Living just north of Cincinnati, really heavy snows have been infrequent. A few inches at a time and we can usually just drive in and out of our driveway with no trouble. When it goes a bit deeper I can break out the snowblower to clear the couple of hundred feet and the turnaround pad. Bundle up as best I can and I know the wind is going to have me coated before I'm done.
Most years the snowblower fires up without much difficulty. Last year wasn't one of those years and I learned some lessons about small engine repair and that when you need something NOW, maybe outsourcing the work to some young guys with a pickup truck is a short term solution. Ultimately I replaced the carburetor so I'd be ready for next time.
And that next time was predicted for this weekend's version of Snowmaggedon, with forecasts exceeding a foot of snow. So just before the weekend, I pulled the snowblower out of the shed, put in some fresh gas mix and hit the carb with a shot of starter fluid and Houston, we have ignition! It ran a little rough initially, but smoothed out. Shut it down, then fired it up again to make sure it wasn't a fluke, then parked it on our front porch to be ready. Snow started Saturday and ended late Sunday with about a foot of snow. We had no appointments, so I postponed clearing the driveway until Monday morning.
Fired up the snowblower with no trouble and started my first pass down the middle of the driveway and got about halfway to the street before the machine sputtered out and refused to restart. Roll it back up to the house for some quick troubleshooting and no luck. Uggh, going to have to go old school and use the shovel. A couple of hours later I've cleared the bulk of the driveway and head back to the house to give the snowblower another shot at finishing the job, and this time it decided to work (gremlins or flooded out before?) and that allowed me to finish the job. 3.5 hours of snow removal and the expectation that I'm going to be a bit achy the next day. Thank God that it was a very powdery snow and not the heavy variety, but still, that was a lot of shovel maneuvering.
Now it's time for the traditional, what analogy do we have to apply this to real estate?
Take your pick!
1. What worked yesterday may not work today. Your prime methods of generating business may not sustain year after year, so be ready to adjust.
2. Fundamentals rarely go out of style. While not nearly as easy or as quick as a snowblower, a shovel still moves the snow. Getting in front of people one at a time may not give the volume hit of being some TikTok video star agent, but it can still get the job done.
3. Be flexible. Blower to shovel to blower. Use the tools available to you as they make sense to use at the time.
4. Money or time, which do you prefer to use? Sometimes I'm DIY (I enjoy blogging), other times I outsource (e.g. Charra Hammett handles my IDX website needs).
5. Adding to your capabilities gives you more options. Combustion is fairly simple with small engines, but if you don't know anything about it, it's just a mystery box. Making things seem like a mystery is how so many lead gen companies stay in business. Once you learn how to generate your own business (did I hear someone say long tail search results as a for instance?) and you can leave the lead gen companies behind and spend those fees as you see fit.
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help,
Bill & Liz aka BLIz
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