branding: Microsoft Publisher's Days Are Numbered
- 03/01/24 09:33 AM
Microsoft Publisher's Days Are Numbered 975 to be exact.
Last week, Microsoft announced they would no longer be supporting Microsoft Publisher as of October, 2026. Here's their official statement:
"In October 2026, Microsoft Publisher will reach its end of life. After that time, it will no longer be included in Microsoft 365 and existing on-premises suites will no longer be supported. Until then, support for Publisher will continue and users can expect the same experience as today."
Our designers at The Lones Group have known for a while this is coming. The writing has been on the wall. While other … (8 comments)
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branding: Branding Spotlight: Sandra Hines
- 06/02/23 08:57 AM
Branding Spotlight: Sandra Hines We had been working with Sandra for well over a decade and when she decided it was time for a brand refresh - we were ready, willing, and eager to help! Sandra has adjusted her business quite a bit over the last several years, but what hasn’t changed is her dedication to past clients. Her past client relationships are the driving force of her real estate business and she prides herself on creating new friendships with each and every transaction.
In her past brands that we had developed for Sandra, the color palette included either a … (1 comments)
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branding: Visual Bio: A Must-Have for Your Marketing Toolbox
- 05/26/23 09:32 AM
Visual Bio: A Must-Have for Your Marketing Toolbox When is the last time you really reviewed your biography that you use with your listing/buyer presentation or on your website? Does it include paragraphs of text? If text is all you have to showcase your expertise and experience, you are missing out!
Enter - The Visual Bio!
A Visual Bio takes the best of what you bring to the table and brings it to life with visuals. Whereas a standard bio might rely on text and lists, a visual bio relies on formatted text with callouts, logos instead of lists, and … (17 comments)
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branding: Branding Spotlight: A New Website for Kaaleen Gassin
- 03/17/23 01:19 PM
Branding Spotlight: Kaaleen Gassin's New Website In this week's Zebra Report we are highlighting features from Kaaleen Gassin's beautifully branded real estate website! Custom built by The Lones Group on the AgentFire platform, this website has a lot to offer.
This website project had several important needs to fulfill. Kaaleen wanted a website that would emphasize the breadth and diversity of her large territory and present regularly updated information, but still be accessible and easy to navigate for her visitors. It needed to be easy to keep current as new testimonials roll in. And she wanted to make sure that … (1 comments)
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branding: Brand Reveal: Jessica Livingston
- 03/10/23 09:53 AM
Brand Reveal: Jessica Livingston After finding success for over 20 years working as a real estate agent across the greater Seattle area, the time came for Jessica Livingston to build a unified look to take her business to the next level. We are thrilled to have helped her in this chapter of her business journey.
While her previous tools and systems were a little miss-matched due to years of revisions, she knew she wanted to continue with the lovely purple-and-gray palette from her website and the minimal san-serif font used. Her overall goal was to establish a visual that was … (1 comments)
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branding: Brand Reveal: Brandi Chambers
- 02/08/23 02:29 PM
Brand Reveal: Brandi Chambers Brandi was a real estate assistant in Las Vegas before moving to the Pacific Northwest. At first, she hadn't thought of herself as real estate agent material because she didn't like the thought of being a salesperson. However, once she found the right agent to model what a real estate consultant was, she was hooked! She appreciated that the agent she was assisting would sometimes talk her clients out of buying or selling if it wasn't the right fit for them. That sort of integrity is innate to who Brandi is and she decided to take … (0 comments)
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branding: The Importance of Visual Impact
- 11/18/22 10:07 AM
The Importance of Visual Impact I've seen a disappointing trend lately - agents are sending out poor quality materials with low visual impact. It doesn't matter if it is your listing presentation materials, marketing materials, or farming materials, your visual impact is extremely important.
3 Things Every Branded Marketing Piece Needs: First, it needs a consistent style. This is color, fonts, logo, and design elements that bring it all together. Second, use the best quality paper your budget allows. Flimsy paper looks awful and doesn’t reflect you in a positive light. Third, and most important, it has to have your … (7 comments)
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branding: The Right Props for Open Houses in Today's Market
- 04/22/22 01:53 PM
The Right Props for Open Houses in Today's Market Hi everyone and welcome to this week's Zebra Report - I am so excited to share with you again on the topic of doing Open Houses. I know - a lot of you are out there in super-fast housing markets and you are wondering, "Wait a second, why in the world would I even bother doing an open house when I am listing a house on a Thursday and have an offer review by Tuesday? What's the point? There's so many showings and it's so crazy already!"
Well, the point is … (13 comments)
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branding: Niche Marketing Done Right!
- 04/01/22 01:09 PM
Niche Marketing Done Right! It's Thursday (#TBT)! I am feeling a little nostalgic today, so I am taking a trip down memory lane to some of my favorite niche brands that we have created through the years. Some of these are older than others (we HAVE been creating brands for agents for over 20 years) but all of them have done their job, creating a visual connection for a specific client base.
Property Niche Experts
Rhonda Bleck has a passion for mid-century modern homes, so we took that passion and ran with it when creating her brand!
Susan Shorett … (12 comments)
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branding: Claiming a Niche Market without Alienating Your Clients
- 03/18/22 09:22 AM
Claiming a Niche Market without Alienating Your Clients It is common knowledge that specialists usually garner more demand than generalists. However, real estate agents rarely start their real estate business only specializing in one type of real estate. Most real estate agents build their business with any transaction available. Fast-forward a few years and most agents find their database full of past and potential clients from a wide area. The agent is relying on that database for future business and when the opportunity to specialize in a niche market arises, agents are very reluctant to focus on that as they … (7 comments)
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branding: Leave a Lasting Impression at Your Next Listing Presentation
- 06/25/21 07:21 PM
Leave a Lasting Impression at Your Next Listing Presentation
Picture it. Your potential seller's dining room. 7:32 pm.
You have reviewed their home, provided them with information on pricing, and have shown all your materials. Do you ask for the business? Ask if they are interviewing other agents? Whip out a listing agreement?
This is a make-it or break-it moment for all your hard work up until this point. Sometimes you know exactly what to do or say, but sometimes, especially when the potential seller is a different personality type than you, it can be tough to judge.
However, … (6 comments)
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branding: Is it Time to Refresh Your Brand?
- 06/11/21 10:24 AM
Is it Time to Refresh Your Brand?
Evolution, not Revolution, is the key to a successful brand refresh!
If you think about companies that have been around for decades, most of them go through a brand refresh at some point. Think about Pepsi, Starbucks, and even Google! It is rarer that a company undergoes a complete overhaul, but it happens when an opportunity is identified. AFLAC is a great example of this, trading their outdated typography and icons of people to a more-modern font in cool blue and a duck.
How to Tell if Your Brand Needs a Refresh
… (5 comments)
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branding: How Do YOU Spell Relief? B-R-A-N-D
- 06/03/21 05:25 PM
How Do YOU Spell Relief? B-R-A-N-D
I hope some of you have enough "experience" to remember the old Rolaids slogan in which people with heartburn were asked about how they spelled "relief" and it was spelled R-O-L-A-I-D-S.
In real estate, we have different kinds of heartburn:
Heartburn when a past client works with another agent Heartburn when we lose a listing to someone with different or more-polished tools Heartburn when a friend, neighbor, or family member calls another agent to list their house Heartburn when a potential buyer you have been trying to work with for six months decides … (11 comments)
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branding: How Fun is Your Brand?
- 05/17/21 04:13 PM
How Fun is Your Brand?
You may have a logo or you may have a full brand complete with color palette and logo rules. If you have a brand, you may have thought about things like house flyers and just listed cards, but what about some things that are fun for your business?
Here at The Lones Group, we have a number of fun things that we have at the ready, and even more so when we have classes. We have stickers that go into packages we send out in our two very cool branded boxes. For our big … (9 comments)
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branding: Is "Easy" Killing Your Brand?
- 04/09/21 03:13 PM
Is "Easy" Killing Your Brand?
Over the years, The Lones Group has built hundreds and hundreds of brands for agents. These brands are as unique as each and every agent they were built for. They are eye-catching, memorable, and brimming with agent personality. They do the job of talking for the agent when the agent is not in front of the potential buyer or seller.
Agents are faced with a unique challenge in their business - balancing their skillset, the best use of their time, and what needs to get done. When agents have too much on their plate, … (16 comments)
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branding: Catapult Your Success at the Real Estate Success Summit
- 01/17/21 10:54 PM
Catapult Your Success at the Real Estate Success Summit
I am really getting pumped for our Real Estate Success Summit coming up on January 26!
In addition to my State of the Market - Your 2021 Housing Market Update class in the morning, we have THREE amazing tracks of content for our afternoon - which you can watch at your leisure!
I rolled out our Agent Success track on last week's Zebra Report and now I am excited to introduce the more in-depth classes we are offering in our Catapult Your Success track. Remember! - Everyone who registers has … (0 comments)
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branding: What's the Big Deal About Branding?
- 12/04/20 05:37 PM
What's the Big Deal About Branding?
There are very few things I am as passionate about in business as branding. Brand Development is as critical in business as determining your business name, mission statement, your entity (such as S Corp, LLC, etc), and your processes.
However, there seems to be confusion about what your brand really is. Some think it is solely about the client experience – the feeling the client gets once the transaction is closed, the service you provide, etc. In my opinion, that works great for past and current clients, but what about those potential clients who … (13 comments)
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branding: What's Your Niche Market
- 05/19/20 02:27 PM
What's Your Niche Market
Today, I wanted to talk about niche markets. A niche market is defined as a smaller part of a larger market with its own defined area of specialization.
The perfect example of a niche market in real estate is waterfront property. I happen to live on a lake and I have learned a thing or two about lake front living that I had no idea about before I became a lakefront property owner. I've now been here for over 14 years and in that entire time period I would say I have probably received maybe … (17 comments)
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branding: Five Changes for a Better 2020
- 12/20/19 02:26 PM
Five Changes for a Better 2020
Here we are. Just one last business week and 2019 will have sailed over the horizon and into the past. The holidays are nearly here and come January you’ll be refreshed and ready for a new start. Right?
Have a bad 2019? Put it behind you. It is over. It's done. It's time for a new you. It's time to figure out what you need to move your business up to the next level. If you are like most agents, you may be so deep in the trenches that you don’t know where to look to get … (14 comments)
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branding: 11 Secrets to Geo Farming Success
- 05/10/19 10:12 AM
11 Secrets to Geo Farming Success
Many real estate agents utilize geographical farming to build a strong predictable lead generation system. It is easy to send postcards to your farm and call it good but is that getting you the results you want? If not, then it is time to make some tweaks to build a strong PERSONAL PRESENCE.
When I started geographical farming, when I first started selling real estate, I began with sending postcards which was a great start but I sent out the same thing month after month. My message was okay, but it didn't get … (11 comments)
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