Fall in Love with Your MLS

YouTubeIntroduction:  

 Dave: Hello and welcome to StateListingsInc. The home of MyStateMLS. My name is Dave and thank you for joining us for today's webinar, where we're going to be talking about falling in love with your MLS and we're going to introduce you to the MLS that will take your breath away, known as MyStateMLS.  

 Question And Answer: 

 Dave: So to get started, we all know Valentine's Day just around the corner, and let's talk about what makes a good relationship? For some people, we know that falling in love can be tough. There's no denying it. It takes a couple tries before we get there before we find our perfect match but let's talk about what makes a solid relationship? A good relationship should be easy and MyStateMLS takes that idea and starting that initial relationship. We make it very easy to get started with our system, where you can get your account up and running, with just a few clicks of your mouse, couple entries on your keyboard and you're going to be up and running very, very quickly. MyStateMLS, very, easy to get started and very easy to use. 

 Dave: Next thing we think about when we think about good positive relationships is, support. When two people are in a relationship, they should be supporting one another and support is one of the most important things to a positive relationship and here at MyStateMLS, we hold the same values. Does your MLS support you and your needs? does your local MLS offer you support? Offer you training? Offer you classes? Are they there to answer your questions? Well MyStateMLS, we offer phone support, chat support as well as email support to all of our members and If you're here today, you also know that we offer these training webinars. We do various webinars every single month, throughout the year. Sometimes, we'll run entire series based on different topics or we just do different kinds of webinars, based on what's going on in the world around us. So here at MyStateMLS, support is one of the things that we definitely hold true and we want to be there for all of our members.  

 Dave: Another key thing about relationships is, no one likes bad surprises. You don't want to have your spouse or your significant other, drop a bombshell on you. We're not talking about the nice surprise, like flowers when you walk home or the simple things like, they put away the dishes. We're talking about bad surprises. Like, who's that other person? No one likes that and what If you open up the mail, you have something addressed to you, It's from your local MLS and you discover that you've been fined. That is the surprise that no one likes, and here at MyStateMLS, we don't issue fines to our members. So we eliminate those bad surprises because we know, no one likes those bad surprises. So we all know Valentine's Day is all about love.  

 Dave: Let's talk about some of the things that brokers and agents love when it comes to their business. We all know that every broker and agent wants to have the tools and access to those tools that they need to make doing their business easy, that speeds up the transaction process, that allows them to get their listings out to the public quickly and efficiently. Well MyStateMLS offers you Nationwide search tools, digital document signing software as well as a built-in CRM, which is a Customer Relationship Management tool, allowing you to keep your business flowing and we all know, whether you're just an agent, you're a broker, you're a team leader, you want to see your business grow and everyone wants to see themselves succeed and MyStateMLS can help brokers and agents do that by expanding their coverage areas and doing more listings with our platform. 

 Dave: So we're going to talk about today is MyStateMLS, what it is and how it can help. So why a Nationwide MLS? Well, MyStateMLS is a nationwide MLS and referral network, that connects brokers and agents from across the country and by being part of a Nationwide platform, this is going to help you as an agent, as a broker, help all of your customers. Whether they're staying local or relocating, you're going to be able to help them find their new home, wherever they're looking, allowing you to maintain your relationship with them as well as building new relationships with brokers and agents across the country. Being part of MyStateMLS allows you to create your account, you'll be licensed to list properties in your state but you're still going to be able to see listings from across the entire country, where you can still work with our members to either help a current customer that you have find a home in a relocated area, you can send out referrals to those other members and allow you to still be able to collect commissions even on those properties that are outside of your home state and we'll talk about all of that in just a little bit.  

 Dave: One thing that we love here at MyStateMLS is that this platform is a labor of our love. Our staff wants to see you succeed in your business and we know that is one of the key aspects of a good relationship is again, we talked about it having support for one another, we're here to support you because we're in the business to help you succeed in yours and our support team is always going to be there to guide you from the first time you sign up, from the first time you enter a listing, we're gonna hold your hand that entire way through your entire journey and any other questions or bumps along the way that come up, we're certainly gonna be there to help you and guide you through whatever it is you're going through. So now let's talk about MyStateMLS and what makes it different from a traditional local MLS.  

 Dave: First thing is we can swipe right on easy sign-up. I've already talked about it that getting set up with MyStateMLS is incredibly easy. All you have to do is visit us at mystatemls.com, you'll click on the sign-up button right at the center of the screen, you're going to put in a little bit of information about yourself and your account will be pretty much up and running within just a few minutes. Once your account is up and running, you can also swipe right on how easy it is to use. We utilize custom-built software that was built in-house with ease of use in mind. In addition to that, we listen to our members, so If there's something that you think should be changed or added to the platform, certainly let us know. A lot of the features that our members currently use at this time, they're all part of our system because we've taken the feedback from members over the course of the past decade and we've implemented those suggestions to our platform to make our system as easy to use and as beneficial as possible to all of our members. 

Dave: What's cool about MyStateMLS is what we've done for our Syndication. We know that a lot of local MLS's, they either have a limited number of syndication sites or they do not give you the control over your listing data that you would like. With MyStateMLS, we know that members want to be in control of their data, so we give our members the ability to select the syndication sites that they want. So when you're in love, you want the whole world to know. So why not let the whole world know about your listings? MyStateMLS sends to over 100 different sites around the globe. When a member puts a listing into MyStateMLS, instead of just selecting one check box for all syndication options, we give brokers and agents the ability to select which websites they'd like to send their listings to. If you want to send to just one website, you can send to one. If you want to send it out to all 100 sites, you can send it out to all 100 sites. To quickly break down which sites we send to, we send directly to Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, Homes, and Home Finder. We also use Listhub syndication, which sends out to about another six or seven dozen sites Nationwide. You can also see we've got a couple other sites on there, we have MH Authority, which is a site dedicated to mobile and modular homes. Brevitas is a commercial website. Apartments.com obviously, for apartment listings. Samaki.com is another website targeted towards foreign buyers that are already here in the U.S. Then we also have Localized city, which is a city-specific site that focuses on major metropolitan areas. List globally and International Syndication are two different platforms that we use to help our members send their listings out to the dozens of websites around the world.  

 Dave: So let's talk about a different kind of relationship that you can have. MyStateMLS makes it easy to connect to agents across the country and what we mean by that is, MyStateMLS is a Nationwide MLS and referral network which allows you to use our nationwide search tools to help look for properties for your relocating customers and connect them to agents anywhere in the country and help you collect a referral fee in doing so and in just a couple of minutes, we're going to hop into the MLS and I'm going to show you exactly how that works. In addition to that, It's also important to stay connected with your clients and customers and MyStateMLS includes a built-in CRM. So you're going to be able to keep track of all of your customers and all of your clients. When it comes to your customers, you can create saved searches that are automatically going to send emails to your customers when there's new listings matching their search criteria and then you've also got the ability to keep notes on all of your customers, all of your clients. So that way you can take notes of all of your interactions, so you never miss a beat, you know exactly what was discussed the last time.  

 Dave: So with that said, let's go ahead and jump into MyStateMLS. If you haven't visited our site before, feel free to visit us at mystateMLS.com. When you're ready to join, simply click on that sign-up button, right at the center of the screen, that's going to take you right through the process and get your account started. If you ever want to learn more about us before signing up, you can always click on that resources tab, up in the top right corner, that's going to allow you to view past webinars, read our blog posts as well as sign up for some upcoming webinars, that will be holding in the future. Earlier before, I also mentioned that we make it very easy for our members to get customer support. Not only do we have phone support and email support, we also have our live chat as well, which will allow you to chat with one of our representatives at any time.  

 Dave: Let's go ahead and log into MyStateMLS. What we're looking at right now, this is my profile wall. This is the main screen that you're brought to when you log into your MyStateMLS account. What's great about this system is It's fully customizable. All of these widgets that we see here on my profile wall, I can go ahead, I can minimize those. If I want, I can reorder them into an order that best suits me, so I can put them in any view that I like, so I can easily navigate the system and that's going to maintain this layout each and every time that I log in. Let's go from beginning to the end when it comes to working with our customer or our client. Let's say I'm gonna list a property for sale for one of my clients. So I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna put their information into my CRM, so what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna head over to the contacts tab, up here on the top right corner. I'm going to click add new contact. If you're a brand new member to MyStateMLS, we do allow you to go ahead and import all of your contacts directly into your platform. You don't have to worry about those contacts being viewed by anyone else, they remain completely private to your account, so no one else from your office, from your firm, any other agents from the MLS, are going to be able to see your contacts. Those remain completely private to your account.  

 Dave: So I'm going to be working with Jerry Stingler. I'm just going to pop in his name and email for now. Actually, let's just do his phone number and now what I've done is, I've gone ahead and I've created a contact card for Jerry. So now what I can do is, I can start doing searches for him, I can assign saved searches to Jerry's contact card here, that'll automatically send emails out to him anytime there's a new search but Jerry's going to be selling his house locally. So I'm going to put it on the market him but then he says, you know what Dave? We didn't tell you this because we weren't sure how to break it to you but we're actually moving out of the area. We're going to move to Colorado. We want to be closer to the family. In years past, If you had a customer that was relocating, you might say, well good luck with your home search. I wish you the best but now If you're part of MyStateMLS, you're part of a Nationwide network. What you can now do is, you can say, all right Jerry. Well, you know what? Actually, I can help you find your next house. Just let me know, you can either come down to the office, I can put my screen up on the conference room, big screen. If you want to stay home, we can do a zoom call, I can do a screen share and we can look for properties for you. Jerry being a past client of mine, currently working with him, he's going to want to maintain that relationship. He knows that I've treated him well in the past. So what Jerry's going to do is say, all right. Yeah, let's do a quick search. Let's see what we can find.  

 Dave: So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to pull up a tool called Access Find. I can get that from the left-hand sidebar menu or I can get it from the search dropdown at the top and now, this is a tool that so many people have fallen in love with over the years, and what it is, is this is now been branded as Professional Search and while it looks like Realtor.com, that's only because it is powered by Realtor.com software and what it does is, it takes MLS data and combines it with public record data, historical record data and a bunch of other different property sources and combines it into one platform. So again people will say, well I can look up listings from Realtor.com. You could but what this does is, this really refines the platform and makes it a professional quality search. So again, Jerry wants to live by his family. They live in Aspen, Colorado. So I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna go ahead and do a search for Aspen. We can go ahead, we'll pop in a price range, we want at least four beds, we have to go a little bit higher on Jerry's search here. So now we've done. Again, I'm not part of any MLS in Colorado. I'm in New York, where I am right now but I can still go through and I can still do these searches for my customers, for my clients, no matter where they're looking.  

 Dave: So either he and I are looking at the same screen together, maybe I'm doing a screen share with them, we can do is, we can go through all these properties and again, I can open these up. Again much like a regular public site, we can flip through photos, we can look at all the details but what sets this system apart from other ones is, we can scroll down and we're going to be able to see property history. So here we can see, here's this property on Monarch Street, we know It's currently listed for 920 and we can see that it was listed for 950 back in March. So almost a full year ago, this was originally listed and what's cool about this system is, not only can we see just the historical pricing of the property but we're also going to be able to see historical photos as well. So we can only see, there is only one photo for this property but this right here is a great tool, especially for properties that may have been on the market for a long time. We can see that, oh this house has been on the market for over a year now. We can see that the homeowners dropped the price significantly, over the course of that year. We know that homeowners probably ready to sell, so maybe now is the time that we can go ahead and make a very good offer, where my buyer is going to get the price of a lifetime because now know that this listing has been on the market for so long, has not gone sold, that may give my buyer the chance to swoop in, give a nice reasonable lower offer and try to score that deal.  

 Dave: This also allows us to go through and see If properties have been flipped over the years. Again, this looks like It's a newer build just listed a year ago but If we go back, let's see If we can find another property. Aspen, probably not the best place to look for older properties but we can see the historical photos. So we can see every time this property has been listed, they just use the same photos each time. Let's say Jerry likes his house. I can say, all right. Well, let's see what we can do. I can see that Maggie is listed here, I can see her phone number. So I can give her a direct call, give her a ring. Say, hey Maggie, this is Dave. I'm up in New York. I've got a customer here. I'm selling their house here in New York, they're planning on moving to Aspen. We saw one of your units and I'd love to refer them to you. Do you think we can set something up? Maggie, of course, wanting another customer, wanting to make a sale, is of course, going to want that referral. So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to log back to my MyStateMLS account. I'm going to pull up my agent referral form, I'm going to go ahead and fill this out and at the bottom, we're going to see that there's referral agreement details. Here's where there's an agreed-upon referral fee. So this could either be a flat fee, this could be a percentage of what she collects. So whatever she and I agree upon, I want to be able to fill this out. I'm going to send it off to her, she's going to sign it, and once completed, I'm going to go ahead and pass along Jerry's information to Maggie. She's then gonna meet up with them in Aspen, maybe she sells them this property, maybe she finds another home nearby for them, at a much lower rate. Still close to the mountain, still close to family. Maggie's then going to go ahead, collect her commission and because I referred those clients to her, she's then going to send me my money as a referral. 

 Dave: So a great way for you to grow your business and keep your connections healthy, your relationships growing, by being able to use that referral agreement to send referrals out to agents, no matter where they are in the country. Again, just as a refresher, Professional Search is different from regular Realtor.com because not only is it taking listings from the different MLS's across the entire country. So no matter where you are in the US, you're still going to be able to see MLS listings from different MLS's across the country. It also combines it with those historical records as well. So again, If we wanted to search in Clearwater Florida, we can do that and we're going to drop our price range a little bit, we wanted to add more filters, we wanted to make sure there was a pool, we can do that. We're going to see our properties that are in that price range with a pool. If we need to spread it out a little bit, we can see that a little bit outside. It looks like everything's pending right now because we all know that this is a crazy hot market right now.  

 Dave: Here's a brand new listing for my customers, we know that listings are not staying too long on Clearwater, so we gotta strike while the irons hot. We can give Terry a call right away. Say, hey Terry, we saw your brand new listing on Mandalay Ave. I've got some customers that are here in New York. I'd love to refer them to you, where can I send you a referral agreement? I'll shoot that over to Terry, Jerry's going to then move on down to Florida. Terry, selling him the home will collect his commission, then I'll get to collect my referral fee. Again, If you want to know where that referral agreement is, just head on over to the listings form section, on the left-hand sidebar menu of your mystateMLS account, and scroll on down to where you'll find agent referral agreement. While we're looking at this, this allows me to transition into the other thing I wanted to talk about today is, the tools that MyStateMLS offers.  

 Dave: Not only do we have that built our CRM, we also allow our members to opt-in to the Constellation1 rDocs platform. Which could allow you to turn this pdf document into a fillable pdf, which can be then signed electronically. So you can send this out to other agents. If you want, you can also turn your listing contracts into e-signature contracts. So your buyers and sellers can sign those agreements, anywhere they are. Which again, a lot of people have been switching over to because of social distancing and what kind of measures were put in place, last year.  

 Wrap Up: 

 Dave: So unlike some relationships, I wanted to keep things simple today. I wanted to just show you what makes MyStateMLS so great and how you can utilize it to create meaningful relationships with your customers, with your clients, and of course, grow your business and create those relationships with brokers across the entire country. If you're not already a member of MyStateMLS again, you can always sign-up at mystatemls.com and click on that sign-up button, right at the center of the screen. If you're an individual, we have both monthly and yearly billing options. For monthly membership, It's just $40 a month, there's no long-term commitment and you can cancel at any time. Yearly billing is $330 for the full year, saves you $150 over that monthly rate by committing to that full year. 

 Dave: If you're a broker and you're interested in offering MyStateMLS to your entire firm, we also offer office pricing as well. The way that works is, we give accounts to all of your agents and the company would pay a discounted office rate. If you're interested in office pricing, just go ahead and send me an email at dave@mystatemls.com. So I see a lot of people wondering If MyStateMLS is a replacement for your local MLS? This is a great question and that is entirely up to you. We have brokers and agents using us across the country, for a variety of different reasons. Some brokers are using us in place of their local MLS because they know that their local MLS costs too much, they have high fees or high fines that they just don't agree with. So they've switched out of their local MLS altogether. Other brokers and agents use us in addition to their local MLS because they utilize MyStateMLS as a selling tool. Think about it, If you're going to a listing appointment, you have to make that homeowners fall in love with you and one of the best ways to do that is, to set yourself apart from your competition. We know that the real estate market is very tight right now, inventory is low. So brokers and agents are fighting for every listing that's out there and most of your competition is probably giving the same spiel that all the others are. They're going to tell the homeowners that they're going to put their listing in the local MLS. So what you need to do is, you can utilize your MyStateMLS account and say, Yes, I'll put you in the local MLS, just like everyone else but I'm going to go above and beyond because I want to help you. I'm going to put your listing into a Nationwide MLS and referral network, which is going to allow your listing not only be to be seen by the brokers here in our area but It's going to allow brokers and agents from across the state, from across the country. Also the ability to see your listing. I'm also going to be able to send your listing Internationally and be seen on different sites around the entire world and If you use MyStateMLS as a marketing tool, as a listing tool, that could help you secure more deals. Which could mean to more sales and we all know that more sales, means more money and with a small investment with our very affordable price plan. If you just win one extra listing by using MyStateMLS as a sales tactic, the commission on that one sale could pay for your MyStateMLS for years over.   

 Dave: The other scenario that we also see agents using is, they never had MLS representation to begin with and that breaks our heart because we know that there are hundreds of MLS's across the country. There are over 600 MLS's in the US but there are still parts of the country that never had representation before, where there are rural areas that are just too far out from major metropolitan or suburban areas, where those MLS's are. So they never really had true MLS coverage before but now with MyStateMLS, we can help agents and brokers no matter their scenarios. So no matter what you're going through, whether you're feeling heartbroken, over the way you're being treated in your relationship with your local MLS or maybe you're just looking for another partner and you want to spice things up by adding a little extra spice into the mix. MyStateMLS can certainly be there for you. So If you have any questions. Again, please feel free to email me at dave@mystatemls.com. You can go ahead and call me as well at 888 769-7657. But thank you so much for joining us. We hope to see you again very, very soon and have a wonderful day. Bye.