It’s telling that, though her very first experience with real estate (as a teen accompanying her house-hunting parents) involved encountering a dead body, Johnson is still in it to win it. In her book, Tales From Sales: Outrageous, Hilarious and True Stories From Home Sales, Johnson navigates the silly and macabre with a larger-than-life Texas attitude.

As you may remember, we’ve reviewed the true-stories-in-real-estate type of book before (most recently Rosalind Russell’s). What makes this collection different is that all these stories happened to one woman in a little Texas town called Killeen. While this singular approach does remove some of the variety, it also gives these stories the personal touch that is often missing from compilation-based books.

Johnson introduces us to characters from the bearded lady whose air conditioner was eaten by a pack of wild dogs to the god-fearing mime to the woman who chewed a model home out of almost all of its fake wax fruit. Johnson also introduces us to some unique properties, from Elvis Presley’s old house to a place so soaked with cat urine that the walls had begun to yellow (she sold both). It’s not all hilarious, though. She talks bravely through the several times she’s almost died on the job. She also includes two tear-jerking stories about military families she’s worked with (Killeen is home to Ft. Hood, one of the largest military installations in the world).

Johnson, now broker/owner of StarPointe Realty, published the book this year through a print-on-demand company known as Xlibris. As you might expect from a self-published imprint, there are a few minor errors, and the few images included are pretty low-resolution. Thankfully, Johnson includes enough moxie and humor that I’m more than willing to forgive (just don’t tell my freelancers I said that).

It’s no fun to learn that a product you use is being discontinued, but the announcement earlier this spring that Google would be shuttering its news aggregation and RSS service prompted tech bloggers and readers at Lifehacker to chime in with worthy, free alternatives. Now that the deadline of July 1 is approaching, I took a look back at Lifehacker’s top picks.

The bottom line is that you don’t have to sever your connection to your handy news feeds (especially the REALTOR® Magazine feeds: Daily Real Estate News, The Weekly Book Scan, YPN Lounge, Speaking of Real Estate, and Styled, Staged & Sold). Also, if you use RSS feeds to keep in touch with your blog readers, you may want to alert your sphere of influence to this change, as well as their replacement options. It would be a pity to lose readership just because they didn’t think to move over to a new system.

Each of these alternatives have strengths and weaknesses, and are somewhat tailored to different types of users. Find your new favorite:

• The Old Reader might be the best alternative for Google devotees who don’t like change. Users can sign in via Google, but the similarities don’t end there. The app even “looks a lot like Google Reader… You get many of the same keyboard shortcuts, and even get the same ability to follow other Old Reader users and share interesting stories with them—the way you used to be able to with Google Reader,” writes LifeHacker’s Alan Henry.
• NewsBlur is described as the alternative reader that is “more fun” and “easy on the eyes” than its counterparts. Be aware that free accounts are capped at 64 blogs, 10 stories at a time, and by specific public sharing options. The pro version is relatively inexpensive though, at just $24 a year.
• Feedly is a reader favorite at LifeHacker for its layout options, rich social experience, and clever news suggestion algorithm. But if you’re looking for a web app, you may want to look elsewhere; Feedly is really more of a browser add-on, unless you’re reading on a mobile device.
• Netvibes is for the Google Reader user who catches up on their computer. While they have mobile sites, the full, editable dashboard does not come in a truly mobile version. But if you’re looking for a new homepage to greet you each morning, this might be the one. The dashboard includes neat widgets for weather, finance, and news.
• Pulse will satisfy your inner designer. Praised by the late Steve Jobs and winner of the coveted Apple Design prize, this reader and news aggregator will help you track your current feeds within an appealing user experience. Pulse’s algorithm is also praised by Lifehacker for being “great at lifting the interesting stories to the top” and finding other news you might be interested in.

These products include the option to import your existing Google Reader feeds. But Lifehacker also put together a handy guide to exporting your Google Reader data, if you should run into any problems doing so.

Do you use one of these products, or an RSS/news aggregator that is not on this list? Share your experience with others in the comment section below.

But I just hadn’t met my new “nerdy best friend” yet. Beth Ziesenis, who markets herself with the self-deprecating four-letter n-word, was presenting the tech tool forum I was about to enjoy. She wrote the book, Upgrade to Free: The Best Free & Low-Cost Online Tools and Apps (TSTC Publishing, 2011), and plans to follow it up with another book soon.

“Back in the day, being nerdy wasn’t cool… but today we’re popular,” Ziesenis said of her chosen nickname. “These are the kind of tools that will set you apart.”

Turns out my early skepticism was unwarranted. I only had significant experience with one of the items Ziesenis described in her presentation, and there were a few I had never heard of at all. I even decided to act on a few of her recommendations. Here are some of my favorite takeaways from Ziesenis’ lively talk.

Generate some buzz

Ever see someone post a funny image with their name or catchphrase in it and wonder how they did it? Well, unless they’re a graphic designer, they probably used a generator. Basically, these generators take your custom text or image and plug it into a meme, art scheme, or element of popular culture. For example, it took me mere seconds to create and download the Weekly Book Scan bling image embedded on the right hand side of this blog entry. There are so many free options in this genre that Ziesenis couldn’t choose a favorite. But she keeps a running tally of the good ones on a Pinterest board (meta, huh?).

See what your site says about you

Ziesenis did share a particularly awesome generator-type site that does so much more than just make funny images from your inputs. At Tagxedo, you can enter your web site, blog, Twitter feed, or any number of online components into the generator and get a word cloud (in a variety of shapes, colors, and designs) that tells you what your site is saying.

“It’s important to do this to find out if your website says what you think it says,” Ziesenis told the audience. Of course, I later rushed to the site to see if REALTOR® Mag Online was giving off the right signals, resulting in the image embedded on the left (click on it to see a larger version, and let me know what you think).

A Foray into publishing

Have you ever clicked on a link expecting information, only to find you’ve involuntarily downloaded an 85-page PDF? All too often, when a person wants to fancy-up a Word doc, they’ll hit the “Export as PDF” button and be done with it.

But with Issuu, you can create browsable, magazine-looking publications that are re-indexed to build up your SEO. Not that Ziesenis thinks you should stop at just one.

“You can put together a whole collection,” she said, showing attendees how the application “allows me to display them as a shelf.”

Credit: Steven Depolo

“You thought you had to smile when the market was bad?” Davis says. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

But Davis isn’t all about doom and gloom. The speaker, trainer, standup comic, and real estate professional is on a mission to get real estate professionals smiling more.

Davis expects his new book—How to Design a Life Worth Smiling About—to be available by the time NAR’s annual conference rolls around in November. Until then, he’s determined to get the word out about why people should start smiling more. I saw him in action at NAR’s Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo in Washington last week, and I have to admit that I’ve been smiling more ever since.

He cites studies (like this one as published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) that show that smiling actually makes you feel better. Even when you’re having a tough time, a smile can fool your brain into mitigating your negative attitude with natural chemical stimulants such as serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin, and dopamine, Davis says.

“The smile is a trigger, like a light switch, to tell the brain to produce these chemicals,” Davis says. “It tells the brain, ‘Hey, hello! I’m happy down here; give me some of those chemicals.’”

Davis also mentioned studies that found smiling people are perceived as more attractive and tend to have longer life expectancy. But the benefits go well beyond one’s own well-being. Davis says smilers can spread the love like a contagion.

“It gives people permission to smile,” he said. “Our smiling is our tail wagging… it makes you more approachable.”

Davis’ 40-minute talk was part of the Leadership Express sessions at Midyear, created especially for people in leadership positions, including volunteer leaders, association executives, staff and membership. Davis’ message wasn’t exclusively for leadership, but he did acknowledge that wearing a smile as a leader can make an especially important difference in the work environment.

“You can’t lead people if you look like you were weaned on a pickle,” Davis joked. “Smiling is so important to the success of a human being that really it is a leadership tool.”

But what if you just can’t crack a grin? While Davis strongly believes you should “smile, especially when you don’t feel like it,” he’s got a trick up his sleeve for the forever frowny: Bite a pencil. Using those same muscles might just fool your brain into thinking you’re smiling.

Then again, you might look sillier with a pencil in your mouth all day that you would if you just smiled. But hey, whatever makes you happy, right?

So, I guess I shouldn’t be shocked by item number one. But there are a few on this list of the ten most popular real estate business books on Amazon this week that I wasn’t expecting.

1. The Millionaire Real Estate Agent: It’s Not About the Money…It’s About Being the Best You Can Be! by Gary Keller, Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan (Feb 11, 2004)
2. Other People’s Money: Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made by Charles V. Bagli (Apr 4, 2013)
3. Home Buying Kit For Dummies by Eric Tyson and Ray Brown (Mar 6, 2012)
4. Buy It, Rent It, Profit!: Make Money as a Landlord in ANY Real Estate Market by Bryan M. Chavis (Apr 14, 2009)
5. Real Estate License Exams For Dummies by Drei John A. Yoegel (Jan 28, 2005)
6. What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow… And 36 Other Key Financial Measures by Frank Gallinelli (Sep 8, 2008)
7. Real Estate Investing For Dummies, 2nd Edition by Eric Tyson and Robert S. Griswold (Mar 3, 2009)
8. Every Landlord’s Tax Deduction Guide by Stephen Fishman J.D. (Dec 28, 2012)
9. Property Management Kit For Dummies by Robert S. Griswold (Feb 18, 2013)
10. How to Buy Real Estate Overseas by Kathleen Peddicord (Apr 8, 2013)

In particular, I’m surprised at the fact that there are four books from the “For Dummies” empire here. Then again, we are looking at a list of popularity, not necessarily “brightest insight” or “best-in-class.”

What do you think about these and the other books that managed to get on this list? Or maybe you’ve recently picked up a book that you’d like to see on Amazon’s top ten. Let me know in the comment space below.

Interviewing these young practitioners as a writer for the magazine, I learned a great deal about how to shift from recession to recovery, the influence of technology on the industry, and what their local markets are like all across the country. But as administrator of the Weekly Book Scan, I only had one question: What’s your favorite real estate or business book?

More than half of the seven honorees named Gary Keller’s The Million Dollar Real Estate Agent (Rellek Publishing Partners, 2003) as a favorite. So if you haven’t read that one yet, I’d suggest you start there (or if you have, you may want to check out Keller’s latest work, The One Thing).

Here are the other books that these young professionals say influenced the way they see their business and the real estate industry as a whole.

• The Richest Man in Babylon (Penguin Books, 1926), by George Samuel Clason
• The Champion Real Estate Agent: Get to the Top of Your Game and Knock Sales Out of the Park (McGraw-Hill, 2006), by Dirk Zeller
• (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication: Go from Relationships to Referrals (AuthorHouse, 2010), by Michael J. Maher
• The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life (Simon & Schuster, 2009), by Ivanka Trump
• The Art of Closing the Sale (Thomas Nelson, 2007), by Brian Tracy

Of course, this is just a tiny sample of what our current crop of 30 Under 30 honorees are reading, which is an even smaller sample of the books that young real estate practitioners in general cherish. Let me know what your favorite business and industry books are in the comment section below.

Author Becki Saltzman

While the book is peppered with what some may term naughty language and innuendo, perhaps the more shocking element is that she wrote a book that is aimed at practitioners as well as buyers and sellers. What? Didn’t someone tell her not to give up the secret codes?!

But after reading this compendium cover to cover, I can assure you that you can relax. In fact—once you read the client-focused chapter and the client tips scattered throughout the book—you’ll probably want to buy this for all your (not-so-uptight) buyers and sellers. Not only does Saltzman guide clients on how to pick good agents, but she teaches them a whole lot about how to be good customers as well.

OK, back to the naughty bits. This book is not for those easily offended by language. Still when Saltzman writes, “You might be appalled by some of what you read in this book, but I promise that the ideas my potty mouth spouts are valid,” she lives up to the promise. Indeed, her advice is novel as it is solid, and it spans everything from getting started in real estate, to transaction management (from both sides), to handling crazy market fluctuations with grace.

Arousing the Buy Curious, coming to bookshelves in September, is definitely useful. But it’s also hilarious. There are quite a few laugh-out-loud commentaries that I can’t print here. But here are a few that can sneak by:

• The word “charming” appears in 72% of all real estate listings, but what does it really mean? After all, people described Ted Bundy as charming.
• (On deciding to work within a team:) If companionship is what you’re looking for, join a book club or a twelve-step program.
• The better you sniff, the more you will find that the adage “Buyers are liars” should be changed to “Salespeople suck at getting to the truth.” Too bad that doesn’t rhyme.
• (On the importance of choosing a good hair stylist:) Hell hath no fury like a woman improperly shorn.

As someone who reads business books for a living, I particularly appreciate her subtle pokes at the genre. At one point she calls biz book authors out for their over reliance on acronyms, categorizing waitstaff’s usefulness as COT (Conveyeors with Opposable Thumbs), SOT (Sort Of Trustworthy), or TBK (The Best Kind). She also peppers sarcastic exercises throughout that seem way more fun (and possibly more effective) than the corny routines I’ve read in some other business books.

Her sidebars of “Sortafacts” are both helpful and hilarious (One example: “Studies show that the most confident people use their first and last names when making business introductions in person. Online, however, people tend to introduce themselves by the name of their first dog and their current computer operating system.” *). She does include one chapter that harkens back to her training in psychology in a semi-serious way called Bit-O-Science, which applies some of science’s real-world findings about peoples’ reactions in sales situations. It’s informative, and has real citations.¹

The best secret Saltzman gives away is how to do exactly what she’s doing—putting together a collection of smart observations about business and how people work. This is one huge part of creating a business book that actually works, rather than one that is just littered with nice-sounding platitudes.

“Try to apply lessons from outside the world of real estate to your business,” she writes at the end of Chapter 20. “Listen to your own family folklore and learn from the stupid things your family and friends have done. Think like a storyteller so the lessons will implant for longer and on a deeper level.”

Lucky for her brand, she does not reveal the secret to being hilarious and snarky (though she does give plenty of examples of how to mix things up a little). I guess some people are just born that way.

¹ It also cautions people against believing citations.

Hi, Book Scan readers. I spent the first part of last week hanging out with community planners at the American Planning Association’s national conference. Though I haven’t read the book described below, I thought the author (who gave the closing keynote at the conference) had some beautiful thoughts on home ownership that real estate professionals would appreciate. Enjoy! —MW

Early Pearl has a great idea for dealing with an intractable problem. As a homeless 11-year old Chicagoan, she sees all of the sturdy housing stock that stands empty and abandoned in her south side neighborhood and decides to take action.

From the cover of Blue Balliett's new book, Hold Fast

She gets some friends together and, with a few cameras, they snap pictures of these empty houses. They send the pictures—along with their imaginings of how the structures could be transformed into dream homes for kids without anywhere to live—to community leaders in an effort to spark a change in their unfortunate circumstances.

Early is only a character in Blue Balliett’s newest mystery novel, Hold Fast (Scholastic Press, 2013). But there are more than 30,000 kids in Chicago alone who are homeless just like she is, and some 16,000 vacant properties like the ones that Early dreams of inhabiting.

“Kids will easily share their dreams about a home,” Balliett said in her keynote speech at the American Planning Association’s national conference last week. “They never make small plans.”

Balliett, a bestselling author of young adult literature, told planners that she came up with the idea for Hold Fast during the housing downturn, when she noticed a dearth of news stories about the effect foreclosures were having on her target audience.

“The children were invisible,” she said. “I kept wondering about the kids: Who are they and what does it feel like to grow up without a front door?”

Of course, community planners, writers, and nonprofit directors know as well as real estate professionals the value of home when it comes to children.

“What kids need most is stability in their lives and a home provides that… Blue’s book really captured that,” said Chicago Coalition for the Homeless Executive Director Ed Shurna, who spoke on a panel alongside Balliett at the closing keynote of the APA conference. “The danger is that they are going to stay homeless as adults.”

W. Paul Farmer, executive director and CEO of the APA, called on members to devote more of their attention to this difficult problem.

“As we have become arguably the best-housed nation in the world… we have allowed ourselves to not realize that we have these problems,” Farmer said. “These are, in fact, invisible to many people in the country.”

In a brief Q&A period, attendees asked panelists what they could do to help solve the issue in their local communities.

“Part of the key is to make your community care and take ownership in this problem,” Balliett responded. “Become determined to do something.”

In late January of last year, Liniger discovered he couldn’t move his legs. What he initially assumed was part of his chronic back pain turned out to be a staph infection that not only ran the entire length of his spine and into his brain stem, but it also spread to his blood, meaning he was septic and in real danger of dying for weeks on end. My Next Step: An Extraordinary Journey of Healing and Hope (Hay House Inc., 2013) is Liniger’s memoir of the next seven months of his life, from feverish hallucinations to drug-induced comas to the long recovery from multiple surgeries and partial paralysis. The book includes short vignettes from family, friends, and professionals who helped care for Liniger in the hospital and through physical therapy.

The book isn’t really about real estate, but the main character might be familiar to real estate pros, even if they’ve never been affiliated with RE/MAX. Liniger has that I’ll-sleep-when-I-die attitude that many successful real estate brokers display through long hours and an ever-present can-do spirit. That kind of determination might lead a person through a tough transaction or office merger, but can it lead a person back from the brink of death?

“I can’t tell you why I’m alive,” Liniger writes at the end of the book. He cites positive thinking, faith in his own strength, luck, and the extensive network of friends and family who were praying for him.

The one thing that abounds in this small volume is Liniger’s advice for anyone going through such a trying physical ordeal (as well as for their loved ones). It was clear from the very beginning of the book that he hopes others can learn and benefit from his story. At the end of the book he admits his purpose for the book:

“As I spent so many nights awake and scared, I desperately wanted to find something I could read to help me understand what I was going through. I wanted a book that inspired me to keep working hard and to motivate me to never give up. I hope this is that book for you.”

I’d recommend this book to anyone enduring a long hospital stay or facing months of PT. But I recommend it even more wholeheartedly knowing that author proceeds from the book will go to three charities: Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and the Wounded Warrior Program.

Credit: Kim B/thepeachmartini

As a word nerd, I love these contradictions that flavor our everyday speech. In I Love it When You Talk Retro: Hoochie Coochie, Double Whammy, Drop a Dime, and the Forgotten Origins of American Speech (St. Martin’s Press, 2009), author Ralph Keyes calls these contradictions “retroterms,” or “verbal artifacts that hang around in our national conversation long after the topic they refer to has galloped into the sunset.”

I Love it When You Talk Retro is a fascinating book by all accounts, and worth a read just for fun. But for Book Scan readers, I pulled out a few of the more real estate-related items for which you might want to know the origins.

Ever encountered an actual skeleton in the closet of one of your listings? Probably not nowadays, but in nineteenth-century England you may have. In the beginning of the era of modern medicine, doctors found that dissecting corpses was a very good way to learn about the human body and disease. However, doing so was illegal. So doctors had to hide the results of such experiments in closets, for fear of punishment. Now, of course, a “skeleton in the closet” is more likely to refer to family secrets than any frightening open house surprises.

Some of the best deals are struck on the front porch. Yet, back when political candidates William McKinley, Benjamin Harrison, and Warren G. Harding used front porch campaigns to connect with fellow citizens, they were derided as lazy by opponents who crisscrossed the country for votes. It was not particularly impressive to give speeches from one’s own front porch, but effectiveness is another measure altogether. Though each front porch campaigner experienced success from their efforts, the phrase is still used as a way to describe lethargic efforts to win people over. Or maybe it’s just a soft sell technique? You decide.

Next time you’re showing off the backyard of an early 20th-century home, don’t offer to take house hunters on a trip to the woodshed. Back when these sheds were used to hold fuel, they were also reportedly a good place for parents to discipline their children. To this day, a trip to the woodshed often refers to being dressed down or punished. Keyes notes that the euphemism has even been turned into a noun, as in “s/he was woodshedded.”

You’d better hope your farm area doesn’t include a Potemkin village, or else you’ll have a lot of explaining to do once the facade recedes. See, this descriptor comes from a tour Russia’s Catherine the Great made of Ukraine in 1787, shortly after her country annexed the area. The Ukrainian governor was so eager to please that he created structures specifically for the event and decorated the place to give it a little more curb appeal. Catherine’s adviser, one Prince Potemkin, joked that perhaps the entire village had been constructed merely to impress the throne. Thereafter, any fake construction created to impress could be referred to as a Potemkin village, or Potemkin-like.

Finally, next time a picky city slicker derides one of your listings as located “out in the boonies,” you can take a moment to educate them on the meaning of the term. A shortened version of “boondocks,” this colorful word comes from U.S. soldiers fighting in the Philippine–American War during the turn of the 20th Century. The Tagalog language’s word for hinterlands was “bundok,” which Americans picked up and brought home.