by Linda Davis

After paying mucho dollars for  a community website for a number of years, I recently decided to create a Ning social networking site for the Town of Ledyard where I live and work.   And while I am still playing with the bells and whistles, so far I really like what I see.

For Realtors®, Ning can be used as a community  resource with a social network component; a place to post links, photos and videos but also to engage your local community.  To get started, you need to sign up for a free Ning account. The Ning program will then walk you through the design process.  I found it similar (but easier) than setting up a blog.  Your management dashboard will give you choices of how your main page can look including color schemes and themes, as well as drag and drop modules like forums, chat windows and photos.

You’ll find my new Ning site at Ledyard Online and my Ning Review at the Realty Agents product review site.

by Linda Davis

I know you probably don’t like the sound of that title but there is little debate that the ability to generate and capture leads can be what separates a successful agent from a mediocre one.  Start a discussion about paying for leads and the debate can get downright ugly.  You’re likely to hear the words ripoff and parasite used to describe lead generation companies like HomeGain.  

Home Gain Buyer’s Link is a pay per click system. I pay around seventy-eighty cents everytime someone clicks on my link for the cities I chose.  I  have a cap on the amount I can be charged each month. I can change my budget at any time and there is no long-term commitment.  For the past few years, Home Gain’s Buyer Link has been responsible for an extra 25 sales a year for my team.  

How specifically is it working for me? I’ve done a product review of Home Gain at the RealtyAgents site where I write product reviews, and I’ve also posted my experience at the HomeGain Blog.  Stop by for more details.

by Linda Davis

I’m not sure why I was born organized. I guess it was my “gift”.  While the others kids in the neighborhood were taking piano lessons and attending art school, I was making lists and multi-tasking.  It’s no wonder that I love Paperport; it is a great organizational tool and easy to use whether you were born organized or just want to be. PaperPort turns piles of paper into organized PDF files that you can quickly find and then use right on your desktop.  Although I can’t claim to be totally paperless, I can say that I no longer carry home a “paper box” full of files on the weekend. All my listing and sales files have been turned into neatly organized digital documents.

Below you’ll find what one of my typical listing file looks like.  Since it is all on my laptop, it eliminates the need to bring home a file.  It has also been very useful when I’m out of town and need to followup with a seller.

Paperport has also eliminated my paper CMA Files.  I once had a huge box of CMA’s which I called it my “future listings” box . It was complete with legal descriptions, maps, and hand written notes. That box is history.  Now I have a paperport file for each CMA. Once the home is listed, I simply move the CMA file to the file I create for that particular listing.

By Linda Davis with Bob Carney

Social Networking has been around awhile but it seems in 2007 it all got kind of crazy. Invitations arrived in my inbox at a hectic pass and my Catholic upbringing took over.  I felt guilty if I didn’t accept someone’s invitation; I wasn’t raised to be rude or hurt someone’s feelings.  Then the Facebook crowd started throwing sheep and poking and writing on my fun wall.  I had a fun wall?? 

My friend, Bob Carney from Frederick, MD experienced the same social networking stress and decided to do something about it:

"I have been totally overwhelmed by the amount of the social network invites that I received lately. There is no way you can actively participate on all of these networks, be effective and actually get work outside of the internet done. I have never had the time to really just work one and create an actual plan to make it effective. It seems that I have just been following the flock to the next new network. So, as part of my 2008 New Year’s resolution…manage the social networks, before they get the better part of me."

Read more about Bob’s idea to tame the social networking beast in his blog post Social Network Tips and Networking Plan.   

Bob Carney is a very smart real estate agent in Frederick, MD. You can find more of him at Focus on Frederick and at Bob’s Brain Dump.  I’ve asked Bob to stop by and dump on us periodically. 

by Linda Davis

The books I love are pretty worn; I’m hard on them.  I even turn down the corners of the pages that speak to me.  I have plenty of corners turned down in Susan Friedmann’s Riches in Niches, How to Make it BIG in a Small Market.  SEO experts lecture about using "the long tail" in your internet strategy. Susan explains how to use "the long tail" in your everyday business and for me, it relates perfectly to real estate.  It’s the "sell more of less" theory, the same theory that Seth Godin talks about in Small is the New Big.

Most real estate agents try to serve too many masters. They will work with investors and builders and single family homebuyers.  In between, they might show a rental or two or throw on some boots to walk a piece of farm land. Just for good measure, they’ll try to dabble in commercial real estate.  At the end of the year, a typical real estate agent will have put a gazillion miles on their car. 

Many years ago, there was an agent in my office who’s niche was mobile homes.  Diane was the expert. She could drive by a mobile home and tell you what model it was and what year it was built.  If you have ever seen the movie, My Cousin Vinnie, Diane was like the character portrayed by Marisa Tomei who knew everything there was to know about cars. Most agents hated the idea of listing or selling a mobile home because they were cheap which meant the commissions weren’t much. As a result, when a call came into almost any office in Eastern CT for a mobile home, they’d suggest the customer call Diane.  Diane made well over $100,000 back in the 90’s selling almost exclusively mobile homes.  Since she was the expert, she was also able to raise her commission which helped when selling cheap mobile homes.  Later in her career,  Diane become an expert in selling HUD foreclosures, another area that most agents avoided.  She learned everything she could about the process and became the HUD Foreclosure expert in the area.  I’m sure she never thought about "the long tail" or Seth Godin but it sure put a lot of money in her pocket.

In the book, Riches in Niches, Susan coins becoming an expert in a niche as a "nichepreneur". She goes on to talk about ways to enhance and capitalize on your expert status.  I’ve always subscribed to the "Do one thing really well theory".  What I do really well is list property in my small town of Ledyard, CT.  90% of my commissions are earned from listing property in one small town.  I realize that a new agent might not be able to narrowly focus on one small niche but it is something to strive for.  By becoming an expert at just one thing, you become a "nichepreneur".  That is a very good thing.

If you get a chance, be sure to watch My Cousin Vinnie. I promise it will make you laugh and you’ll see an expert in action.

By Linda Davis

I’ve been a member of the Cyberprofessionals since 1995.  The group originally met chatting on the old RE/MAX Compuserve forum and had an idea; meet in person and share tools, systems, marketing ideas and technology.  Only 9 agents attended that first meeting in Stamford, CT and we arrived by car, plane and train.  Each of the attendess presented a topic they felt would benefit other members of the group.  I remember being wowed by a presentation on Microsoft Publisher; another member spoke on representating buyers, long before buyer agency was commonly practiced. I talked about farming, a topic I am still passionate about.

By Linda Davis

My laptop arrived with me this week at Inman Real Estate Connect in New York City. I had planned to do some blogging from NYC.  Unfortunately, despite internet access throughout the hotel including free wireless in the lobby, I was unable to connect.  I’m usually not very far from my laptop.  I have this routine of reading the news and checking my overnight email with breakfast.  I check the news again during my lunch break. Except when I’m on appointments, most of my real estate day consists of online activities like email, lead generation, feedback from showings, MLS updates, statistical reports, and lots of other things technical.  Evenings are my time to be creative; that’s when I work on my websites and blog.  In between, I visit with my network of friends on social networks like flickr and twitter. 

When I arrived home, I was still unable to connect and it turns out that Comcast was the culprit all along. For those in Gales Ferry, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  Comcast has been having intermittent outages since the end of December.  One of those outages did something bad to my computer and as a result, I was unable to connect in NYC.  It’s all fixed now but the Comcast connection is still iffy. 

Being without internet access for almost 4 days was challenging. The whole situation made me realize how dependent I am on technology and being online.  I was able to keep up with email for the most part with my Blackberry but still had 521 emails to review once I got home.  If you are waiting for an email from me, I expect to catch up real soon.

by Linda Davis

The National Association of Realtor’s 2007 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers reports that 23% of home sellers used the agent they previously used to buy or sell a home.  Let’s do the simple math; that means that at least 7 out of 10 sellers did not use the agent who sold them their home.  Uh oh.  That’s not a very good statistic.  It is, however, one you can take advantage of.  By the time most sellers are ready to sell their home, their agent is out of business or didn’t keep in touch.  Regardless of the reason, this is good news if you plan to be successful in the real estate business for the long term.

Orphans have always been an important part of my business.  Last year I was on a listing appointment and as I went through the kitchen with the seller, I noticed one of my calendars on the refrigerator. Mr. Seller had been receiving my "stuff" for 18 years - calendars, magnets, postcards, newsletters.  Mr. Seller was proud of the updates he had made to the house since I sold it to him.  He had me convinced.  When I went back to the office and went through the file from 1989, I realized I hadn’t sold Mr. Seller the house after all.   In 1989, I added Mr. Seller as an "orphan" in my database.  The agent who had really sold him the house had been out of the business about 10 years.  I get more than a few listings from "orphans" every year.  Most of the time they are convinced I sold them the house.  They say that when they call in to make the listing appointment.  "Remember us? You sold us the house about 10 years ago". 

The odds are very high that with the exception of maybe a holiday card for the first couple of years, a client’s own agent will abandon him.  And the odds are just as high that their own agent won’t be in the business after 3 years.  In fact, it is business you can count on it.

It appears that 2008 will be the year of the video in real estate and Wellcome Mat is quickly becoming known as the YouTube of real estate. This free resource allows any real estate professional to easily upload their own 3-5 minute video tours.  You’ll find the final results similar but of a much higher quality than YouTube. Once uploaded, your video can be embedded into any website or blog.  The site also is an excellent resource for finding a videographer in your area.

While slide shows were initially frowned on,  members are adding slide shows like those created in Real Estate Shows. There is some indication there will be a separate place for those in the near future.

by Linda Davis

Before I started this post, I had an outline in my head.  It was all about how to create a "lens" on Squidoo.  Besides pointing out all of Squidoo’s cool features, I was going to explain details like filling out your profile and using modules. Then I discovered Squidoo U.  Everything you need to know about Squidoo is there including tips for promoting your lens, setting up groups, tagging and HTML tips. There is even a user’s forum.  It seemed a bit silly to try to reinvent the wheel when there it was all nicely packaged in the Squidoo University.

If you’ve never heard of Squidoo, it is best described as an indepth look at a specific topic.  Squidoo lets you create a web page (a lens) around that topic.  Although not initially intuitive, after you get the hang of it, lenses are quick and easy to build. To give you an example of a lens, I’ve created one called Building Your Real Estate Technology Tool Kit where you can find a few of my favorite technology tools. 

Squidoo was founded by Seth Godin so it is no wonder it  is a perfect tool for niche marketing.  Whatever your niche, you can create a mini website and include links and books about your topic.  Of course, one of the best features is creating links to YOUR OWN  website or blog, enhancing your web presence. Bill Gassett’s lens on Hopkinton MA Real Estate does a nice job of offering visitors information specifically about the Hopkinton, MA area and creates links back to his website and blog. 

I’m passionate about niche marketing and Squidoo is a nice little tool to enhance your niche and create a little link love for your blog or website. An added bonus is that your Squidoo lens, done right, will do well on search engines like Google and Yahoo.

OH, and did I mention it is FREE?