Real estate franchisor HomeSmart International recently kicked off a series of the company’s Business Builder webinars dedicated to training agents on holding successful virtual open houses, showings and tours for their clients. As much of the real estate industry makes the move toward doing a majority of its business remote and online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the real estate franchisor, who already offered webinar-based training, stepped up to ensure both their own agents and the real estate community as a whole are prepared to succeed in this new frontier of virtual real estate.
“Every day, we are all seeing a shift in how our business operates,” stated HomeSmart International President Ashley Bowers. “As a company and a community of real estate professionals, we are now functioning remotely more so than before, hosting webinar-based training sessions and meetings, and holding virtual open houses, showings, tours and listing presentations. Although the COVID-19 crisis accelerated our progress creating and implementing these virtual open house training webinars, we believe that agents will continue using these skills and approaches in their businesses moving forward.”
The virtual open house training classes are part of HomeSmart International’s ongoing Expand Your Brand Business Builder webinar series, which is dedicated to giving agents the tools and knowledge they need to expand their businesses via online marketing and social media. The virtual open house curriculum kicked off last week with host Todd Sumney, HomeSmart International’s chief industry officer, providing agents an overview of all things open houses. The webinar covered everything from live virtual open houses and showings to live virtual listing presentations and REALTOR® tours to pre-recorded virtual tours. The first class of its kind had 468 attendees and received widely positive feedback.
“We’re so excited to be part of the HomeSmart team, leading the way with virtual listing appointments,” said Raelisa Schmidt and Laurie Foley, real estate agents with HomeSmart Realty Group of Illinois’ Arrow Team Elite. “We had a successful virtual listing appointment and lined up two vacant showings for tomorrow for the same client!”
“So appreciative of HomeSmart workshops and the fantastic managers who are making every effort to help each HomeSmart agent,” stated Jeanne Keiler, an agent with HomeSmart Connect of Illinois.
“I’m all-in on virtual real estate,” added Ann Lundbech, Arizona HomeSmart agent. “Thanks, Todd!”
This ongoing series is taught by Sumney, who is one of the largest driving forces in helping HomeSmart’s franchisees and agents grow through hands-on training and education. With a background in marketing and over 16 years of industry experience under his belt, Sumney is a constant presence on the industry circuit, as his insight and experience are frequently sought by real estate boards across the country. His training courses are well-known and widely attended, with his Marketing Essentials training becoming a CE class. Sumney is passionate about training agents to succeed, especially when it comes to navigating unknown territory such as virtual open houses.
“It has been thrilling for me to see the number of agents participating in and growing from these classes,” Sumney stated. “These agents are so eager to adapt and learn how to keep their businesses thriving, especially during tough circumstances. So, to see so many of them turning out for these training opportunities is truly exciting and gives me great optimism for our industry moving forward.”
To watch previous business builder webinars and register for upcoming classes, visit homesmart.com/business-builder.
