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I Am Semi-Retiring From AR

By
Real Estate Broker/Owner with Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408

It is funny but I did not have time to announce my semi-retirement from AR for more than a week now.

Yep, it is time to stop the race and get practical. At 10 posts per week and 10 comments a day and considering the time I was devoting to doing this, it was eating me alive.

I could try doing it faster, but it would come at the expense of quality. I perfectly understand that quality is very relative thing, and even with all the time I was devoting to writing, the quality was often borderline.

What this race taught me is discipline, and I am grateful for that. With my semi-retirement I am afraid to lose this discipline, so all it really comes to is posting less, and caring less about comments, but at the same time spending more time on my business, marketing outside of AR, which I wasn’t doing at all. I hope it would favorably reflect on the quality of posts on AR as well.

I meet people who are following me on AR. They do not comment, but they read each and every blog I post. For me they are important, and submitting one good post instead of 3 average ones can work to my advantage. They do not know how many points I have accumulated, nor do they care, and I am taking a note of that...

It is like suntan. You come to Florida and you are dying for this suntan. It takes time. You can’t get it too soon. In Florida if you get too much son, you leave the skin.

I reached this one million points, and I could keep racing, and I would have done it if I had more time or was better, faster, smarter… but I am not. I did very well on AR, now I am adding business outside of AR and an extra time for the beach. This is why I am in Daytona in the first place.

I am back to working on my condo-hotel site, and then my condo site will follow. I have neglected it for all those years I am on AR. It is time to turn on these engines.

So, this is not a farewell, this is not even a bye-bye, I will still be here, read my favorites and newbies, comment here, post here…

See you in the rain, my friends.

Show All Comments
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Jeanne & Ralph - thank you

Jun 27, 2012 11:52 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Thank you Carol, I am still here, just a bit less

Jun 27, 2012 11:53 PM
Jim Smith
The Property Management Company - Round Rock, TX
Broker,CRS,GRI,RMP,CNE,TRLP

Balance: 

A state of equilibrium or equipoise; being in harmonious or proper arrangement or adjustment, proportion, etc.
 
 
 
I have often been amazed at the amount of time many AR members spend on this site, many of which are meaningless "blogs" and comments, for the mere sake of accumulating points.
 
 Facerbook, Twitter, Link-in, ActiveRain, etc. are tools to be used, not abused.  It is very easy to get caught up in the seemingly importance of it; yet we loose sight of the big picture.  Just like our food diet requires a well balanced diet to maintain a healthy body, our business practices should do the same.  We can benefit by practicing a "Business Pyramid", akin to the "Food Pyramid", by partaking these activities in healthy doses and not becoming obsessed.

I have a ten-minute rule I use for all of these sites:  Never spend more than ten minutes a day on any one site; and, never spend more than 30 minutes totle on all, unless there is a quantified and truly measured response that grows your business.  (Sorry - This is looking more like a blog than a response!)
 
Congratulations on moving forward with those things that truly are important!

 
 
 
 
 
 
Jun 28, 2012 12:06 AM
Kathryn Maguire
GreatNorfolkHomes.com (757) 560-0881 - Chesapeake, VA
Serving Chesapeake, Norfolk, VA Beach

A wise decision!  Glad it is just a semi-retirement and not an actual retirement!

Jun 28, 2012 12:15 AM
Ken Brandon
Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage (Jacksonville, NC) - Jacksonville, NC
Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, NC

The less important tasks must never take priority at the expense of the truly important ones. Sounds like you have a great plan in mind and I wish you continued success with the implementation and execution of that plan.

Jun 28, 2012 12:34 AM
Wayne Zuhl
Remax First Realty II - Cranford, NJ
The Last Name You'll Ever Need in Real Estate

Good morning Jon - it sounds like you've thought this through and have made a decision that you feel is best for you and your business. AR takes a lot of time to do it well, and, as we've often seen, doing it poorly isn't worth the investment. Good luck to you, and I'll look forward to your posts as always, even if they won't be as frequent!

Jun 28, 2012 12:55 AM
Hannah Williams
HomeStarr Realty - Philadelphia, PA
Expertise NE Philadelphia & Bucks 215-820-3376

Jon.. As long as it is a SEMI Retiring  You are one of my favorite people here in the rain I would be very disappointed if you left . You would be really missed by me .

Helpfulhannah

Jun 28, 2012 02:23 AM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Jim - I am a bit cautious about time limits that you set for yourself. i spend often an hour on one blog, and 10 minutes would be a disastrous meaningless comment for points only. Sometimes I was guilty of it, but not really that often.

If you leave me only 10 minutes for a blog, I would die. I love writing, and I love writing and being involved in waht I write.

For me 10 minute rule would make it meaningless, and to be honest, I doubt in writing anything meaningful in 10 minutes, but that's me.

Jun 28, 2012 07:12 AM
Brenda Kasprzyk
Real People Realty - Palos Heights, IL
Realtor - Palos Heights, Palos Hills - Homes

Hi Jon,

 

If it wasnt for your blogs about condo-hotels, I would not have come down to Daytona to purchase one. I thank you personally for your effort that you put into your post.

 

Maby now you can walk the beach a couple of times each day!condo hotel

 

thanks again<

Brenda

Jun 28, 2012 02:02 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Thank you, Kathryn

Jun 28, 2012 02:42 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Brenda - it is such a pleasure to see you here in the rain. You have made changes to the unit, which make it stand out. It is much better now than it was when you bought it.

I hope you will enjoy your getaway iunit on the ocean.

And I will be walking past Hawaiian Inn and thinking about you, guys, every time, when I am passing it.

Thank you

Jun 28, 2012 02:45 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Ken - thank you. I hope I will use this time wisely and be better agent than before. At least I will make a shot at it.

Jun 28, 2012 02:47 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Wayne & Jean - I can agree more. So many poorly written stuff on AR, and so many members insist on qualtity and not quality.

To the point it became the AR culture. Write, write, write, does not matter what and does not matter how.

I think this is terribly wrong. It matters, it matters a lot.

i understand that we can fool the spider and show well on Google, but then what? The client, reading crap?

Jun 28, 2012 02:50 PM
Debbie Gartner
The Flooring Girl - White Plains, NY
The Flooring Girl & Blog Stylist -Dynamo Marketers

Good morning Jon.  Yes, moderation is the key to everything and sometimes this place is a bit addicting.  Diversifying your time and lead sources is a good thing...and I would focus your time here on what gets you the most biz...wirting good quality posts and some quality commenting.

Jun 28, 2012 06:46 PM
Mike Cooper, Broker VA,WV
Cornerstone Business Group Inc - Winchester, VA
Your Neighborhood Real Estate Sales Pro

I totally understand, Jon.  I've had a hard time keeping up lately.  Most of my posts are written late at night or early in the morning, and then I'm rarely engaged until those times again.  But, it's a good thing because business is good.  

Jun 29, 2012 02:26 AM
Jim Smith
The Property Management Company - Round Rock, TX
Broker,CRS,GRI,RMP,CNE,TRLP

Hi Jon:  I may not have been as clear as I should have been.  The "10 minutes" was referring to those of us who spend time on the various sites for entertainment and not truly business focused; resulting in lost productivity with our clients.  When I blog, it is typically off-line, then uploaded to several different sites at the same time.  What it really boils down to is answering the question of whether or not the time spent is truly productive, or merely a feel-good, pretend to be productive activity.  I stand by my observation that most of the posts on ActiveRain appear to be about point accumulation rather than adding true value; and therefore, maybe not the best use of our "working" time.

I still remember Tommy Hopkins in the mid-80's saying "We must be doing the most productive thing possible at any given time";  which, of course, includes scheduled down time.

Jul 03, 2012 12:48 AM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Jim - there is no question that a lot, if not the majority, of activity on AR is point driven and point oriented. This is absolutely true...

I would not necessarily agree with you on "feel good" comment. That's how I started on AR. I had not aspiration for any business whatsoever. It was purely entertainment for me.

And this is how it was for at least first two years. Because this is what I expected, I had no problem with it. Then I started getting calls, even though I did not post really real estate stuff. It was political, or anything unrelated to real estate.

I started getting calls based on character. something like "I like the way you think, and BTW, I am looking for something in your area, so, how about some real estate?"

Now I think that majority of my business comes from Active Rain, and until just now I never posted a lot of real estate stuff.

I guess, there are more ways than one.

thank you for you interesting comment.

Jul 03, 2012 02:47 AM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Hannah - you flatterme, but thank you, thank you, thank you... :)

Jul 03, 2012 02:48 AM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Debbie - moderation is the Art that I never mastered. I am a guy of one idea at a time, and I get so involved, it takes me over... I think about it, I talk about it, and  it is intense...

So, moderation is what I am dreaming of... I know it is great, but I did not learn how to achieve it

;-)

Jul 03, 2012 02:50 AM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Mike - it was the same with me. Writing at 3 AM and then coming to respond at 3 AM

Jul 03, 2012 02:51 AM
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