But buried deep within those pages are what might be the two most important statements in the entire report.  Not only are they critically important, but when taken together, should be a major wake-up call for every single real estate professional. Here they are:

• “Age of buyers shifted slightly downwards in 2012 from 2011. The median age of home buyers fell from 45 to 42-years-old… The largest share of buyers remained in the 25 to 34 age group, which rose to 30 percent from 27 percent in 2011.” (page 9)

• “Ninety-six percent of homebuyers under 44 years of age used the Internet in their home search.” (page 42)

Translation: Our customers are getting younger while we are getting older, and they have different shopping habits than we do.

Many of us think of today’s real estate customer and we project what we might do if we were shopping for a home, and that’s a huge mistake.

But why should we care?  Because our most important job and our single largest expense is attracting today’s customers to work with us.  If we are from Mars and they are from Venus, it should be no surprise if our real estate practice is in decline as is the case with many of us.

Today’s customers have grown up with computers and are more comfortable searching online than offline.  Most don’t even have a phone book.  Most use their smart phones interchangeably with their computers and tablets.  Most have to look to even find a pen or piece of paper to write on.  For them, online is a way of life.

That makes today’s real estate shopper a lot different from many of today’s agents.  Just how different?  Check out the following ten real estate marketing methods and see if you are guilty of any of these next generation marketing faux pas.

1. I rely on my yard signs to bring me business.  Sure, for years that was the largest source of new customers, but today’s shopper has already engaged an agent he found online by the time he begins riding neighborhoods looking for houses.

2. My circle of influence is where my customers come from.  Today’s customers network, but are statistically more independent than in times past.  They are actively involved, first hand, in online research and they are sceptical of the opinions of others.

3. My website doesn’t bring me any business.  Today’s customers are happy to use your free home search and feel no obligation to use you as their agent to list or buy a home.  The typical real estate website is not designed with this in mind.

4. I use open houses because they are free.  Most of today’s customers don’t read the local newspaper (the place we have typically publicized our open houses) and they are typically committed to another agent by the time they actually begin previewing homes.

5. I use homes magazines to find shoppers.  Today’s customer searches online because it is a better, and more comprehensive source of information, pictures, virtual tours, etc.  A snapshot in a magazine that contains less than 5% of the current inventory is of little value to them.

6. I like to sit new construction model homes.  Today’s customers are still working when you’re leaving the long day in the model home.  It is much easier for them to look at new construction virtual tours online where they have access to subdivision covenants, upgrades, and no pressure from a hungry agent.

7. I have always relied on direct mail.  Today’s customers sort their mail over the trash can and are very unlikely to contact a stranger from a postcard or  newsletter. Instead, they are quick to use the internet to find what they are looking for when the time is right.

8. My broker tells me I should have a geographic farm.  You broker clearly doesn’t realize the demographic shift over the last 10 years.  Today’s shoppers would much sooner trust an internet search than a stranger who showed up at their door with a refrigerator magnet.

9. I get my business from floor duty.  There was a time when customers had to call the office listed on the ad or the yard sign to get information.  Today’s customer can have more and better information using the internet and not have to talk to a pushy agent on the phone.

10. My customers like my newsletter.  No they don’t.  They much prefer following you using online social media like Facebook and Twitter.  Today’s real estate shopper rarely looks at direct mail pieces. Your time would be much better spent posting personal pictures and comments on Facebook.

So if your old-school marketing is not  having the same effect it once did, the reason is simple.  As the old song said, “The times they are a changin’.”  The demographic shift and the technology revolution have forever changed our business.

Today’s customers want an agent who can send them a text message.  Who sends emails and instant messages instead of leaving voice mails.  Today’s customer is comfortable with technology and uses it non-stop — almost like breathing.  And most importantly, today’s customer wants to work with someone like him — someone online.

But thankfully, it’s not hard to be that agent.  Most of us are already part-way there.  According to the latest statistics, though, most of us are not generating much if any business from online sources.  Instead, we are hanging onto what feels comfortable to us and not making the effort to meet our customers where they’re comfortable — online.

So if you feel like you need to improve your online marketing, why don’t you check out my LCM technology.  This simple system can take you from no online business to mostly online business almost overnight, and best of all it includes all the hand-holding required to get you up to speed and comfortable using it.

The cost has never been lower and with no long-term contract you can give it a try to see if it is right for you.  Start working smarter and not harder.  Start being that agent who gets new customers while you’re sleeping instead of wasting weekend after weekend hoping to pick up a customer from an open house.

Does the thought of making this transition seem overwhelming?  Believe me, it’s not.  But check out my interactive demo and see for yourself.  And feel free to call me if you have any questions.  I’m always happy to help. This could be the year you reinvent your practice, and with all your new online business it could easily be your best year ever!

Take The Test Drive!

Matt Jones is the founder and CEO of FavoriteAgent.com, nationally syndicated columnist, broker, and best selling author of LCM: The Secret to Success in the New Age of Real Estate, The Ultimate Listing Presentation, Traffic: How to Sell Fast and Net More, Becoming a Mega-Producer, The Science of Online Marketing, 10 Steps to Real Estate Success, 20 Questions: Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Real Estate but Were Afraid to Ask, The Virtual Office Model, Max-Bang!, and The NEW Ultimate Listing Presentation. Jones' North Carolina-based company has been profiled by major media outlets as an innovator and a pioneer in the industry, and CNN's Pulse on America claimed FavoriteAgent.com is "changing the way real estate is being done in America." This article is syndicated in the following locations: iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher Radio, BlogMattBlog.com, RealBlogging.com, NewsGeni.us, TheCommissionCheck.com, RevampedAgent.com, and now Amazon Kindle.

Encouragement to shift from reacting to current conditions to proactively creating new channels of creativity through which inspired, innovative action can flow.

Contrary to the majority of business coaches we believe that holding our clients accountable for anything is an utter waste of time-theirs and ours. For those of you who seek to consistently command the lion’s share of your marketplace, or a niche therein, there is absolutely no need for motivation tactics from your coach.

If you feel the need to be held accountable to achieve a goal of this caliber, motivation is the last thing that will work. It may be a quick fix at best, and it will not produce enduring results. Your passion and your competition should keep you engaged in the game and on your toes. Or, you might as well get out of the game, altogether.

There is no amount of wheedling, prodding, cajoling, coaxing, persuading, sweet-talking, enticing, invalidating, flattering or intimidating that will get you where you want to go.

Unwavering support and encouragement to dissolve your own self-doubts (the only thing that can stop you from consistently realizing your dreams) is the “secret sauce” that is required from your coach.

In this article series, we will discuss how proactively opening new channels of creativity can not only be the catalyst to attract new and exciting opportunities, but also to open the flood-gates of bountiful career satisfaction and self-actualization.

What if I told you the next five years in real estate could set you up for a massive retirement — much bigger than you probably ever considered?  Why?  Because real estate is coming back and it’s coming back huge!

Every day there’s another news report that real estate is finally beginning to make a huge comeback.   Many believe that the current recovery will be just as big as the crash — bigger than any real estate boom in history.

Like most booms, though, it will happen fast, and many will be left sitting on the sidelines and miss  a huge opportunity.  How will they miss it?  Because they won’t realize it’s happening until it’s too late, because they are still looking for customers where there are no customers.

And just like most booms, you can bet the 80/20 rule applies:  In other words, 80% of the agents will miss out while 20% catch and ride the biggest real estate wave ever, making massive incomes and setting themselves up for life in only a few short years.  And I’m not just talking about millionaire real estate investors; I’m talking about regular agents selling residential real estate. Don’t believe me?  Okay, well just sit back and watch while some of your peers get rich.

The secret to taking advantage of this next housing boom is being the agent who knows how to find the customers.  There are plenty of customers, but most agents using all the old-school methods are grabbing only a fraction of the potential business.  Why?  Duh!  If you want to catch fish, you have to go where the fish are biting.  And real estate is no different.

According to the latest data from the National Association of Realtors all but 5% of today’s homebuyers are starting online.  That means if you aren’t effectively fishing online, then don’t be surprised if you don’t catch many fish.  And I don’t mean having a website.  I mean having a website that brings in customers.  A website that actually works.

Most agents — the 80% — spend tons of money on marketing and have very little to show for it.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  On the other hand, a few agents — the other 20% who know the secret to finding customers online, are doing better and spending less than ever before.  Every day they get up to find 2-3 new customers in their inbox and many don’t spend a dime on advertising.

What makes this possible is three little letters: L-C-M. Remember these letters — they stand for Lead… Capture… Module. Now, you probably have no idea what an LCM is and that’s okay.  But know this: Using this simple and yet incredible tool many agents had business even when the bottom fell out, and now as the boom is starting, they’re starting to close transactions like never before.

Better yet, they don’t have to invest tons on advertising.  I can tell you that I personally don’t spend a dime on advertising and yet I’m getting 2-3 new, inbound leads every single day, day in and day out, because I use my LCM.

An LCM gateway is a simple website designed to either stand alone or work with another website, and its sole purpose is capturing online shoppers.  Take a typical website that brings in no business, and add an LCM and some free advertising and you have 2-3 inbound customers every day, day in and day out.

Better yet, our geeks hold your hand to help you get it up and running so you’re not on your own like with so many technology tools you’ve tried before.  Instead of spending hours every single day fishing where the fish aren’t biting, you set up your LCM and watch as fish jump right into your boat — or inbox.  The first time you see it happen you’ll be amazed… and then the light will come on.

Listen, I know that many of you watching this video are thinking this sounds too good to be true.  It is too good to be true, but it IS true.  The LCM is the holy grail of online lead generation.  Nothing else even comes close.  I used to tell agents that my LCM is not a magic bullet, but one day I realized it IS a magic bullet.  Let me give you a couple of examples:

Take Kevin, a truck driver and part-time agent that wanted to make some extra money.  We helped him set up his LCM and in three months he had a choice to make:  Should he quit driving his truck and start doing real estate full-time?  After all, his part-time income was more than his full-time job.  He decided to go for it!

That first year Kevin made $351,623 and the next year he earned $541,298!  Having a never ending supply of business changed his life.  Made him rich too.  He bought a brand new SUV, a brand new convertible, and a 6,000 square foot mansion with  a 5 car garage, a detached office, and an olympic sized pool.  And that was while the market was still tanking.

Or there’s Charlyn, a single mom and new full-time agent who wrote:

“Matt, I HAD to email you. I’ve worked in and around the real estate business for years, but this is my first year as a full time agent.  I found your LCM technology last month, and I immediately knew that that’s what was missing from my practice. I set it up and posted my first free ad in about 15 minutes just like you showed me and I got two customers overnight!!! I called one lead immediately, got them qualified the SAME DAY, and now we are closing just three weeks after showing them their dream home!

Plus, I’m still getting 3-4 new customers per week from my FREE ads. I can honestly say I’m thrilled about my future in real estate, because I don’t have to worry about where my next customer will come from! Thank you!!!”

But don’t take their word for it.  Give it a try.  Unlike most technology, there’s no long term contract, and there’s no activation fee.  In fact, the cost of having the very best online technology for gathering business is a lot less than you might think.  It’s less than a cup of Starbucks a day.  That’s right, less than a cup of Starbucks a day!

Listen, I want you to imagine what it would be like to be in that 20% that catches this next incredible real estate boom.  Wouldn’t it be nice to work hard for the next five years and make enough money to never work another day?  With my LCM that can be a reality.  It can be YOUR reality.

This could be the moment you’ve been waiting for.  The key to turning things around.  In fact, if you’re currently doing traditional real estate, this IS your key to turning things around.  So give it a try.  I mean really, what do you have to lose except maybe some advertising bills.  Give it a try and you’ll see… you’ll have more business than you can handle starting your very first day.

Take The Test Drive!

Matt Jones is the founder and CEO of FavoriteAgent.com, nationally syndicated columnist, broker, and best selling author of LCM: The Secret to Success in the New Age of Real Estate, The Ultimate Listing Presentation, Traffic: How to Sell Fast and Net More, Becoming a Mega-Producer, The Science of Online Marketing, 10 Steps to Real Estate Success, 20 Questions: Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Real Estate but Were Afraid to Ask, The Virtual Office Model, Max-Bang!, and The NEW Ultimate Listing Presentation. Jones' North Carolina-based company has been profiled by major media outlets as an innovator and a pioneer in the industry, and CNN's Pulse on America claimed FavoriteAgent.com is "changing the way real estate is being done in America." This article is syndicated in the following locations: iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher Radio, BlogMattBlog.com, RealBlogging.com, NewsGeni.us, TheCommissionCheck.com, RevampedAgent.com, and now Amazon Kindle.

We are excited to announce that The Language of Luxury has been invited by our LOL media partner, Luxe Corp, to cover the Club e-Luxe International Summit in Paris on June 12, 2013. This is the premier annual event on marketing via digital media for the luxury goods and services industry. We will be broadcasting live from Paris online during and after the event.

Some of the luxury companies that have participated in recent Club e-Luxe events include LVMH, Gucci Group, Cartier, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Burberry, Boucheron, Hermès, Piaget, Chopard, Fabergé, Vertu, Hublot, Dior, Coty, Pernod Ricard, Rémy Martin, Sonia Rykiel, L’Oréal, Lanvin and several others.

The event will focus on the theme of “The Web Economy: Understanding How Digital Media is Re-writing the Rules of Luxury & Transforming Value Creation”. In addition to Web Economy, some of the topics to be addressed are: Digital Luxury Scorecard, Social Economy & Luxury, E-Commerce Economy & Luxury, Mobile Economy & Luxury, Digital Private Data Currency, E-Services Economy & Luxury, E-Communications Economy & Luxury, Digital Legal Frameworks, Virtual Reality Value, Digital Luxury Value in Asia and others.

Club e-Luxe which was created by Luxe Corp in 2006 in recognition of the important role of the internet, digital media and new technologies in luxury, has emerged to be the reference in digital luxury. The objective has remained to provide luxury companies with access to the most advanced strategies, knowledge, applications, systems, tools and concepts required for luxury to thrive online and offline in the context of new technologies and innovation.
Here is a link for more information:

http://www.luxe-corp.com/en/index.php/club-e-luxe

Chèvre with Peppercorns – Made with Goat’s Milk

-BRAND POSITIONING-

In Part 3 of this Luxury Real Estate Personal & Company Branding article series we discussed how Cowgirl Creamery, the Northern California (Sonoma County) producers of artisan organic cheeses, does not actually compete against global, mass-produced cheese brands, like Kraft’s Velveeta or Cheese Whiz. Their ideal customer is a sophisticated consumer with a discerning palate. We further clarified that the Cowgirl Creamery brand is sophisticated yet down to earth which resonates with the values of their ideal customers.

Red Hawk by Cowgirl Creamery – Made with Cow Milk

Many luxury real estate marketing professionals attempt to claim a similar brand position as they wrestle with their competition for the same target market. So, we posed this question:

“How can YOUR marketing message stand out in a sea of very similar communications from your competition who also claim they stand for the same thing?”

The answer is, get out of that wrestling match, all together! Find an uncontested or underserved lucrative market NICHE that you can serve better than anyone else and do so with passion. Here is a great example of another successful producer of artisan cheeses from the same county as Cowgirl Creamery.

Goat Milk Cheese VS Cow Milk Cheese

Goat cheese, or chèvre as it is called in France, has grown considerably in popularity in the United States. Laura Chenel is the recognized “pioneer” of American goat cheese production. From its humble beginnings in late 1970’s, Laura Chenel’s Chèvre has been acknowledged as America’s first name in chèvre.

The company’ state-of-the-art GOAT MILK ONLY creamery is located in Sonoma County’s famous Carneros region bordering Napa Valley. In 2006 Laura sold the company to the Rians Group, a French family of artisan cheese producers with a commitment to the same level of quality, tradition and artisan technique that Laura herself held.

Both Cowgirl Creamery and Laura Chenel’s Chèvre appeal to sophisticated consumers. Yet, like with Kraft cheeses, they are not really in direct competition with each other.

However, in relationship to OTHER GOAT CHEESE MAKERS, the harmonious blending of French technique and Sonoma terroir (geographic, geologic and climatic conditions), place Laura Chenel’s Chèvre more in the “highly sophisticated” end of the sophisticated spectrum for its brand position (see Part 3). Being the “first mover” in a new brand category further strengthens the authoritativeness of this brand position.

Your brand position is that part of your luxury brand identity and promise of value that you must actively communicate to your target market in such a way that it establishes a distinct advantage over your competition.

We hope you have enjoyed this article series on brand positioning and have understood the importance of articulating your own brand position. If you would like our assistance in clarifying and communicating your brand position in relationship to your competition, we would be delighted to be of assistance. That is our expertise.

Ever wonder how many people are buying and selling homes in your market today?  Take a wild guess!  Wilder.  Now double it.  You’re probably still low.  I’ll show you exactly how to find your own accurate number.

First you need to log into your MLS and find out how many transactions closed in the last twelve months.  Write that number down.  In my MLS, the total number of closed sales in the last twelve months was 5,425.  For each closed transaction, there was, by definition, one buyer and one seller.

Now divide that number by 4 and you have the approximate number of buyers and sellers in your market right now.  Okay, Matt, so why divide by 4?  Easy enough: The average buying cycle right now is 13 weeks.  A year has 52 weeks, so divide 52 by 13 and you get 4.

In other words, at any given time one fourth of those buyers and one fourth of those sellers are in the process of buying or selling.  For my market that is 1356 buyers and 1356 sellers that will actually close.  That’s 2,712 customers that will close.  That’s a lot!

But it’s really higher than that.  Here’s why.  This year will be bigger than last year in almost every city, simply from demographics and population growth.  So in all likelihood, your number is actually higher than what you just calculated.

And remember, those are closings, not just clients.  Statistically, only about 80% of buyers who write contracts ultimately close, and only 50% of listings actually close, so the total number of customers is even that much higher.

Next check your board roster and see how many agents are in your market. Now do the math.  Are you getting your fair share of all that business?  If you’re not, is it because you are not trying?  Or is it because you need to try something different?  Odds are, if you’re reading this it’s because you need to try something different.

Think about it logically for a minute.  Where are nearly all (94%) of our customers looking in their search for homes?  Online.  And yet according to the latest data from the National Association of Realtors® over three-fourths (76%) of all agents received less than one inquiry per month from their website last year.  That’s a huge disconnect.

And that explains why a lot of agents are not getting their fair share of the available business.  Today, unlike any time before, it is the “haves” and the “have-nots”.  Feast or famine.  You are either making a killing or you are getting killed.

When I started real estate 11 years ago,  I was a “have-not”.  My website was just like everyone elses and I was getting less than one inquiry a month.  But I set out to fix that problem and I ultimately invented a technology called an LCM gateway that turned my practice around — so much so that I was featured on CNN.

If you’re not familiar with this technology, an LCM gateway is a simple website designed to either stand alone or work with another website, and its sole purpose is capturing online shoppers.  And it works phenomenally well at capturing business.  Just how well?

Take a typical website (like mine was) that brings in no business, and add an LCM and some free advertising and you have 2-3 inbound customers every single day, day in and day out. And that’s using free advertising.  Some brokers generate as many as 50-60 leads a day using my LCM.  Think of it as a turbocharger for your website.

You may be thinking this sounds too simple to be true.  It does sound simple.  Under the hood, it’s not simple at all, but from the agent’s perspective, it is very simple.  In fact, I’ve been told that my LCM is the holy grail of online lead generation.  I don’t know about holy grail, but I can tell you this:  In eleven years nothing else even comes close.  No other website.  No other technology.  Nothing.

I used to tell agents that my LCM is not a magic bullet, but one day I realized it IS a magic bullet, at least it is for anyone struggling to have enough business, and that means the majority of agents today.  I could relate hundreds of stories but let me give you a couple of my favorites:

Take Kevin, a truck driver and part-time agent that wanted to make some extra money.  We helped him set up his LCM and in three months he had a choice to make:  Should he quit driving his truck and start doing real estate full-time?  After all, his part-time income was more than his full-time job.  He decided to go for it!

That first year Kevin made $351,623 and the next year he earned $541,298!  Having a never ending supply of business changed his life.  Made him rich too.  He bought a brand new SUV, a brand new convertible, and a 6,000 square foot mansion with  a 5 car garage, a detached office, and an olympic sized pool.  And that was while the market was still tanking.

Or there’s Charlyn, a single mom and new full-time agent who wrote:

“Matt, I HAD to email you. I’ve worked in and around the real estate business for years, but this is my first year as a full time agent.  I found your LCM technology last month, and I immediately knew that that’s what was missing from my practice. I set it up and posted my first free ad in about 15 minutes just like you showed me and I got two customers overnight!!! I called one lead immediately, got them qualified the SAME DAY, and now we are closing just three weeks after showing them their dream home!

Plus, I’m still getting 3-4 new customers per week from my FREE ads. I can honestly say I’m thrilled about my future in real estate, because I don’t have to worry about where my next customer will come from! Thank you!!!”

But don’t just take their word for it.  Give it a try.  Unlike most technology, there’s no long term contract, and there’s no activation fee.  In fact, the cost of having the very best online technology for gathering business is a lot less than you might think.  It’s less than a cup of Starbucks a day.  That’s right, less than a cup of Starbucks a day!

Listen, I want you to imagine what it would be like to have your fair share of the business currently closing in your market.  Or maybe more than your fair share.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have so many customers you could cherry pick the ones you wanted to work with and hand the others out and collect a referral fee?  One referral fee could pay for your LCM for a year!

So give it a try.  I mean really, what do you have to lose except maybe some advertising bills.  Give it a try and you’ll see… you’ll have more business than you can handle starting your very first day.

Take The Test Drive!

Matt Jones is the founder and CEO of FavoriteAgent.com, nationally syndicated columnist, broker, and best selling author of LCM: The Secret to Success in the New Age of Real Estate, The Ultimate Listing Presentation, Traffic: How to Sell Fast and Net More, Becoming a Mega-Producer, The Science of Online Marketing, 10 Steps to Real Estate Success, 20 Questions: Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Real Estate but Were Afraid to Ask, The Virtual Office Model, Max-Bang!, and The NEW Ultimate Listing Presentation. Jones' North Carolina-based company has been profiled by major media outlets as an innovator and a pioneer in the industry, and CNN's Pulse on America claimed FavoriteAgent.com is "changing the way real estate is being done in America." This article is syndicated in the following locations: iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher Radio, BlogMattBlog.com, RealBlogging.com, NewsGeni.us, TheCommissionCheck.com, RevampedAgent.com, and now Amazon Kindle.

Ever wonder how many people are buying and selling homes in your market today?  Take a wild guess!  Wilder.  Now double it.  You’re probably still low.  I’ll show you exactly how to find your own accurate number.

First you need to log into your MLS and find out how many transactions closed in the last twelve months.  Write that number down.  In my MLS, the total number of closed sales in the last twelve months was 5,425.  For each closed transaction, there was, by definition, one buyer and one seller.

Now divide that number by 4 and you have the approximate number of buyers and sellers in your market right now.  Okay, Matt, so why divide by 4?  Easy enough: The average buying cycle right now is 13 weeks.  A year has 52 weeks, so divide 52 by 13 and you get 4.

In other words, at any given time one fourth of those buyers and one fourth of those sellers are in the process of buying or selling.  For my market that is 1356 buyers and 1356 sellers that will actually close.  That’s 2,712 customers that will close.  That’s a lot!

But it’s really higher than that.  Here’s why.  This year will be bigger than last year in almost every city, simply from demographics and population growth.  So in all likelihood, your number is actually higher than what you just calculated.

And remember, those are closings, not just clients.  Statistically, only about 80% of buyers who write contracts ultimately close, and only 50% of listings actually close, so the total number of customers is even that much higher.

Next check your board roster and see how many agents are in your market. Now do the math.  Are you getting your fair share of all that business?  If you’re not, is it because you are not trying?  Or is it because you need to try something different?  Odds are, if you’re reading this it’s because you need to try something different.

Think about it logically for a minute.  Where are nearly all (94%) of our customers looking in their search for homes?  Online.  And yet according to the latest data from the National Association of Realtors® over three-fourths (76%) of all agents received less than one inquiry per month from their website last year.  That’s a huge disconnect.

And that explains why a lot of agents are not getting their fair share of the available business.  Today, unlike any time before, it is the “haves” and the “have-nots”.  Feast or famine.  You are either making a killing or you are getting killed.

When I started real estate 11 years ago,  I was a “have-not”.  My website was just like everyone elses and I was getting less than one inquiry a month.  But I set out to fix that problem and I ultimately invented a technology called an LCM gateway that turned my practice around — so much so that I was featured on CNN.

If you’re not familiar with this technology, an LCM gateway is a simple website designed to either stand alone or work with another website, and its sole purpose is capturing online shoppers.  And it works phenomenally well at capturing business.  Just how well?

Take a typical website (like mine was) that brings in no business, and add an LCM and some free advertising and you have 2-3 inbound customers every single day, day in and day out. And that’s using free advertising.  Some brokers generate as many as 50-60 leads a day using my LCM.  Think of it as a turbocharger for your website.

You may be thinking this sounds too simple to be true.  It does sound simple.  Under the hood, it’s not simple at all, but from the agent’s perspective, it is very simple.  In fact, I’ve been told that my LCM is the holy grail of online lead generation.  I don’t know about holy grail, but I can tell you this:  In eleven years nothing else even comes close.  No other website.  No other technology.  Nothing.

I used to tell agents that my LCM is not a magic bullet, but one day I realized it IS a magic bullet, at least it is for anyone struggling to have enough business, and that means the majority of agents today.  I could relate hundreds of stories but let me give you a couple of my favorites:

Take Kevin, a truck driver and part-time agent that wanted to make some extra money.  We helped him set up his LCM and in three months he had a choice to make:  Should he quit driving his truck and start doing real estate full-time?  After all, his part-time income was more than his full-time job.  He decided to go for it!

That first year Kevin made $351,623 and the next year he earned $541,298!  Having a never ending supply of business changed his life.  Made him rich too.  He bought a brand new SUV, a brand new convertible, and a 6,000 square foot mansion with  a 5 car garage, a detached office, and an olympic sized pool.  And that was while the market was still tanking.

Or there’s Charlyn, a single mom and new full-time agent who wrote:

“Matt, I HAD to email you. I’ve worked in and around the real estate business for years, but this is my first year as a full time agent.  I found your LCM technology last month, and I immediately knew that that’s what was missing from my practice. I set it up and posted my first free ad in about 15 minutes just like you showed me and I got two customers overnight!!! I called one lead immediately, got them qualified the SAME DAY, and now we are closing just three weeks after showing them their dream home!

Plus, I’m still getting 3-4 new customers per week from my FREE ads. I can honestly say I’m thrilled about my future in real estate, because I don’t have to worry about where my next customer will come from! Thank you!!!”

But don’t just take their word for it.  Give it a try.  Unlike most technology, there’s no long term contract, and there’s no activation fee.  In fact, the cost of having the very best online technology for gathering business is a lot less than you might think.  It’s less than a cup of Starbucks a day.  That’s right, less than a cup of Starbucks a day!

Listen, I want you to imagine what it would be like to have your fair share of the business currently closing in your market.  Or maybe more than your fair share.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have so many customers you could cherry pick the ones you wanted to work with and hand the others out and collect a referral fee?  One referral fee could pay for your LCM for a year!

So give it a try.  I mean really, what do you have to lose except maybe some advertising bills.  Give it a try and you’ll see… you’ll have more business than you can handle starting your very first day.

Take The Test Drive!

Matt Jones is the founder and CEO of FavoriteAgent.com, nationally syndicated columnist, broker, and best selling author of LCM: The Secret to Success in the New Age of Real Estate, The Ultimate Listing Presentation, Traffic: How to Sell Fast and Net More, Becoming a Mega-Producer, The Science of Online Marketing, 10 Steps to Real Estate Success, 20 Questions: Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Real Estate but Were Afraid to Ask, The Virtual Office Model, Max-Bang!, and The NEW Ultimate Listing Presentation. Jones' North Carolina-based company has been profiled by major media outlets as an innovator and a pioneer in the industry, and CNN's Pulse on America claimed FavoriteAgent.com is "changing the way real estate is being done in America." This article is syndicated in the following locations: iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher Radio, BlogMattBlog.com, RealBlogging.com, NewsGeni.us, TheCommissionCheck.com, RevampedAgent.com, and now Amazon Kindle.

Authenticity, in communicating your personal or company branding through luxury real estate website design is paramount! Your colors need to be authentic not only in expressing your personal preferences but also in reflecting your local environment. For example, if you use a photo of a beach in the Bahamas to represent your New England shoreline, the colors of the sand and the ocean will portray an unauthentic marketing message.

For our clients’, the market leading team of Neena Rodgers and Diana Burton, it was important that we researched and found the right image of a Chesapeake Bay oyster to incorporate into their brand identity. Connoisseurs of oysters would have spotted the difference immediately, if we used a non-local oyster. Of course, for research purposes, these ladies treated us to some of the best oysters we have ever tasted, harvested that morning, when we visited them in Virginia.

Inspired by the local natural colors that reflected the Virginia luxury waterfront lifestyle we chose a color palette and brand theme that also reflected the personalities of these accomplished professionals who represent well over 50% of all top tier listings in their area. Had we used an oyster from another locale for the color scheme, the “DNA” of their brand identity would have been completely different and unauthentic.

Rodgers & Burton Brand Identity Color Palette

Check out the difference between the Virginia Chesapeake Bay Oyster color palette and the palette from oysters from another locale depicted below.

Chesapeake Bay Oyster Color Palette

Other Oysters- Not Virginia Chesapeake Bay Oysters

Other Oysters Color Palette

If you have not already done so, we encourage you to read the entire series that was inspired by a behind-the-scene tour of our Santa Barbara Natural History Museum.

Part 1 l Part 2 l Part 3 l Part 4 l Part 5

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From time to time I hear agents talk about how their work feels like being on a treadmill — that they are unable to take a break because if they do, their work dries up and they spend months getting it back up to speed.  I can tell you from first hand experience, that’s how I felt.

I felt “not in control” of my own practice, a passenger if you will, when I wanted to be the driver.  I was terrified of the thought of stopping for even a day or two because it would set me back weeks or even months.  My typical day went something like this:

I would get out of bed at 4:30AM, have my quiet time, exercise, shower and get dressed, eat breakfast, and be at the office by about 7.  That would give me a couple of hours to be productive before the other agents and staff arrived and interruptions seemed to be non-stop.

I spent those times working on maintaining my database, sending out postcards, writing content for my monthly newsletter, and the hundreds of other non-people and administrative functions of life in real estate.  The vast majority of it was mind-numbing.

After 9AM I would finally be able to start calling my sphere of influence, keeping up with them and always remembering to end every call asking them if they knew anyone who was thinking about buying or selling real estate.

Depending on the office schedule, I may have had floor duty, where I could be a free secretary for the office for half a day while hoping that maybe I would have somebody call into the office who wanted help with buying a home.

Or I might have been scheduled to man one of our company’s new home open houses, and perhaps be lucky enough to scoop up a new client who was out looking at new homes.  Most of the time was wasted but there were always those occasional shoppers.

When I wasn’t doing any of that, I would go out to my “farm” and walk the neighborhoods handing out business cards and hanging listing fliers on doors, hoping to meet the homeowners and chat them up and maybe drum up some business.

Hopefully, if all that activity generated a customer, I would be spending large blocks of time in a full-court-press showing house after house until I got them under contract.  Then there were the inspections, and the million little fires that had to be put out so we could close.

Oh, and let’s not forget all the time-wasters like sales meetings, office meetings, caravan, meetings with advertising reps and phone calls with the million salesmen that wanted to sell me some magic formula to real estate riches.  Talk about a treadmill.  It never stopped.

One day I sat down for a minute and realized I was killing myself, working from 7AM until 9PM seven days a week, and that it was not all that much fun.  I couldn’t afford to take any time off or it would result in a big gap while I got it all going again.  I felt trapped.  Out of control.  A passenger in my own business.

So I analyzed all that I was doing and I realized that less than 10% was actually practicing real estate while the vast majority — over 80% of my time — was spent in the never-ending rat-race of finding that next customer.  And with every single closing I was unemployed again until I could find the next customer.

That’s when it hit me that I needed to figure out a way to put the customer acquisition part of my business on autopilot. That would give me over 80% of my time back.  But could I even do that?  And if I could, how?  Time to do some serious analysis.  Here’s what I figured out:

I was spending much of my time on activities that were not the highest and best use of my time. I was doing lots of traditional customer acquisition activities that worked marginally, if at all, even though they were the supposed “tried and true” methods of years gone by.  And if that were true, then times must have changed.  Where were the customers now?

I speculated that since the internet had already changed many industries, like the travel industry, the car industry, the book industry, to name only a few, then maybe it was changing the real estate industry.  I set out on a mission to crack the code — to attract online customers real estate customers in a different way.  I already had a typical website but it brought me zero business.

I needed a website that actually brought in business.  After looking extensively, I still couldn’t find one, so I decided I would have to create one.  I built a tool to work with my website that was designed specifically for capturing online customers and when I did that everything changed.

I went from spending all my time trying to attract and gather customers to having that huge part of my business on autopilot.  Let me give you an example of what I mean, because everyone should want to experience what came next.

I would wake up every morning to new customers in my email inbox.  I would take a few minutes to call and engage them and all of a sudden I had more business than I could even handle.  Instead of spending 60+ hours every week just trying to drum up business, I could focus on just the real estate part of my practice.

I mean, let’s face it: If you spend a total of 10 hours of actual real estate practice with each transaction, then you can close a deal every week and still have lots of free time.  I don’t know about you, but I like the idea of being able to have some time free to do the things I love.  More time with family and friends.  More time for outside interests and hobbies.  Time to take a vacation.

In fact, I still remember after making the decision to take control of my practice, going to the beach with my family for a week.  While I was laying in the sun reading a book and listening to the waves crash in, my practice was still bringing in 2-3 new customers a day, and I even sold a listing!  Sure, I spent an hour or so each day, keeping things running, but I was no longer a slave to my practice.  I could finally relax.

As someone who has retired twice already, I can tell you that I don’t ever want to retire again.  I want to remain active.  I don’t want to sit around in my rocking chair and wait until my health fails.  I want to enjoy life and I want to enjoy my work.  Any by working smart instead of working hard, I can do just that.

But it all comes down to having the customer acquisition on autopilot.  That is what robs us of all our time and freedom, always wondering where that next transaction is coming from.  Now instead of wondering, I know that every day, with a very minimal input on my part, I will have 2-3 new inbound customers, day in and day out.

And because I have 60-90 new opportunities every single month, I spend most of my time eliminating those I don’t want to work with and not desperately trying to turn every single suspect into a prospect like I did back in those early days.  Now, if I want to take off Friday to drive to Florida for a mountain bike race, I can do it and not think twice.

If I want to take the afternoon off and go see a matinee with a friend, I just do it.  If I want to go to the beach or the mountains, or just sleep in, I can.  Instead of being in the passenger seat, I am now driving my own practice.  And believe me, that makes all the difference.

You know, it’s funny how such a huge difference can be caused by one simple thing.  But if you analyze it, it makes perfect sense.  If you are spending 50-60 hours of every week just trying to drum up business and you can put that on autopilot and instead spend less than an hour a day, suddenly you have a newfound freedom!

So as you read this, let me ask you a question:  Is your life and practice more like the first example or the second.  If yours is like the first, what would you do with an extra 40-60 hours every week?  What kind of difference would it make to have 2-3 new customers every single day, day in, and day out?

If the first example seems more like your life, it’s not too late to change.  I saw everything change for me in a month.  From no business to more than I can handle, allowing me to pick and choose the clients I want to work with.  I know it sounds simplistic, but it is absolutely true.  I challenge you to think of any problem in our business that can’t be solved with more customers.  You can’t.

So let me help you put your customer acquisition on autopilot.  Check out my LCM Success system.  The cost is very low and the return on investment is huge.  More importantly, this one tool can turn it all around for you without breaking the bank.  So check out my LCM Success today and have 2 new customers tomorrow!

Take The Test Drive!

Matt Jones is the founder and CEO of FavoriteAgent.com, nationally syndicated columnist, broker, and best selling author of LCM: The Secret to Success in the New Age of Real Estate, The Ultimate Listing Presentation, Traffic: How to Sell Fast and Net More, Becoming a Mega-Producer, The Science of Online Marketing, 10 Steps to Real Estate Success, 20 Questions: Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Real Estate but Were Afraid to Ask, The Virtual Office Model, Max-Bang!, and The NEW Ultimate Listing Presentation. Jones' North Carolina-based company has been profiled by major media outlets as an innovator and a pioneer in the industry, and CNN's Pulse on America claimed FavoriteAgent.com is "changing the way real estate is being done in America." This article is syndicated in the following locations: iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher Radio, BlogMattBlog.com, RealBlogging.com, NewsGeni.us, TheCommissionCheck.com, RevampedAgent.com, and now Amazon Kindle.

Morgan's at the Desert, La Quinta Resort and Spa

Great luxury real estate personal and company branding is all about telling a great story that engages your target market, establishing trust by building credibility and sparks word-of-mouth advertising. High net worth consumers are interested in knowing about your history, your roots; they want to know about your provenance. Here is a story within a story, within a story about personal and company branding that exemplifies the added value of provenance.

Recently, we had the privilege of staying at one of the most storied California hotels, La Quinta Resort & Club, the longest running resort in the Palm Springs area. It originally opened in 1926 as a quiet hideaway for the Hollywood elite – including film legends Greta Garbo, Katherine Hepburn, Frank Capra and Clark Gable; and today is a host to a number of other celebrities. During our stay many of the world’s top tennis celebrities were there for the ATP Tournament, which took place in the adjacent town of Indian Wells.

When we booked our stay we had the choice between La Quinta Resort & Club and the Hyatt Indian Wells Resort & Spa. Both have golf courses, a spa, and a signature restaurant. Both are in the same price range. The Hyatt, a multi-story building with a giant pool, has a very contemporary, austere design. In our opinion, it lacks charm, warmth and character. La Quinta Resort is a legendary getaway with unattached Mediterranean style haciendas (no more than two stories). It has 41 individual smaller pools, each with hot pools with water jets, this, in addition to a large pool adjacent to the spa and tennis stadium.

Although, La Quinta Resort & Club retains its own brand identity, it is one of the Waldorf Astoria Hotels and Resorts, now a sub-brand of Hilton Hotels. The original Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York was the first hotel to offer room service, which changed the industry completely. It was also influential in advancing the status of women, who were admitted singly without escorts. Can you get the sense of La Quinta’s provenance and the added value that a heritage brand can provide?

People can have provenance, too. And, that is one reason why personal branding is so important. As a luxury real estate marketing professional, you must clearly let your target market know what you stand for so they can quickly assess if you are a match to their personal values.

During our stay, we dined at the signature restaurants of both La Quinta Resort and Club (Morgan’s in the desert) and at the Hyatt Resort and Spa (Lantana). The food at both restaurants was excellent. But, Morgan’s, (magnificently remodeled to reflect its history), offered a remarkable dining experience with exceptional service and a menu that was masterminded by a celebrity chef.

CChef Jimmy Schmidt is a one-man-brand who has his own provenance. In 1977 he became executive chef and executive general manager of the London Chop House in Detroit, where he became one of the first chefs to win Cook’s magazine’s 50 Leaders in American Food and Wine Awards (which was later renamed the James Beard Awards). He then moved to Denver in 1985 to open his first Rattlesnake Club, for which he was nominated for the James Beard “Best Chef Southwest” and “Best New Restaurant” Awards.

Chef Schmidt is one of the pioneers of “Farm-to-Table” dining. He sources the best local products to create deliciously simple, rustic and healthful dishes at Morgan’s. We enjoyed his Pistachio Crusted Rack of Colorado Lamb immensely.

The history, the physical setting, the architecture, the celebrity chef, the service and the ambiance all contribute to the personal and company branding stories of La Quinta Resort & Club. Watch for Part 7 of this article series where we showcase two market-leading luxury real estate professionals in Santa Barbara who have established their unique provenance as part of their personal brand story.