Is It a Bird? A Plane? An H2?

I must admit ... it's been hot here in Chandler. As I share this picture with you, I glance down at my weather report and it flashes a 110 at me ... yes, it's that hot. So, when I was driving down the street and saw this car in front of me ... my first thought was "Really? Pink? It must be a mirage".  You know - when you think you're seeing something that's not really there....  Ever have that happen to you? What do you think? Want one?

Part-Time vs. Rookie Agent - Which one would you rather hire?

"Would You Rather?" Question #2

Since this is a real estate industry blogging network - I would first like to ask you to put the shoe on the other foot and put your years of experience to work by allowing a newbie to benefit from the knowledge that you, perhaps, take for granted. 

Last night, while I was desperately trying to convince a group of hyper 9 years old divas to go to sleep,  this question popped into my head.

As a home buyer or home seller - which type of agent would better serve your needs? 

Would you rather work with a Part-Time agent or a Rookie agent? 

As a Rookie myself, I can see the benefits of both - but then again, I can also see alot of potential in a Rookie. For instance, since I've only had my license for a couple of months, I have had the "luxury" of sitting in on quite a few continuing education classes - including Orientation, Code of Ethics, Fair Housing, etc. etc. etc.  However, I lack the day-to-day experience needed to serve my clients fully.

How does a Rookie compare to a Part-timer? The real estate industry hasn't been very kind to agents in the last year, so there's probably a measurable number of experienced part-time agents who use to be full time. I'm not thinking about these people.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that because of their experience - they'll always have the knowledge and benefit of their experience - regardless of the number of hours they work.

I'm thinking more about the people who have had little or no experience, work a full-time job doing something else and have their real estate license on the side.  I know that they, too, have the same continuing education requirements, but how do they utilize that education? How do they serve their clients?

Now - I leave you to the commenting on this thought provoking "Would You Rather?"

I can't wait to read what everyone has to say.  Thank you in advance!

Wanna Play A Game? Let's Play "Would You Rather?"

Sometimes when we're in the car, we like to quiz each other. It's a strange, but fun habit that everyone in my family partakes in. Well, actually, anyone who rides in my car gets to experience a barrage of "Would you rather .... " questions.

Wanna play? It's actually quite simple and a great way to get to know something about another that you may not otherwise have the opportunity to know.

Tonight on our way to our neighborhood Starbucks, my daughter asks me "Would you rather go to a store with great customer service and so-so quality or a store with lousy (or non-existent) customer service and great quality?"

Hmmmm ... I'm thinking this is a really great question. Not just because my daughter thought of it (she is a genius, like her Mother, after all) - but because it brings up an age old debate - Does good customer service bring the customer back?

If you've ever had to make a return to any retail establishment, you know what I mean. What about the clerk who isn't empowered to make the customer's experience the very best?

Ever had to make a return only to be told that it's the store's policy to give the $$ back on the store's gift card? How about the store that hands you a credit receipt and tells you that you need to go upstairs to the Customer Service counter to get your cash?

Good customer service or poor policies?

When I worked for Corporate America - I was literally brainwashed with the importance of good customer service. From the very first interview to my very last day, I was educated on the importance of great service. Customers are always #1.  While they may not always be right, certainly the way it's handled is a true testament to the character of the representative and ultimately the company.

The picture above is of "my" Starbucks.  Located on the corner of Chandler Blvd/Dobson Rd, this is absolutely the very best Starbucks in Chandler. I have visited other stores in different states - Hawaii, California, Colorado and all over Arizona and feel quite confident in saying that "my" Starbucks is the BEST.

Want to know what sets this particular store apart from the hundreds of others?  It's those people in the picture.  While I must admit most of the time my iced-tea is just an iced-tea - it's the service that keeps me coming back to this store day after day.  And let's be realistic, I actually have three other Starbuck stores within a 1 mile radius of my house.  Literally - there's one on every corner. 

BUT - this Store - with these people - that's the difference.  If I'm up north in Scottsdale and say, I get the wrong drink, but don't realize it until I'm half way home (or sitting in traffic on the freeway).  "My" Starbucks will fix the drink by usually giving me a new one - at no charge.  This, to me, is good customer service.  I know it's makes me one happy (returning) customer.

So - Would you rather have poor customer service and a great quality item or great customer service and so-so quality?

Craig Schiller Opening Doors ... Guest Blogger for Homescape

While reading through my Google alerts earlier today,  I came across this announcement that our own, Craig Schiller, owner of Real Estaging in Chicago, IL, has been tapped to be a guest blogger on Homescape's consumer  focused blog - Opening Doors.   Craig is known to be

"one of the most widely read staging bloggers on the Internet"

WOW - now that's a title for a business card!   In case you've missed out, you can read some of Craig's posts here and here and here.  Craig has also received nationwide recognition on  television (NBC, ABC, USA TODAY, CBS, FOX) just to name a few.

 You know what's really exciting about all of this?  We knew Craig was destined for greatness from the first time we read his post here on Active Rain.  We knew Craig when he was just starting out in the industry ... and honestly, over the years - we still know Craig.  And we know that this recognition is well deserved.  Agree?

For The Love Of ... Michelle Minch of Moving Mountains Designs & Staging

Don’t you just love talking to people, in any industry, who absolutely L O V E what they do? Everything they seem to say just exudes their excitement about their talents, skills, passion.

You know the old saying “Enthusiasm is Contagious” – well that’s what I’m talking about. I’m talking about that moment of time when someone says something and you just get it. Ah! Ha!

That’s the way I felt when I was talking to another stager-friend about the unique qualities of our industry and the exciting things that are on the brink of happening.

That’s when it happened … she mentioned a friend of hers that she felt was confident, passionate, intelligent and a leader. Doesn’t that sound like someone each of us should have in our lives?! I felt like I was missing out because I don’t know her friend like she does.

Who is this friend? Well, you can guess by the title

– it’s Michelle Minch of Moving Mountains Designs & Staging

in Pasadena, CA. By the end of the conversation,

I really felt like I had been missing out on meeting Michelle

and seriously, like I should be boarding an airplane

and joining her for Thanksgiving! Yeah - it was like that.

So – from interior design to set design, this is what I've learned of Michelle:

• She’s passionate about what she does!
• She’s incredibly TALENTED! (visit her website for proof!)
  
• She’s very eloquent and a good writer/blogger!
• She’s someone you can trust! (read the testimonials on her profile!)
  
• Her clients feel honored to have worked with her!
  
• She makes doing business with her, a pleasure!
• She’s a smart businesswoman!

If I were a home seller or hot shot Hollywood type, I would be calling upon Michelle! I would like to thank A/R for yet another opportunity to meet such an amazing person. I am so blessed. Have you met Michelle?

An Open Letter to All REALTORS - from a Prospective Buyer (and Potential Client)

Dear REALTOR,

Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Prospective Buyer.  I am the person that all of your marketing and advertising dollars, when applied properly, appeal to.  If all the stars align, I’m your client.  I’m even already pre-qualified to buy a new house.  While my credit score is not quite perfect, it is in the excellent range. 

Quite unexpectedly, I found myself in unfamiliar territory (outside of the state that I currently reside in) looking for a new home.  As the majority of today’s buyers do, I started my search on the internet.  I looked through the local MLS and determined a quadrant that appealed to me.  My search included four local cities within a 25 mile radius of my new office location.

After two days of searching (without a local REALTOR to help), here is what I determined:

For re-sale homes:

I visited approximately 26 single family homes with for sale signs posted in their front yards. Out of those 26:

12 had no fliers at all

10 had no price listed on the flier

1 flier’s information did not match the sign in the front yard (different agent!)

0 fliers invited me to call for more information (or to make an appointment)

From the new home communities:

Now, as I mentioned that I did not have a local Real Estate Professional and before you ask, I want you to know that I did contact a few of them – 4 to be specific.  I called on Sunday afternoon to see if they could show us around on Monday.  What I found was, 2 did not answer their phones, 1 already had a meeting and could/would not refer me to another agent in their office and 1 didn’t work with new home communities – so I felt this left me on my own.  (Remember, I said I was there unexpectedly).

If you are spending your money, energies and your time to sell your listings and catch the attention of perspective buyers, then it shouldn’t be this hard to do business with you. 

Here are my suggestions:

• When your phone rings – answer it. 

• If you’re too busy to answer my questions, please refer me to someone who can.

• Be patient with me.  I’m going to ask questions that you have answered a hundred times, but it’s all new to me.

• Update the fliers and keep the tubes/boxes filled.  Even black/white copies are better than nothing.

• I know it’s probably inconvenient, but could you please put the price on the flier?

• Consider including additional information on the back of the flier – how about your other listings? More info on the house?

• Tell me why I should hire you as my REALTOR?  Even if it’s over the phone, I really want to feel/hear that you like – no make that LOVE – your chosen profession.  (There’s nothing worse than working with someone who hates their job. Right?)

• Use the Internet.  If you can’t include info on the fliers (which seems like a loss of opportunity), at least point me to an Internet website that will fill me in.

• When posting your listings on the local MLS, please, please, please provide me with as many photos of the actual property that you can.  I don’t care about the community pool as much as you think, but really want to see what makes this particular property worth my time to call you and schedule and site inspection.

• Take advantage of out-of-state buyers and blog!  Share yourself, experiences, education and listings with me – appeal to me like you really want my business.

I want you to know that I DO want to hire you.  I do want to be able to utilize your skills, talents and education to my fullest advantage when either buying or selling property.  This is not an area that I am comfortable in and am willing to pay you to share your expertise and represent me in this transaction. 

Thank you for taking your time to read my letter.   I appreciate your time and look forward to working with you in the future.

Most sincerely,

Prospective Buyer

(The above story is true and based on this bloggers recent experience. On a personal note - I work with incredible and professional REALTORS and real estate professionals every day.  I have been well educated by them on what is a fair and acceptable expectation...this is probably why my recent experience caught me so off-guard.  In my naivety, I thought most agents operated the same way.  (Obviously my mistake)).

I Missed My Anniversary?! How did that happen?

October 14, 2006 was my one year anniversary. I guess we're still newlyweds, because we're still spending a lot of time together.  I wake up early to spend extra time.  I check-in periodically.  We even spend our evenings together.  How could this have happened? Our anniversary - and I missed it!

Here's a picture of my significant other:

Oh come on - you've got to know by now that I've been married to the same wonderful guy for almost two decades and would (hopefully) NEVER forget my own anniversary - which by the way, is also this month!

38 people joined A/R the same day I did.  But, only one of those 38 has more points than I do (and I really don't have as many as I should) ...  Allison Stewart of Florida Pines Realty in Saint Cloud Florida - She's got 4x as many points as I do - she's over 120,000!!!  

While I've been busy blogging about home staging, Allison's been writing such wonderfully witty posts such as:

• Running Naked Through Real Estate 
• Distressed Properties and A Diamond in the Ruff 
• What Real Estate and Menopause Have In Common (my personal favorite)

By the way, Allison is also the founder of A/R's REALTORS community.  Take a look at these stats!

• Start off by going to your Profile 
• Click on the "Points Summary"

• At the very end (or the beginning depending on how you look at it) - Is the date that you set up your profile (Here's mine)

Armed with that information, you then: 

• Click on the A/R Logo Above
• Scroll down the front page till you see "ActiveRain Membership"
• Under the heading are these two: New Members Today  Top Referrers
• Click on New Members Today
  
• On the right side bar, are the months by year. 
  
• Click on your Anniversary Date
• Voila - there you are - back in the beginning!

AZ Blog Party With Craig Schiller - Thanks & Some Pictures

Everyone who took time out of their busy schedule and/or drove hundreds of miles to join fellow Active Rain members last night at Garduno's in Scottsdale was rewarded with warm welcome, great conversation, quality drinks & appetizers and a great opportunity to put a face with a blog :) 

Of course, the guest of honor was our very own Craig Schiller from Chicago. 

                                                                    Penny Schoenbeck & Mike Jones

 Craig & Dru Bloomfield                                     Jill, Penny & Dale                       Dale & Janice Sutton

Craig & Dan from PropertyNut.com were also there, but somehow escaped my camera 

                   so did Gary Miljour and Tracie Martin 

At least one person who was at the restaurant and couldn't find his "real" group joined us - his name was Robert - who just happened to be a REALTOR.  (If I'm wrong on this - correct me... wasn't someone going to send him an invite to join A/R?)

Thanks to everyone who made it. A special thank you to Mike Jones for driving up from Tucson and to Janice Sutton who drove over 5 hours to get here from Murrietta/Temecula, CA! 

Gary emailed and suggested we do this more often ... like once a month.  What do you think?  We could absolutely turn this into a "real" networking group where we could all learn from each other, network and refer business.  Wouldn't that be nice? ...  What do ya think? 

AZ Home Staging Roundtable: Walking Away With A Plan

I'm so excited to write this post that I can't wait for Craig to return from the pool... So, I'm going to go ahead and recap what happened at today's AZ Home Staging Round Table.

First off, let me just say - WOW! It's always so amazing to see what happens when a group of talented and intelligent business people get together. I like to use the word "synergy". Ideas just seems to build and grow into something great.

Who was there? Craig Schiller, Yvonne Root, Janice Sutton, Nancy Cummings, Debbie Wheeler, Tracie Martin, Stephanie Heron-Weeber and myself.

We discussed "The 10 Questions" posted earlier by Craig at length. The first question of the day was presented by Maureen Henry of Rockland Home Staging. "Is home staging a viable career choice?" While everyone agreed that it is indeed not an easy choice, but you can make a living at it - sometimes at the expense of everything else. What it comes down to is - what are you willing to sacrifice for the success of your staging business?

An open discussion took place about standardizing our terminology of (Kate Hart of Hart & Associates Staging and Design) "Simple, Standard & Select Staging" and the benefits of such for our clients. Not to be confused with price fixing, but the impact on our clients to be able to compare apples-to-apples and the effectiveness of such. Would such terminology increase potential clients knowledge of staging and help them to make better choices for hiring a home stager?

From Michelle Minch of Moving Mountains Design & Staging, "How will the current volatile and dropping real estate market effect the staging industry?" This one small sentence contains quite a punch when home stagers are together! Michelle adds "Is there a price point in home sales below which staging will no longer be an option for home sellers and REAs?" These questions followed by Tracie Martin's request to discuss overcoming objections, opened up a lively chat! Debbie Wheeler and Nancy Cummings queried why any home seller take a price reduction over staging? Discussion ensued about the out of pocket expense of our service. While the benefits truly outweigh the price tag, we need to realistically acknowledge that sometimes people just don't have the money to pay upfront.

Jessica Hughes of Ambiance Staging asked "Given the same budget, would you rather do several vignette in a few rooms or "full blown" staging in one room?" Craig admitted that all of his stagings are "Select" Stagings and not vignette. Tracie Martin shared that at the request of a client, will stage "vignette" style. Janice Sutton offers a "partial-partial" of kitchen and bath staging. I took that to mean "accessory only" staging as there is no furniture involved.

A fun part of the roundtable came from Bath Patnode of Stylish Transformation. "What are you least favorite aspects of being a Professional Home Stager? Also, what are you favorites?"

The least favorites include:

1. Paperwork
2. Networking
3. Cold-Calls
4. Inventory

The Favorites:

• Shopping
• Speaking to Groups
• Actually Staging a Property
  

Janice Sutton submitted the question about "What are some of the most successful marketing tools used by home stagers?" Of course, fliers, brochures, presentations, impact of business cards, etal were all discussed. The issue of gifts was also discussed. Do you give gifts (whether it's a Starbucks gift card or a book) to your client? Does it matter if it's a home seller or an agent? What kind of gift is appropriate?

Craig shared his vision for "Stage It Forward" and the concept of helping one another build their staging business - without the threat of competition or fear or losing business.

The highlight of the entire Round Table was the energetic discussion about collecting "pure" statistics. Everyone in the group commented on the lack of actual/verifiable stats on staged homes selling faster and for more money. Craig talked about the opportunity to have stagers submit their stats (at a state level or regionally) for compilation. Each stager would need to submit 4 staging statistics (via fax) in order to receive a quarterly report to use in their marketing, etc. Make sense? Craig is working on a easy-to-fill out form for use. I'm sure he'll post a blog about this very soon.

In closing, Craig said "Thinking small, keeps us small." WOW - Together, we can grow the home staging industry and with Craig's vision - I, for one, am expecting great things.

So - who's next?

AZ A/R Cocktail Party On Tuesday 10/23 with Craig Schiller