When Bob Stewart Calls, People Listen

Bob Stewart called me a couple of weeks ago to discuss something that just might change the course of history. Well, maybe just the course of my business. Okay, fine, it will bring me a bunch of leads. Are you happy now?


So why did Bob call me?


It turns out that HouseValues (which I think is changing its name to Market Leader) has a new product called Growth Leader that they are promoting and selling for agents and brokers around the country. Bob was given the task of finding guinea pigs, as it were, and he wanted to know if I would be interested in participating in the program for a few months, and blogging about my experiences.


Since it sounded like something that could benefit my business, I was happy to be included! (Granted, I wasn't as happy as the guys pictured to the right, but I was happy nonetheless.)


I was on my way to Houston shortly thereafter for RE Barcamp, so I decided after speaking with Joyce at HouseValues to wait until after I got back to set things up.


While I was away, HouseValues created a custom website for me, which has its content focused on the north side of Austin, where I live and work. It includes information and sample listings for 31 different communities/areas in Austin. You can see it here: www.servingaustintexas.com. I haven't had a chance to fully customize everything, but when I logged on today, I already had 5 buyer leads waiting for me, and another one came in while I was playing with the system. I suppose that this is one big difference between the traditional HouseValues leads, as I expect almost all of the leads obtained from this site will be buying, not selling.


They appear to have some great tracking along with their product. I can see all of the properties viewed by those who register, along with an average price and the area of town that they seem to be focused on. They sent an automatic email from "me", then I had the option to send additional listings to the prospect with ZERO effort. Okay, not exactly zero effort. I had to click two buttons. Their system already had a list sitting ready to go. The email template was very well-written and actually looked like something that I put time into crafting.


I look forward to spending more time with this product and website in the next few months, and I can certainly imagine that it's the type of thing that I would continue to use and pay for beyond the free trial period. From what I understood, the cost is reasonable, although I don't have all of the prices in front of me right now.


I will be updating my blog detailing my experiences with Growth Leader over time. Thanks for reading!


Photo courtesy of www.photorack.net.



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