Real Estate Training for Consultative Agents

Kick Start Your Real Estate Speaking/Training Career! Apprenticeship Available NOW!

2012-01-24T12:30:22Z

I've had many trainers over the years approach me about how I got my training practice off the ground, made the contacts I needed, developed the products that I sell, got my website ranked and my book published. It's not something I can sit down and teach someone in a conversation over dinner, it's a process - and a long one. But I've become convinced that there is a need for people to have help in developing their training businesses. So I've decided - on a VERY small scale - to help a few people on an apprentice-style basis.

I will take on up to three apprentices in the coming year. I say "up to" because I'm not willing to work with everyone.

THE REQUIREMENTS

There are so many people who say that they want to be trainers but when I ask them how many houses they've sold, they tell me a number somewhere between 2-10. That's insane. You can't train if you've never done it.

· My requirement is that you have sold at least 50 houses before I will help you become a trainer. It takes that many to have enough stories and experience to keep you from getting eaten alive by your audiences.

· Also, you have to be willing to put a minimum of 20 hours a week into building your training business - preferably full-time if possible.

· You MUST have decent writing skills and be able to write a blog.

· You must NOT be technology-phobic because we will be dealing with aLOT of technology.

· You MUST be willing to pick up the phone and call people you've never met. You'll never get anywhere in this business if you don't make contacts.

· You MUST be disciplined at follow-up.

MY STORY

I started working on getting known in the national real estate scene in 2004. I had trained locally and state-wide, but never done anything on a national scale. Within a year, I had a book about to be published and a national training business with affiliates across the country. Within two years, I was a columnist for Realtor Magazine and my book was published. If anyone can tell you how to get known in this business, it's me.

THE BENEFITS

Below are the list of things you'll get from working with me.

Create and market your own, signature training programs

Personal support in helping you craft and market your own line of real estate training products.

Help in Designing and Development of a website that sells

Identify and connect with key partners to help you get the word out about your training and products

Cross-marketing with other trainer(s)

How to build a following on Twitter - including access to a list of over 2500 followers already in place

How to identify the "Hot Topics" that different events want trainers to talk about

Access to Important Contacts in the industry

Focused coaching on improving your presentation skills and developing your signature style and seminar culture

Support in writing YOUR real estate book

THE DETAILS

This is a year-long mentoring program. I will work with you to get your business up and running on all levels. I will help you make your contacts and develop your signature brand. I will help you to understand how to rank on Google and how to get traffic to your website. I will help you find the affiliate partners you need to help market yourself effectively.

This is a one-on-one mentorship designed around your needs. It is not a precreated program where you are shoe-horned into someone else's agenda and passed off to a "trained coach" who isn't the person you thought you were hiring. You will have regular phone and email access to me directly. I will personally show you how I got known in the real estate training world. I will help you with personal introductions, guest blogs, and more. In this, you will be my protege - which is why I can only take on three people.

THE COST

I have been in the real estate world since 1993 and I have NEVER seen a trainer offer this kind of mentored training. To my knowledge, no one has done it. This is a unique opportunity to learn the ins and outs of the real estate training world from someone on the inside who knows. Plus, you have the added benefit of working with someone who has been an internet entrepreneur - selling products over the web since 2004. Add to this my background in brand creation and marketing and you are in a unique position to acquire a HUGE amount of knowledge in a very short time frame. The secrets I'm going to teach you in the next year took me NINE YEARS to amass.

If you're someone who likes to figure it out for yourself, then this is not the program for you. But if you're someone who can see the value in learning the ropes from someone who has mapped the course and knows where all of the pitfalls are, then you're in the right place. I would have KILLED to have someone willing to mentor me when I started. It would have saved me several years of struggling and countless thousands of dollars in costly mistakes.

To learn about internet marketing alone would take you countless hours in classes and somewhere between $10,000-$15,000 – and then you'd still have information that is mostly outdated since the internet morphs how it works every 18 months or so, such that all the training programs you would buy are normally obsolete by the time they hit the market. If you were to hire an expert in internet marketing to give you real-time, customized advice like you're going to get from me, it would easily cost you over $25,000 – and it wouldn't be real estate specific!

Then there's the public speaking training you'll get. If you were to take one of these programs (none of which are NOT specifically going to teach you about talking to Realtors – a unique breed), it would cost you another $5,000 -$10,000 – and it wouldn't be as good as what I'll teach you since I bring not only my public speaking experience to the table, but also my theater and energy work backgrounds.

And then there's the product development and branding that we'll do together – which would cost you another $3,000 - $20,000 (depending on how many products you develop and who you hired) and again – that advice would not be real estate specific.

Add to this the connections I'll make for you which no one else can make and you've got something that is simply priceless. So you could spend upwards of $55,000 and many years learning what I will teach you in one year with a targeted approach that doesn't require you to learn anything more than you need to make your business a success.

This unprecendented access into the back halls of the real estate training world with targeted, industry-specific advice and personalized help in getting your real estate training practice off the ground isn't going to cost you $55,000 or even $30,000 – not even $20,000. This program, with everything you need to be successful will cost you only $15,000 for a full year apprenticeship. This isn't once a week or three times a month for 30 minutes - this is an apprenticeship, which means I'm working alongside you. We'll schedule the time you need - whether it's 15 minutes or three hours to get you up to speed. Together, we'll set the schedule that works for your business needs.

FYI - I don't expect to ever offer this mentorship again. Because of the way my business is structured this year, it works for me to offer it, but next year at this time - if things go as planned - I expect my business schedule will look very different. I don't expect to have the time to do this again - ever. So don't hesitate.

HOW TO APPLY

As I said - I'm not taking on just anyone. After all, I'm going to be using my name to get you access to resources. I want to make sure you're someone I'm willing to bet on. So there is no link to a payment page here. Only this invitation to have a conversation with me. Write me an email. Include the following information (and please be careful to include it all - I'm testing your ability to listen and follow directions with this request - I can't help you if you can't listen):

· Your Name, address, phone number and email address (yes, even though it's on the email)

· The number of houses you have sold in your career

· How long you have been in the business and what companies you have worked for in that time

· Your experience (agent, broker, mortgage lender, buyer's agent, listing agent, specialties, etc.)

· Your designations

· What experience you have (if any) in training

· Do you have any courses you've written - if so, please list the courses and include promotional materials you've used to market them in the past as well as how many times you've presented them and whether you've gotten paid for those presentations or not

· Are you a certified trainer in your state?

· Do you have any products you've created? If so, list the products and promotional copy for selling them. Have you sold any of the products? If so, were those sales online or in person?

· Have you published any articles in the major real estate magazines? List articles and links to articles.

· Do you have a blog? Include link.

· If you have a video or audio of your presentations, please include a link to it.

· Is there anything else I need to know about your training business that I haven't asked?

· Why do you want to be part of this apprenticeship? And why should I choose you over other applicants?

Please don't take it personally, if I don't select you to be part of this process. I'm looking for the right people with the right fit and if I don't find them, then I won't do it. But I have the feeling that those three special people are out there. Maybe one of them is you. I won't know until you get in contact with me. Send your email to ksparta at Sparta Success dot com. If your email makes me feel like you'd be good for the program, then we'll schedule a call to see if it's a good fit personality-wise and take it from there. I look forward to hearing from you.

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Solving the Housing Crisis

2011-10-09T12:51:15Z

Dear President Obama,

I recently received an email from my friend, Carol Johnson at the Recruiting Pipeline. She sent me the letter as part of a mailing to the leadership in the real estate industry asking us to consider how to solve the problems of the current housing crisis.

How To Solve The Current Housing Crisis
I spent several weeks chewing on the thought. What would I say to you if you were to ask me how to solve this current crisis? I had mixed feelings on it. What it came down to for me is this: it’s not about saving the banks from bad investments, and it’s not about digging borrowers out of holes that they got themselves into. As a benevolent parent, the governments’ job is to stave off the catastrophic results the housing downturn is having on the economy as a whole and bring it down to just enough pain that we don’t do something this stupid again. At the same time, the government has to remember that not everyone is in the same situation and you have to be responsible to those who were not caught up in this buying frenzy as well. So, with that in mind, here is my thought.

Buy The Land Under The Houses
In most markets, we have fee simple land ownership that conveys with the house. On every street card, there is a value placed on the land and one on the building. If we’re going to bail people out and make things more affordable, then let’s do it by reducing the principle owed on the property without asking the bank to take a hard hit and without the owners losing their houses. The deal works like this:

The banks would have to forgive all late fees and rewrite the loans at no cost (after all, they are getting the benefit of not having to foreclose on a bad loan). They also have to agree to continue to collect the taxes on the land from the homeowner and pay them with the taxes on the home.
The government issues bonds to investors to raise the capital and then buys the land at current appraised market value.
The homeowner gets a deeded option to repurchase the land at a later date at the original price paid by the government or current market value – whichever is greater.
The money paid by the government would go to the bank to pay down the principal balance of the loan, allowing the bank to convert an impaired asset into a performing asset which boosts the bank’s asset rate and lessens reserve requirements, strengthening its balance sheet. This makes the bank more stable, reduces the stress on government resources, and ultimately increases the availability of funds for consumer loans.
The homeowners would then get a new loan issued by the bank for the lower principal amount and have to pay a reasonable monthly lease (1% per year) on the land. The homeowner would also still be responsible for paying the taxes on both the land and the home.
The bonds issued by the government for the purchase of the land would be backed by the land with dividends provided by the lease payments.

Here’s how it would work in an example case:
Harry Homeowner has a house that he is behind on his payments on. He is in danger of foreclosure. The bank has charged him hundreds of dollars in late fees and there is no way he’s going to get on top of things again. What he needs is a fresh start.

Harry’s loan is for $300,000, but the property is only valued at $225,000 in the current market and he can’t sell it. The government offers to buy the land under Harry’s house. The land is valued at $85,000. Harry sells the land to the government and pays down his loan to the bank, leaving a balance of $215,000. The bank agrees to forgive the late fees and rewrite the note. It issues a new loan to Harry on the house only in the amount of $215,000 at a lower interest rate taking Harry’s principle and interest payment from his previous payment of $1871.61 at 6.375% down to a new payment amount of $1073.46 at 4.375%. Harry pays an additional $70.84 per month (1% per year of the purchase price of the land) in addition to his mortgage to cover the lease costs on the land. This makes Harry’s total monthly payment (not including taxes and insurance) $1143.51, saving him $728.81 per month. This savings allows Harry to keep his home and the bank to avoid foreclosure.

Ten years pass and Harry wants to sell his home. He puts the house on the market and finds a buyer who agrees to pay $350,000. Harry then exercises his option to repurchase the land from the government. Current appraised value for the land is $110,000. Harry’s attorney does a simultaneous closing on the property, with Harry purchasing the land back from the government for $110,000 and conveying the house and the land to the new owner for $350,000. The bank gets its loan of $215,000 paid off, the government gets the $110,000 and Harry Homeowner gets the balance of $25,000 (less closing costs).

The Results

Win: The bank didn’t foreclose and got the full amount of its loan repaid.

Win: Harry didn’t lose his house to foreclosure, saved his credit and came out the other end with a little money in his pocket.

Win: As an investment for the taxpayers and bond holders, the $85,000 has matured into $110,000, for a $25,000 increase. In addition, the government has also received interest in the form of lease payments on the land in the amount of 1% or $850 per year. Over ten years, this totals an additional return of $8500 for a total profit of $33,500, an ROI of 3.38% per year which is a better return than the 10 year Treasury Bond rate which was 2.77 as of close of business Friday last week. (Obviously, this is a little more complicated than this, but you get the idea.)

What Happens If Harry Homeowner Still Forecloses?
In many areas, affordable housing is a big issue. It's all local towns and municipalities can do to get developers to include affordable units in their developments. Those towns could change their local regulations to state that the affordable housing unit doesn't have to be in the development itself - it can be provided in the same town but in a different location within that town. This would make developers tremendously motivated to buy any of the properties served under this plan that go to foreclosure since they would cost the homeowner up to a third less than the local area prices. Even if the builder had to take a loss on the purchase and resale of the home to get the monthly payments into the "affordable" level, it will likely be less than the gain of an extra new unit selling for full price. It's a good trade.

This Plan Has Several Benefits

It will reduce the principle of the loans for the current homeowners allowing them a payment level they can afford to sustain.
Banks only have to eat the cost of refinancing the loans at a lower interest rate and forgiving the late fees, not the cost of foreclosing and reselling.
The payments from the land purchases to the banks would allow them to convert impaired assets into performing assets. This boosts the banks' asset rates and lessens their reserve requirements, strengthening their balance sheets. This makes the banks more stable, reduces the stress on government resources, and ultimately increases the availability of funds for consumer loans. Freeing up additional funds for new loans and opening up credit lines for new spending would be a boon for the economy overall.
Property values won’t suffer as a result of the plan since any subsequent purchase of the property would be made including the land when the current seller exercises his/her option to purchase the land back prior to conveying it with the property.
It’s a purchase backed by real estate, which means it’s not going to contribute to the deflation of the dollar.
It provides a stable investment for older investors who need some way to hedge their bets in this uncertain economy.
For the purchases that don't get paid for by bonds, the tax payers will see a return on their investment as the economy recovers and property values improve. At the very least, we are guaranteed to get our money back with the land lease payments as interest. At the best, the appreciation and the land lease costs will provide a tidy profit for the use of taxpayer monies.
It’s not a free ride for anyone. The banks lose out on the refinance and late fees as well as taking only a slightly more than break-even interest rate. The homeowners lose out on the appreciation of their land and have to pay conveyance taxes and closing costs on the land multiple times. In short – those who made bad decisions get a chance to pay for those bad decisions without being destroyed by them.

So, that’s the crux of the idea, Mr. President. It seems to me that it would work. I’d welcome the opportunity to discuss it with you. I also have some ideas on how to make it easier to be self-employed if you’re interested.

Sincerely,

Kelle Sparta
Author of The Consultative Real Estate Agent
National Speaker, Trainer and Coach for the Real Estate Industry

(If you'd like to help spread the word to get this to President Obama, please Digg, Stumble Upon, etc. this article and post a comment about it on your blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter with a link back to it. Thanks!)

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Prospecting on Facebook

2011-04-06T08:05:42Z

Have you ever considered growing your mailing list?
I'm sure you have. However, finding people interested in buying a home now or in the near future can be challenging. But what if you could grow a list of people who wanted to hear from you? People who may not be looking right now, but who could fill your pipeline for years to come? Would you be willing to invest time and a little cash into that option?

Home Life Perks
Have you heard of Home Life Perks? It's a relatively new (about a couple years old) tool that helps agents reach out to their clients in ways that are relevant to the clients - even when they aren't quite ready to buy or sell. It's a system that uses social media to offer your clients discounts on a variety services, products and restaurants in your area - all courtesy of you - their favorite Realtor, of course! And best of all - you don't have to DO anything to get these deals (although if you do get some deals, you can really leverage that as well, but more on that in another article). Home Life Perks actually negotiates with national retailers to get the discounts and you come out looking like the good guy!

Expand Your Influence
But here's where it gets good. Yes, using this tool will help you keep in touch with your current clients in a more relevant way - awesome. But it can also help you grow your mailing list of potential clients really quickly. Here's how. Using your Home Life Perks account, you can expand your sphere of influence pretty easily – and all within your target market area. Rather than running another open house or ad in the local paper (does anyone do this anymore, really?) why not consider running a Facebook ad about your Home Life Perks?

Getting Opt-ins
It's not practical to advertise your listings on Facebook or Google – there just aren't enough buyers looking right now to make that worthwhile - but your Home Life Perks? That's worth advertising. It's something that a lot of people will want to opt into and the more they see you, the more you will be top of mind when they are ready to buy and sell.

Facebook Ads
The benefit of using Facebook over Google Adwords is that Facebook is far more targeted. You can specify age range, location, gender, and even specific keywords in Facebook. This allows you to really target your ads to the right population. So if you know that your market is generally technology workers in the town of Springfield who are already homeowners, you can target that market in your ads. You can have your ad show up only to that marketplace, so you only pay for the clicks from those people. And, even better, the cost per click is generally really low – much lower than Google Adwords.

Budgeting
If you've never done pay-per-click marketing, you might be surprised to know that it is both really cheap and easy to budget. Cost per click is usually between $0.01 - $0.25. To avoid spending too much, you can set a daily or monthly budget amount for your marketing and the system automatically turns itself off when it reaches the limit. No fuss, no muss, nothing to remember.

Landing Page
The key to making sure that your marketing is most effective is in creating a great landing page that encourages people to opt-in and share the information with their friends – which is why I recommend setting up your landing page on Facebook. When you do this, you can not only get your opt-ins, but you can also ask them to "Like" the page which makes it show up on their feeds and spreads your offer – free of charge this time - to a wider audience with an implied endorsement from the person who "liked" you. This is really leveraging the value of social media marketing.

Don't Clutter It Up
Now you may be tempted to include marketing materials about yourself – don't. The more information you offer people on a page about multiple things, the less likely it is that they will sign up for anything. If you already have a page on Facebook you can use that to set up this offer, but put it on its own page and make sure that the ad you place clicks through to that page – not your Facebook homepage. In fact, consider setting up the Home Life Perks signup AS your homepage. You may be pleasantly surprised to see your conversion rate improving as a result.

Write In
If you decide to write ads, don't forget to try out different wording, offers, and (most importantly) pictures. Then let Home Life Perks know which ones worked the best for you. Send in your results to Paul Golec at Home Life Perks (he just started a blog here, so be sure to go over and comment for him to welcome him to the Active Rain community too!) here: http://activerain.com/paulgolec. He'll compile a list of the best ones and share the results on his blog.

Oh, yeah, and they've got some free webinars coming up that you can check out too!

Cool, huh? - I thought so!

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Saving Cash on Your Business Cards

2011-03-30T15:24:07Z

Today ONLY

Living Social is doing a special deal -$10 to get $50 worth of printing - postcards, business cards, note pads, etc. You buy the voucher and then you use it $50 credit when you need it. Here's the link to the deal - but don't delay - it only works for today. Tomorrow it's gone! I got mine!!!

https://livingsocial.com/deals/34322?ref=personalized-link-box-8979952&rpi=8979952

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Panic!

2011-03-11T08:07:33Z

When Running Is Worse Than Standing Still
I know that these articles haven't been coming at their normal pace. The reason for this is that I have been waiting for inspiration. Most days, she's sitting on my shoulder whispering sweet ideas into my head all day every day. But for the last few months, she has been mostly silent. Perhaps it's the exhaustion I was feeling from the last year and the loss of my mother. Perhaps it was the inner work I've been doing on myself. Whatever the reason, she was silent. And my feeling is that if I don't have anything valuable to say, I should keep silent. Your time is far too precious for me to waste it with drivel. And so you've guessed it, since you are now receiving this article, I feel like I once more have something important to talk to you about. Thanks for reading.

Where Are You, Right Now?
I think one of the reasons why inspiration eluded me for so long is that I was running so much. With all of the details to handle from my mother's estate plus my normal workload and launching a new women's empowerment program (if you want to know more about that, just ask me), I've been busy. But what happens when you get busy is that you often forget that there is anything more to life than the details of the work in front of you. You spend most of your day mentally in the next part of your day thinking about what you need to do next rather than being where you are now. It's really no wonder that we can't seem to find peace. It could be sitting at our feet and we wouldn't see it because mentally, we've already left the room.

The Adrenaline Rush
The other thing that comes with running all the time is the adrenaline rush and a vague sense of panic. The former can be a issue since it is easy for some people to become addicted to the rush of the adrenaline surge and so they put themselves in situations over and over again that give them that feeling. The problem with this is that it will eventually wear out your adrenals causing fatigue like you've never experienced in your life. In other words, it's a short and perilous road.

A Vague Sense of Panic
The panic, on the other hand is even more insidious. It gnaws at you in a non-specific way that is kind of easy to ignore in the beginning. If you're really good at ignoring it, it can sit, undermining your confidence and draining you of your convictions for a good long time. But eventually, it will amp up and start to overwhelm you. This is when people get panic attacks or get depressed or have huge feelings of being totally, crushingly, horribly overwhelmed. It's not the overwhelm that's getting you – it's the panic.

We Can't Stop Running
The solution is to stop running. Take a break. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. But when you're panicked, it's hard to think to do this. You don't want to admit you're panicked because, really what is there to be panicked about. Your rational mind doesn't want to accept it. Your reptilian brain on the other hand is screaming – oh no! I'm panicked, it must be time to RUN!!!! (Or, if those around you are really unlucky, then your brain believes it's time to fight and you're getting angry about everything.) So we keep running because our physiology is demanding it. And the worse part is – we did it to ourselves.

A Vicious Cycle
You see, our programming is such that our bodies and brains know that these two things go together. It doesn't matter which one comes first, your body or brain will supply the other one – they don't exist in separation. So if you are running in a flurry and you're worried, your brain will happily provide both the adrenaline and the panic to go along with it. Or, if you're panicked with your adrenaline running, then your body will immediately want to flee (or fight). These are hardwired responses from millennium-old instinct patterns. We can't change them.

Break the Cycle - Breathe
What we can do is utilize other hardwired responses to break the cycle. For instance, it is physically impossible to panic and breathe deeply at the same time. So if you focus on your breathing and you keep it deep and steady, then eventually, the adrenaline has to give way and allow you to relax. Drink water too, it helps clear the adrenaline from your system faster and it slows your breathing at the same time. Do slow, stretching movements to loosen your muscles – relaxed muscles are another way that the body knows it is out of danger. Make sure you've turned off your phone and your email and don't let anyone barge in – it's important not to train the body to think that just as you get to relax something else goes horribly wrong. If you train it into that pattern, it will never relax.

Keep It Down To A Dull Roar
And then, once you get things under control again, you'll need to keep on top of things. If you find yourself worrying or thinking forward too much, come back to breathing. If you find that you are rushing, take a couple of minutes and breathe. If you are being pulled in too many directions, close your door, turn your phone off and take a 5 minute vacation – and DON'T think about anything you have to do. Light a candle if it helps and stare at the flame. For so long as the candle is burning, you don't need to think about anything else. If you really do only have 5 minutes – set a timer to go off so that you don't have to keep checking the time. You can sneak in a vacation from your stress anytime you like. It's just a matter of changing your attitude to change your latitude.

More Effective When We're Calm
And if you're thinking that you don't have time for all of this stuff (and, who are we kidding here – those people have stopped reading long ago, but you can share it with them), then consider this. We make better decisions when we stop long enough to consider all of the consequences. We communicate more effectively and create less drama that we'll have to clean up later when we take a breath before we open our mouths. And, when we are mentally in the room, we notice little details that could turn into big problems later while we still have time to head them off at the pass. In short, we are more effective when we are calm. Go figure.

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

How Out of State Sellers Pick an Agent

2011-01-24T09:46:51Z

Speaking from Experience
I'm in a unique position right now to speak from experience about how an out-of-state-seller picks an agent since I just had to do it twice. My mother passed away last year and I hired an agent while I was in the height of my grief. I picked someone who seemed to be successful from his approach and demeanor, but honestly, I didn't do any homework on him. I was just too tired. I did do one thing smart, I refused to give him a year listing. I wasn't willing to have the house on the market that long. I did sign a 6-month listing but I told him I wanted it sold in two and he should make that happen. I gave him the price he asked for and two months later, I insisted on a price reduction. At the end of 6 months, nothing had happened and I had heard from my agent a total of about 6 times. I was a very motivated seller since the house costs me $2K per month to maintain.

The Search for a Good Listing Agent
So I was faced with picking new agent. I went into the marketplace online since this is how most buyers will find their house. I searched for houses in the area that my mother's house was in and I started pulling up listings. I found a few agents in the area with listings that might cross-promote nicely with my mom's house. So I started making calls. Not one of them answered their phones. In fact, not one of them went to a cell phone. They all went to office answering machines. (Can you tell my mom lived in a rural area?) So I went back to the computer again. And I did another search based on the lake that my mother lived near. This time I got better results. The top items in the search were from Homes.com. So I started digging through and the strangest thing happened.

No Profiles Filled Out
Almost every listing that I looked at had information about the house on it, but very little or nothing about the agent. So I checked to see if the lack of a profile was price related and discovered that you can actually fill out a profile for free on Homes.com. It costs you monthly to post your listings. Which means that the agents whose listings I was perusing had paid (likely $29 per month - their base fee) to post their listings, but had completely failed to fill out information that was free to enter and which made it easier for me to find them as a seller. Can you say "missed the boat?"

The Stand-Out Choice
And then I found one where the profile was not only filled out, but the listing was an enhanced listing as well. The agent also had several other listings in the same area. He also had an 888 phone number that I knew would follow him to wherever he was. There were signs that this was a professional agent!

The Test
And so I decided to call and see how he was on the phone with potential buyers. Because we know that if you can't convert a buyer call, you're not likely to make the sale yourself. He answered the phone himself. He answered questions about his listing (although he did have to look some stuff up - he had 30 listings after all). He was professional. So I came clean and told him that I wasn't a buyer, but a seller and I needed some help.

Quick Response
Despite the fact that we had a couple of weeks before my last listing expired, he got right on the job of providing me with a new market analysis and staying in contact. Given that my last agent barely spoke to me, I found this to be refreshing. He works with a partner and he told me about her.

Introducing the Partner
If there is one thing that I would have liked to have had happen that hasn't yet, it's that I would have liked to have gotten a phone call from his partner to introduce herself. This way when he's not around and she needs to talk to me, she won't be coming in cold to the relationship.

Off And Running Again
So here we are, off and running again. The house is up on the market with another (this time dramatic) price reduction. We'll see how good of a choice I made this time. It certainly feels different.

Wanna Buy A House?
Oh - and in case you're interested (or have some investors or buyers who are), the house is listed here. I am a VERY motivated seller.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/8422-402nd-Avenue_Town-Of-Genoa-City_WI_53128_M74845-61841

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

What I Do

2011-01-22T10:56:32Z

My assistant got a request today for information about what I do as a coach. I liked the response so much, I thought I'd share it with you. Here it is:

Let me tell you a bit more about what Kelle does. Kelle is not an accountability coach like most coaches are. In other words, she’s not going to assign you homework and then check in to make sure you did your homework and that you’re on track. What she does is the strategic level coaching and helping you bring that plan into form at the tactical level. For instance, she’ll help you create and build a brand and then put in place all of the procedures, staff and training that will support that brand image. She’ll help you develop a comprehensive marketing plan and then find the best ways to implement that plan. She’ll help you achieve a work/life balance with skills, training and staff that will keep you at your peak performance level. She’ll help you develop and hone a team to grow your business to the next level.

Right now, for you, she’d be best at helping you to develop your business plan with a focus on the goals that you have in mind. This would include a complete marketing plan. She can help you pick the right brokerage for your business goals, evaluate and negotiate your contract with your broker, and build a brand image that you can transfer to your own brokerage when you leave. When you’re ready to open your brokerage, she’ll help you get focused on your core market, decide what kind of agents to recruit and get a package in place that will encourage them to come to you. Once you have the strategic level work done, Kelle will refer you to an accountability coach to keep you on track if you want that.

Because Kelle isn’t a standard accountability coach, she doesn’t sell her packages in a traditional monthly coaching format. Instead, you purchase blocks of hours which you can use as-needed. Many of her clients will use a block of 2-4 hours at a time doing the comprehensive strategic conference, an hour the following week to ask questions and clarify plans and then not use any time for several months and then do another block of time again. Each person’s usage is uniquely theirs and this is the benefit of working with Kelle.

If this intrigues you, please let me know. I'd be happy to chat with you about how I can help you.

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Great Gift Ideas for the Holidays

2010-12-09T12:02:00Z

Do you have a Secret Santa Gift In Your Future?
It's one of those things - the dreaded Secret Santa gift. Or even more difficult, the Yankee Swap. What do you get for the person you hardly know or for someone random? I'm a big believer in gifts that give back. So I try to give a gift of knowledge and education. After all, how many holiday mugs can one person own?

Below Is a List of My Recommended Buys for Your Gift Giving Purposes

Becoming a Self-Centered Woman - eBook - Deborah Roth
Don't let the title of this one fool you. If you have a woman in your life (or you are one) who needs to learn a little more about putting herself first to make her life more fulfilling, then this book is for her. It's a spiritual journey into the art of becoming whole as a woman. It's written by a very wise friend of mine and I can tell you, it's well worth the price. It would be a great gift for your Secret Santa person - or for yourself.

Web Copy That Sells - Maria Veloso
This is a fabulous book for teaching you the art of online persuasion and relationship building. She is the top person in her field talking about this and you should really listen.

Content Rules - Ann Handy and C.C. Chapman
Written by one of the smarted, most connected and talented guys I know and a chick he believes is equally awesome, this book teaches you the dos and don'ts of social media relationship building. C.C. Chapman has been a giant of the social media world for years. I was lucky enough to meet him when social media was in its infancy and I can tell you that when I need social media advice, he's my first call. His book will blow your mind.

The Wealthy Spirit - Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction - Chellie Campbell
If you've ever heard me speak or listened to my podcast, then you've probably heard me quote from this book. I love it. Chellie has managed to create a beautifully written, inspiring and focused look at how we look at money and how we can improve our outlook. My favorite page is Day 3. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

That's a wide variety of gifts of education. I'll give you one more gift. And this one's from me to you. I'll give you a link that will take you to a web page that will give you $20 off my Expired Listing Postcards product. This is the cheapest I have ever sold it - EVER. In fact, they are so cheap that you might even be able to give one to a colleague for Secret Santa without exceeding the $ limit. Happy Holidays!

Get Your Expired Listings Postcards

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Start a Movement

2010-12-07T11:45:00Z

Bear With Me
I'm going to have a moment of seeing the negative right now. I know, it's not like me, but sometimes you have to engage the darkness to find the light again. Right now, we're standing in the midst of a country that has been demoralized. It's been tough for everyone. And we are some of the few people left in an industry that has been decimated. Having come into the business at the end of the last decimation cycle, I can tell you two things.

No matter how hard you've tried to keep a positive attitude, the energy of the negative nellies around you HAS affected you.
The best way to release the pent up anxiety of worry that has seeped into you over these last few years is to find new purpose in what you do.

Even in the best of times, being labeled "just another real estate agent" is tough. It's hard to overcome the "you're a used car salesman" attitude that many people have. You can spend the rest of your career trying to convince people that their first impressions are wrong, or you can change the game entirely.

Changing The Game
You're an experienced agent. You know what it's like to play the game in the traditional fashion. You know the ups and downs and, at this point, you could probably do it in your sleep. Why not change it up. Give yourself and your clients something to believe in. Step out of the role of "just another agent" – no matter how good you are at that role – and step into a new paradigm as being the leader of your own personal movement.

What Is Your Mission?
You got into real estate for a reason, and it probably had nothing to do with fulfilling your mission on the planet. But what if you could take this opportunity to build your mission into your business? What kind of mission, you ask? Good question! For some people, their mission is about saving the environment, for others it's about connecting deeply with everyone around them and facilitating movement forward, still others are destined to bring large groups of people into consciousness about themselves. Each person has a mission uniquely their own.

Finding Your Mission
We can find clues to our missions by looking at the past. What it is that we do whether we are being paid for it or not. Who it is that we have manifested ourselves to be. Your mission is at the core essence of who you are. It permeates everything you do. Take a history of your life. Write down all of the things you are most proud of, all of the ways in which you regularly look at and interact with the world. All the services that you provide to everyone around you – whether they are paying you or not. These are all clues to your underlying mission.

Energy and Excitement - Guaranteed
I'll tell you a secret about missions – when you uncover them, they come with a boatload of passion attached to them. And passion comes with a ton of energy. So finding and embracing your mission with automatically give you all the energy and passion you need to move forward with it. So if you're getting old like me and you're thinking that you don't have the energy to start something new, think again. It's waiting right there for you. Wouldn't it be nice to be truly excited about something again?

Turn Your Mission Into a Movement
Once you have identified your mission, it's time to turn it into a movement. A movement is created by a leader and their followers. It's a way to get people engaged in a process or a goal at such a personal, core level that they are also filled with passion for the cause. You can go about this process by a variety of means and each mission is suited to different approaches, but the key is to get yourself on the track to a more empassioned tomorrow and to take everyone around you with you on that ride.

I'm reading a great book right now on the subject of creating movements that I think you'll love. It's called Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements. If anything I've said has resonated with you, you may want to get a copy.

Also, I've given you an idea for a movement that might just fit your personal mission in my latest article on Realtor Magazine. Check it out.

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Please Explain This To Me - Women Unite!

2010-11-04T09:12:48Z

Shopping for Bathing Suits - How Sad
I have been shopping for a bathing suit this morning thinking that there might be a hot tub at my hotel in New Orleans for the NAR Convention this weekend. Happily, there is no hot tub, because I have found no swim suit. What I have found is a whole lot of body hating websites. Every site is talking about slimming this (sounds uncomfortable to me) and minimizing that and hiding the other thing. For heaven's sake - why is it not OK to love your body just as it is?!!!??

Body Hate Everywhere
I had the most terrible time on these sites. Not because I have issues with how my body looks, I love my body, thank you. I had troubles because it seems that the websites have a problem with how my body (or anyone my size) looks. I put in the search term "Plus Sized Bathing Suit" and the links consistently landed me on pages that were supposedly the plus sized suits, but all of the models in the suits were skinny. Now how am I supposed to tell how a suit will look on my plus-sized body when I'm looking at a model who at her heaviest never passed a size 8? Is it so terrible to see a plus-sized body in the suit? Am I supposed to be so ashamed of my own body that I can't even bear to look at a model who is of the appropriate size to ACTUALLY model the suit? What's wrong with our culture that this is true?!

One Shining Exception
The one site that I visited that didn't do this to me was SwimSuitsForAll.com They did a fabulous job of showing real-sized models in the suits. They also did something that the other sites didn't . They told me how much the bust cups would carry. Sadly, they only had three suits that would fit both my cup size and my suit size and I didn't like any of them.

Honorable Mention
There was one other site I found that wasn't too high on the self-hate scale and had a few photos of a real plus-sized model and this was SwimSuitsJustForUs.com. This one seems to be a one-woman operation and she is the primary model. But she's only in a small fraction of the suits and the rest are just empty suits - no way to tell what they will look like. But she does offer shopping by body type and that's a bonus.

Outside Judgment Needs to Stop
I have to tell you that I've rarely felt discriminated against because I was a woman. But I feel discriminated against all the time as a person of size. Somehow, in our incredibly PC world, it's still not OK to be large. In fact, for two years in a row, one of my readers has sent me a birthday card with a lovely message on the top and a heap of judgment on the bottom that says "Remember, no matter how good the cake tastes, thin feels a whole lot better - party responsibly". On My Birthday! The one day that we are supposed to be able to eat cake without guilt and he wants me to make him feel better about my size by not eating my birthday cake! It's not OK for us to pick on people for their gender or the color of their skin - how about we extend that to how big or small people are. In fact, what if we gave up judgment altogether? How would that be? What would the world be like if you could walk around knowing that no one was judging you? Pretty awesome, huh?

What's Wrong With Loving Your Body the Way it Is?
So here's where I put on my wise woman hat and say that the fastest way to eliminate judgment in the world around you is to eliminate it from within you. Your body is the way it is. It's the only body you have and if you are functional and relatively healthy, then it's doing a great job for you - especially given how most people treat their bodies. Appreciate it, love it, revel in it. Then, when you can truly love your body, you can do what I did when I got that birthday card and when I went onto those websites. I didn't feel bad about me, I thought - wow, our culture has a long way to go!

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Warning - Mega Vitamin D and Calcium Don't Mix

2010-10-23T11:23:48Z

Are you on one of those loading doses of vitamin D that doctors seem to be giving out like candy these days?
I was too. But what I didn't count on was the side effects. Oh, I read the package insert (although how many people would when we're talking about a vitamin here - I don't know.) The package insert was really poorly worded and unclear about the fact that you should not, under any circumstances, mix mega vitamin D doses with extra calcium doses. I was using Calcium Lactate to help with my muscles for the plantar fasciitis that I have. I had been advised to try it at a once a day level and if that worked, to up the dosage to two a day.

Now, my mother passed away in June, so I didn't think much about it when I started to get depressed - I'm grieving. I'm supposed to be depressed. And when it progressed to being barely functional, I thought, well I'm having a hard year (moving, IRS tax audit, my mother's passing) and I deserve a little downtime. And the further I slipped into my depression, the harder it became to reach out and ask for help. The harder it became to think about my situation long enough to realize I had a real problem.

And then I decided to up the dosage on the Calcium Lactate to twice a day. Suddenly I was having fleeting thoughts of suicide. This was a real wakeup call for me. I've had some really bad times in my life (high school comes to mind), but never, no matter how miserable I was, did I ever consider suicide. I immediately (two weeks later in depression land) got a therapist.

Thank God for My Tooth Implant
Now in the meantime, I had scheduled to get a tooth implant done. When it was finished, the doctor gave me a couple of prescriptions. At the same time, it was time to refill my vitamin D mega dose for my third and final month. I read the inserts for each of my prescriptions and while I was at it, I re-read the one for the vitamin D. There, buried in the middle of the description was a list of possible interactions with other drugs followed by a list of possible side effects. Calcium was mentioned as a potential interaction. And there, in black and white, in the middle of things like upset stomach and the like, was "mental and/or emotional shifts". Even in my brain-fuzzed state, I could see that going from being exhausted and sad (a normal grieving response) to being crushingly stuck in depression and marginally suicidal would count as as "mental and/or emotional shift".

I immediately stopped taking the calcium.
And, go figure, the next day, once the calcium had a chance to clear my system, the fog started to lift. I didn't take the next loading dose of the vitamin D, just in case it was the D doing it as well. I've taken a week off of both and I'm feeling back to my old self. Sure, I'm still grieving, but I'm functional again. I'm excited about my new projects, I'm calling people and getting out and being social again. The future's so bright I've gotta wear shades and all that. It's a night and day difference in my experience of the world.

Test It
Now I will go back and take the last four vitamin D doses - after I have a chance to remember what it's like to be me again. And I'll take one and watch my mood like a hawk. I will NOT ever again mix the vitamin D with Calcium. And this is the crux of my message. Don't you do it either. Talk to your doctor about possible side effects. Read the package insert EVERY TIME to take a dose. And PAY ATTENTION to how your body is responding.

This is my public service message for the day. I hope you're enjoying your weekend.

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

It's Official! I'm Presenting at NAR

2010-10-20T14:59:38Z

Are you going to the NAR conference in New Orleans this year?
Then don't forget to look me up! I'll be presenting on Saturday, 11/6 at 11am - 12pm. I'll be taking you through the process of creating your marketing plan for next year including:

Blog posts
Newsletters
Social Media Updates and Interactions
Offline Marketing
Networking
Referral Mining

And Yes, As Always With Me, You'll Be Learning More About How To Deepen Your Relationships With Your Clients

As of now, I don't have any plans other than the event itself. So if you're going to be at the convention and would like to grab a meal together, let me know - I hate to eat alone. Would love to connect.

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Free Seminar Starts in 30 Minutes

2010-10-07T14:32:57Z

Business the Easy Way! Managing Relationships Beyond the Transaction

Are you looking for a great way to spend your afternoon
where you can learn some new ideas and buff up your ability to get referrals?
Then this is the best way for you to spend your next hour.

Here's the Description and the Link for You To Login - FREE
Real estate is all about relationships. From your first contact, you’ve got to provide the right combination of openness, engagement, and awareness of clients and customers’ needs. And that's critical even after the transaction ends. To keep a steady stream of repeat and referral business, you’ll need to continue managing those relationships long after closing.

In this free webinar — sponsored by the REALTOR® Content Resource, powered by HouseLogic — marketing expert Kelle Sparta [that's me!] offer fresh ideas to keep business rolling in.

Topics we’ll cover:

• How to have meaningful interactions with consumers after a purchase or sale.

• How to reach former clients and customers through the channels they favor most: social media, blogs and e-newsletters, a personalized mailings.

• Keep valuable how-to information about homeownership in front of your past customers.

Plus, get a look at new features of the REALTOR® Content Resource that'll let you quickly share useful content with people on your contact list.

Don't Miss Out - Sign Up Now to Attend for FREE!

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

What's Your Business?

2010-10-06T11:12:26Z

I was reading a blog post from IttyBiz this morning and it made a very good point. I've been blogging here for years - no really - about 20 years in blog-years (kind of like dog years, but for blogging - I'm counting about 5 years for each one). And I realized that I don't often talk about what I actually do. I tend to write about whatever is top of mind for me in the moment. One day it might be about SEO and internet marketing, another might be about the broader life picture in our western culture, and still another about my pursuit of purple hair (yes, I did dye it after all). But, as a friend of mine pointed out recently, in my blog to real estate agents on a real estate blogging platform, I almost never talk about real estate and, more importantly, I almost never talk about what I do.

So I decided to answer IttyBiz's challenge. I've copied her questions below so that you can learn more about what I do so that, if you enjoy reading me, you can tell your board or your broker or your mortgage officer that they need to bring me in.

What’s your game?

Real Estate Training, Coaching and Speaking - with some really cool, useful, and productive tools thrown in to support the process.

What do you do?

I teach people how to walk others through big life-altering transformational processes. In the real estate industry, this means that I teach my clients (agent, brokers, and mortgage officers) how to step into more of a life-coaching role when dealing with their buyers and sellers. Why would they want to do that? Because there is usually some major life transition that underpins a client's decision to move. If you deal with the transition on that level, then you tend to not get blindsided by issues that you didn't know about that can blow your deal, and you end up with more referrals and repeat business because you got deeper into relationship with the client.

How Do You Do It? [I added this one since it seemed relevant.]

I speak at live events (my favorite way to work), offer teleseminars and webinars (in fact I have a free one coming up tomorrow with NAR on building relationships check it out), podcast (brokers, consider replacing your sales meeting with a weekly or monthly podcast that I create especially to fit the needs of your company), one-on-one and group coaching, and sell training products that teach basic and advanced skills.

Why do you do it? Do you love it, or do you just have one of those creepy knacks?

A little of both. I've made a life-long study of people and what makes them tick. I love to break down complex concepts into easily understandable descriptions that give people the vocabulary and foundational concepts that they can then use to be able to understand a process more completely. Then, once they have these ideas firmly in place, I like to take it to the next level and teach them how to blow the competition completely out of the water by using the advanced systems.

Who are your customers?

Speaking and Training Engagements - I'm usually booked by local or state boards, larger brokerages, and/or mortgage companies for my speaking engagements although I'll be training at NAR for HouseLogic this year so it really could be any company that has a larger audience who has a values match with getting deeper into relationship with their clients.

Teleseminars and Webinars - Agents, Mortgage Officers and Brokers. I may offer these on my own where people can sign up individually or, if you can get at least 15 people on the call, I'll schedule one custom for you on the topic of your choice.

Coaching - Agents, Brokers and Mortgage Officers. Brokers I am availble not only for individual coaching, but also for group coaching for your office.

Products - Most of my products are written for the use of the individual or small team of agents, but I also have a recruiting program and new agent training program that brokers find useful too.

What kind of people would need or want what you offer?

Agents interested in improving their people-skills and moving their business to the next level. Agents, mortgage officers and brokers who want to increase their referral rates. Boards, brokerages and other companies looking for something more interesting than another internet marketing seminar or "back to basics" program.

What’s your marketing USP? Why should I buy from you instead of the other losers? [Her words, not mine!]

Focused on Transitions - Not Transactions - This is my concept. When you focus on what the client is dealing with, then you take your business to the next level. The move is so much more for them than the purchase or sale of a home. It's transformational in their worlds. If you honor, respect, and facilitate that transformation, you build relationships that last for life.

What’s next for you? What’s the big plan?

I'm putting together the classes I've always wanted to teach. I waited until the end of this dip so that only the serious agents would still be around because these concepts are so powerful, I wanted them to only be in the hands of the most experienced, most attuned agents. I'm going to teach you how to:

Lliterally read your clients' minds
Improve your negotiation skills dramatically to get the best deal for your clients
Make people like you from the first moment they meet you
Take the pressure off in key moments to leave space for your clients to make big decisions
Convert frustrated uptime callers into loyal clients - in 5 minutes!
Train your clients to send you referrals
Elicit unbridled appreciation from your clients

Wow! That was a lot! Whew! I didn't realize how much I had to say that I hadn't told you! I hope you made it this far because the future's looking pretty bright (where are my shades?). Well, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Thanks for tuning in! And just because I believe in rewarding a stick-to-it attitude, here's a link to some FREE SAMPLES of my recordings.

Oh, yes, and don't think that your answers to these questions are obvious - they aren't to your readers - especially the USP one. Why not do the exercise for yourself and see what comes of it?

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Looking for your social media success stories...

2010-10-04T21:48:02Z

A friend of a friend of mine is looking to put together some success stories of how you have gone about prospecting in the real estate industry. She's not on Active Rain, so I wanted to help out by posting it here for her.

Here's the link if you'd like to share your stories with her. Please tell her you heard about it from me!

http://mayareguru.com/2010/10/04/seeking-real-estate-agent-success-stories/

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

When Is It OK To Steal?

2010-09-29T11:44:08Z

It's Not OK To Steal Someone Else's Content
There's a lot of free content out there on the web. We have more information than we know what to do with most of the time. But what you may not know is that it's not OK to just repurpose someone else's content for your own use without their permission. Now many people appreciate you using their information on your website - when it comes with attribution and a link to their site as well. But others don't. Don't get caught using something without permission. It only serves to damage your reputation in the long run.

Unless They Say You Can
So where do you go to get great content? I was wondering this myself recently when I got a call from the people at HouseLogic.com asking me to speak on a teleseminar they are running on October 7th from 3-4pm ET. They asked me to talk about one of my specialties - follow-up after the sale. I gave them my ideas around how to keep in touch with past clients and they told me about all of the great content that they have available for FREE on HouseLogic - The Realtor Content Resource. Check out the article on Pet Arsonists - it's a howl! (If you'll pardon the pun! ;-) )

Membership Has Its Privileges
It seems that anyone who is a Realtor member of NAR can get free access to a TON of articles and even some videos that would be useful to home owners, buyers and sellers. All you have to do is agree to post the article in its entirety including attribution for the fact that it came from HouseLogic. That seems fair enough to me. How about you?

Don't Get Robbed While Using Your Stolen Articles
Now the thing you have to be careful of is making sure that you're not robbing yourself of valuable Search Engine Optimization by just posting the article and nothing else. Google only gives it's love to the first person to post an article. But, if you make the title of your post different from the title of the article and you add a sentence or two saying why you picked this article for your people and how great it is, then Google won't know that it's a reposted article and it will give you all the Google love you can handle. Yet again - a win!

So when is it OK to steal? When the person you're stealing from said you could!

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Get More Online Leads

2010-09-13T09:56:06Z

When I talk to real estate agents anywhere in the US right now, almost universally, what they want is more leads.

First I tell them that they need to make sure that their follow-up systems are in place and being used (because, really, what good comes from having more leads you don't follow-up on?) Once those are in place, then it's all about the traffic.

The traffic, I say? Really? Isn't personal contact important? Isn't it about meeting face to face and belly to belly? Isn't it about the referrals and repeat business? Yes, I'm the relationship girl. These are my messages. And they are still true. But today, more than ever, relationships are starting on the web.

So Much To Learn - But Not All of It Is For You
We all know that unless the person has a personal friend who they've already decided to work with, then EVERYONE is going to start their search on the web. If you haven't gotten smart about the web yet, then you're in big trouble. Being someone who has leveraged the web for my business for the last seven years, I can tell you there's a lot to learn. But there's only so much of it as a real estate agent that you really NEED to know to do business.

What You Need To Know
There are a few key pieces of web wisdom that you need to understand and incorporate into your business in order to really make an impact and grow your influence (and traffic) on the web.

Blogging
Conversion Tools (getting someone to contact you)
Keyword research
PPC (pay per click) initially and then SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as an end-game
Facebook and possibly LinkedIn - depending on your niche
eNewsletters
Good Video Skills

Everything else is just noise for you.

Now obviously I can't cover all of this in a single blog post. And there is a lot to understanding each of these topics in depth. But let me give you a little bit about each one.

Blogging
I see good blogs and I see bad blogs. The key to remember about a blog is that it's there to accomplish several things at once:

Bring in traffic by using your targeted key words
Provide a link to a conversion tool that gets people to contact you
Keep the reader's interest long enough to get them to your conversion tool
Let the reader get to know you (and hopefully like you)
Be interesting

Notice that nowhere in there did I say that blogging was for marketing your listings. Because really it isn't. If all you do for your blog is repost your MLS listings, you're missing the idea of it all. Your listing is already on the web. And a blog page is both less well indexed than your MLS page and really not suited on any level for this.

Conversion Tools
A conversion tool is something that incentivizes someone to give you their contact info. Usually, it's a white paper or a free audio class or video. But the person has to enter their name, email and phone number to get it. This is the critical-factor tool. If you don't have this, you're missing the boat entirely. It's the thing that takes the visitors to your website from lurkers to leads. Until they say who they are, you have no way to really connect and get into that all-important relationship.

Keyword Research
If you're not yet working a niche, get one. Your keywords will be much easier to get ranked on if you are working a viable and marketable niche. Finding the right keywords is as much an art as it is a science. But you can do your research using Google's Keyword Tool. Initially, you'll have to pay per click using adwords to get the ranking that you want, but using the proper SEO techniques, you'll be able to rank organizally (and stop paying for your clicks) within 3-6 months - sooner if you work hard at it or have little competition in your chosen niche).

Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
This is where you bid on a key word that you want to rank in the search engines for. You want to be specific, like Real Estate in Powers Lake, WI (BTW - this is me building traffic to my mother's house that is for sale in that area right now - there's a selling bonus if you have a buyer!) If you try to rank for simply "real estate", there is too much competition and you'll never be able to keep up with the major franchises. Besides, you are really only interested in people searching for your area anyway. Best to keep your keywords at that level too.

Search Engine Optimization
Once you know the keywords you're looking for, then it's about getting those words associated with you. This means that you publish articles and write blogs and put out status updates that use these words and words associated with them. (For example, words associated with my mother's hourse would be words like house, property, listing, for sale, Genoa City (her town), Wheatland (the school district), Twin Lakes and Lake Geneva (the next towns over in either direction), Kenosha (the county), three bedroom house, two and a half baths, big yard, big kitchen, etc. You get the idea.) Google judges your content not only on the keywords you are angling for, but whether the content is relevant by the keywords associated with it. The more content you have out there with your keywords, the better your chances are for getting more traffic to your site.

Facebook and LinkedIn
These are really the only two social media sites you need to worry about. Most agents can get by with just Facebook. LinkedIn is for people who are working the corporate and/or business niches. Facebook is a way to casually connect with past clients and their friends as well as to deepen your connection with your prospects. Playing games, posting relevant and fun content and sharing your thoughts (but not everything you had for breakfast please) are all good ways of connecting quietly without being a bother, but staying top of mind at the same time.

eNewsletters
Aweber and Constant Contact are the primary places people go to host their newsletters. If people are interested in real estate, then you need to give them a way to keep abreast of the news. Having a regular newsletter is a good way to do this. Do yourself a favor though. Write a bunch of articles each winter and keep them on hand. This way when you get busy, you'll be able to drop in one of your pre-written articles and make sure that your newsletter still goes out.

Good Video Skills
More and more video is becoming a factor on the web. You need to be able to talk to the camera and you need to be able to film your listings without bobbling the camera too much. You also need to be able to post your videos online. Check out TubeMogul.com to get the best use of your time with the widest distribution of your videos.

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Wake Up And Smell The Coffee

2010-08-12T16:18:47Z

Can I just ask this - has everyone forgotten how to think?

I just came from Harvard medical school where I was having a CT scan done to prep for my tooth implant. At the front desk they asked me to sign the standard hippa disclosure and confidentiality form - not surprising and really I didn't have a problem signing the form. The problem I DID have was that they asked me to sign electronically and I couldn't see what was on the screen when I was signing. They expected me to sign blindly a form I hadn't read, hadn't seen, didn't even know existed. WHAT??!?!?

Know What You're Signing
So in fact I could be signing anything - an application for credit, authorization for my records to go into a medical study, affirmation that I've been advised that CT scans make you sterile - who knows? So I asked to see the screen before I signed. You would have thought I had asked the receptionist to get up and dance with me. She didn't have a problem with the request but she had no way to fulfill it since the screen couldn't be turned to face the patients. Clearly no one had asked this of her before.

REALLY? I'm The Only One?

And this is what gave me pause. Why hadn't anyone asked? Why was I the only person who thought that the form she said I'd be signing might not be the one on the screen? I am far from paranoid but I do pay attention and this risk was too high even for me - me - the girl who once gave away everything she owned and left for places unknown. It was too risky for me.

Pay Attention Or Pay The Consequences
It's sad to think about how little people pay attention for the facts of this story to be true. But it also concerns me that the people in risk management failed to consider this as well. Why didn't they think that having patients blindly sign forms wouldn't constitute true consent? Why wouldn't they be concerned that an employee might load another program into the system and use the electronic signature to steal someone's identity? Even risk management - the people paid to pay attention aren't being conscious here.

Has everyone in the building fallen asleep?

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

The Most Efficient Way To Market Your Listings

2010-08-05T08:29:32Z

The Market You Don't Think About
Did you know that most transactions in this country (better than 65% in most MLSs) are co-broked? That's right! Almost two thirds of your business comes from other agents. So while everyone else is focused on combing the internet for the next lead they will have to chase down, the smart listing agents of the world will be courting not the buyers themselves, but the busiest buyers agents instead.

Higher Return on Investment
Think about it. Getting into relationship with a single buyer's agent takes significantly less time than it takes to get into relationship with all of their clients. And giving that agent an incentive to show your properties first - especially in a slow-moving market - is easy.

Think About What They Want
Unlike listing agents, buyer's agents are strapped mostly for time. If you can offer them services as a professional courtesy, they will preferentially choose your listings to show when all other factors are equal.

Make Showings Easy - They don't want to have to wait for you to show your listing on an accompanied showing. They don't want to have to fight with your staff to get a key or figure out when the office will be open to pick one up. They want a lockbox and an easy-in, easy-out process.
Be Honest In Your Listing Writeup - Nothing is worse than taking a picky client to a house that says "for the discerning buyer - in great shape!" and finding a pit that desperately needs a coat of paint. It loses face for the agent who brought the client there and it doesn't sell the house. It will also put your actually nice listings at the bottom of the pile for future showings.
Be Complete In Your Listing Writeup - Don't be lazy. Put the measurements of the room into the listing. If measurements aren't there, then a good buyer's agent will assume that the rooms are too small and/or the agent is lame and they'll take their clients elsewhere first. Take good pictures and include them in the listing.
List Any Terms in Your Writeup: Be clear up front if there's a timing issue or a short sale or the requirment to get probate court approval. Agents who have buyers with time constraints need to know this and while it may mean that they won't buy this listing (which they wouldn't have anyway), it will definitely get you points with the agent to bring you buyers for the next one.
Offer Good Co-Broke Commissions - If your market generally runs at a particular percentage for buyer agency commissions, you'd better make sure that your co-broke commission offered is at least that much. The last buyers agents want is to have to have a conversation with their client about making up the difference between the commission you offered and the one they agreed to with the client. They will put your listing on the bottom of a VERY large pile if you don't keep this in mind.
Offer Buyer Agent Bonuses - If there is a lot of competition in the marketplace, then offer a buyer agent bonus. This serves two purposes. It will motivate those agents who are money-motivated and it will tell everyone else that your seller is serious.
Do Your Job And Part of Theirs If You Can - Nothing is more frustrating to an agent who is doing a lot of business than not being able to count on the person on the other end of the deal to do their job. Make sure you cover all your bases and meet all your deadlines. And if you can do something to help out the other agent - do it. Agents are like elephants - they remember every favor and every slight. Little things go a long way.
Make Sure Your Team Is Friendly - I can't tell you how much business that one of the agents in my area got from me because of his assistant. I hated the man personally - he was an arrogant ego maniac. But his assistant was a total sweetheart. And, because he was arrogant, he almost never interacted with us peon buyers agents. Good news for me since I preferred his assistant. She was kind and caring and even threw me a referral on a listing that was out of their area but not out of mine - without taking a referral fee on it. (I had sold 5 of their listings that year.) A good assistant is worth an extra transaction or two a year to you. And a bad one can lose that much business for you as well. Choose wisely.
Make Friends - Agents are inherently social people. If we like you, we'll want to work with you again. Make a habit of taking the agents who co-broke your deals out to lunch to celebrate the sale. It's a small gesture that will cost you only about $15-$25 but it will almost certainly result in a second sale with that agent in the next couple of years if they do any amount of business.

We all think that we want to double-dip our listings and that's great, but it's not day-to-day reality. The fact is that you're going to cobroke most of your listings. Wouldn't you like to be able to hand-pick the agents you end up working with more often than not?

So the next time you're looking at how to advertise that new listing of yours, think about sending a full color brochure (or ebrochure) to the top buyers agents in the area.

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

How Cool Is That?

2010-08-02T12:42:46Z

Love My DROID Phone
So I bought my new smart phone about four months ago. I got Verizon's DROID using the Google Andriod operating system. And can I just tell you how much I love this phone? I love the built-in GPS system that allows me to use Google Maps and the search function that lets me search for something "Starbucks" and it will show me where the nearest ones are based on my GPS location (how cool is that?!!). It's also got some fun games and the texting system is pretty rocking for saying a lot with just a few touches on the keypad. The only downside is that if I'm not careful to turn off the GPS and/or the Bluetooth when I'm not using them, I can run through my entire battery in less than a day. I've taken to carrying a power cable with me everywhere, just in case.

But This Is EVEN BETTER

I've got a Kindle (which you can get now for half the price I paid for it - that's not as cool for me, but really cool for you). And I have a bunch of books that I purchased for my Kindle. What I have found is that the Kindle is great for reading at home or for taking on an airplane, but I find it a bit cumbersome for dragging around town with me (not more cumbersome than toting a ton of books, but enough that I generally don't bring it). Well, DROID came out with an application that is a Kindle book reader. Pretty cool by itself, I know. But what is even better is that I can read the book at home on my Kindle (bigger screen) and as long as I have the Whispernet system (or Wi-Fi on the new Kindles) turned on, it will record where I finish reading so that when I open the book on the DROID, it remembers my place and updates where I was reading from - and it works the other way too. HOW COOL IS THAT?

I'm reading more now than I have since I was in high school. I have my books with me everywhere my phone is. I'm loving it!

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Being With Grief

2010-07-25T12:31:15Z

Feeling Incompetent
When I was in my twenties, I used to panic anytime someone was grieving. I didn't know what to do to make it better. I knew that there had to be something I could do - if only I could figure out what it was. But I didn't know, and this made me bad at helping, bad at being a good friend. I didn't know what to do and so all I wanted to do was to run away so that I wouldn't feel so incompetent anymore and so perhaps my friend would be able to find someone more capable of helping.

Witnessing Not Fixing
In my thirties, I came to understand that there are some things that cannot be fixed, cannot be undone, cannot be ameliorated. I began to accept that some things just were and that grieving was the process of coming to terms with and accepting that fact. When I understood this, then I began to understand that there was nothing I could do to help the person who was grieving except to provide them with whatever they needed to get to this place of acceptance. I realized that it wasn't about me - it was about them. And sometimes there was nothing to be done except to be present and to witness the pain.

Love Helps
Now, at the opening of my forties, I am experiencing real grief for the first time in my life. I thought I had felt it in my divorce, but with it being my choice to leave the relationship, I didn't get the full force of it. Now, upon the sudden death of my mother, I begin to grok the fullest extent of the feeling. And what I realize is this: no one can help me. This is a road that I walk alone. I must walk through the pain and the loss on my own - no one can walk the road for me. As much as others can be there to provide support and love and some small measure of comfort, there is no one who can truly lessen the load. But the witnessing and the touches and the statements of support provide pinpoints of light along the path. It's amazing how much a simple comment from someone that says that, even a month after my mother has passed, they are still thinking of me and sending me love helps.

Honor The Journey
Because experiencing the death of a loved one isn't an event - it's a voyage. It's a journey through pain, wistfulness, nostalgia, need, neediness, desolation, depression, anger, betrayal, sweetness, joy, poignancy, life, rebirth, questioning, reevaluation, hopelessness, confusion, tears, determination, edurance and more. The full spectrum of life's emotions ebb and flow through my experience. I am more aware of my life and the need to make more of it. I am keenly conscious of my own mortality and questioning of my choices of what I do with my time between now and then. This grieving is as much a blessing as a curse and I am grateful to have the human and monetary resources to explore it fully.

Being Present and Caring
And so I offer a thought to those who are as I was - fearful and feeling completely inadequate to the task of supporting those in grief. Here is what you can do: be present. The gift of your awareness of my pain is sufficient. It is enough. Do not ask for a response because it is likely that you will not get one. I cannot take care of you and of myself at the same time. But your comments are heard and felt and apprecitated. They matter - even if I don't say so. Put me on your calendar to reach out to or drop me a note on my Facebook or in email to say you've been thinking about me. Offer help even though there is nothing you can think of to do. The offer alone is enough to make me feel seen and heard in my pain (or joy or loneliness or wherever I am today). I may take you up on it - I may not. But you are helping.

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

My Apologies - My Mother Died

2010-07-15T14:35:30Z

I'm sorry I haven't been around in a while. My mother passed away suddenly earlier this month and I dropped everything to handle the arrangements and the estate. Along the way, I've gotten an up-close and personal perspective on real estate and death and I wanted to share that with you today.

Grieving Steals Your Brain
The first thing I want to tell you is that if you haven't experienced the death of someone close to you, you should know that grieving steals your brain. For the first 10 days after I got the news, I was really unable to think. It's been a little over two weeks now and I'm still having trouble remembering things that have been told to me and keeping track of details that have to be planned. I am putting my mother's house on the market this weekend (I need to do it quickly, the market there is still dropping by 2% per month) and I'm still having challenges with making firm decisions.

An Overwhelming Amount of Paperwork
There is a ridiculous amount of paperwork that has to be completed when a loved on dies. Let's start with what it takes to get all of the pieces of that person's financial picture in place. My mother, for instance, didn't own a single file folder. Mercifully a dear friend of mine came with me to her house and did the dirty work of digging through boxes and drawers filled with random bits of financial paperwork to put together a picture of what assets and liabilities she had. I never could have done this on that first trip out there. It took everything I had to bag up clothes and deal with funeral arrangements and lawyers naming me the executrix of the estate. It was too much to handle alone - I don't know what I would have done without him.

Different Priorities
It's amazing to see how your priorities change when you are dealing with an estate. I tend to be more practical than most, and not having ever lived in my mother's house is making the process of selling it much easier for me; but there is just all this STUFF. Mom lived alone in a 2500 square foot house. That's a lot of stuff. Especially for someone (me) who just moved into a new place that is already full to the brim with my own stuff. I find the thought of how to deal with it all quite overwhelming - especially since she was in Wisconsin and I'm in Massachusetts. I'm finding that I'm putting everything to the "how much would it cost to ship it vs. buy it again" test. Most things aren't passing.

Wanting To Be Done
Now I thought that it was just me wanting to power through all of the issues associated with the estate. After all, I've had a tough year so far with an IRS tax audit and a move to a new apartment and now my mother's death. I just want to be done. But several people who have lost parents recently have been in touch with me and they all agreed that there is this very real need to put everything in order so that you can feel free to fall apart and grieve completely.

Making Good Business Decisions for the Estate
I'm lucky - I'm the only heir. This means that the only person's interests I need to look out for are mine. But even so, in the midst of this grief I'm having to learn about tax law and beneficiary status and what does and doesn't get cycled through the estate account. I'm being asked to learn new things when my brain can't even hold onto what I already know. Blessedly, I know real estate, so getting the house on the market quickly, deciding to keep it furnished until it sells, and pricing it aggressively so as not to follow the market down and drain the estate with holding costs were no-brainer decisions for me. But they wouldn't have been for most other people.

Tell Us What To Do
When I went out to the house for the first time, I spent all five days I was there doing what my friend Ken told me to do. I wasn't able to prioritize or even keep a list in my head. We took detailed notes of all our conversations which turns out to have been a fabulous idea since I don't remember any of those conversations now. He also kept a list of all the important phone numbers in the back of the notebook so that I could find them easily. All really good ideas. The key here is - when someone is grieving, they need to be told what to do. They need someone to look out for them. They aren't going to be able to learn new things, they need strong suggestions with sound reasoning behind those suggestions. The best thing you can do is to be clear about your recommendations rather than asking the person grieving what they think - because we don't think anything - our brains aren't functioning.

How Can You Help?
Bring in an organizer to help your clients with getting the paperwork in order. Have a good estate attorney that you can recommend. Offer to make the calls to find out if the parent had a pre-paid funeral at one of the local funeral homes. Suggest that the person look for a safe deposit box key where the will and other important documents might be stored.

How Can You Plan?
Here are some really important things I learned from my mother's estate. Mark your heir(s) as POD (Pay On Death) on your bank accounts. This allows them immediate access to your funds to keep things moving along until the executor is declared by the courts and an estate bank account can be set up. This is the single most useful thing that my mother did for me in this process. Also, name your heirs as beneficiaries on all of your investment accounts - this will keep them out of the estate and insulate them against the claims of creditors. Meet with an estate attorney and plan your affairs. Any help you can offer your heirs is greatly appreciated by those left behind. It is the last gift of love that we will ever receive from you.

My Memorial to My Mother

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Be Prepared - A Cautionary Tale

2010-07-07T19:59:42Z

My mother passed away last week and I have just spent the last week putting her affairs in order – or should I say, beginning to put them in order. Mom did a few really smart things to help me through this process and some others that have made life really difficult. I share them with you here so that you can plan accordingly for your loved ones.

Smart Things:

Mom listed me as the “POD – or Pay On Death” person on her accounts. What this means is that all I needed was a death certificate to access the cash in her accounts. This has been invaluable as I have needed to spend a fair amount of cash to take care of things for her – from the money for the funeral home to the cost of the bond to be named executor of her estate, to the airfare and car rental as well as food, cleaning supplies, etc. and I’m just getting started, It’s going to cost another $500-$1000 just to get her house on the market. The other benefit of this approach is that it keeps the cash out of the estate so that if there are debts the creditors can’t use this cash to pay for those debts.

Mom listed me as the beneficiary on some of her accounts. It would have been better if this had been all of her accounts since it would have kept the money out of the probate process, but she did well.

Mom had a will. It wasn’t as important since I am the only heir, but it made things easy for me at the courthouse.

Mom had a safety deposit box – this turned out to be a blessing and a curse since I could access the box to find the will, but I I wasn’t allowed to go through anything once I found the will until the court had appointed me as the executor which, because of the holiday weekend, took six days to complete. I had to stay two extra days to complete this process. And I wouldn’t have known about it if I didn’t know her accountant and he had told me.

Not So Smart Things:

Mom didn’t file any of her paperwork. My friend and I spent four days digging through the house in boxes in the basement and countless drawers to compile her financial records. Nothing was dated, some things were still in their original envelopes. The task of trying to figure out what accounts were open and to whom was overwhelming. I’m still in process on it. Do your heirs a favor and get organized.

It seems that Mom had a bit of a shopping addiction. She had a TON of stuff and she hadn’t thrown anything away in years. It took 40 garbage bags to clear out just her clothes – many of which hadn’t been worn in 20 years or more. Do your heirs a favor and clean out your closets – if you haven’t worn it in more than two years, it should get donated.

I’m not sure yet since I still don’t have access to all her accounts, but I think she may not have had life insurance. If this is the case, then that would be a shame. It means that I will have to come out of pocket for funeral expenses and transportation costs for her remains. A small life insurance policy or a pre-paid funeral is greatly appreciated.

Mom didn’t file her taxes for 2009, so I’m going to have to do this for her for both last year and this year.

Some thoughts for your planning.

Talk with your kids about what you want for a service (if any) and whether you want to be cremated or buried. If I didn’t know Mom’s desires well, then I would have been swindled by a funeral home who claimed that Mom had talked to them and even picked out a casket. (Mom clearly told me that she wanted to be cremated, so I knew they were lying.) Keep a list of open accounts somewhere that is written down – don’t expect us to pick through your computer – especially if it’s password protected. Keep a list SOMEWHERE of your email accounts and passwords as well as the access information to your other accounts.

If you keep a safety deposit box, put it on your calendar to update it every year. There were documents in Mom’s box that were seriously out of date. She could have easily paid for a smaller box had she cleaned it out every now and again.

Keep a list of your professionals with contact info. If you have an attorney, an accountant, an investment banker, etc. Keep track of everything on a single piece of paper so that it is easily accessed by those who don’t know what you have going on.

I hope this inspires you to create a will of your own. A little planning goes a long way and having this information in place helps a lot when you’re trying to deal with the grieving process.

I’m heading home tomorrow but I’ll have to come back within a couple of weeks to get the house on the market. It’s a process. Thanks for all the well-wishes.

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Dialing For Dollars - Don't Cold Call - GOLD Call!

2010-06-28T10:11:02Z

"The Money Is In The Phone!" - Chellie Campbell

A friend of mine, Chellie Campbell, wrote a book called "The Wealthy Spirit - Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction" (great book, BTW, you should really check it out). In it she talks about what she calls "Gold Calling". I've always referred to this as "Dialing for Dollars" myself, but it's the same idea.

NOT Cold Calling - GOLD Calling
Now a lot of brokers will tell you that cold calling is the appropriate approach to getting your business re-energized. I couldn't disagree more. I did cold calling - for a sum total of 10 calls my entire career. I even sold a house on the 8th call, but it still didn't cure me of my absolute hatred of cold calling. When you're cold-calling someone they don't know you, don't trust you and don't have time to talk to you. Not to mention the huge hassle that it is to just look up all of those "do not call" numbers before you pick up the phone.

Gold Calling Is Fun and Easy!
No, what I'm talking about is Gold calling. These are the calls you make to the people who already know and trust you, whose numbers you already have, and who you are entitled to call whether they are on the do not call list or not because of your established relationship. These are people who like you. They'd love to hear from you.

Cold Calling Sucks - Gold Calling Rocks!
Did you know that the average cold call has a 1 in 50 chance of resulting in a lead? That means you have to talk to 50 cranky strangers to get one possible lead. But Gold Calling results in leads in 1 out of every 11 calls! That means you have to talk to 11 of your loving friends and past clients to get a lead. How much better does that sound? And if you consider that your average commission is probably about $4,800, that means you're getting paid about $400 PER CALL YOU MAKE. I don't know about you - but that sounds like a great deal to me.

Referrals Are Worth Their Weight In Gold
When you call people who have bought or sold with you in the past, you are setting yourself up to create a new piece of business. They may know someone who is looking to buy or sell right now. Or they might have a change happening in their lives that is causing them to need to sell. You just don't know until you call.

Prospects Are Waiting for Your Call Too!
I can't tell you how many times I've worked with coaching clients and had to encourage them to do this process with their prospects as well as their past clients. It seems that somehow we worry about being too aggressive with our prospects and scaring them off. But I tell you, don't worry about this. If you see a house that would be perfect for a couple who says that they aren't ready to move for a year, call them anyway and tell them about it. They might have changed their timing - or they might change it for the right property. Even if you don't have something perfect, even your long-term prospects should get a call every three months just to check in. You never know when things can shift and you want to be top of mind when they do.

What Do I Say?
This is where most agents drop the ball. They think that it's a great idea to call, but then when they go to pick up the phone, they get stuck because they don't know what to say. There is a huge amount of call reluctance that happens - even when talking to your own past clients and friends! If this describes you, then I suggest coming onto my Prospecting Call Clinic. In it, I'll walk you through exactly how to make phone calls to your friends, your past clients, and your prospects WITHOUT being a pest and a bother.

The Money Is In The Phone! Go Get Yours Now!

Prospecting Call Clinic

June 30, 2010
12:00-1:00pm Eastern

Only $29.00!

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist

Look at the Bright Side...

2010-06-14T10:39:02Z

I moved this weekend. I left the apartment I had been renting for the last few years (which was not my choice - my landlord was in foreclosure so I didn't really have a lot to say about it), and moved into a new place. The move, as all moves all, was stressful. My boyfriend is still having a challenge with it since nothing has a home yet. And here's the thing.

When we moved into the new place, we realized that the rooms were MUCH smaller than we had remembered them being. The apartment as a whole is much larger, but the rooms themselves are small. And we're realizing that we're not going to be able to fit everything that used to be in the garage at the old place into other places on the property (since this place doesn't have a garage). On top of it, we moved far enough away from our favorite breakfast place that it's unlikely that we'll be there nearly as often as we used to.

Now I could focus on what doesn't work, but what does that get me? Unhappy, pissy and depressed. But if we instead focus on what does work - the bigger kitchen, the extra bathroom, the front AND back porches, more space for entertaining, closer to the subway system for easier access to the city proper, then it all comes into focus. We even went walking yesterday to find some breakfast and realized that we're really close to another great breakfast place and only steps from a grocery store. Plus, I'm closer to my gym - something I will make use of again once I stop doing the "lug the boxes" exercise program.

So here's my thought for you for the day. There are some things in life that you can't change, or that you know you'll have to live with for a while (I'm not moving again anytime soon - the rooms will just have to be small). Accept that and move on. Focus on the things that work in your life, change the things that you can that don't work, and accept everything else. Bitching about what can't be changed serves no purpose other than to make you and the people around you miserable. If you instead focus on what makes you happy, you'll find more of it.

In short - Don't Worry - Be Happy!

If you enjoy my posts, you'll love my products at www.SpartaSuccess.com. Thanks for reading!

Kelle Sparta
Thought Alchemist