Phenomenal, adjective: exceedingly or unbelievably great
I got my first email about RainCamp in early December. It was from Douglas Ching VP of technical Training, it was titled "Are You Available January 12th?"
January 12th was over a month away and I'm a busy agent, I had no idea what I was doing on January 12th! I was pretty sure I was not going to go to New York City to an all day seminar where the promoters would try and sell me stuff that would turn me into a $20 million dollar agent in 30 days or less! Don't get me wrong, I've been to plenty of those type of events and believe if you learn one new thing its never a waste of time. However, New York City is not walking distance from Baltimore.
I did know that my 2010 Business Plan included capitalizing on social media and starting and maintaining a blog. Prior to real estate I spent 15 years in corporate marketing much of that for start-up companies in the telecomm and high tech industries. I think that gives me an edge that many people cannot devise for themselves but I know there is always more to learn.
I got more emails over the next few weeks telling me about RainCamp. I read them, even clicked through to all of the info about the "Shift" book but was pretty sure I was not traveling to New York. I did enough research to know that RainCamp was coming to Washington, DC in May and thought I'll just go then.
Then came the email that pushed me over the edge, it was from Bob Stewart and it was titled, " It's Not Like You Have Anything Better to Do", it was an hour-by-hour, play-by-play of an imaginary day as follows(Bob please forgive me if I have broken some copy right law)
From: Bob Stewart-Active Rain
Subject: Its not Like You have Anything better To Do
To: ME
Date: Thursday, January 7, 2010, 8:05AM
OK, maybe you do have something better to do. If you have a client you meeting or a closing that is taking place on this Tuesday, January 12th then then you have something better to do. If you don't, I can't possibly imagine why you would miss RainCamp in New York City.
Well, maybe I can imagine.....it must go something like this:
7:00am- You wake up, stretch, yawn and roll over to hit the snooze.
7:15am- You wake up again, wipe the drool on your pillow, yawn and sit up in bed.
7:21am-Your prospects for generating a new client today are weighing on you like a ton of bricks, you won't stop racking your brain until you think of where your next client will come from.
7:32am- The computer is fired up and the coffee is done. now its time to really get to business. You answer a few emails (not nearly as many business ones as you had hoped, mostly chain-letters, spam and a few Facebook messages from your Mom, can you believe your MOM is on Facebook? I wonder if she is buying or selling in the next four weeks.) None are a potential new client.
7:55am- You read ESPN.com for the days sports news and remember to check to see if any business email might have hit your spam folder. Nope, nothing, nada, zilch.
8:25am- (yep, you just wasted a half hour on ESPN.com) You are dreading cold calling today. You decide to put it off until tomorrow. You do the same with door knocking and calling expired listings.
8:31- You call and back out of doing that Open House for the agent in your office. That last open house did'nt generate one lead. What a waste of four hours.
8:32- (you didn't get them on the phone, you left a message) Now its time to .....you don't know. You decide to watch the end of the Today Show, Al Roker is so funny!
9:05am- You check Facebook and Twitter...everyone is talking about RainCamp already. How could they be this excited? They are only five minutes into the thing?
9:05am-5pm- You are mesmerized as the 450 people attending-NONE OF WHICH ARE YOU-send out bits and pieces of what they are learning. You respond to as many tweets as you can, begging for additional explanations. Someone finally posted video, its only 3 minutes and you only catch 2 days of Ben's "Ten Days Of Pain" lead conversation method. The three minutes of video have about 90 seconds where you can actually hear what Ben is saying.
5:05pm- You curse yourself for missing RainCamp. You are convinced more than ever that your next potential client is that much further from your grasp because 450 OTHER PEOPLE just got a first rate education on online marketing.
8:05pm-"NO WAY!!!" You scream. Did her Facebook update just say that RainCamp was donation based and I could have paid any amount I could afford???
Register Today, as seats are limited and headed towards selling out. Don't be the guy(or gal) in this story. Come to RainCamp and we KNOW you will have something better to do every day in 2010.
Bob Stewart
ActiveRain
425.753.7340
bob@activerain.com
(Before I go on let me note that this would never be one of my calender days. I work for one of the biggest REO/Foreclosures Listing Brokerages in MD and I am thankful that we are are very busy.)
I called Bob, I figured his number is on the email, so I'll call it, I doubted he would answer but I dialed. Bob answered the phone! OMG he is a real person. I asked if he thought I would benefit from coming to NYC or if I should just wait until RainCamp came to Washington, DC in May. I already knew the answer, why would I wait until 5 months into 2010 to take actions to implement part of my plan.
I went onto the Amtrak site, found the cheapest train ticket which I must add, required me to get up at 4am, drop my dog off at a friends and board a 4:45am train to NYC(the later train would have been more than twice as much). I then purchased a donation based Raincamp ticket for an undisclosed amount. Lets just say I was paying a lot to get there and based my donation on my budget for the day.
I woke up at 4 am having flashbacks to college crew practice. if you or anyone you know has ever rowed crew you know what I am talking about. I boarded the train afraid that I would fall asleep, snore loudly and miss getting off in NYC and find myself in Canada.
Thanks to the Conductor I got off in NYC at 7:20am. I put my makeup on in the train station bathroom.
In the registration line I met an agent who had come from Washington, DC. We spent the day together. The bottom line, THIS WAS THE BEST OUT-OFFICE-DAY I HAVE SPENT. There was a lot I knew but so much more I did not. The presenters were energetic and more then will to share tons of information for FREE! The best part, by not waiting until May I got a head start on the agents in my area and was able to implement this part of my 2010 in the first month of the year. RainCamp was simply PHENOMENAL. You have to go....
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