I have had great success posting my personal property on Craigs List.  Frankly, I am shocked by the number of people who use the website.  I have sold a number of personal property items from Craig's List - just as much success there as on EBAY.

My questions are:  Has anyone had success posting REAL PROPERTY listings to Craig's List?  Has anyone had inquiries on their homes for sale?  Is it worthwhile?  Do you feel like you're wasting your time?

I know Craig's List is a freebie site to post your property but I'd like to know if anyone has had success with their real property listings.

Jon Miller, Broker, United Country-Marshland Realty

Beaufort, South Carolina is ranked number 14 in the top 25 small city arts destinations according to American Style's cover story of "National Treasures: Top 25 Cities for Art."

John Villani, author of The 100 Best Art Towns in America stated, "In Beaufort, what you have is a very accessible, easily walkable, small-scale downtown that's loaded with great art and a range of diversely programmed art galleries...for the size of the town, the concentration of galleries here is phenomenal.  It's block for block, one of the densest concentrations of galleries I've ever seen."

 Enjoy the following galleries in Beaufort:

•  Art & Soul, Old Bay Marketplace, 917 B Bay Street 843-379-9710
• Bay St. Gallery, 719 Bay Street 843-522-9210
• Beaufort Art Association Gallery 1001 Bay Street 843-379-2222
• Four Winds Gallery, 709 Bay Street 843-379-5660
• I. Pinckney Simons Gallery, 711 Bay Street 843-379-4774
• Indigo Gallery, 809 Bay Street 843-524-1036
• LyBensons Gallery 211 Charles Street 843-525-9006
• The Charles Street Gallery 914 Charles Street 843-521-9054
• The Craftseller, 818 Bay Street 843-525-6104
• The Gallery, 802 Bay Street 843-470-9994
• The Rhett Gallery, 901 Bay Street 843-524-3339

 Additional contact information:

Guild of Beaufort Galleries, P. O. Box 938, Beaufort, SC 29901, www.guildofbeaufortgalleries.com

For those of you who use the Agent Achieve program, I figured out how to grab the HTML code from the postcards I create to insert them into my Active Rain blogs.

First of all, you must create your postcard and save it as a template.

•  Click on Marketing
• Click on Virtual Postcards
• Under My Templates click on the Virtual Postcard you created
• Under Choose a Template click A Postcard to Promote a Property Listing
• Select a Listing for your Postcard
• Select a Template for your Postcard
• Click on Edit Content
• Click HTML Editor
• At the bottom of your Property Listing Postcard click the block that says HTML

Now all you do is copy and paste the HTML code into your Active Rain blog and it will come out looking just like your postcard.

Jon J. Miller, Broker, United Country-Marshland Realty

I create flyers using Postlets and I recently found out how to grab the HTML code from Postlets and put them into my Active Rain blog.   Check out this blog on how to do it.

QUESTION:  Using Peak Performance, is there a way that we can grab the HTML code from the postcards we create and insert them into our Active Rain blogs?

Jon J. Miller, Broker, United Country-Marshland Realty

Twice this week I found out that people were looking me up on the Internet.  One was a friend of mine who tried to reach me to send me some information totally unrelated to real estate, but he lost my email address, phone number and everything.  So he did one of those Google searches and the way he found me was through Active Rain.  He sent me an email through Active Rain!  Now I have a very common name that I'm sure would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but because of the search engine optimization ability through Active Rain, he found me. 

Another guy called me wanting to know information about properties that have recently sold in his neighborhood because he's considering putting his home on the market.  Then out of the blue he asked me about the Active Rain points.  So I had the opportunity to tell him that I'm the #1 featured agent in Beaufort, South Carolina.  That was cool!

Jon J. Miller, Broker, United Country-Marshland Realty

Alright now, our office is up and running with Peak Performance, and all I can say is wow, what a difference!  No more reinventing the wheel...it's all right there and in color no less!  David Dickey came out and spent the day with us to get us going.  Thanks David!

I'm going to like working with this agent achieve system.  The contact management section is awesome and it's what I've been looking for.  I've never been very good at managing contacts but it seems like its quite a powerful program.

I still have to load my contacts into the system and then group them.  I managed to change my Spreadsheet program to a .csv file and I imported 352 names into my contacts list and put them all into one group.  (Hey, I figured it out! - It wasn't that hard).  Next I'm going to add the agents in our local MLS and group them accordingly.  Then I still have to figure out current clients (well I know who they are - duh!), past clients and As, Bs and Cs.  It's going to take awhile to assimilate all my data.

We are seriously looking at having the capability of tapping into our local MLS and running ALL of the local board MLS listings on our United Country website.  I understand that there are two United Country offices that have already gone through the partnership process and are running with it.  I also see that one of our competing real estate companies is already doing this so our local board office should be familiar with the process.

I am looking forward to doing great things with this program especially the virtual postcards.  I had been busting my behind creating marketing pieces to send out; now all I have to do is click a few buttons and it is done!  Yea!

Jon J. Miller, Broker, United Country-Marshland Realty

Enter the minds of your people and have that thought stay there!

When I was a military band director I used to program the Colonel Bogey March in my music concerts.  This march is world famous and was most identified with the film Bridge on the River Kwai.  In the bridge section there is a very recognizable melody that everybody whistles, and I used to turn to my audience to get them to whistle along with the orchestra. 

Why would I program this particular piece of music in my concerts, especially as an encore?  Because I wanted to mess with my audience's heads with a memorable experience!  Nothing is more memorable than having the audience whistling the music as they exit the auditorium.  They not only whistle the music as they're leaving, they continue whistling it in the car while driving on their way home.  They still whistle it in their heads as they get ready for bed.  They can't sleep at night because they can't get that stupid melody out of their heads!  THAT's the kind of affect that I wanted to have on my audience and it worked Oh, So Very Well! 

Its kind of like singing "Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall... A Hundred Bottles of Beer...." Or "Do the Hokey Pokey and You Turn Yourself Around" (...What if Doing the Hokey Pokey is what it's REALLY all about?!), or "The Ants Go Marching Two by Two, Hurrah, Hurrah...."  After awhile you can't get those darn melodies out of your mind and it drives you nuts!

Is this considered subliminal torture?  I don't think so, but this is the kind of affect we should strive for with our clients.

What do you have in your arsenal that you can use to enter the minds of your audience and get it to stay there?  What can you use to set yourself apart from the crowd?  Is it a Slogan?  How about a Personal Marketing Brochure that tells us about yourself?  Do you have one-of-a-kind stationery?  An eye-catching piece of artwork that decorates your car that advertises yourself? 

I recently had a great experience showing people the Country Living Magazine 2008 Home of the Year.  A couple from Minneapolis came down to visit because they were going to build that very dream home for themselves.  They wanted to see the home so they could get some ideas for building their own home using these plans.  I knew they weren't going to buy anything, but it meant everything to them to see this home.  So I made them feel welcome; I recommended a great bed and breakfast for overnight accommodations, recommended a couple good restaurants, and I spent over two hours with them making them feel welcome and showing them this home top to bottom.  That's just me... I did that without expecting anything in return.  Then I got a very nice email from them thanking me.  It went like this:

"I cannot tell you how grateful we are for your hospitality and taking us to visit the home of our dreams.  Joan and I have marveled at how kind you were; your willingness to spend the time with us and help us "hash out" changes, etc.  You truly are a gem and we appreciate your kindness."

Now that floored me, and it was just another reminder to me that even our personalities and the way we handle ourselves can get into the minds of the people we deal with and can set us apart.

I'm not going to tell you what to do to set yourself apart from others, because that's as individual as each one of us.  You just never know what kind of affect you will have on other people.  Sometimes it can come back to haunt you!  (He says, as he exits while whistling the melody to Bridge on the River Kwai...)

Jon J. Miller, Broker, United Country-Marshland Realty

My wife heard my band on the radio the other day.  She said "Jon, I heard 'Mack the Knife' played on the [old fogey] radio station.  I thought it sounded familiar.  After the song was over the radio announcer said the name of the band, and ...you played on that CD didn't you?" 

"Yes dear, I played on that recording." 

Hey, it's nice to hear that our music is being played. 

Another time my mom called me and said "Jon, I heard your CD played on the radio... I got so excited that I called the radio station and told them that He is My son!"  (Mind you, this record was being played in Clear Lake, Iowa, half a country away from where I live.)  Hey, I like it when that happens!  I get residuals every time my CD is played. 

I recently checked my site at TheOrchard.com and found out that my music has been downloaded in Germany, Japan, Australia and basically all over the world.  I was really surprised to see that!

Then the other day my wife told me that she did a Google search for something - I forget what it was - but she said that my Active Rain blog came up as the #1 search.

Hey, I was thrilled!  I must be doing something right.

Alright, confess!  How many of you go to open houses for the free food and cash drawings? 

I've noticed a heck of a lot of open houses lately - every day of the week something is going on somewhere.  Today's afternoon delight was tacos with soft drinks, and the dessert was cheese cake and chocolate chip cookies.  Yummy! 

Tomorrow there are three homes to see; one serving lunch, another serving dessert and the last one there's a chance to win a $50 drawing.

You could gain 20 pounds if you ate out every afternoon for lunch at open houses. 

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  The house today was ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!

(I know.  I know... that's not the purpose of an open house... but come on... Ain't it the truth?  Ain't it the truth!)

...Oh, the psychology of it all!

Jon Miller, Broker, United Country-Marshland Realty

I had the neatest thing happen to me this weekend.  I was an exhibitor at an Antique Tractor Show and we had a little, tiny log home cabin - the kind that you can pull behind a truck - as our exhibitor's booth.  This little house was cool!  It was novel, and people really enjoyed coming in our log home to see what it was like.

For a first ever Antique Tractor Show in this area there were quite a few people that showed up.  I got to talk to a lot of people that dream of owning a log home.  One person already had a log home and wanted to add onto it.  One guy has fifty acres and wants to build a log home on it.  Another guy wants to build a log home-type BBQ restaurant.  The stories go on and on.  But I ended up taking the names, addresses and phone numbers of six people that are ready to build! 

Not only that but I got invited back as an exhibitor to another bigger and better Antique Tractor Show.

Being an exhibitor at county fairs, trade shows, home and garden shows and the like can really pay off!

Jon J. Miller, Dealer

Colonial Structures Cedar Log Homes

Broker, United Country-Marshland Realty