AJ's Quality Questions to Ask Your Leads
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Special guest A.J. Ackerman is a Trulia success who has transformed his small income into six figures! He'll share strategies to increase your Trulia ranking and turn consumers into clients.

How to rank high on Trulia - Class Notes

Trulia ranks agents according to what’s important to buyers and sellers

• Profile: What’s your expertise?
• Recommendations: What do others say about you?
• Activity: How many listings have you sold?

How many listings do you have now?

• Q&A: How well do you answer questions?
• Local expert: How informed you are on local properties?

To increase your rank, be active on Trulia

• 30 minutes per day
• Do at least three activities per day

Complete your profile

• 100% complete profile will give you 20% more views

Make yourself attractive to buyers and sellers

• It’s like online dating
  
  • Help people understand who you are
  • Make it appealing so people want to meet you
  • What do you do that consumers can relate to?

Make yourself easily found

• Include your experience and skills
• Make yourself easily found
  • Use keywords buyers/sellers look for

Post your recommendations on Trulia

• You will get 2.5X more leads than agents who don’t have recommendations
• Request recommendations from your friends, family, past clients and past colleagues

How to build recommendations

• Provide outstanding service
• Stay in touch with your past clients
• Practice a script
  • Are you happy with the service and working with me?
  • Could you do me a favor? Could you write a recommendation for me?

Post your active and sold listings

• This will increase your ranking significantly as well

Answer buyer and seller questions

• Answer as many as you can
• Research the questions
• Post your answer
  • Answer the question!
  • Be real
  • Focus on quality information

Blog

• Post information helpful to your audience
• Build your reputation as a local expert
• Pick topics helpful to buyers and sellers in your area

First time home buyers

• Suggestions for first time home buyers
• How to choose a local realtor
• First step to buying a home
• Looking for a home
• Pricing
• Mortgages
• How much home can you afford?

Buyers

• Homes in a certain area
• Steps to purchasing investment properties
• Short sale vs foreclosures
• New construction vs. old homes
• Buying with cash vs. financing

People moving to the area

• Local resources for buyers moving to the area
• Local reputable companies
• Qualified licensed, insured service professionals

New sellers: The big picture

• Steps to sell your house quickly
• Best ways to sell a home
• What are the real estate agent's duties?
• How do I choose the right real estate agent?
• What to expect during the listing appointment
• What to expect after your home is shown

Sellers: Explaining the process

• Terms of your listing agreement
• Setting the right price
• Marketing of the home
• Staging your home to sell
• Showing the home
• Negotiating the sale & different offers
• Preparing for a home inspection & appraisal
• Preparing for closing

Local topics

• Chinese drywall
• Water assessments
• Flood hazard disclosure and map
• Oil spill

Community events

• Charity events
• Holiday events
• Carnivals
• Art shows
• Movies
• Taste of events
• Events special to your area

Do your research

• Use community sites in your area to gather information
• City website
• Parks and recreation
• Events calendar

Link back to your Market Leader website from your blog and your Q&A

To take advantage of your Market Leader lead capture functionality and to provide value to your leads, direct leads to these pages:

• Listing search results
• Community served pages
• Sell tab
• Market Insider
• Custom tab
• Featured listings
• Featured partners

Comment on other agent’s blog posts

• The quality of the service you provide buyers and sellers on Trulia and proactively building relationships with other agents will lead to referrals in the future.

Leverage Trulia Pro

• Be featured as the agent to contact on your listings
• Receive leads from more areas

Local Ads

• Reach local buyers and sellers
• Receive quality leads
• Build your brand online

Seller Ads

• Reach local sellers
• Win listings
• Build your brand

Respond to leads on Trulia

“All leads are good leads. It’s what you do with them that matters.”

• Respond within 5 minutes
• Download the Trulia agent app
• Lead didn’t respond? Try again.
• Put them on a campaign

Be helpful on the phone

• Answer their questions
• Ask if they’re working with an agent
• Put the lead on listing alerts
• Give them your contact information

 Put your leads into your Market Leader system

• Set up Trulia so your leads go directly into your Market Leader system
• Manually add the leads who contact you directly

Tips to succeed on Trulia

• Commit to consistency
• Provide outstanding customer service – online and in person
• Be positive
• Focus on one tool at a time