Sustainable Success Thanks to Lasting Partnership
Learn how Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty has successfully evolved and grown over 2+ decades thanks in part to the products and people at Constellation1
Overview
Big, regional brokerages can command impressive market share, but with size can come challenges related to consistent digital marketing, organic lead generation, and lead management. The right partner can help brokerages of any size overcome these challenges. Let’s see how.
About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty
Leading Florida brokerage with
1,700 agents
Resilient
thanks to openness to
technology
Constellation1 customer since
2000
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty is a premier full-service brokerage with more than 30 offices and 1,700 agents across the Sunshine State. Founded in 1999, it is a quintessential success and ranks among the top 10 most successful brokerages in the global Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices network.
Being a successful brokerage for so long means Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty has grown and changed a lot over the years, and in doing so, its needs have evolved considerably. It has outgrown more than a few of the vendors that could no longer meet its changing expectations, and it has overcome its fair share of challenges.
The Challenge
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty has faced the same issues as many other large brokerages. Its size and geographic footprint mean it commands an impressive market share in Florida, but that it also had challenges related to consistent digital marketing, organic lead generation, and lead management.
Top 3 Needs
Harness the digital marketing capabilities of social media
Create a consistent online presence
Manage leads more easily
Simplifying and automating digital marketing
Let’s go back in time: it’s 2000, the internet is taking off, and ultra-fast broadband is starting to replace sluggish dial-up. Cloud computing is still years away. Software still arrives in the mail on a CD-ROM.
Even then, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty realized that digital marketing was the future. It decided to try virtual tours, a brand-new way for consumers to view a property online before scheduling a showing. The effort was a resounding success.
Fast forward to a few years ago. Social media is taking off and everyone is starting to talk more about digital marketing. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty realizes social media is a vital place to market its brokerage and listings online, but some sales professionals are more tech savvy than others.
To take full advantage of all the opportunities social media offered, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty’s agents needed to post good content, including their listings, regularly and consistently. But there were many time, usability, and knowledge barriers for it to be a consistent form of marketing. It started to look for tech that could help.
One day, while Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty was discussing something else with its virtual tour partner, Paradym by Constellation1 (that’s us!), it mentioned trying to overcome this challenge. We had recently developed a set of tools to help our customers automate their social media marketing and leverage their agents’ spheres of influence, so the team gave it a try. Today, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty leverages a fully automated digital marketing suite that includes eye-catching virtual tours, videos with voiceover posted directly to YouTube and social media, automated social media posting, multichannel lead capture, and a powerful mobile app for managing it all from anywhere. Now the brokerage is equipped to stay ahead of customer expectations and set its agents up for success, too.
“With Paradym by Constellation1, agents don’t have to do a thing: it’s like having the personal support of a full-time marketing team 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
VP, eCommerce and Marketing, BHHS Florida Realty
“The evolution of the Paradym Marketing Suite has been amazing, and we’re still finding new ways to integrate all of the services and features it offers,” said Rei Mesa, President and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty. Any tool that streamlines and automates tasks for agents is an asset. With marketing taken care of, agents can get in front of customers, find more listings, and close more deals. Paradym provides world-class marketing for every single listing in an intuitive, automated, set-and-forget tool. With Paradym by Constellation1, digital marketing is effortless.
Building a wow-worthy web presence
More than a decade ago, the National Association of Realtors reported that 9 out of 10 people use the internet at some point when buying a home. Since then, home searches have gone almost completely online.
“If you don’t have a platform where you can interact with and engage customers online, you’re out of business.”
President and CEO, BHHS Florida Realty
Back in 2016, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty was at a digital crossroads: it needed both a brand refresh and a more robust website provider that could power its growing company and agent sites and provide better data feeds—the core offering of any real estate website. Ease of use, scalability, and SEO were must-haves. After weighing its options, it decided Constellation1 Websites was the solution that checked its boxes best.
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty transitioned its company site first, then its agent sites. Almost immediately, it was pleasantly surprised by how well its new sites handled data feeds and showed the most up-to-date listings, as well as their SEO features like fully built-out and dynamic community and neighborhood pages, clean and easy-to-use interface, and for agent sites, how simple they were to build and maintain. The website refresh provided an elevated online presence and, thanks to the built-in CRM integration, an opportunity to connect with more consumers online and convert them into lifelong customers.
Now, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty has more than 700 unique agent sites and an organic lead engine that keeps agents’ funnels full. The team can onboard new agents and set them up with a unique website for direct leads in a week flat, which has become a major recruitment and retention tool.
Leveling-up lead management
“We’re always looking for ways to optimize our lead gen from both the tech side and the human side.”
President and CEO, BHHS Florida Realty
“When you look at the real estate industry as a whole, everyone can generate and manage leads better,” Rei observed. “We’re always looking for ways to optimize our lead gen from both the tech side and the human side.”
In real estate, there’s no such thing as too many leads. The challenge is knowing what to do with them once you have them. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty’s lead needs were twofold: they needed a more technologically robust solution that could allow them to save time and gain in efficiency, but that could also help them maintain the human touch that lead admins, agents, and customers value so much.
Enter Constellation1 CRM, the most powerful real estate CRM on the market and the clear winner in Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty’s search. Rei and his team appreciated just how simple and easy it is to use without compromising on features. For agents, it has the automated drip campaigns and lead nurture capabilities they need, plus powerful out-of-the box features for plug-and-play functionality. It has just enough customizability to provide a customer-focused experience without being overwhelming—all in an application that even people who aren’t tech-savvy at all can learn with ease. For brokers, the broker dashboard gives unprecedented visibility into lead response times and agent performance.
Today, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty filters its leads through Constellation1 CRM and ensures they get routed to the right agents every time. They also have a dedicated eLead team that makes contact and regularly follows up with every lead. Since it can take months or even years to incubate a relationship before it leads to a transaction, having a tool like Constellation1 CRM makes it easy to stay on top of every lead and ensure none of them fall through the cracks.
An enduring, productive partnership
“We’re heading into a market now where we’re going to have to collaborate more and leverage every tool we have to capture business. Thanks to Constellation1, we’ve already laid the foundation.”
President and CEO, BHHS Florida Realty
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty and Constellation1 have been helping each other succeed for almost two decades. When asked what makes Constellation1 stand out, both Rei and Stacy are unequivocal: it’s the people powering the products and services. It’s also the accountability and reliability of the Constellation1 team. It’s the responsiveness and support. It’s being able to leverage all these different solutions as one. As Rei put it, “We pride ourselves on doing business with people who care about and value our success. If you want to be more successful, find partners who do the same for you.”
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty has found the one—Constellation1—and it can seize opportunities at every turn no matter what the market has in store. It pays to have a partner that not only listens to your brokerage but also who works tirelessly to help find new, innovative solutions for any situation or market shift to connect customers with trusted real estate professionals.
Are you ready to find your 1?
To discuss how a partnership with Constellation1 could turn into a decades-long relationship of trust and success for your team, request a callback from a Constellation1 expert today.