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EP 248: How Credibility and the Right Partnership Led to 38 Transactions in 2020 w/ Carter Crowley

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The importance of the agent investor/relationship is something we’ve been talking about for a while now here at Carrot. We’ve often said that in the future, agents will need to invest, and investors should be licensed in order to better serve their leads. Well, the future is now. Now, more than ever, people are looking for ways to sell their homes. With the rise of iBuyers, people are looking to other sources when they are thinking about putting their home on the market. The agent or investor who is able to offer multiple solutions, is going to be able to complete more actions and help more people. Here’s how Carter Crawley is doing it.

Company Credibility Websites

Build Credibility, Attract Lenders, and Control Your Brand One of the most overlooked websites by real estate wholesalers and flippers is what we call a “main company” credibility website. The website that is your “online home”. Where business partners can learn more about you. Lenders and investors can see what you do and you can earn their trust. A place to post your wins as a company and educate your partners and clients. Our Main Company Credibility websites can help you create that online home that not only helps you build your credibility more easily, but also has our built in lead generation and SEO tools that makes your main website not just a pretty site… but also a lead generation tool at the same time.

EP 156: What’s Your Credibility Score? The Top 5% Of Earners Are Doing These “Simple” Things To Build More Credibility In A Cluttered Market w/ Trevor Mauch

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Listen to the CarrotCast Podcast and Subscribe Below! A lack of realism in the vision today costs credibility tomorrow. John C. Maxwell How serious are you about building a business that stands out from the clutter and gives you the income and freedom to live your best life? If you’re ready to get after it and do what it takes to succeed, this is for you! In markets with little competition, the product and the offering are often the most important factors a prospect uses to decide what company to work with. But in a cluttered market, with lots of competition, like today’s real estate world… credibility has grown to trump “product” as the main deciding factor to make or break your next deal. So, what are the top 5% of real estate investors and agents doing to build more credibility in the market and make their competition irrelevant while trying tactic after tactic to catch up? Trevor dives into specific examples and lays out his Credibility Score theory to help you determine what you should fix ASAP to build your credibility even more. Listen to our other episodes at CarrotCast.com Listen to the Podcast How do you take control of the communication and credibility process within your brand and be so good that leads can’t ignore you? Find out on this episode of the CarrotCast. Enjoy! 6:10 – What the consumer’s path to find a credible company online looks like. 10:00 – Recognizing competitors’ opportunity to move in and cloud the consumer decision process is essential. 12:00 – Example of an effective self-mailer used to build credibility. 15:15 – Marketing stages breakdown for real estate. What the most important pieces are. 17:45 – Look at your past and present marketing numbers and build credibility after the first contact from a lead. 18:50 – What it takes to build credibility into your real estate website. 22:00 – We’re in the age of trust and credibility. Everyone is online. What are you doing to cut through the clutter? 26:30 – Build a process within your business that adds credibility. 29:15 – Taking a look at Opendoor and Express Home Buyers. Two examples of companies with a good credibility strategy. 32:20 – Diving into Carrot’s credibility strategy. 33:45 – Stanford’s Web Credibility Research Center – 10 credibility score items people view on a website. 37:20 – What is the #2 most visited page on your website? 39:30 – Does your real estate website look good on mobile? And what you need to fix if it doesn’t. Use our mobile check tool. 42:40 – What does credibility mean? And how to do it so you connect with your lead more effectively. 44:00 – Using the credibility score formula and how to build credibility through social media and testimonials. 53:00 – Stacking upon the credibility score – Being picky on your website credibility. 55:00 – Using some how-to’s to beef up the overall impression of your real estate website. And the importance of controlling the conversation around your brand. 1:02:15 – Build things unique to your offerings to stand out from the online competition. Such as badges and logos. 1:04:30 – Creating the connection with credibility and working hard to go the extra mile to show you’re an expert in your market.

Use the Carrot Credibility Bar to Build Trust and Increase Conversions

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Do we ever sleep? Not when it comes to optimizing your websites for conversion. ;-) Constantly, we’re on the look-out for new ways to improve your (our member’s) website conversion rate. But we don’t just want to increase your conversion rate, we want to make it dead simple for you to make those conversion rate improvements. In other words, we want to help you convert more visitors in less time. The Carrot Credibility Bar Here’s a look at what this credibility bar might end up looking like on your website. This is a version with a testimonial. And here’s a version with logos. If that ain’t enough for you, then we even have a custom version where you can add your own text and images to your heart’s desire – like we did with this block quote… Or video… Pretty awesome, right? But this new feature isn’t just remarkable because the dev team here at Carrot did an amazing job designing it and making it easy for our members to use. No. The feature is amazing for another, more important, reason. It’s going to help you build more credibility on your website, instantly. But you don’t have to take my word for it. ConversionXL ran an in-depth test to determine which type of social proof on a credibility bar is the most effective. They used testimonials with and without photos, logos, social sharing buttons, and a whole slew of other types of social proof. Here’s one example. Then, they had a control version that ran without any credibility bar. In the end, one thing was for sure: every single variation of the page with some type of social proof performed better than the control. And the reason is simple: when people arrive on your website for the first time, they have no reason to trust you. You have to show them that you’re trustworthy. Of course, you want to do that as quickly as possible to avoid them bouncing from your website. This is why a front-and-center, top-of-the-page, no-scrolling-required credibility bar is so damn effective at building that necessary trust. People see it the moment they arrive on your website and it confirms for the visitor that they can, indeed, trust you. Just consider massive organizations like Opendoor, insurance.com, or ourselves ( :D ) that count on a credibility bar for building trust with visitors. So, you’re probably wondering by now, What should I put on MY website’s credibility bar?  For that, there are a few different options. Consider… Displaying a compelling testimonial from a happy customer. Displaying a series of logos from publications your business has been mentioned in. Displaying a series of logos from other companies you’ve worked with. Displaying awards your business has won. The way you to choose to use this feature will depend on how you want to build credibility with website visitors and the kind of credibility builders you have access to. But, to help you make an informed decision, here are the types of social proof that ConversionXL found (from the study I mentioned earlier) had the highest recall rate among participants, and thus (this part is conjecture) the highest impact. As it turns out, testimonials were the most effective at generating website visitor recall.  Whatever type of social proof you choose, every single Carrot member should be able to make use of this feature – whether it’s through a testimonial or a series of company logos. This feature worked with our real estate agent websites as well! Plus, a credibility bar can help you stand out from other websites online (i.e. the competition), giving you the extra edge you need in your market. If you still don’t want to use the credibility bar, though, … Continued

How to Build Online Credibility for Real Estate

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We’ve done videos, coaching calls, and podcasts teaching how to build online credibility for real estate. Credibility isn’t a new thing, right? But, it amplifies when you have a competitive market. When you’re in a market with a lot of competition but lack online credibility, you have lower deal flow. When a buyer or seller has multiple choices, they often look at the agent’s or investor’s credibility. To help you learn how to build online credibility for real estate, we’ve devised the “credibility score.” Whenever you go to a store, whether online or in person, you go to the grocery store. You’re walking in the grocery store, and subconsciously, there are all kinds of things that you’re doing to size up that grocery store. Is the floor clean? Are the vegetables arranged in a way that makes sense? Are they rotten, or are they good? Are the people who work there wearing good clothes, clean clothes, or something that’s a uniform that looks like they’re put together? Are they friendly? Is the signage in the grocery store in a make sense way? All these little things stack up to create this score subconsciously in your mind. You’re probably not going to work with that grocery store because one of those things is wrong. You’ll probably not choose not to work with the grocery just because the signage isn’t exactly clear and clean. But, when you stack up all those together, and there are these negative credibility marks, what happens is, you leave the store and you go somewhere else, and you’re not sure why sometimes. You can’t place your finger on why you chose not to work with that company but another one, but this credibility score is subconsciously stacking up in your mind. We’re going to walk through as an agent or an investor. How do you size your business and find your credibility score? The first thing you need to look at is to realize people are subconsciously sizing you up, whether you think about it or not. If you’re doing what everyone else is doing, you’re probably not giving yourself many positive credibility marks. What we’re going to be doing is looking at the website. There are a lot of different things that people are doing when they’re trying to size up your website and size up your credibility score subconsciously. How to Build Online Credibility for Real Estate Having Clean Logos Is Important The first thing they will be looking at is your logo area, your logo area. Is your logo clean, or is it fuzzy? Is it pixelated? Does your logo match the colors and the branding on your website? I know that’s a little thing, but it’s one of those things that people can go, “Well, there’s something off. I can’t place what it is, but there’s something off,” so make sure you have a very clear, clean, simple logo design that delivers the benefit or delivers the good, warm, fuzzy feeling. Make sure that the colors on your website match up. That’s a positive credibility mark. Here are a couple of good examples. Credibility Badges Are you using specific badges to show that third-party processes and third-party entities vet you? For example, the Better Business Bureau. Maybe you’re a member of the local Chamber of Commerce. Or, a designation with some entity such as a CCIM in your profession is a respected designation. Those badges help in a big way. Those are all positive credibility marks. Build Credibility With Testimonials Let’s say you have social proof on your site, so you have testimonials … Continued

Real Estate Website Design: Credibility Sites Vs. Targeted Sites

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So you’re getting ready to launch your online marketing campaign, but you’re probably thinking “Man, what type of website am I going to build?” At Carrot, we have general credibility websites and we have targeted websites. Where the targeted websites are specific to a certain type of lead. It could be a motivated house seller. It could be a cash buyer. It could be a retail buyer. There could be a note seller or buyer. You get the idea. Those are very, very targeted towards a certain type of lead. We get a lot of our clients asking us, “Why can’t I focus it all into one general credibility site?” Or, “Is a general credibility site going to work well or perform as well as a targeted site specific for, as an example, motivated house sellers?” Well, this video and post are going to walk you through the data and what the actual results are and what you should do depending on the type of lead you’re looking for. Real Estate Website Design: General Credibility Sites So, first of all, we’ve got the general credibility site. A general credibility website is mainly focused on, just that, building general credibility for your company. So, it could be trying to get people there to show them who you are. What types of things you’re doing. What types of things you’re doing in real estate. And it could be multiple things. Saym, we’ve got this real estate fund and we’re flipping houses, so we buy houses. But we also sell houses and oh, by the way, did you also know that we do rent a home?” So it’s kind of “here’s who we are as a company”, and build that credibility. You could be looking for private lenders on that website. You could be building a cash buyer list on there and selling properties. That works really well on a main company credibility website. But it’s a lot of general stuff. It’s not really focused in on any one particular message. And it’s a split message. Your home page might say, “Hey, we are a real estate investment solutions firm. We buy, sell and rent houses.” But you’re going to be talking about all of that stuff if you’re on the homepage. So there’s no one focused message if you’re doing direct marketing toward that. If you’re driving a house seller there, they’re then going to get distracted by other messages. They’re going to get distracted by the message about investments. They’re going to get distracted by the message about looking for cash buyers and private lenders. If you’re doing direct marketing and paying money to drive people there, you don’t want to distract the message. But the general credibility website serves a very specific purpose. If you’re networking at your local chamber of commerce or rotary, you’re probably going to hand them the business card that drives them here. This website is then going to drive people toward your other specific target websites if you’re doing multiple things in your business. So you might have a link that says, “Sell your house.” And it’s gonna drive to your house seller specific website, ideally. That’s what the data shows works the best. Real Estate Website Design: Targeted Credibility Sites On the other side, you have the targeted website. So, when we suggest that you focus on using a targeted website, it’s any time you’re actually going to be actively driving people to that website to convert as a lead. These websites are set up for conversion. The general credibility websites are not particularly set … Continued

9 Ways to Boost Your Real Estate Investing Website Credibility

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So, how do you boost your real estate investing website credibility? Real estate investing is one of those professions where the entry barriers for new investors are so low… there are lots of unethical investment companies out there giving real estate investors a bad name. So, how do you stand out above the crowd… and make it so that when a motivated seller, cash buyer, or private lender finds your website… they feel compelled to work with you? First… Importance Of Building Credibility (and how to do it with your website) It goes without saying… that today consumers have more options than ever.  If you’re a motivated seller going into foreclosure… or a private lender doing your research… one of the first things you’ll look at after you hear of a company is THEIR WEBSITE to see if they are real. Our society is an internet society now. Just look at the phone book and newspapers… those businesses are in decline… while internet news sources and directories are on the rise.  People go to the internet to research companies they’re getting ready to work with. So, what will a private lender prospect or motivated seller see when they search for you online? Will they even visit a website? If not, people immediately think, “They don’t have a site… are they a real company?”. If you have a website that doesn’t have the 9 elements below… that could be even worse.  Is your website harming your credibility (if I had to guess, I’d say probably 60%+ are). If people don’t feel comfortable that they want to work with you within the first 2 minutes of being on your website… odds are you’ll lose that business. So, here are 9 ways to boost your real estate investing website credibility. 9 Ways to Boost Your Real Estate Investing Website Credibility Stanford University did a study called the “Web Credibility Research” project.  Stanford compiled 10 elements that your website should address that can either make or break your credibility as an investor… we’ve consolidated them into 9 elements that, without them… your credibility (and profits) are likely suffering.  See how many of these your real estate investing company website is doing well: Show that you’re real people behind your company – Most investors we work with to help them build their online presence for their real estate business are hesitant to put too much personal information on their site.  They don’t want their name, picture, bio… anything… on the site.  If this is you too… it’s hurting your credibility and results.  Ask yourself this… do you like it when you’re on a website, and you can see the actual faces of the people behind the company? Yes, we all do. It increases conversions and leads. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site – A lot like #1, your website visitors land on your website with their scam detector running in full force. They want to know that they can trust you to help them solve their problem (save them from foreclosure or get better returns, etc.).  How do you do that? A short bio on your site, again… a picture of you and your team (we teach our members ways to build credibility even if you haven’t done deals or don’t have a team), testimonials are a biggie, etc. Highlight the expertise your company has – Over half of the investors, we work with feel that they don’t have enough “experience” in real estate to put on their site. But, once we dig… they usually have a lot more experience that … Continued

Want to make your website stand out? You’ll love block patterns!

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There’s a fine balance between ensuring your website performs well and stands out. We’ve spent the past 10 years refining website templates for real estate investors, making them excel at ranking well in search engines, building your credibility, performing lightning-fast, and turning visitors into highly motivated leads. × × Join Carrot: How many deals are you losing to an underperforming website? Join Now But that doesn’t mean we don’t care about how your website looks. Your website is your online business card and should reflect your personality. That’s why we’re excited to announce that Carrot members now have even more website customization options! Did you know that Carrot has a team of in-house website designers dedicated to improving your site and Carrot experience? Well, they recently added 50 new block pattern designs so you can easily customize your website and make it look as unique as you are. What’s a “block pattern?” Think of each webpage as several sections stacked on top of each other. You have the “hero” section at the top of the page (usually with an image and the page title), then maybe a section of text or an image gallery, probably a “call to action” section that lets visitors easily contact you, a section that shows off your customer reviews, and so on. We pre-built many of these key sections as “block patterns.” It simply means a section pre-designed to serve a specific purpose.  We know it’s important to you that your site “doesn’t look like every other website.” Using block patterns is a great way to do that! Carrot offers a variety of block pattern styles for the most important sections of a site. All you have to do is pick your favorite style and add your information. You can use any block pattern on any page. The beauty of pre-built patterns is that you can customize the look of your website without being a web designer. With just a few clicks, you can quickly transform key pages from the out-of-the-box template into something that stands out and fits your style. Block Pattern Categories Finding a design to meet your needs can be difficult if you’re searching through a seemingly endless library of options. What if you use one and then find something you like better? Pattern Categories solve that problem. You can easily browse pre-built sections that meet your needs by deciding what you’re trying to accomplish with that webpage section. Block pattern categories included: The patterns you see are pre-loaded with your brand colors, so they’ll seamlessly blend into your website’s look and feel. Feeling creative? You can edit these patterns and add content, then save them to “My Patterns” for easy use on other pages. Find your design Using different block patterns is a great way to break up a page and make it easier for visitors to process information. For example, you can replace a block of text with icons and short blurbs that draw attention and make a big impact. You can even customize the icon colors, and we will soon have a huge addition to our icon options! Whether you like sharing maximum information or prefer a sleek design, the block patterns give you options. Some patterns are text-heavy, others are very streamlined, and others stylishly mix images and text. The “Content: How it Works” and “Content: FAQ” patterns, in particular, offer a wide array of styles, so if you have those sections on your website, now is a great time to revisit them and refresh your site design. More to come That’s just the latest update. The Carrot … Continued

How Keith Sant Transformed His Real Estate Business and Closed $500k/yr Using Carrot

How Keith Sant Transformed His Real Estate Business and Closed $500k/yr Using Carrot Keith Sant was once stuck in the grind of chasing cold leads, pouring countless hours into old-school marketing methods that weren’t delivering quality leads. Today, he closes 2-4 high-value real estate deals every month, generating six-figure revenue from quality Carrot leads. By shifting his focus to Evergreen Marketing and mastering SEO with Carrot, he’s transformed his business, reduced his workload, and finally focused on the quality leads that drive real growth. × × Demo Carrot: How many deals are you losing to your competitor’s website? Take a Free Demo Here’s how Keith overhauled his business – with Carrot at the center of it. Closing 1 in 15 Leads vs chasing 35 leads per deal < 90 Day Closings vs. 6-12 months before Carrot $24,750 Avg Profit per deal, at 2 deals per month Take our free interactive demo to get a full walkthrough of what Carrot can do for you. The Challenge: Keith Was Reliant on Offline Marketing that Generated Low-Quality Leads, Wasting His Valuable Time He was at his wit’s end. As a real estate investor, he poured long days and late nights into traditional marketing—cold calling, text-blasting, anything to bring in potential leads. But it was exhausting, and the results were rarely worth the effort. “I was burnt out,” Keith says. “I was talking to people who weren’t ready to sell, and I felt like I was spinning my wheels.” He knew there had to be a better way to reach motivated sellers. Like many wholesalers, he was spending too much energy chasing leads who weren’t serious about selling. He wanted a way to attract people who were ready to make a decision and get off the marketing Hamsterwheel – for good. The Solution: Generating a Stream of Quality, Inbound Leads with Carrot One of Keith’s first leads through Carrot was a call he’ll never forget. It was a seller who had reached the end of their rope—desperate to sell quickly and willing to offer owner financing just to get the deal done. Keith stepped in and made it happen, closing the deal with ease. “That was a $100,000 deal,” he recalls, the excitement still fresh in his voice. “It was incredible. Here was someone who needed real help, and I had the solution they were looking for. This was what I’d been missing.” It was this win that solidified Carrot’s value for Keith. The $100,000 deal didn’t just mark a financial gain—it was the turning point where Keith realized he could genuinely help people in need while building a successful business. Keith’s Success Steps: How He Transformed His Business and His Life Keith’s journey wasn’t just about getting a website online; it was about creating an online presence that brought him motivated sellers who needed his help. Here’s how he made the shift, one step at a time: The Result: Keith is Closing High-Value Deals, Consistently Keith’s journey is a testament to the power of pivoting when you need change. “If I could go back, I’d tell myself to take this leap sooner,” he says. “Carrot didn’t just change my business; it changed my life. I’m not stuck grinding through endless cold calls anymore. Now, I’m building something real, with clients who are grateful for my help. It’s exactly the kind of business I wanted.” Our Follow Up Q&A How has Carrot changed your day-to-day life? Keith: “Carrot has changed everything about my day-to-day. I’m not cold-calling or pestering people anymore. Now, when people reach out to me, they’re truly ready to sell. I’m … Continued