Baron Briefs

Imagine your parents are retiring, moving to Florida, and have asked you for help with “meeting a nice Realtor®” in Naples. Unlike the client referral I sketched in scenario #1, this referral is very personal. A referral fee is your least concern. Your parents are aging and they need to be handled by the best. However, you don’t have contacts in or near Naples, Florida. Here’s how a ReferralAuction™ can help:

#1 - Like I said above, a referral fee is your least concern. Therefore, all three bids—opening, reserve, and stop—remain at 0%. Basically, the first agent who meets the minimum required AgentRank™ gets your parents’ business.

#2 - But submitting a bid in this scenario is easier said than done. The minimum AgentRank™ in this case is 10—the highest ranking available—which means unless an agent has an impeccable sales history and glowing client reviews, he or she will be unable to bid for your referral.

Any questions?

Imagine you have a client who is moving to Dallas. You have the listing in California but the client has not yet made a connection with a buyer’s agent. The client asks for a referral, but you don’t have any contacts in Dallas. You want to ensure your client is handled properly, but you also want to fully monetize a client referral that will almost certainly result in a sale for the buyer agent. A ReferralAuction™ can help you achieve both objectives. Here’s the play call:

#1 - The auction opens bidding at 0%, but the “Reserve Bid” ensures a bid of 20% is received before the client’s contact information is revealed to a buyer’s agent. If the auction ends with a bid less than 20%, your identity and that of your client remains hidden from any potential buyer’s agent.

#2 - Assuming the “Reserve Bid” is satisfied, the “Stop Bid” ensures bidding doesn’t exceed your idea of “fair value”. When bidding reaches the “Stop Bid” amount, the referral auction immediately closes and the referral is awarded to the highest bidder.

#3 - The “Minimum AgentRank™” guarantees bidding is available only to agents who have a proven history of closing sales and pleasing clients. In the scenario above, only agents with a ranking of 8 or above are allowed to bid for your client referral.

Any questions?

….as I outlined almost two years ago in our discussion group:

1. Agents/Brokers can leverage our ZIP code notification system to instantly alert agents of an available referral and don’t need to seek out individuals on the Web/mailing lists.
2. Agents/Brokers can leverage AgentRank(TM) to ensure they are handing the referral off to an agent/broker with a proven track record.
3. Agents/Brokers can maximize their potential referral fee by leveraging the auction platform.
4. Agents/Brokers can utilize our feedback system to rate brokers/agents who both offer and accept referrals. Similar to eBay, a feedback system can be nice leverage to keep both parties of a referral transaction honest.

Today, we’re expanding our patent-pending auction platform to include business referrals among Realtors®. The new product, ReferralAuction™, allows real estate brokers and agents to efficiently find and qualify out-of-town agents to handle their referrals.

As a Realtor®, you likely already swap referrals both on-line and off. However, when referring your client to an agent whom you’ve never met, two questions remain:

1. Is the agent qualified to handle the referral?
2. Will the agent pay my referral fee if a deal is done?

A ReferralAuction™ uses the AgentRank™ algorithm to ensure a referral is awarded to an agent who has a proven track record to make a sale.

Both the referral source and recipient have the opportunity to review the performance of each to discourage deceitful behavior.