How can a real estate franchise manage and expand its network, while staying resourceful and profitable? A real estate franchise model is such a lucrative undertaking, but fail to organize it properly, and both parties risk losing big. So the question is how can you make everyone motivated to participate in this business relationship? And how can you make it easy to pursue common goals? We believe the tools both parties are using are crucial to everyone’s success – and here’s where real estate franchise software comes in.
In our experience, franchise agents often lack some powerful, yet simple tools that will help them run their agencies easier and smarter – something flexible and intuitive so the learning curve doesn’t take weeks and franchise reporting isn’t a nightmare.
Recently, we heard a curious conversation. Two franchise agents were talking about how they reach out to their leads. One of them confessed he just hastily scribbled some notes on whatever clipping of local yesterday’s newspaper happened to be nearby. The other agent prided himself on a much more systematic approach which included a Google spreadsheet where they occasionally updated the info about contacts.
We couldn’t help thinking that these agents would be much happier with some handy tools to run their daily interactions with contacts and compile franchise reports in minutes. Most often, a good real estate CRM and franchise software do this pretty well.
It seems, however, that plenty of franchisees haven’t embraced this technology yet. Oftentimes, this leaves their agents without actionable means of doing business and so the entire network loses rather than wins. We decided to break things down and outline the very best practices of building your network with real estate franchise software.
5 ways to use real estate franchise software to reach franchising excellency
1) Manage multiple franchise sites under one umbrella
Building a robust infrastructure for an entire franchise network is one of the most overwhelming challenges for franchisors. How will companies work within the system? How to keep track of all important data? How to reach scalability?
As a real estate franchisor, you provide your franchisees with technology that is supposed to help them get up and running with their marketing and sales. You have to be resourceful and efficient and craft a system that benefits everyone.
It goes without saying that in the modern marketing landscape, one of the most important technologies to master is a website. And it has to be a great website, not a cheap, brochure-like site with nothing but listings published.
It may be tough for agents to create websites that sell, though, – so many small and not so small details to consider from both an SEO and design standpoints. But as a franchisor, you can’t really ignore this. After all, it’s your brand image and reputation that is at stake.
One great way to build a powerful network of franchise sites is via real estate franchise software. Advanced solutions provide a single platform for managing all those sites.
This means you can create a franchise network of sites that are all managed from the one real estate CRM. You can have different sites for different brands, e.g. a site with luxury properties and the one with budget houses or new developments. This makes marketing your properties essentially easier and you can cater to various audiences so much more effectively.
2) Keep track of franchisee customer data
Oftentimes, keeping track of franchisee customer data is a long and mind-blowing process for both parties. Obviously, a franchisor doesn’t need inclusive data on each transaction but an insightful summary of a few most important things is essential. How do franchisees anticipate customer needs? What’s trending on the market today? What to expect in the months ahead? Will people still buy houses in those expanding neighborhoods or are they more likely to relocate?
You networking efforts can go astray if you do not get answers to these questions. That’s why you’ll find real estate software invaluable. It provides you with one central place for all customer-centric data, organized and automatically updated. Because you can manage your entire franchise network of sites from the one platform, checking out customer data is easy and quick, regardless of locations.
3) Reward your top-performing agents with their own websites
For most agents commission is the ultimate reward for their successful performance. However, as a real estate franchisor, you can offer them so much more in terms of technology they need every day to get new leads and follow them up.
What you can do is create a new reward system for your top sales agents. Instead of simply offering them cash bonuses, why not offer them their own real estate website fully loaded with all your properties? You are then empowering agents to sell and give them much more flexibility in marketing properties and reaching out to their audiences.
4) Expand your partner and affiliate network abroad
Just as you can create a network of sites for your top-performing agents, you can also apply the same approach to your partners. It’s typical that franchisors have a vast network of overseas partners and affiliates. They, too, are keen on using the most effective technology to promote your properties, and what could be better than a powerful website that actually speaks to its visitors?
Again, reward your best-performing partners with their own websites. You’re empowering them to craft a whole better process of promoting your network. At the same time, real estate franchise software lets you stay knowledgeable and connected with as many overseas affiliates and partners as you might have.
5) Create your own property portal
Your franchise agents probably use several property portals to promote their listings. Without a doubt, that’s a great strategy to win more exposure for your properties and get an influx of leads to your site.
But if you really want to get ahead in the game, one smarter way to do this is create your own property portal. You can publish all your franchise network properties onto one portal. It’s going to be a huge and fully branded marketing channel exclusively available to your network. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, real estate franchise software helps you do just that.
Moreover, as a real estate franchisor, you have already built a powerful brand and you need to make the most of it. Oftentimes, people might be interested in buying from your agents because your branding efforts convinced them in the quality of your agents’ work. Considering that 98 percent of first-time buyers start their home search online, you own portal is a terrific means of standing out from the competition. Add to this better SEO rankings for every agency within your network and you have several good reasons to consider this opportunity.
6) Automate and simplify franchise reporting
Franchise reporting is named the most challenging aspect of franchising that both parties are struggling with. It’s a daunting perspective for most agents and as for the franchisors, they couldn’t be happier with finding a solution that would solve this once and for all.
As a franchisor, what can you do to stop agents thinking of reporting as a burden, inevitably looming at the end of each month, and get your feedback in time?
We believe it all depends on which tools you’re using. Real estate franchise software lets you tailor a reporting system as you need it and large part of that process is completely automated. You can then easily set goals and track performance and revenues and get feedback automatically.
Needless to say, this takes the reporting strain off agents and leaves them with more time to focus on marketing and sales. At the same time, you’ll never have important info missed out again and can make sure that nothing valuable slips through the cracks.
7) Enhance team collaboration
In a franchise model, success is only possible if both parties benefit, right? It’s hard enough to market and sell properties even with the most advanced tools. Without them, however, your team could be lost whatsoever.
Your franchising success hinges on many factors but one of the most vital ones is how your agents communicate to you within your network. If that’s easy and quick, everyone has more time to focus on the core things.
Real estate franchise software provides a simple, straightforward way to foster productive communication. With such a system put in place, it’s easy to see how everyone’s performing and identify the bottlenecks. Agents have a complete CRM solution to follow up with leads and organize their customer data. Franchisors can reach scalability, simplify franchise reporting and speed up network expansion without spending a fortune.
What’s next?
Real estate franchise software is one of those tools that can define the success of your entire franchise network. Its functionality lets you get a 360-degree outlook of your business performance. It also eliminates guesswork and ends the tedium of franchise reporting.
Moreover, real estate franchise software is an excellent tool to connect the dots between many of your network agencies into a single picture that clearly shows you in which direction you should move.
And don’t forget that franchise software lets you build your own asset and it only becomes more valuable to your business over time, as you keep improving and scaling it.
