Tips To Working Remote For Real Estate Professionals

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey guys, it's Stephanie and thanks for joining me for another episode of the glam life of real estate podcast. So if you're listening to this in real time, we are all going through a national pandemic with Corona virus. It is March of 2020. I had an amazing guests lined up speak today to you guys. Um, cause I do have a schedule for the podcast and we've actually decided that it's probably best if we hold off his episode for a few weeks just because there is a lot of stuff going on and he didn't really want to do self promotion right now so I totally get it and that's totally fine. So, um, we're going to postpone his episode for a few weeks, but what I thought I would do is come on. Um, I'm actually just recording this the night before so I may not have a lot of uh, a lot of um, social media and stuff around this podcast episode cause it's a little last minute but I filmed a video this weekend cause a lot of my real estate, um, sales professionals and real estate agents that I work with, a lot of us and I got out of this being paper-based a few years ago but are paper-based or they are, you know, they have to be at the office depending on what they do for a living if they work out of a model home.

Speaker 1: (01:09)
And so I put together a video that I thought might be kind of helpful to show some tips on how to work remotely or virtually if you're used to working in an office or in a model home. And so I thought I'd review some of those steps for you guys and then stick around to the end of the episode. I do have a link that you can go to to check out our free webinar training. If you are curious on how to host a web meeting. If you are wanting to connect with your clients and go through documents with them. Um, I've got a really easy way to do that that I walk you through. So stick around later for that link. But let's get into the intro and then I'll come back and talk about some tips to help you guys work remote. If you are used to being in a physical location,

Speaker 2: (01:48)
you're listening to the grand life of real estate podcast where we talk about everything from productivity tips, social media strategies, business hacks, and more to get ahead of the curve and crush it as a real estate sales professional. Whether you office out of a model home or your car where leopard print and high heels never go out of style. Here's your host, top producing real estate agent, social media strategist, and for baby mama Stephanie Linda mood.

Speaker 1: (02:20)
All right, so the first area that I thought was important, especially when I thought back when I was in the sales office and even when I started my journey of going paperless about six years ago in my real estate business was your actual physical files. So a lot of times if you're selling new homes or if you're a real estate agent, you have files of all your customer's information. And so what happens is if you leave the office, you either have to take your files with you or you've got to refer back to them, call your assistant if you need information about those files. So what I would recommend if that's the situation you're finding yourself in, if it's possible to just get a spreadsheet created where you've got rows and columns, a first name, last name, address, close date, you know, if there's a realtor or not, whatever the details are that you're going to need just to make sure that you have an idea of all of your backlog.

Speaker 1: (03:13)
I would do that in some kind of Excel spreadsheet or Google drive sheet or whatever it is. And um, that way you know exactly what's going on. If you need to talk to your builder or your loan officer about contracts or that kind of thing, you've just got that information right in front of you. The other thing's going to be contact information. So a lot of times contact information again is also in that file. I would highly recommend starting some kind of process where you put them into Google contacts or if you've got outlook as your um, email client, go ahead and putting them in that, putting them in your cell phone. And I've got some automation tips and tricks that I use to do all that. But just really focusing on what you had that's paper-based and getting it digital. That way you can work remote that way.

Speaker 1: (03:57)
It's easier if for some reason you can't go into work, you've got all the files and everything at your fingertips in your phone, on your devices and then storing all that in like a cloud based solution, whether it's your email folders, whether it's Google drive, whether it's Dropbox, just so that it's very assessable. Um, the second thing I would say is we guarding physical info is like the other thing you want to do in addition to your physical files is any kind of data, any information that you normally use when you are selling homes to help your clients go through the process. So whether it's price sheets, whether it's for plans, pricing of upgrades, um, if it's, you know, brochures of community centers of the area, whatever it is, go ahead and try to scan that stuff in. So when I was in new construction, I had like my work Bible and that everything in it, it was literally a three ring binder and I would go through it with the customers in person.

Speaker 1: (04:53)
So if you have that, try to make digital copies of everything so that if you need to share stuff online, even if you're going into the office, you may have buyers that are trying to buy homes from afar because they don't want to come in. So it's not just if you're not going to be in the office, it could be you're in the office, but you have to figure out a way to make these materials digital for your clients that you've never had to make digital before. So think about any tools that you use in your office, whether it's your inventory flyer, your standard features, staining specifications, and creating digital copies of that so that you can share those via email, that you can share those, the clients, um, by sending the documents, that kind of thing. And then the second big thing to think about is your communication with your clients.

Speaker 1: (05:39)
So right now, whether you're in the office and they're coming in by appointment only, or maybe you are meeting everyone virtually, like I've been doing virtual listing appointments for about two weeks now it's finding a solution. So a really good solution that's going to be easy to use. It doesn't cost any money if you're on the free plan is you can hold a webinar via zoom. And I have a, um, a tutorial that I filmed the other day for you guys, that if you guys want to click a link, I'll give it at the end of this podcast episode that you can actually go on and check it out. I walk you through how to use it so that you're not scared so that you're not practicing on your clients. But basically it enables you to hold an online meeting where you're looking at your client face to face using your computer camera.

Speaker 1: (06:24)
You can use the speakers for in Mike from your computer. That's no problem. And the cool thing is you can also share documents. So I show you in the video how you can actually share documents. You can walk through it with them versus just sending it to them. So that's key. Like when I do a virtual listing appointment, I want to walk through my same um, presentation. I want to walk through the comparables, the net sheet, I still want to see their expression when I give them their numbers. When we talk about value, that's really, really important to see their body language. And it goes beyond just a FaceTime call where you're trying to hold a phone up. You're only being able to look really at one person. It really gives you a sense for the entire audience. And then if for some reason you need to loop your loan officer or your builder in and they're able to join the zoom call, all you have to do is send them a link.

Speaker 1: (07:10)
So that's one of the tips that I really highly recommend. You've probably not had to use it unless you've dealt with a lot of out of state buyers. But that's a tip that I think it's going to be huge because again, we don't really know how long this is going to go on. And even after this goes on and life gets back hopefully to normal, this is going to enable you guys to have some skills in the business that you don't maybe not have right now that's going to allow you to be more nimble as we move forward just with more of a technological age that we're in. Um, as far as electronic signatures, if you guys haven't been utilizing a tool like a DocuSign, that's something you'll definitely want to look into where you can load in your documents into DocuSign. You can apply initial and signature placeholders for your customers that they can sign electronically.

Speaker 1: (07:59)
And then you could send that to them. And if you wanted to review the documents face to face via a zoom meeting, you could totally do that. So that's gonna enable you to be able to get electronic signatures so you're not having to have them come into your office and what signing and making copies of the copy machine. And it just allows things to get to corporate faster because they're copied on the email. Whenever the document is executed, you're good to go. So first step is getting all your physical information digitized. Second step is figuring out your communication with your clients and figuring out how to digitize that as well as document signing. And then the third area is going to be dish the general sells process. So when you have a client come to your model home, your community, you know, think about all the things that you talk about and that you showed them, that makes your community unique, that makes your homes unique.

Speaker 1: (08:50)
Um, and film that started filming that right now, documenting that and whether it's a tour of the community, whether it's a tour of the surrounding area, maybe you've got a couple of inventory homes you want to showcase. Yes, your builder's probably going to have virtual tours online, but those inventory homes that you have are specific to that particular home. The color palette, the home site, you know, it may have a great big tree in the backyard that none of your other homes do that you want to highlight. So I would highly recommend taking virtual, you know, walkthroughs, video walkthroughs of these homes and making sure that when you, after you take them, you upload them to a Dropbox or a Google drive because then if you want to share them with your customers, you're able to do so with a link, a shareable link versus trying to send them the entire video file.

Speaker 1: (09:34)
Because a lot of the email clients will have a size limit on the videos that you can send. So I highly recommend doing a specific neighborhood video, you know, anything that you would normally show a client, even if it's a model walkthrough, even just having your voice along with it as the salesperson versus just more of a generic virtual tour from your company. Those are great, don't get me wrong, but again, if you're talking to an agent or buyer and they hear your voice and you're the person they're also talking to, it's going to really build a lot of connection and rapport if they're not face to face with you. So, um, those are some tips that I was thinking through that I would definitely want to communicate and help you guys out with because I know these are just weird times. There's some home builders and some realtors that are saying home completely.

Speaker 1: (10:20)
There's some of us that are out and about and there's some that are playing the middle ground. So it's on all gamuts. And I don't think at this stage there's a right or wrong, it's just what you feel comfortable with. But if this helps you to build more connection with your clients, there are going to still be buyers out there. Because this is really, I think, um, allowing people to, I mean, people are gonna have some time off work. They're going to be able to think through where they really want to live. So from a real estate standpoint, I think we're actually going to be in really good shape. Yes, we, we're going to have some temporary times where maybe we have less showings on our homes and that's to be expected physical showings. But I guarantee you guys, the internet traffic is up. So anything you can do that's internet based, that's digital, that's virtual is really gonna help you.

Speaker 1: (11:05)
And if you can take some time now, if you are slower and get some of your systems and processes set up, it's only going to help you out when you get busier, especially if this carries on a little bit. But then also in general, if you're digitized moving forward, it's only gonna benefit you in the long run. As we have more clients that are out of state that want to do business, maybe not coming into the sales office that they work nights or something like that, you're going to be able to set yourself up to really communicate with people in the ways that they want to be communicated with. Sometimes that's going to be them coming into the office, but other times you're going to separate yourself. Being able to really impact them from a digital standpoint. So I think it's a positive if that's how we look at it.

Speaker 1: (11:46)
If we can learn some new skills and new tools along the way. So if you want to check out that webinar tutorial that I'm walking through, you can go to the glam girl, boss.com forward slash webinar tutorial. Again, that's the glam girl, boss.com forward slash webinar tutorial. I know this episode was a little short, but like I said before, we had a great guest lined up, but we just both decided it was better to just hold off for a few weeks cause there's a lot going on. And even though the episode is recorded previously, we just didn't want anything to get misconstrued about nobody taking the situation at hand, not seriously enough. So, um, rest assured we will get back on track with the schedule. If you guys have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. If you want to check out that webinar tutorial, you can go to the glam girl, boss.com forward slash webinar tutorial. Have you guys say healthy and safe and we'll talk to you soon.