hey are online property portals still worth it so a lot of agents are complaining that you know online property portals have been increasing their fees they're charging higher and higher you know fees higher subscription and the results from online property portals have been decreasing have been going down these online portal is you know getting an account there getting a subscription there from portals like property guru nathaniel.com or any other property portal out there is it still worth it in 2020. hi my name is jason khan and i'm a no bs coach i teach realtors how to make more money how to get more freedom how to make more time for the family and get more yes without all the ps which is plaguing real estate industry right now you can find out more about my coaching programs at yasir khan.edu so in today you know episode i'm gonna be talking about property portals right so every agent when the proper reporters first started coming up maybe like five to ten years ago you know agents loved it right and suddenly you know all it was all over in with it was all over too soon whereby you know suddenly they started charging huge fees and they started doubling quadrupling their feasts year after year after year and idiot got frustrated in asia's god you know seriously they they came to such a point that you know many asians you know combined together to in order to you know get the the authorities to look into it right so let me tell you something about property portals they are business they are an advertiser they have a platform and they are not your friend right they are the only people that they care about themselves right so you know property portals they own they own the platform and the platform is where everybody goes to to search for a property right so you know before you know before all the property reporters how people search for a property in the olden days if they go to a shop they buy a new paper or they have a paper drop at their house and then they open it they flip through the pages and then they look for the property that they want right that all change the day the internet was born right so maybe 10 years ago in 2009 2008 that's where you know we started seeing a lot of you know property gurus and reporters started coming up and the race for online property portals intensified and we had a lot of few players joining in right so let me tell you something about property portals right so they are like you know something like facebook something like you know twitter or something like myspace you know they have a their platform essentially they are just a platform right if the agents who create the listings and post there and the buyers or sellers are the one who's searching on google searching online and they found the relevant listing and then that's how they land on the page this is how they land on the property portal and that's how agents get inquiries coming in and they get business and they close right so typically that's how it works but you know property portals they are just a business right and they want to make money right and how do they make money is to make the portal basically get mass adoption the first stage is to get everyone it's super cheap basically to make it free they make it free for everyone so they they make it easy and free for agents to create an account and suddenly there's a flood of agents you know joining their portal their agents come inside and create account and all that and when it is a critical account suddenly you know they get a lot of you know listings you can create the listing post pictures and suddenly boom all the the entire you know website the entire property portal is full of content without them even doing anything they got agents to do all the work and after that what happens people are already searching for property and suddenly they have just started ranking for those keywords that are renting up for all these properties and that's how suddenly they build a viewership and they get you know members of public to create an account with there and that's how they get they lock in the viewers and suddenly anybody out there anybody who wants to buy a house want to sell how suddenly is going on their website right so that is the growth phase right they are pushing for mass adoption right and what happens after that suddenly you know uh they realize that oh okay we need to make money right we need to start charging and then what they do they stop free account sign up they get you to pay small fees maybe you know uh 10 or maybe you know five dollars stuff like that right but it's still cheap and it is still joining every day new and new agents are joining in mainly the traffic is increasing day by day by day by day right and that's how it works until it comes to a point that okay we already have critical mess okay we already have all the users we want they're making money from advertising they're making money from ages listings they're making money from so many other things from the back end right so and then they they that's where you know this that comes a point of critical mass but they don't want the people they already worked so hard to get all the people to get all the traffic coming in right they don't want them to leave what do they do right they raise their fees they raise their prices they delete some agents account they ban some agents from there that's how every property portal works and that's how they're building a platform and their platform is for them not for you right so asians know why agents are so angry is because they will need to believe that the free traffic will continue it won't you won't continue it's not your traffic anyway right so using online property portals created a false belief in those agents that this will never take never be taken away from them is not true the first the first thing is the platform is not the agent the platform doesn't belong to the agent it belongs to a you know a private business entity the parent company or property guru for example they want to make money from the platform right not you not the agent right so you must understand that you know is okay before before before i continue talking about that i just want to address a specific topic about traffic there are three types of traffic right the first type of traffic is that traffic you control and traffic control is okay you know traffic you can control you can direct the traffic traffic is already out there people are already searching for houses people already are looking for homes to buy or sell right so they are going somewhere where are they going that is the traffic that is the platform which is already there for example facebook for example you know google they allow you to advertise on their platform you know property guru they allow you to advertise on the platform right for a fee you can you know put your number so the product can call you and that's how you can control the traffic right and the traffic this is the traffic that you can control right this is to me this is the second best and the third best the worst kind of traffic is traffic you cannot control at all and those are traffic lights for example search engine optimization you can never control what people are searching for you can never control how you know why because you know ultimately seo belongs to google it doesn't belong to you no matter no matter what you try to rank for of specific keywords you try to beat the system ultimately the algorithm will be changed by google google change algorithm facebook will change the algorithm right and the same thing is happening in property guru so ultimately you are at their mercy that's why this is traffic that you cannot control and the number one the best kind of traffic that nobody is telling you about nobody teaching agents is the traffic that you own that is the best kind of traffic seriously not all the while areas have been relying on traffic number three and the the type of traffic which is traffic they cannot control with the worst kind of traffic which is seo right and traffic they can control but they don't own it they control they rely on google they over rely on property guru property portals right and that is traffic they do not own the they can only control it but the best traffic the best traffic the kind of traffic that nobody is teaching you the traffic that you own and that is your own customer base right the customer base you previously used to be offline and you just are used to you know keeping lists of whatsapp chat or you know we chat or whatever but the easiest way is actually your own email list seriously the money is in the relationship with your list right not how big the list it all right so this is the key thing that i want to talk about so so do not let online property partners blind you to your biggest asset and your biggest asset is your own customer base right so your job as an entrepreneur as a realtor is to keep your own list growing think of all those buyers all those sellers who ever reach out to you in the past compile them in an easy you know online resource and using you know online crm for us we already have our own crm agent leaves.sg and that's how that's what we use to keep in touch regularly with all our lists all the buyers all the products that have ever reached out to us and we compile them in easy location in one simple location and that makes it easy whatever listing we have whatever property that comes up whatever new project that comes up we showed it to them that's it right so that yeah i'm not saying that don't use all the other traffic use all of them but never ever be held hostage by a single platform never again let property guru hold you hostage never again let any online property bottle whole you hostage so that is my message to you all right focus on traffic that you own and over time you know nothing nothing not on property guru or google or facebook right nothing will able to stop you nothing will seriously stand in your way and your own traffic will never be taken away from you all the other traffic yes they will be taken away from you like property go to date right so you know in the same cycle don't fall for the same trap certainly a new property poster comes along and asks all the events for free don't do that don't fall for it all right so i want you to stop struggling with your leads if you're closing this is your appointment and i want you to start focusing on how you can build your own list your own asset to your own customer base right so think of why facebook bought you know instagram they bought the customer base seriously right so right now as we as we you know right now in 2020 august 2020 but microsoft is thinking of buying tick tock why because of the customer base seriously so the money is in the list and the money is in the relationship of the list that you have all right so get started right now stop your over reliance on online property bottles yes people always search your property on all the property portals but get them to come to you you know direct the traffic to yourself all right so that's my message for you today i hope that you really liked it i hope that i gave a lot of value to you and i hope to be able to solve a lot of the problems that agents are today facing and i hope to see the real estate agent become the related industry become great again all right so i'm i'm gonna be putting up more videos just like this more content more podcast you know just like this get out there you know subscribe ask me questions if you have and i'll be sure to answer your questions bye

The Monopoly of Online Property Portals Many Property Agents rely on online Property Portals for their business. That's how they get the majority of their inquiries and appointments. But Property Portals are not Free. They're businesses with the goal of making a profit. And they're raising their fees year after year. Making many agents unable to use those platforms.  And getting angry.  What can you do? You Won't Like What I'm Going to Say But I'll say it anyway. The real reason is because many agents get overly dependent on 1 single source to get their business. My mentor Dan Kennedy taught me, "The Worst way to run a business is to rely on a single source of traffic." And he was right. You're overly dependent on a single source and your business will suffer when that source decides to raise fees. There are only 2 things you can do: Accept their price hikes as a cost of doing business Diversify your sources Here's What Many Agents Don't Know About Traffic The day I learned this from my mentor, I had a huge 'AHA!' moment. He taught me that there are three ways to get prospects and clients. Three types of 'traffic'. Traffic that you OWN (the best) Traffic that you CONTROL (expensive) Traffic that you CANNOT control or own (the worst kind) Traffic That You OWN This is the LIST of all your prospects and clients you have accumulated over the course of your entire career. This is the BEST kind of traffic. Because you OWN it. It's yours to do as you please. You can shoot them an email at any time. Blast them SMSes. Send them any of your properties. And this is the FOUNDATION of your business. No one else owns it. But this takes the most time and effort to build. Want something a bit faster? Traffic That You can Control This is the second best option. It's how Facebook, Google and PropertyGuru work. It means you do not own this platform but they allow you to advertise on it and redirect people to visit your website or call your phone. Sure, the leads and calls come in fast and furious. But you're always at their mercy. And you're left scrambling if they decide to kick you out or raise their fees. And then agents try something even worse. Traffic That You CANNOT Control or Own For example, Search Engine Optimisation. It's not owned by you. Nor can you truly control how people search for you and find you online. You're absolutely at the mercy of cold-calling SEO reps trying to sell your their SEO packages. They're just snake-oil salesmen. It's an absolute TIME SINK. You can't control SEO. You can never own it. Google can, and does changes its algorithm. That's why you're always at their mercy. What Can You Do? You can do all three at the same time. Your ultimate goal should be to build and grow your own list. That's the traffic that you own. It's what I learnt all those years ago, that, "The Money is in the RELATIONSHIP you have with your clients." Enter My AgentLEADS Platform My https://www.agentleads.sg/ platform makes this super easy. You can automatically and easily build and follow up with your own list. And it can easily clone online property portals in under 10 minutes flat. That's how you break free of the tyranny of the monopoly of online portals. What are you waiting for?

Could You Survive if Property Portals Suddenly Disappeared? Would your realtor business be able to survive if Property Guru (or other online property portals) went down? Many agents tell me they're very confident that they can close deals once they have a prospect in front of them, but they struggle with getting leads and inquiries. In other words, they don't know how to get more inquiries. That's bad news actually. It's Bad News Here's something else agents also tell me. They're pretty competent in closing deals. But many struggle to get prospects in front of them. And they're telling themselves that they need to: Spend more money  to run more ads Spend more time getting to know more people to increase their network That's not true. I had no money as a realtor, and I knew no one because of my shy personality, yet I got literally flooded with more leads than I knew what to do with. The trouble is our agencies and training courses out there didn't teach us this. There's Good News For You The secret to my success was in MARKETING. The SKILL of Marketing is very important and that will give you the lifeblood of your business, which are inquiries and appointments.  Because, No Appointments = No Money But Clients buy real estate very infrequently, so we need numbers to make this business work for us.  And the numbers come from doing the right kind of marketing. The Right Marketing Makes All the Difference I know this because it happened to me. When you become a student of marketing, your business grows because you're doing an 'Income Producing Activity'. I learned this insight from my mentor Dan Kennedy. At the time, I had been struggling to get inquiries because I too thought I needed more money to burn on ads. I Had it Harder Than Others And I also assumed I needed to know more people, but I was naturally a shy person. Real estate has traditionally been rewarding to outgoing realtors. I threw flyers but that got me nowhere. I knocked on doors until I almost got arrested. And I never knocked on doors again in my life. And nobody was more surprised than me after I got flooded with leads while I was staying at my mum's house to save travel costs. That was the day I realised that Marketing was the key skill every realtor needs to master. Dan's teachings worked in America, and I had seen it work in Asia and in Singapore. Specifically, Direct Response Marketing. What is Direct Response Marketing? It's the best kind of marketing there is out there. It gives prospects what they want in way that will attract them to reach out to you first. Doing that, you will stop chasing prospects and get them to come to you first. That is how you attract more clients, more buyers, more sellers and more landlords to you!

"Yasser, will there be more competition if more agents get your system too?" I've heard this one before. You may be wondering the same thing too. After all, just like in Property Guru's case, the first agents to sign up reaped a ton of benefits. That was before their platform got saturated with agents. You're right to suspect all platforms are the same; that they go cheap to to attract as many agents as possible. Once they have enough users, they raise their prices and suck the agents dry. It's true. Property Guru did that. 99.co may do the same too. (In fact, it might already be doing this.) You just never know with these property portals. You're right to be angry at them. Advertisers like them exist to suck agents dry! And it creates an unfair playing ground where those agents willing or able to spend money on their platform win at the expense of all the rest. I too felt the exact same way too. But back in 2008, I was overly reliant on google to send me traffic. I was trying to support my mother, because I was the eldest of my siblings and we were going through tough times in those days. And then suddenly came the infamous 'Google Slap', and then my advertising account got banned for life. Just like that, a good source of business went down almost overnight. It sent chills down my spine when I discovered that. I just panicked. How was I to get new business? The bigger trouble was, I didn't know many people. And I had fewer contacts on my Nokia phone. I wasn't an outgoing person; In fact, I was always shy. It was hard for me to socialise or say the right words at the right time to anyone. I had it harder than most agents because, not only I grew up overseas for most of my childhood, but I only returned to Singapore in the year 2000. And I completed National Service in 2005. That was barely three years for me to get to know some people! Don't you agree that's not enough time, even for an introvert, right? So imagine, here I was as a realtor, overly dependent on just one platform for all of my business. 100% at their mercy. And all those years ago, I discovered something that you may also be realising right now. That these platforms show no mercy! That they only care about money! That to them, we're just nameless numbers! And they're arrogant. And they always get away scott-free after raising their fees! So you can imagine that I had no other choice but to escape from this problem. I never wanted to be in the same desperate position again! I never wanted to be at their mercy again! I decided to build my own platform for myself. But it wasn't easy though. I reinvested back every penny I had on me into this. And my team of ten developers took 9 long months to do it. So on the tenth month, I pushed a button and my system was live. But here's what happened next. I had failed to understand one simple fact: that Google and PropertyGuru were TRAFFIC that I could control, I just didn't own it! The platform I built was TRAFFIC I OWNED! It was radically different! I could know send my properties and new launches any time I wanted. Why? Because I owned it! But traffic started somewhere, right? People discovered me on Google or Property Guru right? And that was how I was able to never again be held hostage by any platform! I could still survive even if Facebook went down! I could still sell houses even if Property Guru went down! Now, that is POWER, right?