It's Raining......ActiveRain

ActiveRain Meetup in Fort Worth Texas, Tuesday June 4th

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:36 -0700

"You're not that popular!"

I can easily remember the first ActiveRain meet up we ever tried. Jonathan and I were down in Orange County, CA looking at office space (at one point we were convinced that we should have our offices on the beach in the sun) and decided to host an impromptu meetup in the area. Have you ever wanted to know what it feels like to be humbled? Try having a meetup where there are hundreds of people in a 20 mile radius using your site and then only ONE person shows up.

(I will forever put aside whatever I am doing and offer any assistance I can to that one great lady that showed up!)

6 years later and ActiveRain has grown up quite a bit. We now have over 340,000 people that have signed up for the site at some point in the last 7 years and our members routinely host meetups around the country that easily outdraw the paltry showing Jon and I got back in 2007.

And since everything is bigger in Texas, I expect we can easily double the size of that first meetup on Tuesday June 4th in Fort Worth. I will be down in Fort Worth speaking on a panel at the REX 2013 Real Estate Conference and Expo. My little panel (hosted by the illustrious Nicole Nicolay) will be focused on the local state of SEO and I'm honored to be joined by a bunch of people smarter than I am (which is fine because I have a list of jokes prepared to fill any awkward silences). ActiveRain can get you a $300 discount if you'd like to join me for the entire REX Annual Conference from June 2-5th by using the code DFWLOCAL1 when you register (that takes the price from $399 to $99.....you're welcome).

(But that's not the point......)

The point is, I'd love if you would come hang out with me and (more importantly) with some other ActiveRain members in Fort Worth for some good old fashion fun. Now I don't know how much trouble we can get into on a work night, but we can certainly try! At this point you are probably so excited you could care less about what else I have to say and you just want the details.......fine.......

The Details

When: Tuesday, June 4th, 7pm-10pm Texas Time (Although no one is kicking you out at 10)
Where: Whiskey and Rye Bar at the Omni Hotel in Fort Worth
Who: Me, you, some other people
Why: Stop asking so many dang questions!
What: Socializing and networking with old friends, your computer friends, and making some new friends

I'll have a bunch of ActiveRain T-shirts with me. The first 10-15 people will get a shirt. Like the home-buyer tax credit a few years ago, it's not a reason to join, it's an incentive to join. The reason is to get together with other AR members and have a good time. And I'm really bad at ending conversations so it's conceivable if you wanted to corner me for an hour and have me analyze your blogging and internet lead generation strategy, I would do it.

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

Challenge: Crowdsourcing the Way to More Referrals

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:03:50 -0700

The "Aha"

(OK, it wasn't really an "aha", it was more of a 'dang, that many?')

In a webinar recently about (link to recording of the webinar) generating seller leads, I opened the discussion by asking the audience where their last listing originated. A little bit to my surprise, an overwhelming number of the responses came back 'referral'. I didn't tally up every response, there were about 400 people on the call and the answers were pouring in. But 'referral' was the overwhelming winner. At a glance, it seemed like 7 out of every 10 responses came back 'referral'.

Any good real estate agent will tell you that referrals are the backbone of their business. Many of you have something referencing that in the signature line of your email. You most likely let your clients know that at the conclusion of a transaction. Some of you might have client appreciation parties. Some of you probably call your sphere once a quarter and remind them that you're still in the business and would love any referrals they could send your way.

(You can skip the story and scroll down the challenge if you want but I'm watching you! And I'll be offended! haha)

The Story

In the discussion about generating seller leads, Jerimiah Taylor, our presenter shared how he positions people to illicit their reticular activator. Huh? Say what? Sounds technical!

Basically Jeremiah shared the story of buying a new car. When you drive off the lot, you start to notice your new car everywhere. That's because your reticular activator, that part of your brain that organizes information and is responsible for you noticing things around you is on full alert for the kind of car you just purchased. So now you see them everywhere, even though they were probably always there, you just weren't thinking about them. Same thing happens when someone buys a new house. They are now more alert to the fact that others around them may be talking about buying their next house and Jerimiah wants to make sure he puts them in a position to mention him when they come across these conversations.

Many of us might expect that someone will refer us if they hear their friends and family discussing real estate, but you need to take steps to ensure this actually happens. In Jerimiah's case, he takes the opportunity three times during the transaction to remind his clients that he would love to be able to help their friends and family should the need arise.

The first time he mentions the importance of referrals in his business is immediately after a contract has been accepted and both sides have signed off on the contract. People are generally happy that they've had their offer accepted and it's a great time for Jerimiah to remind them that referrals are an important part of his business. We all know that having the contract accepted is only one step on the path to getting your clients the home they want.

The second time he mentions the importance of referrals in his business is once the last contingency has been removed from the contract. So if the last thing to get worked out is the inspection, once that is completed and the deal is moving towards closing, he will take another opportunity to have a conversation with his clients about referring their friends and family to him for help with their real estate needs.

The third and final time he has a similar discussion with the clients is immediately after the closing has taken place. In each of these scenarios the clients are most likely pretty excited about what's just happened and are very likely to be willing to listen to Jerimiah's message about referring him more business.

This is just one example of how an agent actively pursues referrals for their business. We would love if you would consider sharing more examples with us. We are going to compile your answers and on May 30th at 3pm Pacific Time we will host a webinar that shares 7 of the best ideas that you share.

The Challenge

In a blog post, share with us one tactic you use to get referrals from past clients or your sphere. Try to share it in a fashion that someone reading could put your idea into practice. That means give an example, share some details, tell a story, possibly even walk us through the script or the steps you took to land the referral.

Leave a link to your blog post in the comment section of this blog post.

Please submit your post by May 28th at 11:59pm Pacific Time.

All posts submitted will be given 1000 ActiveRain points

The 'Crowdsourced' Webinar

Register for the webinar on May 30th at 3pm Pacific Time (6pm Eastern Time) where I will share 7 of the best ideas that come out of this challenge. Heck, I might even share more if there are enough good ones (I have a feeling there will be).

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:04:32 -0700

What: Discussion with Jay Papasan and Ben Kinney about The One Thing that can focus your business and your life
When: Friday April 12th at 9am Pacific Time (12:00pm Eastern Time)
Where: Webinar, so you can be wherever you want. I suggest on a beach with wifi and an umbrella in your glass
Why: Because more so today than ever, life is hectic!

I Used to Think I Was a Decent Multi-Tasker

At any given time I had 40 tabs open on my browser and I was juggling phone calls, texts, email, twitter, Facebook, watching videos, reading articles and moving in 100 directions at once. You're a real estate professional, so you can probably throw in: writing blog posts, speaking with clients, talking to the loan officer, ordering title, yelling at the kids, letting the dog out.........the list never ends. Remember, I thought it was possible to do all of this at once and still be effective at any one thing.

And then I read The One Thing.

It hasn't been an overnight transformation, but I'm definitely moving in the right direction. (I only have three tabs open right now and I will finish this blog post without any interruptions.......this was unheard of for me a few weeks ago)

In their new Book, The One Thing, Jay Papasan and Gary Keller lay out the principal that less (on your plate) can actually lead to more (in your life). You may know these two from their wildly successful book The Millionaire Real Estate Agent. Jay is Vice President of Publishing and Executive Editor at Keller Williams Realty International. He's also co-owner of a top producing real estate team, the Papasan Group, in Austin Texas.

I have the pleasure of inviting Jay and Ben Kinney (you all remember Ben? RainCamp Speaker, REALTOR Magazine 30 under 30, team that does over 500 transactions/year, super smart, not as good looking as me) to join me this Friday April 12th at 9am Pacific Time (12:00pm Eastern) to discuss The One Thing and how a real estate can apply what's in this book to their business and their life.

Practical Applications for Your Life and Business

Any time we bring someone to ActiveRain University, I want to make sure that you walk away with practical applications of the advice they give you. I wouldn't exactly call The One Thing a self help book.......to me it's more of a manual. But the practical application becomes "How can a real estate agent utilize this stuff to have a more successful business and a more fulfilling life?"

That's why we are bringing Jay and Ben together. Jay had a hand in writing the book, but both of them have taken this philosophy and have applied it to creating a real estate business that I believe is enviable.

I'd love if you could join us for some inspiration and some direction on Friday morning. It could be The One Thing you need to make a huge leap in your business (and your life) this year!

You can sign up for the webinar by clicking the little button at the top of the post. We have a limited availability and the class is already filling up very quick.

(**** This is part of a Trend Setter series of webinars and blog posts that you will see in the coming months where we invite people from across the real estate world, different brokerages, different companies, to share innovation and thought leadership with the members of ActiveRain)

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

Who Do You Consider an Industry Trend Setter?

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:12:27 -0700

Who would you like to see posting on ActiveRain? If I was going to go out and actively start engaging people to post to ActiveRain, who would they be? I'd love if you would give me three suggestions.

An active professional in the business. Someone who sells real estate and has something to share. Ben Kinney comes to mind as a great example. Who is an active agent or real estate professional who you would like to hear from (doesn't have to be an agent......could just as easily be a loan officer)
An industry pundit. They don't actively sell, but dang are they smart. Rob Hahn is the guy here that jumps to mind. Spend 20 minutes on his blog and it can easily turn into 2 hours.
Industry Leaders. They run a company, or they launched a great product in the space. Maybe they run a huge MLS. I mentioned Spencer, Sherry Chris would be another person that comes to mind.

Who would you love to see participating here?

You can give me one suggestion, heck, you can give me 20. I'm just trying to get a sense for the people out in the industry that our members think would add valuable discussions to our already amazing group.

When ActiveRain first launched in May of 2006, it quickly became the place to be for real estate discussions online. Facebook was just getting a full head of steam and many of the other social platforms where agents now gather were still in their infancy or just an idea in some college dorm room. Because of this, many of the industries best minds would come to ActiveRain daily and others would at least stop by and visit. We had blog posts from Barbara Corcoran, Daily interactions with Jeff Turner, and the ramblings (I say 'ramblings' lovingly and Jay knows this!) of Zillow's Director of Industry Outreach and Social Media, Jay Thompson.

At one point, David Stevens, as the sitting Assistant Secretary of Housing - FHA Commissioner in the Obama administration would blog about raising the FHA MIP. Current Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff shared his perspective on the industry on a weekly basis on ActiveRain. Todd Carpenter, the former head of Social Media for NAR (forgive me if I got that title wrong Todd) blogged about happenings in the mortage industry long before stepping into that newly created position at NAR. This only scratches the surface of some of the really smart people that aren't as active as they once were.

Don't Get Me Wrong

We still have super smart people on ActiveRain. But a lot of the content on the site has migrated toward being about your local markets. That's to be expected. Once ActiveRain starting ranking well in the search engines, only a dummy would decide not to utilize that to write content geared toward consumers. Our member's are not dummies.......
And so slowly over time, we have lost some of the voices that could make ActiveRain and even better community. There are a variety of reasons why.

Many of the Discussions have Moved

With the explosion of Facebook, the ease of Wordpress and a desire to carve out their own piece of the internet, many of the people that were once vibrant and active participants on ActiveRain are less active than they once were. They still check back in from time to time to comment, but we'd like them back more often. On top of that, there are thousands of brilliant minds in this space that never discovered or took the time to dive into ActiveRain......and we'd love to see them here as well.

The reality is, this industry has as much if not more turnover than almost any other industry out there. People come and go and we want to make sure that when the really good ones come, that we know who they are.

Everyone With a Voice

I want everyone with a voice in this industry sharing that voice on ActiveRain. We have a great community already and every voice we can add to that chorus makes it even better, whether that be an old friend or a new face!

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

Plaza Del Sol Condos, Capitol Hill Seattle (Demo Post)

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:39:25 -0800

Plaza Del Sol Condos, Capitol Hill Seattle

Find similar condos for sale to the Plaza Del Sol Condos, Capitol Hill Seattle

Stop your search! If you are looking for an amazing condo complex in Seattle, you have just found it. Plaza Del Sol couldn't be more conveniently located. Sitting on the west side of Capitol Hill, many of the units in the complex have sweeping views of downtown Seattle and the Space Needle. No car? No problem! This condo complex has a Walkscore of 94, ranking it as one of the top 1% of Walkscores in the country. Literally everything you would ever need to live is within walking distance. But, if you need parking, they have that too. The underground garage makes sure that your car (or bike) is never in harms way.

Plaza Del Sol Units are Modern and Updated

There are a variety of units in the Plaza Del Sol Condominiums. 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom and 3 bedroom floor plans are all available. The complex was converted to condos in 2006 from apartments and the builder did a fantastic job. You can expect modern spacious layouts with mostly hardwood floors throughout the living room, dining room and kitchen. The bathrooms have porcelain floors and the bedrooms are done in carpet. That is unless the current owners have done some updating (not that they would need to). Granite countertops and stainless steel appliances make for a modern feel in the kitchens.

1 bedroom units run about 680 square feet while the 3 bedroom units can get up to 1200 square feet. Prices range from 240,000 up to over 300,000. Units don't sit on the market for long when they come up for sale.

The Plaza Del Sol Building is Clean and Secure

The complex itself shows the pride of ownership of the people living there. There are not many rental units, generally about 25%. You can check with the HOA to get an exact figure at any given time. The HOA covers all the things you'd expect including property upkeep. The common areas are clean and safe as every entrance to the building requires keyed access. As we already mentioned, each unit has at least one parking space as well as onsite storage. Garbage, water and sewer are included in the HOA dues, with dues varying based on the size of the unit. They start at about $300/month and go up from there.

Living on Capitol Hill

This area of Capitol Hill in Seattle rarely has a dull moment. An active night life scene as well as tons of shops and nearby necessities (think grocery store, Starbucks, quaint diners, dry cleaner, banks) guarantee that someone will be out and about at any time of day or night. Guilty pleasures abound with lots of delicious restaurants nearby including Dicks Hamburgers, a Seattle landmark only one block away.

Your friends might want to carpool when they come to visit. While you can certainly find free street parking, it won't always be directly across the street.

The Plaza Del Sol Condos on Capitol Hill are a great place to call home. You will not be disappointed if you end up living here. You can find condos for sale in Plaza Del Sol (if there are any available today) as well as all available Capitol Hill condos for sale on my website.

Get Detailed Reports about Capitol Hill

If you would like detailed demographic information about Capitol Hill as well as school reports or market trends and statistics (including recent sales in the area) please visit my website.

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

ActiveRain Meetup in Dallas

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 12:08:16 -0800

ActiveRain Meetup in Dallas, TX on
Saturday, February 16th
from 8pm-10pm!

Hyatt Regency Dallas
Monduel's Lounge
300 Reunion Boulevard,
Dallas, Texas, USA 75207

(get it? Reunion BLVD.........like we are old friends getting together!)

Spoiler Alert: Kerrie will not be there!! I know, I know.....Huge disappointment. If you're in the area you're probably thinking to yourself, "forget it! No Kerrie, no deal!". Fine, the rest of us will carry on without you.

Can I bribe you with great conversation? (if you say yes I'll have to make sure someone capable of providing that shows up, because that definitely not me!)

How about food? Now that might be something I'm capable of. I'll buy the appetizers.

I'll be in town for KW Family Reunion and would love to see any local Rainers that can make it downtown for a few hours. Let me know if you plan on stopping by. Hopefully it's not just Greg and me.......that could be dangerous!!! (no seriously, don't leave me alone with Nino!!)

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

You'd Expect Me to Have a Leash On

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 13:28:38 -0800

Put a Leash on that Overgrown Kid!

Have you ever seen those little kids at the mall where their parent is walking behind them with a leash? It's not a collar of course, they have a much more humane body harness, but they're still in a leash. If you do this to your kids, please stop. Stop immediately! This is not a good idea. Your kid is going to develop some kind of complex, some kind of issue that will be deep seated in their physique and scar them for life.

(Look, I don't know why people actually use those things, so if there is a legitimate reason like 'my kid has ADHD and without a leash he could dart out into traffic' then fine, I get it and I'm sorry you were offended, but I'll apologize in advance so you don't feel the need to put me inline online)

I almost expected when Kris and Vanessa told me I was allowed to go to Keller Williams Family Reunion that it was going to come with the caveat, "But we are going to require you to wear the body harness".

What: Keller Williams Family Reunion
Where: Dallas Convention Center (Booth #931)
When: February 16-20th
Who: A slightly crazed me, and maybe you?

I'm likely to do anything.

I'm highly unpredictable. I can say this now, the tickets are booked. You see, I might just give away random Rainmaker accounts because I like you. I am capable of giving away every ActiveRain t-shirt in the booth because your accent intrigues me, even though the ActiveRain t-shirts are suppose to be for people that sign up for a Rainmaker account at the conference. Handstands and cartwheels? How else are you suppose to release pent up energy after hours of standing in one area?

ActiveRain will be in the Market Leader booth at Family Reunion. Booth #931. I have less ability to give away Market Leader stuff (less meaning zero), but I can always back people into a horrible position and help you get a really great deal. That could be a lot of fun!! Have you ever seen the sweat start to form on the brow of a sales person when you are squeezing every last inch out of them? It's a great feeling! (Less fun of course when you are the one whose brow is getting heavy from perspiration)

We Could Actually Do Something Productive

Of course, we could do plain old boring stuff like sit in front of my iPad or computer and review your blog posts to make them SEO friendly and get them ranking better in the search engines. Or, I could suggest areas where you could include better calls to action in an attempt to drive more traffic to your website and capture more leads and prospects for your business. Or we could have discussions about keyword phrases and how to get your content in front of interested buyers and sellers.......but come on! YAWN!!!!! (well unless you want to generate more business for yourself....but isn't that kind of self centered? What about me?)

They've let me off the proverbial leash!

So wouldn't it be more fun if we broke into an impromptu rendition of Thriller? Or, Monday will be President's day, maybe we all wear Top Hats, bullet holes optional (can you joke about assassination 148 years later? Too soon?). The conference is being held in Dallas so maybe we all decide to act like everyone hates us because we are so amazing, when in reality they hate us because we think we are so amazing, we haven't actually been amazing in 20 years.......you know, like the Cowboys (and their fans).

I don't know what's going to happen. I've heard rumors they are going to actually give me a microphone. I am not even going to begin to suggest the fun I can have with a microphone at an event with thousands of people. I'm getting giddy just thinking about it. If you are going to be there for KWFR, I would love if you'll stop by and say hi.

Not With KW, but in the Dallas Area?

If you're not going to KWFR but you are in the Dallas area (you don't even have to be a KW agent), me and a few ActiveRain members are putting together an ActiveRain gathering for the evening of Saturday February 16th. I'll have the details on that next week.

And if you are somewhere else in the country, and won't be heading to Dallas, consider yourself lucky, not being on the leash, and potentially having a microphone, has just as much potential to go horribly wrong as it does to be fun........(if you are easily offended or have a bad sense of humor, don't click that last link)

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

Recording: Hitting Your Social Media Sweet Spot

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:42:52 -0800

I love my job.

One of my favorite parts is preparing for a class that I am going to teach. Anyone casually walking by my desk would think 'all this idiot does all day is play on Facebook.' OK, that's partially true, but don't blow my cover! But for the last few days I got to really dive into Facebook and try to find some great examples of the ways that real estate agents share things about their business that don't force feed their friends a huge dose of 'It's a great time to buy and I'm an awesome real estate agent so you should use me.'

Hitting Your Social Media Sweet Spot

In our webinar today, hosted by Market Leader, I had a chance to share some different ways that you can market your business on Facebook without being that ass that everyone gets sick of and eventually blocks. Our topic was finding your social media sweet spot. Here is a small sample of a few things I shared

You should really focus on one medium
It's alright to talk about your real estate business on your personal page
Sheldon Neal has a really awesome marketing idea that he is using on his Facebook page. He told me in a phone conversation yesterday it may be the best marketing idea he has ever had and it's getting him a ton of real life exposure for his brand.
If you don't like using a social network, you have no business using it to market your business
How setting up lists in Facebook can improve your Edgerank (and what is Edgerank) and make sure your message gets to the appropriate people
A great set of real estate scripts that can allow you to take something you learn on Facebook about someone in your sphere and turn it into an opportunity to reach out to your sphere personally
Some good ways to share your IDX website that might actually get people to click on it

You Can Target Your Message Based on Geography

There were a few other things in there in addition to those including an awesome tip about geographic lists and how you can use the geographic lists that Facebook sets up for you in order to focus your content on people in a certain geography.

If you didn't get a chance to join me for the call live, or you did and you just want to more easily digest some of the things I was sharing, here is the recording of the webinar. Enjoy..........now back to playing on Facebook work.

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

Webinar: Hitting Your Social Media Sweet Spot

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 15:03:35 -0800

Just the Facts:

When: Wednesday, January 23rd 10am Pacific Time (1pm Eastern Time)
Where: Your couch, bed, office.....wherever you have internet access
What: Webinar discussing effective ways to share content on Social Media
Who: Me.....and You......
How: By Signing up here

Did you watch the video? Is that you I'm talking about?

Do you annoy your friends and family with your incessant real estate talk on social media? Do you even realize it? Do you care? Just like there is no 'one way' to act when you attend a social function (think cocktail party), anyone telling you 'this is exactly how you should act on social media' is probably trying to sell you something. I don't think there is an absolute way to share your real estate experience......but there might be a better way.

Let's go back to the cocktail party. Some people would rather have small talk with as many people as possible. You might even hand a few people your business card. Others of us might never consider giving someone our business card in this setting, but we'd certainly chat real estate if someone else brought it up. And then there is the guy that, upon entering the room, would clear his throat, and at the top of his lungs announce how amazing his new real estate listings is to everyone and anyone in ear shot........oh wait, no one would do that? And yet some of us are essentially doing that on social media.

(as a total side note, while there may not be an exact 'right way' to conduct yourself at a cocktail party, I can assure you that stripping down to your underwear, using the hosts table cloth as a toga and bobbing for apples in the punch bowl is NOT acceptable......isn't that right Greg? Or that's what I hear)

So what can we share on social media that people would find helpful? What is the best way to share listings? Can this be done to actually get people on our website looking at properties for sale? Should we share with everyone? Can we segment what we share with who? (or is it whom?........don't try to give me the rule. If I can't remember it at this point in my life, it's highly likely I'll never remember it)

Join me Wednesday January 23rd and we'll dive in a little bit..........(but we will NOT dive into the punch bowl again)

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

Want More Listings? Using Buyers to Land Listings

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:33:30 -0800

I left a comment on a post from Dick Greenberg yesterday. I think it deserves it's own post.

You Have to List to Last

We've all heard the adage, 'You have to list to last' or something along those lines. Pretty simple, if you want to have longevity in the real estate business, you need to figure out how to get more listings. Pretty simple to say......a little bit more challenging to actually do.

How Do I Get More Listings with My Blog?

One of the main questions I get from agents who are using a blog to generate prospects for their business is 'how do I get more listings'. Courtney Cooper wrote a good post about getting very niche specific with the keywords you target. That's certainly one way, as sellers are going to investigate who is the best agent to market and sell their particular kind of home. Courtney gets listings for houseboats now and has built a presence as the Seattle Houseboat expert. At this point, if someone is thinking about selling their houseboat in Seattle, and they go online to figure out who is the person to do that for them, they will find Courtney.

But these kind of strategies can take quite a while to see your efforts pay off.

Getting Listings is Something You Have to Get Out and Do!

Get out? Gasp! Do you mean getting out from behind my computer and actually talking to people? Well yes and no. I just mean getting out from behind your computer and doing something with the resources you currently have. How many of you currently have a buyer that wants a home that isn't on the market? Maybe you've shown them 30 houses and nothing is just right (you should dump them as clients, nothing will ever be right for these people......don't show this many houses, they don't know what they really want!). Or maybe they've given you a list of ten features they want and there just isn't a house on the market that meets their criteria. A ton of our markets have inventory shortages. So what do you do?

Go Find The Listings

I've told this story in comments on ActiveRain a few times. I can not recall having blogged about it.

I have a friend who was drafted by a professional sports team here in Seattle a number of years ago. It was when the Seattle market was red hot and homes were flying off the market with multiple offers as soon as they hit. He was looking for a particular sort of home in a particular area of Seattle, along Lake Washington. There was nothing available for him. Did his agent just sit on his hands and say 'Sorry qualified and able buyer, there's nothing on the market for you, I'll set you up on an MLS search and maybe something will come up'. No, his agent went to work and found him something to buy.

How Do You Find a Listing When It's Not on the Market?

This agent decided he was going to mail a letter to every house that fit his client's (my friend) needs. And after a week, he was going to go out and knock on the doors of each of these houses to see if anyone was interested in selling. He had a ready and able buyer who was willing to purchase their home.

(as a side note, this was a million dollar + home purchaser, so the agent had extra motivation to find him a house, but once you see what happened for him, it makes just as much, if not more sense, for you to do with any client who can't find a home)

Before he ever set out to knock on doors, two people of the 40 he had mailed called with an interest in potentially selling. Neither home was exactly perfect for the buyer. So the agent set out to knock on doors. He was able to get about half of the people to answer the door, of those, 2 were interested in selling. So 4 of the 40 people he targeted had some interest in selling. His client would end up making an offer on one of the original two that responded, and even though the house wasn't perfect, a sale was eventually put together (there are a few rounds in which you can be drafted where you have the money to make the not so perfect home more suitable).

But It Doesn't Stop There

Of the three remaining people that showed an interest in selling, the agent would over the course of the next year, list two of those homes. One almost immediately and the other about one year later.

Be prepared that your client may not necessarily buy the home of the person that responds. In this agent's case there were three other people who didn't end up selling to his client. But two of those turned into his clients. You need to know how to turn these people into sellers with you.

("I'm sorry my client didn't end up making an offer on your home. He ended up buying 123 Main St. down the way. But I still think if you are interested we could get your home sold for the most amount of money in the least amount of time. That's what we do for all of our sellers. What day would be a good time for me to come over and sit down to talk about getting your home on the market?")

All he did was get out there and try to find his client a home. He had a real buyer, with real needs and he leveraged those needs to get himself in front of potential home sellers. That's the key to getting listings

1. Say the Right Things: I have someone that wants to buy your home.

2. Say it to the Right People: The 40 people that lived in the area his client wanted to buy

3. Say it Enough Times: He didn't just stop by mailing something, even though that worked. He followed up by going door to door and introducing himself, and reiterated his message.

I stole those three things from Ben Kinney. He probably stole them from someone else. Very few ideas are completely original, right? But think about it, that applies to just about any way someone goes about getting listings. Expired listings? People that have success with them have scripts for when the call on expired listings. They are obviously saying it to the right people, owners who had a listing that expired. And they end up saying it enough times. It's a routine for them, many will make their expired calls every day. FSBO? Same thing. Say the right thing, say it to the right people and say it enough times. I mean this works for people that just randomly go door to door knocking in neighborhoods. It works! Say the right thing to the right people enough times and someone will eventually say yes.

So What Did the Letter Say?

This isn't word for word, but it went something like this.......:

"My name is (smart agent) and I'm with (lucky company) in Seattle. I am currently representing a well qualified client who is interested in purchasing a home (in the area the letter is going, for his case it was 'on Lake Washington'). As you may be aware, inventory in Seattle overall, but in your area specifically, is at very low levels. In fact, there is nothing currently on the market that matches what he is looking for.

I realize that your home is not currently on the market, but my client asked that I reach out to you and see if you might be interested in entertaining an offer on your home. There are three things that are vitally important to him and we believe your home meets those needs.

1. Lake access
2. 4 Bedrooms
3. over 3000 square feet

I would love the chance to speak with you about your potential for selling your house. I plan on coming through the neighborhood in the next week and taking some time to speak with some of the homeowners to see if I can find that home for which my client is searching. Feel free to call me before then or I look forward to speaking with you next week."

The letter was hand addressed (I want to say he got a list of some sort from his title company, but I can't remember exactly) It was typed on his company letter head, he personally signed each letter, and included his business card. Cost? Minor paper and printing costs and then $.32 per mailed letter (or whatever postage is these days). Think about it......how often do people get hand addressed letters? I'll bet his open rate was close to 100%.

Try It, What Could it Hurt?

Anyone up to get out and find your client a home? Who knows, if you say the right things you could even pick up an additional listing or three. Don't comment on this post unless you plan on trying this (.......or you think I'm full of shit). Either way, someone here is going to try this and get a new listing. Don't let yourself be the one reading the success stories from other agents!

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Random Thoughts: Charity, Random Acts of Kindness and Lasagna

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 09:23:43 -0800

I love the idea of Paula's post

about doing one random act of kindness every day in December. I'm not going to publicly commit to doing what she suggests, mainly because it would stress me out trying to figure out what to do each day. But I am going to do 5 random acts of kindness in December. I don't have the faintest idea what they are, but I'm going to do it. Heck, if every member of ActiveRain did one random act of kindness, think how much happiness we could bring to the month.

Facebook is not a place to earn new business.

It is a place to cultivate relationships. The chances that someone you don't know is going to end up doing business with you because of something you post on Facebook is about as good as your odds of winning last night's Mega Millions Jackpot. You didn't win, did you? Stop thinking it is going to earn you new business. Instead, treat it like an opportunity to strengthen relationships with people in your sphere. But if you don't have a plan for how you work your sphere to begin with, Facebook isn't going to help. Facebook is a supplement to this part of your business, not the answer to it.

Speaking of the lottery........

I don't know where I heard it, but years ago someone told me that the lottery was a tax on stupid people. I'm not saying if you play you are stupid, but I agree with whoever told me that. (Wait, maybe I am saying you are stupid if you play, haha). The last time the Powerball jackpot got really high (it was like 750 Million, or something ridiculous) I read an interview with a mathematician from Cal Poly. He had bought a ticket even though the probability of winning was astronomical. Basically an impossibility. His reasoning; the value of letting yourself dream of winning became worth $1 at some point. So if you are willing to pay to dream, have at it. Otherwise, just understand you are being taxed for being really bad at math! (I fully expect someone who grew up in Washington to retort with 'some lucky dog's gonna win it'.....the Washington State Lottery motto from years ago).

Does your website generate leads for you?

If not, why do you have one? Seriously, why? Your IDX website (the site on which you display listings) should generate leads for your business. If you are blogging it should absolutely generate leads for you. If you are blogging, and your IDX website is not generating leads for your business, you are doing something wrong. You are either blogging about the wrong things, or your IDX website is deficient. Stop wasting your time. Do one of two things if this paragraph is about you. 1. Contact me. I will help you figure out what is wrong. 2. Quit blogging, you are wasting your time. Seriously, stop right now. There are way better things you could be doing with your time in real estate to generate business.

We are working on a pretty major overhaul of the look and feel of ActiveRain.

Some time in either the first or second quarter of 2013 you should expect to see some major changes to the website. The designs are awesome!! I absolutely love them. We've spent a lot of time creating a new vision for the look and feel of the site. I'm not sure if I was suppose to write about this, so don't hold me to the dates (even though I was pretty vague). But if you read my blog, I figured I'd let you know as a thank you. Consider yourself on the inside now. Lucky for me, I don't think anyone that could actually get me in trouble reads my blog. Haha! Maybe this will teach them to keep a closer eye on me. Or maybe it will teach me that they actually do read it.

Do you want to know the fastest way to get tuned out on Google+?

Share your post with me and choose the 'notify people in my circles' option when the post doesn't apply to me at all. I don't know what circle you have me in, but I don't care about your local event, listing, market report, or a lot of the other crap you are sharing on Google+. I get it, Google+ is a great place to be. You should be sharing your content there. But just because you can click a little box that allows you to get an email in my inbox notifying me that you posted something, doesn't mean you should do it. If you think it would interest me, please notify me. If you don't have any idea what interests me, put me in an appropriate circle.

I stick to what I like

If I go to an Italian restaurant, I get Lasagna. Always! I rarely stray from something I like. And this way, I get a good idea for which italian place has the best lasagna. When I order from Jimmy John's, it's a #12, no sprouts, every time. I'm sure there are other good sandwiches on the menu, but I know I love that one. If I'm having a beer with dinner, it's a Manny's. I always get a strawberry and banana blizzard at Dairy Queen (too often in fact). My shopping cart looks the same today as it did ten years ago. I'll never try a different kind of macaroni and cheese than Kraft. I'm just glad I kicked that Twinkies addiction in my mid twenties......

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

Blogging Blueprints Webinar: Market Reports and Neighborhood Posts

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:13:47 -0800

What: Creating Solid Market Reports and Neighborhood posts, a webinar
When: Friday, November 16th at 9am Pacific Time, it will be recorded
Who: Anyone that wants to start writing blog posts that attract buyers and sellers
Why: Because your blog can and SHOULD be making you money

How: By hitting this little button and signing up

This stuff works!

Rich just wrote a great blog post about the kinds of posts he writes that bring dollars to his business. Lenn just wrote a post about how many clicks her market report posts get and why she writes them. And Cynthia just wrote the exact post all of us want to write sometime soon, she has one hyper local neighborhood post that has added $17,000 to her bottom line this year.

So why wouldn't you get your butt in gear and start writing posts like this?

Why Aren't You Doing It?

If your reason is "because I'm not sure how to write the post". Or if you think "I do these, but I'm not sure I'm doing them right." Or maybe you just don't believe Cynthia. We are going to put an end to that! Actually, if you don't believe Cynthia, I can't help you. You are obviously cynical by nature and I learned long ago a cynic can only help themselves.

On Friday, November 16th at 9am Pacific I'm going to host a webinar. In that webinar I'm going to walk you through exactly what you should have in a market report or a hyper local (think subdivisions and condos) blog post. What are the key ingredients to make sure that when consumers land on your post, they see you as the expert.

No More Excuses!

We've put together a little formula. It's not difficult. We even have some templates that we'll give you after the class. I talk about this stuff in our SEO class. But in this class we'll break down the essential elements of a good local post.

Cynthia is not lying, haha. She has no reason to lie. She made $17,000 this year from one of her posts of this nature. Why the heck aren't you writing two or three of these a week? I can't answer that for you, but I can give you the resources and the blueprint to make it easier. That's what I'll do on Friday, give you that blueprint.

Friends, followers, and connections are the way of the future.

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

Thousands of Views and What does Your Profile on ActiveRain Say About You?

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 10:17:14 -0800

Debe Maxwell has had 62,469 views on her profile, she joined AR in November of 2007
Bliz has had 28,225 views on their profile, they became active in the middle of 2010
Jeff Dowler has had 112,118 views on his profile, he joined AR in September of 2006

Why do you care?

Because people are viewing your profile as well. Ever wondered how many? Head over to your 'my home' page and then click on the link on the left hand side that says 'traffic'. (or just click that link when logged in). At the top of that page you can see how many times someone has viewed your profile.

"Uh oh........."

Or at least that's what a few of you may have just said after you realized you haven't put much thought into what is actually on that page.

Can someone easily get an idea of how you do business? Can they easily find links to your testimonials from other satisfied clients? Can they get a good sense for who you are as a person to decide whether or not they might want to do business with you? Can they easily connect with you on your social media platforms? Does your profile have links back to important posts you've written?

Who sees me?

It's not just other ActiveRain members that are looking at your profiles. Consumers are checking you out after they read your posts. For some of you your ActiveRain profile comes up when someone searches your name in Google. Consumers are searching your names before they plan on doing business with you......

But what if it was just other ActiveRain members? Did you ever consider they might be researching you to refer one of their trusted clients to you? They want to know the same things about you that your clients do.

So does Your profile accurately represent your business? Is it something of which you are proud? Did the 100's or 1000's of people that have viewed your profile come away with a good impression of you? If not, you might want to consider bypassing that next blog post and instead spending 30 minutes updating your profile so it's a good representation of your business.

The members I mentioned at the beginning of this post have been around for a while. So while those numbers are rather large, maybe you are thinking 'yeah, but I haven't been around that long, not as many people have seen my profile'. You'd be right of course.....but these are nothing to laugh at........

Mark Loewenberg has had 3653 views on his profile since joining in January of 2012
Juniper Cooper has had 1529 views on her profile since joining in February of 2012
Matt Cochrell has had 2101 views on his profile since joining in February of 2012

Need Some Good Examples?

The three people I started with are all very good examples of profiles that have most of the pertinent info you would want to have in your profile. Here are some more very good examples.

Anna 'Banana' Kruchten
Richard Yates
Cindy Jones
Eileen Hsu
Dorie Dillard
Amy Hahn

Need Some Help?

Richard Yates wrote a great series of blog posts about how to improve your profile on ActiveRain. Thank you to Debbie Gartner for mentioning it and Alan Mays for tracking the post down for me.

If you are serious about putting your best foot forward to anyone checking out your profile, you'd be wise to head over and read Richard's posts on the subject.

Friends, followers, and connections are the way of the future.

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

Unlocking the Secrets of Keyword Phrases

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:48:38 -0700

What: Webinar to Unlock the Secrets of Keyword Phrases
When: Thursday October 11th, 4pm Pacific Time (7pm EST)
Who: You, that blogger wanting a better idea of how to pick keyword phrases
Why: To get more traffic to our blogs
Where: Your couch, office, bed, roof of your house. Anywhere with internet access as it's a webinar
How: By clicking that little button below and registering

One of the most common questions people have after taking our SEO class, or even as they get started blogging in general is 'what keyword phrases should I target?'.

So tomorrow, at 4pm Pacific Time (7pm for you right coasters, because we always hold them at noon your time and I wanted to switch it up to see if more of you might be able to attend later in the evening) I am going to host a class on ActiveRain University to discuss how you can go about choosing what keyword phrases you want to target in your blog posts.

Some of you do a really good job with this. Some of you don't. (and that's saying it nicely.......actually, I can't say it nice. Some of you are downright BRUTAL!) What keyword phrase you decide to target can have a major impact on the amount of traffic you are able to drive to your blog. Not only that, figuring out what to blog about is a major part of making sure you get in front of the right people at the right time in their search for their next home or agent.

I've never done this as a stand alone class before. I talk about some of the concepts in our SEO class, but we decided it was time to devote some exclusive teaching time to keyword phrases, and how to choose them. I have some fairly extensive experience with this that goes all the way back to the early 2000's and includes having a website that was one of the top real estate websites as it relates to search engines in the state of Washington.

Things have certainly changed over the years, but being a Google Analytics addict has allowed me to keep up with the people on ActiveRain who are doing the right things. I'm going to share some of that with you. We'll look at actual examples of good and bad keyword phrase choices in addition to learning about some of the theory behind how to pick your keyword phrases.

I expect after our class tomorrow you will walk away with a better understanding of how to write blog posts that get you in front of more consumers and lead you to that next transaction. If that doesn't happen, I failed.......(or more likely, you're an idiot......haha! OK, I'm only joking......or maybe I'm not).

By the way, there isn't really a secret (GASP!!). It's really just a matter of understanding some key concepts and then looking at your market and applying those concepts to your market. We'll make sure you walk away with the key concepts, but you'll have to make sure you apply them to your market. Deal? Good!

Friends, followers, and connections are the way of the future.

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No One Tells Me What to Do!!! I Only Do It If I Want To.....

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:15:45 -0700

When we started taking RainCamp around the country in late 2009, I quickly came to realize that no matter how long you stand in front of an audience thirsty for knowledge, there was no way to impart everything we knew about a certain subject. Add that to the fact there were two of us sharing the stage (and sometimes more than two) and it was inevitable that after our 8 hour sessions about online real estate marketing, the folks in the audience always had a ton of questions.

It would usually end up being an hour before Ben and I were able to leave the room because our 8 hours of teaching had brought up as many questions as it had answered. I like to think of that as being indicative of the sheer volume of knowledge available on any of the many subjects we discussed at RainCamp, and not an indictment that Ben and I falied at delivering valuable content. (But maybe I'm just naive, haha)

As RainCamp would progress, and we would traverse the country hitting over 25 cities in the course of the next 18 months, it became very apparent that there was a need in the industry for nuts and bolts training about online marketing in the real estate space. Out of this realization IMSD was born.

What is IMSD you ask? While many of you are probably familar with it, it's the Internet Marketing Specialist Designation. If youa are not familar, it's essentially Ben Kinney's business in a box. Why would you want Ben's business in a box? Because IMSD is the same strategies, scripts, techniques and systems that Ben has used over the last few years to push his business to the point where his team did over 530 transactions in 2011. That was enough to land him on the Wall Street Journal's top 100 agents list for that year. (The list shows his team at 278 deals....but that's just his team in his one Bellingham office. His team actually covers multiple offices but apparently they won't count them all together)

But for anyone paying attention, we all know that online marketing in the real estate space moves pretty fast. What worked yesterday may not be what's working today. And so in the last few months we've been going back and revamping the original IMSD class and we're excited to announce Geeky 2.0.

The new IMSD Geeky 2.0 curriculum is broken up into three parts, social, search and system. In each section there are a series of live and on-demand webinars, homework assignments, and downloadable resources, that will show you how to implement your own online marketing systems on a tiny budget. This isn't theory! It's proven systems that agents around the country are implementing with great success. Of course Ben is using this stuff in his business currently and his team will probably close over 500 deals again in 2012 (if they don't, I know Ben will be pretty disappointed and I will be making him the butt of all my recession jokes in 2013.....yes, I have jokes on file for different subjects)

It's not very often that I write a commercial like this in my blog. Normally I'm sharing some random thoughts with you or talking about some upcoming webinar we are hosting or even giving a tutorial on some cool new feature on ActiveRain. But with the launch of IMSD Geeky 2.0 taking place on October 2nd, the guys at IMSD asked if I would consider writing something in my blog about Geeky 2.0. The only reason I agreed is because if you look at the post on their fan page or you take a look at their testimonials you will see that real people are having real success implementing IMSD's plan in their business.

And for me, the crux of ActiveRain has always been sharing what's working with each other. Sure, we get to rank well in the serach engines, we make some awesome friends, we get to have a place to vent with people that understand where we are coming from........but the real power of ActiveRain in my opinion is having thousands of your peers willing to share what's working for them. To that end, I'm just passing along the message.

If you sign up before the launch on October 2nd you can get started for only $99. (The full price is $399 but you don't have to pay the rest until later.) I have no question you'll recover your entire investment ten times over if you just put a little effort into it. There are folks out there that will swear this has transformed their entire business. If you put a lot of effort into implementing this plan......it could transform your business as well in 2013.

(in the spirit of full disclosure, ActiveRain and IMSD are both owned by Market Leader. But, as the title suggests, no one tells me what to do around here. I only post something in this blog if I want to.........yep, that's right!)

Friends, followers, and connections are the way of the future.

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Webinar: Six Things You Need in a Kick-Ass CRM

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 16:29:44 -0700

(Yep, I said Kick-Ass and I'll make no apologies for it, ha!)

When: Wednesday September 19th, 10:00am Pacific Time
Where: Your couch, office, kitchen table, bed.....anywhere with an internet connection.
What: Me sharing what you should have in your CRM and talking with my hands even though you can't see them. Don't worry, words will still come out of my mouth you can hear
Why: Because a great CRM can add $$$ to your bottom line
Who: Me, Bob Stewart and hopefully you, real estate agent, looking to improve your business
How: By registering here

(are you convinced already? Then just click that little orange button)

We'll be looking at:

How do you prioritize contacts?
How important is it that your CRM communicate with your website?
Can a CRM take some of your work off your plate so you have more time to generate more leads?
How does having more info about your prospect allow you to serve them better?

And a few other things (we have to get to 6 kick-ass things, right?) that are important to consider when picking and ulitmately using a CRM. Because we all know that a CRM is only as valuable as the person working it.....and maybe, just maybe, your CRM can actually make you a more valuable person? If nothing else, it should make you more valuable to your prospects.

The most important part of our real estate business (before we launched ActiveRain) was not our ability to generate 200 leads per day. That really helped, but being able to generate leads on the internet is worthless if you don't have a system in place to convert those leads. In fact, generating leads cost money (or time, but time is money, right?), which means your inability to convert the leads you have is actually costing you money. Ten years ago we had to build our own CRM to handle our leads. Today you have a variety of options, some much better than others, but quite a few that do the things we couldn't find when we were forced to build our own.

(by the way, CRM stands for customer relationship management and it's the system you use to keep all your prospects straight)

So as you go out in the real estate world and decide what CRM you are going to use, what things should you be thinking about? What are the important components of a CRM that will actually improve your ability to convert someone from lookey-lou to bonafide buyer?

We're going to take a look at CRM's and talk about 6 key component of a CRM that you need to have in order to convert leads. We're talking about a fundamental aspect of the real estate business. That's why there are a lot of options out there for CRM's.....because everyone should be using one. And with so many options, how do you decide?

Already have a CRM that works well for you? Maybe you'll learn that you are missing a really important piece that allows you to convert prospects to clients at a higher rate. Not using a CRM in your business right now? This is definitely a class for you. Is your email your CRM? Heaven help you..........because you probably think it works great for you. But the reality is, a good CRM will make you better at converting prospects to clients because it's really hard to keep up with a lead prospect over their buying cycle of a lead. If you only generate a few leads a month in your business, your inbox may work. But get many more than 5 leads a month in your pipeline and you need something to keep it all straight.......or as we already said, you are costing yourself money.

This webinar is going to be sponsored by Big Brother, Market Leader (They own ActiveRain, for those of you wondering why I called them Big Brother). I'm going to use Market Leader screen shots and a live version of their CRM to demonstrate some of the important points of a CRM. If you decide that using the Market Leader CRM is not for you, I promise you'll still walk away with a better understanding of the power of a great CRM. I don't care what brand of CRM you use (and I'll probably be in trouble for saying that......but I don't care), I only care that you have one that is capable of helping you convert prospects to business and that your CRM is making your business better.

So join me or not, I don't care..........(OK, that was a lie, I'm a little bit feisty today. I care a great deal. If no one shows up and I end up talking to myself for an hour I will be sad. Even though I talk to myself quite a bit these days. But it's much more fun to share some of the things I've learned in the last ten years with people that will use that knowledge to improve their business. Don't join me because I'd be sad, join because you want to learn something that could help your business.)

(one last chance)

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Random Thoughts: Dizzle, Mt. Rainier and My Favorite Real Estate Writer

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 13:39:23 -0700

You should really check out Dizzle.com. The concept is very interesting to me and I believe it has the potential to be a great resource for anyone that is in the business of marketing their content online. If you blog, that's you. Basically they have a points system that allows you to offer points when people share your content across their social networks. You can also earn points by sharing others content to your followers. Of course, sharing content is all about finding stuff that is worth sharing, but Dizzle makes it fun and a little bit interesting. I'm looking forward to having lunch with Justin Mchood the founder of Dizzle next week. I have a ton of questions for him. Mainly I'm interested in learning (if he's willing to share) some of the ideas he has about adding value to the points that are exchanged on the site. I believe that if he can figure out a way to add value to the concept of points on Dizzle that he may have a massively successful venture on his hands. Anyway, check it out. They've done a great job of making the set up process easy and informational all at the same time. We could learn a thing or two from them in that regard.

I love Instagram! There, I said it. Want to know why? Because it's made me more aware of the beautiful things around me. For most of my life, I've never been very artistic or into taking pictures. I've been all over the world and don't have a picture to show for it. I have plenty of great memories, but no pictures. With Instagram, I've been trying to capture cool pictures of the places I go and the things I do. Not just any picture......but a good one. And it's so easy to enhance them and make them better.........and then yesterday happened........

I took a picture of my sushi from dinner last night. It was a pretty good pic as far as sushi pictures go, if I do say so myself. But instead of just posting it with some attempt at humor or wit like I've mostly done in the past, I included a few hashtags. I used #sushi and #foodporn along with a few other meaningless fun ones. Guess what happened? In about 5 minutes I had 14 likes on the picture from a bunch of people I didn't know......and now I'm hooked. Would love to have you connect with me there, I'm @activebob on Instagram......but only if you promise to keep the cliche pics to a minimum.

Greg Nino is a reckless sports gambler and a typical Dallas Cowboys fan. Arrogant, full of himself (themselves?) and completely unrealistic based on one game. I keep trying to remind him that Tony "Choke" Romo is their QB, but he refuses to listen to me. His biggest boast is his most ridiculous.......that the Cowgirlsboys are going to score 31 points in Century Link (or 'the Clink' as we affectionately refer to it here in Seattle) Field against the Seahawks defense. Looking forward to the game next week.......and Greg sending me something 'truly Texas' when we win. (If we lose, this paragraph will disappear next Sunday night, haha)

I went up to Mt. Rainier this past weekend with my dad and son. It had been at least 20 years since I'd seen the Mountain that close. Until I was 8, we lived at the foot of the mountain (Ashford WA) and it was common to go up into the park. We drove up to Paradise, which is the highest point to which you can drive. What a beautiful sight! If you're from this area, I don't have to tell you how imposing the mountain is over much of Western Washington. There are some places in the area (coming up HWY 410 for instance) where you come around the corner and it almost seems like you are going to drive straight into it. It's one of the things I miss most about Seattle when I'm not there.

The thing I miss the least.....the rain of course!! But guess what.....it hasn't rained in Seattle in 48 days. 48 DAYS!!!!!! Most people in Seattle are walking around with shit eating grins (where the heck did this phrase come from??) on their faces and mostly befuddled at what the heck is going on. The actual reality of how much it rains in Seattle is not what someone from other parts of the country would believe. Natives to this area perpetuate the myth in an effort to keep people from California from moving here and driving the cost of living through the roof......(our dirty little secret, so don't tell anyone in CA)

One of the best writers in the entire real estate industry is Rob Hahn. If you are not familiar with Rob, you should really be reading his stuff. It would be a major coup if I could convince him to post his blogs on ActiveRain from time to time as he writes about some super important high level challenges and happenings in the real estate industry. His most recent post about the Chicago area association of REALTORS® suing one of their own members for defamation is a must read for just about any REALTOR® but especially for anyone that has served on the board of their local association at any point in your career.

How much time did you purposely set aside this week for prospecting? Don't lie to yourself........I'm talking about having it on your calendar and sitting down with a plan for how you were going to create new contacts for your business. Or I'm talking about taking your existing contacts and leveraging them to earn new business. If your truthful answer is 'none' then I would guess that your business is very susceptible to peaks and valleys. It's probable that if you didn't spend any time this week prospecting it's because you have deals currently that you are in the middle of getting to the closing table or clients that you are working with to find that next home or sell their current one. But without prospecting that closing (peak) you have coming up will immediately be followed by crickets (valley) as you search for your next deal. Successful real estate agents make it a priority every week (day?) to set aside time even when they are busy to keep the pipeline full.....without exception.

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RainCamp Speakers: Does it Really Matter? You're Already Signed Up, Right?

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 15:35:42 -0700

Dumb and Dumber

Ben and Bob....

From late 2009 through early 2011 ActiveRain took RainCamp around the country on a multi city tour of Awesome. If you had the misfortune pleasure of being able to attend RainCamp with us for one of these live, in-person events you had the misfortune opportunity to see Ben Kinney, and me, Bob Stewart on stage sharing internet marketing advice.

So, it should be no surprise to you that our last two speakers for RainCamp are Ben and me. It could be a disappointment, but it's no surprise! And the best part about this RainCamp is that it's online........so in addition to being able to watch and join from your couch, bed, office, kitchen, wherever.....you won't have to actually stare at Ben and me for the duration of the event.

We've been a staple of all the RainCamps and as much as everyone else here at ActiveRain, Market Leader and in the real estate industry in general wish that we would just shut up and crawl back under the rocks from which we came, it's not happening this time. We still have a little bit left to share.

What are we going to talk about? Does it really matter? You're already signed up for RainCamp because of the other four great speakers we have. We purposely announce Ben and Me last so that you have as little time as possible to back out. You've cleared your schedule.......we have you right where we want you! haha!

When we did the live RainCamps, one of the things we liked to do was experiment with different kinds of content. And by experiment, I mean Ben and I would get together the night before RainCamp and throw out a presentation or two from the previous show and add in a new one. We very rarely slept the night before and our masterpiece would come together at some point between 3 and 4 am.

Procrastinators you ask? (how dare you suggest that!!) Not even close! We prefer to use every last minute of our prep time to bring you the best content possible. (OK, that could be a stretch.........). Do we have our presentations ready for Thursday? Of course we do! Could it change between now and then? There's a decent chance.

I Promise.......

Here's what I can promise you. You'll learn something! Or you'll at least be forced to consider some things about your real estate business that you've never considered before.

I was thinking about doing a little piece on 5 (or maybe 4 or 6.......or 13) things on which real estate agents waste their time. There are ways that you can get more efficienct in your business, yet so many agents piddle around with crap that doesn't produce leads, appointments, and ultimately income. (paperwork would be a huge one......are you still handling all of your own paperwork?? I implore you to stop!!)

One of the things I learned while creating this presentation was that trying to pin down Ben on what he is going to talk about is a waste of my time. So my number one piece of advice for you (if I decide to go that route) will be to not attempt to pin Ben down on content any sooner than 3 or 4 am the night before RainCamp........although, that's probably not going to help your business. So maybe I'll have to come up with something else....

Oh the pressure!!

(I promised you wouldn't have to look at our faces, so instead of putting up pictures of Ben and me, I put up the picture you see......enjoy!)

And if you haven't registered for RainCamp yet.......what the heck is the matter with you? Just click that little link over there and away you go

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RainCamp Speakers: Laura Duggan and Debe Maxwell

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:01:07 -0700

I'm once again thrilled to introduce our next set of speakers for the upcoming RainCamp: Best of the Best. Both of these ladies have a ton of experience and run successful real estate businesses. We're super lucky they've agreed to join us on August 30th for RainCamp and share some practical advice about how to make your real estate business better.

Laura Duggan

Laura is the broker owner of West Austin Properties, a second generation family owned real estate firm in Austin Texas. And she is a wizard at prospecting to expired listings (although I couldn't get her to send me any pics with a pointy hat). We've been trying to get Laura to come join us at ActiveRain University but with her busy schedule we haven't been able to find a good opportunity. Well we pulled all the strings we could to have her join us for RainCamp so you won't want to miss it.

Laura's bio reads like she's been in the business from birth......and in many ways she has. She has been actively involved in helping people buy and sell real estate for over 30 years. She has more accolades and designations than she can fit on ten business cards but none of that matters to you if she wasn't using marketing tactics that work. And of course it wouldn't matter to you if she was using marketing tactics that work unless she was willing to share them with all of us at RainCamp. And that's exactly what she plans on doing.

Whenever I get the chance to speak with someone about joining us for RainCamp, I always impress upon them that I'd like our members (and anyone else joining us as well) to be able to walk away with concrete tactics and actions they can put to work tomorrow to make their business better.

I have no doubt Laura will do just that as she shares with us some of her secrets to prospecting to (or is it for?) expired listings. If you've ever thought, "I want to start marketing to expireds", or "I want to be better at marketing to expired listings" then you need to be at RainCamp with Laura.

Debe Maxwell

If you've been around ActiveRain long enough you've surely come across Debe Maxwell. She has been with us since the very early days of ActiveRain and she is one of my most favorite people on the site. She's genuinely interested in sharing everything and anything she can with her peers. In many ways people like Debe are the foundation of what ActiveRain is and has been over the years.

So recently as I was rounding out our speakers and looking for someone that could come share some practical advice about real estate, I immediately thought of Debe. She participated in our last physical RainCamp we hosted in Seattle and has helped us before at ActiveRain University.

On August 30th at RainCamp Debe is going to share with us some practical advice about marketing to your sphere of influence. Many agents swear by marketing to their sphere. For many of you out there, the majority of your business comes from marketing to your friends and family and hoping that they share your name with their friends and family when they are considering buying or selling. But how to we ensure that our name stays top of mind with our sphere without being pushy or feeling like we are exploiting our relationships?

Come listen to Debe live (online) at RainCamp on August 30th and you'll no doubt be in a better position

Who Else?

Stay tuned. On Monday I will be sharing with you our last two speakers. I'll give you a hint, it won't be the first time they've joined us for RainCamp! In fact, if you ever came and saw a live, in-person RainCamp you're probably glad we now do these online as it relates to the last two speakers. (and once I share them with you, that last sentence will be really strange as I will have been talking about myself in the third person, which I can't stand!)

You can find our previously announced RainCamp Speakers here:
Raincamp Speakers Sue Adler and Ryan Dallas

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RainCamp Speakers: Sue Adler and Ryan Dallas

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 08:05:36 -0700

Over the course of this week I will be introducing you to the speakers who will be sharing some amazing information with us during RainCamp on August 30th.

I'm very excited to announce Sue Adler and Ryan Dallas.

Sue Adler

If you haven't heard of Sue Adler, you probably don't pay attention very close to what others in the industry are doing. Sue was on Inman's 100 Most Influential Real Estate Leaders 2011 and her team ranked #91 on the Wall Street Journal's list of most successful real estate teams nationwide. They did annual production for 2011 of $77 million.

Let's just say Sue knows how to run a real estate business. And she's done it successfully at different brokerages and in different states. Formerly the #2 RE/MAX agent in all of Pennsylvania, Sue completely started over in 2004 when she moved to Short Hills New Jersey. Didn't matter, she's built that business up to where it is now in quick order having had the number one KW team in that area since 2005. How has she done this? With a focus on what consumers want from a real estate agent.

During RainCamp on August 30th, Sue is going to share with you some of the insights she's discovered about what consumers are really looking for when it comes to their real estate agent. How does she know? It could be from years of experience running a highly successful team (it's definitely that).........but also, she justs asks them.

Say what? Yep, she asks them. Crazy, right?

Sue is a co-founder of Hear It Direct, a real estate conference that is a little different than your average real estate conference. Different how you ask? They go out and find consumers and put them on the stage to find out what consumers are really thinking about the way our industry markets and conducts business.

Here's a little of what Sue will share:

Learn what consumer insight can teach you about buyers and home search
Discover the secrets of how sellers chose their agent (it's not really a secret when you ask them....they'll actually tell you)
Realize the vital importance of proving your value. How can you do this?

I'm certain you'll walk away after 30 minutes with Sue and have some new insight and ideas of how to be more effective connecting with the people with which you wish to do business.

Ryan Dallas

My guess here is that you probably haven't heard Ryan's name (unless you are continually staring at his name on the MLS in Champagne County, Illinois or you remember him from REALTOR® Magazine 30 under 30 in 2011). And after meeting Ryan earlier this month, I'll guess he could care less. His focus is on closing real estate deals. His team did over 300 of them in 2011. (I think it was closer to 350, my memory isn't as good as it used to be).

I had the good fortune of meeting Ryan in early August when he came into Washington to hang out with my friend Ben Kinney for a few days. Ryan wanted to pick up a few pointers for how to run his business more efficiently. I suppose when you are closing that many deals, efficiency becomes really important. At lunch with Ben and Ryan, I point blank asked Ryan, "what is the best ROI in your business? Where do most of your deals come from?"

His answer surprised me..........."Radio"

How many of you, when thinking of forms of mass communication and effective ways to market your business, think radio? My guess is not many. But Ryan says that hands down it's been the best marketing vehicle for his business. So we're going to bring him to RainCamp and pick his brain about how to create an effective Radio campaign, how much they cost, what kind of results he gets and why he thinks it's the greatest thing since the pony express? (I mean really, what kind of mass communication was there before radio?)

We'll have him play one or two of his ads and also talk about how any of you can get into doing radio advertising, some of the barriers to entry, and what he's learned during his time doing radio that can help you become effective with it a little faster.

Who Else?

Stay tuned to my blog this week as I continue to share with you the other presenters and some of the cool stuff we'll be learning at RainCamp. Haven't signed up for RainCamp yet? Get moving!

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How to Get 1000% More Traffic to Your Blog Post

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:17:31 -0700

(This could be a post about writing headlines that get people clicking........and it is, but in a different way. We'll come back to the ridiculous statement in the title.....)

On Thursday at 9am Pacific time I'll be holding court for an ActiveRain University webinar where I'll review blog posts from our members. A number of weeks ago we had a contest where I challenged you to write hyper local posts. During the challenge we did a draft review class where I ripped apart blog posts from a few brave members of ActiveRain. In doing this, we were taking a look at some of the things people were doing that were great, but also some of the things people were doing that weren't so great......all with the aim of creating content designed in the best fashion to rank in the search engines.

Guess what.....we're doing it again.

Would you like to have your blog post reviewed? Sign up for the class, then email me a link to your post. (my email address is on the sign up page for the webinar) I won't be able to review them all, but we'll definitely take a look at 4 or 5 posts and break them down based on what you've learned in our SEO class.

(You have taken the SEO class, right? If your answer is no, you should clear out an hour sometime before writing your next post and watch it via the link above. It will be the best hour you've spent on AR and unquestionably put you in a better position to write your next blog post........but only if your goal is to reach more consumers with your content.)

Since you are already writing content, with the aim of getting consumers to find you, why not make sure you are doing it the correct way. Maybe you are missing the boat altogether and wondering to yourself....'self, why is my blog not raining prospects and delivering quality leads to my doorstep?'. If that's you, then this is the class for you.

Or, maybe you are wondering 'self, where can I find a hilarious, brilliant, good looking guy who will be online hosting a webinar on Thursday August 16th from 9am to 10am Pacific time'. If that's you, just keep on moving, there is nothing to see here!

None of those things describe me, but I've gotten pretty good over the years at helping people tweak their content to get it ranking better in the search engines. And while I can't promise you 1000% increase (I just did that to get you to click on this post) in the amount of traffic your blog posts get, I'm very confident I can share a few things to get you ranking a little better and possibly taking a better approach to your blog in general. The last time we offered the class we had a number of long time ActiveRain members comment that it was one of the better classes they've taken as it relates to improving their blog posts. I'd love to have you thinking something similar Thursday after class.

(I must have been out sick that day and someone smarter than me must have been teaching the class. I'll see if I can figure out who that was and get them to make an appearance on Thursday, haha!)

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Ten Reasons Why Every Social Media Manager Should be Over 30

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:31:01 -0700

Cathryn Sloane, a 2012 graduate of the University of Iowa, recently wrote a pretty juicy post about why Social Media managers for companies should be under 25 years old. The foundation of her thesis was that the under 25 age group grew up with things like Twitter and Facebook and therefor have some innate understanding of what social media is really about.

It got a lot of play on Facebook and Twitter (it should have, she sounded to be auditioning for a job) and certainly made the rounds to anyone in the social media space paying attention to more than their own brand.

Being a social media manager of sorts for ActiveRain, and being the ripe old age of 35........I felt the need to respond. So here are my ten reasons why all social media managers should be at least 30.

1. There are no incriminating photos, status updates or comments from me on the internet. (OK, this might not be entirely true, but let's run with it) Even though I was using the internet in 1993 (remember Compuserve? I know you don't if you are under 25, so don't even lie about it). By the time something I posted on the internet had the potential to spread world wide I was smart enough to know that my next boss might not be as impressed with my keg stand as the 50 people standing around the keg chanting were.

2. My life is made up of more experiences than high school and college. Now don't get me wrong, I learned a ton in high school and college. In fact, I think high school was the pinnacle of my brain's capacity to take in useless information. You should see me at Jeopardy. And college? Couldn't have been a better environment to develop my social education. But since then, 13 years later, I've been in the business world, I've connected with thousands of people that have shared their life experiences with me and I've learned more about what really matters then most 25 year olds even realize they need to learn.

3. Speaking of knowing what I don't know. I now know I don't know it all. At 24......HA! I was a classic know it all. Too dumb to know what I didn't know. Surrounding yourself with smart people and allowing their penchant (and I've learned a few big words! ha!) for learning to rub off on you is one of the best ways to realize you don't know it all. When you were 23, how many smart people did you surround yourself with?

4. I lived a real social existence before I could create a fake one online. I hate to tell you this under 25er, but you don't have 578 friends (and you darn sure don't have 3124) no matter what Facebook tells you. I used to have to pick up the phone and call my friends, or gasp, go see them in person. Is it better or worse to understand the basic tenets of something before applying those things online?

5. I know how to actually speak to people.......IRL (and I know enough short hand text messaging to be dangerous! ha!). We've built a pretty vibrant community here at ActiveRain. Want to know how the real heavy lifting was done? Picking up the phone and actually calling someone. As an under 25er, you probably don't realize how much gets lost in translation with the written word. Your :-) at the end might not have come across as a joke to the person reading it. Eventually to be a real social media manager you're going to have to talk to people.....and you won't be able to say 'dude', or 'like', or 'umm' every third word.

6. I never do anything dumb (OK, that's just ridiculous)

7. I don't live in my mom's basement. This one is really just a low blow. I'm not sure if it would matter one way or the other whether I live in mom's basement or not. But part of not living in mom's basement means I have all the coolest toys to participate in social media and I don't have to worry about mom and dad deciding they aren't going to foot the cell phone bill any longer. When I go to all the fun real estate conferences, I can pick up the tab if I have to and endear myself to all the other fun social media people that will go out and say how awesome I am.

8. I've learned over 10 years in the real estate business, the last 5 actually running a social network, how to deal with really unhappy people. Any brand worth its weight is going to have people online that want nothing more than to see your logo go up in flames like Chernobyl (look it up, it happened the year before you were born). What are you going to do when those people say the most vial and nasty things about the company you love? There is an art to putting someone in their place online and it's something you learn from experience. And guess what.....when you write something that really gets under people's skin, you have to step up and face the music. You can't just disappear from the conversation.

9. People in their 20's are highly unpredictable. You might even know this about yourself, but it's true. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule, but if your friends come calling at 8pm with awesome tickets to Rihanna concert tonight, are you going to be able to turn down the offer because you have an 8am meeting the next day? I never turned down one of those calls in my 20's. I've never accepted one in my 30's.......because I'm old, boring and married.......but extremely predictable.

10. I learned that top ten lists are a great way to get people to read your stuff. I could have just used paragraphs and been all journalistic, because that's what I learned in college, but I've been around a little bit and everything you learn in college can be found in a library......there is no substitute for the real world.

Welcome to the real world.

So there it is, eight reasons why all social media managers should be at least 30.........but never over 40! (haha! That was a shot at my friends Brad and Jay, the old geezers running things over at Zillow)

If you'd like to watch and listen to Kerrie and me duke it out with Eric, the under 25 social media manager of RealEstate.com, on this topic and a few others you can join us for a Google+ hangout on Thursday.

Watch along live, July 26^th at 11:00 AM. You can tune in at:
Youtube: www.youtube.com/realestate
Google+: Google + Hangout

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Special Webinar: Creating Awesome 'Calls to Action'

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 17:17:23 -0700

We just finished a challenge where we encouraged all of you to write about very specific 'hyper local' areas of your market. You responded in huge fashion and submitted over 1500 blog posts about every nook and cranny across the country.

These are the kind of posts that can drive a substantial amount of traffic to your blog. I've seen these type of posts generate well in excess of 10,000 clicks over their life. And the real beauty? They just keep on giving. If done right, they have no shelf life and will be generating interested searchers for some time to come.

But making your content available so people can find it online is only the first step in taking an internet searcher and turning them into a happy client with a brand new home. Once you know how to get your content ranking and are able to get people to find it, you have to understand how to take that traffic and make real connections with those anonymous searchers.

Webinar: Creating Awesome 'Calls to Action' for Your Online Marketing
Info: Wednesday August 1, 2012 at 11am Pacific Time (1 hour long)
Register here: ActiveRain 'Calls to Action' Webinar

On Wednesday, August 1 at 11am Pacific Time (that's 2pm Eastern for my time zone challenged friends) I invite you to join me for a special ActiveRain Webinar on creating awesome calls to action in your content. Getting them to find you is only half the battle. Making sure they connect with you is our next fight.

Of course, we want to have a link out of our content back to our IDX that easily allows them to find the current homes for sale in the area they are interested in, but what else can we do?

Here are a few of things I'll be sharing on August 1st.

Creating links that have the highest impact and result in the most leads
Using images as a call to action and how to create these images
Creating splash/landing pages we can link to that easily capture content info (or whatever the heck you want them to capture)
Embedding forms and other calls to action in our content so the visitor can take action on the page as opposed to having to click off somewhere else
Using special deals as a way to drive the behavior in which you are interested
I might even have a special thing or two to you as well

We'll have something for people of all skill sets. Does the word embed scare you? Don't worry, I'll make sure you get to learn something as well. And it won't just be all about your blog. Even if you don't have a blog, but maybe you like posting to Twitter and Facebook, or doing pay-per-click campaigns, we'll have a litte something for everyone.

Go ahead and get signed up by clicking the link above and don't forget to tell me your favorite action hero as a kid so I can scour ebay to find one lucky AR member a blast from their past

If you would like the recording, sign up for the class even if you can't make it and we will make sure everyone who registers gets a copy of the recording

&amp;lt;a href="https://imsd.wufoo.com/forms/z7x1x7/" data-mce-href="https://imsd.wufoo.com/forms/z7x1x7/"&amp;gt;Fill out my Wufoo form!&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;see what I did there? Made it just a little easier for you to engage with me........

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What Do You Do For Each Client or Listing? (2500 points inside)

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 19:33:18 -0700

On Tuesday July 17th, we hosted a webinar with Joel and Caleb from Merge where we talked about how the average agent portrays value to their sellers (or clients in general). Caleb shared with us some fascinating stats about how much of what you do as listings agents is never properly conveyed to the seller.

Many agents are keeping their clients updated verbally, recalling efforts simply from memory. Some are keeping lists of their efforts and creating manual processes to keep clients updated. Until recently, the options for inputting, tracking and keeping clients abreast of developments have been somewhat limited. Merge is solving that because unless you have a system, something is bound to get lost in translation or not get conveyed at all.

Sure, when you sit down at the listing appointment, you probably attempt to wow the seller with all of the amazing marketing you will do to get their listing sold. But what about the other facets of the process that aren't bright and shiny but still show the sellers how hard you are working for your commission. I'll bet much of this never gets relayed to your client (whether at the listing appointment or at any point later in the process). You do all these things for your clients, and they never know.

So Merge and ActiveRain wanted to throw a challenge your way to force you to take a hard look at exactly what you do for your clients when you either list their home, or even when working with a buyer.

This is where you make your money. This is where your commission is justified. These are the things you need to be able to easily convey to your clients so that they know you are worth what they are paying you to help them buy or sell.

The Challenge:

Write a blog post that details what you do for each client during the process of helping them buy or sell their home. Pick one or the other. Look at this scenario either as the listing agent, or as the buyer's agent. Feel free to do a post for each, heck, having it all in one place will help you figure out areas you can get better and really help you to see how much of what you do is being properly conveyed to your clients.

Will will award 2500 points for each blog post a member enters that details the steps you take to complete a transaction (sale) for your clients. (only eligible to get points for one post......but don't let that stop you from doing two)

Posts should be written and submitted by Monday August 13th at 11:59pm Pacific Time. In order to submit your post, place a link to your post in the comment section of this blog post.

If you are not an agent, that's fine. I want you to detail what steps you take to move your client from 'you just met them' to 'happy satisfied customer'. Take the same frame work and adjust it to your business.

The idea is let's clearly identify each and every step along the way where you provide value. Think of this blog post as something you could put in front of your client at the beginning of the process that would have them saying "Wow, I get all of this for only x%? Where do I sign!!"

The Prizes:

As I mentioned, each blog post submitted will be given 2500 points.

We will randomly draw 1 post for a free IMSD Membership

We will randomly draw 2 posts for a free one year membership to Merge

Points, We Don't Need no Stinkin Points:

I try to bring you guys challenges that will help your business whether or not you get AR points or prizes. The points and prizes are secondary. For some of you, this will be a breeze. You know EVERY SINGLE process that takes place from the time you begin working with a client to the time you send that one year 'Happy Home Anniversary' post card. But I'll bet a large swath of you don't have it written down and aren't able to easily convey all of the value you provide to your sellers.

There has to be an easier way:

Of course, the guys at Merge set out to make an easier way. An easier way to keep your clients up to date on what you are doing for them. They set out to create an easier way for you to convey your value. They set out to create one place you can use to keep your clients updated and where they can see your value demonstrated on a consistent basis. You can check out their product and get a free 7 day trial. Maybe it will even help you keep your next client informed and happy with the job you've done.

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Reinforcing Your Value to Your Clients: A Special Webinar

Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist, ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 12:42:37 -0700

We have some amazing innovators and entrepreneurs in the real estate industry. I had the good fortune to work with one at our real estate company and while starting ActiveRain. It's easy to spot these guys (or gals). They have a passion for the industry which is contagious, are looking to solve a problem and will not let anything get in their way. They have a way of bringing out passion in those around them (that's the contagious part, right?).

I've been getting to know one of these people. I'd like to introduce you to him. His name is Joel Beasley and he created Merge. (and he reminds me so much of Jonathan Washburn, one of the co-founders of ActiveRain, that it's kind of strange speaking to him........the similarities are eerie, in a good way)

Five minutes on the phone and you can tell he has passion. A little longer and you know that he's spotted a problem and has set out to solve it.

On Tuesday, July 17th at 9am Pacific time (12pm ET), ActiveRain will be hosting an interactive webinar where we will introduce you to Merge and have a discussion about what we can do in the real estate industry to reinforce the value of a great real estate agent in the real estate transaction. How can you make sure your clients understand exactly what you are doing to help them get their home sold?

The value of the real estate agent has, to some in the general public, been eroding. Many people, outside our industry, look at real estate and think the internet has somehow made real estate agents less valuable. They don't need an agent to find their home. They can do it online. They don't need an agent to sell, they can place it online where everyone goes to find their next house........We know, however, that simply having access to a ton of information doesn't put you in any better position to make decisions unless you can interpret that information and have the experience to make solid decisions because of your expertise. Expertise is not built by consuming large amounts of data. It's built by working inside an industry on a day to day basis and getting intimately familiar with the nuances.

And we know finding the house is just the tip of the iceberg. We know that placing your home on the market to sell is the first step, in a long process to completing the sale. We know that going online to find our next home is only the beginning of a journey that most people will make only a few times in their life. The real value of a real estate agent is the knowledge to bring every piece of a real estate transaction together and keep it moving forward toward a successful sale.

How many pieces and moving parts are involved in that process? More important, how many of the things a real estate agent brings to a transaction are actually conveyed to our buyers and sellers?

That's the problem Merge has set out to solve. Joel and his team at Merge have built a real estate application that helps you demonstrate your value as a real estate agent. They've made it super easy for you to communicate to your clients exactly where you bring value to their real estate transaction.

I'd like to invite you to meet Joel as well. I'd like to invite you to learn a little bit about how much value we as an industry are actually conveying to our clients and how much is being lost in translation. I'd like to invite you to learn a better way to let your clients know why you are worth every dollar they pay you to successfully complete their real estate deal.

I couldn't be any more excited to facilitate this discussion and show you a new application that could transform the way you communicate to your clients the value of a real estate agent in their transaction.

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Seattle Real Estate News and Events

It's Raining......ActiveRain

ActiveRain Meetup in Fort Worth Texas, Tuesday June 4th

Challenge: Crowdsourcing the Way to More Referrals

The "Aha"

The Story

The Challenge

The 'Crowdsourced' Webinar

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Plaza Del Sol Condos, Capitol Hill Seattle (Demo Post)

Plaza Del Sol Condos, Capitol Hill Seattle

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ActiveRain Meetup in Dallas

ActiveRain Meetup in Dallas, TX on Saturday, February 16thfrom 8pm-10pm!

You'd Expect Me to Have a Leash On

Put a Leash on that Overgrown Kid!

I'm likely to do anything.

We Could Actually Do Something Productive

They've let me off the proverbial leash!

Not With KW, but in the Dallas Area?

Recording: Hitting Your Social Media Sweet Spot

I love my job.

Hitting Your Social Media Sweet Spot

You Can Target Your Message Based on Geography

Webinar: Hitting Your Social Media Sweet Spot

Just the Facts:

When: Wednesday, January 23rd 10am Pacific Time (1pm Eastern Time)Where: Your couch, bed, office.....wherever you have internet accessWhat: Webinar discussing effective ways to share content on Social MediaWho: Me.....and You......How: By Signing up here

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Go Find The Listings

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But It Doesn't Stop There

So What Did the Letter Say?

Try It, What Could it Hurt?

Random Thoughts: Charity, Random Acts of Kindness and Lasagna

I love the idea of Paula's post

Facebook is not a place to earn new business.

Speaking of the lottery........

Does your website generate leads for you?

We are working on a pretty major overhaul of the look and feel of ActiveRain.

Do you want to know the fastest way to get tuned out on Google+?

I stick to what I like

Blogging Blueprints Webinar: Market Reports and Neighborhood Posts

This stuff works!

Why Aren't You Doing It?

No More Excuses!

Thousands of Views and What does Your Profile on ActiveRain Say About You?

Why do you care?

"Uh oh........."

Who sees me?

Need Some Good Examples?

Need Some Help?

Unlocking the Secrets of Keyword Phrases

No One Tells Me What to Do!!! I Only Do It If I Want To.....

Webinar: Six Things You Need in a Kick-Ass CRM

Random Thoughts: Dizzle, Mt. Rainier and My Favorite Real Estate Writer

RainCamp Speakers: Does it Really Matter? You're Already Signed Up, Right?

Ben and Bob....

I Promise.......

RainCamp Speakers: Laura Duggan and Debe Maxwell

Laura Duggan

Debe Maxwell

Who Else?

RainCamp Speakers: Sue Adler and Ryan Dallas

Sue Adler

Ryan Dallas

Who Else?

How to Get 1000% More Traffic to Your Blog Post

Ten Reasons Why Every Social Media Manager Should be Over 30

Special Webinar: Creating Awesome 'Calls to Action'

What Do You Do For Each Client or Listing? (2500 points inside)

The Challenge:

The Prizes:

Points, We Don't Need no Stinkin Points:

ActiveRain Meetup in Dallas, TX on
Saturday, February 16th
from 8pm-10pm!

When: Wednesday, January 23rd 10am Pacific Time (1pm Eastern Time)
Where: Your couch, bed, office.....wherever you have internet access
What: Webinar discussing effective ways to share content on Social Media
Who: Me.....and You......
How: By Signing up here