The Buzz About Confidentials

What is a confidential?  What are they used for?  Why are they so important?

As a United Country Agent or Broker there is no doubt that you should know the answers to these important questions.  Although, I still wanted to share what I have learned over the years.  I am someone that likes to explain things by using examples (don’t know why that is...have done it all my life).

Lets say you go to your office every morning at 9:00am, you grab a cup of coffee or tea and sit at your desk.  Then for some reason EVERY morning, Monday thru Friday, like clockwork there is a knock at the front door to your office at 10:00am.  The person(s) knocking is ALWAYS someone interested in one of your listings, a particular property type or needs YOUR help to find them the home of their dreams. 

Well...wouldn’t that be the icing on the cake...potential buyers coming to you every single day at 10:00am!

If you know what a Confidential is then you already know that the example I just used is actually true!  Yes...EVERY morning you DO have potential buyer coming to YOU...but...via email because around 95% or more are from another state and cannot physically knock on your front door.

United Country spends millions each year since 1925 on advertising.  When a potential buyer calls the Home Office they capture as much information as they are willing to give.  Potential buyers call and ask YOU to help them with their real estate needs.  The next day they are sent to YOUR office for YOU...they are now a Confidential.  United Country has over 300,000 Confidentials in their data base that it nurtures every day.

So..EVERYDAY..when that potential buyer comes knocking on your door...what do you do? 

Have you been answering?  Have you been calling?  Have you been emailing? 

Soon I will be writing another Blog entry to talk about . . .

OK - Now I know what a confidential is but how do I get to it and what do I do with it once I have it?

Why UCvirtualassistant.com?

To explain UCvirtualassistant.com and the reasoning behind it, one has to understand the logistics of running a small to medium size business.  While there are many modules of a business's anatomy, and each have their own importance and a demand of our time and resources, often it is the "wheel that squeaks the loudest that gets the grease."  In real estate, it may be the pursuit of quality agents, advertising and marketing, training, customer service, expansion, or technical strategies.  We excel in some areas and not so in others.  We commit revenue to some areas and not so much in others.  That said, sometimes in order to achieve that balance, we have to hire sub-contractors to conduct certain tasks.  Trying to handle all areas effectively can be a frustrating task.  Having been involved in several business ventures over the years, I know the struggle of finding a balance in the management of a business. 

Real Estate firms have differing setups.. some may have an on staff data entry department to build, format, and upload listings, others may require their agents to upload them, or some may simply hire the task out to firm or individual.  What works for one firm may or may not work for another.  Unlike the United Country Real Estate agency websites uniformity, the listing quality and effectiveness can vary drastically from one firm to another.  Why?  Because of the differing setups within our agencies and the differing styles of listing setup.  If each office used a consistent means to handle their listings, the effects on United Country's web presence, SEO, and professionalism of our listings would multiply dramatically.

Additionally, the ability to determine our hard costs for this module of our business would go from a very fragmented state to one that is easily determined.  We haven't polled firms, but one question I would like to pose would be "Is there one area in your operation that you wish you had more control over and more involvement in being able to determine the direction of it's effectiveness?"  I feel like that the quality of listings input, formatting and presentation would rank high on the list.  I would also venture to say that these firms would gladly employ a tool that would allow them to uniformly input their listings at a fixed cost, without the hassles of constant training, expense of employee benefits, turnover, and other stress causing factors.

Ask yourself this question "how much does it costs me for each listing to have it created, formatted correctly, optimized for peak search engine performance and professional presented?"  Hard question to answer.  With UCvirtualassistant.com you can answer it promptly, it's $69.95 per listing or less.  Within my family's firm, they've struggled with the same and have only recently come to the conclusion that the fixed cost tool of UCvirtualassistant.com is without a doubt the most effective and efficient way to manage their listings.

Now let's look at the big picture.  Imagine if the majority of United Country's agent force employed the same method of creating, formatting, optimizing, and presenting their listings.. the SEO effect, professionalism, and consistency across the board would have a tremendous effect United Country's world wide web presence and effectiveness.

The benefits of a listing tool such as UCvirtualassistant.com easily makes sense financially, strategically, and of benefit to many.