The Top Five Ways to Improve Your Real Estate Business

At Benchmark, we believe in all agents' capacities to become top performers for both themselves and their clients. While there's no one path or secret to success, these five fundamental principles can help you build and grow your business. 1. Manage Your Time The most important resource all agents have is also the one thing mediocre agents waste: Time. Productivity is essential in growing your business, but if you're not using your time wisely, you'll never be as productive as you could be. Your business can suffer as a result. There are 24 hours in a day. No more, no less. Begin each day with a plan-a roadmap for how you intend to use your time-and get started early. It's hard to sell a house if you roll out of bed at 9 a.m. Allow for flexibility in your schedule, but do your best to accomplish regular tasks at the same time each day. This routine will help you stay in control of your productivity. Consider Time Blocking to get the most out of your busy schedule. 2. Prospect Daily Just what are those tasks that you should be doing every day? Prospecting should be at the top of the [...]

By |2017-05-30T21:51:01-05:00May 30th, 2017|Agent Blog, Agent Productivity, Benchmark Agent Tools, Blog, Consumer Blog, Real Estate|Comments Off on The Top Five Ways to Improve Your Real Estate Business
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Tips for Productive Agents: Training Resources & The Benefits of Time Blocking

Every real estate agent knows proper training and continuing education is key to staying at the top of your game and being the best possible resource for your clients. From understanding the legalities of Tennessee property sales to keeping abreast of the latest technologies and productivity techniques, finding the right resources can be overwhelming. At Benchmark Realty, we offer our agents access to a monthly training program with classes ranging from the basics of the Tennessee Association of REALTORS (TAR) electronic forms to programs designed to help our agents become more productive. One of the productivity skills we focus on is time blocking, a time management technique that helps our agents maximize every hour of their day to help them set and achieve their business goals. Step 1: Identify Your Goals Start each day with identifying your number one priority—that single task that can make everything else on your to-do list easier. Maybe it’s pulling together possible new homes for a client or sending out an email to your database to keep yourself top-of-mind. Whatever it is, commit to getting it done without interruptions. Step 2: Structure Your Schedule Around Your Goals Working without distraction can be easier said than [...]

By |2017-04-12T16:38:13-05:00April 12th, 2017|Agent Blog, Agent Productivity, Benchmark Agent Tools, Real Estate|Comments Off on Tips for Productive Agents: Training Resources & The Benefits of Time Blocking
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Top 5 Apps for Smart Real Estate Agents

In Nashville’s booming real estate market, the most successful agents don’t have time to be bound to a desk or a home office. Instead, they find the tools that work for their mobile lifestyles to not only make their jobs easier, but to make them a better resource for their clients. These five apps do just that. Benchmark Realty Smarter Agent App At Benchmark all of our agents have access to our Smarter Agent app as a part of their membership. This all-in-one mobile app solution provides our agents and their clients with a more real-time look at the market than Zillow or Trulia. Not only does our app pull from the most accurate and updated listing information, it allows agents and clients to search by neighborhood and subdivision as well as by address, MLS number and map. Plus, all leads go directly to our agents. Available on Apple and Android devices. Not a Benchmark agent yet? Don’t worry, there are a few other apps out there for you. Zillow Premier Agent Now more than ever home buyers are turning to online tools before ever engaging a real estate agent. If you’re looking for a lead generator, consider signing up [...]

By |2017-03-27T15:20:15-05:00March 23rd, 2017|Agent Blog, Benchmark Agent Tools, Lead Generation, Listings, Real Estate|Comments Off on Top 5 Apps for Smart Real Estate Agents
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How to Prepare for Changes in the Real Estate Industry

By |2015-07-29T18:46:13-05:00July 29th, 2015|Agent Blog, Agent Education, Agent Productivity, Benchmark Agent Tools, Benchmark Offices, Featured Blog Posts, Marketing, Real Estate Ethics, Real Estate News, Selling Real Estate|Comments Off on How to Prepare for Changes in the Real Estate Industry
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Best Contact Management Software 2015

As a Realtor®, it’s essential that you’re able to access your contacts quickly. You need to pull up phone numbers, email addresses and mailing addresses at the drop of a hat—and that’s tough to do if you’re storing everything in your iPhone. Short of an old-school Rolodex, how can you keep track of everyone, including all the notes you have that help you keep everything straight? The Best Free Contact Management Software for Realtors in 2015 There are several fantastic (and free) tools that are great for Realtors, including: Unsightly. Insightly lets you store up to 2,500 records with up to 10 custom fields. Free CRM. Free CRM is entirely web-based, so you can access all your records from anywhere with an Internet connection. Like Insightly, this one lets you store up to 2,500 records. ZohoCRM. This software is incredibly easy to use, and it lets you store up to 5,000 records free. You can export data into Excel, too, which makes it easy to transfer files wherever you need them. Capsule. Capsule gives you 10MB of free storage where you can stash up to 250 contacts. It integrates with Gmail and 32 other programs, so it might be a [...]

By |2016-03-29T20:30:05-05:00March 11th, 2015|Agent Blog, Agent Productivity, Benchmark Agent Tools, Lead Generation, Marketing, Networking, Selling Real Estate|Comments Off on Best Contact Management Software 2015
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3 Essential Chrome Apps for Realtors

If you’re a Realtor® using Google Chrome, there’s great news: they have three apps designed to help you keep your real estate business moving. The best part? You can get started with a few clicks. 3 Chrome Apps that are Perfect for Realtors As Realtors, we spend plenty of time online. Whether we’re emailing clients, following up on leads or marketing our listings, we’re dialed-in all day. Google Chrome’s three best extensions for Realtors can smooth out your workflow, help you do your best, and even push you to market a little bit better. Essential App #1: Grammarly No matter what you’re doing online, from email to surfing Facebook, Grammarly’s Chrome app extension can fix your spelling and dish up the right grammar so you can write with confidence. It comes with: A contextual spell checker (that helps out with words such as loose/lose, affect/effect, lie/lay and dozens of others) A grammar checker that applies all the rules we learned in school (and have since forgotten) Essential App #2: Todo.ly Manage all your tasks, remind yourself to send out emails and propel yourself toward your goals with Todo.ly, a free Chrome extension that even lets you share your projects with [...]

By |2015-02-12T21:12:57-06:00February 12th, 2015|Agent Blog, Agent Education, Agent Productivity, Benchmark Agent Tools, Selling Real Estate|Comments Off on 3 Essential Chrome Apps for Realtors
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5 Sure-Fire Ways to turn Real Estate Leads into Sales

While every situation is different, most Realtors® are letting good leads slip right through their fingers. Are you one of them? The Ideal Real Estate Leads: Qualified, Interested and Engaged It would be amazing if every lead we got as Realtors was qualified, interested and engaged – but that’s just not the case. However, it’s our job to read the signals each lead is sending; we might miss something valuable that, in the long run, ends up costing us. There are no guarantees in this business (except that you’ll get 100 percent of your commission working with Benchmark Realty, that is), but using these five tips will help you convert more leads – and that means making more money. How to Convert Real Estate Leads into sales: Treat your first contact like gold. It is gold. Even if you’re not sure whether the person will qualify to purchase, your first contact builds the foundation for your future relationship with this client. That means trying not to let strange numbers go to voicemail (people certainly want a responsive Realtor) because they’ll go somewhere else immediately. Take the time to get to know them – but really get to know them. Let [...]

By |2015-02-11T14:56:29-06:00November 6th, 2014|Agent Blog, Agent Education, Agent Productivity, Benchmark Agent Tools, Selling Real Estate|Comments Off on 5 Sure-Fire Ways to turn Real Estate Leads into Sales
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