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The Hub is Your Communications Center
A brokerage intranet is the glue that keeps everything together and the filing cabinet that keeps it all sorted. They increase efficiency, boost productivity, reduce information overload, enable true mobility, and drive engagement.
Moxi Works Hub is the ultimate brokerage intranet. With over 1.5 million agent sessions, brokerages use it as a center for announcements, multi-media, documents; the one stop shop for all of their communications.
Search
Quickly find the agents, staff, documents, and client presentations with one search box. That’s right, through keywords, Hub is able to pull up all the relevant information from the agent’s search. No more time wasted searching for something you could find in ten seconds. Sounds like a productivity booster!
Documents library
Every document within your brokerage is organized within the hub and is searchable in one central location. Set permissions for each document, ensuring the right people see the right information and documents. This helps when you want your managers and higher-ups to have different information than your agents.
Host multi-media
Sure, it’s nice to have a place to store all of your documents, but what about your multi-media? Your videos, photos, and other brokerage collateral you’ve spent precious time on. The Hub is your communications center for it all. Have a new TV commercial coming out or an online ad campaign running? Give your agents a sneak peek inside the Hub!
Agent roster
Find contact information for every agent and staff member within your brokerage. The roster allows collaboration among agents and staff. It even makes referrals within a brokerage very simple.
Tools & services
All the tools and services your brokerage provides are found in one place. Everything from marketing to transaction management to your MLS. This is the power of the Moxi Cloud, integrating everything a brokerage needs in one place, with Single-Sign On (SSO). Provide links to tools and services that agents use every day, so they have to click around less.
Announcements
Post announcements you’d like all your agents to see or remind them of ones they’ve received in email form. Notify when upcoming events are around the corner or when their taxes are due. Your brokerage value proposition can get a lot more attractive when an agent only needs to log into one place to see it all.
Want to learn more about Moxi Works Hub? Click here and watch the video below.
Intuit Partners with MoxiWorks to Enable Agent Tax Savings
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE Moxi Works is a brokerage application development company that was founded by Seattle’s leading brokerage company, Windermere Real Estate. The software was originally developed for Windermere’s brokerage company until the company expanded the offering to include brokerages around the nation. Today, Moxi Works is a separate company that serves a brokerage base that is representative of more than 90,000 agent users. Some of their leading brokerage partners include Windermere, Long and Foster, Howard Hanna, Pacific Union, Seven Gables and many others.
Enhance Your Database to Enhance Your Engagement
Win more client listings.
Now that I have your attention, here is a simple fact: you already have everything you need to win more client listings – immediately. How you are using it, however, is the question.
The key to winning more listings lies in your current database of contacts. Seriously. Here is how to do it.
1.) Get Contacts in the CRM
Yes, you hate it, I get it. However, unless you do this you will never be able to make the magic happen (more on this later.) Collect all your notepads, napkins, people on your phone, and your pirate treasure map, and get them into your CRM.
Key contact info that matters most:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Email Address or Phone
- Address (if available)
Don’t want to do this yourself? Hire a hungry college student from the local community college then – just get them into the system (mandatory to make the magic happen.)
2.) Categorize Your Contacts
Break up your contacts into three groups over, say, over the course of a 10-year period:
- “New” Known for 0 – 3 years
- “Establish” Known for 4 – 6 years
- “Need to Verify” Known for 7+ years
Now that you have people in these buckets, chances are they likely have some things in common with one another. Some are ready to upgrade to a bigger home, downgrade their home, etc. These are good things.
Now, here comes the magic.
3.) Hit the Button: The Moxi Insights Button
Yes, there is a catch, but a worthy one. To see the magic, you need the wand – enter Moxi Insights.
Moxi Insights helps you to win more client listings by showing you 30+ indicators that can signal a person’s likeliness to list.
I can see the eye roll now (I am secretly watching you) and the exasperated reaction… I know, it is like I am Billy Mays trying to tell you about the ShamWow. However, here’s the difference: Moxi Insights really does works.
Some of the potential listing indicators we include for determining client readiness:
- Family demographics like number of children and their ages
- Educational history
- Personal interest categories such as vehicles, charitable work, sports, fashion
- Financial health and stability
Clients Want Trust in an Agent
Fact: 70% of consumers want to work with and do repeat business with the first agent they meet future. If you can connect on a personal level with those clients and others like them, the probability of you winning their listing(s) increase exponentially. Knowing what matters to clients, who they are, and relatability is key to earning their trust.
Become a More Effective Marketer and Grow Client Relations
Moxi Insights can be leveraged in a variety of ways for you to show marketing savvy and grow relationships with clients. Here are five examples of how to become a more effective real estate marketer and grow cleitn relations that you can try using in your own market.
1.) The Birthday
If you have a Moxi Insights subscription, you have instant access to a contact’s birth date. Send them a birthday greeting, say, a $25 gift card for Loop & Tie to have them pick from a range of client-gifting options to remember their special day. Simple acts like this are both personalized and memorable. Well played, you.
2.) The Investor
With Moxi Insights, one of the things you can get client exposure into is financial stability. Insights can help you to identify contacts (or five) that have some promising indicators of pursuing rental or investment properties. Send these folks relevant information about properties in their area that appear to be in line with their financial portfolios. Keeping top-of-mind is crucial and shows sincerity.
3.) The Tailgate
Football season is right around the corner! Use Moxi Insights to find all the sports fans in your database and throw a Week 1 tailgate or BBQ to usher in the return of the football season. Not only does this give you a chance to connect with people you already know, but it also gives you a chance to meet friends of your clients (aka new leads). Make it an open invite and network with new folks during the festivities.
4.) Time to Upgrade
Maybe you sold Bob (we will call him Bob) and his wife their first starter home several years ago. A cute couple like that, chances are good their family has grown, and they might be in the market to upgrade. Moxi Insights incorporates countless ways to show that Bob is ready for that new house:
- Number of children in the house hold
- Estimate ranges
- A new baby on the way
Public records data and in-product badges help you to easily see that, yes, Bob is indeed ready to upgrade to a new home. Now you can cater your listing presentation for relevant homes ahead of engaging with Bob. Now, not only do you show personal interest, but you also look sophisticated and in-tune with their needs.
5.) The Downgrade
Now, let’s take a look at Debby. You sold Debby a home 10+ years ago. At the time, Debby had two teenagers heading off to college. Moxi Insights can show you where those kids are now. With the kids out of the nest, Debby and her husband are ready for the next chapter: retirement and a downgrade. Another opportunity to get ahead of the competition and flex your client prowess.
Are you ready to start winning more listings and beat out the competition? Click here to learn more about Moxi Insights.
MoxiWorks Adds Intuit’s QuickBooks Self-Employed to Cloud Open Platform
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE Moxi Works has added Intuit’s QuickBooks® Self-Employed, a partner in the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) REALTOR Benefits® Program, to its Moxi Cloud open platform, the company recently announced.
What the Top Real Estate Brokerages Know That You Don’t
Here’s the deal: 65% of the Real Trends top brokerages know one big idea and they’re acting on it. Which means, if you’re not in that 65% – chances are you’re doing something wrong or you’re going to quickly fall behind. With brokerage dollars shrinking and agent adoption of technology tools at all-time lows, what are the most productive brokerages in the industry doing better than everyone else?
The one big idea
The top brokerages are consolidating technology tools and focusing on increasing agent productivity, while getting industry leading CMA and CRM tools. And, they’re doing it by having visibility into their business at the brokerage level.
How?
These top brokerages are using the only true open platform in the industry. Not sure what that means quite yet? You’ll find out below. The point is, those not future-proofing their brokerages with open platforms are not going to exist on the top Real Trends list for many more years.
Take advantage
Picture this. Your brokerage: Being differentiated from competitors. Increasing technology adoption. Improving recruiting and retention. And a major productivity rise. All this, just by employing a system that provides best-in-class tools and services you already know and love, and swapping out tools that are no longer performing. Plus, agent adoption rates well over 80% and up to a 43% increase with seller-side and buyer-side transactions.
This is what an open platform can give you. All your data in one place. Your agent roster, property data from your MLS, brokerage assets, brokerage data, consumer data, agent CRM contacts, and an API that allows any tools you want to plug in and play nicely with all the rest of your tools and everything we just mentioned. This is what our Moxi Cloud open platform looks like for reference:
Why now?
Technology is becoming more segmented for agents and evolving at warped speed. That and brokerage dollars are shrinking, the talent pool for recruiting is getting tighter, and creating business efficiencies are more critical now than ever. If there’s a time to get your brokerage ducks in a row, it’s now. Because eventually, it’ll be too late. If you embrace it now, the future of your brokerage will be much, much smoother.
Find out more about Moxi Works and open platforms here. Don’t feel like exploring? Watch the video below.
No Data Exchange? No More Brokerage.
By Tiana Baur
Data is the currency you will need in order to exist in the very, very near future. The real estate industry won’t be able to stick their heads in the sand on this one, especially since the majority of industries are already embracing data with open arms. Brokerage data is quickly becoming the soul of the brokerage business that keeps its heart beating and its legs moving.
Why this is happening
The thing many don’t realize, is that data isn’t just a list of numbers. Data is what integration is literally made of. Data = integration. Ever wonder how you could log in to your brokerage’s intranet and have everything you need right there? The answer: Data.
Everything is moving to the cloud. Data gets stored and managed in the cloud. Much of it gets stored and managed by Amazon Web Services. Their data saw revenues soar to over $12.2B in 2016. Salesforce, another data management platform, generated $6.67B in fiscal 2016 revenue. Last quarter, Microsoft’s commercial cloud business exceeded a $10B annual run rate. The company is still projecting this number to hit $20B by 2018.
Data is taking over the world and brokerages have no choice but to hop on the bandwagon. The future of the brokerage depends on how they manage their data.
The ecosystem
Data is useless if it doesn’t work flawlessly together and isn’t stored in a shared environment. Picture your brokerage data like an ecosystem. Remember those miniature ecosystems built in a plastic bottle that every generation has to make in their elementary science class?
An ecosystem is a collection of complimentary applications all working together, sharing data, that make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Any computer you’ve ever used in the modern age has its own ecosystem. Whether it’s that Epson printer you’re using or the many applications you go through in a day like Skype, QuickBooks, or Adobe, everything works together as soon as you install it. If you don’t like an application, you delete it and get another one. It’s as simple as that.
Our open platform is where your brokerage apps get their data. The three core data sources of a brokerage data exchange are:
- Property data
- Brokerage and agent data
- Consumer data
How to cope
Whether you’re climbing 29,035 feet up Mt. Everest, the tallest point on earth, or looking to grow your brokerage – preparation is key. A solid data exchange plan isn’t something that can happen for a brokerage overnight, unless they choose to get advice and help from the experts.
For instance, many might say that a brokerage platform only needs to have those three data points working seamlessly together. But that’s just not true. When it comes to a truly open platform, they should also have integration with the cloud environment with Microsoft and Google and an open API allowing other technologies to integrate. API is what allows the integration to happen.
Moral of the story: educate yourself, so you can future-proof your brokerage today for what’s to come.
Looking to the future
This isn’t meant to scare brokerages, it’s meant to warn them. While many things in the future are uncertain and we can’t know for sure exactly what will happen and when, we do know that data will be the star of that show. Whether it’s Amazon, Netflix, or the brokerage down the street, businesses will survive and thrive with the data they have and the way they each choose to use it. The conqueror of data will be the conqueror of business and vice versa.
Our entire existence at Moxi Works is built on the goal to make brokerages more profitable by making their agents more productive. Agent recruiting and retention will always exist and while it does, we’ll exist to make it easier for the brokerage to do just that. If this all sounds super overwhelming and you have a slight headache, it’s probably time to pick up the phone and call someone that can advise you and simplify this major step to provide your brokerage with a solid future. Hint: Moxi Works is chalk full of advisors.
Intuit QuickBooks: Our Newest Moxi Cloud Open Platform Partner
We have a new company to add to our best-in-class tools and services list! This time, the goal in mind is to help agents retain more of their hard-earned cash. QuickBooks Self-Employed puts the power back into the independent contractor’s pockets!
QuickBooks Self-Employed helps freelancers and independent contractors stay prepped for tax time––from separating business and personal expenses, to identifying Schedule C deductions. York Baur, CEO of Moxi Works said, “Moxi Works is all about helping brokerages and their agents make their business more profitable. Intuits QuickBooks Self-Employed is proven to save agents thousands of dollars on taxes, so this partnership will put a lot of money back into agents’ pockets.”
According to Intuit, 77% of all real estate agents don’t feel extremely confident about managing their finances. Today, agents are burdened by a variety of pain points, such as:
- Taxes: Quarterly and annual tax obligations
- Time: It’s the only thing agent’s control, and they want to save as much of it as possible, while using it wisely
- Thought Leaders: Agents are becoming more digitally savvy & are looking for brokers who are just as updated
- Cash flow: Inconsistent income but consistent expenses
- Visibility: Agents want an easy solution to know how much they really made after each sale
- Growth: Agents straddle the line between consumer & small business
QuickBooks Self-Employed includes a variety of exciting and extremely useful features, including Money Insights, Mileage Tracker, Receipt Snap, and Auto Expense. Here’s what they look like:
Money Insights
Money insights organizes accounts to show the agent’s income and expenses. This connects all accounts to organize the agent’s business finances in one place. QuickBooks Self-Employed automatically tracks and categorizes transactions as they come in. Agents can instantly see a complete picture of their business finances so they can plan for what’s next.
Mileage Tracker
Mileage tracker automatically tracks mileage and allows users easy categorization — creating an increase in potential mileage deductions. Agents’ mileage will be automatically tracked and trips can be categorized as business or personal with a swipe. QuickBooks Self-Employed automatically tracks their mileage whenever they begin driving. Every mile they log increases their potential yearly mileage deductions.
Receipt Snap
Receipt snap allows users to snap a photo of a receipt from the Self-Employed mobile phone app and automatically create a transaction with the receipt attached. If a transaction already exists, receipt snap will automatically attach the receipt to the transaction. Receipt data is auto-extracted and an expense transaction is created for the user. No more sifting through piles of receipts!
Auto Expense
Auto-categorization learns how agents runs their business, recommends categories, and allows users to accept transactions with a swipe. Agents can download all of their expenses, and with a swipe can accept them into their books. QuickBooks Self-Employed learns from past actions and automatically recommends categories. Transactions are organized based on IRS categories to save users extra work.
As it stands, 50% of agents save their receipts or use a spreadsheet to track expenses, leading to manual errors and loss of deductions as well as savings. We all know an agent that saves receipts in an old shoe box. The most shocking statistic is that 16% don’t track their expenses at all.
QuickBooks Self-Employed aims to eliminate these pain points, allowing agents to run their finances properly, while saving them precious time and money. Want to try it out? Click here.
Why Fast Integrations are Advancing Brokerages
With advancements in technologies, brokers are finding that they need to advance their brokerages as well in order to keep up. This doesn’t have to be a drastic, impromptu change, though. We’re challenging brokers to take a step back and think about how they can put systems in place within their brokerage that will align with the changing technological environment of the industry.
Data is power
“More data has been created in the past two years than in the entire previous history of the human race.” – AnalyticsWeek.com
Data is the currency that will give you an ROI on your technology. Data exchange improves productivity and optimizes operations acrossorganizations in all industries. Real estate is no exception, and we’re already seeing that those brokerages who adopt technologies with consideration for the future, are making significant advancements as a business. Data exchange is what enables an agent to auto-fill MLS information into their presentation, managers to see how for their agents are to their unique GCI goals, brokerages to manage their organization’s roster, and financial success.
Open platform allows fast integrations
The ‘plug and play’ concept is great (we clearly live by it), but only if the plugging and playing can be done quickly. Changing technologies can be incredibly painful and costly for businesses and it’s a major pain point for brokerages in today’s world. The reason brokerages are opting for an open platform API is to hedge against these problems in the future, as the solution enables fast integration of new technologies.
The API (Application Programming Interface) is the key to the open platform. It allows brokerages to plug and play the tools they need into one platform. It means that you have the exact technology solutions you need, when you need them. We integrated 12 tool and service providers within two months. That means within just a couple of months, our brokerage clients had a dozen more technology solutions at their fingertips and they’re able to use what they’d like and forget what they don’t.
From the partner’s perspective, it means they’re able to easily integrate with the Moxi Works platform, sharing critical data and improving the user’s workflow. Interested in learning a little more about how the technical integration works? Check out this interview with Melissa Kwan, CEO of Spacio, about how they launched Spacio to a major brokerage in just 2 days with the Moxi Cloud. From the brokers perspective, it means you can easily onboard new tools to your entire brokerage quickly and easily.
A changing environment
Change isn’t somewhere off in the future, it’s happening now. The real estate industry is faced with the opportunity to adapt, embracing technology that will make brokerages more efficient, winning back higher profit margins. Flexibility is vital, as brokerages that stay nimble and adopt the tools that fit their needs, culture, and process, will find success in providing their agents with tools and services that address their pain points. We like to call this flexibility ‘future-proofing.’ Those who strive to be industry leaders (big or small) will advance along with the changing environment.
Increasing Productivity and Profitability
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE Brokerages large and small work hard to save valuable time and money. But for larger teams with dozens (or hundreds) of agents, remaining profitable and productive often comes down to one thing: technology and data integration. Enter Moxi Works, a comprehensive open platform system created with large residential real estate brokerages in mind.
“Our mission is to make the brokerage more profitable,” says York Baur, CEO of the company. “We do this by increasing productivity and reducing technology costs.”
Increasing productivity and lowering tech spend sounds simple, but how does Moxi Works make it happen?
6 Tips for Promoting a New Listing
You won a new listing! …Now what? It’s time to start marketing. With two goals (selling the home and showing the client you put forth a satisfactory marketing effort), listing promotion can be a challenge. Here are six tips for listing promotion, using the tools you already have.
1. Segment your CRM
Start with who you know. Would the listing be a good investment property? Filter and reach out to the investors in your sphere. Is it a great family home? Segment your sphere based on families and look for the people you haven’t touched base with in a while. Is the property right on a golf course? Look at your contacts who golf and reach out. If they aren’t looking to move, they might have friends who are.
One of the perks of having a well-organized, up-to-date CRM is that performing these searches becomes incredibly quick and easy.
2. Make it easy to share
Once you’ve identified who the property would go a great fit for, dive into your presentation builder. Put together a presentation deck that features the relevant property highlights and use that in your listing promotion efforts. Showcase your personal brand alongside the property and send it out to those in your sphere via email or social media.
By creating property overviews that are professional and engaging, people will be likely to forward them along to people they know, generating a word-of-mouth buzz.
3. Create a video
Leverage video to get people’s attention. Create a short walk-through video showing off the property. Video marketing is effective because it’s intriguing, easy to consume, and gets people to engage with it. Listing promotion using video can be much stronger than your typical content. Also, there’s no need for fancy equipment. For these short videos, your smart phone quality should be just fine.
4. Post through your social channels
The truth is that social media is a great way to quickly reach a large number of people. If you have a following on any of your social media platforms and frequently engage with people, this is the strategy for you. Facebook and Instagram are great places for listing promotion because they’re both heavily visual. Make sure you showcase the best images, add a catchy description, and post away.
5. Advertise on Facebook
Ready to really show your clients you’re willing to go the extra mile? Try promoting your listing on Facebook. It’s a great platform for your listing promotion because it generates a lot of engagement and is easy to target certain areas or income levels. Facebook advertising can be a pain, but using Advertise Your Listing, it only takes 5-10 minutes. By following three easy steps right there in your Moxi Engage CRM, you can have a listing promoted on Facebook quickly and easily. You can even select your reporting parameters to have automated reports sent directly to the client.
Want to try it out? Just navigate to one of your active listings in your Moxi Engage CRM, click on “My Ads” and follow the prompts!
6. Post on your agent website
This one may sound like a ‘no duh’ but it’s also easy to overlook. Make sure your latest listings are not only listed on your website, but that your website is always up to date. The vast majority of people go straight to the internet to search for agents and listings when they begin the home buying process, so make sure you put your best foot forward when it comes to your personal agent website.
