ICIWorld Blog

Response from Gary Nusca, CCIM, ICIWorld.net, Inc.

Response to: Contact me if you have not been successful in making money on this website within 90 days!
Paul also states: The owner of this website give 90 days guarantee to members for making money.

We should correct anyone under the false impression that we have ever used the word guarantee.

What we have represented is this: No member should go longer than 90 days without doing business, a deal, or at the very minimum developing a good business relationship with someone they feel they will be doing business with someday otherwise you call us!

This is not a guarantee but a pledge. 

It is a way of measuring are you successful using these services or not and encourage you to call us to help you to see what you are missing.  I called Paul. He says he is connecting with other people but he has not made a deal. As far as we are concerned part of our pledge was at the very minimum developing good business relationships that lead to doing deals. Now if he is connecting with others but not developing relationships we still would like him to call us because we have some suggestions. If anyone is not going deals they should call us because then we have an opportunity to help. If we do not know a person is having problems then how can we help them.

We found material defects in Pauls membership. So bringing attention to this matter can actually help him because then we can do some consulting to see why he is not doing business.

When we visited his web site, there was a choice to click on Residential or Commercial. When we clicked on Residential it took people away from the web site we supplied thereby denying anyone looking for residential listings on his website where there were thousands of residential listings to be considered. This is a material defect that can be fixed.

He is getting very few calls on any of his web sites. We suggested he get into a very special Webinar "How to Promote Your Web Site"  He said he is busy. We say we put this special Webinar on each month.  There are resources now How To Promtoe a Web Site in Training Videos section on ICIWorld. What good is a web site with thousands of listings if you have no traffic? The solution get into one of the most important Webinars How To Promote Your Web Site.

For the record, we attended a World Search Engine conventon at the Las Vegas Hilton Convention Center. It cost us $4,000 to attend to learn How To Promote Web Sites. There were 1,000 search engine people in the room and two real estate brokers, one from California and myself from Toronto. There are special things you can do to increase traffic to a web site, to make it relevant to people searching on the Internet for real estate. In fact there are forty different ways to promote a web site and you too can learn them.

Just because you have a domain name on your busines card does not ensure people visit your web site.  You also have to tell them what you have on your web site and he was not aware of the resources such as Ontario Commercial. It has hundreds of listings of properties and businesses for sale. Tell people about the content and they will visit your web site to search the content and they will call you back with numbers that they are interested in.

Another powerful feature being missed is that you or your prospects or clients can program the web site to send listings by EMail for new listings that match their criteria. So here is a powerful tool, not being seen by any residential prospects because his web site sent them to another web site and not used by Paul himself for all his buyers. This is automatic distribution of listings to your prospects by your web site. Two weeks from now a prospect could get a listing that matches the description of what they are looking for, call you to ask to see it tomorrow.

This is all cutting edge technology but yes it does take a little time to learn it and how to apply it.

For that reason we some special software that helps us show the industry how these tools work.  It is called GoToWebinar  It is several hundred dollars per month but we can have up to 1,000 people on line listening in such as for guest speakers. We had 3 to the last Webinar How To Promote Your Web Site.  People are just busy.

We still reiterate, there are only two reasons why you will not make money, 1. you have a material defect in your membership of which there are more than ten common ones, 2. no traffic to your web site.

I examined a few of his listings. One was a franchise in a city. The franchise was named and the city. Easy for people to go direct to try to buy it. We suggest instead to trigger a call first then identify the people you have introduced to the property during the term of the listing and then it is different story if you want to give out the address.

The subject lines of listings were missing four ingredients. Subject lines are important. They must convey instanly to save people time. They must contain the four ingedients or you are missing triggering interest.

He had another listing, principals only must have proof of funds but then allowed his listing to be on other brokers web sites when he only wanted principals. Is there a better way to handle and trigger calls for this opportunity? There are other members who are working with legitimate buyers. Can one not develop a good business relationship with them and work with them? There are solutions to this.

He has a Want listing on ICIWorld listed under the Have category. This is another Material Defect. Only buyers will look at Haves. Only buyers will see he is also looking. If an owner wants to contact a buyer through a member they will look at the Want category, not the Have category.

He also said there were old listings on ICIWorld and that is true. He was simply not aware there are four categories of listings on ICIWorld, Active, Sold, Expired, Inactive. See the explanation below re: old listings are for the purpose of networking. We want to assure everyone If you only want Active listings you can search just active listings. If you want to search by date you can.

To search active listings only, simply click on Search Database 1 Free at www.iciworld.net Look for Canada, or USA or the World and click on it and go to www.iciworld.ca for instance or www.iciworld.us for the USA. All listings are active there. He was not aware of that.

For commercial real estate brokers and salespeople it is the Power of Networking that is important, the people behind the service.  It is the listings that help identify the people with whom you might do business and develop further business in addition to the listings on ICIWorld. See the link below: Power of Networking.

Old listings are maintained and searchable for some of these very reasons. See the explanation below why listings are maintained but categorized below.

Maybe it would be a good idea for some who question if business is being done to see the testimonials. Paul questioned me on the phone about something to the effect that members are not real or information is not real or something. Maybe he can clarify that. I can assure you that we have among some of the finest people in the industry and I have personally met many of them.  We have former mayors, people involved in leadership positions throughout the industry in councils, real estate boards, chapters, commercial and residential alike. When a person is a member they are licensed under governing councils of their states or provinces such as RECO the Real Estate Council of Ontario.

I believe it is a responsibility of everyone in the industry to look after their information and keep it up to date and current but also to learn these new services that are providing exceptional opportunities for the public. To reach thousands of people in the past has cost thousands and thousands of advertising dollars but with an information service it is so easy.

Many in our industry have been so busy just trying to make a living they have not taken the time, have not had the time, to learn how to make the Internet and computers, the most exciting medium known to mankind to work for them and their customers.

We are dedicated to helping and are inspired by all the members who have had success and encourage us to continue to grow the service.

We also would like to thank all those who have been helping and contributing to the growth so that it simply becomes easier and easier to make connections to do business.

I feel this Blog is a better forum for discussion that on ICIWorld so all and any follow up should be made here. 

All the best for the holiday season.

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