You’ve probably seen this list before, but today is a great day to revisit it.

Live with a great attitude

1. Remember…no one is in charge of your happiness except you.
2. Remind yourself that even though life isn’t fair…it’s still very awesome.
3. When you wake up in the morning, fill in the blank and tell yourself, “Today, I am thankful for____.”
4. Act enthusiastic and you will BE enthusiastic.
5. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, and show up…with a smile.
6. Focus on the good all around you at this very moment.
7. Each night as you go to bed, fill in the blank and tell yourself, “Today, I accomplished___.”

Live your life on purpose

8.  When you wake up in the morning, complete the following statement, “My purpose for this day is____.”
9.  Dream more while you are awake.
10. Write down your goals.  You will always accomplish more.

 Keep things in perspective

11.  However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
12.  Before you panic with a problem that comes your way, ask yourself, “In five years, will this matter?”
13.  Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present or mess up your future.
14.  Don’t compare your life with others.  You have no idea what their journey is all about.
15.  When you are feeling down, start counting your blessings.  You’ll be smiling before you know it.
16.  Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn.  Problems are simply a part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class, but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
17.  Time heals almost everything. So give TIME some time.
18.  If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can’t buy.

 Build your relationships

19.  Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick.  Your friends will.  Stay in touch with them.
20.  Call your family often.
21.  Agree to disagree once in a while.  You don’t have to win every argument.
22.  Make at least three people smile each day.
23.  Forgive often. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
24.  Spend more time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.
25.  Refrain from judgment.  You have no idea what is going on in somebody else’s life.

 Have more fun

26.  Watch more movies, play more games, and read more books than you did last year.
27.  Clear the clutter.  Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
28.  Smile more and laugh more.  It puts energy back in your batteries
29.  Don’t take yourself too seriously.  No one else does.
30.  Stop waiting for a special occasion.  Burn those candles, use the fancy china, and wear your nicest things.  Every day is special.

 Take good care of yourself

31.  Take a walk every day.  And while you walk, smile.  It is the ultimate anti-depressant.
32.  Always make time for exercise.
33.  Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a price and dinner like a pauper.
34.  Buy a DVR, TiVo or find a way to tape your evening shows and get more sleep.
35.  Eat more foods that grow on plants and eat fewer foods that are manufactured in plants.

Image Credit: Jonathan Mak*

The world lost an innovative giant when it lost Steve Jobs.  For more than three decades, he has been the force behind many of the major advances in personal computing and consumer electronics.

In reading over the story of Jobs’ life, I was struck by how much real estate professionals can learn from him.  Consider the follow:

He knew how to brand himself.  In his later years, his black turtleneck became his trademark.  Whenever we saw him in that shirt, we knew he was introducing a new product or a new service—something what would delight us or improve our productivity in some way.  He, himself, became synonymous with the quality and originality of Apple products.

He was a leader, never a follower.  Job’s accomplishments include a slew of firsts:  the first commercially-available personal computer, the first easy-to-use operating system, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad.  Other companies always find themselves playing catch up or trying to duplicate something that Apple thought of first.

A difficult situation didn’t seem to slow him down.  In the 1980s, Apple’s board of directors fired him from the company he had founded.  That might have been a blow to many people, but Jobs used his talent to create success elsewhere. During his hiatus from Apple, he bought Pixar Studios and turned it into a filmmaking powerhouse by showing the world that computers could be used to create animation for movies.

He insisted on quality and service.  We know when we buy Apple products that the quality will be there, and that the product will work well. We also know that if we need help, the people at Apple will offer knowledgeable, enthusiastic assistance.  Who doesn’t love visiting an Apple store?

He kept it simple; he made it fun.  Lots of other companies build products for consumers, but Apple’s products are successful because they’re easy to use.  Jobs’ was a master at identifying what the people wanted, and then figuring out a way to give it to them to in an elegant, simple-to-master package, that was fun to use.

Here are the take-aways for real estate:

Branding:  Consumers seldom see a different between real estate companies and often no difference in individual agents.  That’s because few companies and agents know how to set themselves apart the way Jobs’s did.  Figure out a way to stand out from the crowd so people can purposely choose you.

Leadership: Are you a leader or a follower?  What can you do to become an innovator in your market?

Thrive in tough situations: The situation probably can’t get much worse for real estate professionals than it is right now.  So how can you refocus your thinking and use what’s available to you to thrive anyway?

Quality and service: Find ways to build both into everything you do for every client.

Keep it simple; make it fun:  No one likes to deal with the details of buying or selling or renting a home.  Your job is to make the process as easy and painless as possible.  Do that well, and people will beat a path to your door.

*Tribute image designed by Jonathan Mak.

I’m pleased to introduce this guest post by Keith Hackbarth of RentersFriend.com who’s got great ideas about how to make QR codes—like the one you see here—work for you.

QR codes, short for Quick Response Codes, are currently a hot topic in the marketing world.  They look like barcodes.  If you look around, you’ll see them in newspapers, museums, and online blogs.

Consumers equipped with smartphones such as iPhone, Android, or Blackberry can take a picture of these codes and be instantly transported to a website with helpful information about the properties.

Realtors and property managers have started placing these QR codes on their signage and brochures.  For example, a rental property might have a QR code on the “For Rent” sign in front. Walk-by traffic will see this code, capture it on their phone, and instantly get a virtual tour of the property.  Best of all, the QR code will also be stored in the phone’s memory for later reference.

To get started with QR codes, download “QR Reader” or “QR Scanner” software on your phone.  There are many free applications, such as Google Goggles, for this.  Next take a picture of the code and follow the link.

Ask your signage company if they can put QR codes on your lawn signs, flyers, and business cards. It might make the difference between a vacancy or not.

About the author:  Keith Hackbarth is CEO of RentersFriend.com, a web service for online rental applications and credit checks. He loves finding ways to use technology to improve  his family’s real estate business. If you own rental properties, take a minutes to check out his innovative service https://rentersfriend.com

Slide presentations aren’t known for being exciting.  In fact, PowerPoint, by design, encourages linear presentations that contain mostly words.

But newer presentation packages encourage creativity and can be great vehicles for making a presenting, showing off a listing, or presenting information in an engaging way.  Add cloud-based services and the ability to present from an iPad or an iPhone, and you’ve got what you need to make  a stunning presentation wherever you happen to be.   Consider these ways to produce and present information.

SlideRocket is a cloud-based service that lets you create and store presentations. Upload slide shows you already have or create new ones with their great tools. Once presentations are stored with SlideRocket, you can access and present them from anywhere.  You can also share them with others, link to them from, say, Facebook, or embed them on your web page.

280Slides is another cloud-based service that gives you the flexibility to create, store, access, and present. Create a slideshow that has the look and feel of a presentation created on a Mac. Incorporate videos from YouTube or photos from Flickr with 280Slides’ built-in media tools. When you’re done, deliver your presentation, share it with others, add it to your website, or download it as a PowerPoint slideshow.

The Keynote App for iPad also lets you create, and present slideshows.  If you’ve never used a Mac, you’ll marvel at how easy it is to make professional-looking presentations in Keynote by just touching and tapping.  The iPad makes an excellent vehicle for presenting in someone’s home or in the office conference room.   Newer iPads can also be connected to a projector for larger presentations.  (For smaller presentations, the app works on your Iphone and Ipod Touch, too.)

With so many presentation tools to choose from—many free or modestly priced—there’s no excuse for giving dull, boring presentations.

Did you ever go to a networking event or a conference and get stuck with that guy who could only talk about his business?  You know the guy (or gal) I’m referring to:  they’re focused on the hard sell, pitching their product, constantly promoting themselves or their company.  Or they’re trying to nail down an appointment with you so they can sell you something later.

I don’t know about you, but these kinds of people make me uncomfortable and I avoid them like the plague.

They have an online equivalent in the real estate industry:  real estate professionals who use their accounts to spam their followers with unending messages about the their company and the properties they have for sale.  But just as blatant self-promotion is unwelcome in face-to-face situations, it’s a turn off in social media, too.

A better strategy is to position yourself as a thought leader in the profession.  You do this by listening to prospects, communicating with colleagues, sharing knowledge, and offering ideas.   You do more listening than talking, and you strive to make your social medial presence more of a conversation than a commercial. You bring value to the table.

Granted, it takes a little more work to bring a thoughtful, value-added approach to your social media campaign.  But, if you do it well your following—and your business—will grow.

Wi-Fi Hotspots are a great boon to real estate professionals and anyone else who works on the road instead of in the office behind a desk.  But while hotspots are convenient they also creates computer security risks.

Hotspots that are easy to log on to offer no data security and no encryption.  That means others can intercept your data as it travels to and from your computer.  When you type something and hit enter and the wireless signal you’re using has no encryption, the information you type is available for others to see and use.  The guy sitting with a computer out in the parking lot or the hacker who lives upstairs over the Starbucks could easily intercept your data and grab passwords or other sensitive information you’re sending.

So when using your computer—or your smartphone—on a public wi-fi signal, it’s a good idea to use SSL.  The SSL (Secure Socket Layer) protocol encrypts your data so that anyone intercepting it will only get gibberish.  To use SSL, enter an “s” after “http” in the URL.  So for example, if you’re visiting Google and you want to do an encrypted search, start by typing https://www.google.com.  That s at the end of http, ensure that your data is scrambled as it travels over the Internet.

It’s possible to engage SSL when you log onto Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare and many other sites.   Foursquare does it for you automatically (Try logging on to Foursquare right now without using https and you’ll see that Foursquare changes it for you automatically.)  In Facebook, you can put it in manually when you need it, or you can change your account settings so that SSL is automatically engaged each time you log in.

Also, if you use Firefox as your browser, you might want to install HTTPS Everywhere, an add-on that engages SSL whenever the website you’re visiting offers it.

All of us use Google Search all the time, but Search is only one of dozens of tools in Google’s online arsenal.  Here’s a rundown of 9 Google tools—many available to real estate professionals at no charge—that can help you market homes and build business.

1. YouTube.  Yes, we’re starting with the one you probably know best.  There are real estate professionals who use YouTube to show off properties, but it can be used in many creative ways—market information reports, homeowner how-to videos, behind-the-scenes portraits of your brokerage. There are so many possibilities.
2. Google Voice. With Google Voice you never have to miss another call and you don’t have to widely distribute your cell phone number.  That’s because this service lets you choose a phone number that will ring on your cell phone, your home phone, your office phone, or all three simultaneously, depending on the settings you choose. It can screen your calls, transcribe your voicemail messages and even allow you to set up different outgoing voicemail messages, depending on who’s calling.  You can port your existing cell number and use it as your Google Voice number or your can choose a new, separate number to keep from having to publicize your cell number indiscriminately.
3. Google Apps for Business. What if your brokerage didn’t have to buy software or servers?  What if you didn’t have to hire an IT consultant or fiddle around with upgrades, yet you and your team could have up-to-date software, customized e-mail, shared calendars, and cool collaboration tools? That’s what Google Apps for Business is all about.  For a modest monthly fee, you access the software and the business tools you need online.  Spend your time working rather than worrying about technology.
4. Google Calendar. Google Calendar helps you stay organized by offering you a desktop calendar that syncs automatically with the calendar on your smartphone.  You can make your calendar available to business partners and family members, and you can receive event reminders as e-mail or text messages.   It syncs with Outlook on Windows and iCal on the Mac so everyone can use it.
5. Google Places. When someone searches on Google for you—or another real estate company—Google pulls whatever it can find on the web and presents it to the searcher.  But you can take control of what Google displays by registering for Google Places.  Google Places lets you personalize what the searcher sees.  It’s like a Yellow Pages ad but better because you can include photos, information about how you market homes, or whatever else might be relevant to your customers.  It’s got great backend tools too, that let you analyze who’s searching for you.  And like so many of Google’s products, it’s free.
6. Google Alerts.  With Google Alerts, you can know what bloggers, the press, or the general public is saying about you or your brokerage.  Enter a search term in Google Alerts.  Whenever a news story, blog post, or video is added to the Internet that would appear among the top ten search results, Google alerts you.  Use it to find out what people are saying about you, to find out what your competitors are doing, or to keep abreast of changes in the industry.
7. Adwords. Write an ad. Choose the Google search terms (also know as “keywords”) that best suit your brokerage. Have your ad appear alongside Google search results when someone searches for your chosen keywords.  Pay only when someone clicks on your ad up to your budgeted amount.  It’s simple to use and has the potential to drive lots of new visitors to your site.
8. Gmail Canned Responses. If you frequently send the same information to people who e-mail you, you might want to try Gmail Canned Responses.  Canned Responses lets you compose a message, save it, and send it over and over again as needed.  For example, if you frequently send the same e-mail response to prospects asking about a home you’re marketing, you could put that information in a Canned Response and send it out as needed with just a few keystrokes. It’s even possible to set up Gmail filters so that a Canned Response goes out automatically in response to certain e-mail messages.  What could be easier?
9. Google Docs. Google Docs lets you store documents in the cloud and access them wherever you happen to be from any computer.  No need to carry files around on a flash drive or move them around from one computer to another.  Instead, upload your PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, or forms to Google Docs and access them whenever you need them. Google Docs also lets you give share your stored files with others and work on them together in real time.

So, what’s your favorite Google tool?

If you’re ever had your e-mail hacked into, you know how frustrating the situation can be.  Friends, family members, and clients are getting rogue messages from you that you didn’t send and it can be a headache to get things back to normal.

Your e-mail system has a number of safeguards in place to make harder for someone to hack your e-mail and easier for your to regain control of it—but the safeguards can only work if you’re taken the time in advance to set them up well.

So right now, run this check to be sure your e-mail is secure.

1. Change your password. When’s the last time you changed the password you’re currently using.  The longer the use the same password, the longer a potential hacker has to figure it out.
2. Choose a strong password. Select a password that’s at least 8 characters long and has a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters.  Make sure it’s not a give-away like “password” or “123456.”  Also, it should not be a name, a birthdate, or a word found in the dictionary.   Check out our earlier post on how to create and remember a strong password.
3. Review your security questions. If you can’t remember the answers, they won’t be able to help you if you need to reset your password. Choose new questions and answers now if you need to.
4. Check your backup email. Make sure you still have access to your secondary email account, the one they’ll send a message to if you get locked out of your primary account.  If necessary, set up a new secondary account or arrange for reset information to be sent to your cellphone.

If someone does manage to hack into your email, follow the three steps on our sister blog to get things back to normal.

As a real estate professional, one of your on-going tasks is self-promotion. You always want to make sure people know what you do and how to contact you if they ever want to buy or sell real estate.  On the one hand, you’re always looking for ways to circulate your business cards and keep your name and contact information in front of lots of people.  On the other hand, you—like all of us—want to discourage junk e-mail. These two goals, it seems, are mutually exclusive.

Most Internet security experts will tell you that the best way to minimize spam is to avoid the wide distribution of your e-mail address.  They say things like don’t post your business card in public places and don’t drop it in that fishbowl when you’re visiting a restaurant. To avoid getting unsolicited e-mail, they say, you’ve got to keep your e-mail address as private as possible and only share it with your closest friends and associates.   But people who are in business for themselves can’t really survive that way.

It’s a delicate balance, but there are things you can do:

• Have a separate e-mail address for business.  Never use your business e-mail to make Internet purchases or to participate in online forums or discussions.
• Consider having some business cards printed that don’t include your e-mail address.  These will be the ones you post in public places and distribute widely.  If someone in possession of one of these cards needs to reach you, he or she can always call you.
• If you have control over your website, make sure your e-mail address does not appear there for web bots to harvest.  Instead have your webmaster create a form that prospects can complete and send if they need to contact you.
• Also, find out from your webmaster what kind of spam filter you have and how to configure it so doesn’t inadvertently block e-mails you want to receive.
• Never reply to suspicious e-mails. Instead, mark them as spam or delete them.