Jeremy Williams

By Jeremy Williams

I had lunch last week with a friend from church at a quaint diner called Country Roads in Conroe, Texas.  When looking at the menu, my friend suggested ordering off menu.  Usually I am not the type to do this, but I was intrigued when he mentioned chicken fried meatloaf.  It sounded dangerously good and definitely outside the box.  I trusted my salivary glands and not my heart health and took the plunge.  I walked into the restaurant expecting the result of eating a good meal and being satisfied.  What I had not anticipated was trying something outside the norm and the results being much more than I could ever expect.

How many times do we catch ourselves operating our real estate business within the “norms” and not thinking how to go outside the box to achieve better and more sustainable results?  Share with REALTORS®, by posting a comment below, your chicken fried meatloaf approach in business.  What marketing techniques do you use that might be outside the “norms” that net great results?

Jeremy Williams of Keller Williams Realty NE in Kingwood, Texas specializes in the residential real estate market of Kingwood, Atascocita, and Humble, Texas.  Visit his Web site at www.williams4yourhome.com.

Drew Burks

By Drew Burks

Very few REALTORS® are following their true passion!

Make your own rules, be authentic, transparent and have fun …

Real Estate can be a challenging business and the majority of licensed REALTORS® struggle to succeed, but it doesn’t need to be this way.  In fact, real estate can be a great deal of fun and rewarding when you are following your passion.

Yet when I speak with REALTOR®S, I find that most are frustrated and tend to share the below problems.

• the inability to generate leads consistently
• inconsistent income
• keeping up with technology
• knowing what daily activities to do to get real results

It’s  no wonder that so many are struggling to succeed as a REALTOR®.

After reading the book, Crush It, I realize why so many are having these problems…

Why you ask?

Well since you ask; here are my thoughts.

• The majority of those who hold an active real estate license are working as a part-time REALTOR®.  Why?
• Real Estate is simply not their passion!
• They got into real estate for the money … wrong reason to do anything!

And we wonder why REALTORS® have such a negative reputation among the consumers.  Here’s my formula for cleaning up our industry.

• If any or all of the above bullets sound like you, please find a new career.  You will be much happier when you start pursuing your passion and the consumers will have much better experiences with the REALTOR® they work with.
• All REALTORS® should be required to volunteer on one or more committees at the local-, state-, and national-level at least once every few years.
• Those who are in current leadership should re-evaluate their vision for our industry and if their vision isn’t forward thinking they should voluntarily step down from their leadership position.
• All REALTORS® should be required to complete continued education courses every quarter.

Are you following your passion?

If you are following your passion, then you should want to do these things and being a full-time REALTOR® should not be a burden to you.  When you are loving what you do, you find yourself in action consistently which is what has to happen to succeed in life and real estate.

Drew Burks has built a brokerage in San Diego, Dream Design Realty, with a unique twist on an old business model. His Web site is devoted to helping real estate pros succeed with technology: www.WebRealEstateTools.com.

Stefanie Hahn

By Stefanie Hahn

When you work with new agents (or any agents for that matter) one of the constants seems to be that they are looking for ways to get the best of everything, and are trying to get it for free.  If I shared with you some of the MacGyver strategies I have seen over the years you would … but you already know.

So when I sit with these agents there are a few constants – the first of which is to get on board with Google.  Not the search engine Google (we can discuss the joys of that later) but the super-cool-productivity-tool-creating Google.  That’s right; the team at Google is creating all sorts of wonderful stuff to make your business more productive; and best of all they’re giving it all away for free!

Here is a rundown of some of my must-haves from the Google toolkit.  There are so many more, but this is a good starter package for you to consider before stepping into the big time:

1. Google Profile – http://www.google.com/profiles

I know I said I wasn’t talking about search, but who honestly doesn’t want to come up on that first page when their name is Googled?  We all do – and setting up a Google Profile should be the key to getting you on that coveted first page of results.  How?  Your name, a small thumbnail photo and a link to your Google Profile will appear at the bottom of the first page of results.  As a bonus, you can tie in all of your other sites, social and otherwise, as well as your photos.  If you don’t have a Google Profile yet, stop reading this and go set it up … then come back (please)!

2. Gmail -  http://mail.google.com

I heart Gmail.  You will too.  Pull all of your accounts into Gmail and respond out from those accounts.  One caveat – your Gmail address will appear in the string, but I can live with that – because it’s free.  Fair warning here … Gmail is not for the nervous technology user, because the format is a bit techie and slightly different than standard e-mail programs.  Their designers thought of everything, though – you can use tags instead of folders (so everything is still in one area), search for anything in your mailbox easily, get suggested contacts and add little extras to tweak your Gmail to your heart’s content.

3. Picasa - http://picasa.google.com/

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?  Well Google’s Picasa offers you a way to make those words count.  Their photo editing and storage tool – which can be either an offline program that lives on your machine or a website that also allows you to upload and share your images.  I primarily use the desktop app and skip the Web albums option, but it makes me feel warm and fuzzy just knowing I have the option.  Plus I can geo-tag my photos with their location, an ideal tool for real estate people, and now the folks at Google have added name-tagging too.

4. YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/

Bet you weren’t expecting to see Internet fav YouTube included in my free Google tools list were you?  Well, since the boys at Google bought YouTube in 2006 it has become one of the most visited sites on the Internet and is now the No. 2 search engine behind its big brother Google search.  What caused the growth?  Well, even though photos are important, they will always be so, video is crucial right now.  With an average of 1 billion views per day people now love the fact that they can “watch” their Internet instead of reading it everyday.  Trust me when I tell you that you should be posting listing videos, a personal profile video and community videos as quickly as you can… because people are watching.

5. Google Docs - http://docs.google.com

Google and Microsoft are in a heated battle for supremacy of the world.  Whoever wins will be able to print their own money eventually. But in the meantime take advantage of the benefits.  One HUGE benefit is the free service Google Docs.  Getting a new computer?  Forget the expensive price tag tied to that Microsoft Office add on –  instead go to the Internet and get all of the documents, presentations, spreadsheets and more that you need with Google Docs.  No, this isn’t like the WordPerfect days when nothing worked.  The engineers at Google have made it simple to upload existing Microsoft Office documents; convert what you’ve worked on in Google Docs back to Microsoft, share links to your work and now (thanks to some new code) even share folders.

6. Calendar - http://www.google.com/calendar

A Google Calendar is perfect for the real estate professionals on the go – it is always available online or on your mobile device.  The management of the calendar is simple and very natural.  Just to make sure you stay organized, Google even offers to e-mail you each morning with your agenda for the day (sort of like a digital wake up call).  I have three calendars that I layer within a single account – each event is color coded so I know where it came from (personal, work, etc).  Even better, if you work in a group you can share your calendar with them so they don’t double-book you accidentally.  I two-way share my calendar with 3 co-workers (meaning they can see it and write in things), and one-way share with a few others.

7. Blogger – https://www.blogger.com

Are you considering starting a blog but don’t really know the best way to go?  Google’s Blogger service is one of the easiest places on the Internet.  There are millions upon millions of blogs already there, which means they have worked out the bugs.  Granted, there are a few confusing spots for the beginner and people often say they wish they could access the dashboard when writing/editing a post, but overall easy-peasy.  Even if some of the layouts are getting tired (because there are so many people using them) but as one of the largest blog services in the world people have enhanced it themselves with loads of add-ons and applications.  Take advantage of some of these and work up a super-cool blog (and they stay on top of it)!

8. Maps - http://maps.google.com/

Google Maps is my go-to for directions both online and mobile.  You can also create your own maps that bring the “real world” into the “map world”.  For example, I created a map for my company that shows all of our office locations, but then enhanced it to show manager and admin information, phone numbers, etc.  Now it is an asset the company can use when working with clients, which is ideal since the map link can be shared with anyone in a few clicks.  Unlike the old mapping services, Google has worked hard to incorporate different views.  Not only from the satellites up above, but also street-level views that are pretty amazing.  I can also create a listing for my business > http://www.google.com/local/add that can be mapped.

9. Google Voice – http://www.google.com/voice/

Google is taking the same approach to voice communication that it took with e-mail back when it launched GMail in 2004 – that things could be done differently.  Their approach to the telephone is pretty cool and ideal for the busy real estate pro in that once you have a GVoice number you can tell it just which phone to ring.  At an open house with no cellular service?  Have GVoice ring the house phone (might want to check with the owners first).  Get this – when the call comes in, the Voice service allows you to pick it up, listen to who it is and THEN decide if you want to answer or send it to Voice Mail.  Start listening to the message from the caller and decide you need to pick up?  Just hit a button and you are “live” in the conversation.  Let the call go to voice mail completely – Gvoice not only saves the message for you, but also transcribes it to text and e-mails it to you.  The service also allows you to have different voice mail greetings for different incoming calls – so your manager’s cell gets the “I’m busy working with clients” while your girlfriend gets the “I’m shopping with Pam at Suburban Square.”  In states like mine where the rules on REALTOR phone communications are in flux, a service like Google Voice could end up being the best answer available.

10. Google Reader – http://www.google.com/reader

Has your list of “must read” blogs gotten a bit out of hand?  So long that you can’t possibly check them all each and every day to see what’s new and notable?  Trust me, you’re not alone.  This doesn’t mean you read too much… it just means it’s time for you to have your own reader. Google Reader is a great option – with a little setup work on your end, very soon you will have all of the latest and greatest content from your favorite sites in an easily digestible format and in one location.  Keeping up with your favorite bloggers is now much easier, and maybe even affords you time to add in a few more!

So we have created an entire communication/collaboration/content management strategy here and we haven’t spent a dime – how cool is that?  Believe it or not it is just touching the surface of what your relationship with the gang at Google can be like.  There are at least 25 other services we didn’t get to cover here – some of which can save you even more cash and make you more productive.  All you need to do to find them all is go to Google.com and click that “more” option up in the left hand corner.  Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

Stefanie Hahn is the education director for Coldwell Banker Hearthside, REALTORS® in Willow Grove, Pa. Visit her Web site: www.StefanieHahn.com.

Rob Reuter

By Rob Reuter, YPN Manager

For those of you who will be attending the 2009 REALTOR® Conference and Expo in San Diego, there’s going to be a really exciting and valuable forum entitled “Diversity, Youth and Politics” on Friday, Nov. 13 that you’re not going to want to miss. The forum will address how Millennials and Gen X’ers have impacted political campaigns, have influenced American culture, and are changing our organizations and the way we do business.

The forum will feature Heather Smith, executive director from Rock the Vote, and Pete Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute think tank and strategy center. The forum is being co-hosted by NAR’s YPNs. And our very own Keith Kanemoto, 2005 “30-Under-30″ winner and past president of the Longmont, Colorado Board of REALTORS®, will give his views on involving younger REALTORS® in our associations’ work now rather than later, and incorporating fresh, technologically-savvy ways younger members prefer to do business.

The last half of the session will be an intergenerational, town hall discussion. We will discuss how we can collaborate as an organization to involve younger members, Rock the REALTOR® Party and make your voice heard on legislation impacting the real estate industry.

RSVP now and read more about our speakers: http://www.realtoractioncenter.com/ypn

“Diversity, Youth and Politics” will be held on Friday, Nov. 13, from 8:30 a.m.–10:30 a.m., in the San Diego Convention Center, room 4, upper level.  Plan to arrive early, as seating will be limited. We hope to see you there!

Heather Soldonia

By Heather Soldonia

More scary than mummies, black cats, or cobwebs is the looming question: Has the real estate market bottomed out?

We REALTORS® have been asking Congress “Trick or Treat? … Please come up with some creative ways to revive the real estate market. Pretty please?”

When Forbes reported the 10 worst real estate markets of 2009, eight were in California. Currently, the unemployment rates are still above 12 percent in California — and remember that unemployment rates are only determined based on the number of people still receiving unemployment benefits — it doesn’t include in its calculation those who have received the maximum amount of unemployment benefits and now have absolutely no income.

Obviously, we can understand why so many mortgages are still going unpaid. In California, default notices have dropped by 10 percent, but that is specifically because lenders are modifying loans and/or short selling.

That being said, let’s take a quick moment to consider how the unemployment rate effects commercial real estate: In the Financial District of San Francisco there is nearly 1 million square feet of office space sitting empty. That means no lease payments, which means landlords’ inabilities to meet their mortgage payments, which means… NO BUENO!

Was anyone surprised when we learned that it has officially been determined that the FDIC failed to enforce its own guidelines for commercial real estate lending? The most recent Beige Book report released last week from the Federal Reserve Bank reports that defaults on commercial real estate loans totaled $110 billion, or 6 percent of all such loans. Declining real estate values combined with rising vacancy makes for a potential commercial real estate bust.

TRICK: We have U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner telling us that the economy can withstand the looming commercial real estate bubble waiting to pop.

TREAT: Most of us are in the residential sector where we’re beginning to see the glimpses of a recovering market. And we’ll most likely see Congress clear the extension for our buyers’ tax credit next week.

Heather Soldonia is a Broker/REALTOR® in the San Francisco Bay area with Windermere Welcome Home. She can be found at www.heathersoldonia.mywindermere.com.

Jeremy Williams

By Jeremy Williams

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James II: 2-3.

If you are in the real estate business for a period of time, you will at some point deal with obstacles.  Some may be trivial, while others more complex and wearing. But we must know that in the grand scheme of things, all obstacles are small.  It is easy when dealing with an obstacle in our businesses to be side tracked from our tasks and sometimes even consumed.

So how does one overcome when faced with a difficult time?  Perseverance!

“Just keep on keeping on” is an old adage that comes to mind.  When faced with an obstacle, don’t give up, just keep on going.  Do what you know is right and don’t allow the issue you are facing to consume your thoughts and time. Persevere.

Stay to the tasks including lead generation instead of dwelling on a particular client or transaction that may have wronged you.  Persevere.

Take time to re-read your goals, objectives to reach those goals, and your mission when you are distracted from your purpose. Persevere.

You and I will face obstacles in our businesses, or you may also call them storms in your life, but the great thing about a storm is that it will pass.  Persevere!

Jeremy Williams of Keller Williams Realty NE in Kingwood, Texas specializes in the residential real estate market of Kingwood, Atascocita, and Humble, Texas.  Visit his Web site at www.williams4yourhome.com.

Jessica Hickok

By Jessica Hickok

I’m a big list maker and checklist lover.  While gearing up for the big NAR Annual Conference and Expo coming up in just two short weeks in San Diego, I am in list-making overdrive.

However there is one list that I make that I would like to encourage every REALTOR® to do the same in preparation for the convention.  And that is a list of people you should attempt to meet IRL (in real life) while attending the sessions.  With so many of us on Twitter and Facebook, we all tend to flock together online but don’t make the effort to meet in the real world.

So make your IRL list and check it twice.  If you have a list, you won’t miss anyone.  Make an effort to get out and meet people.  Snap your picture with them while you’re at it and post it to Facebook.  After all, connecting with your peers is what makes the conference a success.

Jessica Hickok, a self-proclaimed blogging and Twittering fanatic, is with Dizmang Properties in Springfield, Mo. Visit Jessica’s blog: www.jessicahickok.com.

Crystal Webster

By Crystal Webster

When I first got into the business I thought I knew it all – rookie mistake. I knew everything there was to know about Kansas City (yes, the whole GIANT city). My business was the perfect model. My processes were the best to be had. And my broker was the best broker anywhere in the world – for everyone. Pair that with a couple bad transactions early on with another one of the larger brokers in the area and I started running my mouth off – mostly to friends and family, but to a few potential clients as well.

Bad news: I lost credibility in their eyes, and it’s A LOT of work to try to rebuild that credibility. I’m still not sure it can ever be fully restored. Early on, it’s easy to forget how important it is to “save face” and not tick people off – especially in the age of social media. The lesson I learned was to keep my big mouth shut! I still have plenty of opinions but I don’t share them with just anyone.

So learn from my mistakes. It’s very important to censor yourself – probably even more then you think you should. You never know who you will offend someone because they live in that area that you hate, know a guy that works for the company that is “run by idiots,” or they have a brother that works for that lender… But don’t worry; I still do think that my business model, processes, knowledge, and broker are the best – for me.

Crystal Webster is a REALTOR® in the Kansas City area. Visit her networking site at www.kcyoungprofessionals.com and her Web site and blog at www.theheritagehometeam.com.

Jeremy Williams

By Jeremy Williams

Involvement = Impact was a humbling realization I had after a board meeting this week with the East Houston Fellowship of Christian Athletes. You can’t stand on the side lines if you want to have an impact on anything, whether it is in the real estate industry, an organization you participate in, or even in your family. Napoleon Hill wrote, “You must get involved to have an impact. No one is impressed with the won-loss record of the referee.” How many times do we find our selves standing on the sidelines of life?

How can you get involved in making an impact in our industry?

• Reach out to a new REALTOR® seeking help on how to hold an open house.
• Volunteer to teach a class to REALTORS® on how to utilize technology to grow their businesses.
• Be a mentor to a REALTOR® who is looking to grow their business.
• Find a local organization that is in need of volunteers and get involved.

There are probably more ways for you to get involved than you realize. The result of your involvement often can’t be measured, but should never be underestimated.

I was 16 and in high school when I attended a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting. Two people who chose to get involved in my life probably do not realize the impact they had on me. The impact was life changing, and I can say without a doubt, I would not be who I am today without these two individuals taking time to get involved.

Don’t underestimate the power of involvement, and the significant impact that can take place. Be impactful in your real estate business and get involved.

Jeremy Williams of Keller Williams Realty NE in Kingwood, Texas specializes in the residential real estate market of Kingwood, Atascocita, and Humble, Texas.  Visit his Web site at www.williams4yourhome.com.