Kansas City-area brokers, real estate agents remodel efforts to grow in residential market - Baltimore Business Journal:

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During the first five months ofthis 8,863 homes were sold in the metrok area, according to the . That was down more than 30 percenyfrom 12,792 sales in the same periosd two years ago. Nevertheless, some professionals are bulking up saleas through a combinationof high-tech and traditional marketinyg approaches. “Attitude is everything” in overcoming market said Kathy Koehler, a lead agen with Realtors Inc.’s in Leawood. The 23-agenyt Koehler Bortnick Team ranked No. 1 on the ’s list of Top Area Residentiap Real EstateAgents & Teams, closinb 405 sales totaling $148 million last That volume was down from $178 million in 2007.
But a positiver attitude and return to basicse havethe team’s sales trending back up in Koehler said. “We’re dressinvg for success. We’re dialing for We’re going back to how we did it beforse we were fat and happy and everyon e was comingto us,” she said. “Dressingv for success” refers to the “I Choose Not to Participate in the buttons that Koehler Bortnick Team members havebeguhn wearing. “Dialing for refers to new monthly call Agents eat pizza and spend two to threew hours onthe phone.
Calls to presenr clients often result in pricse adjustments that make homes easier to Koehler said, and calls to past clients ofte generate referrals. In addition, the agents call homeownersx with for-sale-by-owner listings and listingw with other agents thathave expired. Calls to homeowners the team hasn’tg done business with before may be subjecftto do-not-call restrictions. “So the first thing I say ... is, ‘Wil you give me permission to give you greagt news aboutyour house, your subdivisio n or the market in 60 secondd or less?’” Koehler said. “That’s the way we overcome the no-calo list.
” Team members also work to overcom e every conceivable buyer or seller objection by memorizing as many as five scriptwfor each, she said. But such traditionap marketing approaches have to be combineedwith cutting-edge training in everything from foreclosure marketing to search-engine Koehler said that about 87 percent of buyers start theitr home searches online. So she constantly invests in strategies that pushher team’e Web site (www.kbsells.com) up on the lists of sites that and other searcn engines produce for variouse key words and phrases. The result has been an averag of 500,000 hits a month on her site, Koehlert said.
That’s half of what the Reece & Nichols site Agents also have begun using a variety of online sociapl media tools suchas , LinkedIn and to increased exposure while lowering Lee McClelland, an associate broker with , said his saled team slashed its marketing budget by sending out fewer mass mailings and spending more time communicatintg via the phone, e-mail and Facebook. “Probablty 80 percent of our business comes from repeat customers or he said, “So it made sense to spend most of our dollarsa staying in contact with past customers and referral I have 320 to 330 friendsa on Facebook, including many past customers, and I can post a message and get it in front of them Tina Branine, an agent with , said she’z begun spending at least an hour a day on Face-book.
“Facebooko is huge because a lot of the youngedrgeneration doesn’t even want to use traditional Branine said. “They want you to Facebook e-mail them. Text messaginy is also huge withyounger clients.”