Drew Burks
By Drew Burks
Breaking News …
OK, this is hardly breaking news, but after 10 years in the real estate game this may come as a shock to a few people. To be honest, it kind of shocked me that I am actually throwing in the towel!
The past couple of years I have come to understand that my purpose in life is not to help people buy and sell homes, but I think I always knew this. The real eye opener came when I realized that my life purpose was not to help REALTORS® find a way to be more successful, because I truly believed that was my life’s mission.
The good news is that I now see clearly, what my life’s purpose is. But that is another blog post, you can read it on my blog: Drew Burks. Right now I want to explain why I am officially quitting real estate and what I mean when I say quit real estate.
I quit being a “REALTOR®” and being a “real estate broker for licensed salespersons.”
I will continue paying my REALTOR® dues, volunteering my time for the San Diego REALTOR® Association and possibly NAR. I have created a strategic partnership with three San Diego REALTOR® teams to develop online lead generation funnels in exchange for a referral fee on closed deals.
OK, so now that you have a clear understanding of what I mean when I say I quit real estate, let me tell you why I quit …
I closed a short sale transaction early January 2011 with awesome buyer clients. My clients were referred to me from one of my favorite past clients. I worked with these new buyers for more than a year, showed them close to 200 homes, and finally …
… they found a house they really loved AND of course it was a short sale! But this wasn’t really the problem or what made me throw in the towel. The two primary reasons I quit are:
1. The realization of just how little control a REALTOR® has when it comes right down to it. More on this shortly. Continue reading »
Drew Burks
By Drew Burks
Are You Distracted?
In today’s world most of us are overwhelmed with information, new products, and services, most of which provide little more than distraction to the average person.
As a REALTOR®, it is definitely easy to get caught up in the hype of the latest technologies; after all, most of them are very appealing with the promises of making our lives easier and more profitable. Last week I attended the CAR Tech Tuesday event in Anaheim, Calif. and while there I had many great conversations with REALTORS®, but one really stood out in my mind …
“How does one cut through all of the noise that we are bombarded with to get to the dollar-producing activities?”
CAR added a fun twist to the event this year, they had a “meet the speakers” during a “speed networking” session. This was by far the best part of the day for me. Those of us who spoke at the event got the chance to do 4-minute sessions with approx 25-30 groups of approximately 30 people. The common questions asked by the REALTOR® attendees in these different groups were things like: Continue reading »
Drew Burks
By Drew Burks
Video Marketing Attracts More Clients!
With more than 2 billion videos viewed on YouTube each day, it’s obvious that video is HOT! So why aren’t more real estate pros using video marketing to attract quality home buyers & sellers to their business?
Most REALTORS® tell me that they don’t know where to start or how to create content, so I decided to write a short post to help those who are struggling to move past this obstacle.
- Client Testimonials – think about it! How cool to have past clients on video telling the world what a great REALTOR® you are and how much they enjoyed working with you. I can already hear the objections … “my clients aren’t comfortable doing this or being on camera“. I understand, not everyone will be … BUT a few will be happy to do so.
- Home Buying Tips – record a series of short videos to educate home buyers to important / helpful tips when buying a home. A brainstorm ideas to get you going: explain why they need to be pre-approved.
- Home Selling Tips – record a series of short videos to educate home sellers to the important / helpful tips when selling a home. A few brainstorm ideas to get you going: importance of staging a home, packing up clutter/personal items and removing from the house before putting on the market, establishing the best price, etc… Continue reading »
Drew Burks
By Drew Burks
2010 Real Estate Connect San Francisco
This is one event I have always wanted to attend but never have. Well, this year I made the choice to not only attend the event but to participate with my fellow YPNers during the afternoon session of Agent Reboot.
Life is what we make it and we get out of life whatever we put into it!
Anyone who has attended RE Connect in past years will most certainly tell you this event is a smart investment of your money and time, so why would you not attend?
That is a great question! I figure some of you may be on the fence about whether or not you should take the time away from family and work, or to spend the money just to attend this three-day conference, so I came up with the following for you to consider …
… 3 reasons not want to attend the 2010 RE Connect SF event July 13-15 Continue reading »
Drew Burks
By Drew Burks
Does Facebook Privacy have you concerned?
Lately, it seems like everyone is concerned about their online privacy …
… I can’t help but ask what are you hiding?
As a real estate professional, I use social media sites to expand and grow my business first and foremost; therefore, I want my information to be found easily. In fact, I go out of my way to optimize my online presence so that more people will find it.
I was teaching a class on Facebook to REALTORS(R) last week and I actually had someone ask me if I felt it was safe to put your phone number on social media sites …
… Are you kidding me?
I was also asked several other questions like:
- What kind of information is OK to post?
- Is it OK to post my hobbies & interests?
- Should my profile picture be professional or casual?
- Is it OK to accept friend requests from other REALTORS(R)?
- Is it OK to unfriend someone or hide them from my news feed?
My advice is … Continue reading »
Drew Burks
By Drew Burks
What’s in a number?
I think we can all agree that not much has changed in the real estate industry over the years; so when social media took the world by storm, it was exciting to see how well it was received by real estate practitioners. Unfortunately, there is an underlying principle being taught to practitioners and it is causing more frustration with social media than anything.
You see, no matter how great a tool is, if you use it incorrectly you will get less than desirable results!
I have attended just about every REALTOR® training & coaching event available to our industry over the last eight to nine years, and most are all teaching the same flawed principle. It is this principle that causes practitioners to struggle to close more deals.
So what is the principle reason most real estate pros struggle to close more deals?
The No. 1 reason is very simple… most of us were told to focus on the wrong thing: “Sales is a numbers game!”
Sales is NOT a numbers game! Yes, I know this flies in the face of everything we have been told, so let me explain. Focusing on “leads” is all wrong; this strategy is creating more struggles for you than profits. Continue reading »
Drew Burks
By Drew Burks
It’s 11:30 p.m. as I’m writing this, my baby boy is finally sleeping, and all is quiet… and I just remember that I promised to submit a this blog post for YPN tomorrow.
I must admit, I am feeling a bit panicked… you know that feeling of being behind, with time running out quickly. I have one concern as time ticks by quicker and quicker, what am I going to possibly write about that can add value to our readers at the last minute?
So I figured I would surf the internet to see what I could find. I rarely surf the internet, but I just spent the last 15-20 minutes doing so and I found some pretty cool stuff that I found interesting and some even helpful. So allow me to share:
Three YouTube Tricks
1. Cut to the chase & link directly to the relevant part of a video.
Have you ever found a video on YouTube that has something cool or funny you would like to share, but hate that you have to watch the first 4:10 minutes before you get to the part? With this simple trick you can link people to the specific point in the video so they don’t get bored during the first few minutes. You can send them a link and have the video start at 04:10? All you have to do is add #t=04m10s (#t=XXmYYs for XX mins and YY seconds) to the end of the URL.
2. Autoplay an embedded video.
Normally, when you embed a YouTube video, the player is loaded and sits there waiting for the play button to be pressed. You can make the video play automatically by adding ‘&autoplay=1′ to the url part of the embed code. Continue reading »
Drew Burks
By Drew Burks
So what’s all the Buzz?
It is safe to say that I am a believer in social media and blogging! To my surprise, many are not and I know this because I hear from countless people daily…
… “I have a website with a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn account and as of this week I now have Google Buzz but I am not getting any business from them!”
“What am I doing wrong?” they ask.
Before I answer that, let me clear something up for all you non-believers: Social Media is just another tool that you have available AND if you don’t know how to use it effectively you will get very poor results.
Now that we have that out of the way, let me share with you the 5 secrets to attracting motivated clients through social media! They are simpler than you might think. Continue reading »
Drew Burks
By Drew Burks
I’ve heard it said that …
… “Life is all about who you know.”
But, I believe there is something even more important.
Who Knows You?
That’s right… who knows you is far more important than who you know. This may be one of the most valuable benefits of social media and quite possibly the one area that most people are missing. Social media is your opportunity to build and expand your brand awareness, but you don’t do this by friending just anyone that will accept your friend request.
Social Media isn’t a competition, there is no award given out to the one with the most friends and fans.
Too many people focus on the wrong things like, adding friends/fans and relentlessly broadcasting their message down the consumer’s throat.
If you are doing a good job being you, being authentic and being relevant, people will want to add you as a friend to expand their network! In other words, they will want to know you! Brooke did a great job with her recent post “Being Business Effective via Social Networking” when she explained the need to:
- Make yourself worth following
- Respond to your friends, fans, and followers
- Give to receive
Who Knows You?
Let’s think about this for a moment. We all love getting referrals and who gives us referrals? That’s right, people who know us give us referrals.
Here is a good article about using social media effectively to manage your online reputation. Social media can help you increase the number of people who know you. The more people who know you the greater your business will be.
Spend your time being relevant, adding value to others, leaving people and situations better than they were when you met them — and people will know you.
Drew Burks has built a brokerage in San Diego, Dream Design Realty, with a unique twist on an old business model. His Web site is devoted to helping real estate pros succeed with technology: www.WebRealEstateTools.com.
Drew Burks
By Drew Burks. 2009 NAR Conference Blogger
Downtown San Diego had a special electricity in the air this morning. As I was pulling up to the Stingaree, location where RE BarCamp is being held, I immediately noticed small groups of people buzzing around. The energy was similar to small children waiting to open gifts on Christmas morning, anticipation and enthusiasm oozing from every person there.
It was a who’s who of the Social Media and Blogging world. One person commented to me that this was his first barcamp and what he immediately noticed was the positive attitude from everyone there. He was correct, there was no negative attitudes or haters.
Maybe it’s all the hard work put in by the volunteers or the beginning of a “movement” as Jim Marks stated in his opening comments, but I am not sure there was a better group of people in the world to be around than the group of people who were at RE BarCamp San Diego this morning.
That’s it for now…I gotta get back to the bar camp and learn more from all these great people.
Recent Comments