Larson Educational Services is the premier education provider in SW Florida. We are a Real Estate, CAM and Mortgage Loan Originator School. Classes are available in Fort Myers, Naples and Online.
That's right: coming in 2018 you can join our underwater Florida real estate *school*.
BYOSS (bring your own scuba suit).
About Larson Educational Services:
Utilizing 40 years of real estate training and professional education experience, Florida real estate school Larson Educational Services is the premier provider of Florida real estate licensing, exam preparation, post-licensing, CAM licensing, mortgage loan originator licensing, and continuing education in Southwest Florida. Classes are available in Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota, and online. We are an approved Florida Real Estate School (License #ZH1002299), Florida CAM School (License #PRE31), Florida Insurance School (License # 370501) and NMLS Approved Course Provider.
To learn more about LarsonEd's Florida real estate and Florida insurance courses, visit LarsonEd.com or give us a call at 239-344-7510.
About Larson Educational Services:
Utilizing 40 years of real estate training and professional education experience, Florida real estate school Larson Educational Services is the premier provider of Florida real estate licensing, exam preparation, post-licensing, CAM licensing, mortgage loan originator licensing, and continuing education in Southwest Florida. Classes are available in Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota, and online. We are an approved Florida Real Estate School (License #ZH1002299), Florida CAM School (License #PRE31), Florida Insurance School (License # 370501) and NMLS Approved Course Provider.
Come join the Larson family. Sign up for classes at LarsonEd.com
About Larson Educational Services:
Utilizing 40 years of real estate training and professional education experience, Florida real estate school Larson Educational Services is the premier provider of Florida real estate licensing, exam preparation, post-licensing, CAM licensing, mortgage loan originator licensing, and continuing education in Southwest Florida. Classes are available in Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota, and online. We are an approved Florida Real Estate School (License #ZH1002299), Florida CAM School (License #PRE31), Florida Insurance School (License # 370501) and NMLS Approved Course Provider.
On average, FSBO listings will take longer to sell than agent listings. Unless the person selling without representation already knows a person who wants to take the property, this can mean a lot more time spent on the market.
If an FSBO runs into a problem or has a question, they are all alone. Real estate agents have mentors and brokers to go to for help—agents have a network to go to for support. FSBOs do not.
7. Marketing is harder than it looks
FSBOs often underestimate the difficulty of listing and selling their home.
Think putting up a yard sign will be enough to sell your home? You're not alone.
33% of FSBOs rely on yard signs to market their home.
But what many of these sellers don't realize is that getting on the MLS is not necessarily enough to make the sale.
Again, as an agent you have a network of connections and prospects who might be interested in a home that would otherwise sit unsold for an FSBO.
8. Less money, more problems
The name of the game for FSBOs is saving money.
However, odds are good that a for sale by owner will be nickel and dimed until their commission savings are nullified.
How much will the home inspection cost? What about signage and flyers? How about that home warranty? The list of small costs that are a necessary part of the sales process can add up.
And that's to say nothing of the investment of time required for an FSBO.
Without the same resources as an agent, FSBOs wind up making a large investment of time to sell their home.
Utilizing 40 years of real estate training and professional education experience, Florida real estate school Larson Educational Services is the premier provider of Florida real estate licensing, exam preparation, post-licensing, CAM licensing, mortgage loan originator licensing, and continuing education in Southwest Florida. Classes are available in Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota, and online. We are an approved Florida Real Estate School (License #ZH1002299), Florida CAM School (License #PRE31), Florida Insurance School (License # 370501) and NMLS Approved Course Provider.
Good news: according to the National Home Price NSA Index, home prices have hit a 32-month high! Time to pop the bubbly, right?
Maybe not. David Blitzer, the Managing Director and Chairman of the Index Committee, says that real estate professionals may need to curb their enthusiasm.
"New home construction is now close to a normal pace of about 1.2 million units annually," he says. "Most housing rebounds following a recession only last for a year or so."
Just like any other change in the market, you're better off staying consistent rather than out-thinking yourself with (relatively) short-term market fluctuations.
Or, perhaps you can use this information as a motivation to push through the end of a tough month. It's your choice. Like so many things in life, your results will be largely dependent on how you process the information you're given.
Is this a negative or a positive? The call is yours.
When too many of your clients are cancelling their health insurance policies, you start to feel the impact at all levels of your business—lost clients could increase administrative costs and you could also see issues with debt management if you've already budgeted certain commissions that are no longer coming in.
And acquiring new clients is not cheap.
Here are 5 tips to make sure you choose clients who will stick around:
1. Pre-Qualify
The road to client retention starts before your relationship with a client even begins. First, you want to discover if you and a particular prospect are a good fit for each other.
In all industries, the best salespeople ask the right questions.
You may also benefit from a shift in thinking: rather than focusing on acquiring clients, think about it in terms of finding out if a prospect is a good business partner. Ask yourself, "Is she a good fit for the services I offer?"
You must be willing to say no to certain clients if you think you cannot provide them with the services they need. Or you may say no if you foresee this prospective client requires a larger investment of time than you can afford.
The same insurance product won't fit every potential client. Determine their budget.
If, for example, you run into a prospect who qualifies for high subsidies, it will be important for them to know the value of supplemental products, though they may not have the budget for these voluntary products.
Work together with them to find the best potential options to fill in the gaps created by high-deductible ACA plans, for example.
2. Find Your Niche
You will need to project professionalism and trustability to potential clients. If they have any qualms whatsoever about your ability to serve their health insurance needs, assure them that you specialize in this field—you are the content expert.
Oftentimes, you can put an apprehensive prospect's worries to rest by letting them know what others in their situation are purchasing. Decisions of any kind are difficult, let alone when healthcare is involved.
Make the decision easier by providing them with a road map of previous clients' experiences.
The language you use may sound like this:
"This is our most common package."
"Many of our clients are happy with this package, and here's why."
"This is our most popular package."
Again, you don't want to sell them something they can't afford—sure, you won't be able to retain them as a client, but more importantly their needs won't be met.
The Oakla--sorry--the LAS VEGAS Raiders, who have called Oakland home since their last relocation in 1995, are ditching one of the most fervent fan bases in the NFL and moving to the Sin City.
Some are calling the move soulless on the team's part--a slap in the face of Raider Nation.
That may be true.
However, we at LarsonEd want to assure you, our fans, that we won't be skipping town on you. We wouldn't be the company we are if it weren't for our students, so we want to say thank you for coming to us for your real estate and insurance educational needs.
We promise to continue reciprocating that loyalty right back to you.
Photo courtesy of Raiders Twitter.
Sign up for insurance and real estate classes in Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota, and online: https://www.larsoned.com/
Sometimes, the best move is to stop producing and contemplate.
Real estate is a notoriously fast-paced industry that requires a hustler’s mindset.
Similarly, the internet is a fast-paced medium that creates the illusion that you must constantly produce content.
When you add these two factors together, you get a lot of white noise—people producing online content just for the sake of producing online content.
But how often do we stop to ask ourselves:
“Is my content adding value to anyone’s life?”
I'll admit it: we’ve been guilty of producing white noise in the past. Look back in our archives and you'll see “press releases” that were little more than thinly-veiled advertisements.
Or we'd post surface-level advice articles that did little more than repeat what already existed elsewhere online.
At one point or another, we've all produced spam-y online writing material.
Sure, there was a time when pumping out a keyword-heavy blog post every day would improve your search ranking.
Nowadays, this technique of jamming keywords into blog posts or YouTube videos in the hopes of boosting your SEO is no longer viable.
Google won’t reward this kind of writing in the search results and potential readers will quickly move on to something more interesting online.
Do you really think you can compete with 10 hours of cat fails!?
Content is King
Google is constantly trying to improve its search algorithm to provide the best content for its users. You can read more about one of its latest major updates here: Google Webmaster Blog* (see footnote for more info).
Marketing used to be focused on the products we sell. Now, marketing is all about the stories we tell.
An easy way to get started telling stories is to provide your prospects with insight into your business. People love the idea of having a behind-the-scenes glimpse into an industry.
Share part of your sales process or a personal success story from your business. Or write a blog post about the time you failed miserably and what you learned from it.
By telling these stories, you provide value to your sphere of influence.
Thought Leaders
You need to read more.
We all do. Reading is how we make sense of the chaos in the world—reading is how we get new ideas, whether professionally or personally.
Don't know where to start?
I would begin by finding 5 to 10 SuperStar Agents that I admire and reading the content they're producing online if I don't already: their personal blog, their ActiveRain account, etc.
Don't stop there—get in contact with them.
Find out what books they're reading.
Ask them what books have had the greatest influence on them. The answers to these questions will provide you with a ready-to-go reading list.
Because successful people, in all industries, are molded by the books they read.
Hiding in Infinity
It’s easy to think about dominating an entire state or region. You tell yourself you’ll be the best real estate agent in Florida. Or the best in the southeast. Or the best in the world!
But can you be the best real estate agent in your own neighborhood?
Seth Godin, the author of 18 bestsellers about marketing and leadership, calls this tendency to think big as opposed to thinking small “hiding in infinity.”
He says:
“Whenever possible, ask yourself… ‘what’s the smallest group of people I could make a difference for?’ Smallest feels risky. Because if you pick smallest and you fail, now you’ve really screwed up. We want to pick big because infinity is our friend. Infinity is safe. Infinity gives us a place to hide.”
So find your niche—whether it's selling waterfront properties in Naples, Florida, or selling chocolate-covered frozen bananas (I'm just spit-balling here)—and become a thought leader for everyone who's interested in your little sliver of the world.
*Footnote: Anyone who's interested in SEO should follow Google’s Webmaster Blog. For the longest time, I could never find a primary source for Google’s algorithm updates. Any website or article you read about Google’s updates are using this blog as their source material. Rather than rechecking this site every few weeks, I would suggest signing up for their email feed—they’re quite infrequent, so they won’t clutter your inbox. Just click on “Feed” on the right side of webmasters.googleblog.com then click on “Get Google Webmaster Central Blog delivered by email” as seen in the pictures below.
