It's time again for me to rant about the counterproductive behaviors that RealtorsŪ adopt online, either out of ignorance or from thinking that they are saving money or time.

1. Being on AOL

If you want to appear (and be) professional and you use AOL for business, stop that immediately!

AOL is not user-friendly to either RealtorsŪ or consumers. You cannot click on and open URLs and e-mail addresses that you place or get in e-mail messages using AOL and it takes forever to open and view attachments. Most AOL users do not know how to open a series of MLS photos/descriptions that you send them as attachments. In the business world and by most web-savvy home buyers and sellers, AOL is viewed as the “Chuckie Cheese” of online firms. Is that the kind of restaurant you want to be?

2. But Don't Go Get Free Access or e-mail Either

The same non-professional stigma applies to “free access” and “free e-mail” from Hotmail, Yahoo, Bluelight, Excite and others. Most of these services come with an e-mail and/or web browser that is barely usable and awkward at best. Not to mention all the distracting pop-up and banner ads that the free service keeps blasting at you.

These freebie domains at the end of your e-mail address make consumers (most far more web savvy than you) wonder how come you're not successful enough to afford a real grownup e-mail system.

Worst of all, on many of these freebies, you cannot send an attachment much larger than 300 kilobytes, or about one-third of a megabyte. Yet, many packages of homes/descriptions or digital-camera home images that you'd send to a recipient can be much greater. Oh yes, you can always send MLS home descriptions/photos one or two at a time to keep the attachment smaller, thus acceptable but do you really have time for such things?

Whenever my RealtorŪ wife has a consumer e-mail her back saying that they could not open the MLS home package attachment she'd sent them from, say, Stellar, invariably it turns out that they have AOL, or some other jive freebie e-mail program. They just cannot figure out how to download , then open the attachments using AOL. Or the freebie e-mail program they use doesn't even deliver to them the moderate sized attachments.

RealtorsŪ using such systems for economical reasons need to understand that the disdain with which consumers view them is far more costly than is the $20 bucks a month they'd have to spend for a “paid” (but effective, full featured) e-mail web service.

3. Not Learning From Top RealtorsŪ

When my RealtorŪ wife, Debbie, enters a new listing into our local MLS she immediately sends out a beautiful “e-card” announcement to a growing list that's now about 250 area RealtorsŪ. This e-card contains a headline such as “Just Listed in Marblehead for $650,000. See it Wednesday on Broker Preview.” It also gives a full description of the house and four or five color interior and exterior photos that she took with her digital camera---far more info and pics than the MLS listing, (or Stellar, etc.) normally shows to RealtorsŪ.

She sends the e-card because:
1. Her RealtorŪ recipients gain an advantage,
2. She may get the home sold faster and better if more RealtorsŪ know about it early on.

In fact, they may become aware of her new listing perhaps six days ahead of the majority of RealtorsŪ who may not check very often for “matches.” Most of them just blithely wait to get the Wednesday list of our realty association's “new listings” sheet. Thus, her recipients are getting a real jump on the hundreds of area RealtorsŪ who don't get her announcement.

Yet, a few don't understand this. Invariably, almost every time she gets back an e-mail from an incensed bonehead who says, “Get me off this list,” or, “No junk mail. Remove me” or similar. Of course she immediately removes such people, but despite this valuable service she provides, sometimes these unappreciative comments make her feel like comedian Rodney Dangerfield. - “I don't get no respect at all”.

Happily, however, she also gets far more RealtorŪ replies that say things like, “What a Great Way to Keep Current on the New Listings---Keep These Coming.” Or, “Debbie, where can I go to do announcements like this myself.” It's actually a service to RealtorsŪ whose sites are hosted by web site designer, Advanced Access.

Note that the appreciative RealtorsŪ are the smart ones, far different than the knee-jerk or resentful boneheads. I suspect that the latter are likely irritated because they have made a secret pact with themselves to stay only at a minimal level of web expertise and resent those who use ultra-effective, sophisticated online marketing tactics like Deb's e-card announcement. The point is, when you get something new in your e-mail, study it a moment before you blast off some abrupt wrong headed statement. You might just be getting something of value that you could use in your own selling efforts.

Want to know how to learn best from your peers? Go buy lunch for the top Internet RealtorŪ who is OUTSIDE your selling area. Or do it for the #1 top producer located OUTSIDE of your area. Why Outside? Because those nearby you won't want you competing with them. But remote top producers don't care. And they'll find it immensely flattering that you want to pick their brain. The key to getting them to go? Make sure you tell them as you invite them that you're taking them to lunch at the Ritz Carlton or the local equivalent. Hey, forget the $$$$. they know all the right stuff. Where you gonna learn it any cheaper?!!!!

4. Not Checking e-mail Frequently

Homebuyers keep telling me how they went online and sent e-mail after e-mail to agents who never answered, or at least not for several days. What did those consumers do? They just kept going to other agents until one answered them right away, or at least within a few hours. This matter of timing is particularly critical to consumers who, say, on a Thursday, want to find a RealtorŪ to show them property on that Saturday.

You wouldn't turn your back on a walk-in would you? Well, not checking your e-mail often gives the consumer the same impression he'd get if you ignored him in person. So check AND ANSWER your e-mail.....how often? I'd say three times a day minimum.

And if you and the other RealtorsŪ you work with aren't yet online at your realty office so you can check your e-mail often, go throw the biggest tantrum since you were age five to get your office manager to arrange for web connects for everyone in the office. Immediately! What are you supposed to do? Drive home three times a day and check your e-mail on your own home computer? Which brings up the next point.

5. RealtorsŪ Not Being Online at Home and Office

Today, you need to have a laptop computer that you can take anywhere — home, office, to the cabin or lake, etc., in order to check your e-mail often, or, have a computer at several locations. At minimum, you need to connect online somehow at both home and office. Why? Because the world of web marketing is passing you by every time a consumer e-mails you on a Saturday morning and you do not reply until Monday at the office. Typically, that's already too late. The consumer is by then fed up with you because you never got back to him. How do you like being ignored? Sorry, you need to spend the money to be online almost everywhere. Or, you can continue losing consumers to other RealtorsŪ who are online everywhere. The technology is here. Where are you?

6. Not Carefully Proofing e-mails and Web Site Copy

Smart buyers who are relocating know to compare RealtorŪ web sites and then contact the “best” RealtorŪ to help them find a home in their new city. Many consumers tell me that in their evaluation of RealtorŪ web sites they summarily reject the sites of RealtorsŪ who have typos or grammatical errors. Why? Because they felt that if the RealtorŪ was sloppy enough to present himself that way on his site, he'd likely be sloppy in other details as well.

The consumers said the same thing about many e-mails that they got back from RealtorsŪ. Some consumers were shocked at the misspellings and typos, bad grammar and the obvious fact that the RealtorŪ had not fully “listened” to what the consumer was asking for.

The solution? Proofread again and again everything that you write and ONLY then consider it as final copy, or send it to a consumer as an e-mail. If you seldom write, have someone else proof stuff for you. I write thousands of words daily, and yet I still edited this column no less than six times. And usually I have my wife look over my stuff, too. Incredible how many nits she catches after I think something's perfect. How many times do you edit your stuff before sending it off?

When people see your web site or get your e-mail, remember that you ARE that site and you ARE that e-mail that they receive. And so be professional. In the remote communication of the Internet or in the flyer that you stick on a door knob, every little thing counts!! Of course, what is there in our lives that doesn't?

Published: June 29, 2000

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Bill Koelzer is a Web marketing consultant to web-proficient agents nationwide. He is co-author, with Barbara Cox, Ph.D., of the Prentice-Hall books, Internet Marketing in Real Estate and Internet Marketing. Bill is also webmaster of Orange County Real Estate, among the most-awarded known Realtor® sites. Visit his website, Koelzer.com or e-mail him at .