Last Thursday afternoon was a surreal moment for William Raveis Real Estate, Mortgage & Insurance. The company was announced as the “Most Innovative Brokerage or Franchise” at Inman News’ 2011 Innovator Awards, held in the beautiful Hilton San Francisco.
Inman’s Annual Innovator Awards recognize exceptional national achievements in real estate technology and marketing. To give a simple analogy-winning an Innovator Award is akin to winning an Oscar at the Academy Awards. Every year, the real estate glitterati, from world renowned brokerages to Silicon Valley startups-gone-mainstream, gather in San Francisco and New York to talk about what they see in the industry’s future. It’s sort of a big deal.
About 10 days prior, we had been informed that we had made the coveted list of Finalists for two critical categories in Inman’s 2011 Innovator Awards- Most Innovative Brokerage or Franchise and Most Innovative Website or Service for our multipurpose CRM, William Raveis Agent Dashboard . We were honored to be named among such forward thinking companies as Zillow, Trulia, Better Homes & Gardens and SpatialMatch.com.
This has been a remarkable year for William Raveis Real Estate. In addition to winning several accolades over the past few years from highly regarded real estate organizations, the company has been named as a “Best Place to Work” by the prestigious Boston Business Journal and as “The Best Residential Real Estate Company” by Banker & Tradesman, a subsidiary of The Warren Group.
We launched William Raveis Agent Dashboard (announced by Inman), an enterprise CRM, marketing and business management solution, free to our agents. Agent Dashboard enables sales associates to be mobile, conducting business from their smartphones.
We won a Gold Award from the American Advertising Federation for our custom mobile version of raveis.com, offering access to 300,000 listings from the convenience of a smartphone or tablet.
We continue to push forward our Exceptional Properties Digital Magazine, featuring some of our standout luxury listings and the latest news on the luxury market.
We continue to add to our library of agent education through our Career Development Division-offering over 200 classes per year on topics ranging from targeted marketing with social media to mobile strategies for increasing lead generation.
We engage with clients and the public in new ways, particularly with social and new media. We’ve added enhanced functionality and access to listings on our facebook page and ask our followers for their feedback on the condition of the real estate market in their area. We utilize twitter, linkedin, youtube and foursquare to run contests and encourage participation from our virtual SOI. It’s their feedback that helps us continue to refine our social media initiatives.
Our company continues to grow despite a challenging economy. In fact, William Raveis Mortgage had a record-breaking year, closing over $900 million in loans and William Raveis Real Estate is expanding its footprint throughout the northeast, opening new offices in Massachusetts and New York.
We thank Inman News for recognizing our efforts on a national scale. And, of course, we thank our sales associates, staff and management team for their incredible efforts. It’s your vision and dedication that help this company lead and innovate. Here’s to you and what you come up with next!
