RealtyGenerator's Corporate Blog

If you have an open house coming up for one of your listings, promote it with the Open House tool. Your open house will appear on your brokerage website, plus notification of your open house will also be included in any of the relevant listing alerts going out to your agency's leads.

To set up an open house, scroll to the bottom of your main page and click "Add Open House" to access the Open House Manager. You'll see all the listings, sorted in ascending price, associated with your brokerage that have been uploaded from your MLS.

Find your listing and click the "Add" button on the right for your listing.

Then add all information for the open house and any comments. Providing an address will give users with a link to look up directions via Mapquest. Once you have entered the information, click "Add" at the bottom to finish.

One of the biggest mistakes agents make with RealtyGenerator is taking too long to respond to incoming email.

Think of it this way: the best leads you will get are the ones who make the effort to contact you. These leads are usually people who saw a home they were interested in and contacted you about it. When they don't get a response, they'll seek answers elsewhere or else lose interest altogether.

Taking a day or two to respond to emails is a surefire way to jeopardize your chances of turning leads into real customers. The sooner you respond to your leads' needs, the more likely they are to turn to you for assistance in the future.

The easy solution is simply to sign in to RealtyGenerator a few times a day to check for new email. Remember, it's not how much time you put in, it's how quick you are.

We always love to hear about the successes of our customers. Shannon Pyatt of EXIT Trinity Realty in Columbus, Ohio, recently told us about the great results he's seen with RealtyGenerator:

"RealtyGenerator is a huge contributor to my success here in Columbus, Ohio. Last year alone, I closed 26 RealtyGenerator leads and attribute more than 90% of my business to it. My favorite tool is the Activity button that highlights everyone who is actively looking at properties in my area. With all of the visibility tools I have access to, I can always be in the right place, at the right time to close more business. I love RealtyGenerator, I couldn't do my business without it!"

When it comes to leads, the more the better. However, that makes for an organizational challenge. Here's a quick reminder on how to use the folders.

New: Only includes new leads just assigned to you. After attempting to make contact, move the lead to the appropriate folder based on their initial communication.

Retry: Only includes leads that haven't responded to you yet. You will need to attempt to contact all retry leads with a phone number. Ones without a phone number will get an auto email at 2 weeks, 1 month and 3 months.

Active: Only includes leads that are communicating with you. They may be looking up to a year down the road before they purchase. Because this folder will become rather full, a good rule of thumb is, every active lead should have a reminder set up to check on them once a month. If they remain active, great. If not, you can see if their circumstances have changed, and you may want to move them to the inactive folder until they become more active again.

Inactive: This should be the largest folder you have, but when a lead's status changes, the Activity folder and reminders will keep you posted. If a lead is placed in here because they are long term, just looking, etc., set up reminders to send an email or call. Also in this folder are leads that never reply to you and after sitting in the retry folder for about 6 weeks. Watch for them to resurface on your website via the "activity" bin. Have several "just checking in" emails pre-written and saved so they can be sent quickly.

Hot: Only includes leads that you are working with regularly. They may be on their way to closing, or may have pre-approval and you may be showing listings. You should know all these leads by name.

Sold: This is the folder for leads that you sell listings to.

Trash: Very few leads should go in to the trash folder because they will be unsubscribed from the website automatically. These include leads that provide no phone number and a false email address (you have no way to contact them), and leads that ask that you not contact them anymore.

Now, take a few moments this week to get your lead folders in order once more!