As so many businesses say "Dear God, hold on", I am finding my business to be more along the lines of "Wow, this is going to be a fun ride!"

The financial conditions across the world have been wildly interesting both professionally and personally. I've made dozens of new contacts in places I never would have expected and picked up some wonderful new clients along the way.

This all comes down to trends and cycles. One of the reasons I love my business is that it deals with trends: little pieces of data that infer how and why something will occur. If I draw a narrow correlation to just one part of my business and take a look at search terms online, we will see that is not some "doomsday crash" in real estate, but there is a downward trend on old-school idea:

The above chart is pretty clear: from 2004 there has been a very gradual TREND downward for real estate phrases online. This isn't the end of the world, just a gradual change.

What should real estate professionals being doing right now to maximize business: examine upward trends. I hate to say it, but social media is an upward trend. Real world word of mouth is an upward trend. Being CREATIVE is an upward trend.

Simply put: as finances become tight for folk these days, they tend to put on blinders to certain marketing efforts. Someone who doesn't have money is not subconsciously processing things like they would if they had $10,000 in cold cash stuffed in a pocket. Unfortunately mainstream America is resistant and hesitant to review money matters: we have educated a lot of our population to consider finances to be BAD.

Do not let this same conundrum kill your business. When change occurs at a faster pace: there are opportunities to be had by forward-thinking businesses.

On my other blog I recently wrote two articles about social media measurement to help professionals wrap thier mind around the trends I am experiencing:

Social Media Measurement - Metrics, Analysis, Growth, and Adoption: Highlights several slide presentations that are the best 20-30 minutes you can have on getting up to speed on social media trends. The four presentations are by different professionals (but each one of them is very bright)

Social Media Measurement- Finding Top Industry Blogs: This is an important one for real estate professionals who are expected to be neighborhood and community consultants. If you know how to find relevant and useful information online for a client, you can bring a very valuable and (FREE) benefit to your toolkit with minimal time investment.

Hopefully your business is picking up and doing well. If not, make changes today. If it is, keep looking at the puzzle and finding more of the missing pieces!