So, how do you go about asking others for help, advice, or an introduction? I’m going to answer this from my perspective since random inquiries — largely as a result of my job at Zillow and this blog — regularly show up in my inbox.

Short answer: You gotta want it. Really want it.

Longer answer: Convince me you are passionate. Convince me you care. Convince me you’ll follow through and act on the advice I give you (or at least take the time to carefully consider it). Stand out from the rest. Personalize your e-mail. Show me you did a little research. Convince me you are a “doer”. Show your voice and personality. Be motivated. BE INTERESTED.

I genuinely do try to respond to all inquiries, but some weeks are busier than others & don’t always get to everyone. And I’ll be frank — it’s so clear some requests were fired off without reading a single word on my blog that I immediately delete them from my gmail. Those people don’t stand a chance of getting a response; if they didn’t bother to spend time researching me and personalizing their message, there’s no reason for me to spend my time responding. Even if I did respond to those people, those are the people unlikely to actually follow through. Matt mentioned that he gives homework to his agents, and many of them don’t bother to spend any time on it prior to their next meeting with him. Inevitably, he’ll eventually stop spending any effort on the agents who don’t put in time and effort because there is no return on his time spent with them. I’m the same way; if there is no return on my time spent, I’m not going to do it.

Bottom line: if you genuinely want help with something, be passionate and prove you are a “doer”.

Even though this is my 3rd post in a row highlighting articles by Sloane Berrent, her “Determination for Education” post on the Kiva Fellows Blog is simply too good not to mention here; such a powerful story that sheds some light on the importantance of education in the developing world.

Please read the whole post — I know you’ll be glad you did.

In that moment, I looked down and instead of pavement, I saw dirt beneath our tires. Dirty, brown and uneven and we bounced along the road, the passenger car jumping and jolting at every bump. I reached out from the tricycle (they without doors anyway) and ran my hand along the ground scooping a handful. In my hands the dirt wasn’t brown anymore, instead each grain seemed to stand out more than the next in bright colors. Like small gemstones shining purples, blues, yellows and reds. Instead of the dirt being crude in my hands, it was like the very definition of what I know dirt to be disappeared from my head. I looked down and as if for the first time, it was something I could define for myself. It was smooth and soft, like freshly-washed cotton. It didn’t leave remnants on my fingertips as I brushed and swirled it softly into circles in my hand. It smelled like a fresh bouquet of flowers, the kind of wafting you get when first stepping into a blooming garden. It had weight to it, not a lot, but just enough not to let it fly out of my open palm as we drove along the Filipino countryside.

Seriously — read the whole post; you’ll be glad you did.

5:30PM – Wrap up field visits and travel back to Branch. I’m emotionally exhausted from the day. The women open up to me about their lives and their lives haven’t always been great. When I see tears welling in their eyes telling me how much microfinance and the opportunity to have a business means to them, what the women in their Center mean to them, how their lives are different, it’s enough to shake you to your core. Or if I’ve found out a women didn’t use her loan the way she was supposed to, I’m exhausted from pushing for the truth.

She hooked me with the way her voice, feelings, and personality came through in the post (not just this excerpt, but the whole thing). I tend to gravitate toward reading bloggers who are passionate and intelligent. It’s apparent Sloane is both, so her blog will now get some more love amidst the noise in my reader.

I’ve said this to many people before, but if there is no voice in a blog, why the heck should I bother to read it? I can read information anywhere; a great voice can — and does — distinguish you from the rest.

Update: I also read this post and this one tonight. Both with extremely strong voice.

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. — Confucius

[via Greatest Quotes of all Time]

The three great essentials to achieving anything worthwhile are; first, hard work, second, stick-to-it-iveness, and third, common sense. — Thomas Edison

[via 101 Greatest Inspirational Quotes]

I 100% agree.

[via Tony Longo]

I like what he’s doing a lot more than what you are not doing.

This rings so true. If people spent their time taking action rather than criticizing those doing amazing things in this world, the world would be a much better place.

If this isn’t the cutest dog ever, I don’t know what is. Okay, well maybe this one rivals it, but that’s beside the point. I’m guessing if most of you had to guess what breed this dog is, you’d say a young Siberian Husky. But nope, this dog is actually a Klee Kai and is full grown. Her name is Helga and she belongs to my buddy from college and his wife who live in Washington DC.

The main point of this post was just to post the photo, but there is a business idea in this as well. While in DC for a week as part of my recent trip, I spent a fair amount of time walking the streets of DC with Helga. It was absolutely INSANE how many people stopped to look at and pet her — or maybe it was just the DC crowd, but I’m not buying it. I’ve seriously never seen anything like it before. To me, the attention she commanded brings up a business idea for some scrappy young entrepreneur out there:

• Buy 1 or 2 Klee Kai’s
• Rent them out to guys to either walk around the city with or bring to (outside) bars
• You could charge by the hour or by the night
• I all but guarantee a guy would meet 5x or 10x the girls if they brought a Klee Kai with them. That’s worth something.

• Pick your battles — I’m an opinionated guy, sometimes too much so. But it’s because I’m passionate about what I do — if I wasn’t, quite frankly, I’d be doing something else. But regardless of how badly you want to, you can’t fight every battle.  Know when to push, let up, escalate, concede, etc. Know that some battles are not worth fighting. This lesson could also be “Be strategic about using your political capital - you only have so much of it”
• Don’t use social media marketing if your product sucks — If you have a crappy product, no amount of social media marketing will work regardless of how many resources you throw at it. After all, social media marketing is REAL; expect your audience to puke all over you if they don’t see value in your product.
• Persistence is key — This is a biggie. Everyone is busy, myself is included. To get things done, you have to be persistent and confident what you are advocating for is the correct decision/course of action. Follow up, follow up, follow up.
• Partnerships are like friendships — they take time and effort to nurture. If both sides aren’t willing to put in equal effort, the partnership is not going to be a success in the long run.
• Choose the right technical solution from the get-go — yes, certainly this is easier said than done, but if at all possible, make sure the technical solution you go with is right from the start. For instance, migrating Zillow Blog from typepad to wordpress was a nightmare that I would have rather not had to do (we should have just picked wordpress to start with). However, realize that sometimes the wrong decision is made initially and that’s okay. My advice in those situations is to migrate over to the correct solution as quickly as physically possible once you realize that you should be using another technical solution. The longer you wait to migrate, the more time and effort you’ll likely spend doing the migration.
• LISTEN — I can not stress the importance of this one enough. There are so many people/companies who are GREAT at talking, but horrible at listening; don’t be one of them.
• Take advantage of public speaking opportunities — If you’re given opportunities for public speaking engagements, take them. It’s such valuable experience to have in the long run that will make you a more confident person. Plus, just as blogging puts you in a spotlight that often results in unexpected opportunities to arise, public speaking will lead to opportunities in a similar fashion.

I’m sure there are a few others I’m missing, but this is a start. Maybe I’ll do a Part 2 on this topic at some point in the future.

Following a week in DC, I spent another week in NYC working from Zillow’s NY office, and met up with a few locals like Rob Hahn and Doug Heddings.

Then it was off to Boston for the Boston RE BarCamp, which took place in space provided by CondoDomain’s. One of the funnest nights of the trip was certainly the Yankees - Red Sox game I attended at Fenway with Pierre, Ebounce (can you say coolest nickname ever?), and Tony. I hate the Yankees, so seeing Boston beat them in a great game was something I wouldn’t have missed for the world.

I finished up my trip in Chicago, which I must say, is one of my new favorite cities in the US. Great vibe, food, people, and sights. RE BarCamp Chicago was a great event at NAR headquarters organized by Dan Green and Todd Carpenter (props on a job well done), and I had the chance to spend some time with a number of friends from the RE.net (too many to name).

The trip was a needed extended break from Seattle. Don’t get me wrong, I love Seattle, but traveling to new cities and hanging out with awesome people is always a good time. I wish I could name all the great people I met for the first time and those existing friends who I got the chance to spend more time with — but since I know I’d forget to include a few folks, I’ll just say “thanks to everyone” who made the trip awesome.

I know the city summaries seemed to get shorter by the city. My apologies.

“Ebounce”
“Hammer”

What’s your nickname (mine has been “Money” since freshman year of high school)? Is it worthy of joining this list? If so, please leave a comment. What’s your all time favorite nickname?

Don’t worry if you will fail or succeed. Pursue YOUR dreams. What people think of you is none of your business. The time is now for YOU to get on the path and to step UP and be all you can be. It is a long road…

1. It helps raise awareness for Wokai
2. Increases the chances that Wokai will win the $1,200 from “Blogging for a Cause“
3. I met Casey Wilson, the CEO and co-founder of Wokai, a few weeks ago for lunch and am convinced she is going to bring microfinance to China in a big way

For those unfamiliar with Wokai, here is some more info:

What is Wokai?

Wokai delivers an internet microfinance platform that allows individuals to provide Chinese microentrepreneurs with loan capital.  Our organization acts as an intermediary in this process, transferring funds from contributors abroad to microentrepreneurs in China through our field partners.

Who does Wokai support?

A typical Wokai microentrepeneur is a female rural inhabitant, living on less than $1/day.  Her microfinance loan, ranging from $150-$300 dollars, provides her with the capital to start a small business.  Her business varies by location, raising sheep in a rural grassland or operating a small fruit stand in a city center.

With her income, she accumulates savings, which allows her to allocate money towards long-term investments like education and health. By the end of her loan cycle, she has experienced increased financial independence, bolstered self-confidence, and a strengthened sense of community.

Learn more and contribute today at http://www.wokai.org.

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Now, what are you waiting for? Blog for your favorite cause (or just blog about Wokai!) — only 5 days left in the competition!