Nudging the boundary of complacency in Real Estate Success

"You may be creating resistance to new customers when the business in front of you is either stressful, or if you find yourself in the middle of demanding deals. This resistance intensifies if you find yourself screening your calls to avoid a particular client or to deal with a specific problem. Accept that you will encounter tough deals; it is the nature of the Real Estate Business – make sure you seek assistance from your broker or thoughtful colleagues on how to resolve the issues you are confronting; and don’t be afraid, from time to time, to let go of the overly demanding and unappreciative clients."

"Everything stays the same until someone sees it with a new set of eyes; coffee is coffee until StarBucks sees it as an Empire; a phone is a phone until it becomes a Modem and the Internet is born for the masses. So if some naysayers in your life tell you that has been done before and not to waste your time; trust your instincts, your creativity, your diligence, and risk yourself in what you believe in and are passionate about."

"When you choose to become a Real Estate Professional you have chosen to become a Small Business Owner, and in one day you do more activities than the Typical Fortune 500 CEO. You are responsible for Creating New Business, Selling Yourself, Marketing Properties, Closing Deals, Educating Clients, Running your Office, Buying Office Equipment, Continuing Education, Paying Taxes, Billing Clients, Collecting, Innovating, Managing, Decision Making, Risking Capital, Inventing New procedures, Licensing, and the list is not even close to being complete… Choose a Real Estate Career carefully; it only rewards those with inner strength and passion…"

"On a headstone, forgotten by time was written: ‘Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.’ I choose to remember this Memorial Weekend with love in my heart!"

"To Worry is to allow a thought to nag you to no end… Many of us force Bad News on ourselves by worrying about the consequences of an event, or an action we have taken. This worrying blocks your ability to be creative and seek opportunity! Your ability Not to Think (Worry) is as important as your ability to be present to opportunity… Confront your Nagging thoughts, make amends, seek forgiveness, but most of all get going before ‘worrying’ makes you ill!"

"Have you written down your procedures? The majority of our Real Estate Professionals are Reactive and not as much Proactive; so when they get a new listing it is as though it was a new event – they rarely bother to have a Book of Procedures that outlines all of the steps, methods, places, and procedures of marketing. They think that knowing it in their head is good enough and invariably will forget or reverse the order of their known procedures. Method creates Opportunity!"

"If you build a good business it should become boring; Yes Boring… Solid companies are not flashy; they are stable, predictable, unwavering, reliable, designed with solid leadership and vision. A boring business has steady growth and plans of action to weather downturns in the market; so seek strong management, clear vision, low turnover, and boring and measurable growth."

"Your website must be driven by your customers experience on it – not just SEO; When you offer the ability to Save Searches, Save Listings, Share Listings, make sure they are intuitive and present in the right locations; allow your visitors to make changes to their searches by passing parameters using Cookies; and never forget that many of them have learned to give you fake information because they do not trust many of the websites they visit – so be patient with them; and give them great visitor experiences!"

"What if ‘More’ Business is not what you really need? Sounds like a silly idea; many say give your agents as many leads as you can and they will grow their business – yet many of you brokers know that is not really true. ‘More’ is a seductive word; but more of anything that is good for you can poison you as well; just think of food or alcohol… Develop an expertise in your niche market and you may get better results; just a thought!"

"SEO is not driven by your web container only; it is driven by the details that few Real Estate Professionals have time for, or choose to make time for… yet every agent I meet is desperate to be on Page 1 of Google organically. It is the details that make the biggest difference – in fact those who have a methodical plan of action that affects their Website on a Weekly basis get better results than those who keep paying tens of thousands dollars to SEO companies. Gone are the days of sticking white keywords hidden in white pages to seduce Search Engine to rank you!"

"The American Playwright and Author, Gore Vidal, said, ‘Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.' Being in Real Estate forces you to have Style: your unique way of presenting yourself to the world; it forces you to have something to say that is not cookie-cutter; and I translate ‘not giving a damn’ as you embracing ‘Internet Video Marketing’ and allowing yourself to be you as you are!"

"If you wish for the river of your success to flow powerfully make sure you dredge deep channels. The surface of your river may hide your depth so don’t be afraid to work deeper, on your character; on your values; on the reasons you wake up in the morning; and mostly on why you are making a living at the profession you have chosen. You are where you are because you have chosen to follow a path to the place you find yourself – make it a blessing not a burden!"

"The national economic recession and near collapse of the Real Estate Market in 2007 and 2008 created an interesting Psychology in the thinking of Home Buyers: ‘NAR says that 94% of all home buyers go online and spend up to two (2) years searching what they are going to buy before they contact an agent.’ this reveals two new characteristic that Real Estate Professionals must develop; the obvious is an internet presence – and the most difficult one is Incubation of leads has stretched from a few months to near 2 years. Patience and long-term lead management systems have become a must acquired skill!"

"The hardest thing one can become is a blank canvas - a Being full of possibility. Many of us choose to retain the noise of failure in our souls to keep us from breaking into the realm of making a difference; that realm requires intention, drive, passion, patience, and real hard work."

“Google’s Update to their Search and Ranking Algorithm, named Penguin, targets ‘Over-Optimizers’ - those who build websites stuffed with keywords and blog for keyword ranking only rather than helping their clients connect with them organically. Your Website is simply driven by your motivation – are you building a website to serve your clients or designing one to get on page 1 to generate leads? You have got to find a way to merge these two ideas Organically!”

"Writing is a skill that is developed over time; to become a great Marketer the most important skill is Writing – unfortunately there is no shortcut to becoming a great writer; Writers will tell you that it is in the process of writing regularly that the skill becomes sharpened, and meaningful."

"All of us in Business will experience a slump in Sales, in Productivity, and even in our Passion for work; Quitting is Not always the most appropriate response. Know that challenges will happen when you are an Entrepreneur, and when they do: Do Not Freak Out; Do Not Get Angry; Do Not get down on yourself; and most of all Don’t you dare Quit!"

"Success is not a Zero Sum Game… my Success does not require your Failure; nor does your Success need to lead to my Failure. Abundance in Business is not always acknowledged but it is present and ought to be nurtured!"

"How expensive is Free? it can at times be more expensive to be given a free service than to actually buy it. Say a mortgage company decides to offer you a free website in exchange for say Marketing Exposure; it may sound like a good deal but then when you realize that the work you do in your website is more important than the monthly fee of owning the website – you have become beholden to any change in terms that the provider determines is in their best interest. Free is rarely Free."

"The best asset of a Real Estate Professional is their mind and how it is used… Is your mind overflowing with lots of shoulds, woulds, coulds, ought-tos, and need-tos? These are the loose enemies of your productivity – they stop you in your creative tracks. Grab these shoulds as they float your mind and commit them to action and/or make peace with them. Your mind and your clients don’t have time for your nagging shoulds, they need your creative solutions!"