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Introducing Knack, the newest gifting solution in the Moxi Cloud
Curate, customize, and delight your clients with the help of Knack.
And the Moxi Cloud just keeps growing. Now with gifting services from KNACKSHOPS.COM available! We’re stoked to announce Knack as a preferred brokerage solution, giving agents more ability to customize their client gifts.
One of the reasons the Moxi Cloud is growing at such a fast rate (40+ tools and services!) is because we encourage our brokerage clients to integrate the existing tools and services they already know and love. Part owner and client of MoxiWorks, Windermere Real Estate, is the brokerage that brought Knack to our attention, and we’re very thankful they did!
Knack is a modern gift-giving solution for agents who wants to give thoughtful gifts but can’t take time out of their already busy-as-can-be schedule to find them. Knack carefully curates artisan products that tell a story, then allows agents to combine items in a way that is meaningful to them. Gifts are hand-packed, and each gift includes a custom booklet that tells the story of each item in the gift, making the experience enjoyable and unique. Shoppers may choose from already made gift sets, customize those to their liking, or choose from over 1,000 products on the site to curate their own unique gift set.
“We’re excited to add Knack to the cloud. Giving gifts and in doing so, staying in touch with your sphere is crucial for agents. Knack is special in that it allows the agent to customize a gift set or build one from scratch, and have it delivered in beautiful packaging to their clients. We want brokerages and agents to have choice, and this helps to accomplish that,” said Kylah Searing, Director of Moxi Cloud Partnerships and Integrations at MoxiWorks. “It was great having the introduction to Knack come from Windermere. Since they already use and love this service, it made the decision to add them to the cloud an easy one.”
This integration to the Moxi Cloud includes SSO (single-sign-on), meaning agents have one less login to remember. The gifts are easily curated and if agents need help with inspiration, they can speak to an expert concierge.
We also love Knack for their giving back mentality. Knack partners with merchants who support a wide range of causes and donates a percentage of their sales to philanthropic causes as well. For instance, with Windermere, agents can give and give back: Knack donates five percent of each purchase made by a Windermere agent to the much-admired Windermere Foundation. Our Moxi Fund was actually born from the Windermere Foundation, so we love working with like-minded companies.
You can find more information on our new partnership in our press release here and have a look at the marvelous KNACKSHOPS.COM while you’re at it!
If your brokerage is interested in adding Knack as a brokerage solution, please contact your dedicated Account Manager and they’ll get the ball rolling.
Heat Up Your Listing Presentations with INRIX Drive Time
By Tiana Baur
I think we can all agree traffic is the absolute worst. Nothing puts us (or our clients) in a worse mood than leaving ourselves more than enough time to get somewhere, only to find out that we’re still walking through the door late. Which is why, when it comes to buying a home, the potential commute to work and back can make or break the transaction. That’s where INRIX Drive Time comes in.
It’s no secret that INRIX Drive Time wins business. It allows agents to be the trusted advisor they’re meant to be. Our products Moxi Present and Moxi Websites include the Drive Time feature so agents can give their clients and prospects the full picture of a potential home.
INRIX recently came out with their 2017 Traffic Scorecard, which “is the largest and most detailed study of congestion to date. It includes data on 1,360 cities in 38 countries covering more than 100,000 square miles (250,000 square kilometers) of road and focuses on congestion across all times of the day and week.” It also shows the top 10 most congested areas in the U.S., which Los Angeles still holds the top spot for, which cost LA drivers $2,828 in 2017. For our home town, Seattle, coming in at number nine, it cost our drivers $1,853.
Here’s some other fun facts from the 2017 Traffic Scorecard:
- Los Angeles commuters spent over 100 hours in traffic jams in 2017. Let that settle in a little bit.
- On average, Americans spent one hour a week stuck in traffic on their commutes in 2017. That may not seem like a lot but think about how that’s the average for ALL of America, not just the cities. Even then, one hour a week is 52 hours per year. Think about what else you could do with that time!
Here’s the thing. An agent not only has the duty to find their clients the perfect home, but they also have the duty to find them the perfect situation. It’s their purpose; what gets them out of bed every morning and what makes them so passionate about the work they do.
Of course, the perfect situation, includes the best commute possible (or at least one that doesn’t completely ruin their day to day life). This fantastic tool – with the most accurate traffic data – helps them do just that.
If you want to see INRIX Drive Time in action, we have it in our sample presentations on our website.
You can find out more about INRIX here.
4 Underrated Ways to Get More out of Your Marketing
By Maddie Jostol
The market is heating up, and agents are getting busier, which means you need to take the necessary actions to make sure your marketing efforts go as far as they possibly can. Sphere selling is the key to success in today’s market because it grows an agent’s business on repeat and referral business. Everyone is thirsty for leads and the competition is so hot that relying solely on purchased leads just doesn’t cut it. You see, it’s all about human connection. We always recommend you use technology to your advantage, so you can automate the busy work and open up more time to build real, human connections.
1. Showcase your personal brand
As far as we’re concerned, there is nothing wrong with showing your personality as long as things remain professional. In fact, it will work to your advantage and make your marketing efforts more effective. Your personal brand is how you present yourself to the world – this should include your unique personality, style, and values.
People want to work with people. The reason homeowners work with a real estate agent is to have someone to guide them through the stresses of the home selling or buying process. As you write content, create ads, and go about your typical marketing activities, don’t forget to make sure your personal brand is shining through.
2. Make it personal
When it comes to social media, don’t just actively post, but truly engage with your audience. Many of us focus so much on just posting regularly, that we forget that social media is a two-way street. Putting content out there is certainly important, but make that content go further by engaging with those who react to it.
When you respond to inquiries via social media, email, or other channels, respond with care. Even if the request doesn’t directly earn business, being nice and offering a quick, personal reply, uplifts your brand’s reputation.
3. Make it in-person
Don’t get us wrong, digital marketing has never been more important. However, there is still something particularly special about gathering people. Particularly if you work in a small community, try hosting an event (think: pancake breakfast or wine tasting). You can make it a community gathering or a charity benefit, but the idea is that you’re bringing people together. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to get back in touch with old prospects or clients and for you to showcase your commitment to the local community.
4. Keep in touch
The better your sphere knows you, the more effective your marketing efforts are going to be. Think about it this way: if you’ve had light, relative touchpoints with someone in your sphere over the past year, it creates familiarity, which means they’ll be much more responsive to your marketing efforts. It builds brand recognition and loyalty, meaning those people are much more likely to comment on your posts, forward your content, and share your information. This expands your sphere of influence, and in turn, means your marketing efforts get more bang for your buck.
Why MoxiWorks is growing FAST
By Ring Nishioka, VP of Operations at MoxiWorks
I joined MoxiWorks about 18 months ago and when I joined, the company had just under 50 employees and an office space of about 5000 square feet. The Little Engine that could has come a long way in the past 18 months. The doubling of our agent count has included 25 new employees and the doubling of our office space square footage.
As one of the HR folks in the company, it has been my responsibility to hire these last 25 employees along with our HR Specialist, Emily “HRSavage” Sherwood. We have hired 13 employees since the beginning of 2018 and we’re not looking to slow it down anytime soon.
MoxiWorks is based in Seattle, Washington and the market for technology talent is very similar to the real estate market – there are more buyers than there are sellers/inventory. All of the large tech companies have created more job openings than there are candidates. So recruiting quality candidates can be tough.
In the same way that the market has driven up the price of homes in Seattle, the market has driven the starting salaries for technologists through the roof. Graduates from good schools with computer science degrees and zero experience are making more than their parents. While that might sound absurd, it’s the truth. Supply and demand at its finest.
The multiple offices of Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and the numerous startups including Uber, Lyft, and CHEF, to name just a few of the more recognizable names, is putting a squeeze on the little engine MoxiWorks.
So, what is a non-Microsoft sized tech company to do when it needs to fill openings? Like most brokerages, we try to entice candidates by creating a cool place to work and creating a strong brand in the marketplace, but the best thing we have done to recruit new talent is the use of our employee referral program and the use of social media.
Like most companies, we offer a referral bounty for employee referrals. We pay this bounty on the first day of the new hires employment. We don’t ask the employee who made the referral to wait three months before we pay out because it was the hiring manager and the interview loop that made the hiring decision.
Our bounty is $1500.00, which is modest by Seattle standards. We don’t want Moxians to quit their day jobs because the bounty on a referral is too high. We want to say “thank you” with a token of appreciation. Why do we want referrals so badly? We want referrals because our employees feel this is a great place to work and want to share the experience. Make the referral $10-$20K (yes, it is a thing) and folks will throw random candidates against the wall in the hopes of getting lucky.
Our employees are MoxiWorks BEST source of referrals and leveraged with Social media, we can make a serious dent in the list of open positions. And the same could be said for new agent recruits. Moxi employees know what our culture is, they know what success looks like, and they know the hiring managers. As an HR guy, what I like the most about employee referrals is that new hires that are referred by a current employee have a friend, ally, mentor and big brother / sister to watch their back. We know this is typical for brand new agents just getting into the real estate world. We all need someone to show us the ropes. These employees put their reputations on the line and are motivated to make sure their referral is successful.
To give you some perspective, the last three months at MoxiWorks looked like this:
- Our Test Engineer referred TWO technologists.
- Our Marketing Automation Manager referred our VP of Marketing
- A new hire developer liked the interview process so much, he referred his developer friend BEFORE HIS FIRST DAY OF EMPLOYMENT.
- Our CEO referred our CFO
If we went through a hiring agency using outside recruiters, we would have spent close to $170,000.00 in agency fees. We also would NOT have had organic relationships with these new hires.
We create a job posting and then our Content Marketing Manager, Tiana Baur, creates links that the employees can post on their persona LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter feeds.
And just like that, we’re swimming in plenty of quality referrals from our employees we know and trust.
Yes, we are hiring, and currently looking for:
If you’re not currently a Moxian and want to refer a candidate that we hire, we would like to say “thank you” with a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. Hit me up at Ring@moxiworks.com.
Knack Gifting Solution Plugs into the Moxi Cloud Open Platform
March 27, 2018 – Seattle, WA – MoxiWorks, the real estate industry’s first true open platform, has added a new gifting service to their existing options available in the Moxi Cloud. KNACKSHOPS.COM joins the other 40+ partners on the Moxi Cloud open platform as a preferred brokerage solution, giving agents more ability to customize their client gifts.
“We’re looking forward to working with MoxiWorks and helping agents with customized gifts. We’ve seen firsthand how valuable it is to be able to give your clients something meaningful at the conclusion of your working relationship–not only does it leave them with a positive impression of you and the experience you’ve shared, but it serves as an additional touchpoint for your brand,” says Knack CEO and founder Laura Jennings. “A thoughtful gift can go a long way toward celebrating a special occasion and encouraging clients to contact you next time they need your services.”
MoxiWorks often welcomes new best-in-class tools and services to the Moxi Cloud and encourages their brokerage clients to integrate their existing ones they already know and love. Part owner and client of MoxiWorks, Windermere Real Estate, is the brokerage that brought Knack to the attention of the growing open platform.
“We’re excited to add Knack to the cloud. Giving gifts and in doing so, staying in touch with your sphere is crucial for agents. Knack is special in that it allows the agent to customize a gift set or build one from scratch, and have it delivered in beautiful packaging to their clients. We want brokerages and agents to have choice, and this helps to accomplish that,” said Kylah Searing, Director of Moxi Cloud Partnerships and Integrations at MoxiWorks. “It was great having the introduction to Knack come from Windermere. Since they already use and love this service, it made the decision to add them to the cloud an easy one.”
The integration to the Moxi Cloud includes SSO (single-sign-on), meaning agents have one less login to remember. The gifts are easily curated and if agents need help with inspiration, they can speak to an expert concierge. These one-on-one consultations help agents create gifts that perfectly capture the relationships they share with their clients, and celebrate special occasions.
“KNACKSHOPS.COM offers elegant and modern gifting options for the agents who want a more customized gift option for their sphere. They’ve been great to work with and this partnership will allow us to provide our clients with another unique gift-giving solution,” said Mike McHenry, VP of Partnerships and Integrations.
The Seattle-based gifting company does more than just curate beautiful gifts; they’re passionate about giving back to the community as well. Knack partners with merchants who support a wide range of causes, and donates a percentage of their sales to philanthropic causes as well. This means for Windermere, agents can give, and give back: Knack donates five percent of each purchase made by a Windermere agent to the much-admired Windermere Foundation.
About MoxiWorks
MoxiWorks is a comprehensive open platform system for large residential real estate brokerages that serves over 100,000 agents and 50 brokerages nationwide. MoxiWorks make brokerages more profitable by enabling their agents to be more productive, earning the highest adoption rates in the industry. MoxiWorks’ integrated tools are centered on sphere methodology that drastically increases agents’ repeat and referral business by almost 40%, while lowering overall technology, training, and support costs for the brokerage. The open platform, known as the Moxi Cloud, has more than 40 tools and services in which brokerages can plug-and-play for their unique brokerage solution. More information at moxiworks.com
About KNACKSHOPS.COM
We Curate, You Customize, They’re Delighted.
Knack is a modern gift-giving solution for the discerning professional who wants to give thoughtful gifts but doesn’t always have time to seek out unique products themselves. Knack carefully curates artisan products that tell a story, then allows customers to combine items in a way that is meaningful to them. Gifts are hand-packed to guarantee an exceptional unboxing experience and each gift includes a custom booklet that tells the story of each item in the gift. Shoppers may choose from pre-created gift sets, customize those to their liking or choose from more than 1,000 products on the site to create their own signature gifts. More information at knackshops.com.
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For more information on this topic and other press inquiries, please contact Tiana Baur at tiana@moxiworks.com.
Knack Gifting Solution Plugs into the Moxi Cloud Open Platform
MoxiWorks hires industry veterans for tech startup
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE Real estate tech startup Moxiworks has swiftly become a full open platform in a short amount of time. As they continue to grow, the company has hired Marc Chouaniere as VP of Marketing and Jim Tarte as CFO.
How Facebook changed real estate marketing for better or worse
By Tiana Baur
Facebook is definitely not everyone’s favorite topic right now, especially when it comes to politics. That may not be our scene, but the Book has affected the real estate industry fairly heavily as well. It has changed the way we look at digital marketing and the way brokerages and agents alike view social media as a business tool.
In our industry, there are now specific tasks that are expected. Creating a business page and implementing property ads to your marketing campaigns are now the status quo. If you’re not doing them, you’re falling behind, and if you don’t at least update your page 2-4 times a week, you’re not doing nearly enough.
It has also become one of the hot topics to write about – every update, newsfeed changes, ad creation, features, etc. There are millions of blogs and articles giving tips of how to use the channel to its fullest (we have quite a few in our repertoire as well). It’s all due to the fact that Facebook has become the ultimate channel across all forms of social media – it’s where the world hangs out… or at least 2 billion people do. Therefore, it’s where all your prospects and clients are hanging out. So, whether we like it or not, the Book is still king, and therefore is a channel no one can ignore. Not the agents, or the brokerages, or even companies like Moxi. We’re all slaves to the Facebook Machine.
It’s also why we completely transformed our Moxi Marketing suite. Although agents know they need to be active on it, they don’t necessarily know where to start, or how to effectively advertise their listings or themselves. With over two billion active people on Facebook, we felt it was important, no, vital for agents to showcase themselves and their business on the channel in every way possible. Plus, we also wanted to take some of the pain out of Facebook, so agents can spend more time focusing on their precious spheres.
Our Facebook Ad tools, Advertise Your Listings and Advertise Your Services, are some of our absolute favorites. We’re especially excited about Advertise Your Services, the latest installment of the Moxi Marketing suite, since it has all the juicy goodness that is Advertise Your Listings, only this time it’s for agents’ personal brand and business. Like previously done in Advertise Your Listing, you can link to your personal Facebook Business Page, and if you don’t have one you can still use it. Even if you have no personal profile, even if you never ever want to have to type facebook.com into your navigation bar, you can use Advertise Your Services (and Advertise Your Listing). Talk about leveraging the Book with very little effort!
We try to not only focus on trends, but what we’re hearing from our clients. That’s why Moxi Marketing was created and why we’re rooting it on and celebrating its successes. If we can put just a few more hours back into an agent’s week – we’re happy. At Moxi, we’re only as good as our tools and we stand by calling them the best-in-class. Try these time-saving tools out today – won’t regret it.
Bitcoin or Bust: Buying homes & paying rent with digital currency
By Tiana Baur
“Bitcoin accepted.” A not-so-strange note to see anymore. Digital currency, or cryptocurrency, is hot and some of those in real estate are now using it to appeal to young renters. That means saying goodbye to mailing checks and hello to using an API that converts a digital currency payment into U.S. dollars. Yes, there are existing apps out there doing this. For instance, the app Coinbase, uses “the platform to manage relationships with their tenants,” by converting the cryptocurrencies and handling the middle man work.
Not only that, but sellers are intrigued by cryptocurrencies as well, giving an option to pay a piece of the pie with Bitcoin or other digital currencies. Some will even go so far as to only accept Bitcoin. That’s right – cash offers might even take a backseat in some unique situations. Fortune.com recently came out with a list of what the tangible value is for Bitcoin versus value amount in dollars. For instance, in Seattle (where MoxiWorks is based), 51.6 Bitcoin is the equivalent of $725,000. This varies by city and my state. We should add that, yes, there have already been closings involving digital currencies across the States.
And yet…
Digital currencies like Bitcoin are getting major backlash because they’re A.) hard to regulate and B.) get hacked more often than not. Recently, tech giants Facebook and Google banned any ads related to cryptocurrencies. And although Twitter, Snap, and Microsoft still allow them, they might be jumping on the bandwagon soon as well. These announcements were extremely damaging to cryptocurrencies, causing prices to plummet, but some experts are saying that it might help them in the long run since these policies are a step towards legitimacy. The jury is still out on it.
The problem is, unless you’re an investor or are independently wealthy and open to taking on great financial risk, or are extremely mesmerized by the crypto movement, few sellers are going to accept it in replacement of cash and putting money in the bank. As with anything, there are early adopters, but there’s no way to tell if Bitcoin will succeed or bust and since home buying and selling are some of the largest transactions in someone’s lifetime, the risk is often not worth the reward.
For real estate, you might be able to use it in a few circumstances, but there’s a long road ahead before the industry accepts cryptocurrencies as the “norm,” with open arms and little suspicion. With skeptical daily chatter and constant negativity in the headlines, one thing’s for certain: cryptocurrencies need more time to mature to be taken seriously in our market and beyond.
Goal-Setting 101: Set Yourself Up for Success This Year
By Maddie Jostol
2018 is your year to not only reach, but to exceed your business goals. If you either a) didn’t set goals for 2018, or b) have already lost track of them, making you think that maybe you didn’t go about goal-setting in the best way, then this guide is for you. Goal-setting gives you direction. It ensures all of the work you’re doing serves a purpose. There is no one thing that you are doing to make your business reach its goals. There is no silver bullet for real estate agents. In reality, it’s an accumulation of things, which is why having goals in place is so important. It means all of those little things can map to something bigger and add up to success.
Make that money.
At the end of the day, you’re working to make money. There is no one-size-fits-all formula for how much a real estate agent (or anyone, for that matter) should make. Think about how much you need to make in order for this year’s work to be worth it. What is your time worth? How much time and effort are you planning to give? What pieces of your life do you need to fund and how much will you need to make in order to do that?
Once you take those questions into consideration, begin to form your financial goal for the year. Next, calculate your GCI (Gross Commissionable Income) goal. This is important as it’s directly relatable to the day-to-day progress you’re making. Each time you complete a transaction, you can see exactly where you are on your path towards your annual goal. If you’re a Moxi Engage user, be sure to input your GCI goal in your Moxi account. This way, you can easily see your goal reflected on your Moxi dashboard, as well as the progress you’re making towards it.
Get real.
It’s really important to make your goals realistic and achievable. Of course, we encourage you to stretch yourself and reach for the stars, but make sure your goals are within reach. The last thing you want is to get discouraged and leave your goals behind altogether.
Follow through.
We’re all too familiar with the new year’s resolutions that fizzle out after a month or two. We’re hitting that point in the year when the gym is quieting down drastically after being packed for the last few months. Why? Because without a plan, it’s inherently difficult to follow through on your goals.
When goal-setting, consider the steps you’ll need to take to reach said goals. Write them down – even if it’s a rough list. This will not only help you gauge whether or not the goals you’re setting are realistic, but it will give you direction and get you on the right track as you set out to reach those goals.
Get your ducks in a row.
When your business runs smoothly, you’re better prepared to reach your goals. Part of goal setting should be getting the right systems in place for you to surpass those goals. As an agent, you are running your own business, which means accounting and tax filing take up time you could be using to close more deals. As independent contractors, most agents struggle with proper accounting since keeping your business finances sorted is such a pain. When it comes time to file taxes, you’re left sifting through a box of crumpled receipts and losing out on deductions because you didn’t have time to record and categorize everything.
QuickBooks Self-Employed helps independent contractors keep track of their finances all year, saving time and stress. When it comes time to file taxes, all of your expenses are auto-categorized to match your Schedule C and the average user saves $4,340 on taxes. With a snapshot of your business income vs. expenses, available on your app in real time, you always have a view of how your business is performing to ensure your goals are on track. Get a reliable system in place now! We’re offering 50% off your first year – check it out here.
