Motivation?

I am always trying to think of inventive ways to involve readers-and find them. I want to do this here and for the real estate company that I am working with now- Towne & Country. I KNOW that we can service the client the best out of all of the brokerages in the area. The trick is connecting in the online space first- and that is difficult for an independent to do. You have to be imaginative.

I have been reading Brand Hijack by Alex Wipperfurth, which was a gift to me from the amazing Sarah Cooper (@SarahWV on twitter). It talks about when the ownership of a brand is taken from the company by the consumer. I have observed this phenomenon, and am interested in seeing how it can be implemented.

And there’s this: the VlogBrothers, whom my daughter watch religiously. They pass messages back and forth on YouTube in a way that invites voyeurism. What interests me is their effective calls-to-action. Watch this:

Effective! The brothers also have a rule- their videos can’t be longer than 4 minutes or the offending brother has to perform a punishment that is decided by the other brother based on ideas posted on the vlog. It keeps my daughter monitoring the posts in hopes of being able to contribute to a punishment- another call to action. Their audiences are involved- and passionate.

Now- to get this company hijacked by its clients, and turn the blog into a local obsession.

Note: Several friends on Facebook gave me great advice and several ideas about Calls-to-Action. Friend me at facebook.com/heyamaretto and follow this link:

http://www.facebook.com/HeyAmaretto?v=feed&story_fbid=449630940524 to see their ideas.

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Is it 4:44?

“Make a wish!! It’s 4:44!!”

A couple of times a day, Jenny notices the magic numbers lining up, and reminds me that if there is any time to petition the universe for something it is NOW. It doesn’t give you a lot of time to come up with something, maybe 20 or 30 seconds tops. Chances are what you wish for is already top of mind.

Which brings me to this post, in a sort of convoluted way. There has been conversation recently about a “Raise the Bar” grassroots initiative for the real estate industry, tagged #rtb. We opened up the discussion on our show TQ Radio yesterday- you can listen to the archives here.

The sparks that heated the discussion are two-fold. First, consumer opinion of real estate sales agents have consistently placed agents as members of the top 10 least respected professions, right there with car salesmen. Second, anecdotally there is a quantity of agent-to-agent information that would appear to back up at least some of what consumers feel. Even in the chat room of our show, sharing about the “agent that had to be carried through the transaction” was commonplace. And this show was not closed to the real estate profession- anyone could listen and join in.

So everyone has the same opinion of the real estate industry, including many of its members. I don’t believe if change is going to come it will be legislated at a national level, since the states have autonomy over this sector.

Agent to agent is one thing. Here’s the thing- I have known some agents that needed coaxing and prodding, yet their clients LOVED them, and referred them constantly to their friends. These agents were just plain nice, and developed a following that way. They probably would not have gotten the best price in negotiating, and I don’t care what support staff you paired them with, they would have forgotten something during a transaction. But they did well, and in some cases very well.

Everyone has heard a million times that real estate is a relation business. It would be easier to assess and “fix” were this not true, but it is. I heard this over and over again at Inman. So think about this.

Maybe it is not the agent who makes grievous mistakes in the transaction who is the one that the consumer is calling out. These agents will likely be taken care of over time, or the transaction will be moved along by the agent co-broking. Maybe the consumer is sick of this kind of behavior: the other day on twitter, I saw a comment,”Yes, I said I am selling my house. But why did all of these agents contact me here? What makes you think I need your help?”

I think this kind of behavior- which is taught over and over at brokerages, and may very well BE the best way to make money- takes the sheen of professionalism from us. It cheapens our true value to the consumer. The question is this: CAN we exist without this type of prospecting and make any type of real money? If every agent shifts to social media/pull advertising, will this space get cluttered to the point where people can’t string together the words “buy” and “house” for fear of showing up in 20 agents’ Tweetdeck search columns?

I think we are dealing with two specific and very different image problems here. And, 11:11!, I wish there was an easy solution.

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Posted via web from heyamaretto’s posterous

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Realtor.org stats

Interesting information. Not just applicable to buyers’ agents, but to agents as a whole, but it makes you wonder. The conclusion was this: 66% would use the same agent again and refer them to a friend who was moving.

2/3 is a large number, particularly if they will refer, because it opens up an agent’s business hugely.

Here is something interesting that I was thinking of, though. Yesterday, I had wanted to email a friend of mine who was working at a different brokerage. I Googled her name in combination with her brokerage: found NOTHING. I looked on Facebook and twitter, although I didn’t expect to find her there and I was right. I finally found her on LinkedIn without a profile, so to speak- although her email address was there.

So I will be able to get in touch with her, and I will. The question is this: would I have spent that much effort, as a consumer, to reach this agent? Even if I really liked the job that she did if I had not found her right off the bat I would have assumed that she was no longer in business and not bothered looking.

It is important to run your name through Google, Yahoo, and Bing searches. For the fun of it, I checked a misspelling of my name, because the last name difficult. I really feel like changing it to Diane RealEstate or something, but I am active enough in the social space so that even with a misspelling, Google autocorrected and found me in ActiveRain and on the community that I cofounded- the TwitterQueens:

Diane "Geurcio"

I know as long as they have some sort of idea what my name is- or my social media nickname HeyAmaretto- people can find me. In fact, if you search “Diane Amaretto,” which some people call me, the first result on Google is this blog’s address, with my name and the correct spelling right there.

Diane Amaretto

So this is kind of funny- but what does it mean to you? Whether you want to be known in the social media world or in the three-dimensional world around you, you have to make a plan and be there. And track where your leads come from so if you notice a drop-off, you can address the issue.

The point is: if the 2/3 or 3/4 of the clients that you have done business with can’t find you, it makes no difference how much they love you. They won’t use you again, and they can’t refer you. Let your past clients help you build your business.

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Nauseous-looking snowman

Christmas is always busy around here. Add the hub-bub to the usual workload imposed by being self-employed, and you feel nuts.

It is my favorite time of year, though, just because it is so pretty. I have it in my mind that people are kinder to each other this time of year, so they at least appear to be.

It is a rough time for blogs.

It is hard to find the time to add content if you are pulled in a million directions. You are celebrating- whatever- and the fact of the matter is that orchestrating a celebration requires a lot of attention. Traditions require attention. Cookies and children home from school require attention. One day you look up and see your beloved blog curled up by itself in the corner shivering, and you realize that you haven’t fed the poor thing in a week and a half.

There are two schools of thought. One is that you blog- and do any prospecting, for that matter- on a fairly strict schedule. Write it down right in your Google calendar, and set it up to remind you. “Ping”- sit down and write. I have to work somewhat like this or I would look up and see that two months had gone by with nothing done. Knowing I have two posts to write on Tuesday sets my mind to “Observation” mode so I plan them out prior- and I am not sitting down looking out the window writing something about the weather again.

I asked another (prolific) blogger that I know how he wrote, and he said, “I write when I have something to say.” That would be the second school of thought, and it works if you get your butt over to the computer as soon as you have something to say, which I am unlikely to do. This method certainly works for my friend, though.

Looking for ideas? Run a few Google alerts for news of interest in your area of expertise, and use that as the basis of a blog or two a week, interpreting the news for your readers in a way to make it meaningful to them. Once every couple of weeks, ask someone local to write a guest post for you. Local sports, a restaurant review, a holiday recipe that your family really loves- all are interesting.

I guess any method will work as long as you make a habit out of it, and keep in mind that your blog is a living thing that needs to be fed. Skip a few posts and you will see what I mean.

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I remember an old Odd Couple episode. Oscar and Felix were fighting about something, and Oscar began to tear around the kitchen, opening the ‘fridge to make some food.

Definitely staged

Some people have a sense of what goes together in a dish- some people even may have a particular muse. How else would that first person have known to take that fermented wet flour, shape it into a ball, and heat it up over the fire? What I would call divine inspiration definitely exists for some people.

I would not say anything divine was behind the creative drive that inspired Oscar’s recipe. I tried to remember it, and saw several versions online, but I think this comes closest:

Fill salad bowl w/ sardines and pickles
Top w/ whipped cream
Garnish w/ crushed potato chips………..

I seem to recall Chocolate Syrup as well, but maybe it just seemed like it belonged. Oscar called the dish “Goop Melange,” and the name is appropriate.

Anyway, if I were to name this blog with absolutely full disclosure, it would probably be called “Goop Melange.” I started it a while back, and had had an ActiveRain blog for what seems like forever. I had also written personal blogs before, but this was to be more business oriented, and indeed I wrote about mostly real estate related topics.

I think as I got more comfortable with myself and who I was in the social media space I felt like writing about other things of more general interest- writing about things that interested me. If I was having a week of happiness or frustration, I am sure that at best you could sense it in my writing, and at the worse felt like recommending Prozac over Zoloft in a comment.

Last night, I was surprised- and thrilled- to find myself recognised with 11 others by Sellsius in this list: Top 12 Women Real Estate Bloggers 2009, together with Colleen Kulikowski, Mary Pope-Handy,  Dru Bloomfield,  Amy Chorew, Kaye Thomas, Jessica Riffle Edwards, Susie Blackmon, Elaine Reese,  Genea (Gena) Riede, Kim Wood, and Monika McGillicuddy.

So I thank you Sellsius- for thinking my Goop Melange worthy of being served at this incredible Pot Luck of online writing. I love writing, it HAS helped my business(es), and has helped me- with the rest of the social media package- to meet the best people in the world. And as you said at the end of your article, I am happy to share my Goop recipe with anyone. You can find me online ;).

Some of Diane’s other blogs are HeyAm’s Playground, The Twitter Diaries, a Posterous blog which acts as a portable file cabinet, and a couple others that are experimental. She is a contributor to TQI Consulting and gets a kick out of writing about herself in the third person.

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give me a hand!

Sometimes I need it- a kick in the pants, a hand to pull me up, or a virtual hug. Every single one of us- unless they have been sheltered by others who have taken the blows for them- have experienced failure. So failure is universal. How a person deals with failure is not.

• 1. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. – Henry David Thoreau [If I am going to be desperate. I plan on being loud about it]
• 2. Any idiot can face a crisis – it’s day to day living that wears you out. – Anton Chekhov
• 3. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. – Friedrich Nietszche [I like this one, because I have found sometimes upon examining my failures, they were really due not to external factors, but to my own lack of "why"]
• 4. The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. – Marcus Aurelius
• 5. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. – Henry David Thoreau [This is the truth. Is that cup of coffee worth the 15 minutes of work I gave up for it? New car v used car- do I have that much life left in me? Is my iPhone worth it?]
• 6. You fall out of your mother’s womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave. -Quentin Crisp [The inspiration here? If you have friends that always sound like Quentin, find new friends]
• 7. His genius he was quite content in one brief sentence to define; Of inspiration one percent, of perspiration, ninety nine. – Thomas Edison [I'll take Poetry by Inventors for $1000, Alex]
• 8. He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. – Harold Wilson
• 9. Bill Gates is a very rich man today… and do you want to know why? The answer is one word: versions. -Dave Barry [Said as a joke, but useful for entrepreneurs to remember]
• 10. People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents. -Andrew Carnegie

And I will toss in #11 for free: If you are having trouble- ask yourself where you are in the egg-to-flying category.
11. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. – C.S. Lewis

If you are in the egg stage, it’s near-impossible to fly. Are you at the flying stage? Then, if you aren’t flying… think about it. Why not? That might be the most important business question that that you ever ask yourself.

Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed. -Dale Carnegie Go read every single link here.

And watch this:

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My baby Jenny

These past two or three years remind me of the years of my children’s toddlerhood. Just jam-packed. If you had asked me to predict where I am now from even a year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to guess.

You can tell that from my old blog. I was just kind of thumbing through it, looking for another article that I had wanted to reprint. I can see the transition from real estate to- well, maybe uncategorized. And I can slowly see a new focus taking place. I think that precipitated the move to this new blog.

This was the very first post in my old blog. I think maybe, ummm, no one read it, but I almost feel like it is a message in a bottle. I am glad I caught it as it swirled by- a letter to myself about reasons to just plain hang in there, as I come up on another birthday and the anniversary of Inman Connect:

How often are we new? Every day we wake up with chance to react differently to the world around us. The human body replaces itself on a regular basis, so you literally aren’t the person you were a year ago. Even the conditions around us shift daily, and we are forced to choose to react or not.

So let me tell you, with all of this that has happened, I understand rebirth and reinvention. Probably more than that, I can empathize with the process, which is incredibly painful, and more difficult than the decision itself. But it’s sweet to be typing this as a new person inside and out, certainly more beautiful than I could have dreamed.

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Ideas have never been my problem. I have always had tons.

The issue is sorting out the really good ones from the time-sucks and then continuing follow-through. It is one thing when you are working a 9-5 and there are absolutely clear expectations for you (answer the phone by the second ring or whatever). But for the past 3 years I have been responsible for creating goals, meeting them, and lately, brainstorming revenue steams and R&D.

The clear expectations have to be internal. Twice (well, three times, really) within the past three years I have been involved in a new business enterprise, and the actual specifics of the expectations change but the generality that they NEED TO EXIST do not.

When I started real estate, I was halfway through the licensing course before it dawned on me that there was no base salary, and it would be a good couple of months after I was licensed and with a broker before I got that first paycheck. That would be if I walked in the door of the brokerage I wanted to work at, was signed on, and found a client virtually that first week.

My list became my best friend. I spent the first 20 minutes of each day setting up what I needed to do, then prioritizing it. If I went home after only having done 5 things, then they were the most important 5 things that I had to do for the day, and there was no way I could feel bad about my efforts. iPhone user? There’s an app for that.

My business plan was actually the heartbeat of each list. The list was formed to support the plan, and the plan made it easy to prioritize the list. If you know you need to make a certain number of calls a week and haven’t accomplished that, straightening out the paperclips (or taking the afternoon off) became suddenly irrelevant.

I posted on Facebook that I would be working on my business plan for next year, and Brian Craig, a really focused Realtor with Keller Williams in Ann Arbor, responded by telling ma bout his 411 plan:

A 4-1-1 is a one page goal sheet for the year. It has your goals for 4 weeks, your goals for 1 month, (which change every month) and your goals for the year.

Basic samples can be found on www.productivitywarrior.com

It shows both Business and personal goals. I keep mine as the first page in my planner.

Incredible idea. When I finish my plan, I am heading over there.

But why even bother with a written plan, anyway? Don’t you know what you need to do anyway? Consider this. And there is also something about the written word that helps to turn objectives into realities.

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Thinking outside the box, and in some cases there’s no box at all. The funny thing is- what is startling and innovative today will be commonplace tomorrow.

Here’s one that I think less sells the home and more sells the Realtor- which isn’t a bad thing. I fell a little in love with her when she showed up with the tie or scarf around her head:

Here is a clever one by Mike LeFebvre of Hallmark Sotheby’s International in MA:

It won two prizes, and Mike said that it was directly responsible for selling the house.

This video “showcases” what would be a fairly typical REO home in our area.

It caught my attention, and I have shown hundreds of these homes. And the little piece at the end? She is telling me what she will do for me, and it has already been underscored by the fact that I have watched the entire video and feel predisposed to her.

I think this video really works because the humor is fairly cutting, but it doesn’t feel to be mocking the house. By using a lot of common real estate jargon, she keeps it very light-hearted.

Three different videos; three different homes. What I feel they have in common is that- through humor- they absolutely humanize the agent.

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