Low-Cost Tips to Get your Home Ready for the Holidays
It's that time of the year again and even though getting your home ready for the holidays can seem like a chore, it doesn't have to be. Fortunately, it doesn't even have to take up much time or money, either. You can do it in a few easy steps. Just get in the mood to be creative.

Add colour and texture
Simply displaying some richly coloured pillows or throws in any room can give the room a different feel. Choose warm and spicy colors, or maybe something with mirror work to catch the light and add to the glowing effect and sparkle of the holiday season.

Neutrals, metallic and peacock shades are the hot holiday hues of 2008, so don't feel like you have to stick with the traditional red, green and white schemes.

Artwork, throws and mirrors can also add a new splash to the walls.

Spread some warmth
Changing the shades on your lamps to warm coloured ones can make the light appear richer. By lighting candles in holiday scents - ensuring, of course, they're displayed in safe areas away from flammable objects - your room can take on a warm glow.

Revamping or creatively using what you already own can also create lush looks in leaner economic times. For instance, filling a clear glass bowl or vase with ornaments of a single bright colour can make for an eye-catching display.

Another trick that makes for a pleasing display that is kind to the wallet involves bringing in some evergreen cuttings and using ribbon or other household items to dress them up. And you can make old wreaths look new by attaching fake berries, sprigs or pine cones.

You can also refresh your old decorations by dressing them up with paint or glitter.

Make it cozy
There's no better time than the present to get started on your holiday cleaning. If you rid your rooms of clutter, especially those catch-all coffee tables and kitchen counters, your home will seem much more inviting.

Piles of junk mail, unfiled bills and magazines not only look messy, but can also interfere with your cleaning efforts. It's much easier, and faster, to dust a clear surface than to clean around three months' worth of the latest decorating magazines and some early Christmas cards.

To eliminate - and prevent - clutter, everything should have a designated space. Magazines, for instance, can be placed in a bin under the coffee table, while children's art can be stored in a chest or accordion-style folder.

And to encourage an even more inviting atmosphere, think about arranging your furniture in conversation groups. You have to move the furniture anyway in order to get rid of those dust bunnies, so why not try arranging them in a fresh, new manner?

A Secret Scrolls message from Rhonda Byrne
Creator of The Secret

 

The greatest thief of human happiness and abundance is ungratefulness. Any lack in our lives - whether in money, health, or relationships - is simply the evidence of a lack of gratitude. If you focus on lack you are not being grateful, and that will bring more lack into your life. Yet the simple state of radiating gratitude summons everything to you. 

No matter who you are or where you are, you can change your life with gratitude, but you must feel it with your whole heart and radiate it from every cell. Gratitude is not a mental exercise, and in fact, if you simply use your mind for gratitude it will have little or no power. True gratitude comes from your heart! You must think gratitude through your heart, speak gratitude through your heart, and feel it intensely in your heart.

Then practice gratitude relentlessly. As you practice gratitude you will attract more thoughts and feelings of gratitude. In a short time your entire being will be saturated with it, and you will experience a happiness that is beyond what you can imagine. This is what is ahead for you when you choose gratitude as your way of life. And if you can really live in this highest state of gratitude, you will never have to ask for anything. Everything you want will be given to you before you even ask, because gratitude is the magnetic substance that opens every single door in the Universe.

This Thursday is Thanksgiving in the United States. To celebrate Thanksgiving, I want to share an excerpt with you from The Secret Daily Teachings, which is being released in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia on December 9th. This excerpt presents an easy way to start using gratitude and integrate it into your life by making every Thursday "Thank You Thursday." As you "Thank your way through every Thursday" you will open the most powerful receiving channel within you.   

 

From The Secret Daily Teachings - Thank You Thursday

"Today is Thank You Thursday. Today and every Thursday is your day to say and feel "Thank you" in as many ways as you can.

Write a list of all the people and events you want to give thanks for. 

Return thanks today to those who have done things for you.  

As you walk say "Thank you" in your mind with each step you take. 

As you drive, make each time you stop your cue to say "Thank you." 

At various times in the day, think and feel "Thank you" inside you seven times in a row. 

Look for every opportunity to say "Thank you" to other people, and say it with so much meaning that the person looks right at you. 

Thank your way through every Thursday, and make "Thank you" your predominant thought, feeling, and words of the day.

"Thank you" - two words, inconceivable potential power, and all they need is you to put the power into them by expressing them.

Thank you!"


Excerpt from The Secret Daily Teachings

                     .     .    .

May the joy of gratitude be in your heart,

Rhonda Byrne
The Secret... bringing joy to billions

A great Real Estate teacher and coach Brett Noel sent me this piece that I just had to share

I think everybody should study ants. They have an amazing four-part philosophy

Ants never quit. That's a good philosophy. If they're headed somewhere and you try to stop them; they'll look for another way. They'll climb over, they'll climb under, and they'll climb around. They keep looking for another way. What a great philosophy, to never quit looking for a way to get where you're supposed to go.

Ants think winter all summer. That's an important perspective. You can't be so naive as to think summer will last forever. So ants are gathering in their winter food in the middle of summer.

Ants think summer all winter. That is so important. During the winter, ants remind themselves, "This won't last long; we'll soon be out of here." And the first warm day, the ants are out. If it turns cold again, they'll dive back down, but then they come out the first warm day. They can't wait to get out.

And here's the last part of the ant philosophy. How much will an ant gather during the summer to prepare for the winter? All he possibly can. What an incredible philosophy, the "all-you-possibly-can" philosophy.

This is a great article by Mike Stevens about CRM

Executive Summary

CRM can bring enormous benefits to corporations, but only if users adopt it. Therefore, winning over sales organizations and obtaining buy-in at all levels are crucial to the success of any CRM initiative. Front-line salespeople are often the major source of resistance. In the past, when they have asked the question, "What's in it for me?" the answer has been, "Not much." The newest solutions from leading software providers such as Oracle change this, with features that let salespeople work the way they want to, reduce their administrative burden and genuinely support personal success in every aspect of the sales process. This white paper provides a brief overview of documented CRM successes to indicate why it's so important, discusses CRM adoption problems in general, then presents a detailed description of the features that directly benefit individual members of the sales force. It also offers some tips to help foster high adoption rates.

CRM: The Adoption Rate Challenge

CRM works. According to Software Magazine, roughly 30 percent of companies that deploy CRM report "significant improvement" in sales organization performance, including shorter sales cycles, increased win rates, fewer order errors and faster rampup to full productivity for new reps.

1 http://www.salesandmarketing.com/m sg/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_cont ent_id=1003589960

2 http://www.crmlandmark.com/saasma rket.htmQuantifiable successes reported by Oracle customers include 3: · 200 percent increase in profits over two years (BT) · 300 percent increase in sales (ViewSonic) · $17 million savings in monthly billing costs (Verizon Wireless) · 25 percent reduction in callhandling times (U.S. Department of Homeland Security) · 32 percent increase in retail checking customers (PNC Bank)

 In the past, sales executives who have seen numbers like these and turned to CRM for help achieving them have faced a major hurdle: user adoption. According to an AMR Research study in 2002, 47 percent of companies faced "serious challenges" with user adoption. This year (2007), CSO Insights reports that only about half the companies it surveyed had CRM adoption rates of 75 percent or higher. The unfortunate truth is, 3http://www.oracle.com/applications/cu stomer-relationship-management.htmlorganizations cannot reap the substantial benefits of CRM unless user-adoption rates are high, and this is not always the case.

For sales organizations, an unsuccessful deployment can have a negative effect on sales performance, not to mentionmorale and management credibility. For IT departments, poor adoption rates are a disaster. In a business climate where budgets are tight and resources scarce, unsuccessful initiatives take resources away from other projects, lower the credibility of IT and leave the problem the initiative was supposed to fix unsolved. Therefore, achieving high adoption rates is a critical imperative.

CRM is becoming increasingly popular. In 2001, fewer than 45 percent of companies surveyed by sales consulting firm CSO Insights had deployed CRM in their sales organizations. Now, that figure has reached 66 percent,1 and IDC predicts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31 percent for on-demand CRM from 2004 to 2010.2 There's a good reason for this growth:

The Resistance to CRM

Why does CRM encounter resistance? There are several reasons. The first is that rank-andfile salespeople on the front lines often perceive CRM as a tool that exclusively benefits management. It lets "them" track performance more easily, create forecasts for upper management, while for "us" it only means more paperwork, CRM Your Salespeople Will Love Copyright © 2007 Oracle Corporation and IT Business Edge. All rights reserved. 2 less flexibility and more snooping.

The question, "What's in it for me?" has no satisfactory answer. These criticisms had at least some justification in the past. It can be argued that early CRM was designed primarily with management in mind. There was nothing wrong with its promises of centralizing customer data in one place, integrating previously siloed views of the customer, not to mention more accurate forecasts.

However valuable these capabilities were to an organization as a whole, they were management features with little connection to the everyday realities of selling.

A second issue -- and some would argue the most important -- was the amount of "wasted" time spent meeting the needs of the systems. Early CRM put salespeople in data-entry mode when they wanted to be in sales mode. Every half-hour spent filling out forms was a half-hour not spent in front of a potential customer.

Finally, non-intuitive user interfaces that were hard to learn aggravated all the other problems, and there typically was no integration provided for productivity tools salespeople already used, such as Outlook and Excel.

In the eyes of salespeople, CRM imposed a burden on their most precious resource - time - with no demonstrable benefit. On the practical level, it posed daily problems, and on an emotional level it generated resentment.

Supporting Sales Success

With more than 12 years' experience in CRM, the Oracle team has developed an approach to CRM that addresses all these issues in ways that make life easier for salespeople and specifically foster success throughout the whole sales process.

Lead Generation. Every sale begins with a lead, and if that lead comes from a typical leadgeneration process, such as a direct-mail campaign or a Web banner, it should be carefully qualified before it reaches the salesperson who is supposed to act on it. Failures in this area are so common that many salespeople simply ignore these leads (if they can) or deal with them grudgingly.

In contrast, Siebel CRM On Demand, Oracle's subscription based CRM service, provides leadqualification scripts that assign a numerical value to every lead based on a combination of parameters defined by the sales organization, such as budget size, budget status (approved, pending, etc.), decision timeframe, location and so on. Salespeople need only follow up on leads that meet a predefined threshold score. This reliable, objective lead-qualification system has two important positive effects on salespeople:

· They understand the process for qualifying leads, so they can trust it.

· They don't feel they're wasting time following up on leads, because leads are prequalified.

· Ultimately, they can increase their close ratio, because the percentage of viable deals entering the pipeline is higher.

Background information. Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand provides contact information, a history of prior interactions, related deals (such as with a different division in the same company) and other Salespeople can obtain all the background information they need on a single screen, instead of having to hunt through multiple enterprise databases. important data that help salespeople refresh their memories or get up-to-speed with a customer they've inherited from someone else.

Sales call preparation. While preparing for sales calls can take hours, CRM On Demand significantly reduces that time. For example, at any stage of the sales process (however that may be defined by the organization), a list of specific resources is available, such as PowerPoint presentations, white papers, success stories and the like. These can be downloaded with a single click. CRM On Demand can even be linked to Google maps to provide singleclick driving directions. (This feature is typical of the end-userfocused enhancements in CRM On Demand. In terms of application design, it's a trivial feature. But for a salesperson hurrying out the door to make a sales call on time, it's a huge benefit.)

Better lead qualification, better background information and better access to sales resources all genuinely help salespeople maximize their time, work more efficiently and close more deals. Rather than feeling at crosspurposes with management, salespeople using CRM On Demand can feel that their goals and the goals of management are aligned.

Keeping Organized 

Some salespeople are wellorganized. For others, organization is a challenge. Either way, Siebel CRM On Demand is a support, not a hindrance. It gives salespeople quick access to existing information about accounts, provides convenient ways to collect and add new information, and lets salespeople create and prioritize tasks to help them stay on track during busy days with constant interruptions. Existing information. In most businesses, crucial information about deals and customers - everything from contact phone numbers to invoicing data - is scattered over a variety of corporate database and back-end systems. CRM On Demand presents the primary information salespeople need to work their deals in a clear, single-page format. For leads, to give one example, this includes basic contact information, company background (revenues, number of employees, etc.), associated accounts and information about the lead itself, including its source.

Other relevant data, such as order histories from a back-end financial system, can be made available with a single click. New Information. Obviously, part of a sales rep's job is to collect information, and again, CRM On Demand makes this easy. The input forms are simple, they can be customized to meet individual or group needs, they can be accessed by a variety of endpoint devices (laptops, mobile devices, desktop computers) and the user doesn't even need to be online to access these functions. Tasks. The CRM On Demand home page gives sales reps a quick overview of everything they need to do, including scheduled meetings, tasks (created inside the system either by the rep or automatically) and alerts, which typically are sales department messages and notifications. To help salespeople make decisions on how to spend their time, tasks can be prioritized by due date or by the size of the associated deal.

User-Friendly Flexibility

One of the biggest barriers to adoption of CRM systems is the learning curve. CRM On Demand minimizes the challenges of adopting a new system through a combination of familiarity, customization and online help. This is an important benefit of the system. No matter how many features a CRM application may have to help salespeople work more efficiently and close more sales, these features are useless unless they are easy to discover and use.

Familiarity. CRM On Demand is a Web-based system, so the navigation is virtually second nature to any computer user. The system also can be configured to use the familiar terminology within the organization to describe stages of the sales process or the quality of various sales opportunities. Customization. Screens can be modified at the enterprise or departmental level to add new fields or redesign forms. Even individual users can customize the look of their screens, adding, moving or deleting sections as they desire. For salespeople, the result is a system that bends to the way they work, not vice-versa, and this is powerful support for adoption.

Finally, CRM On Demand eliminates user frustration through a comprehensive, contextsensitive help system, so users can get quick, concise explanations of how a particular feature works and how it can help them.

Integration for Ease of Use

One of the most important ways CRM On Demand supports the way salespeople work is through integration with third-party applications. Many would argue that the most important is Microsoft Outlook, the first application that many people in business open every morning. Due to the Siebel/Outlook integration, users can read their e-mail and, when something related to leads or opportunities appears, transfer information to the Siebel system without leaving Outlook. Moreover, the transfer method is simple dragand- drop, with no typing required. CRM On Demand also can interact with Web-enabled back-office systems that previously might have required a separate log-in. This could provide, for example, a list of all the orders a customer has placed within a given time period.

In addition to integration with software applications, CRM On Demand can also integrate with mobile devices, such as BlackBerry, Palm and Windows CE-based devices, so salespeople on the road can have a choice of access modes. (This flexibility also helps the IT department.)

Best Practices

Coaching

While the "compelling event" concept has merit, there are many other ways to look at the sales process. CRM On Demand is completely flexible so that the most successful sales processes can be cloned.

CRM On Demand offers a unique coaching feature that helps users emulate the best practices of the company's sales stars - or simply follow basic best practices that have proven effective over time. The coaching screens are available at various stages of the process, and provide detailed suggestions on how to move the sales process forward. The screen below, for example, begins with the common premise that sales are motivated by a "compelling event," and explains not only how to determine from a customer what that event might be, but also how to take the process several moresteps forward.

Sales beginners who want and need guidance welcome this feature. But experienced salespeople who are new to the company also can benefit from these features, as they help explain what otherwise might be unfamiliar terminology. In short, it's yet another element that can lead salespeople to view CRM On Demand as a help, not a hindrance, to success.

Indirect Benefits

The features and benefits outlined above are important because they affect salespeople directly, but CRM On Demand provides important indirect benefits as well. The most obvious involves leads.

The system includes a leadmanagement process that, like the lead-evaluation process, operates objectively based on business rules that can ensure fairness, prevent favoritism and eliminate embarrassing mistakes, such as assigning the same lead to two different sales reps.

A coaching feature guides new employees through the sales process with customizable best-practices screens. Less obvious, but arguably more important, are CRM On Demand's analytical capabilities. CRM On Demand is the only subscriptionbased hosted system that offers a built-in data warehouse that can provide insights into historical trends. These insights don't affect salespeople's' day-to-day lives, but they enable a company to make better decisions in marketing, and even with new product development. These decisions ultimately affect salespeople's'pocketbooks. For example, if adjustments to lead-generation activities result in a higher percentage of qualified leads at the front end of the sales process, this ultimately will be reflected in higher sales volumes - and bigger commissions.

The point here is that if the sales organization as a whole is more successful, the company will be more successful, and this success can translate into important personal benefits, such as job security and more attractive compensation packages.

Tips for Success

While CRM On Demand has been designed to encourage highadoption, the process by which the system is implemented can have a significant positive -- or negative - - effect. Here are some suggestions based on years of experience with CRM deployments in a wide range of organizations. Review existing processes. There could not be a better time to review your total sales process than when you are thinking about a new CRM application. In addition to the core process, don't forget about potential integration with other applications, such as Microsoft Outlook or, if you're an Oracle shop, Oracle E Business Suite.

Establishing links with these systems can further streamline the sales process, and any change that speeds up or automates tasks will help garner sales force support.

Sell management. In survey after survey, upper management buy-in is cited as the No. 1 factor in obtaining high adoption rates. This should be no surprise. Senior managers control the important "carrots" and "sticks" that influence adoption by the rank and file. Communicate with key upper-level stake-holders, and point out the benefits that are important to them, such as more accurate forecasting and strong analytical capabilities, including historical data for trendspotting.

In addition to persuasion, consider making executive adoption mandatory, and designate CRM On Demand as the means of running the business on a daily business, such as communicating about sales opportunities and reporting to upper management. Consult directly with salespeople.

In the past, CRM systems have been designed primarily with management's needs in mind, but to foster high adoption rates the needs of front-line salespeople are very important. When you solicit their input about how CRM could help them sell more effectively, you achieve two objectives:

· You receive valuable input on the ways day-to-day aspects of the sales process can be improved (along with a healthy dose of griping, it must be admitted).

· From a psychological point of view, you lay the groundwork for acceptance of the initiative. To build credibility, however, it is important that you have direct contact, as opposed to indirect contact through managers. Minimize data entry. Data entry is a thorn in the side of most salespeople, who view it as a necessary evil at best, with no value to them personally. There are three strategies related to data entry that can help this situation:

· Reduce the data you collect to a minimum. Ask the obvious questions, such as "Do we really need to know this?" and "Is this data actionable?" Fight the tendency to achieve completeness - and be prepared for some political battles.

· Explore importing data from other systems (in real time) to reduce the amount of typing required. CRM On Demand supports this.

· Provide check boxes to answer questions when the input can be pre-defined (such as purchasing time frames). Ensure adequate training. No matter how intuitive an interface may be, users need a certain amount of training. Make sure they get it. Set up a help desk for the first month or so that will accept phone calls as well as e-mail questions. And leverage the variety of training packages offered by CRM vendors like Oracle. Providing immediate relief to frustration will help keep adoption rates high over time.

CRM Your Salespeople Will Love Copyright © 2007 Oracle Corporation and IT Business Edge. All rights reserved. 6 Ensure adequate consulting. Sometimes it's best to engage experts. Oracle can provide frontend consulting to make sure the start-up process goes smoothly. Sell the users. Remember, most salespeople view CRM as a management tool. The value of the sales force-friendly benefits outlined in this paper may not always be self-evident to users. Therefore, it's vital to remind them on a regular basis of the ways the system can make their lives easier and help them sell more.

Conclusion

CRM can bring enormous benefits to a sales organization, but only if adoption rates are high. Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand has been specifically designed to foster high adoption. When it's combined with an appropriate implementation process, sales organizations can feel confident of success.

Oracle

Oracle (NASDAQ GS: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. Oracle technology can be found in nearly every industry around the world and in the offices of 98 of the Fortune 100 companies. Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand delivers the industry's most complete subscription-based solution for sales, marketing, and service, providing organizations of all types and sizes with rapid time to business value. Oracle is the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the world's second largest independent software company. Visit our Web site at: www.oracle.com/crmondemand.com

IT Business Edge

IT Business Edge delivers the information, analysis and context business technology decision makers need to maximize returns on IT investments and align IT initiatives with business objectives. As a Technology Intelligence Agent, IT Business Edge provides content different from that of a traditional IT publisher, news service or analyst firm. Our editors monitor all these sources - plus many others - for critical IT information that they translate into actionable advice for high-level IT and business managers. Subscribers access our practical content and useful decision-making tools through a rich Website, targeted e-mail newsletters and varied RSS feeds. All these outlets feature our business-focused blogs, exclusive interviews with field experts and industry insiders, plus our database of more than 20,000 abstracts summarizing content from 2,500-plus sources. Visit our Web site at: http://www.itbusinessedge.com

About the Author

Mike Stevens began his career as technical writer in semiconductor manufacturing, and then switched to marketing. At his own Silicon Valley-based agency, he worked with an impressive list of clients, including HP, EMC, Fujitsu, and Microsoft. His primary focus for the last seven years has been enterprise software.

Copyright © 2007 Oracle Corporation and IT Business Edge. All rights reserved.

McMurraysBestHomes.com Fort McMurray Alberta MLS Market Stats
Updated November 4, 2008
October 2008		$ Value of Units Sold for Current Month	# of Units Sold for Current Month			# of New Listings for Current Month	# of Active Listings End of Current Month	$ Average Unit Price for Current Month
RESIDENTIAL
1. Single Family		$43,553,501	63			165	452	$691,325
2. Multi-Family		$9,655,600	21			68	136	$459,790
3. Other/Duplex		$4,598,800	9			24	40	$510,977
4. Mobiles		$45,000	1			3	6	$45,000
5. Mobiles/Own Lot		$6,075,500	14			27	92	$433,964
6. Other (Out of Town)		$530,000	1			18	103	$530,000
TOTAL		$64,458,401	109			305	829	$591,361
NON-RESIDENTIAL
1. Vacant Land/Lots	$400,000		3			28	146	$133,333
2. Commercial	$875,000		1			3	20	$875,000
3. Other	$0		0			8	16	$0
TOTAL	$1,275,000		4			39	182	$318,750
GRAND TOTAL	$65,733,401		113			344	1011	$581,712
Number of Residential Units Sold According To Price Category:
Under $69,999				1	$170,000 - 199,999				0
$70,000 - 119,999				0	$200,000 - 249,999				0
$120,000 - 129,999				0	$250,000 - 299,999				1
$130,000 - 139,999				0	$300,000 - 349,999				3
$140,000 - 149,999				1	$350,000 - 499,999				27
$150,000 - 169,999				0	Over $500,000				77
This information is obtained from independent research of Fort McMurray MLS activity and does not necessarily represent all the activity in the market.  We believe the information herein represents an accurate picture of the market although we don't warrant it to be so.

A friend Dirk Zeller of RealEstateChampions.com sent me this article that I want to share with my fellow REALTORS

We all want the people we are trying to sell a home to, to just "roll over and buy".  Even a neophyte Agent finds it easy to make this type of sale.  An unskilled salesperson fears hearing objections, but a great salesperson views objections as opportunities.

When you get an objection from buyers or sellers, make sure that you hear clearly what they are saying.  If you interpret the objection wrong, the answer you give, no matter how eloquent, will not be sufficient to overcome their area of concern.  Let me give you a few techniques I have used to turn objections into dollars.  I pause to make sure I clearly understood, and then repeat what they said or ask them to explain further.  This technique will do a few things for me.  First, I can confirm what their objection was to ensure I understood it properly.  Second, it enables me to be well prepared when I respond.  I bought myself a few seconds while my brain prepared my answer.  I was able to respond in a powerful, well-planned manner.  Third, I avoid the big mistake of trying to answer the objection before the buyer or seller gets the objections completely out of his mouth - as if stopping the buyer or seller from stating the objection completely

Your mental approach to an objection will determine your success or failure.  Most Agents dread hearing an objection, but most objections result from one of two situations.  One is the seller or buyer has legitimate concerns regarding the property and/or your skills to sell his home.  The other occurrence of objections is because your presentation was not good enough.  You did not convey the confidence that you are the person for the seller to hire for the sale of his home.  You did not make a convincing enough presentation for the buyer to purchase the home you showed him.  The clients' desire to work with you is a natural ending to a good presentation.  If the presentation is weak, the objections will flow like a river.  There are really only about forty possible objections in the selling process of real estate.  The question is why haven't you learned them all?  If you wrote them all down and practiced them for half an hour a day for the next s

The problem is we do not regularly practice countering objections in real estate.  The Dallas Cowboys spend four to six hours a day practicing football.  The players and coaches spend a couple more hours a day reviewing film and studying their play books during a two month span in spring training, and then they play four practice games in pre-season to prepare for the real NFL season.  Next, the players and coaches spend a few hours a day practicing and watching films, five or six days a week to prepare for one 60-minute game.  They will spend forty to fifty more times practicing and preparing for the game than actually playing the game.  How skilled in sales would you be if you adopted that regiment?  How about if you practiced even one hour a day on your skills at overcoming objections?  You would become an unstoppable real estate sales person.

The second observation regarding objections is they truly are an opportunity to get a signed contract.  When a buyer or seller gives you an objection, he is presenting you with an opportunity to close.  He is basically saying, "I like this, but there is one factor I do not like."  The buyer might say, "If the home you are showing me had a larger patio, it would be right for me."  All you have to do is get him a larger patio, and you have made a sale.  You must put your problem-solver hat on.  If you solve his problem, then you get the opportunity to ask him to buy.  The client can say, "Yes", or give you another objection.  If he gives you another objection, you get another opportunity to solve the problem and ask him to buy.  This procedure may continue for a few objections.  Do not give up; you are getting closer to a sale.  As long as you are able to continue to solve his problem, the client will buy.  Remember, you are the problem solver.Too many Agents adopt the position of a deer looking in the headlights when an objection comes their way.  These Agents have a negative mental attitude towards objections.  They view objections as a big wall between them and the sale - a wall so tall they cannot see a way around, over, under, or through.

Join the ranks of the highly-skilled and highly-paid professional REALTORS®.  Change your mental approach to objections.  Implement a practice program.  All it takes is a daily commitment to practice for at least 30 minutes.  Commit today; you will not believe the results 60 days from now.

A friend Dirk Zeller of RealEstateChampions.com sent me this article that I want to share with my fellow REALTORS

The ability to focus is crucial to achieving success in any endeavor we try.  Why do some Agents work 70 hours per week while others can work 40 hours and get the same results?  From personal experience, I know I would not have been able to work a four-day workweek without intense focus.  How well do you focus?  How well do you stay singly concentrated on the task in front of you?

We counsel our clients to time-block their days in order to learn a deeper focus.  This time-blocking allows them to stay focused on one thing at that moment.  When Michael Jordan is shooting a free throw, he is singularly focused on the free throw.  He is not thinking about the foul, the next play they will run, or the defensive scheme to use against his opponents.  He is focusing on the free throw and nothing else.

There are always people and circumstances that will try to take you out of your focus such as your prospects, other Agents, your staff, and your clients.  The key is to not be distracted by outside forces.  During an NBA game, when the visiting team is shooting a free throw, the crowd has long thin balloons that they wave violently to distract the player.  Since the backboard is glass, if the shooter is not focused on the rim he will miss the shot.  All he should look at and focus on is the rim.

We all have a few rims that we need to focus on every day such as prospecting, lead follow-up, listing appointments, showing property, and writing and negotiating contracts.  By focusing intently on these rims daily, you will achieve massive success in real estate sales.

We are all focusing on something at every moment.  For example, right now you are focusing on this article.  How often are we focusing on the wrong thing?  The key is to be focusing on the right thing.  If you carry a lighted flashlight that is focused up instead of down at your feet, what would be the odds that you would trip in the dark?  The odds, I say, would be fairly good.  The flashlight is pointing at something; it just might not be pointing at the right thing.

The most successful people focus on the process, not the product.  The product is a natural outcome of doing the process well.  The process repeated daily truly separates the producers from the non-producers.  The process needs to be broken down to what they need to do each and every day to get the product they desire. 

The process in real estate is very simple. It is:

• Generate new leads daily
• Follow-up on the leads you have daily
• Ask all leads for an appointment daily
• Qualify all leads and appointments daily
• Practice your appointment skills daily (i.e. buyer interview, listing appointment, scripts and dialogues, and objection handling)
• Go on appointments daily
• Ask your appointments to do business with you

If you focus on this process and incorporate it into your daily routine, the product of commission earned, sales made, listings taken, and financial independence for your family will be assured.

A friend Dirk Zeller of RealEstateChampions.com sent me this article that I want to share with my fellow REALTORS.

Creating Daily Success in Real Estate

The journey to a successful life should be enjoyed.  True success comes from accomplishing the daily activities that will lead you to your ultimate goals in life.  Failing or neglecting to accomplish the daily disciplines will lead you down the path of lost opportunities and lost income. 

If the penalty for not accomplishing your daily activities or disciplines was implemented or assessed today, we would look at neglecting them differently.  The truth is the penalty for neglect is more visible in the future than it is today.  The person who eats fried foods does not pay the penalty at 35, he pays at 55.  The person who fails to save 10% of his income for retirement is not penalized at 40, but at 60.

If we were zapped today from neglecting the daily disciplines rather than in the future, our daily disciplines would change.  We have to make the neglect more painful than the activity.  There are three disciplines that must be done daily in real estate for success; working on growth, administration, and working ON your business.  Let's look at each individual area comprehensively.

Growth

Growth is the part of the business that brings in the revenue for your business.  The more time you spend of your day in growth, the more income you will make.  Most Agents work on growth activities at the last minute, when they are running short on funds.  The problem is that is too late.  To have a steady business income you need a steady approach to growth.

Growth is the prospecting that you do daily.  It is the listing appointments that you have for the day.  It is the lead follow-up that you are doing on the people who want to buy or sell.  It is the meeting with your lender to work on your competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Growth is the critical part to any business.  Without growth a business will fail. I know a lot of Agents who are highly skilled in growth and poorly skilled in administration and working on their business, who earn large amounts of money.  I know of very few successful Agents who are not highly skilled at growth.  You can have huge deficiencies in administration and working on your business but still win the game.  You cannot be deficient in growth and win. 

Administration

These are the activities that complete the income stream:

1. Processing the listing so Agents can find it in the MLS
2. Processing the sold property through escrow  
3. Communicating with your clients on a regular basis
4. Directing your staff and monitoring their progress

These activities, done well, will enable you to turn clients into fans who will look for new business for you.  You will need one to two hours daily for administration.  If you create a good system and have a highly trained and skilled staff, your time spent in this area will be reduced.  In the perfect system, administration gets done well, but the Agent spends little of his personal time on it.

On your business

This is the time that most people neglect.  This working on your business really separates long-term success and growth from just running faster on the treadmill of life.  Long-term financial success lies in this section of your day.  The ability to earn more profit is also located here.

We are all really employees of our own little real estate business.  We are the ones who bring in the business and make the system go.  The more time we plan, read, strategize, practice, role-play, and implement our ideas, the more ownership we gain.  Becoming the owner of your real estate business only happens through diligent work on your business.  Instead of being the employee who works to draw a salary and pay the bills, why not become the one who orchestrates the company?  Be the one who has something to sell when he wants to try something else and/or retire.

What do you think your business would look like in 90 days or even six months if you were to implement the below daily routine?

Growth: 3 hours
Administration: 1 to 2 hours
Business: 1 hour

Time block these activities into your daily routine.  You will be amazed at the results you will achieve, even in one week.  Do not allow the distractions to overtake you and your new daily focus.  Do not neglect to do the things that will lead you to success.  Do them daily without fail.

We have gone from listing and selling within a week or two, to actually having some inventory for the Buyers to look at. For the last six months the number of listing has grown. The largest increase in the number of homes has come in the month of October with over 181 new listings. The Average price for a family home in Fort McMurray, Alberta has remain stable at $650,000 through most of the summer and fall.

Timberlea Fort McMurray remain the hottest Real Estate area in Fort McMurray with over 825 listings to date this year and sales of 512 units. Timberlea is the fastest growing new area in the city. Timberlea has a mix of starter and move up homes ranging in price from $520,000 to $1.5 Million. Timberlea also has a great mix of multi-family units ranging in price from $400,000 to $650,000.

For complete up to date market information in the Fort McMurray area please visit www.mcmurraysbesthomes.com or call Patrick Dardis at 780 215 7355

If you are tried of city life then this beautiful home located in the historic Waterways is a must see. Two homes for the price for one. The upstairs suite has been gorgeously renovated with natural wood trim and comes with extra large family room and master suite. The laminate flooring is commercial quality through the main floor. The basement is a spacious 2 bedroom suite, plus a den, mother-in-law suite complete with kitchen, laundry and wood burning fireplace. Most of the appliances are near new. The roof has just been replaced. There is parking for 4 in the back plus an oversized single garage. New RPR and all permits for renovations. This home is Talking House. Visit www.mcmurraysbesthomes.com for complete details and viewing call Patrick Dardis at 780 215 7355

7208 Bulyea Ave