Do you know where to ethically get appropriate content, what to post, when to post, and where to post it? Do you have a consistent plan you follow to regularly engage your prospects and position yourself as the expert so it’s YOU they call when they think of real estate? In this powerful summit you will learn step-by-step the most effective systems and strategies used to generate real business online today. For More information

All FIVE sessions $125.00 value for only $19.95! That’s right. All five sessions for one low price of $19.95!  ENROLL NOW

Every day on our Free Webinars (www.FreeCoachingWebinars.com) we reinforce four things that lead Agents to survive and succeed in this market.

1. Remind yourself every day, at the beginning of the day, what you want your Real Estate career to do for your life; and why you want it.
2. With that in mind, consciously and intentionally put yourself in an empowering attitude, a positive mental and emotional state by using the triad of your physiology, your focus, and your self-talk. In its simplest form stand up, stomach in, shoulders back, chest out, and smile. Focus on what would make it the best possible day. For the self talk, use affirmation, expressions of gratitude, prayer, or whatever leaves you feeling good and strong.
3. With that positive mindset look at your numbers. Look at your weekly, monthly and year to date goals. This is tough sometimes. That is why you want to establish that empowered state before you look at your where you stand in relation to your goals. (On the daily webinars we teach you how to set those goals in the simplest and most effective way.)
4. Then with your focus on what you need to accomplish to reach your goals open your calendar to organize and prioritize your day. We recommend some consistent priorities for specific days, prospecting, marketing, technology, service, skill building, and planning.

These four steps will take as little as ten minutes; up to thirty if you really get into it. This daily habit gets you motivated, focused and into action. At the same time it gives you the perspective to not get caught up in petty distractions, stay focused on your goals, and build greater confidence in every action and every decision.

Technology Strategist, Speaker, Trainer

Bob Pike (1994) suggests the 90/20/8 rule:

“No module we teach ever runs more than ninety minutes, the pace is changed at least every twenty minutes, and we try to find a way to involve people in the content every eight minutes.”

Always Inform attendees what the purpose or goal of your event or training is and how they may be able to participate and especially what they are going to learn.

With conduct alot of training webinars so keeping in mind the above rule here are some tips for running a successful training webinar:

In our last post, we discussed the three major areas that the new Google Caffeine will be looking for these three important areas are:

1. An important “keyword rich” domain name
2. A “keyword rich” Title (and Titles throughout your site), and
3. Keyword rich content

The easiest and most effective thing that you can do to your website to get noticed by the major search engines is to change your Title, using rich keyword phrases. For example, if you lived in Denver and you wanted to focus on luxury condos, you might want to use the Title “Denver Colorado Luxury Condos”. If you really want to make a powerful statement with Google, add more features such as “Denver Colorado Luxury Condos and Beautiful Estate Living”. So far we’ve used 56 characters and spaces. Keep in mind that Google will only read the first 66 characters and spaces. After that, it’s as if there is nothing there. Yahoo on the other had will read up to 110 characters and spaces, so put your second best information next.

For more information on the power of what you can do with building effective Titles, take a look at the following video:

Many people are starting to wonder “Hey what’s happened to my Google rankings?” Simple. Google has recently (as of June 8th) changed its entire algorithm, or the way that they decide who gets to be on top of their search engine. Google is now faster, more relevant and doesn’t care as much about many of the areas that were important before.

So what are the major changes? Well Google is trying to cut through all the spam and find out which really are the best and most relevant websites for the search being applied. To get to the bottom line of this, Google first looks at your Domain Name. Is it relevant to the search or is it only relevant to you (BarbaraSmith.com for example). A highly keyword rich Domain Name might be MyDenverRealEstate.com or LuxuryCondosInDenver.com. In this case, if I’m looking for “luxury condos in Denver”, Google says WOW, this website’s Domain Name is part of their search. It MUST be relevant.

The second area that Google looks at is the Title of the website (located at the uppermost part of the browser). If you start off the Title as with our previous example of say, Denver Luxury Condos (the words don’t need to be in the same order as the search) then bells and whistles go off for Google. It tells Google that this website is REALLY relevant to the search being made.

Finally, and probably the most changed area is the area of content. If you write about yourself on your Home Page, Google figures that your website is only about yourself. Therefore you must write about what the buyer wants to read about. If your content is laced with information about Denver luxury condos, you are ripe for climbing the Google ladder.

There is MUCH more that Google has changed in its new Google Caffeine, but these 3 steps will get you headed in the right direction. In addition, you can get additional information with this “pocket presentation” about getting a good domain name.

Possibly because we do more real estate SEO than any other company, I am always asked “What is the beginning step in optimizing my website to make it work for me?” The answer is simple. You have to do the research for what the best keyword phrases are for your website. Said a different way, you need to find out what those phrases are that your prospects are typing into the major search engines. By finding this out, you’re half way home.

In researching your best keyword phrases, you’ll want to know two things:

1. What are the keyword phrases that my potential clients are typing into the major search engines, and
2. What specialties do I have such as foreclosure sales, short sales, farms and ranches, etc., that I would want to also include to lead my prospects to me?

This short “Power Presentation” will start you down the right path to give you this information and lead you to a free webinar with rich information in this area.

Carla Cross, CRB, MA, International Speaker

Are ‘dual career’ agents hurting you and your business? In Stefan Swanepoel’s publication, Trends Report 2010, he calls the real estate licensee with another job the ‘dual career’ agent. That’s what we used to call the ‘part-timer’. Although ‘dual career’ sounds much more important than ‘part-time’, the result is the same:

Less time to devote to the consumer. The conflict that an agent feels when he has another job is causing the consumer to rate our service lower than ever before.

Dual Careerists Are a Growing Trend

More and more real estate agents are getting second jobs to make ends meet. In fact, the 2009 National Association of Realtors’ Member Profile says that 26% of Realtors stated that real estate was not their only occupation. (I’m sure that many more licensees that aren’t Realtors have other major sources of income). In addition, less than half of all Realtors surveyed reported that real estate was their primary source of household income.

Is the Dual Careerist Doing the Industry More Harm than Good?

Having been an agent, manager and owner a long time, I know how difficult it is at times for an agent to ‘hang in there’, put their heads down, and keep working through tough times. It’s a great temptation, and a relief for many to take that other job just to ‘tide them over’. From the broker’s perspective, too, keeping the agent at least licensed with the brokerage to get that one transaction seems to be better than losing that one transaction.

Several problems accrue, when the agent gets another job:

1. The agent’s mind, energy, and dollars drift away from the needs of the consumer because the agent must focus on another job

2. The agent can’t keep up on the technical, legal, and business developments

3. The consumer demands just can’t be met when the agent is unavailable for large blocks of time

4. The broker must carry a much bigger responsibility for the agent’s transactions

What We Need to Do About This Trend

Managers: Set standards so you are living out that vision you took all that time to write in that business planning course! Do you have agents with you who are not dedicated? Do you have agents who don’t practice in the way your company wants? If so, you are ‘shattering your image’ and greatly hurting your chances to recruit. Fix it while you can.

Agents: Go to your manager and ask why the ‘deadwood’ (a horrible term, but, the consumers have told us to get rid of them and we’re not listening…) is still there. What benefit do they provide you? What benefit do they provide the company?

Short-sided: It May Destroy our Industry

Unfortunately, our industry has spent too much time on the immediate, and not enough time on the long-term. One of the easiest ways to see this is to look at the low producers and part-timers we’ve kept as licensees. Why? Because we think they may sell a home or two before they get discouraged.

There Is Leadership Showing the Way

There is a growing trend to upgrade the industry. Take a look at what industry leaders are doing right now. They are putting standards in place, training and coaching to get people to their standards, and are counseling out those who just aren’t meant—or committed—to a career in real estate.

Support on Putting Standards in Place

For the last year, I’ve done lots of work in helping companies put standards in place. Although it’s challenging, it’s absolutely critical if we are to protect our business models as we like them!

Note: See Four Steps to a Stunning Standards-Based Organization, a webinar I did for the National Association of Realtors’ Learning Library.

What Do You Think?

Do you believe managers should keep anyone who wants to be kept? Let me hear your opinion–and, if you have a solution, let’s share it with our industry!

Carla Cross, CRB, MA, is a speaker, coach, and resource provider for  real estate leadership. Author of 6 internationally published books, and 20 production programs, Cross specializes in helping leadership create exceptional organizations, and assisting achieving agents to reach their potential. Contact her at 425-392-6914 or www.carlacross.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.

Randy Eagar

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr . . . which social media or social media sharing is best? The answer is “Yes”! With the advancements in these services, you can now post a video in your YouTube account and have it automatically post to your Facebook wall, Twitter account, etc. In marketing, you need to be everywhere.  Here’s a short video trailer showing this exciting session that you can get via 45 minute video or from BASB personal training showing some great social media marketing ideas.