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What did I learn from Steve Jobs? That building great products (such as Apple’s) comes down to being obsessive about every last detail of the entire user experience. It makes me realize why I came to work at Virtual Results. In an industry cluttered with antiquated solutions that don’t work built by people who don’t care how they make a buck, we build the best damn real estate websites on the planet and we care about giving our clients value for their money. There are enough people in this industry (and the world) delivering crap — there’s no sense being another one of those.

Jobs’ thoughts on Microsoft & Bill Gates were interesting to say the least. One concept that was discussed at length throughout the book was closed versus open systems — Apple versus Microsoft. Apple is an example of a closed system, since Apple controls the hardware, operating system, software, and user interface. Compare that to the most notable example of an open system approach, Microsoft, which controls the operating system, but nothing else. I don’t think there is any question which user experience is better. Is Apple’s more expensive? Sure. But quality costs money. Will open systems reach a broader audience? Yes. Margins are higher on closed systems, but open systems have historically made up, and surpassed, that with volume.

I used to be pretty firmly in the camp of open systems but have shifted a few notches toward closed systems after reading the Jobs biography. Don’t get me wrong, I still think open systems have a place — and it’s clear based on the volume of Android’s being purchased that many agree with me. Microsoft has proved that with Windows. But I’ve come to appreciate the power of great products — and great products require a more controlled environment. Individuals don’t know what they want, until you show it to them. The Model T, iPhone and iPad proved that. At Virtual Results, we’re not shy about telling agents and brokers we understand websites and consumer web behavior better than they do. We have millions of clicks of analytics behind what we do. Frankly, if an agent or broker thinks they can build better websites than us — they should probably go start a website design company rather than sell real estate.

Reading the book made me better understand Jim’s perfectionist nature when it comes to products. There are times where we’ll show him something, and his immediate reaction is “that’s crap” (not unlike Steve Jobs’ reaction to many early products shown to him by the Apple team). He doesn’t mean it’s literally crap, he means it can be better…and that we need to spend the time it takes to make it perfect. There are certainly tradeoffs; operating to perfection takes longer to ship and costs more money. But we believe it’s worth it.

What’s the take away from all of this? If you want the cheapest website solution on the market and/or want to spend a ton of your own time figuring out how to build a website that works? That’s your choice.

But if you want a product that just WORKS without the hassle? Contact us so we can get you up and running for 2012.

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Those that know us personally know we don’t do press releases very often, but we thought our brand new Broker/Agent Website Platform and Partnership was worth it…

Introducing VR Broker’s Choice, THE Website Choice for Brokers who value their agents’ success.

Leading real estate Internet marketing firm Virtual Results, LLC is pleased to announce a new, strategic broker/agent website platform and partnership. The newly released VR Broker’s Choice is a powerful real estate WordPress website solution built for Brokers to provide to their agents as part of their technology package. Agents can choose from a variety of beautifully designed themes and Virtual Results designers will customize their choice to produce a personal, stunning, finished website that will reflect their brand.

M Squared Real Estate, a leading Washington, DC brokerage, known for cutting edge technology, was selected to pilot the program.

“With the growing percentage of consumers searching for property on-line, it’s more important than ever for brokers to guide or provide to their agents, the best designed and best converting websites on the planet. Websites are an agents “curb appeal.” said Jim Marks, Virtual Results founder and President. “We’re thrilled to have M Squared as our initial VR Broker’s Choice partner. They are leaders in Internet marketing we are proud to bring our world class design and conversion to their agents at the most affordable price imaginable.”

Unlike traditional broker-offered website solutions, VR Broker’s Choice doesn’t “lock” an agent to their brokerage solution. While branded and enhanced with brokerage provided content, the agent always has the ability to migrate their website without losing content… or momentum.

“At M Squared our top priority is to provide agents with theVR tools they need to succeed in today’s marketplace. VR Broker’s Choice gives our agents a first-rate website themed for their individual brand, and customized for their target market areas.” Says Dominic Morrocco, M Squared Co-Founder and Partner, “When making the decision to offer WordPress websites to our agents, we evaluated vendors extremely carefully. We needed a scalable solution to incorporate our existing technological offerings with that in-development and planned. It was evidently clear the team at Virtual Results understands the needs of today’s agent better than anyone. Their Broker’s Choice program provides industry-leading IDX with world class design to create a complete, easy-to-use solution for both the agent and client alike. Moreover, Virtual Results’ management of plugins, hosting and general website upkeep, allows our marketing department the time and freedom to work one-on-one with our agents to truly maximize their online potential.”

The first two example VR Broker’s Choice websites are MyDupontCircle.com andDCRealtorCapitolHill.com. M Squared Real Estate chose to base their Broker’s Choice websites on the latest theme developed by Virtual Results, LLC, called Moondance. According to Jim Marks, “Moondance is the culmination of the best of class design and accessibility for clients seeking a classy, simple and effective website.”

Virtual Results, LLC

To learn more about opportunities, call a Virtual Results sales representative at 888-99-RESULTS, or visit VirtualResults.net/vr-brokers-choice/.

About Virtual Results, LLC
Virtual Results is the leading provider of real estate WordPress websites that convert traffic into leads. In addition to websites that work, Virtual Results provides world class Internet Marketing Consutling to Brokers utilizing real estate SEO, traffic and lead acquisition, Google Analytics consulting, and social media branding packages. The company operates Virtual Results.net, GeekEstateBlog.com and is headquartered in beautiful Laguna Beach, CA . Learn more at http://virtualresults.net

About M Squared Real Estate
M Squared is a Washington, DC, independent real estate brokerage focusing on technology, marketing and agent offerings. M Squared has been recognized within the industry and received national attention for its unique, non-traditional brokerage model and service offerings. Learn more at http://msqrealty.com

On Thursday, we’re conducting our third weekly webinar on how to utilize a Virtual Results Predesigned Website that Works in a way that produces results for your business. Our conversion specialist, CJ Hays, will walk through the ins and outs of our predesigned WordPress platform as well as answer any and all questions from participants.

When: Thursday December 1st – 1:00-1:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

What we’ll cover:

• Your WordPress Dashboard and all its functions
• Showcasing your listings using the VR Listing Management plugin (hint: it’s REALLY easy)
• Producing content within WordPress
• Conversion strategies
• 5 Content Ideas for Your Blog
• Question and Answer

Register Now

Whether you are a current client looking to better understand how to use your site, an agent currently evaluating real estate WordPress website vendors, or just an agent looking for a few blogging tips — this is your chance to learn what Virtual Results products and strategies are all about.

Of course, there is No Obligation — so you might as well register right now..

For those of you who are tired of your antiquated website that doesn’t work and committed to investing in your online marketing for 2012, there’s no better time to purchase one of our predesigned websites than Black Friday. Why? Because we are running a special giveaway to celebrate the occasion that’s too good to pass up.

We look forward to speaking to you soon…

Contact Us for Details

For those Virtual Results clients who have already used WordPress for a few years, our web sites are EXTREMELY intuitive. But for those who have no prior exposure to WordPress, there is certainly a learning curve involved to learn the ins and outs of WordPress — and we’re constantly working on ways to help improve the learning process. Starting today, whether you are a WordPress master or novice, you now have a full array of video tutorials that explain everyday tasks such as changing your password, adding new pages, pasting from Word, replacing an image, managing widgets and adding paragraphs. From the Dashboard of your site, just click on “Video Tutorials” in the upper left corner — and you’ll see the full list of available video tutorials.

Uploaded with Skitch!

With that, watch some videos and master WordPress!

If you have questions, please leave them either here in the comments or on the Geek Estate Pro forum.

Here are 5 content ideas we covered on our Virtual Results webinar today:

1. The next time you visit your favorite coffee spot, interview your local Barista, and feature them and their coffee shop on your blog.
2. Local events. Concerts. Festivals. Sporting events. Be the source of local events for your areas of expertise.
3. “My Favorite Hole in the Wall Thai Food in Seattle” (if you like Thai food like I do)
4. The 5 newest real estate listings in [city name] for the week of [date range]
5. Recruit local business owners to produce content for your site. However, remember, it’s hard work to convince others to write for your site — but it’s worth the effort over the long term.

On Thursday, we’re conducting our second weekly webinar on how to utilize a Virtual Results Predesigned Website that Works in a way that produces results for your business. Our conversion specialist, CJ Hays, will walk through the ins and outs of our predesigned WordPress platform as well as answer any and all questions from participants.

When: Thursday November 17th – 1:00-1:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

What we’ll cover:

• Your WordPress Dashboard and all its functions
• Showcasing your listings using the VR Listing Management plugin (hint: it’s REALLY easy)
• Producing content within WordPress
• Conversion strategies
• 5 Content Ideas for Your Blog
• Question and Answer

Register Now

Whether you are a current client looking to better understand how to use your site, an agent currently evaluating real estate WordPress website vendors, or just an agent looking for a few blogging tips — this is your chance to learn what Virtual Results products and strategies are all about.

Of course, there is No Obligation — so you might as well register right now..

Starting tomorrow, we’re going to start a weekly webinar on how to utilize a Virtual Results Predesigned Website that Works in a way that produces results for your business. One of our conversion specialists, CJ Hays, will walk through the ins and outs of our predesigned WordPress platform as well as answer any and all questions from participants.

When: Thursday November 10th – 1:00-1:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

What we’ll cover:

• Your WordPress Dashboard and all its functions
• Showcasing your listings using the VR Listing Management plugin (hint: it’s REALLY easy)
• Producing content within WordPress
• Conversion strategies
• 3 Effective Blogging strategies
• Question and Answer

Register Now

Whether you are a current client looking to better understand how to use your site, an agent currently evaluating real estate WordPress website vendors, or just an agent looking for a few blogging tips — this is your chance to learn what Virtual Results products and strategies are all about.

Of course, there is No Obligation — so you might as well register right now..

You know buyers want search. So, naturally, that means you should give them search, right?

Yes.

With that in mind…today, we’re beyond excited to announce Bravado, a brand new theme for our Predesigned Websites that Work platform! As expected, the focus of the theme is getting your traffic as quickly as possible into the search experience since that’s where the majority of your conversions will take place.

For those that have spent some time looking through our current predesigned sites such as LoriBee.com, LaPalmaHomeFinder411.com, Mariannewhyte.com, and Sandiegoequityfacts.com – you’ve likely noticed they are all designed from our initial “Under Pressure” theme. There are a broad range of colors available for Under Pressure and a few different home page layout options, but allowing our clients to choose from multiple amazing themes has always been the plan for our predesigned platform. We wanted to spice it up a bit with an entirely new, SIMPLER look for our current and future clients to utilize — and Bravado was born.

Bravado is a bit less “bloggy” than Under Pressure and more targeted at those who want a dedicated site to get people straight into the search experience. We know from our analytics that 60-70% of visitors to the typical agent or brokerage site end up looking at listings — so we made getting to listings even simpler and more obvious. Of course, Bravado is still built on WordPress with all the great features that come with each and every one of our predesigned sites.

For those that want to take a peak at the first wave of Bravado clients:

• Maya Paveza – Mayapaveza.com
• Debra Sinick and Brooks Beaupain – Eastsiderealestatebuzz.com
• Loren Sanders – Sandiegorealestateally.com
• Marci Pruett – PruettGroup.com

Going forward, new clients will be able to select either theme when they signup for a new site. Current clients can request a change of themes at any time for a $75 charge to do the graphics and setup work (leave a request in the work requests portion of Geek Estate Pro).

As a side note, one of the questions we answer over and over from potential clients is “What colors are available?” And we now have a solution in the form of a brand new theme previewer that allows you to view our various themes and colors available on our platform.

See All Bravado Colors

Want to get up and running with Bravado (or Under Pressure)?

Contact Us Today

As far as some inspiration for the theme, here’s the video that inspired our designer, Chris Hesenflow aka “WordPress Superman”, during Bravado’s design process.

We’ve received a few questions recently from potential clients asking about the “ownership” of a Virtual Results website. The concern is that they will be tied to a hosting provider and fall prey to monthly fees for eternity. Luckily, and purposely, that’s not the case with Virtual Results. We want clients that WANT to be on our platform..not clients tied to monthly contracts or held hostage by inaccessibility to their data.

Here is a layout of the “ownership” of your website so everyone is 100% clear (the answers vary slightly between a full custom and a predesigned):

1. The Domain Name: You own
2. Content: You own all the content you put into the site
3. The design: Full custom: You own. Predesigned: We own.
4. The WordPress instance: Full custom: You own. Predesigned: We own.

In terms of SEO, your domain and your content are your long term assets. Whether you have a full custom or a predesigned, you never have to worry about losing either one of those. As you likely know, WordPress.org is an open source platform. If you ever want to move to another host from one of our predesigned sites, you can export/import your content using standard WordPress functionality and be on your way. Sure, you will have to pay someone for a new design, but the reason we can offer our predesigns at such affordable rates is because there is shared maintenance and design between sites. If you are 100% committed to “owning” your design and the actual underlying WordPress instance, you’ll need to go with a full custom.

Keep in mind that, in order for your website to convert traffic to leads, it needs to have an IDX and other conversion tools. 60-70% of consumers that end up on an agent/broker site are looking for listings. If you don’t give them that functionality? They will bounce and never come back. Regardless of what website provider you work with or even if you build your site yourself (check the ROI before undertaking that), you will have a monthly hosting bill. We know the sum of the parts of our monthly packages purchased separately will be more expensive than buying them as a package from us — and in the process, you get access to our expertise. We think that’s a win-win for everyone involved.

Want to discuss further? Give us a call. 888-99-RESULTS

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