If you manage social media accounts for your real estate clients you are probably being asked to pin to their Pinterest accounts as well. Here is a helpful infographic, courtesy of List 2 Close Assistant. You can see the original pin here.
Transaction Communication Made Easy
April 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Does a Real Estate Pro need their real estate VA to be able to occasionally receive and handle phone calls pertaining to their transactions and other business? Is it important for an agent client to show their REVA as an important and integrated member of their team? Our answer is yes and we encourage them to look into a Virtual Phone system!
One of the important logistics you must figure out when starting with an new client, particularly with Transaction Coordination, is how communications will be handled between all parties in transactions, and on the agent’s behalf. Email is usually the easiest line of communications to start with. But real estate is still a business that relies heavily on phone communication as well. With the use of a virtual phone box or virtual phone system, this can make it easy for you as their REVA to handle your Realtor’s phone communications.
How does this work? Using a virtual phone box system, the agent can have their VA seamlessly handle their transaction communications by having a direct phone number or extension where all parties can easily get a hold of them. That number or extension would then automatically forward to wherever that Virtual Assistant is located, whether in the same office or in their own office across the country. It is an efficient and very professional way for the real estate agents to handle all of their incoming calls for their real estate business, not only transaction management.
Let me give you an example of how I have done this with clients. My client was located in another state from me (the nature of our Virtual Business) and had a toll free number through RingCentral to where all his real estate business calls came through. For every possible need for his callers, there was a certain extension number assigned and announced in his recorded greeting. For all transaction related business, his message directed callers to dial my specific extension, which when utilized, would ring to my phone number wherever I was located. I also had my own voicemail box set up in the even I couldn’t answer and callers knew I was a part of his team and not different business owner in another location. His callers didn’t know whether I was right in his office or anther state. Seamless and efficient!
What kind of places provide this service? There are a few different sources your agent can use to run their communications in this way. *Here are just a few to check out:
So there you have it. A virtual phone system is an easy solution that will make communications for your Realtor clients efficient and seamless. It also gives your clients that professional edge and positions them as a premier real estate company with a premier team to back them up.
I should also note that if you are planning on starting a team for your REVA business, it would be beneficial to utilize the same service for your company communications. With that, your team members can also communicated with your clients all through your own phone number and extensions.
* Please note, the above companies listed are just suggestions and REVA Academy in no way has received any compensation for mentioning them. The client or the REVA must do their due diligence in researching and finding the right solution for them
Firing Up The Next Round of Real Estate Virtual Assistant Training
January 11, 2013 by 1 Comment
Here we go! Beginning of January is the time of year where everyone is planning out their business and marketing for the year, and we are no exception. Here at REVA Academy, we are full of enthusiasm for 2013 now that we have fine tuned our course schedule for the year. We are so excited to show all the great real estate virtual assistant training courses we have coming up for you!
First up, by popular demand, we are starting off with one more round of our real estate virtual assistant training program, Real Estate VA Boot Camp. This is our ever so popular LIVE 5 week course, packed with 10 modules of great content and it starts February 12th. By then end of the five weeks, our students are ready to get their VA business off to a fantastic start!
The spots available for this February Boot Camp session will be very limited! So if you are interested in real estate assistance, or enhancing your skills for your VA Business, or are looking for the perfect niche to start your VA practice in, register for this popular course before all the spots are gone! Find out more about our course here at www.RealEstateVABootCamp.com. Early Bird Rate ends at midnight on January 25th!
We have many more great new courses coming your way in 2013, including Pinterest for Real Estate, Getting Started – Back to Basics, Facebook Marketing, and more. Check out our Calendar and stay tuned to find how to register for these new courses.
Here is to a fantastic and prosperous 2013 for us all. We can’t wait to get this started!
She Thinks Your System’s Sexy – Real Estate Agents Need Systems
January 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
When assisting real estate agents, having a great system is just sexy. Without having a great system for everything you do, it all becomes a disorganized mess rapidly. So how do you develop a system for what you’re doing? Here are 3 great tips for setting up some seriously sexy systems in your business for working with real estate clients.
- For everything you do create a log. This log is a live document that shows the step for every action you take when doing the work. By having a living document you can update as you need to and it will eliminate tasks or steps falling through the cracks.
- Develop a document library. When you have a library of contracts, checklists, a letter library, and a set filing system it just makes everything easier. It makes client intake processes less painful for both of you, and your agent will appreciate that you have exactly what they need to get up and running quickly.
- Develop a plan for how the work will be handled. If you have a team, this means who does what. If it’s just you and one agent, then you need to determine who is responsible for what in the beginning so there is no confusion.
Looking for more information about setting up systems within your REVA business? Be sure to check out our upcoming real estate assistant training program, REVA Boot Camp, starting in February 2013!
Facebook Reaches 1 Billion Users! [Infographic]
October 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Today at REVA Academy, we happen to be going over the Social Media module of our Real Estate Virtual Assistant training course, REVA Boot Camp. With the latest news at Facebook, I thought it was timely to share this sweet infographic about the latest stats at Facebook.
Last week, Mark Zuckerberg had announced that Facebook has officially reached 1 Billion monthly active users. Check out some of the latest stagering numbers on Facebook in this infographic we recently found on Pinterest.
Source: blog.katapult-studios.com via REVA on Pinterest
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Good Real Estate VAs Don’t Steal Content
August 14, 2012 by 1 Comment
Often times as a REVA, you are expected to help create content for your clients blogs and websites, as well as your own. It usually takes hard work and a dose of creativity to come up with original articles and page content. Nothing makes my blood boil more than when you find that your carefully crafted content or images posted by someone else on their website passing as their own. Content theft is plagiarism. Plagiarism is wrong and illegal. Whether you are a new VA or a veteran, I want you to take note of the following two rules.
1. Do not steal or plagiarize content from another source and use it as your own (or your clients).
You would think the above would go without saying. But to this day I still see a number of VA’s, mostly new ones, getting caught having plagiarized content on their websites, or have done so for their clients. For one, it gives VA’s a bad name and certainly can make their clients look bad, not to mention the legal trouble they can be in.
To me, it is such a common sense thing. Doesn’t everyone know that that plagiarism is wrong? When it happens, I find that many people plead ignorance. I have witnessed people actually say, “because it is on the internet, it is fair game to copy”. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Just look into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for yourself. Intellectual property is nothing to mess with and you could end up serious legal trouble. People new to the business may not think that they can be caught and that is why they do it. But with tools like Copyscape.com, they can and will be caught easily.
Need help developing content for your sites and blogs? Enlist the help of a good copywriter. Want to protect your own blog or website from content thieves? Check out Copyscape.com
2. Do not copy images off the web to use for blog or site content without proper permission, source citation or otherwise.
Similar to #1 above, this is another intellectual property issue. It is a bigger deal than most people realize. For some reason, there are many people who don’t realize that like written content, images are also copyrighted intellectual property and subject to the same rules under DMCA. It is wrong and considered stealing if you copy images that you do not own and post them to your sites and blogs without license, permission, attribution, etc. Most images you see around the internet are the intellectual property of someone out there and you can land in legal hot water on this one.
For blogging in particular, it has been widely taught that it is always important to include an image with your blog post to capture more visual interest for your posts. Some bloggers that may be ignorant to the intellectual property issues at hand, have gotten into the habit of searching Google Images for pictures and posting them to their blog, thinking that it was ok. They thought they were “public domain”. Such actions has over time have landed many of them in legal trouble. Check out some examples, Here and Here.
Even if the copyright infringement had been done innocently or unknowingly, that still will not release you from liability. Getty Images, Inc., a huge source of many photos you see out there, are some of most notorious about defending their intellectual property. It is not uncommon for them to send letters to offenders demanding $800-$8000 in settlement even if it was done unknowingly.
A few key things to note about using images:
- Google Image Search, Facebook, Pinterest, etc, are NOT good sources for images. It is highly likely those images are the intellectual property of someone else. If you have done this in the past, we advise you to go back through and change out your images to those that you own or have license to use.
- If you want free images, search sites like Flickr for images that have Creative Commons licenses that give you the ability to use them freely (with proper sourcing and attribution of course)
- Purchase royalty free stock photos that you can use. You can find inexpensive stock photos at istockphoto.com or photoxpress.com
- Try to mostly use images you personally own or have been created by you.
- if the images are not your own, be sure cite the original source of an image you use, but that does not necessarily mean you are protected from copyright infrigement.
So when you are creating new content for your website and blog, or that of client’s, don’t succumb to the temptation copying the content of others. Don’t copy and take images that you don’t own and place on your sites without permission, attribution. Many think that they won’t get caught. But I assure you, there are many ways to be found out.
Like I mentioned above, just because it is on the internet, does not mean it is free for the taking. Don’t be content thief.