How do you calculate referral fees?
Upon closing one of our leads, BuyersUSA Relocation's referral fee is based upon the gross commission paid at closing to the member's company. Therefore, you must use the amount paid to the member's company before any fees are deducted for such items as broker, franchise, and other types expenses.For instance, if the HUD1 shows that the member's company received $18,000, the fee is based upon that amount. Here is a sample scenario:
If a BuyersUSA Relocation member sells a house to a lead accepted from BuyersUSA Relocation for $300,000 and the member's company makes a 6% commission ($18,000), then we get 25% ($4,500). The payment of this fee is a joint responsibity of the company and the member, who represents that company as their agent. If the company's portion of the total commission represents only one "side" of the transaction as in cases where they only represented the purchaser or seller in the transaction, then the referral fee is still based upon the gross amount received by the member's company. For instance, if the member's company only represented the purchaser and co-brokered the transaction with another company, who represented the seller, they may only receive 50% of the total commission involved in the transaction. In the above example, the member's company, which only worked one side of the transaction, received only $9,000. In that case, the referral fee, which is owed jointly by the member and his/her company, would be $2,250. At no time will the referral fee be based on less than 2% of the total selling price.
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Why am I not receiving email notifications from BuyersUSA?
E-mail is the most important form of communication with our members. Although it is primarily the responsibility of our members to assure that they select and use a reliable Internet Service Provider (ISP) and that their e-mail account is functioning, the validity of our member’s e-mail addresses is a major concern for our company. This article is meant to educate you on what we have learned about this subject over the years and what you can do to prevent unexpected problems from occurring. Rest assured that we are extremely concerned about this problem’s effect on our obligations to our members and on the speed of service provided to our leads.
E-mail problems come in four forms:
- Problems with invalid or closed e-mail accounts or domains.
- BuyersUSA e-mails blocked by an ISP’s anti-spam program or filter.
- BuyersUSA e-mails blocked by user’s E-mail software.
- BuyersUSA e-mail delayed or sporadically rejected by an ISP.
What can you do?
- Check your spam folder to make sure that it does not contain any of our e-mails. If it does then right click on the e-mail and add us to your “Safe Sender’s List”. If you are an AOL customer, make sure that you don’t click on “Mark as Spam” when you are deleting our e-mail. Luckily, you can undo this as well.
- If you use e-mail verification services, make sure that you inform these services not to include (or to add to their “white list”) any e-mails from buyersusa.com or buyersusarelocation.com and/or the IP address range 209.192.103.0 through 209.192.103.255. Also, this would be a good thing to do if you are using a local ISP or run your own e-mail servers.
- Please consider your e-mail provider carefully. We have the most problems with Yahoo users. Unfortunately, some ISP’s, like Yahoo.com, are not reliable enough for commercial use.
- If you have a recurring “bad e-mail problem” with us, use another ISP for your business with us. You may consider giving us an address using gmail or AOL, both of which are free, and having your e-mail forwarded to your preferred address, with which we may be having problems.
Almost every hour we receive notices that our lead notification e-mails were undeliverable or rejected. In the past, we have assumed that the member is either no longer in business, no longer wants to participate, or that they have changed companies. We were therefore forced to block such members from further notifications and to recruit a replacement. If we were to continue attempting to send e-mails to these rejected addresses, we stood the risk of having our e-mails identified as spam by that ISP, which would result in all of our e-mails being blocked.
However, “bad user” or “bad host” notifications are not always accurately labeled. Over time, we’ve learned that these messages are often sent when temporary hardware failures occur somewhere between us and the member. It also occurs when all of our e-mail has been blocked by a particular ISP. When the latter situation is detected, we attempt to contact the ISP to resolve the issue. Most ISP’s are very willing to correct the problem. For instance, we have successfully resolved problems with AOL.com and bellsouth.net. However, ISP’s like kw.com will not cooperate with us.
With the current spam epidemic, most ISP’s have automated programs that attempt to detect abusive e-mail. Unfortunately, this often results in good e-mails being blocked as well. We can correct this by having our IP addresses (which currently range from 209.192.103.0 to 209.192.103.255) and our e-mail suffixes (buyersusa.com and buyersusarelocation.com) placed on the ISP’s white list. If we see that there is a problem with a large ISP, this is our first solution. However, it is impossible to do this with each of the thousands of ISP’s in existence. Therefore, we ask that the member work on this issue with their ISP.
ISP server verification also causes problems. When certain ISP’s receive a large volume of e-mails from the same sender, they often try to ping the server to verify that it exists. When an ISP does this for every e-mail sent, it triggers our own firewall (which is set to protect us from abusive traffic like this so that our servers don’t crash). AOL.com used to do this until we were placed on their “white list”. However, it is still a problem with yahoo.com, which pings us constantly. This results in our server “blacklisting” yahoo.com e-mail servers for periods of time every day. This delays the receipt of yahoo.com e-mail as a general rule.
We have also noticed that some of our e-mails get misidentified as spam by popular programs such as Microsoft Outlook. This is an easy problem for members to fix. If you see our e-mails in your spam folder, simply right-click on the e-mail and add us to your Safe Senders list.
Verification programs such as found in Earthlink’s standard service often cause e-mail problems. E-mail protected by these services requires the received e-mail to be manually verified as legitimate. Unfortunately, since many of our notices go out from automated, non-monitored accounts, E-mails affected by these services are either delayed for hours or never seen by members.
The last category of problem e-mails are those that are sporadically rejected or delayed by your ISP. This causes major frustration for our members. A member will see a “bad e-mail” or “no e-mail” statement on their Member Update Data page. And, then if they test their E-mail address, there is no error. On top of this, the e-mail account that is in question is one that the member uses frequently and successfully. Therefore, the member too often quickly assumes that we have made a mistake and that we are not fulfilling our obligations to them. Let us explain what happens.
Above we discussed problems with us “blacklisting” ISP’s mail servers if they abusively ping our servers during their verification process. However, the problem is much more extensive than that. Some ISP’s, such as yahoo.com, have filtering policies that will delay mail from an ISP for a period of time should they suspect a group of e-mails to be spam – even if it isn’t. For instance, if we send five lead notifications to yahoo.com addresses during a given hour, starting with the sixth yahoo.com address, all e-mail to yahoo.com will not be accepted for several hours. This means that the probability of you receiving an e-mailed lead notice AFTER another member has already accepted the lead goes up dramatically.
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Actions after closing a lead
A) Referral fees and checks - As a member, the referral fee owed to BuyersUSA is 25% of your gross commission from your closing with one of our leads. Your membership number should be included on all referral fee checks, as well as all membership fee checks. Including your membership number will ensure that you get credit for closing the sale. Please send such funds to the following address:
BuyersUSA Relocation
P.O. Box 367
Anniston, AL 36202
Remember: As a member, you are responsible for updating your leads as being closed once the closing process begins. Please remember to update lead information in our member services.
B) Housewarming gift ideas - It is important to congratulate a lead once he/she has closed on a house by using your services. A good way to congratulate a lead is to buy him a housewarming present. The gift will let the lead know that you appreciate that he chose you to service his home buying needs. Some inexpensive gift ideas are listed below:
a door knocker
cleaning supplies in a nice bucket or basket
a plant
stationary personalized for the lead
gift baskets (could include jams/jellies, snacks, pasta,
gift certificates to home improvement stores
a picture or decorative item
Such housewarming gifts will help to add a touch of care. They also allow leads to feel good about their experience with you-hence, more referrals!
C) Periodic follow-ups (to ensure referrals) - Lastly, you should touch base with the lead from time to time just to see how the person's house is coming along and to let him/her know that you were not just out to earn a commission. Asking about a person's home or seeing if you can provide him with any help or advice makes for better relations. The lead will feel that he can trust you to handle his future relocation needs or those of friends, family, or acquaintances. Again, this will reaffirm good referrals!
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Cancellation
It is the intention of BuyersUSA Relocation to develop and maintain a long term relationship with members who will reliably and professionally make a reasonably maximum effort to turn any lead accepted into a commission for themselves and a referral fee for us.
As a minimum this includes a prompt response upon assignment (to include the provision of a homebuyer's relocation packet if a buyer lead), a prompt follow up report to us (within 48 hours of assignment) and a follow up report within 90 days of the last report. Agents receiving listing leads should notify us within 30 days to inform us whether you were able to list the home.
Failure to comply with these standards may result in a cancellation of membership. BuyersUSA Relocation reserves the right to cancel any membership that it deems not to be in the best interest of the network. As non-performing members typically cost BuyersUSA Relocation and network members (due to delays in lead assignment and non-payment of fees), norefunds will be given in the event that a membership is terminated. Nevertheless, other than for reasons of dishonesty, every effort will be made to revive a membership. Normally, lead assignment will be suspended while we attempt to clarify the problem. If the situation is not rectified, the membership will be terminated.
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Contact Information
It is the responsibility of the member to let BuyersUSA Relocation know of any change in address, telephone and fax numbers, company, or status of a member's real estate license. If we determine that any of this information has changed without notification, especially your telephone number or fax number, (including area code changes) lead assignment will be suspended immediately. However, we will liberally consider reinstating memberships that lapse due to this reason.
Important Contact Information
If you have any questions about the status of your membership, leads, cities, and/or our policies or procedures, please visit Member Services. If this reference does not answer your questions, please check all references on this member help site to make sure that your questions or concerns have not already been addressed. We try to give you the best customer service possible by providing all pertinent information online that can easily be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week .
In the rare case in which your questions or concerns have not already been addressed on our membership Web site, we request that you use the comment form located on our Member Services Web site.
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Initial Lead Contact
Your prompt initial contact with the lead is the single most important step in assuring a future sale (and a commission). Please remember that the lead is expecting excellent service. In their eagerness to obtain the information they need, leads often request service and assistance from as many Realtors® and other resources as they deem appropriate. Therefore, view this both as a race and a competition. Generally, the Realtor® who responds the quickest shows the most understanding and responsiveness and establishes the most effective rapport. This is the person who usually gets the opportunity to make the sale. However, we would like to remind our members that we only assign one member to each lead that comes in.
BUYER LEADS: Your response needs to be in three forms. As most of our leads have e-mail, this is the quickest (and least expensive) way to show them your professionalism and desire to be of service. Your e-mail should be effective, but "short and sweet." It should emphasize that you have just been contacted by BuyersUSA Relocation about their planned move and their desire for a relocation packet for your area. You should reiterate any special concerns that they expressed and solicit any further issues that they need to address. You should also mention that you are putting together a customized relocation packet for them. Like all communication at this stage, you should demonstrate your promptness and sincere desire to serve their needs. Please refrain from trying to impress them with your credentials, level of importance, and successful rate of you and/or your company. This is assuredly the fastest way to guarantee that you will not develop rapport with them. Remember that the reason that they may work with you is that you may become a "problem-solver" who will relieve the stress of their impending move. Your accomplishments in the real estate industry are not a key concern and may leave the impression that you are more concerned about yourself rather than their needs.
SELLER LEADS: As this lead should be a local one for you, we recommend that you immediately try to contact the seller by phone. Follow up with an e-mail.
Sample Email: (For PC - Highlight text and control+C to copy. For Mac - Highlight text and hold mouse. Choose copy from pop up menu.)
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