10 Reasons to use 360 Virtual Tours

10 reasons why Real Estate Virtual Tours benefits Realtors and Home Sellers

Chicago Real Estate Virtual Tours.

Virtual Tours have become one of the most important marketing tools for promoting a house online: Below are listed advantages of using a real estate virtual tour to market your home:

1.    More views. The average online listing with a real estate virtual tour receives substantially more views than listing without tour. (NAR survey 2009)

2.    Permanent Open House. The virtual tour is like having a 24/7 Open House – without the presence of the realtor or home seller to show the property.

3.    Saving time. It's a tool to help realtor and home buyer pre-qualify properties, saving everyone time.

4.    Instant information. The Virtual Tour can be easily found online and provide instant information for home buyer about the property, including schools, location and mortgage information. According to survey 90% of home buyers begin their search on the Internet.

5.    Used in social networking. With just one click, the virtual tour can be submitted to popular social networking sites such as: Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc.

6.    Effective on real estate search engines. Virtual tour is effective on real estate search engines like Realtor.com, Trulia.com, Homeseekers.com, and Craigslist.

7.    Easy to email. The realtor or home seller can easily email real estate virtual tour to a list of prospective buyers

8.    Home owner and realtor partnership. Home seller the same as realtor has a potential to use virtual tour and be active partner in marketing the house by sending out links to their social network.

9.    Tour provider—a marketing partner. Virtual tour provider has also extensive social media network and ability to market the realtor’s listings.

10.    Homebuyers prefer virtual tour. Survey show that over 80% of homebuyers state that they prefer virtual tour when searching for a house and that tour should be interactive so the homebuyer has control of what they want to view.

For more information concerning virtual tours and how we can assist you contact:

Photo Light Chicago
Jola Jablonska
Order a real estate virtual tour:  773 370-5070
Email: info@photolightchicago.com
http://www.photolightchicago.com

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Keep up the Good Work RTV

We have been using RTV virtual tour software for  a while now and truly believe that your motives as other providers of virtual tours are to sell more 360 virtual tours, but in selling more tours - you are creating an environment that improves the skills and marketing abilities of your dealers worldwide.

We have been extremely happy with your Inner Circle virtual tour marketing center. The marketing materials you have created to help the dealers along with your monthly virtual tour webinars The Image and The Formula have helped all levels of dealers from just starting never having done professional photography to experienced photographers like ourselves.  We are always learning something new and useful from RTV.

Vendors you have recommended have treated us professionally, priced their products well and have offered a greater level of support and upgrade than vendors we may have found on our own.  You have done a fantastic job in finding free or low priced software to get the job "great finishing touches". 

Your national virtual tour accounts that you acquire though the tour track program has provided us with income that was unexpected, welcome and of course better national exposure for our virtual tour company.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you Jason LaVanture personally, to thank Ben Knorr, to thank Jacque Burke and of course all the support people behind the three of you that make RTV function as great as it does. We look forward to growing with you for many years and to "taking advantage" of RTV and all it has to offer!

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Just Because You Can...

We remodeled a house last year and learned a valuable lesson. Just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD.  For example, we painted our house, inside and out and in doing so, we realized that there are some things that are better left to a professional. Sure, we got the job done and it looked fine if you didn’t look too close but the time and effort it took to “save money” really wasn’t worth the end result.

One of the objections I sometimes hear from prospective customers is that they aren’t interested in paying Vision Quest to create their virtual tours because they can do it themselves. Just as we CAN paint our own homes and change our own oil and cut our own hair, it’s absolutely true that you CAN do it yourself.  The question is...should you?

Justin Roberts  is a virtual tour provider who uses the same virtual tour software that we use for our North Georgia virtual tour company, Vision Quest Virtual Tours.  Justin recently photographed a real estate virtual tour of a home in his local area and took a look at the photographs that were on the MLS listing prior to shooting his tour.

Justin put together this slide show  (click on the link to view) to compare the images he shot for the virtual tour to those that the realtor shot. Now we would all hope that most realtors will do a better job than taking pictures of the kitchen with the cat in the sink but the point is that just because you can take pictures and create a slide show doesn’t mean that you don’t need a professional photographer to create your virtual tour.

There are many versions of an old story about a company who calls in a panic because the machine that runs their business has broken. The technician arrives, turns a few screws and the machine comes back to life. The technician hands over an invoice that read “Service Call - $5,000” at which point the business owner exclaims, “$5,000?!? All you did was turn a few screws!” The technician took back the invoice and made some changes. When he handed it back to the business owner, the invoice read “Service Call and turning a few screws -- $50. Knowing which Screws to Turn -- $4,950.”

At Vision Quest Virtual Tours, we charge anywhere between $150 and $2,500 for our virtual tours. $50 of that is for the tour...the rest is for knowing which screws to turn. My husband Greg is the photographer for our North Georgia virtual tour business and he knows which screws to turn to make our tours look amazing. He has been a professional photographer for over 12 years...he makes what he does look easy. Greg has shot hundreds of tours and knows how to make his camera work for him. A 360 degree panorama is made up of 12 individual images and Greg may adjust his camera settings and flash direction differently for every single shot of the panorama. He further refines his images using multiple photo editing programs. The result is a tour that showcases the property or business beautifully.

Given the same camera, tripod, flash and virtual tour software, I COULD shoot the pictures but my tours would not look anything like the ones Greg creates. I don't know which buttons to use to adjust the settings.  I don’t know what to do to adjust them even if I somehow found the right button. I don’t know how to bounce the flash so that it doesn’t reflect in the mirror and pictures, half of the time, Greg has to ask me to move because I am reflected in the mirror and pictures. I don’t know how to color correct a picture so that the richness of the hues are maximized.  The time and effort it would take to for me to learn is time better spend doing what I do best which is marketing and selling.

 

Big decisions require the big picture and that is what Vision Quest Virtual Tours provides. Professional photography, cutting edge virtual tour technology and an unsurpassed commitment to excellence has made Vision Quest the provider of choice for businesses in 26 states!  This North Georgia virtual tour business specializes in virtual tours for healthcare, hospitality and education.  To learn more, visit www.VisionQuestVirtualTours.com or give us a call at 404-863-9769.

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Austin Virtual Tour Company Love

We have had the privilege of working with RTV virtual tour software company for 7 years now. We are constantly reminded of how fortunate we are that we selected RTV when we started our own Virtual Tour business here in Austin. 

They continue to provide savvy hi tech product updates all the time which keeps all of us ahead of the competition and making a good living with our photography and virtual tour business.

We very much love most of all their constant continuing education classes via GO TO MEETINGS online every month. They are extremely prompt with any questions we have, i.e. New camera ideas.

We would refer anyone to RTV with a 100% guarantee for their success.

Locally owned and operated offering Austin Virtual Tours and digital marketing services. As a Digital Marketing company featuring effective and value priced marketing solutions including Virtual Tours, Media Exposure and Mobile Web Sites we offer unequaled property marketing solutions. As a centrally located AUSTIN TEXAS Virtual Tour Company we also support the communities of the Texas Coastal Bend with our virtual tours, and all of Texas with our Media Exposure and Mobile Web Site products.

We are dedicated to providing our clients with high quality, cost effective products with an emphasis on customer service. Our Internet Marketing includes full utilization of cutting edge digital text marketing, virtual tours, video tours, and the usage of our Turbo Charged Media Exposure Engine to create visibility of our clients properties to prospects around the world by harnessing the power of the internet. 

Alan Fon

Austin Virtual Tours

http://www.IslandDigitalImages.com
Local - (361) 749-0901

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Secret Weapon Tip

Hi all we are the New People, Brenda & Jim over at  http://www.floridavirtual.us/ just in business around 2 weeks and I have a great tip to pass along to all of you folks shooting using the RTV Secret Weapon.

First I have to say that I love what the Secret Weapon does. I shot an entire 360 virtual tour including the 360's using the system and the only thing I have to say is that it  sure made the process simple. (Thanks RTV for the info)

My tip is a program called HDR Darkroom. It a nice piece of software that will allow you to take a standard Photo shot with the standard pocket digital (like the ones we get from typical listings) and bump up exposure and light levels using Tone Mapping to more closely match the levels of our HDR TBS images. Not that it will make their picture better but you can easily make them look more compatible with the higher quality of what we are shooting.  So take a look at HDR Darkroom you might just like this little tool for your box of tricks as well. It also makes combining multi-exposure HDR images a breeze and that is handy as well.

To check it out go to http://www.everimaging.com

It has quite a few features including batch processing & Raw file conversion of 150 camera models to name just a couple.

To all that contribute to the BLOG Keep up the good work!

Best wishes to all of you in our RTV Family
Brenda & Jim
Barefoot Bay Virtual Tours
FloridaVirtual.US
772-664-5585

P.S. Look for a press release from us in the next week or so.

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SEO TIP - Link Back Strategy

Welcome to Strategy Class #1 of 4 on building an effective back-link campaign for your virtual tour business. This series of SEO Classes is coming your way from RTV's very own Kokomo Virtual Tour Company, Best Property Marketing! IF you want to stay on top of your game, make sure you stay tuned to this series and grab a pen (or bookmark the RTV Blog) and take lots of notes!

In this first class we will talk about building back-links from other Blogs. Search engines love blogs, and back-links posted on authority blog spaces will give you instant search engine “juice”, with very little work involved. For those of you still using Internet Explorer, it's time to step your game up and use Mozilla Firefox because of all the SEO tools that they make available to you.

When it comes to generating back-links with blogs, you need to:

1) Click here and download the SEO Quake plugin which is Free and will become your new best friend when doing SEO work. Feel free to explore with the other plugins as well!

2) Find blogs that provide a ‘do follow’ (the only kind of blogs where a link back to your site will count as a “vote”.)

3) You explore and read the blog and then you make an insightful, useful or relevant comment to the post that is likely to be approved by the blog’s administrator.

4) Include your back-link with relevant anchor text on the blog.

5) Rinse & Repeat

Make sure you focus on posting your comments on blogs (like the RTV Virtual Tour Provider blog) that contain a higher page rank than your own site. A blog with a page rank of 3-5 will offer a higher value back-link than a low (unestablished) blog. You can determine the blog's page rank by using the SEO Quake plugin.

You can include your back-link within the website URL attached to your post as well as within your actual comment box (if permitted).

When creating your back-link, make sure that you use anchor text to describe the website where you are directing people to.

To do this, you need to include a bit of HTML code to create your back-link with anchor text:

Your keywords go here

Include relevant keywords within your actual anchor text so that you can rank for specific keywords.
One thing to keep in mind as well is that you should never use keywords that are already a part of your website title or domain name but instead, focus on including keywords that you hope to rank for but are not already optimized or included on your own site. At the end of this post I will use the anchor text "SEO Services" as a link back to the SEO Services page within my website!

When searching for blogs to post your comments on (and build your back-link campaign), you should always focus on relevant blogs that carry the same or similar theme as your own website.

Since you will not only generate traffic from the increased exposure within the search engines, you will also attract attention from blog visitor’s who read your post, you want to make sure that you spend your time posting on blogs that are likely to draw in targeted visitors.

Stay tuned for Strategy #2

Until Next Time.....Market and Prosper!

J.R. Renkenberger, Owner
Best Property Marketing
SEO Services <---------- (ANCHOR TEXT)
http://www.bestpropertymarketing.com

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Got Mobile?

I’ll admit it, I’m a smartphone junkie, my smartphone is with me at all times.  I am amazed at everything that can be done with these little dynamos of communication, it’s such a pain to actually get that big clunky laptop out and use it anymore…

With the release of  RTV‘s Mobile Tour Technology, the HD Virtual Tours produced by Ohio Virtual are viewed on iOS (iPad, iPod, iPhone), Blackberry and Android devices. 

Coupling the Mobile HD Virtual Tour, with a corresponding QR Code (that links directly to your interactive mobile virtual tour) is a strong strategy to put into action with your print campaign. Every good marketer knows the power of “curiousity” and human nature. Ohio Virtual will help you put a custom plan into action, helping you take your marketing efforts to the next level, while ushering your prospects through the virtual doors to your property, instantly moving them forward in your marketing process.

Contact us today, and let us present you and your HD Virtual Tour to a  Mobile World!

Peter Heath
New Philadelphia Virtual Tours
Phone:  330.763.4210
http://www.ohiovirtual.com

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Working With Your Spouse

Finding balance between business life and home life takes on a different challenge when you work with your spouse. We began dating the month Greg started Vision Quest Virtual Tours so this business has been an integral part of our entire relationship.

We have found a remarkable rhythm and flow that has made this work but that’s not to say that there weren’t challenges. In the book, Daze of Our Wives, Dave Meurer says “A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' come together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.” The biggest secret to our success was to learn how to blend our differences into a unified business plan.

The first key to a happy partnership is creating an organizational chart and deciding who does what. I talked in an earlier blog about the common mistake entrepreneurs make of not fully understanding the many hats that a business owner has to wear. I've also blogged about focusing on our individual skills and that was integral in deciding who was going to be responsible for each aspect of the virtual tour business.

Chief Executive Officer -- Greg is the leader of our home and the leader of our virtual tour business. There are very few times when we disagree on the vision or details of our business but it's decided ahead of time who has the final say.  Some people may balk at the Scriptural belief that the man is to be the head of the household but for us, it's not just a mandate from God...it's logical and it works.  Greg values my input and if we have a difference of opinion, I gladly submit to his decisions.  I married a wonderful godly man and he is accountable to God which makes it easy for me to be accountable to him.

Chief Financial Officer -- Perhaps the biggest challenge most marriages face is differences of opinion about finances. It's said that money issues cause a great deal of the fights and divorces so add business finances to personal finances and you can see why it's important to be on the same page up front. In our business and personal life, we have one checkbook, one debit card and one bookkeeper. That forces us to make financial decisions together but because Greg is CFO of our home and business, it means that I don't have to be involved on a daily basis with the details of every transaction.

Chief Marketing Officer -- I am responsible for sales, marketing, web content, and customer service. Because we have a very clear vision and sense of purpose for our business, it is easy for me to communicate this message.

Chief Technology Officer -- Greg is solely responsible for everything involved in creating the virtual tours. He keeps up with the latest updates and innovations in the industry.  He has such a high level of expectation for what we publish so he takes every picture through Photoshop. With that high expectation comes a high level of expertise that I just don’t have. We toyed with the idea of having me help with the tour preparation but it was not a good fit. I am big picture person and am better with ideas than details.

We have done this delineation of duties on a macro and micro level. When we are on site for a shoot, we have clearly defined and delineated set of responsibilities. Greg is the photographer...I don't touch the camera unless it is to hold it while he adjusts is tripod. I have one job when we are on site and that is to make sure that Greg is able to do his job. If we are at a cabin, Greg photographs the outside while I go inside and stage the rooms, turn on all the lights, sweep the porch, clear the clutter, and whatever else is necessary so that he can walk through the door and start shooting pictures for our virtual tours. 

If we are working at a school or healthcare program, I work with the clients and patients so that Greg gets a clean canvas.  Life doesn’t stop just because we are there to photograph so it’s important to work around the inevitable distractions that will come about during the day. Confidentiality is of the utmost importance in healthcare programs so I have to make sure there is nothing showing that would identify a patient.

We have also found that having the same approach to our home life helps us balance our virtual tour business. If I have done a good job marketing, Greg stays very busy building tours. So it makes sense that I will do the majority of the cooking and cleaning during those times. If we have just finished a big job and Greg is caught up, then that means I am locked in my office finding the next job. At that time, Greg will do the majority of the cooking and cleaning for a while. We are not concerned about equal as much as we are equitable distribution of duties.

We absolutely love working together as a married couple but would warn others who are considering the idea that it's vital to the success of both work and home to take the time up front to decide how to separate responsibilities. The most important thing of all to keep in mind is to put the marriage first and remember why we decided to go into business together. 

Greg and Paige Mitts
http://www.VisionQuestVirtualTours.com
Order a virtual tour - 404-863-9769 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 404-863-9769

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Houston Virtual Tour Dealer Reboots

Houston based virtual tour company reboots with a new website, equipment and techniques to showcase your business.  Mike Stolte rebrands himself with www.MichaelsPhotographyStudio.com offering Virtual Tours, Brochures, Twilight Photography, Aerial Photography and much more.

Michaels Photography Studio has teamed up with Mike Wilcox at www.emomedia.net to offer Aerial Photography to businesses in the Houston Area.  Our partnership has showcased many Million dollar homes in North Houston and The Woodlands.  This is a huge help for real estate agents to get the edge up on their competition and for businesses to showcase their location.

Michaels Photography Studio also offers one of a kind, custom brochures for their clients. Each brochures is design with the client in mind.  We research their business to see how they are branded and we create a brochure that mirrors their brand. Our clients absolutely love them.

We are located in Northwest Houston close to Tomball, Texas. Come and check out how we can help you build your business with a Custom Virtual Tour powered by RTV Inc. Today!

Mike Stolte
Michaels Photography Studio
Houston Virtual Tour Company
Order a virtual tour: (832) 247-0634

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Dallas Dealer Digs RTV

4 years ago I began the search for a home based business, preferably in photography. I heard about the virtual tour business and RTV. After researching other virtual tour software, we decided to use Real Tour Vision because of the quality of the virtual tour.

I have been 100% satisfied with that decision. The service before and after the sale has been tremendous. They have continuing education for dealers on photography and growing your business. The virtual tour is easy to navigate and has full screen capabilities. RTV is also my best customer with the Tour Track program for dealers. Thanks, RTV and keep up the good work! L Castro Pro360 Virtual Tours and Photography.



Company: Pro 360 Virtual Tours.com
GeoKeyWord: Dallas Virtual Tours
Contact: Lisa Castro
Dispatch Phone: 817-676-7176
Web Site: www.pro360virtualtours.com

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Ask for Referrals!

Referrals....one of the most important marketing aspects of your virtual tour company.  Don't be shy when talking with a client for whom you have created a virtual tour.  That person has other business contacts that can put money in your pocket.  Not all will be reluctant to give out contacts, but you can entice them with a small discount to get the info needed.  Most will be happy to recommend you to others without expecting anything in return as long as they are pleased.

But don't forget, customer service and followup are what makes your client want to tell others about your service.  Be willing to accept suggestions and constructive criticism to gain the client's satisfaction.  By taking interest in your customer's concerns it lets them know you care about their satisfaction with your work and their needs are being met.  This opens the door to their business contacts.

A simple request for referrals is free marketing and is the easiest way to reach the person who will write you the next check.  Just ask!


Rob Lenthe
Got Robo?
Text 'GotRobo' to 99000
www.GotRobo.com 
Internet and Mobile Marketing

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The FORMULA 55 - The Elegant Art of Sales

It takes money to make money as they say and nobody knows that better than Greg and Paige Mitts from Vision Quest Virtual Tours a Northern GA Virtual Tour Company. Greg and Paige started out in the virtual tour business two years ago when the real estate market was at rock bottom. Struggling to get sales from Realtors in their area they turned to some very niche markets and used a unique sales approach which made them incredibly successful in a short amount of time.

Please join me on July 19th at 7:00 Eastern while I chat with Greg and Paige about their approach to closing hundreds of “business” virtual tours in a down economy. Register for the show now in your TMS!

See you on the show!!

Jason & Team RTV

Like us! http://www.facebook.com/realtourvision

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The Power of Bloggin

Our website www.VisionQuestVirtualTours.com has just hit 1,000 visitors for the past 30 days! When we began our North Georgia virtual tour business and launched our website, we were excited if we got 30 hits for the entire month but currently we are averaging between 30 and 50 visitors every day.

We have an iPhone app called Quicklytics that allows us instant updates of how many people have been on our website in a given day, week, month or custom period. We watch our hit stats the way a stockbroker watches a market ticker. The reason we track this information so intently is because we have found that there is a direct correlation to the growth of our business.

In the classic book, Think and Grow Rich, Napolean Hill says , “When riches begin to come they come so quickly and with such great abundance that one wonders where they have been hiding during all those lean years.” Most successful businesses can look back and see when the business finally took off but rarely can they point to one specific event or decision that caused the spike. While we wouldn’t say our riches have arrived quite yet, our business has experienced exponential growth.

    We shot 54 virtual tours in our first sixteen months in business.
    We shot 52 tours in the first quarter of 2011 -- but made 10 times the income for almost the same number of tours.
    We shot 88 tours for the second quarter of 2011.
    We will have shot 70 360 tours in the past 30 days!

Our virtual tour business and our web traffic have grown through a series of intentional building blocks. We started with learning the software and technology involved in creating tours. We purchased a template website and did some minor tweaking when we first began the business. Then we began building our portfolio and client base. The website wasn’t our main focus and to be honest, getting it fully updated is still on the back burner.

If anyone asks us what the secret is to our success, the answer would be very simple...We find people who know more than we do and follow their advice. We never claim to be particularly original but we recognize when someone knows more about an issue than we do and we try to do what they do. In the case of building an online presence for our virtual tour business, there is no one better to emulate than Real Tour Vision. A Google search for almost any keywords related to virtual tours will find Real Tour Vision (RTV) in the top search results. Jason LaVanture of RTV swears by blogging so I started blogging within the past few weeks and the results have been amazing.

After just a few weeks of blogging, we saw our web traffic skyrocket and as of today, we have 1,081 web visitors for the past 30 days...an increase of 89.98% over the previous 30 day period! I guess Jason knows what he is talking about!

Vision Quest Virtual Tours is a North Georgia virtual tour provider that specializes in virtual tours for healthcare, hospitality and education. Professional photography, a national presence and cutting edge virtual tour technology has made Vision Quest Virtual Tours the virtual tour provider of choice for customers in 26 states so far this year. For more information, visit our website at www.VisionQuestVirtualtours.com or give us a call at 404-863-9769.

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The Blender or the Juicer

Say goodbye to white and washed-out windows… and rooms too dark!  Get perfect real estate photos each and every time in a fast and easy way with the help of your local Lenawee County virtual tour provider, Tours d’ force.  Tours D’ Force has taken exposure compensation a step further by varying the exposure into our all NEW D-Photos. 

Let your photos portray the world as you see it… Don’t let your camera work on the assumption that everything is equivalent to a special hue of grey.  Ever tried taking a shot with tricky lighting, or one that has a lot of light variations between the dark and the bright areas  and you’re not sue which exposure to use?

Have you ever tried photographing a virtual tour scene with high contrast scene, and you know that even the best exposure will typically have blown out highlights and flat shadows. The solution is Tours D’ Force D-Photo processing:

Take the D-Photo tour

Benefits of professional photographers for your virtual tours:
›    Saving on lighting equipment
     No need to acquire expensive lighting equipment -and carry it- when you shoot high contrast scenes. Just enable Tours D’ Force and their new D-Photo feature, and let them merge your photos into an image with extended dynamic range.
›    Great pictures on cloudy days
     Shadowless hazy sunlight or an overcast sky usually results in dull-looking photographs. The D-Photo feature of Tours D’ Force can turn them into great-looking images. Check out this amazing photography.

›    Saving time and money in post-processing
     Tours D’ Force automatic blending, unlimited stacking, easy comparison of results and batch processing will save you hours of editing time while creating results that make you look like a pro.

=    Well exposed images


Photos taken from the inside of a home or a business are almost always a high contrast scene -- you can't limit your view to areas with the same brightness when shooting. By taking views under several exposures and processing them Tours D’ Force can create an image that will show details in both the dark and bright areas of the scene.


Don’t waste your time trying to juice-up your photos in some photo editing program.  Let Tours D’ Force blend your image to perfection.

Emphasize the quality of your properties by improving your photos. 
Quality real estate photos are an essential marketing tool.
Say goodbye to white windows and rooms too dark.


Catch the Perfect Picture With Tours D’ Force!




Team Toursdforce
Hal Holubik
LC Virtual Tours
http://www.Toursdforce.com
Order a virtual tour: 517-486-4209

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The FORMULA 54 - Fast & Fabulous Flyers

On our last webinar we discussed the many power virtual tour add-ons that one can offer clients. One that seems to be a sticky point for many of our virtual tour providers is how to make a very attractive custom flyer in a short amount of time. The RTV marketing center has four custom flyer layouts for you to choose from, however the process is still quite manual and time consuming.

Please join myself and Donna Bigg from Challenging Designs Inc on Tuesday July 12th at 7:00 PM Eastern as we learn some of the secrets behind her simply breathtaking custom flyers. Most importantly, her flyers only take her a few minutes to create. She’ll be revealing to the RTV network the inexpensive flyer creation software that makes ANYONE look like a pro and cuts your flyer creation time in half! Sign up now in your TMS!
See you on the show

Sincerely,

Jason & Team RTV
Virtual Tour Software & Digital Marketing Training
866-947-8687

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A Business With No Income is a Hobby.

In many companies, especially small businesses like our North Georgia virtual tour company, the “sales and marketing department” is one and the same person. While I do wear both the sales and the marketing hats, marketing that doesn’t lead to sales really doesn’t help much in the long run. It’s easy for me to market our virtual tours because I believe in what we do. I’ve blogged a lot lately about how we found a company that allows us to do the things we love. But the bottom line is that if we weren’t able to make money doing these things, then our business would be nothing more than an expensive hobby. Our venture would fail because we would have to find other incomes and not be able to devote ourselves to our customers.

In my last blog, I talked about having a vision for your business that was about more than just creating a stream of income and I believe that is essential to happiness in life. There is an great idea that if you find something you love, then the money will follow. If that were totally true, then I would be paid to eat watermelon and play with puppies all day. The real truth is is that a business that doesn’t make money will soon be out of business.n and play with puppies all day. The real truth is is that a business that doesn’t make money will soon be out of business.

As the sales and marketing department for Vision Quest Virtual Tours, I am responsible for identifying prospective clients to utilize our tours. Says Jon Spoelstra in his book, Outrageous Marketing, “The tough part of a sales call is not making the sale, it’s everything that leads up to it -- making the appointment, juggling the schedule, preparing the material”. For me, there is a great deal of research that I do about my prospective customer before I ever introduce Vision Quest Virtual Tours to them.

I was on a potential client’s website earlier this week learning as much as I could about their business before calling to see if they are interested in a healthcare virtual tour. I noticed that they have links to virtual tours. I clicked on the link to view the tour but it took me to the GoDaddy website because the virtual tour company’s domain name was for sale. 

It is possible that the tour this company had was made by someone with incredible passion. It could have had award winning photography and amazing features. But all that is really is a moot point because the company responsible for the tour is out of business and their tours have disappeared with them. I have to wonder if the healthcare company knows that their virtual tour links are really just GoDaddy advertisements.  I'll definitely be mentioning it!

One of the objections I hear from business owners occasionally is that they don’t need us to do their virtual tours because they can do it themselves. We could have chosen do-it-yourself virtual tour software but we chose RTV, Inc. to be more than just our virtual tour software provider...we chose them to be our back office. 

RTV, Inc. services a network of thousands of virtual tour photographers who provide high definition, interactive virtual tours for more than 150,000 real estate agents and businesses all over the world. RTV, Inc. devotes their time to research and development of cutting edge technology and then provide that to us. They focus their efforts on what they do better than any company in the world  -- providing us with service delivery systems.  This in turn allows us to do what we do best...market, photograph and create the tours themselves. 

Vision Quest Virtual Tours  is a North Georgia virtual tour provider. We create virtual tours for healthcare, hospitality and education. For more information, visit us online at www.VisionQuestVirtualTours.com or call us at 404-863-9769.

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