I  recently interviewed Real Estate Agent Gary Tibljas of Long Realty in Tucson Arizona. The interview audio is posted below.  During the interview, Gary reveals some of the secrets to his success on how he’s been able to attract high quality leads through his web site in just 24 months online.

Gary’s Web Site - Tucson Golf Course Real Estate
Online for just 24 Months
Web Designer - Jamie Gosweiler
Success Strategy - Niche Based Web Site; Quality Content focused on Customer
Results - High Quality Customers in a tough market from all over the country

 

Download Audio MP3 File

Gary Tibljas:Good morning Jamie, how are you?

Jamie Gosweiler:I am wonderful, happy to talk to you today. Gary has been a client of mine for the past two or three years and we started with a concept that we are going to share today about how he has become successful on the Internet with a website.We are going to share some of those concepts today so that everybody can walk away with some new ideas of how they can bring some of these things to your own business in real estate. So Gary, before we get started just give everybody a quick intro on yourself; how you arrived in Tucson and a quick background on your history as an agent.

Gary Tibljas:Be happy to, Jamie. I, probably like most real estate people out there, came from another profession and found a profession that I truly love now. I am educated from the University in New Mexico as an architect and civil engineer with degrees in both.For the first 14 years out of college I was the principal partner and a consulting engineer in our professional practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the real estate world and real estate development world started knocking on the door to me about 1990 and by 1993 my family and I decided that it was time to move to the mountains in Colorado and the Crested Butte Colorado area to be closer to an environment that we truly love, so we made the move.In 1993 I joined a Prudential affiliate. At that time I was up there as an associate broker and worked that market fulltime up to the last two years, when I moved to Tucson and joined Long Realty in essentially, I think in December of 2006. Long Reality is the largest real estate company in Southern Arizona and it was a pleasure to be affiliated with them also.So that’s kind of my brief background as far as how I came from a technical background to the real estate world and here we are today.

Jamie Gosweiler:That’s right , you and I met through a third party software provider that provides IDX services through your website and the company is, for the purposes it is called, the company is Success Web Systems and they provide IDX and allow real estate agents to showcase listings on their website. So that’s how you and I kind of hooked up together, and started working together on a website, and one of the first things that I asked you - I kind of asked you a little about yourself - but one of the first things we talked about was, kind of some back ground on you and one thing you did tell me is that you are really passionate about golf!

Jamie Gosweiler:(Continues) And you made such an impression on how much you enjoyed golf that it started to kind of click a little bit; the gears in my head started rolling through and we started coming up with this concept of “how we could you bring your passion for golf?” What’s your handicap, by the way?

Gary Tibljas:As we stand today, I will sign in blood that it is 10!

Jamie Gosweiler:Is it 10?Okay - well I am about three times that!

Gary Tibljas:I should have asked you for today because you never know tomorrow what it is going to be.

Jamie Gosweiler:Right - so that was the one thing that we kind of struck a common cord on, and that’s the thing that I want to point out to and to people listening today is that Gary came to me with an open mind and, you know, he knew he would need the web presence when he moved to Tucson, beyond what the office had given him, and he knew that he wanted to have something that was different that would stick out.So we started talking about some things and we came to this idea of golf.Now when we first started this Gary, how many golf courses, and I was blown away, are there approximately in the Tucson area?

Gary Tibljas:In the Tucson Metro area, Jamie, there are 32 - they range from very upscale private clubs to the vast majority of them that are semi-private clubs, and of course the typical municipal courses.So in all, the Metro area has 32.

Jamie Gosweiler:So 32 courses, and of course surrounding those courses are homes and real estate?

Gary Tibljas:Yes.

Jamie Gosweiler:And when we first started talking about this you were telling me how it would be a great idea to kind of pursue this angle or this niche of building a website all about golf course real estate.

Gary Tibljas:That’s right.

Jamie Gosweiler:And we started coming up with ideas and then we built our site map. Rewind the clock a little bit; when we first started putting together our content plan for the website, what was your goal for giving information to home owners that were looking to buy real estate near Tucson golf courses? Just briefly walk us through what you did as far as the content behind the 31 courses.

Gary Tibljas:Well, the most important thing, Jamie, is that all agents have a web presence.The competition online is fierce and people are busy; potential clients are busy, so my main goal was to focus on the 31 courses and 31 communities with real estate options enveloping those courses.It’s quite a task and you get caught up in detail so much that the site could become so complicated and so tough to navigate and essentially put people to sleep.So my first priority, as I presented to you, was to keep this thing lean and mean and simple to navigate, and not lose a heartbeat with regard to offering the detail that the shopper online is looking for.So it is a real challenge and that was, without a doubt, my main focus which I brought from you and that’s how we started out on creating the great things that we have today.

Jamie Gosweiler:So the strategy was to create, and this is where I think the takeaway is - to explain to the folks listening to the call, we created essentially 31 or 32 pages of content, each one linked to a unique course that you were able to give a very personal review. And again, your passion outside of real estate is golf, so it was easy for you to write up reviews of the courses, and this is all the the content was; it was reviews of the courses, and then we created links inside those reviews to each course that allows people to find properties and homes for sale proximal to those courses.

Gary Tibljas:Oh, that’s true and with me electing to specialize in a certain niche in the market, as I did with golf course community properties, I had to know these courses intimately - it’s a tough job but somebody had to do it.I played all of them, I know pretty much every nook and cranny, and it’s no different than someone that specializes in, say, different kind of real estate; you got to know it in and out.

Jamie Gosweiler:You made a good point there, that your niche or your specialty is golf course real estate.A lot of agents might say, well, if I am going to create a niche or a specialty, I want to work with a lot of different types of people online.In your experience, how has identifying a niche or becoming a specialist in the marketplace hurt you and how has it helped you? Because I think there might be a lot of misconceptions about defining and promoting your niche online.

Gary Tibljas:Well, as you know I am a big proponent of specialization.I know that probably the vast majority of my colleagues out there try to make themselves open and available to serve their clients in every aspect of the marketplace and it’s - and I say this respectfully, as I did it early on in my carrier too and I have been in real estate for over 20 years - it’s my opinion that you can’t be everything to everybody. That being said, I am here to tell your listeners that even as I like to come off as a golf course specialist, which I am, you can’t believe how many families that are looking for golf properties may not find exactly what they are looking for within a specific golf community, and so they revise their criteria a little bit and the next thing you know, we are outside of the ropes of a specified golf community and are now shopping real estate in close proximity to a specific golf course and not necessarily within the golf community.So there I go putting on somewhat of a different hat working the general real estate market again.Invariably it happens that way and it happens that way a lot.So in answering your question, I would submit to your listeners today that you have to remain savvy on every aspect of the market. Of course no matter what your specialty is you are going to be called to action in that arena sooner than you think and you should not be afraid of specializing in a specific market, because everyone out there knows that if somebody is looking for, say, Tucson real estate, just about every realtor that has a website in this market is going to come up for a lookie loo one way or the other.

Jamie Gosweiler:Uh - huh!

Gary Tibljas:So my answer to your question very simply is that I don’t think I have been handicapped in an adverse way whatsoever by excluding my knowledge and expertise and offering it to those who are interested.

Jamie Gosweiler:Okay, so now you’ve got this specialty website and you are going after this niche market in terms of golf course property owners, and some have actually branched out beyond just golf course communities.When the people commented, did you find that the types of leads you are getting are more serious and better quality?

Jamie Gosweiler:(Continues) I ask because a lot of agents will receive leads over their website, and when they try contacting them they have to chase them down, and when they do finally get in touch it turns out that they really weren’t serious buyers and their timeframe might be two years out.What has been your experience as far as the nature of the leads you have been generating from your website with this niche?

Gary Tibljas:Well, when you work in niche market, Jamie, obviously that particular buyer has in one way or the other thought out very carefully what they want, whereas the person that’s looking for more of a general-type property that could be anywhere within a specific market, it’s hard for them to detail their criteria in such way that allows a real estate professional to be highly effective right out of the shoe, making it a much more laborious process that way.What I find when leads come to me via my website, well, they have already made a lot of decisions.They are golfers, they love Tucson and Arizona for the weather and all the amenities that it provides, and they know they want to be in close proximity to a golf community. So everybody out there knows that’s a great way to get at the starting line and try to reach the end result for your buyer.So that’s another advantage of specializing, and in my opinion it’s extremely hard trying to find exactly what they are looking for because they have a lot of options within the arena they are looking at but still they are very educated, they are very disciplined, they know what they want. I think anybody will find that in a specialized market with the buyer profile that they have.And it goes with golfing communities, properties within golfing communities, the sellers for the most part are a, “higher-end owner” and the buyers are obviously higher-end buyers because properties in and around and amidst golf communities tend to be a little bit higher up in the food chain as far as prices go.My clients, both buyers and sellers, are a little bit more sophisticated buyers and sellers - but with that sophistication comes high expectation and demands on myself as a professional, so you got to be ready but that’s how I like it.

Jamie Gosweiler:What I am hearing is that you have actually gotten the higher-quality lead come in from your website as a result of specializing in golf course real estate?

Gary Tibljas:Oh, without question.If I would be just open to the general market, you are going to be dealing with introductory buyers, which is a tremendous niche, but your listeners out there might want to work the first-time home buyers and that opens up the entire market for those kind of buyers. So that’s a specialized market like this and it has nothing to do, I mean, don’t misconstrue it, I am saying here as far as trying to pinpoint a higher-end buyer, that’s not my point here.It just will happen if the working golf course communities, the type of buyer and seller profile that you are dealing with but if people specialize and again even if it’s with an introductory buyer, you know, husband and wife just out of college, just getting jobs and trying to establish credit, this, that, and the other, you know, you might have a passion for that, getting people on their feet, getting them into their first home. You know the satisfaction that comes from that is without question, but if you are going to do that, your market is going to be simplified too in a lot of ways because the life is going to be simplified whether they are going to be limited on how high a price you can see on the property and so, you know, that’s the constraint that’s going to guide you to a more niche-type marketplace initially.It makes a real estate professional’s job a lot easier and so you can say, well I don’t know the price point plus or minus anywhere in the city, it really does not matter, specialization brings focus to your buyer and it brings focus to what you need to provide to that buyer and at the end of the day it makes our lives as real estate professionals much more simple.

Jamie Gosweiler:As far as that specialization, I want to give everybody a chance to visit Gary’s website - If you do have clients moving to Tucson, Arizona, please call Gary.Gary is a great guy, a good real estate agent, and if you want to visit his website, it’s Golfhomestucson.com. I just want to switch gears here for a second - we talked about what has made you successful on this website and that is specializing golf course properties - we have talked a little bit about the quality of the leads for you and your experience has been higher than, maybe, it would have been just being general, especially moving into this area two years ago, which at the time, it is May of ‘09 and we know the last two years in real estate have not been the best. What kind of comments of your clients that you have been working with are through your website? Where do they stand?When they get to the website, do they know that they are at the right place or are they giving you feedback at all?Just kind of walk me through what the feedback has been as far as the look and feel beyond the content of the site?

Gary Tibljas:Well first of all they have to discover us and it goes with everybody out there - I am working with a master here.

Jamie Gosweiler:(laughs)

Gary Tibljas:(Continues) as far as positioning, Jaime has positioned me in such a way through all the different vehicles that he can muster up to get myself in a position of strength on every search engine and stuff like that, and that’s where it began.So really you got to catch people’s attention right away, which we have done so many times and that’s what pleases me - that our criteria and our programming putting the site together was right on and I get more unsolicited comments. I was telling Jamie not too long ago that I bet maybe two-thirds of the people that contact me without me even bringing it up comment on the site as far as how easy it is to navigate, how impressive it is, how all-encompassing it is with regard to answering the questions, ease of navigation, ease of getting their questions answered, and their time is valuable. I mean we all know what a person’s attention span online is, it’s microscopic, one chance to make a first impression and as we all know, if you got to do that, you got to do that quick, and that’s the beauty of our homepage. Yes I can say this, you know, Jamie it’s sexy.

Jamie Gosweiler:(laughs)

Gary Tibljas:You know, it’s a sexy homepage and it catches people’s attention, and they don’t want to leave right away, and that’s how we hit right on the head right away. But again to answer your question, ease of navigation, all my questions were answered and when they see that and they are able to get that in an unsolicited way without even having to e-mail me or contact me, they kind of get a sense of hey, I am very well organized and I not only know what I am doing in this threshold and, well on the whole I know what I am talking about when it comes to golf homes and golf properties within golf communities.And that has been one of the most gratifying things over the last two years, that online with the site - it’s just how everybody has embraced it and these people, Jamie that you all know that, I know they use my site as a benchmark and we have all been to this -people are using my website and probably working with other realtors, because they have allegiance with them because they bought from them before or they are friends with them and that kind of thing but I know these people out there are using my site for research and why? Because it’s so easy.

Jamie Gosweiler:Uh-huh

Gary Tibljas:(continues):and you know, I have had some e-mails saying that hey, I don’t work with you and I really can’t because of the friendship that’s been developed but, you know, let me compliment you on your site and it’s been a tremendous asset.So, you know, it’s all good stuff and it - it just reaffirms to me that we did the right thing and we have really gotten things to the on what was created —

Jamie Gosweiler:(Interjects) and I think in starting that out the one thing that we have talked about in the beginning of the design was focusing, obsessing over, not where we were ranked in the search engine initially but focusing, obsessing on the end user, you know, the golf course buyer and we, you know, again we talked earlier in the conversation about how the original content plan was to - to build an easy-to-use map and then give people a little bit of an introduction who might not be familiar with all the golf courses or, you know, where they are and a description of, you know, what they are and link them to their website but more importantly link them to some pages where they can find homes on the website.So we really went through and obsessed over our customers and not necessarily in the beginning our search engine ranking and that’s pretty accurate isn’t it Gary?

Gary Tibljas:Oh, without question - right on yes.

Jamie Gosweiler:And so I think that’s another thing that is a takeaway for everybody listening today and that is there is a lot of information out there about search engines - where are you ranked in the search engine and then I don’t care if you rank number one for any targeted keyword phrase, if the destination isn’t set up to convert a customer and lead him to action and all those things that Gary just mentioned about his website in terms of being easy to use -quality content -all those things and I think that’s the biggest takeaway - and also not to be, maybe, intimidated about focusing on that specialty and so I think in terms of just ending the call today and wrapping this up, Gary, what’s your - just if you want to tell everybody out there one final thing about your website and your success online - um if I had to pin you down and this might be a tough answer but if I had to pin you down on to, what’s the number one thing you can take away to date in the last, you know, two years or so being online, what do you think the number one thing has been in terms of contributing to your success?

Gary Tibljas:Jamie, that is a loaded question and - and to everyone listening today, this was a labor of love between two dedicated professionals, Jamie and myself and evolved - evolved in professional situations before we were, you know, we formed “a marriage” with every client, the relationship and that kind of thing, Jamie and I just bonded from day one.

Gary Tibljas:(continues) first and foremost, you know, when you have that kind of connection and you are on the same page, you can do great things and so I told Jamie this all the time, how lucky I was to be referred to him by the entity down here in Tucson that kind of IDX, they just mentioned him and I called him up and the rest is history. So that might - where we are today might not have happened with other people; so I thank my lucky stars for being introduced to Jamie because believe you me, he is the - he knows what he is doing and again the website is a labor of love.I mean Jamie and I conference at least once a month and we change something up all the time and we reset things every month and Jamie mentioned earlier that we went live with this - yeah we came online when I geared up here in Tucson pretty much when the market started to downturn and that’s another gratifying point, which is to see the quality of interest I have had even in a slower market and that has a lot to do with buyer and seller profile I am telling about because to some degree these people are a little bit more recession proof than, maybe, the general part of the market.

Jamie Gosweiler:The guy you are working with right now from Texas, what was his price range when he was out?

Gary Tibljas:He was working up to about 800,000 bucks

Jamie Gosweiler:(Interjects) okay

Gary Tibljas:(continues) his criteria were very specific and Jamie I don’t know about you - I didn’t talk to you about this - I just spoke with him again yesterday; this gentleman was just here about a week ago and he had this criteria with him that different golf communities. Here’s a perfect example of how we are venturing outside the gates - we have now modified our search - to, you know he is happy with what he is seeing inside the gates but now he is curious to see within, maybe, 5/10 minute drive from a few specified clubs what could be out there.So here I go as far as being from a specialist within the ropes of a golf community now, but now acting as more of a general market real estate professional looking for the same party or property that he would like to have within the chip shot if you will of a golf course, so there especially did he abandon me?He never a thought you only specialize in real estate in golf communities and therefore I might have to go look for someone else - if not so much of his comfort level with me as a professional of course but he also saw on my site from day one that was an option that hey, you know, I am all about golf course communities but if you want to canvas and examine the rest of the Tucson real estate market, you can do it here at golfhomestucson.com as well and —

Jamie Gosweiler:Uh - uh

Gary Tibljas:and it’s very important that when you specialize you still have to, you know still keep your options open saying hey, I still know everything about the business and everything about the inventory that’s associated with that business even outside of what my specialty is.So again, a loaded question - I can go on for hours Jamie, as you know - you put a quarter on me, you are going to get quite some output but —–

Jamie Gosweiler:Laughs.

Gary Tibljas:(continues) these are - these are things that a successful team that Jamie and I formed put together that allay any kind of concerns or fears of the buyer that we run into and it has been reinforced over the last two years many, many times and I hardly had to shout, I mean, we all know that the markets, I think we all agree right now that if we haven’t bottomed out, we are damned close and good things are starting to happen nationally and, you know, I am getting ready to fasten my seatbelt personally because I I know just how interested people are and once the media starts popping up the positives about the market, which they already are - good trends are starting in California now, even in Phoenix, which was the kind of the epicenter of the huge decline because there was so much of speculative buying up there and the Phoenix market is starting to turn around beautifully right now.So, you know, we all need to get ready because good things are going to start to happen the American public’s love affair with real estate has been deeply rooted for more than a quarter century or even longer and that love affair will bring it back to prominence in my opinion because it’s a tangible asset that we all understand whether we are in the business or we are just, you know the lay public.So I am excited my site’s position for and Jamie, I thank you right now that I found you and you made my life a lot easier and I am a better professional for how you helped me provide what I envisioned.So I thank you for that.

Jamie Gosweiler:Well, you are very welcome and, you know, it sounds to me like if you are an agent and Gary and I have got clients all over the spectrum as far as web design projects but if you are an agent and you haven’t built a web site or you haven’t thought about a strategy for your web site, it sounds like, as you are talking there that the market is, maybe, it is time to start, you know, looking a little bit closer at your design and your strategy and what you are doing online, you know from the perspective of some of the things we shared today like developing a specialty, promoting a niche, you know, trying to find a way to tie in your passion and what you understand of your local real estate market to find the right type of customers - is that pretty accurate?

Gary Tibljas:It’s very accurate Jamie; we and all know out there folks that the very last thing people want to do is walk into a real estate office or call us on the phone and why?

Jamie Gosweiler:(Laughs)

Gary Tibljas:(continues) because it could be - all you know well people are busy and

Jamie Gosweiler:(interjects) Yeah.

Gary Tibljas:Internet is where it is at - I am an Internet broker for the most part - I won’t go into details or bore everybody how I can run my business but this website is the mainstay of how I built my business so far, and it’s a direction and a methodology that I would like right out the shoe and that’s why I expended the effort and money on devising, you know, what we have before us today because I am a firm believer, because that’s how I shop -that’s how you shop we all go to the computer, we want the privacy of our own home on our time and when the time is right, if we can demonstrate on our website just how professional we are, how detailed we are, how caring we are and represent just how everything work out as a real estate professional on that website, you know, the comfort level with the buyer contacting us when the time is right for them is a very comfortable thing and an easy tip for them and you can’t come off as a disheveled professional on this website and again just offer ice-candy bits and pieces; people want facts, they want detail and that’s the balancing act.You know, you can provide too much and put people asleep and you can provide too little and you just become one of the other realtors out there that is just trying to make an effort and so this is where your concepts as a professional being, like Jamie who knows how to bring it to fruition in cyberspace -it’s a team effort - and again that’s you know, if it is not a team effort, it’s not going to happen - and I will say that again - I am just so lucky that I was able to mesh with this gentleman, and it wasn’t always easy - we were at each other’s throats a few times because we didn’t agree on some –

Jamie Gosweiler:(Laughs)

Gary Tibljas:on some concepts, but he is passionate about what he does and I am passionate about what I do, but we arrived at an end result that we both are very proud of and it’s all team work and so the market is turning and if you don’t have a web presence or you have a lukewarm web presence if I can make any kind of suggestion at all, I am just a firm believer in cyberspace in how people shop and print advertising, classified advertising, fliers, this, that, and the other that we are so accustomed to in our business over the years all well and good and still part of, you know, will obviously be a part of what we do but if I can make any recommendations at all budget and budget heavily for cyberspace because it’s becoming more and more prominent

Gary Tibljas:(continues) people have become more and more busy and it’s just the way it is and I put my eggs in that basket and I feel very comfortable with that decision and so —

Jamie Gosweiler:Well that’s great Gary and again I thank you for your time today and I think everything you said it just makes a lot of sense and hopefully people will be able to walk away with some ideas after listening to today’s interview on how they can adopt some of the strategies we talked about, you know, creating a specialty, creating the quality content for that group of people and being committed; I think that’s the final point that perhaps in looking objectively at the situation, maybe, that was the number one key to your success is being committed to the web and developing a web presence that wasn’t just a template out of the box or something that was rushed together because you had to have something up; it actually had some thought and strategy behind it and I think that’s - that probably, in looking back, is all the work that we do on this site, probably is the number one factor behind the success but again I want to thank you for being a part of today’s call and lots of luck to everybody out there in real estate sales and keep working harder in what you do and I hope you can start integrating the web into some of that success as well.Again Jamie Gosweiler with Agent Web Success and I thank you for listening today.If you want to visit our website again it’s agentwebsuccess.com and just to give another quick direction will be to follow the link below to Gary’s website and that’s:

Golfhomestucson.com

Jamie Gosweiler:Again thank you for listening and have a great day.Bye now!

Filed under: Online Lead Generation, Success, Web Conversion Success on May 6th, 2009