Today, more than ever before, it is absolutely necessary that you understand the difference between advertising and marketing.  You may THINK you know and understand that difference.  But after working with hundreds of agents and brokers from around the world, I’ve realized that most people don’t understand the REAL difference – the money-making difference.

Here’s what I’m talking about…

Most real estate agents and brokers have advertising campaigns, but very few have effective marketing campaigns. Advertising and marketing are VERY different.

Advertising creates attention and promotes an image or brand. Marketing, however, compels someone (i.e. your prospective client) to buy or sell with you!

TRUE marketing is THE #1 way to build your business – especially in this market.

However, there is a crucial part to marketing effectively that almost ALL agents and brokers have been leaving out of their marketing campaigns.  An effective and successful marketing campaign – meaning one that will truly appeal to your prospects – is all about THEM – not YOU.   It’s all about GIVING – not TAKING.  It’s all about practicing what I call…

Potato Chip Marketing!

And this isn’t just some random concept I created out of thin air.  This Potato Chip Marketing has been VERY successfully used by REALTORS^® from around the world – and it’s tried and true…guaranteed.  Especially in these market conditions…

So, let’s break it down a little.  An effective and proven Potato Chip Marketing campaign has seven crucial steps:

1.       Understand, Practice, Instill and Reinstill the Potato Chip Marketing Mindset in YOURSELF!

       Potato Chip Marketing is what I call “give-to-get” marketing.  What exactly does this mean?  How does this work?

Imagine this…

You are on a reality show. To win $100,000, you must persuade 20 squirrels to eat out of your hand. Your only tool is a bag of potato chips. You are taken to a park where there are plenty of squirrels. Your instructions are that you cannot go more than 100 feet from a park bench.

How would you get the squirrels to come to you? You certainly wouldn’t run out and say, “Hey squirrels, come get these potato chips!”  Obviously, that would scare them off.

What WOULD work would be to lay out a trail of potato chips to attract them to where you are sitting. They would come to you only when they felt it was safe and when they felt they could trust you.

And this very same concept applies to your potential clients…

They will come to you when they feel it is safe and when they feel they can trust you.

Some people say that real estate is a numbers game. But, if you are “in it to win it,” that’s just not true.  No client wants to be treated as if they’re a number. They want relationships…they want trust…they want to “try before they buy.”

Potato Chip Marketing is simply about uncovering THEIR needs, building trusting relationships with THEM…and giving-to-get. 

Tune in next time to learn the next steps in this PROVEN marketing strategy! 

It really works…guaranteed!

For the past two decades, Jennifer Cummings has been one of the most sought-after marketing experts in the nation.  Her “out-of-the-box” approach to marketing has won her the respect of advertising agencies and the adulation of entrepreneurs and business owners from all over the world in over a dozen unique markets. 

Using the same strategies she now teaches, Jennifer transformed her life from being a juvenile delinquent at 15 to a millionaire by age 30.  With her practical, no-frills approach to marketing and revenue generation, YOU can now join the thousands of other agents and brokers who have been excited and empowered to get back into the driver’s seats of their businesses!

Jennifer Cummings ~ www.JenniferCummings.com ~ jennifer@jennifercummings.com

Carla Cross, CRB, MA, International Speaker

Do you know the best motivators for YOU? Even though the market has improved in many areas, real estate professionals are still very challenged about getting their businesses back on track. Or, if you’re new, you’re probably experiencing some ‘negative vibes’ from those seasoned agents in your office. How are you going to motivate yourself to get into the swing of the market to meet your goals?

We’re Not Motivated by What We Think We Were…..

In his new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink lays out a persuasive case, backed by extensive scientific studies, about why the traditional ‘carrot and stick’ motivational methods just don’t work for us today. It’s especially true with real estate professionals. Why? Because we in effect work for ourselves. We have to be self-starters, initiators, and tenacious in our pursuit of our goals. That means we have to be motivated by things other than promises of material things.

Why Money Doesn’t Work as a Motivator

First, as Pink points out, money and/or material things are good short-term motivators. (Read Herzberg’s studies on short and long-term motivation). In fact, just take a look at the number of real estate agents who are motivated to visit an open house when there’s food! But, as Herzberg and others have pointed out, money is a lousy long-term motivator. You know that if you’ve tried motivating your kids with money—or threats (the carrot and stick).

I know. You’re thinking, “If I just had more money, I would be fine.” So, let me ask you, what are you willing to do to get that money? Lead generate more regularly? Make more sales calls? We all know that lead generating is the answer to that money problem. Yet, the vast majority of agents avoid lead generating as if it gave us some chronic disease! So, money is just not an effective long-term motivator.

The Best, Deepest, Strongest Motivators We Can Use to Motivate Ourselves

Pink shows, via extensive studies, that there are three driving motivators which we should put to work today to fire ourselves up, keep those fires lit, and achieve what we want to achieve. They are:

Autonomy

Mastery

Purpose

Questions to Ask Yourself to Fire Yourself Up

About Your Autonomy

Are you in charge of your own business, or are you waiting for someone else to tell you what to do?

Do you expect your manager to make you go to work, or are you self-directed and self-starting?

Are you disciplined in your business, so you can enjoy that autonomy?

Seth Godin, author of Tribes, says about autonomy: The art of the art {of autonomy} is picking your limits. That’s the autonomy I must cherish. The freedom to pick my boundaries.

About your Mastery

Are you working just to get by, or are you consistently working to get better? What do you want to excel at? How does that translate into your business?

About your Purpose

What excites you so much you can’t sleep at night?

Is there a way to translate that to your real estate business?

The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging inspires the highest levels of creativity, whether it’s in the arts, sciences, or business. Teresa Amabile, Professor, Harvard University

What motivates you? Do you know? How do you know? What if you’re motivating yourself in the wrong way? (Many managers unwittingly de-motivate with their strategies!)

More about effective motivation today

How to Effectively Motivate

I’m doing a webinar on how to effective motivate yourself and others for the National Association of Realtors’ Learning Library on March 17, at 2 p.m. EST. Click here for more information.

Carla Cross, CRB, MA, is an international speaker, coach, and resource provider, specializing in real estate business management. More of her resources are tested and recommended by CRS and CRB than any other speaker today. Carla helps companies optimize their ‘people power’–creative, practical strategies to double production and profits to recruit and retain the best.

Many people prefer to either not think about the importance of real estate search engine optimization, or tinker with it on their own. If you are not going to higher a professional to do it for you (like you would encourage your FSBOs to hire you), then there are at least a few traps that you should know about.

These are the 7 deadly seo mistakes that you don’t want to make. To get the full video which is also our video/speaker’s page, you’ll get much more information by clicking there. Here is a short preview of what you’ll get.

Carla Cross, CRB, MA, International Speaker

Are you fustrated because buyers won’t buy and sellers won’t price right? Here are the answers. We agent types like to talk. In fact, many of us became agents because people told us that, since we’re good talkers, we’d make great salespeople! That’s an old idea today. Why? Because consumers, are over-whelmed with sales talk. We don’t just trust anyone because they have a good ‘sales spiel’.

Buyers and Sellers Stall on Decisions

At this moment, I’m in Albuquerque to do my presentation for this emerging market, “From Lambs to Lions: Take Charge of Your Business in Challenging Times”. As part of my regular pre-conference survey, I found that agents are having trouble getting buyers to make a decision—and sellers to list their properties are a marketable price. What’s behind this indecision? Low confidence in the economy—and lack of trust in the agent. So, how do we create high trust in a market that is so unpredictable that no one, in any business (or personal life), has a crystal ball on the future?

Stop Talking and Start Showing

A few months ago, I came across a brilliant article in our local Seattle paper describing how doctors in a prestigious medical center here have just adopted operation room checklists. This simple measure lowered infections dramatically. Now, it seems simplistic, doesn’t it, that highly trained doctors and nurses need checklists for things such as ‘wash your hands’? But, we all get busy. We get stressed. Having checklists reduces stress and increases confidence. (Wouldn’t you feel better if you were going into the operating room, and saw that checklist posted on the wall?)

What This Means to You

The idea for professional checklists comes from the book The Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande. If doctors and nurses can increase their effectiveness with checklists, I’ll bet we can, too—and dramatically increase our clients’ trust in us.

Listing properties. If you’re finding it increasingly difficult to list properties at the right price, it may be because you’re working too hard  trying to talk the seller into it, and are not working hard enough to show a seller into it. Sellers, like all of us, believe what they see, not what they hear.

Go visual. Instead of trying to tell a seller what you know to be true, back up your statements with statistics, graphs, facts, and checklists.. You do this in your market analysis. But, most agents don’t do this with the rest of their marketing plans. Start now gathering information to back up your chosen marketing strategies.

For example, if you’ve found, through your experience, that open houses do not sell that particular home, start keeping statistics of your open house visitors, their needs, and what happened to them during their buying cycle. You want to provide sellers the information they need to make good decisions, and to support your marketing plan.

The truism behind show, not tell: We believe what we see, not what we hear.

Carla Cross, CRB, MA, is a former master-level CRB instructor, popular international speaker, National Realtor Educator of the Year, and author of 6 books and 20 audio programs. She specializes in ‘people development’—strategies to get highest profitability. Learn more at www.carlacross.com, or contact Carla at 425-392-6914.

My self-appointed mentor, Albert Einstein, once said…
 
“The secret to creativity is knowing how
to hide your sources.”

I am a big fan of both the man and the message.  And here’s why…

Simply put…our own unwillingness to accept ourselves as creative beings bogs us down.  I happen to believe we are ALL wonderfully creative.  However, I also know that most of the time we don’t feel that way, especially when we’re working on marketing campaigns and other promotional endeavors in our work.

For example…

How many times have you sat in front of your computer screen and willed a brilliant ad to materialize?  If this sounds familiar to you, then I have a question:

How big is your marketing antenna?

What I mean by this is that creativity is simply being open to inspiration, and, if you have your antenna up – that is to say that if you are paying attention to other good marketing out there – you WILL learn the secrets of the master marketers. 

And I’m going to share one of those secrets with you right now!  Do you have your antenna up?  Well, get ready folks, this is a good one…

“It is better to edit than to create!”

Now you may be saying, “Just what does that mean?’  Well, let me explain… 

Creativity is driven by curiosity.  Pay attention! Ask questions!  Get inspired!  Success leaves clues, my friend!  Have that antenna up and you will find inspiration in the most unlikely places.

If you need to create a postcard, for example, you may find something really juicy you can use on the back of your grocery receipt, or in the way a dish is described on a menu.  Or your teenager might actually say something incredible that you can use!  Perhaps you can even justify reading that tabloid because the ads in the back have amazing copy that really gets your own writing juices flowing.

The National Enquirer is one of the most expensive magazines to advertise in, so those ads in the back HAVE TO work!

By taking an existing marketing piece and editing it as your own, all the work is done for you! You just have to breathe it all in and then make it our own –

what a relief, huh?!

Einstein was absolutely right… 

Creativity is being mindful enough to be stimulated by your environment.  You then simply edit and mold that environment to fit your needs.  We don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time we have to create a new ad or marketing piece – we simply have to let our surroundings illuminate our own wheels turning inside our heads. 

That Einstein was onto something. Maybe he was so in-tune with his environment that the theory of relativity was something he creatively lifted from him own surroundings! 

If we sharpen our own marketing antennas, we could ALL be little Einsteins…

changing the world one postcard at a time!

For more information on Jennifer Cummings, or to book her for your next event call 1-877-211-6472 Ext 4 or visit www.BrokerAgentSpeakers.com

Randy Eagar, CRS

Design and Content Issues

 

 

Above all is being found. What’s the point of having the best website on the planet if nobody knows you’re there? SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is to website marketing as real estate agents are to home and condo marketing.

Create your own website without the use of a professional to market it for you makes you a FSBO with your website marketing. And you wonder why you’re not getting leads.

Design can heavily affect the site’s success. The reason why a viewer will stay on your website is primarily content.

But with a pleasing and professional design, it will force the viewer to look just a little bit longer than they originally would have to see where the content is. This affects the site’s success.

Websites rise or fall depending upon content. If you never show the viewer good content, you’ve lost them. The content and design must dove tail one with another.

 The interesting thing is that Good content can make up for poor design. If the viewer is engaged in reading compelling content, they won’t care what the site looks like.
Focus on content first, and then build your design around your content. Know what you have to say, and then figure out a way to show what you want to say.

1- IDX/MLS Access

This is how your prospects are searching the MLS. They are going through agent websites in the comfort of their own homes looking for homes that meet their needs. One area of conflict is whether or not to force these prospects to sign a contact form in order to gain access to the MLS data. In many cases I’ve heard agents say that they feel that this causes buyers to go elsewhere, and others say that this is the only way to get the names and email addresses of their viewers. The best way that I can advise you is to try it both ways and see what works for you.

2- Featured Listings

One thing that we know is that sellers want to stand out from the crowd. They want to know that their home and their situation is unique and worth paying more for. Therefore, your marketing must exemplify this need.

3- Drip Marketing Campaigns

It’s only natural that we should spend just a little more time on some specifics of Drip Marketing as it’s so important, and is done in many different ways. Many of you think of “Drip Marketing” as sending out email notices or newsletters on a regular basis. However while that is “drip marketing”, that’s not the kind of drip marketing that will make your buyer’s socks roll up and down. What is most effective for “drip marketing” is when you give your potential buyer the ability to fill out a form of their preferences in a new home or condo and notify them of any current listings that meet their needs or an instant notification when a new listing comes on the market that meets these parameters.

Do you think that your prospects would like to know when new listings come out that meet their particular parameters; even before other agents know about them? You bet they do. And by definition, you’ll need to get their name, phone number and email in order to process this information for them. It’s a real win-win. For our clients that are making consistently over $100,000 just from their website, every one of them use this kind of drip marketing to magnify their leads to sales.

4- “Static” Page Content

Remember this one word: Compelling. The question is how can you make your website more compelling? A great deal of this can happen because of your content. The question is how can you write the kind of text that will make it persuasive for your prospects to want to stay around?

5- “Dynamic” Page Content

Dynamic page content is just the opposite of Static page content. Where Static page content can’t be changed by the viewer, it’s the purpose of dynamic pages to be changed by the viewer.

6- Video Tours

Video tours are now coming into their own. With faster bandwidth and more common video players and receivers, this is becoming the viewing method of choice. Note how our first example even gives a floorplan of the home, and shows which room we are viewing. Click on a different room and you jump to the video of that room.

7- Web 2.0 Blogs, Podcasts, Video, Social Network

Web 2.0 brings with it an entirely new way of communicating on the Internet.

For example if we look at blog sites, most of them were originally built as you see here with the use of text. Two important things that you’ll want to make sure that you take advantage of is the use of hypertext that will link your viewer to more information, and the use of RSS Feeds. The later gives your viewer the ability to “subscribe” to your blog site so that as you post new ideas and thoughts, these get sent to those who subscribe, just like a newspaper or magazine subscription.

8- Mash-Ups

Mash-ups are the combination of two or more technologies. The ones that we typically see are the use of the IDX with home searches and mapping software like Google Maps.

For a quick 2-minute video see Website Content Features at our WebsTarget website.

www.WebsTarget.com

This is the remaining part of the Jennifer’s blog topic from 12/1/09…enjoy!

The Success Triad Fundamental #3:  Momentum

The final element of the success triad is momentum. A lot of times when the market slows we go into “analysis paralysis.”  We start trying to figure it out, but we forget to then take action.  A year or two ago you might have been able to take some time off, regroup and rest on your laurels – but that’s no longer the case.

The good news is that you only have to take a little action to surpass the competition.

I call the three key components to keeping the momentum up and taking action…

“The Three A’s of Action”:

1.      The First “A” of Action is that you must have an Actionable Environment.

Your environment can add to your energy or deplete it.  Simply put, your mother was right when she told you back in your high school days that “You are who you hang around!” In other words, don’t spend time with the “Negative Nellies” that bring you down and zap your energy. 

You want to spend your time with people that are future-focused and more successful than you.

Also, your physical space is important. Take a look around your office, your car, your home and ask yourself honestly, “Is my environment conducive to my success?”  

Get your house in order and prepare yourself to take action and be successful.

2.      The Second “A” of Action is Accountability. 

We are pros when it comes to rationalizing to ourselves, but what soon happens is that we build excuses instead of a business.

When it comes to accountability, hiring a coach may be the single most powerful thing you can do to get yourself into action. Most agents start trimming the budget when it comes to a slow market – but cutting a coach from your budget (or not having one in the first place) is the worst possible decision that you can make.

Hire the best coach or join a mastermind group that makes you tow the line. There are times when the “do it yourself” model just isn’t the right approach.  And relying solely on your own ability to motivate yourself day after day, week after week is the best way to end up making someone else’s morning mocha.

3.      The Third “A” of Action are setting Activity Goals.

These are the final keys you need to take the action necessary to create momentum. It is critical that you be focused on activity goals rather than performance goals. 

I teach my own private clients to take small, consistent, daily actions.  I would rather you do several small consistent activities on a long-term basis than one big bang.  It’s like trying to lose weight by having one marathon workout every month. You’ll just end up fat and sore. 

The same principle applies in your real estate business. Take small daily steps and make them habits that move you forward towards your goals.

==============================

Learning and implementing The Success Triad in your business will make you an agent that all other agents look up to. You can have everything you want in this market.  You can either thrive or survive.

It is up to you. 

But I will leave you with this. In a market like this it is actually easier to succeed and create a business that will take care of you for as long as you want to run it.  This is the market “that separates the boys from the men.”  Or the baristas from the super-agents…

To your success!

A Different View of Today’s Market…and How to Thrive In It! (Part 2)

This is the remaining part of the Jennifer’s blog topic from 12/1/09…enjoy!

The Success Triad Fundamental #3:  Momentum

The final element of the success triad is momentum. A lot of times when the market slows we go into “analysis paralysis.”  We start trying to figure it out, but we forget to then take action.  A year or two ago you might have been able to take some time off, regroup and rest on your laurels – but that’s no longer the case.

The good news is that you only have to take a little action to surpass the competition.

I call the three key components to keeping the momentum up and taking action…

“The Three A’s of Action”:

1.      The First “A” of Action is that you must have an Actionable Environment.

Your environment can add to your energy or deplete it.  Simply put, your mother was right when she told you back in your high school days that “You are who you hang around!” In other words, don’t spend time with the “Negative Nellies” that bring you down and zap your energy. 

You want to spend your time with people that are future-focused and more successful than you.

Also, your physical space is important. Take a look around your office, your car, your home and ask yourself honestly, “Is my environment conducive to my success?”  

Get your house in order and prepare yourself to take action and be successful.

2.      The Second “A” of Action is Accountability. 

We are pros when it comes to rationalizing to ourselves, but what soon happens is that we build excuses instead of a business.

When it comes to accountability, hiring a coach may be the single most powerful thing you can do to get yourself into action. Most agents start trimming the budget when it comes to a slow market – but cutting a coach from your budget (or not having one in the first place) is the worst possible decision that you can make.

Hire the best coach or join a mastermind group that makes you tow the line. There are times when the “do it yourself” model just isn’t the right approach.  And relying solely on your own ability to motivate yourself day after day, week after week is the best way to end up making someone else’s morning mocha.

3.      The Third “A” of Action are setting Activity Goals.

These are the final keys you need to take the action necessary to create momentum. It is critical that you be focused on activity goals rather than performance goals. 

I teach my own private clients to take small, consistent, daily actions.  I would rather you do several small consistent activities on a long-term basis than one big bang.  It’s like trying to lose weight by having one marathon workout every month. You’ll just end up fat and sore. 

The same principle applies in your real estate business. Take small daily steps and make them habits that move you forward towards your goals.

==============================

Learning and implementing The Success Triad in your business will make you an agent that all other agents look up to. You can have everything you want in this market.  You can either thrive or survive.

It is up to you. 

But I will leave you with this. In a market like this it is actually easier to succeed and create a business that will take care of you for as long as you want to run it.  This is the market “that separates the boys from the men.”  Or the baristas from the super-agents…

To your success!

A Different View of Today’s Market…and How to Thrive In It! (Part 2)

This is the remaining part of the Jennifer’s blog topic from 12/1/09…enjoy!

The Success Triad Fundamental #3:  Momentum

The final element of the success triad is momentum. A lot of times when the market slows we go into “analysis paralysis.”  We start trying to figure it out, but we forget to then take action.  A year or two ago you might have been able to take some time off, regroup and rest on your laurels – but that’s no longer the case.

The good news is that you only have to take a little action to surpass the competition.

I call the three key components to keeping the momentum up and taking action…

“The Three A’s of Action”:

1.      The First “A” of Action is that you must have an Actionable Environment.

Your environment can add to your energy or deplete it.  Simply put, your mother was right when she told you back in your high school days that “You are who you hang around!” In other words, don’t spend time with the “Negative Nellies” that bring you down and zap your energy. 

You want to spend your time with people that are future-focused and more successful than you.

Also, your physical space is important. Take a look around your office, your car, your home and ask yourself honestly, “Is my environment conducive to my success?”  

Get your house in order and prepare yourself to take action and be successful.

2.      The Second “A” of Action is Accountability. 

We are pros when it comes to rationalizing to ourselves, but what soon happens is that we build excuses instead of a business.

When it comes to accountability, hiring a coach may be the single most powerful thing you can do to get yourself into action. Most agents start trimming the budget when it comes to a slow market – but cutting a coach from your budget (or not having one in the first place) is the worst possible decision that you can make.

Hire the best coach or join a mastermind group that makes you tow the line. There are times when the “do it yourself” model just isn’t the right approach.  And relying solely on your own ability to motivate yourself day after day, week after week is the best way to end up making someone else’s morning mocha.

3.      The Third “A” of Action are setting Activity Goals.

These are the final keys you need to take the action necessary to create momentum. It is critical that you be focused on activity goals rather than performance goals. 

I teach my own private clients to take small, consistent, daily actions.  I would rather you do several small consistent activities on a long-term basis than one big bang.  It’s like trying to lose weight by having one marathon workout every month. You’ll just end up fat and sore. 

The same principle applies in your real estate business. Take small daily steps and make them habits that move you forward towards your goals.

==============================

Learning and implementing The Success Triad in your business will make you an agent that all other agents look up to. You can have everything you want in this market.  You can either thrive or survive.

It is up to you. 

But I will leave you with this. In a market like this it is actually easier to succeed and create a business that will take care of you for as long as you want to run it.  This is the market “that separates the boys from the men.”  Or the baristas from the super-agents…

To your success!

For more information on Jennifer Cummings or to book her for your next event visit www.BrokerAgentSpeakers.com or call 1-877-211-6472.

Driving Prospects to Your Website TrailerDriving Prospects to Your Website: The Fundamentals

This 2-minute video introduction of the session of the same name will give you an overview of the things you’ll learn in order to push your website rankings to the top of the search engines.

Isn’t it amazing how time gets away from us?  I haven’t blogged in SO long, but just knew it was time to start up again.  These are interesting, exciting - even sometimes scary - times we are in.  I always seem to have a little different outlook or view on things than others out there, so…I hope you find this helpful!  ~JC

Use The Success Triad…To Thrive in Today’s Market!

This is an amazing time to be an agent!  And I don’t mean that in the false “rah-rah…let’s all think positive even though we want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over our heads” way of thinking.

I mean that in the “survival of the fittest” way of thinking.

This is one of those times when good agents become great ones.  When great agents become legends…and when everyone else sends in an application to work at Starbucks.

This is the type of market that will force you to practice excellence as a way of life. Think of it as the best self-help and success course – that you are getting for free.

Why do I say this?

Because in the demand-driven market, you could get away with lazy, sloppy business and still do pretty well. But today we’re experiencing the consumer-driven market.

Consumers have become more savvy, more discerning – almost overnight.  And that means that you get the opportunity to step-up your game and become the businessperson that you know you can be.

The elements of success have not changed.  It is simply that the great and legendary agents have already made them a way of life, whereas the other agents have been one-hit-wonders or “lucky.”

Those days are obviously over.

If you haven’t been living the three core fundamentals of true, lasting success then now is the time to start living and practicing those fundamentals.  Of course, if you aren’t ready for massive success, then I hear Starbucks is hiring.

The Success Triad Fundamental #1:  Mindset

The three core fundamentals of true lasting success are built like a triangle. At the base –  the critical foundation – lies mindset. The only difference between people who are rich and those who want to be rich is what they think about.  There are a lot of self-help books, programs, DVDs out there that all teach this fundamental principle of…what you think about comes about.

Another way to say that is that what you focus on you manifest.

Why is that critical to your success today?

Because if you are thinking about how you can survive this market that is what you are going to create. Survival. Contrast that with the agent who is 100% focused and committed to thriving in this market.

These two agents will have a very different outcome.

The agent with the positive attitude will automatically be more attractive to prospects.  If you are focused on the negative elements, you will miss seeing the business opportunities that the positive agent will effortlessly spot.  You must cultivate a state of positive expectancy.

There are only two things you are doing in business all the time.

You are either attracting or repelling business. There is no neutral.

The Success Triad Fundamental #2:  Mechanics

The second core fundamental of lasting success is mechanics. Mechanics are the “how-to’s” of any business.

And mechanics are what most agents love to focus on.

But mechanics without mindset will not make you successful.

People who learn how to “build rapport” without an abundant, positive, generous mindset will always come off as manipulative and untrustworthy.  And people who learn the powerful marketing strategies that I teach, but who fail to adopt a “give to get” mindset, will not be successful.

Once you do have the mindset in place, however, there are certain skills that you can use to boost your business into the stratosphere.  Particularly in this market, there are several tools that will have you dominating your market in no time flat. 

Because consumers are now more demanding and informed, it makes sense that to compete effectively you are going to have to “up” your game.  And how do you do that, you ask?  Well…

The #1 way “up” your game is through marketing.

Building your marketing toolbox is the most powerful thing you can do to insulate yourself from competition. Creating a powerful marketing machine that can generate a predictable, steady stream of prospects that are qualified and committed to working with you is the tool to cultivate in this market.
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Stay tuned for part 2 of these thoughts…this one’s getting too long!  I wish you nothing but success and prosperity.  Remember, though, success and prosperity involve much MORE than money! 

“We make a LIVING by what we GET. 

We make a LIFE by what we GIVE!” ~Sir Winston Churchill

Jennifer Cummings is a  leading national speaker, coach, and consultant. For more information on Jennifer Cummings call 877-211-6472 or e-mail Jennifer@JenniferCunmmings.com

Since when did marketing have to be hard?

I’m having a webinar this week on Thursday with 3 of my “Web Warriors” who have relied on their websites for the majority of their marketing income through real estate SEO. Everyone wants to know, “How do you make $100,000 just from your website?”. The average income just from their websites is a little over $75,000. And that is just so far this year in what many call a “down” market. Each of these agents loves a “down” market as it seems that their competition stops investing in their marketing tools.

While there is no getting around having an expert optimize your website for you for marketing purposes, there are many things that you can do yourself to help your website to be seen by your prospects. In the following video I mention the 3 major components of getting found by the major search engines and beating out your competition.

Search Engine Optimization Part 1 by Randy Eagar

More and more agents are now figuring out that with 87% of the buying public using the Internet as their home purchasing tool (NAR Statistics), it just doesn’t make sense to not have an Internet marketing strategy that includes their website. They are realizing that an “optimized” website (one that is made search engine friendly) will draw buyers to them like bees to honey. That is why the label of “passive-active” has stuck.

Having your website “optimized” makes it work for you.

 Read those last three words . . . “work for you”. Thus, while you’re doing nothing at all, your website is actively working for you. Pretty soon you’re getting lead generating phone calls just like my 3 Web Warriors this week: Pat Wattam, Barbara Reeves and Liz Warren. Try these few tips and I think you see a jump in your rankings.

Randy Eagar, CRS
President, WebsTarget SEO
www.WebsTarget.com
Randy@WebsTarget.com
(800) 277-1316