Let's go play in the (Active Rain) rain. With whom? Why? When? Where? How long?

I recently commented on someone else's blog about

participation at Active Rain and what one gets from it.

By far it was the longest comment I've ever made, and I was tempted to just do my own blog entry and then go back to his blog and say, "see my comments here" with a link back to my blog. The I figured, why not do both? That way I could comment on some of the comments already there at his blog, and expand on things in my own blog. So here goes.

Active Rain is like life in general.

It might be a real estate networking community, but everything I've seen here indicates that the diversity of people, emotions, and opinions reflects life in general. And I believe that is just as it should be. That's what's so great about Active Rain.

Over 114,000 members of all persuasions.

There are a lot of people here with whom I disagree, but I still visit their blogs, read them, and occasionally comment.

If the first three pages of their blog

are exclusively religious or political,

I don't comment.

In fact, my Partner and I have a set of

GUIDELINES

for commenting on the blogs of others.

I stay out of political and religious frays, mainly because it is quite possible that a prospective Client might see my name associated with that blog, and if my prospective Client is Muslim, well, the last time I checked, he was using good ol' American dollars to pay me for my services, so I don't want to be associated with someone else's ranting against non-Christian religions, which is what I usually find.

It's one thing to have an opinion,
it's quite another to have an impolite, unprofessional,
just out-and-out nasty opinion.

I don't want to be associated with that, Republican, Democrat, or otherwise, again because my prospective Client could be of any political ilk. As long as he's using American dollars, I don't really care. If I find that his politics are extremely opposite of mine, I'll take his money for my services and donate it to various charitable organizations whose views I agree with.

In many cases, what they say just reinforces my own correct opinion. LOL

The fact that there are people here who don't participate anymore is okay, too.

They are missing out on what we have to offer,
and we really are not privileged to know why they are not participating.

They might have found a community more to their liking.

They might have moved on to a different profession.

They might simply have posted their résumé here so that they are the first John Doe here, or so no one else can assume their name here and post erroneous information. People post their résumés all over the Internet. It's what my Partner calls the NBA. No, not basketball, which really disappointed me when he first mentioned the NBA approach. It stands for the Nuclear Bomb Approach: Put your name everywhere and the fallout might get you a few hits.

Most of them are hoping for a hit, and sometimes it works. After all, of a prospect sees your résumé everywhere he looks (Active Rain, Linked In, Merchant Circle, Twitter, etc., etc.), then the natural assumption is that “he must be good.”

They might have wanted instant success, not found it, and moved on. Everyone wants instant success. That's why lotteries are so successful. Excepting lotteries, many people will give just about anything a try and when they don't see an immediate result, they give up on it.

I used to be the same way, but my Partner of 14 years has taught me to

take just a few things and do them well,
do them persistently and consistently well.

That persistence and consistence is the only reason why I’m still in real estate in this market since I got started in May 2005, at the peak of the boom here.

Dr. Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI, might have said it best with the title of a recent book of his:

“Givers gain.”

Many of us learned from our parents that "you get out of something that which you put in."

I have been Active here for only three months and have one buyer under contract as a result of my persistency and consistency here. I have almost 50,000 points.

My Partner, who has two company profiles here at Active Rain (home inspector and marketing & business consultant), has 6 home inspection referrals and 19 new clients for his M&B business. He’s so busy that he’s not taking any new Clients for the rest of the year.

One of the comments that I read in the other blog was about it being difficult for professionals other than Realtors to get points and see a huge response. As far as points go, everyone gets the same points for commenting and blogging. Build up a friendship circle of Active Rain friends, and you’ll get 100 instant comments when you blog, too. Those comments are worth points. But those people have been here for over a year, so newbies won’t be in their league until they’ve put in the effort.

Put the same effort into Active Rain,
persistently and consistently,
that they have done,
and in one year I can guarantee you that you'll have
100 instant comments to any post of yours.

It should be easier for other professionals to see a response due to the mere fact that not everyone buys a home every day of the week. However, a painter here would be much more likely to pick up business and referrals from the public and from the Realtors themselves. Lots of people are staying put and merely painting their homes instead of selling and upgrading in this economy. Some can’t even afford the paint, so they are just buying some new furniture. Uh, where are the furniture sellers? They should be here. This is a real estate networking community. Guess where you put furniture? That’s right. In real estate! Duh.

I regularly read about Active Rainers not being able to think about something to blog about or they are afraid that it won't be interesting to anyone else. As my Partner would say,

That's just an excuse

Let’s go back to the Active Rain community being just like life in general. If something interests you, blog about it because I can guarantee you that it will interest someone else. Just look at your statistics to see how many people read your blog entries on the blog scroll and how many click through to your blog. You’ll be surprised. I was.

Even if you’re into “cats that like to eat rats and then regurgitate it for the family dog as dog food to get even with the family dog,” I can guarantee you that there’s at least one other person who is into “cats that like to eat rats and then regurgitate it for the family dog as dog food to get even with the family dog.” The rest of us would read it because it just sounds so unusual.

I read the paper each morning, and there are always at least five things that I could blog about. I have a huge list here. Think about what you do each day, your conversation topics with family, friends, and business associates, newspaper headlines or television sound bites that "got your goat." The only way I can believe that you don't have anything interesting to say is if you can tell me that you have no family, friends, or business associates.

So get busy.

No more excuses!

Let's go play in the rain.

"Let's Go Play In The Rain"