TribusCRM Review for Real Estate Agents

Tribus CRM Review for Real Estate Agents

I just posted on my new site Huttbuzz.com a piece about the TribusCRM and why I like it. I’ve reviewed over 30 CRMs so that’s saying something. Tribus is offering a discount of more than $600. Click here to learn more about the Tribus CRM and let me know if you’d like to discuss it’s features and it’s competition.

…everyday : )

I received a call from a business owner in San Diego who is looking to hire a developer. She was asking about an outsourcer that I’d used. This happens a lot. Normally, I end up saying the same thing i.e. that there are plenty of free tools and other tools you need to pay for that can be integrated into a wordpress website easily.

Most businesses need a “website organizer” more than they do a “website developer.” A website organizer knows how to put free/paid apps together in a way that make sense for a business…and knows when and when not to call in a programmer to do minor or major programming.

Here is the job description and my advice…

We need a developer(s) that can produce the site as described below and can implement effectively. We provide a robust website directory for consumers (customers) to locate specific niche business/products services by searching in our site by state, cities, neighborhoods, or type of service. Example given as illustration only would be (Mobile carpet cleaners in San Diego/Hillcrest).

The business revenue model is a paid membership for businesses who list their service so they can be located along with a brief description plus link to their web site. (Unique id code to track) (SEO optimized) customers, will be offered multiple membership options, (ex: platinum, gold, silver) at different price points.

Visitors, who use site will also be offered free, access to our mailing list for free offers and eventual up sell offers.

We need to focus on a good auto responder system with ready to go offers and information sent to mailing list.

We’ll need a highly functional shopping cart that can accept all major credit cards, including paypal, google, and bank transfers.

We would like the following functions:

*add members (and ability to charge them) – Wishlist Products

*add advertisers (and ability to charge them) – Wishlist Products, make individual ones, “Authors” with permission to write blog posts about their services as a bonus.

*email capture/sign up – GravityForms or FormSpring to MailChimp

*Google Analytics – easy to add yourself. Use Wordpress Stats plugin for easier/quicker analytics.

*Shopping cart *accept payments (credit card and bank transfers) – WP eCommerce probably best.

*sell products- e-books, etc. WP-eCommerce. Integrate Amazon links, etc…for extra upselling.

*ability to add categories (state/city/neighborhood) – any Wordpress site does this

*put in embedded video – Any wordpress site does this easily.

*must be a site that we, (administrators) can manipulate. – any wordpress Site does this easily.

There are also a number of valuable plugins for wordpressMU (that are probably available for Wordpress as well) that could enhance the functionality of the site i.e. Pop-Overs, WP Greet Box, etc…but that’s for another day.

For Anyone Who Doesn’t Think We Need a Major Overhaul of Our Healthcare System

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Too busy to post on my own blog. See the posts below to discover why…

All the People and Projects I Am Thankful For

Today is the day after Thanksgiving. I am most thankful for my family and friends. I am also thankful for the opportunity to work on so many interesting projects with some amazing people.

When people ask, “What do you do?” I could answer with a less-than-accurate response, “Build websites and internet marketing.” Yes, I do these things but saying that lumps me in with the rest of the “VendorSluts” who hawk their own “products.”

What I really do is constantly scan the universe for technology or systems that can help business owners live happier lives by earning more money more easily. If these technologies can’t be put in a Comprehensive System to do the following, then we don’t use them:

(1) Attract Visitors,
(2) Capture Leads,
(3) Educate Prospects,
(4) Sell Products/Close Clients, and
(5) Work easily and efficiently

Sometimes my key guys (Hitesh, Ajmal, Laura, Niraj, Fernando, and Enric) do the work. Other times, we hire other people. Whatever is best for the client. To my wife’s chagrin I’m a lot more interested in helping people solve problems than in earning a buck. : )

I suppose I’m a business model developer and business consultant that does a lot of the internet marketing and technology work. Because my stuff works, I often end up partnering with people who start as potential clients. (Frankly, any internet marketer worth his salt will not bang their head against the corporate contract wall for long until he or she realizes that they can pick a product and sell it for themselves or JV with a business owner and get 10-50% of the net profit.)

At any rate, I was supposed to slow down when the baby arrived but now find myself busier than ever with the following projects:

#1. Kendra Todd Group (Real Estate)
Development of KTG comprehensive internet marketing strategy and building website, PPC, SEO, Social Media campaigns. The goal is for her real estate team to be in the top 10 in the US within 2 years.

#2. KendraTodd.com and associated SEO websites (Personal Branding)

Under development, these 4 main website sare designed to build her personal brand including dominating the first page of Google, Yahoo, and Bing search engines on keywords related to her name. This also involved creating hundreds of accounts on social networking and social media sites for SEO content distribution. We also dropped the cost of SEO content page creation to about $5 rather than the $100 or more charged by many SEO firms.

#3. GrowRichGodsWay.com (Religious)

Kendra appears on the Christian Broadcasting Network and wants to share stories of God working in the workplace so we created a simple blog designed to build a large mailing list through strategic placement of registration forms. Very pretty, simple graphic design by Lisa of UrbanLifeDesigns.com

#4 – #8. FIVE Big Real Estate IDX Websites/Blogs

For these sites we’ve integrated IDX listings into several of the most popular Wordpress Themes including StudioPress, AgentPress, Frugal, and DIYThemes Thesis. Because the listings are integrated into Wordpress and we have re-written the URL structure, they SEO perfectly. The designs are notable for their use of large photos, Google Street view, and a VERY focused and flexible approach to Lead Capture. Lise Howe, James Harner, Fernando, Carlos Rodrigeuz, and Tim/Ed have been very patient as we work through a lot of technical challenges and tweaking for the highest possible lead capture rates.

#9. ListingBlog (IDX Company)

We are standardizing these designs and working on an awesome application of WordpressMU that will allow agents to instantly an unlimited amount of SEO niche market blogs that are automatically filled up with content. A key 2nd part of this project is to integrate a CRM for wordpress that tracks visitors’ site activity and provides instant notification capabilities. The simple thing we do is create a great website with full IDX capability and manage the PPC and SEO strategies to guarantee a specific number of visitors and leads per month for clients. I am working with a new partner who left one of the top IDX firms to basically handle Sales. Thank God!

#10. HOAHelpDesk.com (Home Owners Association Website system and Social Network)

This is a wide-open niche market with very poor competition. Can’t say much more, but this could turn out to be the most profitable project of all.

#11. CSPFG & LifetimeStrategies (Financial Planning)

I consider most of the stock market and investing universe the unproductive shifting of paper. However, this company got people out of variable 401k and stock market investing and into much better Equity Indexed Universal Life polices, Annuities,and other safer, tax advantaged investment options that saved their customers millions of dollars during the crash. This is a agent website and lead capture system but built on WordpressMU which gives the company the best security and control features of Replicated Website systems but with the blogging, flexibility, and SEO capabilities of Wordpress.

#12. PhoodClub & PhillyPhoodClub

First rule of Phood Club – always talk about Phood Club. This website and internet marketing system will bring together 5 – 20 people weekly to review the food of 48 Philadelphia area restaurants per year. While these folks are together the Philly Phamilies i.e. the spouses/others get together with their kids and cook. The original idea was to simply get Yale alumni together once per week but the concept has the potential to become the #1 on-line destination for food and restaurant reviews in Philly. it could go nationwide. Finally! An internet project my Wife will Love, especially since I am working on it with her best friend (a hot, single Physician who loves beer and sports in case you do/are too.)

#13. The Local Expert

We started this project by providing niche marketing websites and super-inexpensive Book ghostwriting services to real estate agents but pulled it off-line to restructure it for several industries. The key is that people want to hire experts. If you write a book or “publish” you are an expert. Big companies like Bob Proctor’s charge $40,000 to help you do this kind of thing. We’ve figured out how to do this for $1,000 – $5,000 – but that’s our secret.

#14. q2Results

This is my own corporate site – conceptually based on Stephen Coveys “Quadrant 2″ statement regarding “important but non-urgent” tasks like – Comprehensive Internet Marketing systems : ) which is what we do for businesses. I have to do for myself what I tell other clients to do regarding the automation of ALL my lead capture, prospect education, client conversion, project management, billing, etc…systems…otherwise, as you can see, I can’t possibly handle any more work.

#15. OctagonTactical.com

This is just a quick website for a friend who provides Personal Self-Defense, Firearms, and law enforcement training. Chris Springfield is the best combination of law enforcement, military,  organizational systems, and teacher that I’ve ever met.

#16. For the People You Love (Life Insurance and Annuities)

Another project for a friend Sean McCullough. This is a simple lead capture website that – when finished – should steal ALL the traffic from those companies say they “give quotes” but really just capture your information and sell the leads. Can’t give-a-way the strategy, but if it works, the system could dominate any Financial Services or Insurance market we go into — and these are really competitive markets.

#17 & #18. Other Market Domination Projects

Albuquerque and an interesting Denver Vacation Rentals project should begin soon. I’m also working on a website f

#19. WordpressMU Duplicator Plugin

This allows us to turn a Wordpress website into a perfect corporate or networking marketing Replicated Website system

#20. Wordpress CRM

There is nothing like what we are doing which should really help extend wordpress into a full featured business solution.

#21. Wordpress Theme Add-on Package

Wordpress theme/frameworks like StudioPress, AgentPress, Frugal (my current favorite), and Thesis allow website/blog owners a lot of customization capability. The problem is that most website owners do NOT understand color, spacing, typography selection, copywriting, or – much less – how to select and place lead capture, contact, and interactive elements (usually wordpress plugins) for maximum increase in their sales. Soooo….we are developing add-on graphic design, copywriting, and plugin packages based on Best Practices that they can buy and integrate very easily.

#22. WordpressMU Server Set-up and hosting

Since we do so much on WordpressMU we hired one of the best cloud server guys in the world. He’s an engineer (not a software guy) who can expound for hours on what big companies like Twitter screwed up. People ignore this stuff until their hosting becomes inadequate and costs them tons of money. My challenge is documenting and communicating why clients need to pay for this kind of stuff they do not “see.”

Wow. Ok, I’m tired and am taking the baby off to nap.

Happy Holidays!

Sam

The new Listing Press Plugin by Jason over at Real Estate Tomato has allowed me to finally create the real estate IDX website I’ve worked off and on for 4 years.  Here’s a sneak peak at an early draft. Instead of one graphic design of homes for sale, we are putting in about 10 so the agent can test which are better at lead capture for their own niche markets. Bigger photos of homes = more leads for real estate agents.

Click on the image to see the demo website http://www.PAHouseQuest.com BUT be sure to scroll down on the COMPARE HOMES page to see the different designs we are working on.  These ListingPress designs are optimized to make sure no Visitor on a real estate website ever goes to a competitors’ site, and for “lead capture.”

Listing Press Plugin: More Visitors, More Leads, More Prospects, More Clients, More Referrals

The Listing Press Wordpress Plugin solves several of the problems traditional IDX Home Search technology companies solutions.  Tech savvy real estate agents know that most home buyers start their search on-line. Smart agents with a little bit of money use internet advertising to drive visitors to their Home Search website. The problem “historically” with most home search “IDX” real estate websites is that they did not give visitors what they want i.e. big photos of homes.  While real estate search technology companies have become better at this their “home search” solutions still are not what real estate agents and consumers really need or want.

Listing Press is a solution. More to come…

Some of the work I am doing is very complex. It’s always creative and interesting. It’s very profitable….potentially extremely profitable to where I wouldn’t have to work much anymore – but still, very complex.

Mastering the 22 Steps to Dominate Your Market and Live a Happier Life

And, most of it would commit me to being tethered to a large degree to the particular abilities of my clients i.e. how hard they work, how open minded they are, how much money they have, etc…

Now I’ve written before how Expert Internet Marketers DO NOT work for any clients. Why should they convince other people to pay them (and often these people want the most work for the least amount of money) when they can use their skills and sell their own product or service?

The Experts either find a product to sell and be their own boss, Joint Venture with someone where they get huge cuts of the sales income, OR become “gurus” and sell stuff to a ton of people – 90% of whom won’t ever use it effectively.

(I’m trying to flip this with my coaching and membership programs, but it’s hard.)

At any rate, I’ve been doing it the hard way…working with clients who are more or less good or bad…while putting together my own systems to sell my own services fairly passively so I can spend lots of time with our new baby in the fall….but…

…I just met a really smart guy today – Emma’s friend’s Dad who has what is every internet marketers’ dream…a simple solution…a huge market…no competition…and a solution that fits perfectly my own skill set and personal story.

Ever read “Blink”? I make judgments based on my instincts when it comes to people and statistical analysis when look at markets/solutions, etc…and in this case both seem to line up.

We shall see.

Note: This is the first post on my new website….yeah yeah, the truth is that I do for myself only about 5% of what I tell my clients to do, since I’m always so busy doing their stuff…but I am determined to do this.

Should I be investing in my clients’ success more than my own?

What do you think?