Web Marketing for Estate Agents by Graham Hunt - Reviewed

Being a real estate agent anywhere in the world is difficult, especially so when the agent is battling a crisis in the property markets, and competition is stiff. Graham Hunt is one of those agents, yet he is still in business and thriving because he has developed a system for managing his time, his clients, his workflow, and now has more time to show prospective buyers through properties without upsetting his family routine.

• Improve sales in a competitive property market
• Automate marketing tasks and optimise property listings for search engines
• Spend more face time with clients and build good relationships

How has Graham managed? Quite simply he understands what it means to be a professional, and he knows how to use the tools at his disposal to make his life easier. Those tools are an iphone, an ipad, a Kodak video camera, a laptop computer, the most common social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and a lot of enthusiasm.

This book is about marketing, about the new paradigms and techniques of marketing and how you can apply them to your real estate business in a brave new world, a world where the power of social networks and recommendations allied to the irresistible force and growth of the Internet and those same social networks allows you to buck the trend and prosper if you know what you are doing. As an estate agent you need to know this now more than ever.

However, let me tell you I'm not a real estate agent. I'm an Internet Marketer, and Web Marketing for Estate Agents isn't just for realtors. Some of the infrmation, perhaps 15% is only applicable to the real estate industry, the rest can be adapted easily enough by anyone with the interest to do so.

When Graham first told me about Web Marketing for Estate Agents we were sitting on his terrace overlooking the pool and garden, and he was telling me how wonderful it was to be able to relax in the afternoon instead of being stuck in the office. His secret was simple. All the emails he needed to send had already been sent because Graham answers his emails or replies to Facebook conversations while waiting in queues or as he walks from the car to his office. You see Graham uses his mobile phone as a mobile office.

Purpose of the Book

Web Marketing for Estate Agents is quite simply the bible of real estate marketing for any agent who wants to succeed. This book is equally suitable for agents or agency managers, though it does require a degree of personal commitment that probably means individual agents will gain the most from reading and then actioning Graham's system.

Graham Hunt has been selling real estate in Spain during boom times and bust, and it was the beginnings of the latest financial crisis that nearly put him out of business, until he realised that working harder is not the same thing as working smarter. Selling real estate is like any other professional service. Customer care is the number one factor that brings in the business, but systems need to be in place to make sure clients don't fall through the cracks.

In essence, Graham has automated the process of getting information to clients and property vendors as much as possible, allowing him to follow up with a personal phone call that means he can get straight to the point and give his clients 100% of his attention without being distracted with trying to find the information the client needs.

In Web Marketing for Estate Agents, Graham reiterates over and over again, the only way to be successful to put information into the market that develops trust and a professional relationship between agent and clients. Without this the client will always see the agent as something nasty they might step on in the street.

It's an unfortunate analogy, but probably quite true. The point is that Graham tells in his area, perhaps only 15% of all buyer enquiries are actually responded to by many real estate agents. So it doesn't take much effort to excel, and with just a bit more effort the agent who follows Graham's system is going to be a winner.

My Review of Web Marketing for Estate Agents

I've already stated I'm not a real estate agent, but I do dabble in helping people who plan to live in the Ronda area, and my own business is growing month on month due to the advice I get from Graham. Just by way of disclosure, I'm Andy, the owner of Ronda Today (see my intro video on the home page).

Getting to the nuts and bolts of this book, I generally only buy ebooks, this way I can read them at leisure wherever I am on my phone or tablet. So the version of Graham's book I'm reviewing is the ebook version, it's 95 pages but the first 5 or so are taken up with copyright, the front cover etc, so around 90 pages of useful info.

The next few pages, describe how Graham created his system, and whilst these pages aren't directly useful they do give an insight into his mindset after breaking a collar bone and not being able to work in the traditional sense and being forced to look for innovative ways to promote his business whilst not being able to go to the office. My own thinking is that Graham has cleverly weaved a personal story of needing to innovate, and gives the reader a baseline to work from so in that sense his story starts the book well.

What Graham discovered, his killer secret if you like to use over-hyped marketing words, is that the world has moved on from customers looking in your shop window and then asking you to do business with them. The way the world operates now is that almost anyone can be informed using the Internet, and then choose the company or person they want to deal with based on having developed a sense of trust.

At this point the book starts to get very interesting, as Graham systematically introduces the reader to the tools he uses to make his workflow more efficient, which frees up personal time, and gives him two major advantages over his competition. First, he has more free time with his family, they are his rock and give him the motivation to keep working every day, but secondly, it gives Graham more face to face time with his clients because the system of giving information can be automated to a large extent.

Using YouTube, Posterous, Facebook, Twitter, cloud based file sharing, and specific applications on his mobile that allow Graham to schedule contacts with clients means the system works without too much human involvement after it is already built up, and this refers interested buyers to Graham's website, and in most cases directly to the property they are interested in.

Aside from the obvious biggies of Facebook and Twitter, the other biggie that most real estate agents will want to make sure they have is an iphone with applications that Graham will recommend to make it easier to update property details.

Several chapters of the book cover the other tools, how to set them up, and how to use them to benefit your business, such as using photo management and manipulation software, finding keywords that give you a boost in the search engines for your property listings, and using but not actively participating in a bunch of web platforms that give your listings an extra push reaching potential clients.

Many of the techniques used by Graham may seem like a waste of time, for example setting up profiles on social media sites you'll never visit, but these all help drive visitors to your website and can be updated automatically, so after the initial setup they don't consume a lot of time.

Once again, the message that is reiterated throughout the book is that automating and streamlining workflow has a direct impact on quality of life and quality of work for the agent. The more time you have at the end of the day to relax, the more time you have with family and friends. The more efficient your workflow, the more time you can invest in each client to give them exceptional service.

Outcomes from Reading Web Marketing for Estate Agents

All in all, this is a guide for real estate agents, and if followed correctly will start to have an impact on business very soon. It will more than likely take most realtors a couple of weeks to set everything up, but after that the system should be immediately effective, and then it only requires time for enough momentum to build up. People like myself who don't sell real estate will easily get as much value from the book, with perhaps 5 pages not relevant.

At $27 this is a book that should be on your list of 'must reads'. Immediate gains might not be possible for most people, but if it doesn't start increasing your property enquiries in the first month then you haven't read it.