Your customers are on the internet today. Even if someone is dead broke, facing foreclosure and bankruptcy, they still manage to pay their smartphone bill each month.
Of course we all want to meet these broke people. Especially if they own a home. They are what we call ‘motivated sellers.’ Motivated sellers are looking for help. They want help from someone they trust.
Is that person you?
It better be if you want the deal.
First those motivated sellers have to find you on the internet. Then they have to know that you will do what you say. And of course, they have to like what you say you’ll do.
It’s not just motivated sellers either. If you have a property management company, potential rental property owners that can become your customers will search for reviews. Potential renters might also do the same thing.
In a recent survey, 90% of online shoppers were influenced by positive online reviews and 86% were influenced by negative reviews.
Finding you involves all kinds of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) magic. You need to rank in Google, Bing, Yahoo or other search engines for the words they want. (But that’s a topic for another lesson – or book. It’s a lot of information.)
Trusting you is another story. The design of your website is what can help build up trust. People who come to your website want to see:
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A professional looking site showing that you know what you are doing.
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Examples of deals you have completed.
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Feedback from your past clients.
There are plenty of good website companies that can help you make a great website. Once you have the website up, you can add descriptions of your deals, and the way you have helped people.
The tough one is the customer feedback. Many satisfied customers don’t leave feedback. Unsatisfied customers may go on other sites like Yelp and Facebook and post negative reviews about your investment company.
How do you monitor how your reputation is doing on the internet?
You Need a Bird’s Eye View
There’s a website that can give you that 50,000-foot view of the internet. It will let you know what kinds of reviews are being posted about you.
The website can also communicate with your customers. It can encourage customers who like you to provide favorable reviews. By creating more reviews and more mentions of your website on other sites, you will automatically improve your SEO ranking in search engines as well.
The site is called, naturally, Bird Eye. Bird Eye tracks over 100 review sites to see what people are saying about you. It’s difficult to run your business and keep track of what people are saying on each of these sites.
Customers want to see a responsive business. They want to have their issues addressed. Solving problems is what successful real estate investors do well. If you don’t know there is a problem, it becomes impossible to solve it. Not only that, but a customer might think you are not doing anything about it because you don’t care.
Bird Eye will aggregate all the reviews for you in a dashboard format, so you can respond to them quickly.
You can respond to your customer reviews right from your dashboard. The responses will be posted directly to the site containing the review.
Responding is especially helpful when you receive a bad review. Not only can you respond to the review publicly for other potential customers to see, but you can also communicate with that customer privately and resolve their issue.
Many times when customers have their issues fixed quickly, they can become some of your biggest advocates.
Another nice feature of Bird Eye is that you can keep track of the ratings for your top competitors. Seeing what pain points their customers have will give you insight into how to improve your real estate business and find more deals.
Bird Eye also has a feature to encourage your customers to provide more reviews…
Simply enter your customer’s information into Bird Eye. The software will then send a text message to your customer’s cell phone asking them for a review. If you like the review they write, Bird Eye will automatically poste the review to Facebook and Google. This boosts your reputation and also improves your SEO ranking.
If you happen to be a Realtor as well, Bird Eye is optimized for sites like Trulia and Zillow to monitor what people are saying about your there as well.
Bird Eye is not very cheap, but it is very powerful.
When you consider what people pay for webmasters and SEO management, it seems much more reasonable. They have small business option, which would be good for most investors, plus Enterprise and Partner Editions with varying amounts of features.
To see an overview of what Bird Eye can do for your investment or real estate company, here is a helpful video.
Say Something
Tell us about your experience with Bird Eye in the comments section below.
Resolve Problems – Just like mechanical problems at your properties, the longer you leave them, the worse they get. Solve customer problems quickly and watch your business take off.
Monitor Your Reputation – Google yourself and your company regularly. Check to see what people are saying about you and do something about it.
Solicit Feedback – Most people won’t tell you what’s wrong unless you ask. Ask for both good and bad feedback. Showcase the good feedback and fix the bad.
Ask for Testimonials – When a customer likes working with you, ask them for a testimonial. Testimonials can be some of the most powerful advertising available to you.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.