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?

By Linda Davis

I’ve attended the Howard Brinton Conferences for a number of years and have listened to his Star Power Tape Series for even longer.  One of the ideas that has stuck with me since I heard it …. Star Bob Wolff’s routine of writing notes every day to not only clients, but to average people he comes in contact with.  He has some amazing stores of how a simple note “touched” someone enough to create future business for him…a waitress, a cab driver, the gas attendant.  I’ve tried to keep up the routine of writing short notes but need a reminder occasionally. I’ll consider this my reminder for the New Year.  In the email age, people are really surprised and pleased to receive a personal hand written note. I’ve even had people call to thank me for a thank you note!

By Linda Davis

Bill Gates, in his book called "Business at the Speed of Thought" said "How you gather, manage and use information to serve the needs of your customer will determine whether you win or lose in your business."   I happen to think Bill Gates is a pretty smart guy.  I know he has more money than I do, so I try to pay attention to what he has to say. 

Whether you are a single agent or have a team, whether you use Top Producer, Online Agent, Outlook or something else for contact management, you should spend some time each week on your database.  You’ll need a good system of categorizing your contacts. 

Here are the categories I use in my database:

Clients:  Clients are anyone who I have done business with and as a result, earned a commission.  

     I also include my sphere of influence as part of this category.  My sphere of influence includes people who have given me referrals.  Members of BNI groups, Rotary Members etc. would go here.

Prospects:   Prospects are people I hope to do business with in the future.   This list includes:

     CMA prospects - anyone I have completed a CMA for including those "thinking" about putting their home on the market. 

     Orphans - those people who bought my listings. They will most likely be ignored by their own agent so I adopt them.  When it comes time to sell their home, they will remember me because I will be in touch.

     Movers and Shakers - Political leaders,  organizational leadership like the local Chamber of Commerce.

If you have a team and generate online leads for them, you might want to add an Online Leads category here. I’ve gone back and forth on this.  At this time, due to the volume of lookers on my IDX site, I prefer to keep those leads separate. I can create drip campaigns there so this group is not being ignored.

Family and Friends:   They should be on your mailing list too!  Sometimes they need to be reminded you are in the real estate business.

Out of Area:   These are clients who have moved out of the area.  Because I live in a military community, this category is a great source of referral business and I keep in touch several times a year. 

I have other categories including attorneys, appraisers, mortgage professionals, home inspectors etc. as well as local agents and out of area agents.  I also have a category called vendors, for people like painters, cleaners etc. 

I include the obvious under each contact:  Address, phone numbers, email addresses.  And maybe the not so obvious like birth dates, children’s names, favorite dessert, pets names etc.  How do we get this information?  For all of our clients, we send a VIP form in a self addressed stamped envelope. I’d say we get 95% of these returned.

The notes section under each contact is where I tell each person’s story and comment on recent phone calls or correspondence.  For instance, I like to send my clients articles they may find interesting.  I make a note of it in this section. 

As I develop my business plan, and more specifically my marketing plan each year, I decide what I am going to send to each group in my database.  I plan how often I am going to make contact, whether by mail, phone, email or in person. 

The overall benefits of having a well organized database are many, including efficiency, time savings and continuity in communications. 

My database is my future business.  I try to take good care of it.

By Linda Davis

The E-Myth is my all time favorite business book. Hands down. I first read the E-Myth in 1995 and it changed the way I did business. It was eye opening for me and I read it in record breaking speed, anxiously looking forward to the next chapter. I know that sounds a bit dramatic but it is true.  I always considered myself to be organized but this simple book by Michael Gerber started me down the path of developing systems for my business.  I now read this book once a year, about the same time I work on my business plan. 

The E-Myth was originally published in 1988 and replaced 8 years later by The E-Myth Revisited.  I actually liked the original book better. Gerber explains that the revisited book is a clarification of the E-Myth point of view.  Fine, but I still liked the original book better, even though I was able to have my Revisited book signed by Michael Gerber at a seminar I attended. (I found him to be a better writer than a speaker.)

The basic premise of the book is that most small business owners work "in their business" and not "on their business" as they should. The E-Myth Revisited is written with small business owners in mind but single real estate agents or team leaders can embrace the principles Gerber shares. Gerber tells stories about successful small businesses that have developed systems and built "franchise prototypes" to run their companies more efficiently.  These businesses, similar to McDonald’s, are systems dependent, not people dependent.  I call it my "getting hit by a truck" theory.  If I were "hit by a truck" tomorrow, my business should be able to run without me because of the systems I have put in place.

Although The E-Myth was originally written in 1988, the ideas presented are timeless, and every real estate agent should have this book on their real estate book shelf.  You have one of those don’t you?  With the birth of this blog, I’m taking a look at all my business books, thinning the heard and including my favorites on the bookshelf in the sidebar here.  

By the way, after I read the E-Myth the first time, I became known in the office as the "binder queen" as I developed system manuals for every aspect of the business. Since then, software programs like Agent Office are now able to launch "plans" for repeatable actions of a real estate business and eliminate the need for binders. Not able to help myself, I still have a few binders in use.

The E-Myth Revisited  is an absolute 10.  I like this book so much that I have given dozens of copies away to colleagues, either starting in business or looking to move their business to the next level.

 By Linda Davis

If you came here looking for a "Welcome World" post, move along; you can find that sort of stuff in the "about", and "bio" tabs above.  I thought my first blog post should be about farming. Farming propelled me from average to good back in 1980.  (I didn’t get to great until the 90’s.) I started by mailing postcards to 200 houses in a medium priced neighborhood. I added a few more houses until 22 years later, I was reaching all 6300 households in my hometown of Ledyard.  

Here’s a secret: one reason farming works is because most agents think it doesn’t. The agents that do give it a whirl, give up before it starts paying dividends. I’ve lived in the same neighborhood for 30 years and during that time I have received TONS of farming materials from other agents.  The longest any agent continued to farm was one year.  That is the first reason geographic farming doesn’t work for most agents; they are not consistent and don’t think of it as part of a long term business plan. Don’t expect to get results after 3 months or even a year.  The second reason farming doesn’t work is because agents send out boring and/or crappy stuff.  HAVE SOME FUN!!!  ( pssst…. No one cares that you are #1 in anything or have a new designation.  That’s booooring.)  If you absolutely can’t bring yourself to have some fun, then provide some useful information like market updates, emergency phone numbers, or refrigerator calendars.

If you are ready to become a farmer, I like the idea of starting out with postcards. I figure most of it ends up in the trash anyway but at least your prospect might glance at a post card between the mailbox and the trash can.  Color For Real Estate is a company I use quite often.  They are a fun company with postcards that are definitely not boring or crappy.  I also design some of my postcards on Microsoft Publisher and have them printed by Express Copy.  Turnaround time is fast, the quality is excellent, and the price is reasonable.

Once farming starts to pay for itself, consider creating a newspaper or newsletter.  I send a customized newspaper to my geographical farm 6 times a year published by Custom House Publishers.  I get oodles of listings from my newspaper. (Oodles means a lot.)  A prospect called me to list his home last year because he enjoys reading my newspaper every week.  He seems to have me mixed up with our local weekly. That’s a good thing.

I was reading a post in Active Rain not too long ago.  A new agent commented that some of the old timers in her office still farmed their neighborhoods. She thought farming was an old-fashioned idea and that it is all about technology now. She figures she is going to out-tech the old farmers.

This old farmer just smiled. I hope my competition thinks exactly like she does.