Hello, everyone. From Realtors Property Resource®, this is The Wow Factor. I'm Reggie Nicolay and I'm joined by my co-host Genie Willett. We're here to apply our 20-plus years of marketing experience to help you identify practical tips and winning strategies and help you gain the attention of potential clients. Each month we'll explore a new topic, interview an industry expert, and then break down the how-to in the quick tutorial, all with the goal of helping you "wow" your clients and close more deals.
Welcome back. We're very excited for the episode today. It feels like we're starting to get the hang of this. Okay, some of us, I'm sorry most of us, are starting to get the hang of this, though we still may be figuring out some of the challenges from this work from home thing. Thank you. So funny. Hey, the same thing is going on over here. Hey, at least we're all in it together, whether we're trying to homeschool the kids or just manage our work calls with our spouses. We're just trying to get through these strange new circumstances while staying safe. Yeah, and it seems like we're all going to be managing this in some form or another for an undetermined amount of time, which is why I really love that we're being able to talk to REALTORS® all across the country on how they're running their business and finding new and creative ways to do it, so that's gonna be the continuing theme here on The Wow Factor.
Business looks like it's gonna keep being unusual and we want to help you navigate the ups and downs by bringing new stories from REALTORS® across the country who are finding new and innovative ways to manage their business.
We have an awesome guest today, Neal Oates, Jr. He's going to talk to us about a fun RPR hack he uses in his social media campaigns as well as some tips geared towards making sure you keep your business affiliates as part of your network even when business has slowed. And a quick reminder of the flow of the show: after our interview, we'll talk to the "What's New and What's Next" guys and then Reggie will do a quick tutorial on RPR in the breakdown. And don't forget, if you haven't already, subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up to date on all things RPR. Alright, let's talk to Neil.
Today we're talking with Neal Oates, Jr., president and chief executive officer of the Hollywood, Florida-based, World Renowned Real Estate, which has provided home marketing services since 2014. Hey, Neal. So excited to have you on the show. They say the third guest's a charm, so the pressure's on. Wait, I thought the pressure was off. Thank you for joining us Neal. By the way, great interview with the Miami Herald. I recently read it and I knew we had to have you on the show.
It's really crazy world we're living in right now and honestly it's great to hear how REALTORS® are figuring out how to navigate their businesses and find success. You know, it's a strange market out there. Well, I am excited to be on and thank you all for reaching out. So I'm excited. Other than a little bit of pressure that's been put on me, I'm ready to rock and roll. Let's kick it off.
So how is your local market holding up as a lot of states begin to ease their shelter-in-place restrictions? Well, for us, you know, we're here in South Florida and with the shelter in place, safer at home. What we found were that as long as we took precautions, people still need to buy and sell. They still need a place to live, and I'm just fortunate as are all the REALTORS® here in South Florida, especially, that we were deemed essential and that we are in an environment where we can still do some actual real estate activities. How are your agents holding up? Are you doing anything specific for them? I believe that for myself as a broker and then Association execs around and leaders, they're saying alright, we do care about the sales and making sure that our agents are producing, but more important, how are they emotionally? Where was their their state of mind? How are they faring and coping with being away from everyone that they know? So I think that's the biggest focus, but then the second one is making sure that we're taking advantage of this opportunity to learn and grow. And are you diving in, and are you going to be better when we come out of this?
Neal, are there any topics that you really think an agent should be trying to add to their tool belt right now? Even though we've been forced to be adopters of technology? Now, I still believe that efficient, effective use of technology is going to be one of the biggest things that I hope people understand is never going away.
How are you maintaining your own business through all of this? Well, fortunately for myself and my agents, the entire way that we've built our business since 2014 has been virtual, right, so we didn't get hit, you know, as bad as, you know, many brick-and-mortar companies or brokerages. But for me, it has always been leveraging the relationship and the connection and we're just continuing to do the same thing right now. We're utilizing all of our social media platforms. Something that I love doing is video, so instead of, you know, just doing one-to-many video production or video efforts, I'm doing one off, one-to-one video. And the next thing that we're doing, I'm sending a lot of market value and property value reports to my sellers or potential buyers showing them what's happening, what the true numbers are, right, and the accurate, relevant information, what's happening in the market, where they're either owned or where they're looking at moving and that's just sparking conversation.
So, just to keep going on that, are you using RPR in any creative ways right now to meet the needs of your clients? A huge one for me is taking the report in PDF format and then many of the charts and graphs,
I just snip it or make that into a JPEG or a PNG file and I use it as a link or a thumbnail for the videos that I'm doing, or that will be the thumbnail for a YouTube that I'm doing on market update report. Because what I love about RPR is the quality of the reports and the graphs make it look like I have a advertising and marketing and research department, and I've said this before, it looks like I have that in my office,and that allows me to compete. I love this, too. This is such a good one and, you know, in, I know it seems basic to Neal, but it is, it's, it's a, it's going to be a great tip for a lot.
Is there any advice you'd give to REALTORS® navigating this environment right now? I would advise REALTORS® to look at and leverage your sphere of influence or your allied resources or affiliate partners right now. There are many title companies, lenders, you know, mortgage brokers, home inspectors who do Instagram live feeds with them to go live with them to their database of other agents for potential buyers or sellers because what's going to happen, the other professionals, those affiliate resources and partners, they're going to remember who thought of them in this season. And then when good things happen on the other side of this, when everything, when the sun is shining and the rainbows are out, they're going to say well, who helped me, who thought about, who was willing to teach a class for me on contracts when nothing, when no one else would because they were only focused on themselves, and if you could do that free of charge for an affiliate partner just to say, hey, let's do some co-branding, you know, on social, is next to nothing when it comes to expenses. It might cost some time for you but create a graphic. Let's put my name, your name together, let's get it out there, let's let both of our databases know what's happening and so that we can have growth and expansion for the two of us. So that's what I'm doing right now, and that's where I know my greatest return is going to come, and next to those one-off videos that I'm going, doing with individuals.
That's really awesome. Great tips. Yeah, thank you so much, Neal, for taking the time to chat with us today. This was fantastic.
Hey everyone. It's Mike coming at you with another installment of "What's New in RPR," and we've got a batch of fresh content for you this month. The first one is for commercial users. We call it "Ask an Expert." This commercial video series is made up of three different interviews with industry pros who are going to offer all kinds of advice and guidance. It's intended to help commercial practitioners improve the way they market their properties. Now that could be putting properties online, fine tuning email campaigns, or making sure agents do a thorough investment analysis. If you're a commercial or resi-mmerial, I'm confident you'll find a topic that appeals to you, so check that out.
Next up is our "Back 2 Biz" blog series. These are basically written-out blog article versions of our very popular "20-Minute Tuesday" webinar series. In each article, we'll take a look at how RPR users can leverage RPR to help them do business in the current climate. We're talking about running reports and posting them to social media, creating buyer tour reports with RPR mobile, how to conduct virtual buyer tours and so much more. Be sure to visit the RPR blog page for all that helpful content. That's a wrap on "What's New." Now it's time for Aaron and "What's Next." See ya!
Hey, everyone, hey Mike. Thanks for an awesome "What's New" low down. Some great nuggets for everyone out there. To keep it going, here's "What's Next from RPR." Well, we're at it again. Join us in June for our new webinar, delayed spring market, "RPR's Top Tips to Prepare for Upcoming Demand." We're going to show you how you can use RPR's market activity reports and buyer tool reports to guide your buyers and sellers. Being able to respond with accurate info at a moment's notice will only help your clients successfully react and make swift decisions when needed.
Also after the terrific response to last month's "Likes to Leads" webinar, we created the ultimate guide to Facebook lead ads for REALTORS®, which is publishing on the RPR blog in early June. Get ready to up your Facebook ad game. This playbook will cover everything from setting up your lead ad directly in Facebook to using RPR to create your lead magnet. Don't know what a lead magnet is? Stay tuned for this awesome guide coming soon. And with that, that's it for "What's Next." Now I'm gonna throw it back over to Reggie for "The Breakdown."
And now for "The Breakdown." In this segment, I'm gonna explore a tip Neal mentioned today during his interview when he was asked how he's using RPR right now. Neal mentioned that he often creates a report and then he'll grab just one chart and share that. This strategy works exceptionally well for social media newsletters or even a presentation, but how exactly is Neal doing that? Let's explore some options.
In this example we'll be using a few resources. First I'll create a market activity report in RPR, then using the report we'll select the chart that we want to focus on and we'll take a screenshot of it. And then, using Canva, we'll create a shareable image. By the way, Canva is a web-based tool designed to help you build graphics for social media presentations, brochures, and more. They provide thousands of preset layouts that can be adapted, or you can start from your own design from scratch. They also offer a free plan to help you get started quickly. Also, for this exercise you'll need to be able to create a screenshot on your computer. It's likely that you already have this feature built in. We've included a few short links below this video to help get you started. In my case, I prefer a third-party app for screenshots. It's called "Snagit." That's what I'll be using today. I will also provide that link below.
Let's get started by creating the market activity report in RPR for that. I'll visit RPR at narrpr.com. Then from the main search area here, I'll select "Market Activity." Now I'll enter my key market area. This can be anything from a neighborhood, a zip code, City, and beyond. For this example today, I'm going to use an intermediate neighborhood. It's north central Hollywood in Hollywood, Florida. Then I'll choose how far back I want to go for the result, and here's where you can choose which property status to include, and if you need it, additional search criteria can be accessed from the advanced search here. To continue, I'll choose the magnifying glass to search. From the search results, the filters here on the left can be used to narrow down the results even further, or we can go directly to creating the market activity report. By the way, quick pro tip: if you want your market activity report to represent a custom area, it's totally possible using the RPR map. I'm not going into that for this demo today, but we did link a blog post below titled "Create a Market Activity Report for Any Neighborhood," and you can use that for step-by-step directions to get you started.
Let's continue on and create the report. Here, from the reports generation page, I'll select "Market Activity Report." I'll select more details to make any needed customizations, and then we'll choose our download format for delivery, and now "Create Report." That's it. Now we just wait for the report to be complete. Now for this next part, get creative. I'm going to show you a couple of examples, but by all means, you're not limited to these. Really think about your business niche and align the graphic and the messaging to match. In my example, I'll play the role of listing agent. I'm looking to create a shareable graphic that I can add to Facebook and Instagram that piques the interest of my network. For that, I'm gonna turn to page two of my market activity report and you'll see a heat map showing estimated values for the area of my report. In my case, it's north central Hollywood. I also see estimated changes over the last month, the last quarter, the last 12 months, and the last 24 months. Let's take our screenshot of this graphic now. This visual will go nicely with the call to action that reads "How is your home value holding up in 2020?" We can also include our logo. We'll turn it into something that looks like this. Then, as prospects see your message, they can comment to get involved. And once they do, it's simple ask of their address, take that to RPR, and go and create yourself a mini property report that includes the RVM value on their home. You'll then email that back to your prospect. You could even ask them if they want to make an appointment so you can provide a deeper pricing analysis.
Okay, so what are you waiting for? Let's go build this thing. As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to be using Canva to make this graphic. Visit Canva at canva.com. If you prefer a different graphics program, great, by all means, use that. I selected Canva because it's web-based. They offer a free plan, and it makes sizing and layout of images hassle-free.
Okay so let's get started. I'm now logged into Canva. You can see they offer tons of templates that you can use as a starting point. I'll be starting from scratch. For that, select "Create a Design Now." Select one of the preset choices. Facebook post, it could be an Instagram post, Facebook cover, even presentation. There are lots of options here or you can even select custom dimensions to enter your own size. I'm going to choose Facebook post. Notice here on the left you can add templates, photos, elements, text, music, videos, backgrounds, even upload files and create folders. I'm going to start by selecting "Elements" and then dragging a square shape onto the canvas, then adjusting it to cover the top third of my design. Then I'll go ahead and change to blue. Next I'll select "Text" and scroll through the preset formats here. You can see a bunch of different options, and I'll look for one that's close to what I want. If you're on the free plan, make sure it says free. As you hover over, now drag the text to the layout on your canvas. These items are grouped by default. I like to ungroup so I have more control to move around. Right click here and choose "Ungroup." I'll add my text and change font colors to white. Let's go ahead and add in my text. Now get your free market report and there we go. I'll repeat for the sub-header "What is your home really worth?" turn it white and get the size correct. With Canva still open, I'm going to switch over to the market activity report and grab a screenshot of the chart that I'm going to be sharing, then, switching back to Canva, I'll paste. The chart should show up and you can adjust as needed. Now, if you happen to make a screenshot to an image you can use the uploads link here on the left to add that. Now I'm gonna go ahead and add our logo and resize as necessary. Also, we can add some extra text here to show prospects how they can participate. We'll say something like "get your report by typing ‘tell me more' in the comments below." Okay. As you can see, these graphics come together pretty quickly. If you like what you've done and you want to duplicate your work and make some subtle changes, there's a duplicate button here. When you're finished, select the down arrow to download your graphic file. Now you can upload that to the destination of your choice.
And with that, I hope you enjoyed this week's edition of "The Breakdown."
Reggie, I'm loving these RPR hacks. It's so fascinating how many different ways you can use the system for your business. I totally agree. I also loved how Neil talked about joining forces with others in the business right now. Honestly, we should all take note. Let's lift each other up and see how we can help one another now and even when things return to normal.
Also, for those of you watching today, let us know how you're doing. Keep us posted on the wins and the struggles, and if there's any particular RPR hacks or tricks or just good old "how to"s you'd like us to cover, we want to hear about it.
Thank you so much for joining us. This is Reggie and Genie, signing off. Stay safe out there.
