Everybody is Working for the Weekend

In the real estate industry weekends are used a lot to show properties and have open houses. Obviously these are usually the only days that a lot of clients have off of work to look for their future home. And any decent Realtor will help his clients out all day on a weekend if need be. However, weekends are coveted by most. This is when we play and blow off steam from the work week. This is when we can get together with friends and family and enjoy life. So do Realtors deserve weekends too? I'd like to think so. Obviously if this is the only time my clients have to look then I'm most definitely going to help them look. And my phone is always on to answer questions no matter what is going on during the weekends. But my banker isn't around or my insurance agent. Even my local Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sundays. So I know to handle my funds and my insurance before Friday at 5pm rolls around (and to grab that chicken sandwich on Saturday or I have to wait Monday). I would like to see real estate professionals get treated the same way. If questions can wait until Monday I think it should be common courtesy to wait until Monday. Or at least not expect a return call about the issue until 9am on Monday. Or maybe the fact that we are accessible when other professions are not is part of what makes real estate a personal business relationship and not simply a business relationship. Does the general public know deep down that having their Realtor answer the phone on Saturday morning is going over and beyond the call of duty. Or is it expected and when we don't answer the phone it's considering an insult and a reason to move on to the next agent? Since this is a blog entry I would love to hear some feedback on this thought as I'm not 100% sure about where I stand on this. I would like for the norm to be that you can get personal service from any industry 24/7 but is that realistic?

Shadow Inventory

As previously explained this is very much an experiment. And with all great experiments there are knowns and unknowns. My first unknown found me the other day. I was explaining the 100 Clients in 100 Days philosophy to a friend of mine. He was really excited about the idea and we ended up talking for about 2 hours. There was no doubt he wanted to be a part. So when I asked hi if I could promote our relationship on Facebook he answered back, "I don't think that would be smart of me." I was confused at first because my thinking all along had been, if you are down with this philosophy then why hide it? This experiment is more then helping out clients, it's about helping out Realtors and the real estate industry by spreading the word of how the real estate business is suppose to be performed and what should be expected by clients and Realtors both. And what kind of social network or open book of clients is made up of anonymous members? My friend's reasoning was pretty simple and straight forward. He is in an industry where he has multiple Realtors and real estate related professionals as clients. So for him it was a possible risk to his business to promote our business. Fair enough. So enter my new silent partners or as I call them, my Shadow Inventory!
Shadow Inventory is a term used for foreclosed and bank owned properties that they haven't yet processed or released to the general public for sale. This inventory is held back to help out the banks numbers each quarter. So similar to banks, these secret clients are here to help in this mini real estate revolution but you don't know when and don't know who they are.
Now the question is, do I count them in the 100? As I mentioned previously I feel that to put anonymous clients on the group would hurt the program overall. So I've decided to exclude them from the public but keep them in the 100 privately. So that means at the end of 100 days I will more then likely have 120 clients! Wow, this jog just turned into a run! They don't call them experiments for nothing.

100 Clients in 100 Days! That's Impossible!

That was the first thought I had. And the first comment to come out of my friends mouths when I told them my idea. But was it? The tell you in real estate that you need to contact your sphere of influence and let them know you are in the business. And that you can't sit around and wait for business to come to you. I'd say probably 10% of new agents do this. The other 90% conveniently forget. I will be honest. I did that kind of. I got into real estate in May of 2005. The market was booming then, the last real year that it was before the economy headed south. Everyone was just trucking along getting sale after sale and the thought of spending money on postcards and spending your valuable time on the phone just to let your friends know what you were doing now seemed like a waste of time. After all, you could be answering the phone for the latest lead or planning your next marketing effort for your listings. But alas, the basics always catch up to you. So here I am 5 years later. Struggling for business and watching people that I never reached out to using other real estate agents because I never had that initial real estate conversation with them. But it's not just my fault. In times like this it is obvious that the real estate model is broken. I was lucky in a sense that I wasn't in real estate for all of those glorious wealthy years. I'm not jaded. I've never become use to the big house and the boat payment. For the most part I still live like I did right out of college. So for me to step back and see things for what they are is a little bit easier then the experienced agents. These agents did it the same way for so long that now they are still trying to do the same things to make the business they are used to having. It's not working.