Hi All,
Long time, no talk. I know that after Inman I pretty much fell off the face of the earth for a while, but I think I really needed to. The Project Blogger experience was one of the most intense in my life and I really needed to regroup, re-evaluate and re-energize myself a bit before I sallied forth yet again.
I think I lost a little bit of my "spark" but I don't think that was necessarily a bad thing. Here's why... I love to write, generally speaking it comes easily to me and, believe me I am very grateful for that. But, as much as I love to write, I love knowing that what I write is being read and enjoyed. I feel a great responsibility to those of you who choose to read my offerings and, as a result, I don't want to pump out meaningless drivel.
But, while I am blessed with the ability to string words together, that takes time. Sometimes a lot of time. Sometimes a WHOLE lot of time. It was not unusual while the contest was going on for me to spend six, seven or eight hours or more in front of my computer each and every day, not working on my business per se, but writing here and on Route66Living.com. And, if I was not writing, I was reading.
You can't keep that schedule up and not have something suffer in the process. Either the writing quality was going to head straight for the toilet, or my business might. As you all know, a lead is only a lead if you follow up, and I was finding that I had time for the competition, but not for the follow up. And, it cost me. It cost me a whole lot.
Before I headed off for San Francisco, I had met a family that wanted to see homes while I was gone. I pulled properties to show them, set a showing date for the Tuesday while I was away (they knew that I would be at a conference but were not willing to wait to view homes until I returned. I had someone else working with me who would take them out.) I went over everything with my partner on this project, hit the road for SF and focused entirely on Inman, my visit with Mary and the PB wrap up.
Long story short, while I was away, I was so focused on my blogging friends, blogging conference and what I was going to write next, that I neglected to call my partner to see how the showing went. Boy, I wish I had... because the showing didn't. These prospects didn't get called by her or me, had gotten all fired up to view homes, went out and found another agent and made an offer all before I got home from SF. My first real buyer's, gone. Poof!
Before anyone misunderstands, this is not a "poor me" article, nor is it a finger pointing piece. But it is the chronicling of a realization. I realized that I was spending so much time focusing on my blogging efforts that I was neglecting the reason why I started blogging in the first place.
I am very pleased and proud to say that I am on the first page of Google when you search for a Claremont California Realtor (I was number seven :-) and I am also pleased and proud to say that I am getting clients contacting me from my blogging efforts on my site as well. So I don't feel that what I have done here or there has been anything but extremely worthwhile and rewarding. But I do feel that in an effort to not shortchange my readers, I certainly have been shortchanging myself.
Unfortunately, I don't make my living as a writer (I would love to and who knows, perhaps that may be what comes to pass) but, unless I do a better job of time management where writing and followup are concerned, I won't be making my living as a Realtor either.
I am grateful for the lesson learned, and I will never again allow anything like that to happen. So, ultimately the loss of that potential first sale, may prove to be more valuable as a lesson then it could ever have been as a transaction.
I will of course continue to remain an active part of the Active Rain community, and I look forward to hearing from each and every one of my friends here as I have truly missed you all. I will also be finishing up writing about my PB experience including my time in San Francisco, my meander back down the coast and most of all what I learned at Blogger's Connect. And, I will still be writing here for fun. I just won't be trying to do it all at mach-50 with my hair on fire as I had done.
So, while I did lose my spark for a little while, I truly feel that I have seen the light. And what a pretty light it is too.
Take care all, help lots of people and have a wonderful day!
Tisza
Comments(20)