ActiveRain Blog Posts: The Top 10 of 2011 - Just for Fun Edition
It's been a great series of Top 10s, full of amazing acceptance speeches and a little ruckus from some wild ex Guns n' Roses members but all in all a grand time. Be sure to check out the earlier Pro to Pro and Pro to Consumer editions if you haven't already, you don't want to be left out in the 'Rain....literally! Ha! Who writes this stuff?!?!
Ladies, I see we took a more casual look tonight, looking very lovely. Gentlemen, looking fly as always. Somebody please tell Snoop Dogg to chill, it's time to start the show.
Please allow me to introduce the Top 10 Just for Fun Pageviews of 2011!
Sharing is caring isn't it? Marte was moved by this video and decided to share it with her ActiveRain family. I dare you to watch it and not smile. If I was ever to move to Priest River I know who I'd want to work with.
A captivating title like this bring in the clicks. Who isn't just a bit curious to see the biggest private house in the world?!? Almost 4 years old, Barbara is still getting major attention from this post. Over 400K square feet, each AR member could have about 2 square feet....family reunion anyone?
The Gassets have shown us their pot o' gold! We're always looking for sites to grab images free of any copyrights and they show us where to do it, how to do it and even include some cute leprechauns along the way. A great timely, helpful post me laddies!
Everyone knows there is a difference between Canyon Cloud and Eggshell and Julia shows us how to find the closest match between distributors. As a home stage and designer, she does a great job of sharing her insider secrets for all to benefit.
It's hard to keep it fresh but Sharon does a great job of keeping readers informed of costume ideas. Who wants to spend $70 on a Halloween costume to only wear once? Most don't and with this post we find a few homemade ideas that just might work.
If you're like me and pick your paint by the coolest name, Manhattan Mist currently covers my bathroom walls, then you might not need this post. But most people do want to see the top colors for many reasons such as resale value, feng shui and positive aura producing vibes.
Whaaattt? Sharon in the top 10 again?? Somebody is in touch with her hyper local posts. Hope you have room on your mantle for another award Sharon. Keep these posts coming, obviously people are reading them!
Sharon...another one?!?! Talk about a sweep ladies and gents! Sharon, you are the master of everything Halloween costumes. The academy congratulates you on your 3rd nomination and win! I hope everyone is learning from Sharon!
Almost 5 years old and still getting the hits. Kathy shares with us her favorite paint colors and as a home stager she should know! She provides the link to Benjamin Moore's site and asks the community which colors are their personal favorites. Helpful and interactive is a great way to go!
And now....the reason we've all come tonight. I won't make you wait any longer. The #1 most pageviews in 2011 in our Just for Fun Edition is...
Nice work Mike! Your post has been viewed by thousands in 2011 alone. You've delivered exactly what your title promises and done it on a platform that is sure to rank. I hope you're face is smiling in over 60 different ways now!
Thank you all for coming. It's been a grand time and we hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we did. Get out there, review the winning posts, learn something and you just might be here next year! Goodnight 'Rainers!
There are no shortage of great products out there for a real estate professional to use in their business. (There are no shortage of crappy products either, but that's another point entirely) Almost every day it seems a new technology is introduced that promises to add revenue to your bottom line.
But what are you actually spending money on in your business? And how much?
In 2011, we polled our members to give us a look at what 'Rich Real Estate Agents and Poor Real Estate Agents' were using in their business as a way to compare top producers and their behavior with those agents who make less than $30,000/year. Now we'd like to dive inside the products you use to market your business and try to understand how your spending is impacting the results you see in your business.
We hope that you'd be willing to share with us what you spend your hard earned money on and how those tools help drive your bottom line. Every day agents are faced with the decision of what products to incorporate and how much should I spend on my marketing and the technology driving your business.
Does the $179 you are spending on your IDX website make sense? Should you be using a Craigslist posting tool in your business? Should you pay for a good one? Are other agents getting value from spending money every month doing direct mail marketing? How much do they spend? Do you spend money on pay-per-click marketing? How much are others spending?
You could literally whip yourself into a frenzy coming up with questions as they relate to where to spend your marketing budget. Often, the answers are hard to find.
The collective experiences of the members of ActiveRain are highly valuable. One of our goals has been to gain a better understanding of how to harness those experiences for the benefit of the entire community. This is the third broad survey we have conducted of the members of ActiveRain. We are getting better with each effort at collecting this data and presenting it back to you in a fashion that allows you to utilize the data to make more informed decisions for your business. We want to take the opportunity to thank you for sharing your experiences with us.
Each members of ActiveRain that completes the survey will be awarded 500 points for participating. Make sure you fill in your user name at the end of the survey so we can get your points awarded. In addition, one participant will be selected at random to receive a $500 Amazon gift card.
(Disclaimer: The answers you provide in the survey will not be used to market products to you and your answers will remain confidential)
*Please note bonus points will not be automatic but manually added in the near future.
ActiveRain Blog Posts: The Top 10 of 2011 - Pro to Consumer Edition
We had such a good time at our earlier Pro to Pro awards ceremony, and now it's time for the Pro to Consumer edition. I hope we don't see any outfit repeats as that would just be the disaster of the year! Keep it fresh ladies and gents and you're sure to dazzle your fans!
The following 10 posts were not necessarily written in 2011 but they do have the most pageviews from January 1st to December 31st of 2011. It's important to realize the power that one post can possess for years to come. Like a Chanel suit...it never goes out of style!
We couldn't get Billy Crystal to host this year as he is busy filming City Slickers 4 so AR will just have to do. Everyone please be seated, the awards show is about to begin. Quiet in the back (you know who you are)!
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Top 10 Pro to Consumer pageviews of 2011!
With more and more families living with multiple generations under one roof this information is heavily searched upon. Tip-toeing through the living room to get to the kitchen so as to not wake grandma must get old and people want to add more space. Penny talks about everything from budget to resale value.
Why wouldn't we counter? The title grabs those curious minds and clearly outlines the 5 reasons. Bolding, photos and clear paragraphs are a great outline for any post and tend to keep the reader engaged. Tni knows what she's doing here; catchy title, nice flow of the blog and great information.
In one instant, Bruce teaches us how to tell if a condo is VA approved or not. Few tasks are short and sweet in the world of real estate so it's refreshing to find one that is. Written in 2007, this post continues to receive view after view.
Herb does a wonderful job of playing teacher here. In order to keep your interested buyers engaged, he reminds us to put aside our emotions and focus on the facts when responding to low offers. Reminding the owners of the home to focus on the facts is crucial; a tough market makes for emotional sellers.
This post is for agents and consumers alike. Not only is Jeff sharing with us his vast knowledge of important pre-listing kit tools but he does it in a way that educates agents as well as sellers. Now when an agent comes to a listing appointment, the sellers know what to look for in order to find a valuable rep.
The CHIP program was new in 2009 as Cheryl points out. Loan limitations and requirements are clearly layed out for potential parties. She even includes links to see if the property is located in a HUD area or not. Consumers can do the simple math to see if they qualify before getting excited. I wonder who they're going to use as an agent in Concord after reading this post?
New and soon-to-be residents of Wilmington check this post out often. Positively layed out are the dining, schools, climate and cultural ways of this city. Can you say local expert?
Job opportunities constantly keep people moving and Austin is one of them. This manuscript if you will, is jam-packed full of information for everything Austin. Clearly an expert on the subject, Jason freely lets us inside his head and provides new Austiners with imperative information. Family fun stuff, place to eat, schools...you name it, it's included. Written in 2008, Jason alerts us that this post is a work in progress and he intends to update it often.
With the unfortunate market of some, it's not surprising that a post like this comes in at #2. Consumers most likely have never written a letter of this kind and scour Google for a good example and in comes Rosemary. Excellent title, and she's providing exactly what her title promises. Hopefully her phone rings with interested parties in her area to get the job done!
May I have the envelope please? *deep breath* And now, the winner of the most pageviews for Pro to Consumer 2011 is......
What a wonderful, time appropriate, hyper local post. Not only is Michele proving she is the mayor of her city, the go-to-gal for everything Brooklyn but she does it in a way that captures clicks. Her title promises readers important information. If you blog about your area, current and timely happenings are sure to get maximum exposure.
Thank you everyone for coming tonight, the talent in this room is just overwhelming! Big shout out to the tables hooting and hollering for their colleagues!! Yeah, whoop whoop!! We have one more awards show coming next week, the Just for Fun edition is sure to bring a smile. Have a great night, love each other and we'll see you next time!
In conjunction with the release of the new design of the 'my home' page, ActiveRain would like to introduce you to the ActiveRain Partners Program.
We believe ActiveRain is a great way for non real estate agents to make connections with real estate agents. For many of you, as real estate agents, you have made some fabulous connections with service providers over the years using ActiveRain.
The new version of the 'my home' page holds two advertising positions on the right hand side. One position will be dedicated to a brokerage and one position will be dedicated to a service provider (title rep, loan officer, etc.). When someone becomes an ActiveRain partner, they will get a chance to advertise to other members of ActiveRain on their 'my home' page.
For instance, if I was an ActiveRain partner in the Seattle area, I would show up on the 'my home' page of any members who access ActiveRain with an IP address related to Seattle or the surrounding areas.
ActiveRainPartners will also have a chance to participate in monthly trainings where we share, with the ActiveRain Partner, presentations that real estate agents may find useful. They can then use that presentation and the collateral associated with that presentation to present to agents in their area in an attempt to bring value to that agent's business.
We believe that a service provider's (or broker's) value, is in part, their ability to educate the real estate agents they work with. For too long, showing up with a box of doughnuts was how service providers attempted to win your business.
We believe there is a better way. We believe that showing up with education and training is a better way for service providers to connect with and demonstrate value for their real estate agent partners.
In addition to premium advertising position on ActiveRain, what does an ActiveRain Partner get as a part of the ActiveRain Partner Program?
Monthly Webinar Training: Our partners will get special access to monthly training where they will learn about something they can take back and share with real estate agents in their market. ActiveRain Partners will get access to the presentation and be provided with collateral they can use connect with local agents.
Quarterly RainCamp Webinars: Our ActiveRain Partners will get first access to our RainCamp Online series. ActiveRain Partners will have free unfettered access to RainCamp recordings and live webinars. They can choose to share the recordings with their sphere in an effort to further educate them.
First Access to ActiveRain Research: We have begun to refine our ability to survey and collect data from our members. ActiveRain Partners will get first access to that research and be able to use it to share with their sphere.
Local Networking Material to meet real estate agents: Getting out in your community and connecting with real estate agents can be the backbone of a successful service providers business. But when you are out meeting with agents how do you demonstrate to them that you can be a valuable addition to their business? ActiveRain Partners will get material that can solidify the relationships they create by getting out and meeting real estate agents in their market.
The Ability to offer real estate agents in your market a discount on ActiveRain products: The agents you introduce to ActiveRain can get a discount when they upgrade their ActiveRain account to a Rainmaker account. ActiveRain Partners can save their sphere money.
Widget to include on Agent Partners blogs: ActiveRain Partners will have the ability to get their contact information displayed on the side of their agent partners blogs. Did an ActiveRain Partner encourage someone to get set up on ActiveRain and get involved in the community? If so, that agent can choose to market the ActiveRain Partner on their blog.
If you have a brokerage, or you are a service provider to real estate agents and this sounds like something you may be interested in, you can contact our VP of Sales, Kate Yackley for more information at kate@activerain.com or you can speak with her directly by calling her at (206) 453-9667.
This will not be the last time you see changes here at ActiveRain. In fact, because we are fresh off a major overhaul to the underlying technology upon which ActiveRain is built, you should expect to see changes and updates more frequently.
That's very exciting for us. But we don't want it to come as a shock each time something new is introduced, so Nikesh (click that link and subscribe to his blog) will often give you a chance to test it out and give us feedback before it goes live.
In fact, last Monday Nikesh introduced a new look and feel for ActiveRain. For the last week our members have had a chance to play with the upgraded ActiveRain on our testing server, beta.activerain.com. We are really excited today to be releasing the first upgrade to the layout of the site in quite some time.
We have updated the design and header of ActiveRain to bring us into 2012. We also made some tweaks to the logo to modernize it and make it ring with the promise of ActiveRain as an aspirational community that is looking to connect, share and learn from each other. We have moved the clouds & the sky to be part of the logo to represent the idealism that ActiveRain represents.
2) Search Bar: The search bar is now present across ALL pages on ActiveRain, since search is such a core part of using the Internet. We will be making more changes to search on ActiveRain in the near future.
3) MyHome: This is where you will see the majority of the changes. MyHome on ActiveRain has consistently been the single most visited page on ActiveRain, but was the least optimized for the core activities that we want members to engage it. From an ActiveRain perspective, we want members to CONNECT with other members, WRITE/COMMENT, and READ.
We also have made the "Activity Feed" the core content of the MyHome tab. Over time, we will move blog post content and group posts into your activity feed as well, so you can see them all in one area.
Making MyHome cleaner and more focused required us to move links around. We have moved links up in the navigation that promote managing your profile, writing a blog post, viewing the traffic to your blog, and seeing your points. All the links that were on the left side of MyHome should still be on MyHome. Some of links which were used less frequently have been moved to "Blog," "Setting" or "Other." You can click on the arrow to see all the links.
4) Settings: In the upper right now, you will see your name (or part of your name that are including your city & state in your name field). When you click on your name, it will show your settings and billing information. Only YOU will be able to see your billing information. Some members have added more text to their first name and last name in the upper right. For example, if you made your first name in the system, "Bellevue's Home Buying Expert" and your last Name "Bob Stewart, Specialist at Keller Williams Bellevue," the system will only show the first 20 characters. Again, ONLY YOU see this. Consumers do not see the name in the upper right.
Listening to Feedback:
For the last week, since the release of the update to our Beta server, we have been listening to the feedback of members who have been using the new version of the site. Have we made some adjustments? You bet we have. We've found that the collective brain power of a community like ActiveRain is always capable of making improvements. If you have ideas on making ActiveRain better based on this new upgrade, or just based on anything you've thought up, please email: beta@activerain.com.
ActiveRain Partners Program:
To go along with the new design on the 'my home' page, we are also introducing a new ActiveRain Partners Program on ActiveRain. Interested in what it means to be an ActiveRain Partner? Feel free to stop by our post announcing the new program. If you are interested in a more powerful way to further your connections with real estate agents on ActiveRain, ActiveRain Partners may be for you.
ActiveRain Blog Posts: The Top 10 of 2011 - Pro to Pro Edition
Welcome to the Pro to Pro Edition of the Top 10 Pageviews of 2011. Thank you all for joining us tonight at this black tie affair. You all looked wonderful rolling down the red carpet tonight. Is that Prada? Vintage? Oh we'll just have to wait for the next rag mag to fill us in.
We thought it would be interesting to dig into our Google Analytics and find out which blogs had the most pageviews of 2011. We're breaking it down into 3 different posts: Pro to Pro, Pro to Consumer, and Just For Fun.
Keep in mind these posts were not necessarily written in 2011, they do however possess the most pageviews of any other posts on ActiveRain from Jan 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Top 10 Pro to Pro Pageviews of 2011
It's easy for successful agents to lose their mind when business is booming. Thus, agents begin to look at what life would be like with an assistant to handle some of the load. This post from 2007 really breaks it down and easily helps to identify what an assistant can do for you as an agent.
Controversy can be good for exposure. AR is just the place to vent about your frustrations because odds are someone else has been there done that. In this post, Vanessa takes us through her correspondence with a client asking her to reduce her commission due to a lower offer on their home.
Our own Bob Stewart comes in at #8. The title of this post was captivating along with the security of knowing you're going to find out numerous ways to not suck at real estate. Bob's post promotes a special webinar with the infamous Ben Kinney providing surefire ways to get your business hot again.
This title is a definite attention getter. Written on Halloween, Terri explains her dilemma with office space and how she needed to make a change. The end of the post leaves us with a question which forces us to look at ourselves and what changes are necessary to ensure we don't work so much we go broke!
Originally written in 2009, the last update was in April of 2011. Jonathan lays out exactly what's needed, provides phone and fax numbers and is getting much attention for it. In comment #269, Jonathan let's us know he's getting calls every week from people using the information on this post.
Appraisals and BPOs are hot topics in the business. Cost vs value is argued here along with Patty trying to wrap her around why thousands of dollars are being lost on short sales/foreclosures yet they're worried about a $400 appraisal.
Clint Miller...amazing man who passed away in late 2011 due to cancer. Clint's writing abiiity transfixes all who come across his work. In one of his amazing posts, he breaks down how agents are losing their client's confidence. He does a great job of not sugar-coating it and many people are much better off for that kind of tough love. RIP Clint, we're still learning from you each day!
I can see many agents, new and old typing this exact title into Google. This post is over 5 years old yet still gets major hits. Kristal clearly lays out exactly what she promises to do in her title.
Who's being reported? Why? Could I be next? Curious minds want to know and they clicked to find out. Jay's episode with a certain inspection report had created quite a stir inside and outside our Community. A man just doing his job yet the sellers, who obviously weren't professional inspectors had a different take on the whole thing.
#1) And now the moment you've all been waiting for. The #1 blog post......(create a drumroll in your head).....you know him, you love him....ladies and gents.....David Krushinsky of Phoenix, AZ!!!!!
What makes this post so darn popular? It may have something to do with paychecks. The most important part of most transactions boils down to how we as professionals collect our wages and survive. This post clearly calls out to mortgage loan officers about the new rules going into effect and he does it 8 months in advance.
To all the winners, amazing work! Your talents shine through and you make this world more beautiful one post at a time. For everyone that came out and supported our show tonight, thank you all for getting gorgeous and gracing us with your presence this evening. We'll see you at the after parties!
Stay tuned for Pro to Consumer and Just For Fun editions coming soon!
In order to improve the responsiveness of ActiveRain, we are doing a software update at 11am PST. We generally wait until the night to make any software changes, but we want to improve the responsiveness of ActiveRain as quickly as possible for our members. The process should take 10 minutes or so.
If you are working on ActiveRain at 11am PST, you may be logged out and you may lose any unsaved blog posts.
For January's challenge, we are honored to have the folks from Adobe EchoSign joining us. EchoSign was recently purchased by Adobe. Adobe is a company that a ton of us have been putting a lot of trust in for the last decade (some of us even longer than that). When you think PDF and secure transmition of documents online, many of us (at least I do) think Adobe.
Adobe purchased EchoSign because they also want to be that company you trust when you are having documents signed electronically. More and more of us are getting used to having documents signed electronically. Adobe EchoSign wants you to trust that those contracts and all that vital information contained in those contracts is safe and secure, much like they've been doing with our documents for quite some time.
We're not going to have you write about how much you trust electronic signatures, or how much you trust Adobe. We want you to share with us your feelings on trust in your business or life in general.
It's such an intregal part of why people choose to do business with one and other. It's engrained in us from birth. There is something about trust that makes it a fundamental of life, isn't there? From the day we are born, we have to trust. As we grow up (I know, I know, some of us never do) our trust is usually shaped by our environment. So when we come into the real estate industry, we have so many factors that have determined how trust incorporates with our business.
Share it with me, share it with Adobe EchoSign, share it with your friends and peers, how do your feelings about trust impact your business or your life? This is very open ended but I hope that people will chose to think about trust and really create a blog post that shares how they view trust and how trust affects the decisions you make in your business and your life.
What things have helped shaped how trusting you are of others? Are you one of those people that is naturally inclined not to trust someone until they prove they are trustworthy? Why is that? Have you been burned by someone in your business you trusted and how has that impacted your future dealings with people? Maybe it's just a story that exemplifies how you feel about trusting the people with which you work. Maybe it's a story that shares how you got burned by trusting the wrong person. It can be anything as long as it relates to the concept of trust in your business.
You can go any way you want with it........but I implore you to give it some serious thought. Do not just throw out 200 words about trust and call it a day and a contest submission. Think about it. Think about it for a while if you have to. Share with us your feelings on trust in your business. I'm going to go very deep in my post, I can already sense it. I hope you choose to do the same.
Challenge Guidelines:
Posts must be submitted between January 2nd, 2012 and January 27th, 2012 at 11:59pm Eastern Time. The challenge will end at 11:59pm Eastern Time on Friday January 27th, 2012.
Posts must be a minimum of 200 words. Remember, I'm asking you to really give it some thought. If you can sum up your entire feelings on trust in under 200 words, bravo to you! But it won't be eligible :-)
All posts submitted before January 27th at 11:59pm Eastern Time will be given 1000 points. Points for all entries will be manually awarded by the staff at ActiveRain after the conclusion of the contest.
All posts submitted before January 15th at 11:59pm Eastern Time will be given an additional 1000 bonus points. (This means if you submit early, you can earn up to 2000 points total)
In order to 'submit' your post for consideration, you need to leave a comment in the comment section of this blog post with a link to your post about trust. If you aren't sure what this means, ask someone or wait for a bit and you will see other members leaving comments on this post with a link to their post. Follow their lead.
Because the FTC doesn't like bloggers writing blog posts that could win them a prize without disclosing that fact, you need to include a line at the end of your post that goes something like this:
This post is a submission to the ActiveRain / Adobe EchoSign Trust Contest. I could possibly win a prize. You can find out about the contest by clicking here
Challenge Prizes:
Grand Prize: iPad 2
One Person will win a $150 Gift card
One person will win a $100 Gift card
Bonus: Each person that writes a submission can sign up for a free EchoSign account and send up 10 documents for signature for free (typically EchoSign free accounts allow 5 documents for signature). Or, I suppose, even if you don't write a submission you could sign up for that free account since the link is right there for you.....
In addition any ActiveRain member can upgrade to a PRO account at a 55% discount when paying annually. Typically an EchoSign PRO account is $179.40 when paid for 12 months in advance, but ActiveRain members can purchase an EchoSign PRO account for $108 when paying annually in advance.
Do you have your real estate marketing plans for 2012 ready?
With SO MANY alternatives for real estate marketing plans, are you confused on what to do in 2012?
So as you develop your 2012 real estate marketing plans, here is some great food for thought:
ActiveRain, the largest blogging platform and professional social network in real estate, conducted a survey of 1,910 real estate professionals asking the simple question of "what is the most effective real estate marketing or advertising that you do?"
The results:
Referrals (including word of mouth and sphere of influence) were overwhelming the most preferred marketing with 26% of responses.
Blogging was #2 with 13% of responses. (Keep in mind that the survey was conducted on ActiveRain, so these results may naturally be skewed to blogging).
Direct Mail continues to be incredibly popular. Direct Mail includes post cards, mailers, and newsletters. Direct Mail also received 13% of responses.
Internet Marketing as a general category received 12% of responses. Our assumption is that Internet marketing is generally speaking pay per click marketing on Google, Yahoo or Bing or lead generation from a number of different sources.
Networking Networking includes partner referrals and face-to-face meetings. Face-to-face networking received 8% of the responses.
As you can see based on 2011 real estate marketing plans, real estate professionals continue to favor more traditional offline, "tried & true" hand to hand real estate marketing techniques. Though the general bucket of Internet marketing & blogging are equivalent to direct mail, the top marketing techniques tend to be more offline - referrals, direct mail, networking, working with past clients, open houses, door knocking and cold calling. Hard to know if ActiveRain is the same as blogging and if Zillow or Google are the same as Internet marketing, but interesting to see that from a response perspective, that Open Houses are more popular than any one web site AND Door Knocking is more preferred than CraigsList and FaceBook.
When real estate professionals were asked, "What is the most effective real estate marketing or advertising that you do?" only a small number of real estate web sites were mentioned in reasonable frequency: ActiveRain, CraigsList, FaceBook, Zillow and Google. Of course, blogging and Internet marketing are large categories with a lot of different companies. But there were very few mentions of Wordpress or other ways to market online. Noticeably absent were Trulia and Realtor.com Though we believe ActiveRain is a very powerful blogging platform, fans of ActiveRain are likely over-represented in the survey. Kudos to Zillow to have name recognition equivalent to Google in the real estate industry.
For 2012, here are the key questions to ask:
How important is developing your REFERRAL BASE? How are you going to do it?
Are Blogging and SEO part of your 2012? If so, what to do - ActiveRain, Wordpress, Blogger, or other?
Direct Mail continues to be an important part of the real estate professional's marketing mix. It is amazing, but true. Direct Mail allow neighborhood targeting unlike online marketing. What kinds of direct mail campaigns will you be using?
Internet Marketing needs to be part of your 2012 marketing mix, but there are a lot of options from pay-per-click advertising to lead generation to Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com
ActiveRain is great place to start the learning process to figure out the best Internet marketing strategies to achieve your personal and financial goals in 2012!
Since Monday we have been introducing the Makeover for 2012 prize package that one attendee of RainCamp Online, on December 14th, is going to win for their business. We have some more great tools to add to the package. I have no question that whoever wins this is going to get started in 2012 with a bang!
RainCamp Online is going to give you some great information to have a successful 2012. Our lineup of speakers will not disappoint. Whether you win the prize package or not, you are sure to walk away with some things you can do in your business today to ensure that 2012 will be your best year ever.
But wouldn't it be cool to have all of these tools at your disposal during 2012? I want to thank all of these amazing companies who have stepped up and offered some great prizes to help one member's business next year.
Wise Agent
The winner will receive a one year complimentary membership to WiseAgent.com that includes 24/7 support and one on one training to get the most out of your Wise Agent membership.
Wise Agent is an online Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system designed for Realtors. Features include Contact Management, Transaction Management, Marketing Tools, unlimited Document Storage, and amazing support!
The solution to ALL your real estate business management needs! Free Trial, Training and 24/7 Customer Support & No contracts. (a $300 value)
National Association of REALTORS®
The winner will receive both:
ABR® Designation Course
The Accredited Buyer’s Representative (ABR®) designation is designed for real estate buyer agents who focus on working directly with buyer-clients. Learn how to provide the kind of service and fidelity to buyers that sellers have always enjoyed, and to offer methods for building your buyer representation business. Course includes one year of free membership in the Real Estate Buyer’s Agent Council. (a $295 value)
e-PRO® Certification Program Day 1/Day 2 Bundle
The keystroke may have replaced the handshake. But building relationships is still the key to success. Connecting with your market is still vital—only the strategies have evolved. NAR’s e-PRO® Certification Program teaches you to use cutting-edge technologies and digital initiatives to link up with today’s savvy real estate consumer. (a $239 value)
Printing for Less
The winner will receive A box of 500 cards and shipping. Full color both sides, on any of our three beautiful house paper stocks.
PrintingForLess.com provides unmatched technical and customer support and instant online pricing and ordering for full-color printed pieces. Go to www.printingforless.com for affordable marketing materials including: business cards, brochures, postcards, newsletters, letterhead, and more. For additional information, please visit our website or call 800-930-3938. (a $50 value)
Smarter Agent
Power your real estate business in the new year with your own branded Smarter Agent app. Smarter Agent is offering their powerful real estate mobile application to one of today’s Active Rain Camp attendees in the form of a FREE 1-year Subscription to our Branded Mobile App for agents or brokers! (a $299 value)
HomeFinder.com
The winner will receive the Agent Success Bundle. Get five free single property websites plus a free upgrade to get all of your listings enhanced on homefinder.com, a top ten real estate site. (a $200 value)
Kodak
The winner will receive a Kodak Playtouch video camera and video accessories package to start shooting real estate videos right away.
With on-screen editing, you can easily keep the moments you want and trim the ones you don’t. And when you’re ready to turn today’s escapades into tomorrow’s buzz, getting them online is easier than ever. Just press the Share button and your videos are automatically ready for the Web (a $175 value)
Get Signed Up for RainCamp Online
If you missed the first two blog posts sharing some of the prizes and companies that will be hooking one member up with a complete makeover for 2012, you can find them here:
Overhaul your web presence: With an IDX and Online Marketing package as well as some really cool contact management
Redesign Your Marketing Efforts Online: with an branding makeover, some coaching, electronic signature capability and great exposure to a ton of interested clients
Our first RainCamp Online had over 2,000 members sign up whereas GoToWebinar maxes out at 1,000. We want complete satisfaction this time around so we are securing a $25 fee to attend this invaluable class and we will ONLY be allowing the first 1,000 members who sign up. Once you close just one deal from the tips and tools implemented your business will snowball from there.
Use the button below to register. After you complete the registration page on GoToWebinar you will be redirected to our EventBrite page to process your payment (it may take a few seconds to load so please be patient).
Making a comfortable living in the real estate industry is tough. Each year good people have to make the decision to 'get a real job'. (not that this isn't a real job.......please don't get me wrong, I know) We see posts on ActiveRain every so often where someone is asking for advice about whether or not they should call it quits. I have no question in 2012 that a segment of the industry is going to have to decide whether or not continuing in real estate is possible.
Over the years, I've personally heard from a number of people that ActiveRain has been a big part of allowing them to not only make it through a tough time in the market, but to flourish. It's usually nothing we've done. The community does this for itself.
In 2012, one lucky person is going to get a $4,000+ assist to make sure they not only get through, but flourish.
Joining us for RainCamp Online on December 14th, where the theme is 'Make 2012 Your Best Year Yet', is a great way to position yourself for success in 2012. And maybe, just maybe, you'll be the lucky winner of the complete makeover for your business. On Monday, we announced the first three products someone is going to win as a part of the 'Makeover for 2012' package at RainCamp.
Here are four more great entries to the prize package someone is going to win as part of the complete makeover package at RainCamp Online.
Jack Pratt Signs
As part of the makeover package, the winner will receive a makeover for 2012 from the Jack PrattDesign Studio.
The Winner will receive a custom Logo Design and any threeidentity solutions designed and customized just for you! The winner will also receive one customized yard sign using the logo design from Jack Pratt's design studio. (a $700.00 value)
Zillow
Zillow Premier Agent Advertising Package: The winner will receive a free, 6 month subscription to the Zillow Premier Agent advertising program. As part of their basic subscription, the winning real estate agent will receive features on Zillow to help them reach more buyers, sellers or both, including: 10 featured listings, the ability to post one “Zillow Special Offer,” a photo/logo on all of their listings and more. (a $234 value)
DocuSign
The winner will receive a free one year subscription to DocuSign.
DocuSign ® transforms how people work, live and connect by providing the freedom to finish business faster on the world’s most trusted electronic signature network. Accessible anytime, anywhere, on any device, the DocuSign Global Network helps customers of all sizes easily replace manual paper-based methods. (a $240 value)
Tom Ferry Coaching
As part of the makeover, the winner will receive a 45 minute to one hour coaching call with one of the coaches from the Tom Ferry organization. Spend some time formulating a plan for your business for 2012. (a $500 value)
More to Come
on Friday we will share four more products that a real estate professional can win by joining us at RainCamp Online. One lucky person is going to head into 2012 with a complete suite of products designed to overhaul your business. Don't need an overhaul? Break them up and give them away to your friends. You'll be the star of your office :-)
Our first RainCamp Online had over 2,000 members sign up whereas GoToWebinar maxes out at 1,000. We want complete satisfaction this time around so we are securing a $25 fee to attend this invaluable class and we will ONLY be allowing the first 1,000 members who sign up. Once you close just one deal from the tips and tools implemented your business will snowball from there.
Use the link below to register. After you complete the registration page on GoToWebinar you will be redirected to our EventBrite page to process your payment (it may take a few seconds to load so please be patient).
We are excited for our second RainCamp Online coming up December 14th. You can see the RainCamp announcement post here where we divulge the presenters who will get you ready to dive into 2012.
Since the theme of RainCamp Online will be 'Make 2012 Your Best Year Yet', we wanted to really make this a reality for one lucky attendee. Many of our advertisers are interested in participating in RainCamp in some way. The challenge for us is striking a balance between great information from our presenters and effective 'commericals' from our advertisers.
We think we've found an awesome balance for this RainCamp Online.
One lucky attendee (must be present to win) is going to walk away from RainCamp Online on December 14th with a complete makeover package for their business. Over the next few days we will be sharing some of the exciting tools that the winner will get to really make 2012 their best year yet.
Here are three of the products that the winner will receive:
Market Leader: IDX and Lead Management
As part of the makeover package, you will get 6 months FREE of the industry leading ‘lead management system’ that includes an IDX website and tools designed to effectively engage today’s online consumer using the latest technology. (A $774 Value)
IMSD: Internet Marketing Specialist Designation
As part of the makeover package, energize your online marketing with a one year IMSD membership. The Internet Marketing Specialist Designation provides agents with live training calls, homework assignments, and on-demand classes, PLUS Ben Kinney’s advertising copy, scripts, and listing presentation. This is a proven training program that will help you grow your business through lead generation. (a $599 value)
Happy Grasshopper: Contact Management
As part of the Makeover package you'll get a Free Basic Annual Subscription to Happy Grasshopper. Their professional writers draft and send timely, engaging messages to your database that actually get read and responded to keeping you top of mind and helping you get more referrals! (a $205 value)
More to Come
Here are links to the other great prizes we will be giving away for this Makeover Package at RainCamp Online:
Our first RainCamp Online had over 2,000 members sign up whereas GoToWebinar maxes out at 1,000. We want complete satisfaction this time around so we are securing a $25 fee to attend this invaluable class and we will ONLY be allowing the first 1,000 members who sign up. Once you close just one deal from the tips and tools implemented your business will snowball from there.
Use the link below to register. After you complete the registration page on GoToWebinar you will be redirected to our EventBrite page to process your payment (it may take a few seconds to load so please be patient). Also, a Kodak Playtouch will randomly be given away to one early registrant. Be sure to register by December 5th for a chance to win.
Last week ActiveRain teamed up with Ben Kinneyfor his webinar, "Excuse Me, You Said What?", as he walked us through the phone scripts that have put his team on track to close 500 transactions this year!
There were over 2,200 people that registered for the webinar, and we were just shy of 1,000 attendees for the live event (almost a full house!). For those of you not able to join us, we didn't want you to miss out. So we have the webinar recording available below for your viewing pleasure.
At the end of the video Ben offered a special to get IMSD for a ridiculous discount, but the catch was that you had to act on the offer by this past Monday, November 28th.
But if you missed it, good news! His team has had such a positive response to the offer that they've decided to extend it. TODAY ONLY you can still take advantage of their webinar discount code "EXCUSEME" and get $225 off when you sign up for IMSD.
IMSD is a designation Ben designed after getting tons of requests for personal coaching, and it's all of Ben's systems in a box
Read our blog post announcing Ben's webinar to learn more about Ben and about just how important the connection you make with prospects on the phone, asking the right questions, and how a short conversation can be the difference between you getting new business, or someone else.
We definitely recommend you find some time in your schedule to watch this hour long recording, and promise you that this class will provide you with practical ideas that you can easily implement to boost your real estate lead conversion rate.
On Wednesday December 14th we will be hosting our 2nd RainCamp Online and we are ecstatic with the line-up and information which will be shared. Are you ready for 2012? What do you have planned to do differently to make this next year your best yet? This class is crucial to your business thriving in 2012 and we'll show you ways to make it your best year yet! The time is now; our speakers have done the work and will share with you the knowledge. All you have to do is register, attend and learn! Our expert's advice will help take your business from good to fantastic!
We will jump start the session at 9am and conclude at 1pm Pacific (that's starting at 12pm for all you east coast members). Join in on this creative learning experience from the comfort of your own home or office as RainCamp is brought to you live via GoToWebinar. You now have the opportunity to have a few experts join you in your own living room! Imagine that!
Ladies and gentlemen, our RainCamp speakers:
Ben Kinney will be starting things off with his insider secrets to what makes his team excel. Online Marketing Success and First Look at What's Going to Be Hot in 2012 will be his main topics. Work smarter and implement these tricks of the trade to exceed all your monthly, quarterly and yearly goals. Ben's team has closed over 500 transactions this year and since he's such a nice guy, he'll share exactly what they're doing to get there.
A little southern charm will be thrown into the mix by Debe Maxwell, Realtor®/Broker from Charlotte, NC presenting on the value of marrying AR and Wordpress and also the importance of Market Reports. These reports are one of the two primary sources for her AR lead generation. Find out how she does it and learn to generate your own quality leads.
Set your 2012 business afire with the help of Chris Alston, our local expert on everything Facebook. Chris is a Realtor® and Team Lead from Cupertino, CA and he's jazzed to show you how to maximize your FB efforts and kick start your local domination. Are you scratching your head around the fact that Facebook can bring you business? Do you know the specific steps to take to make your Facebook efforts bring in leads? Learn the correct and socially accepted ways to maximize without devaluing yourself and business.
Our first RainCamp Online had over 2,000 members sign up whereas GoToWebinar maxes out at 1,000. We want complete satisfaction this time around so we are securing a $25 fee to attend this invaluable class and we will ONLY be allowing the first 1,000 members who sign up. Once you close just one deal from the tips and tools implemented your business will snowball from there.
Use the link below to register. After you complete the registration page on GoToWebinar you will be redirected to our EventBrite page to process your payment (it may take a few seconds to load so please be patient). Also, a Kodak Playtouch will randomly be given away to one early registrant. Be sure to register by December 5th for a chance to win.
Thank you to our sponsors:
Along with RainCamp, we are initiating our 2nd round of AR MeetUps as well. Be sure to check out this post to find out more information on these gatherings.
If you did a search for that phrase on ActiveRain I bet you would get tens of thousands of results. It's a mantra in the real estate business. Anyone who has been doing this for any amount of time has heard this phrase and anyone (from a consumer's perspective) worth doing business with knows this to be a fact.
So why then does the National Association of REALTORS® roll out the esteemed Lawrence Yun every year with a bunch of predictions about the national real estate market? Who do these predictions impact? Wall Street or Main Street?
ActiveRain members are dealing with Main Street. And on Main Street, real estate is local.
Mr. Yun has forecast that existing home sales will edge up 1% in 2012. Where will this happen? In every city across the country? Of course not. Some cities will continue to experience sales declines while others will experience sales increases much greater than 1%. A broad national number does none of us living on Main Street any good. It just doesn't.
So who better to give predictions about local housing markets across the country than local real estate professionals? We say no one, not even NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.
We would love if you would consider taking the time to participate in our 2012 'Hot or Not' Real Estate Survey. If you are a member of ActiveRain, we will give you 500 points for the opportunity to hear how you think the market is going to play out in 2012.
Of course we want your opinion.....but possibly even more important is the opinion of your peers. Not because their opinion is more important that yours, but because the more responses we get, the more representative the survey becomes. We would love if you would consider sharing this survey with others in your office or in your local boards.
As we compile and release the results, there will no doubt be media opportunities for many of our members that choose to take the survey. But we need to get to that tipping point in each market before the results have validity. So take the survey yourselves and please think about sharing it with others.
Real Estate is local and no one is more qualified to make local predictions than local real estate professionals.
Before we launched ActiveRain in 2006, we had a real estate company based in the Pacific Northwest. We generated almost 200 leads a day, at our peak, all throughout Western Washington. There was a marked difference in how some of our agents were able to convert these 'internet leads' into transactions. We had agents that closed less than 1% of the leads they touched. We had agents that closed over 8%.
I truly believe that one of the primary reasons for the vast difference in conversion rates was that first connection the agent made with the prospect on the phone. What do you actually say to someone when you get them on the phone after they have been on your site looking for real estate?
(as a side note, following up with the lead over a long period of time is the other primary reason for the difference but that's a whole different class......one that I hope to convince Ben to host in the near future)
But this isn't just about connecting with internet leads. What do we say to people on the phone when they call us based on one of our signs or when WE CALL THEM in the course of prospecting expired listings, cancelled listings or FSBOs?
You can generate thousands of leads per year, but if you can’t connect with your prospects and ask the right questions once you get them on the phone, you are literally giving your business away to other agents! Is it possible that such a short conversation can be the difference between us getting the business and someone else getting the business? You bet it's possible! It's not only possible, it's probable. That first conversation you have with a potential client will often make or break that relationship.
Join Ben Kinney as he walks through the phone scripts that have put his team on track to close 500 transactions this year. He’ll provide you with the specific phone scripts you need to be using when:
Responding to web leads and sign calls
Cold calling cancelled listings, expired listings, and FSBOs
Working your sphere of prospects
This class will provide you with practical ideas that you can easily implement to boost your real estate lead conversion rate.
We all know that these are things we should be doing in our business. Who amongst us would dispute that we should be working our sphere of influence for business? Not many. But I guarantee there are people out there that think, "I never know what to say. I don't want my friends and people I know to feel like I'm just calling them up to ask for business". You need to get over it and Ben is going to show you how.
The webinar is being offered for free by ActiveRain and the Internet Marketing Specialist Designation. Seating is limited to the first 1,000 real estate agents. However, because only about 50% of the people that actually sign up for webinars ever attend, the registration is open to anyone. So to ensure you get a spot on the day of the webinar, you may want to connect 15 minutes early.
What separates Rich Real Estate Agents from Poor Real Estate Agents?
Are men better real estate agents than women?
Does age or experience matter?
Do top real estate agents use Trulia or Zillow? Or Realtor.com? Or Homes.com?
Does FaceBook sell houses?
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In real estate there is no "right answer" on how to be successful. BUT, we have found that some agents are "more right" than others.
ActiveRain conducted a survey(1) of 1,758 real estate professionals to find out what separates the top real estate professionals (those earning over $100,000 a year, we'll call them 'Rich Real Estate Agents') from the struggling real estate professionals (those earning under $35,000 a year, we'll call them 'Poor Real Estate Agents'). 379, or 22% of respondents were Rich Real Estate Agents, while 363 or 21% of respondents were Poor Real Estate Agents.
Here's what we learned:
Demographics:
Rich real estate agents tend to be MEN (58% male). Poor real estate agents tended to be WOMEN (60% female). 47% of the survey was male.
Rich real estate agents have 11-20 years of real estate experience. Poor real estate agents had 4-5 five years of experience. The average was 6-10 years of experience.
The average age of the respondent was 51-60 years old. S/he is a college grad with moderate technology experience. Age did not matter between rich and poor real estate agents.
What Seems to Matter:
Rich Real Estate Agents invest 6x more in technology
Rich Real Estate Agents BROADCAST via social media
Rich Real Estate Agents spend 10x more on marketing
What Doesn't Seem to Matter (either it doesn't matter or everyone is using it poorly):
FaceBook
Real Estate Listing Web Sites - (Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com all enjoy 60%+ penetration)
Direct Mail
Technology
Rich real estate agents invest 6 times as much in technology as poor real estate agents. Every year the average rich real estate agent spends $3,000-5,000 per year on technology, while the poor real estate agent only spends $500-1,000 per year. So, for every one dollar that the poor agent spends on technology, rich agent spends six dollars. Think about this: the average rich real estate spends more money in a month, than some poor real estate agents spend on technology all year.
Where does this spending go?
A top notch IDX site: Why? Because a good web site with home listings and lead capture is the backbone of any successful online marketing campaign.
CRM or Lead management systems: CRM's (customer relationship management systems or a database) are an integral part of their success. This is the most dramatic difference in the survey. Almost twice as many rich real estate agents use a CRM or lead management system than poor real estate agents.
It's this systematic management of their database that allows rich real estate agents to build a high volume business. This is the most dramatic and visible difference in the entire survey.
Email Marketing: Rich real estate agents aggressively use email marketing. In fact, they touch their clients more frequently through email marketing than their less successful brethren. Many of them send automated listings via their IDX sites, and they are 54% more likely to use email newsletter and drip marketing campaigns.
Broadcast Social Media Marketing
Rich real estate agents are aggressive in using BROADCAST forms of social media to attract clients. What is broadcast social media? Any form of social media which allows a real estate agent or real estate professional to communicate in a broadcast format which is open on the Internet (unlike FaceBook which is only visible to your friends.)
What forms of social media are Rich Real Estate Agents using?
YouTube and Online Video: We were surprised by this one, as online video has always seemed challenging and time consuming (from a production and editing standpoint). BUT, rich real estate agents are actively posting videos on YouTube , 78% more than poor real estate agents.
Blogging: Rich real estate agents are actively blogging for search engine optimization and building a content library as a “net” for prospective buyers and sellers. Rich real estate agents are using ActiveRain (62%), WordPress (52%), and Blogger (26%) as the most popular blogging sites. Rich real estate agents seem to have a presence on multiple blogging platforms if not all three. (Full disclosure: this survey was conducted by ActiveRain which is the largest blogging platform and social network specifically built for real estate so we would expect the ActiveRain share to be high.)
Twitter & LinkedIn: Rich real estate agents tend to use the micro-blogging platform, Twitter and the business networking site, LinkedIn more actively than poor real estate agents to broadcast their message and generate business referrals.
Marketing, Marketing, Marketing
The rich real estate agent spends 10 times more on marketing and advertising for their business. That may be the most shocking number of all. The rich real estate agent spends $5,000-$10,000 per year on marketing, while the poor real estate agent spends only $500-$1,000 per year. Again, a rich real estate agent is spending more in 2 weeks than some poor real estate agents spend on marketing ALL YEAR!
How are rich real estate agents spending their marketing dollars?
Hire an Assistant: Top performers leverage their time. 26% of rich real estate agents use an assistant or an agency to help with their marketing, search engine optimization and their lead generation strategies, while only 11% of poor real estate agents use an assistant. Some of these top performers don't know SEO from NBC but they realize the value of their time and the importance of hiring experts.
Internet Marketing: Rich real estate agents prioritize internet marketing and lead generation in general. 2.75 times more rich real estate agents buy Internet marketing services or 'clicks' to their website than poor agents. 2.3 times as many rich real estate agents buy internet leads. Rich real estate agents realize that this investment in their business is likely to pay off because they have the system (IDX web site and CRM/lead management system) in place to convert their investment into business.
The Local Newspaper: Guess what........rich real estate agents still advertise in local newspapers. Hard to believe, given all the bad news in the newspaper business. But, if a home buyer or seller is looking for information in the local newspaper, the rich real estate agent is going to be advertising there.
No More Door Knocking or Cold Calling: Rich real estate agents DON’T have time for cold calling and door knocking. They leave that to poor real estate agents who is more likely to hit the streets or the office phone and open up the phone book (shudder, shudder). Rich real estate agents may not consider calling expired listings as cold calling, which may have skewed the numbers a bit.
When asked,”What is the most effective marketing or advertising that you do?” rich real estate agents answered: 1) Personal referrals and word of mouth, 2) blogging, and 3) professional referrals and business networking.
So what does NOT matter? When we looked at the data of what separates the rich real estate agents from the poor real estate agents, technology, broadcast social media, and marketing stuck out. In contrast, the following services were surprising in that they did NOT stick out. This could be that every agent is using them; some could be using them well while the rest are using them poorly. The survey could not tell the difference .
1. Facebook: 90% of real estate agents are using FaceBook. Period. Pause. There could be a whole survey on the best ways to use FaceBook which may say Fan Pages are better than Business Pages or Places. But on its face (ha ha), FaceBook does not sell more houses for the rich real estate agent versus the poor real estate agent.
2. Home Listing Aggregation Sites: When asked, "Do you advertise or use the following real estate web sites to market your business?" we saw surprisingly high penetration for the following web sites on average:
CraigsList 68%
Trulia 64%
Realtor.com / Move.com 61%
Zillow 60%
Homes.com 25%
There was no discernible difference between rich real estate agents and poor real estate agents in their usage of these sites, with one exception: Trulia had a very slight skew towards greater usage among poor real estate agents. In fact, Trulia and FrontDoor Real Estate from HGTV (only 14% usage on average) were the only two real estate web sites with a slightly higher usage among poor real estate agents, perhaps due to the free marketing tools and profiles offered by both web sites.
When you look at overall site usage, some interesting observations come to light. It’s not surprising that Craigslist is the most used site, considering it is free. However, we were surprised to see Trulia with a slight edge over Realtor.com and Zillow. Realtor.com should have a higher penetration given that it is the NAR-sponsored web site. We would have expected Zillow to have higher usage than Trulia, given the amount of publicity that Zillow has attracted from its successful IPO. (Rumor has it that Trulia is preparing to go public in the near future, so it will be fascinating to see their results.) Trulia had a very slight skew towards greater usage among poor real estate agents versus rich real estate agents.
3. Direct Mail: Over 60% of respondents use direct mail to market their business. Pause. That's the same percentage of respondents using Zillow, Realtor.com and Trulia. Perhaps people still open the mail and hire their real estate agent based on the refrigerator magnet. More poor real estate agents report using direct mail than have an IDX site. In 2011 how is this possible? Either direct mail continues to be HIGHLY effective or we, as the real estate industry have been slow to change behavior. Hard to tell from the survey, but we at ActiveRain have our suspicions.
By the way, some things are unexplainable but if you are reading this and you use direct mail and you do not have an IDX site do yourself a huge favor and invest in a good one. It could be the reason you make a huge jump in 2012.
Other things which are hard to explain:
We are 16 years into the Internet Revolution and three years into the Do Not Call Registry, YET more real estate agents knock on doors and cold call than advertise on the Internet.
Realtor.com is the official site of the National Association Realtors (NAR) and has been around for 15 years (or so), but is falling behind Trulia in real estate agent usage, and only slightly ahead of Zillow, both of which have existed for 5-6 years now.
Direct mail is the most popular form of real estate advertising. The US Government and Postal Workers Union thank you.
Only 15-16% of real estate agents use an assistant to help with marketing. How valuable is your time? If you use this as a metric, most real estate professionals don’t think their time is that valuable .
Not every rich agent is going to follow the exact same road map. I'm sure everyone knows a real estate agent out there with no website who rarely uses email that would land in the 'rich agent' category. Of course these types are becoming more and more rare as the years go by and consumer behavior changes.
We hope that you ask yourself "What kind of things will I be investing in for 2012?" and will those investments pay off like they have for the rich real estate agent.
What do you want to be in 2012? A rich agent or a poor agent?
Webinars the Rich Real Estate Agent would certainly take:
(1) ActiveRain Survey conducted in May of 2011. 1,758 ActiveRain members completed the survey. Members were awarded 1,000 ActiveRain points for completion of the survey. For frame of reference, a member can earn 200-500 points for writing a blog on ActiveRain.
Our lives get busy and we all wish we had more free time, and wouldn't we be thankful for that?
Who amongst us doesn't wish we had more free time? Time to spend with our families, time to spend pursuing endeavors that bring us pleasure or time to volunteer and give back to the communities that allow us to make a living. It doesn't matter what you'd do with your extra free time each week, to each his (or her) own, it just matters that you would have that additional free time to do as you please.....and we hope you'd be thankful for it!
DocuSign transforms how people work, live and connect by providing the freedom to finish business faster on the world's most trusted electronic network. Real estate professionals using DocuSign save at least 3 hours per week between faxing documents back and forth, printing and filing, and driving documents across town for signature. That got us to thinking about how thankful we are for free time—and all the wonderful things we’d do if we had even more of it—what about you?
So it makes sense then that our ActiveRain Contest for November includes our friends at DocuSign.
The Contest: Two Choices
If you could save an extra 3+ hours per week, please share what you’re thankful that you’re able to do with that luxurious free time. Whether using DocuSign or not, using electronic signatures help you save time. If you could save 3+ hours per week, how would you spend this time? Would you head to the spa for a massage, would you fit in a (quick) game of golf, would you read a book for pleasure? Would your free time be spent trying to change the world? Or maybe just change your little corner of the world? Share how you would use your extra time. If you would use that extra free time to work more, then we have to get you thinking a little different. Maybe try......
What are you thankful for? A recent tragedy in my family really has me thinking a lot about the things for which I am thankful. I'm thankful for my son and the amazing little boy he has become. I'm thankful for my wife and that I was blessed with my soulmate. I'm thankful I have the support and love of two strong mothers (one mom, one mom-in-law). With Thanksgiving upon us shortly, chose to write a blog post about that for which you are thankful. Many of us are very blessed and yet we may not stop to think about those blessings as often as we should. I know I've been guilty of that at more than one point in my life. Now I can't win, but you can expect this to be the first sponsored contest for which I make an entry regardless.
You may decide to write a post for either the first part or the second part. Each person will be allowed one submission.
The Rules:
Posts must be at least 200 words in length.
A link to your post must be placed in the comment section of this post by the deadline.
At the end of your post, please include a phrase similar in nature to this: "This post is a submission to the DocuSign/ActiveRain Thankful Contest. It's possible I will win a prize for writing this post. You could win a prize too by going to the Contest Announcement and sharing your own story"
That phrase will help keep you out of water with the FTC and will also allow other members of the community to participate.
Once you have written and submitted your post, please let DocuSign know about your post on Twitter by tweeting them a link to your post @docusign
Once your post is live, please become a fan of the DocuSign page on Facebook and leave a link to your post on their Facebook page (this one is optional.....Facebook's terms of service dictate that we can't force you to do this to qualify for the contest)
The Deadlines:
All posts submitted by November 9th at Midnight Eastern Time will be eligible for 1000 bonus points above the 1000 points you will get for entering. In order to submit your post you must leave it as a link in the comment section of this blog post prior to the deadline.
The final deadline for submissions will be November 23rd at Midnight Eastern Time. Submissions will be considered submitted once your link has been placed in the comment section of this post.
The Prizes:
There will be two categories for judging on this contest. Winners will be selected by a panel of judges from DocuSign and ActiveRain. Winners will be selected from the 'Time Saved' group as well as from the 'Thankful' group. There will be a first, second and third place winner from each group.
1st Place: $200 Visa Gift Card and 5000 ActiveRain points
2nd Place: $100 Visa Gift Card and 4000 ActiveRain points
3rd Place: $50 Visa Gift Card and 3000 ActiveRain points
All submission to the contest will be given 1000 ActiveRain points. If you submit your post prior to November 9th at Midnight Eastern time you will be given an additional 1000 ActiveRain points
Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman to be interviewed on Monday October 17th at 9am Pacific Time on ActiveRain. Click here to join us online.
In case you missed it, Redfin recently caused quite a stir here on ActiveRain and across the real estate blogosphere when they began displaying sales statistics for real estate agents in the markets in which Redfin does business. Called the 'Agent Scouting Report', the Redfin blog says the purpose was to allow consumers "to look up stats on any agent — where he sold homes, how quickly, at what prices, with how many price reductions — all on a map, with pictures of every sale".
The goal? "......help consumers make informed choices about which real estate agent to choose.”
There was a flurry of people calling 'foul' for a variety of reasons. (Just search 'redfin' on the search bar here on ActiveRain and you'll see what I mean) Everything from invasion of privacy to inaccurate data was cited as reasons that Redfin shouldn't be allowed to display this data on its website. Agent Scouting Report 1.0 would last just under a week online before Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman and his team would make the decision to pull the feature down from the Redfin website.
In his blog post announcing the decision, you can see that Glenn has no fear of bringing innovations to the real estate industry that have the potential to be disruptive. In fact, taking risks is part of the culture at Redfin. You know this if you've been following along since they came on the scene in the real estate industry in 2005 when they hired their first employee.
Along the way, they've raised a decent amount of venture capital and every so often, released a product that has the potential to be a game changer in the real estate industry. Their last flurry (prior to Agent Scouting Report) was over publishing Redfin agent comments about other agent's listings on their website for Redfin clients to see.
None of this matters if Redfin didn't have one of the best home searches in the industry. Consumers pay attention because Redfin has given consumers a great home search tool........oh, and there's that whole commission rebate thing.
At the helm all along the way has been Glenn Kelman. His resume is pretty impressive and prior to stepping in as the CEO at Redfin he had never been in the real estate industry. So how does a guy from the software industry end up in real estate with what seems to be a goal of disrupting the status quo?
We'll let him tell that part of the story.
Nikesh and I are thrilled to have Glenn joining us on Monday October 17th at 9am Pacific Time for a discussion about Agent Scouting Report, Redfin, disruption in real estate and the future of an industry that has been attempting to turn away these outside disruptions since the first IDX feed went live.
And since there were so many of you that had some really strong feelings about the Agent Scouting Report, we want to invite you to let us know what you'd like us to ask Glenn. I have a ton of questions and could probably conduct the entire discussion without any help from our members. I love this guy's moxy. If you read his blog, you can tell he's fearless. It's people like Glenn that flush out inefficiencies in whatever industry they chose to enter. We happen to have him in our industry and love Redfin or hate Redfin, you have to respect someone willing to stand in there and take the punches. That's been Glenn since I first saw him on stage at Inman's Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco in 2007 (I think it was 2007......time flies when you are having fun) debating traditional real estate brokerage versus discount brokerage with Lennox Scott.
So let's have it, give us your best shot and I'll do my best to try to knock Glenn off his game! (Nikesh is too nice, so we'll let him ask the easy questions....haha)
If you'd like us to ask Glenn something, make sure you leave a comment below and we'll do our best to get in as many questions from ActiveRain members as possible.
There are so many tools at our disposal these days to make our lives easier. In fact, some would argue we have so many tools we end up feeling busier and less in control. How often does a new tool in your arsenal actually end up making your life easier? (if you are anything like me, it's not very often......)
Easily print from anywhere, anytime for less
In fact, with new KODAK Email Print App and/ or Google Cloud Printing we actually have a chance to take back some control and easily print emails, photos and documents, from anywhere for less. Gone are the days of running through the office on our way to an appointment and spending an extra 15 minutes printing up the contract we need to have in hand to meet our client. Gone are the days of sending something to the amazing folks at the front desk to have them print it out for you and then unable to find it once you get to the office.
I'd be shocked if I'm the only one on ActiveRain that could have saved time and made my life easier over the last 5 years had I been using Cloud and email based printing. Don't worry, it hasn't been available for 5 years and it's never been as easy as it is now with KODAK All-in-One Printers
Google Cloud Print is a new technology that connects your printers to the web. Using Google Cloud Print, you can make your home and work printers available to you and anyone you choose, from the applications you use every day. Google Cloud Print works on your phone, tablet, Chromebook, PC, and any other web-connected device you want to print from.
And here is an explanation from Kodak about kodak.com/go/cloudprinting
KODAK Email Print is a free service that assigns a unique email address to your printer, so you can easily send emails, photos and documents to your printer from anywhere, using any email capable, internet connected device.
Wait, you mean if someone sends me an email with a contract attached and I need to get it printed out I can just email the attachment to my printer and it will print the attachment up automatically? Yep, that's exactly what I mean.
For October's Kodak and ActiveRain Challenge we want you to tell us a story of how this technology would have saved you time and headache at some point in your career.
The Rules:
In your ActiveRain blog, Write a blog post sharing an experience where cloud or email based printing would have saved you some time and headache. At the end of the blog post make sure to include this disclaimer (including the link back to this post) so you don't get in hot water with the FTC:
This blog post is for the Kodak and ActiveRain 'Printing on the Go' Challenge. You have a chance to win some great prizes from Kodak
Posts must be a minimum of 200 words in length. Can we really share a compelling story in under 200 words? (If you can, please share this technique with my friend Jason.......his stories are really long!)
Once your post is complete, leave a link to the post in the comment section of this post.
Posts must be completed, and a link to the post must be posted in the comment section of this post no later than Midnight Eastern Time on October 28th.
Optional: Send out a Tweet of your post with the hashtag #cloudprinting for an extra chance to have your name entered in the drawing for prizes. If you choose to send a tweet, please include the fact that you did in the comment section when you leave your link.
The Prizes:
All blog posts, meeting the criteria, entered by the deadline will receive 2000 ActiveRain points.
~ One winner will be randomly selected from the qualifying entries (including the additional entries for the folks that use Twitter) to win a KODAK OFFICE HERO 6.1 All-in-One Printer
~ Two lucky winners will be randomly chosen to win an ActiveRain 'Let it Rain' T-shirt
~ One winner will be chosen at random to receive a free outside blog on ActiveRain
~ One winner will be chosen at random to receive a mystery prize that will have little monetary value but will promise to make you feel all warm and fuzzy when you receive it.
Who's attending MegaCamp, CAR or the John L Scott Sales Forum? ActiveRain will be present at all 3 just waiting to meet, greet and shake your hand! The booths will be stocked with one-of-a-kind tshirts for a lucky few. Stop by the ActiveRain booth at any one of the above mentioned events and ask for the Insider Secrets to Driving Traffic. You will be handed the map to maximizing your online presence instantly. I can't believe they're giving this out for FREE!!!
MegaCamp is rounding up the troops in Austin, September 19th through 23rd. ActiveRain will have 3 superstar staffers in attendance:
Nikesh Parekh Anthony Van VactorAbe Schmidt
CAR's Expo is blasting off September 20th through 22nd in beautiful San Jose. 2 more AR superstar staffers will be there:
Nick Beckley Kevan Carter
The John L Scott Sales Forum is kicking off September 20th in Portland, OR and September 21st in Bellevue, WA with 2 more stars:
Bob Stewart Kate Yackley
If you're lucky enough to attend any one of the events be sure to stop by ActiveRain's booth and say hello. You'll walk away with Insider Secrets and a smile! Let it Rain!
The guys at IMSD have been bringing us a weekly webinar about different online marketing tactics. We've had some great feedback from the members who have been able to attend some of the past webinars and many members have gotten tips to put into practice in their business right away.
Tomorrow (Tuesday September 13th) at 9am Pacific Time we will have Chad Hyams with IMSD interviewing David Patterson and Dawn Rose about how they have diversified their lead generation.
You are in the business of lead generation whether you like it or not. Successful real estate agents understand this. Without working ON your business each and every day, you are prone to the peaks and valleys that many real estate agents experience in their businesses. How do you manage your lead generation to avoid these peaks and valleys?
Are there lead generation channels that you are completely missing from your business? Are there strategies to learn from one lead generation technique that you can take advantage of to open up new lead sources for your business? Come to ActiveRain University and see if diversifying your lead generation could help your business. I bet it could.......
Even if you can't make it to the live event and you would like to be emailed a recording of the webinar, go ahead and register and we will get you a recording to your email.
Here are video recordings of past ActiveRain University Classes from IMSD:
We announced RainCamp Online a couple of weeks ago by letting you know that Ben Kinney would be joining us to bring RainCamp to everyone across the country on Thursday September 8th from 9am-1pm Pacific Time (12pm-4pm Eastern Time). You don't have to be within driving distance this time, you just have to have access to a computer to come away with a ton of practical tips that will help your business as 2011 draws to a close.
As promised, we'll have two more great speakers and a ton of free stuff to give away.
Katerina Gasset, the most subscribed to members on ActiveRain, and a Wellington FL REALTOR® will be answering one of the most common questions we get here at ActiveRain. How do I use my blog to generate listings? Katerina has been doing just that for four years with a tremendous amount of success. In fact, she attributes over $150,000 in commissions directly to her ActiveRain blog each of the last few years......and much of that is from listings.
It's almost every day that someone asks us how to use their blog to target potential sellers. It's no small feat but Katerina has figured out how it's done, and she's going to share it with you at RainCamp Online. Getting buyer leads online is a little bit easier to grasp. However, once you hear Katerina tell it, we think you'll have a pretty good idea of how to go after listings with your blog too.
If generating listings with your blog won't help get you through 2012, then maybe you could use some practical tips about using Facebook to generate additional business?
Chris Alston, REALTOR® and Team Leader from Cupertino CA is going to discuss Facebook. Chris is a nationally renowned trainer with Keller Williams and has trained many thousands of agent across the country on the usage of social media to improve business. He's also sharing his knowledge daily here on ActiveRain and if you follow his blog you'll know you're in store for something special.
You've all heard of Facebook right? We think everyone knows they need to be using Facebook, but maybe not everyone is sure exactly how they can use it to impact their business. What specific actions should you be taking to increase your chance for referrals from your past ciients because of Facebook? What kind of status updates can I make to keep me top of mind for my past and current clients when they have a friend looking to buy or sell? How do I avoid being the person that other folks block from their stream because all I do is promote myself?
The internet is a gold mine for your business, and there are some practical things you can and should be doing every day to increase your chances of striking it rich. The prospectors that hit it rich back in the mid 1800's didn't just jump in swinging a pick ax randomly and hope to hit pay dirt. They carefully scouted the land, learned from the guys that had gone before them, then methodically plodded their way to success.
Let Ben, Katerina and Chris show you the way to your own internet gold mine.
Speaking of gold mines, we'll be giving away a bunch of great stuff during the day for RainCamp as well. Some of it will require you to have Twitter, one thing will even require you to have a camera. Someone will win a free Rainmaker subscription and some random ActiveRain swag. Kodak is giving away some cool stuff that I'm 100% sure you can use in your business. I've seen the list of things Kodak has in store for a couple of lucky winners and I promise you don't want to miss it. We'll also have some fun interactive stuff going on where you can help us decide what kind of classes you'd like to see in the future at ActiveRain University. We'll also have our sponsors with us, mainly Market Leader and Kodak.
It's thanks to our sponsors that we get to bring you this great information and some fun prizes for people to win. We hope to see you next Thursday and if you're not registered yet, what are you waiting for?
Thanks to Our Sponsors:
(as a quick side note, for anyone that has ever done a webinar you'll know that if you're lucky about 50% of the people that register will show up. Gotowebinar, the webinar software that we use has room for 1000 people. We currently have 1700+ registered for RainCamp. We are going to leave registration open until we hit about 2100. That will mean on the day of the event you'll want to show up 10-15 minutes early to make sure you secure your spot. If are late and we hit the 1000 person limit....which we will at some point, you can check back throughout the day as people have to leave additional spots will open up. We had 2100 register for our 37 ways Not to Suck at Real Estate webinar last month and at the exact time the webinar was suppose to start, there were 970 attendees present of the 1000 available spots. By five after, the room was maxed out. You can expect something similar with RainCamp Online. We'll post the schedule on Monday of how the 4 hours will play out.)
Were you one of those folks who hated homework in school? Not me! I was kind of an @$$ kisser when I was in school. All the teachers loved me (man did I have them fooled!) and I loved homework. Most of the time, I would have the homework done before the teacher even let out class. How? Easy, for the last ten minutes the other kids would sit around and goof off and I'd finish my homework. Throughout the day, there was almost always enough free time in my classes to get all my homework done during class.
I'm not in the education field so I don't know the stats (plus, the majority of stats are made up anyway) but I'd venture a guess that the kids who always do/did their homework end(ed) up getting better scores on their tests and better grades in general.
So we're going to start handing out homework........or maybe that's not the right word. Each week, a few times a week we are going to suggest topics for our members to write about. You aren't going to get any extra points, like we've done for challenges in the past, but you are going to get a little better shot at getting your posts featured.
You will also get some good traffic to your blogs. We are going to use all the analytics at our disposal to suggest topics that will help generate traffic to your blog. You can choose to write about them or not. Sometimes the suggested topics will focus on consumer oriented posts and sometimes the topics will be aimed at helping your peers.
On the menu bar at the top of the page, right next to where you can keep track of 'contests' will be a little link that says '_________'. Actually, we don't know what it's going to say. That's where you come in.
Leave some suggestions here in the comments of what we can call these 'assignments'. That was the first thing that popped into our heads 'ActiveRain Assignments'.......but that stinks. Someone out there with more creativity than us has to have a better name. We just introduced 'The Chatter' where you can leave your thoughts about important questions for the real estate industry. Now we'll have a place where you can choose to take on assignments to write content that will help drive more engagement for your blog.
We just need to know what to call it.........2500 points if we use your suggestion and your word(s) will be in lights a link at the top of 99% of the pages on the site.
~Bob (so you can figure out which of us was the @$$ kissing homework lover)
Earlier this month, we ran a little promotion for KeepSum, a new group buying site launching soon that is bringing discounted deals on products and services specific to the real estate industry. Part of the promotion was to introduce you to KeepSum, but we also hoped to get your feedback on what kinds of products you would like to see offered by KeepSum. You didn't disappoint there giving Jaime and his team at KeepSum enough ideas to keep them busy for years to come!
Jaime was nice enough to offer up Sum Dollars for a few lucky winners. These winners will be able to use the KeepSum credits to take advantage of any of the upcoming offers from KeepSum.com
We had three ways that you could win.
The first way to win was that we gave away $20 Sum Dollars for every 20th person that signed up to be kept abreast of KeepSum deals. The more people signed up, the more folks were going to get a chance to take home $20 Sum Dollars. Each of these Rainers will be getting a $20 credit to spend on a KeepSum deal(s) that strikes their fancy:
The second way to win involved us randomly drawing names from all the folks that left a suggestion of products and services that KeepSum should offer. We drew a first place winner and three second place runner up winners.
And the Third Way to win was to have the best Tweet directed @KeepSum and that lucky winner was Gene Mundt wondering if KeepSum 'could change their name to KeepMOREThanSum'. Well played Gene, well played. Gene won $20 Sum Dollars for his little bit of humor on Twitter.
Jaime and the crew at KeepSum were planning on launching their first deal today, but as anyone that has ever been involved in a startup knows, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. With a slight tip of the hat to Hurricane Irene, KeepSum will be launching on Tuesday September 6th instead.
Jaime will be personally contacting the winners with instructions on how to claim their Sum Dollars.
Thank you everyone for participating and we know that you'll see some great KeepSum deals in your inbox very soon! And if you missed a chance to Join the Savings during the contest, you can still get on board to have deals sent directly to your inbox below:
Mike Carlos of Tallahassee, FL with 
There are no shortage of great products out there for a real estate professional to use in their business. (There are no shortage of crappy products either, but that's another point entirely) Almost every day it seems a new technology is introduced that promises to add revenue to your bottom line.
3) MyHome: This is where you will see the majority of the changes. MyHome on ActiveRain has consistently been the single most visited page on ActiveRain, but was the least optimized for the core activities that we want members to engage it. From an ActiveRain perspective, we want members to CONNECT with other members, WRITE/COMMENT, and READ. 
Ben Kinney
A little southern charm will be thrown into the mix by 
Set your 2012 business afire with the help of 
Real estate is local.
Excuse Me, You Said What?
In fact, with new KODAK Email Print App and/ or Google Cloud Printing we actually have a chance to take back some control and easily print emails, photos and documents, from anywhere for less. Gone are the days of running through the office on our way to an appointment and spending an extra 15 minutes printing up the contract we need to have in hand to meet our client. Gone are the days of sending something to the amazing folks at the front desk to have them print it out for you and then unable to find it once you get to the office.
Were you one of those folks who hated homework in school? Not me! I was kind of an @$$ kisser when I was in school. All the teachers loved me (man did I have them fooled!) and I loved homework. Most of the time, I would have the homework done before the teacher even let out class. How? Easy, for the last ten minutes the other kids would sit around and goof off and I'd finish my homework. Throughout the day, there was almost always enough free time in my classes to get all my homework done during class.
Earlier this month, we ran a 