idea that we don’t have much choice about what we do in day-to-day life. As responsible adults, we devote a lot of ourselves to others and often we don’t spend much time thinking about it.

But ask yourself this—what would happen to your life and those you’re close to if you didn’t do the things you do every day? Do you ever stop to consider the true value of you?

Everyone works from one of two positions. You either work to maintain what you have, or you strive to have more. Life is a heavy load, and it can cause us to focus on the status quo, and our dreams begin to fade a little. But there’s always that one thing in the back of your heart and mind that won’t entirely go away. That house? That job? More time? More money for the family?

You already maintain a job, you have food, a roof over your head, transportation; you provide for your family, you are already successful! No arguments with yourself about how you can’t do it, you’re not qualified, you’re not good enough, because you’ve already done it and you really should dwell more on that success.

  • Stay positive, you have every reason to be.
  • No comparisons to others because they have absolutely no relation to you.
  • You know your victories, celebrate them.
  • Identify your strengths and be proud.
  • Build on your successes.
  • Confront the fears that hold you back; be patient with yourself.
  • Set goals, take risks; they’re not great risks because you already know your strengths and your limitations.
  • Practice self-reinforcement and then add to your skills.

Each day has the same number of hours. The only difference is how you spend them. Each job has certain requirements. The only difference is your desire and ability to do them – and the self-confidence to try.

If you are feeling that lack of confidence, please contact me and let’s schedule a complimentary 20 minute coaching session to see how we can, together, get you back on the right track.

As Henry Ford said, “Those who believe they can do something and those who believe they can’t are both correct”.

P.S. Imagine you were offered the opportunity to be coached both on-site and virtually – by the leading expert in the real estate assistant industry through the 10 most important areas of a real estate agent’s business. Introducing The Real Estate Assistant Playbook. Designed for both real estate assistants and agents, The Playbook offers the training you need to excel in the business of real estate today! Visit TheRealEstateAssistantPlaybook.com for more information.

Image courtesy of Julia Caesar/Unsplash.com

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Filed Under: Blog, kim hughes, kim hughes and company, kim hughes real estate virtual assistant, real estate agent, real estate coaching, real estate virtual assistant, virtual assistant

August 25, 2015 By Kim Hughes Leave a Comment

Transaction Coordination – Close the Deal

Like every real estate agent, you work hard at listing properties and connecting qualified buyers to sellers. In addition to all of Transaction Coordinatoryour efforts as a professional real estate agent in listing, marketing and negotiating a successful sale, the one most important element of a transaction is bringing it to a close.

That portion of the sale, the closing transaction, must be delegated to appropriate agencies and specialized legal entities who work simultaneously to verify value, viability and financing of the property. At this point, you are dependent on others also involved in the process. All preceding efforts are in vain if closing the escrow fails, and it is during this closing process that the greatest possibility of failure occurs.

Each and every step of the process contains an inherent possibility of failure during closing, from establishing a marketable title, to verifying structural integrity, to demonstrating insurability, and procuring successful financing. As with any fluid process, important decisions must be made quickly due to legal time constraints governing closing, and may have far-reaching ramifications for both clients and agents. Closing transactions are stressful for all parties involved at best. At worst, they fail entirely, or result in legal actions between clients and agents.

The last thing any agent needs is a mistake which precludes closing the transaction within time constraints, or places the decision in the hands of the seller, who may or may not be willing to extend closing time, or might incur liabilities such as daily monetary penalties paid to sellers for delays. Suppose a finding in the closing transaction necessitates renegotiation or the property doesn’t appraise – or interest rates change drastically during closing? Of course it is imperative to obtain these results immediately in order to have time to renegotiate and not extend closing time.

When the pitfalls of closing transactions become overwhelming, it is time to consider utilizing the service of an assistant trained in closing transactions. A transaction coordinator is a professional dedicated to managing only the closing process and is therefore able to provide the information you need in time to prevent a closing disaster. Prevent legal liabilities from developing with complete records of each transaction provided immediately from a highly trained, competent transaction coordinator devoted entirely to seamlessly closing and protecting your real estate transaction.

Do you find that with your busy schedule you don’t have time to manage these very important closing transaction tasks? Your staff could be trained to manage your closings competently, and decrease your legal liability. Get in touch with Kim Hughes today and learn how transaction coordination can be made simple, with no burden to you.

P.S. Imagine you were offered the opportunity to be coached both on-site and virtually – by the leading expert in the real estate assistant industry through the 10 most important areas of a real estate agent’s business. Introducing the Real Estate Assistant Playbook. Designed for both real estate assistants and agents, The Playbook offers the training you need to excel in the business of real estate today! Visit TheRealEstateAssistantPlaybook.com for more information.

Photo courtesy Pixabay.com/geralt

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Filed Under: Blog, real estate productivity, real estate services, Transaction Coordination

August 18, 2015 By Kim Hughes Leave a Comment

What Is Your Lead Generation Strategy?

Lead Generation

Connect with your real estate leads

At the heart of every business is the perpetual need to get products to clients and clients to products. Particularly in real estate, every transaction should generate another, exponentially. Real estate is unique in that it requires a high level of trust and confidence in the real estate professional.

In order to develop such relationships in today’s extremely large and high-speed market, technology must play a tremendous role. The relationship must be developed long before the face to face meeting. Using technologies to develop such relationships requires the specific marketing knowledge to employ strategies that generate leads and converts them.

Identify Lead Sources

Identification of where most leads come from provides a focus for generating interactions. Technology today affords the real estate professional the ability to use tracking and analytics to manage the behavior of leads on their sites, thus determining the potential clients’ specific areas of interest in order to target and develop relationships. Use information gained through analytics and responses to target leads. Review lead sources each quarter to identify, track and stage. Offer information, materials and advice to build confidence and trust.

Customer Relationship Management

The implementation of Customer Relationship Management results in strategies including the use of on-line response forms, and email marketing drip campaigns divined from the behaviors evidenced from the analytics. Advertising on other real estate sites can serve as reminders as well.

Engagement

Offers of valuable information in the form of e-books, webinars and blog posts on social media, encourages engagement and eventually results in interactions and relationships. Consider out-of-the-box marketing – sites such as Tinder and LinkedIn enable large-scale linking back to real estate professionals’ websites to encourage interactions. Facebook may provide information from search bars using related hashtags such as “house hunting” and “moving”. And don’t forget closing gifts. These help establish rapport for future referrals.

Response Time

Studies show that the number one generator in a high-speed market is response time – quick responses are expected today and may increase sales as much as 340%! Of course, in order to respond quickly, time must be dedicated exclusively to work leads.

You are most likely shaking your head in agreement that the information above is something you would love to implement into your daily business model, but you lack the time, energy, assistance and experience to put together the right system for you. As I tell every single agent who comes to me with this problem in their business….

We all have the same goal, but the how we achieve that end result is different for every agent. There are so many factors to consider when you set up your lead management system.

  1. You need to identify with your local market in what is happening right now – what happens now can change, so you have to always be prepared to adjust your lead generation system to keep up with the real estate market.
  2. Where are your leads coming from? What program do you have in place that is working for you now.
  3. What is your immediate response to those leads? Call, text, email?
  4. What is your goal for building a long-term relationship?
  5. If you generate leads from referrals – how are those being managed?
  6. Are you generating leads from your website?
  7. Are you generating leads from your social media strategy?

Now that your thinking about all the various ways to receive a lead your number one goal is to have a system in place for communicating with all the lead scenarios.

And, you must have a good CRM program in place to help you manage, monitor and follow-up systematically.

Many agents just leave leads on the table, which as we all know leaves money on the table. The reason this happens is because they are caught up in the moment of working with actual clients. You need to always keep an eye on the future, and when things start to slow down, you can go into your lead database and see what is working to build those relationships. You can then follow-up to see how you may be of service to help them buy or sell.

If you find you are not organized in this area of your business, then I highly recommend you find time to sit down with your staff to come up with a plan that works for you and your business. Work together to figure out a way to stabilize your lead follow-up so your are constantly building your business.

If you do not have the tools to implement or find you are stuck in putting together such a system, let me know. I am happy to schedule a complimentary 30 minute session to help you identify how you should get started. If you need someone to create the strategy and implement as well as manage, we can also discuss how my real estate virtual assistant services can benefit you.

And….imagine you were offered the opportunity to be coached both on-site and virtually – by the leading expert in the real estate assistant industry through the 10 most important areas of a real estate agent’s business. Introducing the Real Estate Assistant Playbook. Designed for both real estate assistants and agents, The Playbook offers the training you need to excel in the business of real estate today! Visit TheRealEstateAssistantPlaybook.com for more information.

Image courtesy of www.gotcredit.com/Flickr

 

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Filed Under: lead generation for real estate, lead management tips

August 11, 2015 By Kim Hughes Leave a Comment

The Real Estate Assistant Playbook Launched Today

New Online Training Program Launched For Real Estate Assistants

Program provides training on the top 10 areas of the real estate agents business
to give the agent more freedom to focus on clients

Mineola, TX, 8/10/15 – Kim Hughes of Kim Hughes & Company announces a new online training program designed for real estate agents, real estate on-site assistants and virtual assistants. The Real Estate Assistant Playbook offers a 5 week course going through the 10 most important areas of a real estate agents business.

This program was developed through Kim’s expertise and knowledge of working with real estate agents one-on-one inrevaicon their businesses for the past 17 years. “I really wanted to put together a program that would give real estate assistants and real estate virtual assistants the tools they need to successfully run the entire back offer of today’s real estate agent. This is a game changer and one I am very proud to bring to the industry.”

Kim began her career in 1981 working with a local mortgage company in Dallas, Texas while in college. She then moved into commercial leasing for a top Dallas firm where she realized that real estate was in her blood. She decided to branch out, and began working as a business consultant to some of the top real estate leasing and development companies, offering her expertise in business management.

Kim brings to the real estate industry her experience in various areas of real estate, including residential, commercial, leasing, real estate development, investments, property management and mortgage lending. She has worked with a major restaurant chain as a site coordinator for their restaurants all over the country. Kim is the first virtual assistant to niche in the real estate industry where she has become an industry leader. Kim has been invited by multiple real estate associations to speak on the importance of running a successful back office and the the benefits having the assistance to run a solid, organized real estate business.

“This course was created for anyone who wants to gain the confidence in building a business as a real estate assistant or a virtual assistant, and the program is great for the agents themselves.” Says, Kim Hughes

For more information about The Real Estate Assistant Playbook visit TheRealEstateAssistantPlaybook.com.

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Kim Hughes | Real Estate Strategy Coach

Ready to create a strategy to improve your business on all levels? Schedule a private consultation to discuss your specific needs today so we can create a strategy that is customized to you and your market. Call or email me and let’s move forward in executing your vision.
 
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PK Hughes, LLC – dba Kim Hughes & Company, a Texas Corporation formed in 1999. .
Kim Hughes & Company offers real estate virtual assistant services to real estate agents by providing strategies with solutions on how to run a successful real estate business including marketing, social media marketing, blogging, not to mention implementing and managing everyday support services.

 

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