Website - What are you missing?

So I was updating my site today to take off the Open House from DECEMBER 2ND - that is a MAJOR no no since it shows the users that come to the site that it is not current and that the webmaster (me) is not keeping up with the content.

One of my New Year's resolutions this year is to work on one of my sites (I currently have 3 and am working on a forth) each week for at least an hour. Some of you have asked me what kind of leads I get from my sites - over the Christmas holiday I got a buyer's lead from www.cometoclearwater.com (relocation guide request) and a FSBO lead (list my site on www.tampa4salebyowner.com) . These are very easy for me to fulfill and will hopefully help round out my 'haven't mets' leads goals for the coming year.

One thing that I noticed was that I did not have some pertinent content on my home page about second homes and vacation homes. I think that I am missing an opportunity by not having those links and generating more good search terms for the engines. I will be adding that kind of content soon as a FEATURE and see if they generate me some targeted leads.

Is anyone getting good consistent leads from their website? Don't forget to follow the path of least resistance - if you are getting a bunch of people that want to see cheap homes add affordable housing links and pages to your site. If you are getting first time home buyers add links to the area programs that offer those types of services and work with your banker to see if he has anything that can help like the loan advisor tool bar from HomeBanc.

Merry Christmas!

Hi all! I just wanted to pop in and wish you all a very Merry Christmas...:) Santa was VERY good to me (I got the Treo PDA that is the real estate agent's best friend AND a laser printer for my office!).

I am standing right next to myself about the opportunity the coming year is going to bring and can't wait to hit the ground running with all my new toys!!!

I hope that Santa was good to you all and that your business has a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Marketing Response

I like to find out what is working for me so that I can do it some more - a revolutionary thought isn't it? BUT I also like to make sure that I am working as smart and as affordably as I can. With that in mind I have a couple of suggestions (sorry guys some of these are Keller Williams related but use your own company perks where appropriate).

I have a magic credit card! Because I do so much mailing I go through a lot of paper and mailing labels, Office Depot loves me! Anyways, Keller Williams allows you to register your credit card so that you get the highest discount possible when you check out. For example I saved over $5 on a box of 3000 labels last night - not bad.

I had a conversation with my business partner yesterday and she said "are you sending out Christmas cards?". I did not - I sent out postcards that I combined with other agents in the office to make them beautiful and cheap - then sent them out to be processed at my friend Tammy's mail marketing house - SO EASY! If you would like to find out more about our KW 12X12 program that "touches" your clients once a month shoot me an email and I will send you the flyer. Many other mail houses offer this service also (I just like my own designs better - this month we have a baby turtle!)

Newsletters on colored paper - two agents I know are working on these and have devoted between 2 and 4 hours to getting them set up in Publisher. Not a lot of time and from now on they can just drop their numbers in and send monthly updates to their targeted farm. A VERY good way to become the neighborhood authority - BUT don't count on an immediate response, pledge to do it for 6 months OR send it every other month for a year.

A formalized plan - my banker guy (Brian P from HomeBanc) is a very forward, out of the box thinker - for a banker...:) We sat down and figured out an 8 step program to target top notch realtors whose business he would like to have. So far he has had a good response - at least two real opportunities to talk with agents that were somewhat hesitant before AND it is supposedly the worst time of the year to make those contacts.

What ever you do - start today. Call more, send more notes, get on a postcard program, vow to visit 3 FSBOs every week, join another club, volunteer for a cause, do an open house (or three). There are a million reasons NOT to do anything (it might not work, it is the wrong time of the year, everyone does that, no one does that, it is too rainy today, it is a nice day no one will come) there is only one reason to do something - you have 100% more chance of being successful if you do ANYTHING than if you do nothing!

What you feed your brain

So I am going to wax eloquent for a bit about what I listen to/read, who I have been spending time with and what has happened to my real estate business.

First off I attended a business planning clinic. At the clinic (which I did NOT want to attend because that kind of specific planning hurts my head) I learned that the amount of leads that I need to be super successful next year is not that big. Try it yourself - you may be surprised to see what it will take to meet your goals. I have a worksheet that can help - email me at taradactyl@gmail.com and I will be happy to send it to you!

Then I started listening to a Brian Tracy Success Series Book on Tape. Holy cow. Then I was told at another meeting to read Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy and finally one last person told me that Brian Tracy was inspiring. Well the universe has told me that having him playing in my ear all the time will make me a better realtor and person!!! I was wondering the other day why I don't get too upset when a contract falls apart or I have to take a listing off the MLS. It is really hard to feel sorry for yourself when Brian Tracy is talking to you or when Seth Godin is telling you all the great things you can do to market yourself or when the Millionaire Monday realtors are telling you how to make your business better. Ask Santa for an iPod and load it with inspirational people.

Finally I spent a day "Shadowing a Superstar". We had the opportunity to listen to three of my favorite speakers (Gary & Nikki Ubaldini and John Dietz) and then go on a caravan. One of my houses was part of the caravan and I may be getting a price reduction from the comments that I got.

I will not tell you that my life has changed over the course of the last couple of weeks. I am generally a very optimistic person so that is in my favor to start. BUT I have negative self talk - I tell myself that buyers are scary, I tell myself that I did not get everything I wanted to do done so I am a giant loser and that I have to work harder. BUT I did realize that if I try hard with a plan I should do better than OK and definitely better than most of my competition out there.

It works! - Out of Town Buyers

Just a quicky to let you know that the internet does work for getting buyers in the car! I first got an email from Peter on Aug 6th, 2006. He is an investor from Canada who wants to purchase some property. It took a bunch of dinky postcards, two phone calls and setting him up on auto notify but I am taking him and a friend out today to look at a BUNCH of properties.

As they say the timeline for internet leads is protracted and many do not pan out BUT if you are persistent and help them with their needs you may just get some business out of it!

Stop Following the Directions!!!

Even I sometimes I wish I was more like the Pilots referenced in Seth Godins blog today. According to Seth "Pilots have to get it right every time. They have to follow a myriad of procedures. They must be calm and focused and consistent, and yes, boring." Boring, but with less drama, less searching for documents that you KNOW are on your desk, less freaking out EVERY morning to find your nametag.

BUT when I do something that is different than the rest of the world I feel energized and hopeful. Thinking of a new way to do the same old thing can jump start your prospecting, marketing or even your entire business plan for next year.

An agent I was talking with yesterday said she wasn't great on the phone in the morning and she was hesitant to start an Expired campaign because she would be calling during dinner time. EVERYONE knows you have to call from 9-11. EVERYONE calls from 9-11. What if you called from 7am-9am? What if you called from 5:30pm-7:30pm? AND what if you just called whenever you had a second. Say you make 5 more calls a day than you were before - do you think you would get more business?

How about the fact that EVERYONE mails out on Thursday. I am sure that when homeowners get 3 marketing pieces at a time they are NOT doing a personal assessment to see which they like better. They are not comparing the relative merits of all three agents and making an informed decision. They are throwing them all out and grumbling about how much crap they get from realtors!!! Go nuts - mail out when you have time, mail out on Monday, mail out 3 times this month and see if you get more response because you have barraged them with info. Mail out anything - DO NOT wait for the perfect piece, spend a fortune and then save them for only your best clients.

Send out something today - I know it is Saturday during the Christmas season and you are busy. I know you are SUPPOSED to mail out on Thursday. I know you are waiting for the new year so that you can get the perfect piece together and then start a whole campaign.

Do me a favor -- stop following the directions and do something zany this week and then tell me about it!

Flyer Rant

***** WARNING - FLYER RANT COMING!!!! ******

About the flyers that I ignore - quit sending me flyers from Naples, Miami, Orlando - I am a TAMPA BAY REALTOR and I will send my referrals out if I get buyers in those areas.

"4% COMMISSION -OPEN HOUSE SAT. & SUN" Quit sending ones that say 4% Commission - New Listing - I do not have enough time in the day to read all the 6% commission ones. Where is the property and how much is it?

"COMMERCIAL LAND & BUILDING .92 ACRES" - Where IS it?!??! Location Location Location, part of the reason I stopped looking at these is that I generally found something interesting and then found out it is in Lutz - I don't even know exactly where Lutz is and I sure don't have any clients there.

"5 STAR HOME REDUCED 35K" - SO WHAT!!! - Except that it is now only $172,900, there are not that many houses in exceptional condition in that price range. Don't you think that would be interesting to an agent?

"Refer Me A Buyer Or Seller 25% Referral Fee To You" - SHE IS IN LAS VEGAS! Using the flyer concept to get referrals is great - angering half of Tampa Bay's Realtors is not!

Some suggestions:

Las Vegas Realtor - Will Pay 25% Referral Fee!
Stunning Home $173K In Pinellas Park
Comm Land+Building .92 acres - Downtown St. Pete
New Tampa Home - 4/2/2 Immaculate - 4% Comm

Doing It Right In Ybor!

So I was trying to figure out what to talk about today. When I checked my email I had 7,000 flyers that I ignored (a very small exaggeration) and one that said "Ybor City Pre-Foreclosure and Distressed Properties" which was different enough to at least open. The flyer was beautiful and well thought out with information about the properties and a link to the agent's website.

On the website was a link to Kevin's blog - only one entry but hopefully he just started!

Overall, one of the most impressive marketing packages that I have seen lately - snaps to you Kevin Stuteville in Ybor! I also am sending the MLS listings to my out of town buyer who is looking for Foreclosures in the Tampa Bay area.

Kevin's Flyer
Kevin's Website

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Internet - SEO

Many of you may not know what SEO is or why it is important to you. SEO is "Search Engine Optimization" and it is important to you because it makes your site visable and desirable to search engines. It may seem scary but in fact is mostly just common sense.

To give you an example of SEO and how it works, please visit www.tampabayunder200k.com. You will notice a couple of new things:

1. I traded out the graphic banners for html links to the request more info pages - this is because search engines cannot "read" graphics but they CAN read text AND they think that html text is the most important kind! (Tampa Bay Real Estate Experts...)

2. I also added some text at the bottom that talks about being a Clearwater, Tampa, etc. realtor which was not on the site before this. This will help the search engines index the page.

3. I also added some additonal text about affordable housing - again just to make it easier for the search engines to know what the site is about.

4. Lastly I added some new metatags (view>source) that include clearwater realtor, tampa realtor, etc.)

I then resubmitted my site to the search engines - we will see if there is any increase in leads!

Dinky and Not So Dinky Postcards

I have to say that the last two days have reminded me that sending out mail makes things happen! I got a phone call from a large 4 color high gloss postcard that I sent to the expired people and also a FSBO call from a dinky postcard.

The hard thing to judge is how much is too much (I am hoping Santa brings me postage for Christmas) and what works the best. Some recent mailings have included:

Neighborhood newsletters - sponsored by Somers Title and Homebanc, these mailers are too new for results

Large Expired Postcard - my partner and I have a comprehensive program designed and after just 3 months of mailings we are finally seeing some results. This is normal and the reason why many programs fail. DO NOT send one postcard and expect results!

Just Listed Postcards - you need to send them anyways, hit your farms, your sphere and your specialty lists like FSBOs and Expireds.

If I sent out even more would I get more leads?

Internet - Small Sites

I thought that I would talk a little bit more about the difference between having a subpage for your site and having a mini site (1-3) pages.

Some SEO companies recommend using doorway pages to increase your rank. These are subpages of your site that have very little graphics but a lot of html and links that the search engines can index. Here is a subpage that looks like this www.realestateexpress.com/prelicense/FL/prelicense_info.asp. It is a subpage of the www.realestateexpress.com site. They have a ton of information that is specific to prelicensing in florida. They come up number 34 on a search for "real estate real estate real estate clearwater fl".

The problem with that is that number 34 is not a great place to be AND NO human will ever do a search for "real estate real estate real estate clearwater fl" even though the SEO company will use that as one of their keywords to show you how high they got your ranking.

In my opinion site promotion is best when you have a specific site that is dedicated to one topic and the title, keywords, URL and content all match. The search engines know that you are sincerely trying to provide specific information and the paid search results seem to be a little better also.

A mini site that seems to be ranking very well is "tampa bay 55 plus communities" http://www.active55adult.com/. This is a mini site rich with hyperlinks and text AND a link on the left hand side to "visit our main site". They are doing everything right! And since they come up as #2 they have made the search engines happy also.

Promoting Like It's 1999

So I was working with one of the agents in my office one-on-one to see what we could do to increase her free search placement. Since I hadn't done paid promotions for about 5 years I thought that I would do a quick search to find out how and what to do currently to make the search engines happy.

Well come to find out the exact same things that I was doing in 1999 work today (and are much cheaper than paying hundreds of dollars for SEO - search engine optimization). I will give you my top 5 list of things you can do to make a difference in your placement.

1. Your URL - make sure that your site has a good www.yourname.com. Take a few minutes to pick something that the search engines can understand. In less than three minutes I came up with www.TampaBaysBestRealtor.com, www.TampaBaysAgent.com, and www.AOneAgent.com.

2. Little Sites - having one main site is a good thing, use it for all your marketing BUT make little sites that focus on only one aspect of your business. www.TampaBay55Plus.com could be a 2 page site that had a BUNCH of information about the Tampa Bay area and specifically communities that featured 55+ living on the front page, links to all your other sites and a link to a contact us page that would "feed" into Top Producer. For an example of this kind of site see TampaBayUnder200K.com. These are comparable to "doorway pages" which are a keyword packed page that search engines can index but that are part of your big site. I think you get way more bang for your buck by have several small sites that the engines can index separately - especially since they feel top level sites are better than subpages of your main site.

3. Content - have great keyword rich content that matches your title, keywords and description. Make sure that your links are hyperlinks that describe what you are sending people to - in other words make your link say "On Top Of The World - 55+ Community" instead of "click here".

4. Submit your site to many different search engines. There are two free tools that I can recommend - Site Submission Beta and SEO Studio . They are both a little hard to get set up, but once they are ready to go regular submissions are a breeze.

5. Adwords or Overture - OKAY you got me - they did not have these two paid submission opportunities in 1999! BUT that having been said, paying just a couple of bucks a day can help to jump start your search submissions and hopefully you can pay less and have more "real" results fast!

Be Specific! - Part Deux

So the holidays have slowed the blogging a bit - I will get back in the groove starting TODAY!

My friend Lori Crawford volunteered to be a "specific" guinea pig so here goes (see previous post for starting point). Lori is very social and will probably focus on lead generation and sales activities that involve a lot of talking and networking with other human beings. Also she is a total class act who presents herself very professionally, as well as bringing a broad and varied business background to real estate that will serve her clients very well! She is VERY contentious and will do her very best to make sure that her clients are satisfied with the service that she provides.

Lori has a good start on branding herself with her www.sanddollarsanddreams.com website, and she incorporates the sandollar theme throughout her marketing pieces. She has also included "commitment & loyalty" as the tagline for her logo.

So here is one possible elevator speech...

"Lori brings a strong business background to all of her real estate transactions. She uses her extensive knowledge and experience to provide the best possible service to her clients, utilizing every means necessary to help them buy or sell their dream home. Commitment & loyalty are not just words to Lori - they are the way she works!"

Lori's goal may look like this...

"To build her real estate practice utilizing her personal and professional contacts to facilitate new business. To work with affluent clients who want to buy or sell high end homes in the Trinity area."

So basically Lori's day should start and end with an assessment to see if she had done things to increase the likelihood of meeting her goals. Did she send dinky postcards to her Trinity farm. Did she go to the Country Club for dinner and network with people who will be buying and selling homes in her target area. Has she previewed all the homes in Trinity? She has already joined the Rotary for Trinity - has she invited any of the members out to lunch?

Any of those things increase the likelihood that someone will notice that she is a realtor in the Trinity area and that is what her main goal is for the very near future!

Be Specific!

So this is an over-riding theme here - specificity! It makes marketing, decision making and almost everything else easier. One of my mentors told me to develop an elevator speech - a 30 second description of my business that could be told in the time it takes to ride in an elevator (this is also sometimes called a mission statement). The beauty of having an elevator speech is that you can judge all of your daily tasks against it to see if you are moving forward towards your goals or away from them.

It is very easy to get caught up in the day to day tasks, but if you string too many days together where you did not accomplish anything toward your main focus you can easily get off track.

My 30 second speech is that I bring a creative approach to real estate. This means that I am able to showcase your property in a way that other Realtors are unable to and provide your listing with increased exposure to the market. My tagline is a "New Market A New Approach".

Now it may seem silly to spend your time making taglines and mission statements - but if you don't, what are your main goals for today and what do you talk with your clients about being your strengths when working with them as buyers or sellers?

Tomorrow I will give more real world examples from the people that I know - if you are one of them and would like a 30 second assessment please let me know and I will use you as a test subject!

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Networking - Super Fun Bankers and Accountants

So I crossed the line again this week and went out amongst other humans. My bankers Kelly and Brian invited me to a Tampa Bay Lightning game on Wednesday. We were in a really nice box and there were a bunch of fun people there BUT the best part was that there other marketing junkies there!

My friend Brian P (the banker) and another guest (the accountant) were willing to sit and rap for a while about what makes their business unique and what they could do to generate more clients. We talked about what we were doing to set ourselves apart from other professionals and what we could do that would make us even more successful.

It got me all fired up again to do some out of the box marketing. I have a great feeling that the coming month is going to be key for scooping up market share while other agents are taking the time between Thanksgiving and New Year's off!

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Search Engines - Organic -vs- Paid

So I was preparing for my marketing class today and I noticed that www.cometoclearwater.com was listed on Yahoo at #6 for Clearwater Relocation. How did that happen you ask?

1. I designed the site to attract out of town visitors - it is loaded with information about Clearwater and the surrounding communities
2. There are links that say "Free Relocation Guide" on EVERY Page of the site. What is so unique about that? Most links say "click here".
3. I have spent some money (not a lot) on AdWords to get some traffic to the site in the first place.
   
4. My site description in the metatags is good and compels Yahoo search engine users to click through.
   

There are numerous other reasons that www.cometoclearwater.com has moved up the search engine from its lowly start at 200 millionth. I read all the current theories about how to fool the engines, how to upgrage your site and how pay per click is the future, but this was just plain old 1999 good content, good keywords and time!

It works!

Just a quick note to say that Open Houses do work! Last night (Thursday) I was sitting at an open house where no one had come by 5:45, it was getting dark and I was getting ready to pack up. A couple walked in and said they were surprised that I was having an open house at this time. I said that usually if someone came to an open house at that hour they REALLY wanted to buy a house. They said that they did not want to buy a house but that they needed to put their home on the market - I have a listing appointment with them this morning at 9:30!

Real Estate Marketing Pro

It works!

So I had a great real estate day yesterday! Took another listing, had a buyers appointment, had another couple ask to preview that house also AND had another out of town buyer pre-qualify with my preferred lender (Brian and Kelly at HomeBanc).

How do days like these come about you ask? Well, the first buyer came as referral from an agent in my office. He was out of town and knew that there was a good chance that either my listing partner or I would be in the office and working at real estate. I know that sounds strange, but many agents do not work at real estate as if it is a regular job with regular hours, or they do not come into the office where there is a chance for opportunity. Putting yourself in the money stream helps!

The second buyer came because I was there. Show up, run out when another agent wants to give you a referral, do open houses, attend brokers opens, go to training, just do it!

The listing came because of FSBOs. I like the FSBOs, they are a nice bunch of people who think that they can sell a house. I am having a hard time selling houses and I do a ton of marketing and work at it from 5:30 AM to 9:00 PM most days, so I am sure that they are somewhat frustrated trying to go it alone. It was definitely a drawn out process, I went and looked up when I first talked with my client, May 2nd - first contact, November 13 - listing. This is not a fast process and this lady has received a TON of dinky postcards and other materials from me over that time. When it came time to pick an agent who else was she going to call but me?

Oh - the last buyer came from personal contact - my Father In Law is one of his best friends. I know - talking with humans directly works too!

Newsletters and Lead Generation

Happy Monday! It is lead generation Monday (my favorite day of the week dont-cha know!)

Today I am working on a new project. I have partnered with Joyce and Diana at Somers title to target three neighborhoods with a quarterly neighborhood newsletter. For targets I selected 1.) my farm, 2.) a small subdivision that is close to my home and where I listed/sold a home earlier this year, and 3.) part of a neighborhood where I have 2 current listings. This totals about 300 homes and will provide a nice test market to see if the newsletter will help to generate some leads.

The thing to realize when doing a newsletter is that although you are fascinating to yourself, hardly anyone else wants to read about you! This means your newsletter better have a lot of interesting things that will make people want to read it and not just be a disguised advertisement for yourself.

I am including tips for how to get your home ready to sell, information on Homestead exemption deadlines and eligibility (this is a Florida based homeowner tax exemption for my out of town readers!), and neighborhood sales and currently listing info. I also have a one panel of the six panel flyer dedicated to Somers Title as they are helping to sponsor the newsletter.

Finally, one panel has two of my listings as featured properties. They are targeted to be either move up or move down for the neighborhood I am sending them into. For example - in the $300-$400k neighborhood I listed a $659K car lover's house and a $149K 1/1 Waterview Condo.

If you would like to see a copy of this quarter's newsletter, email me at taradactyl@gmail.com with your name and address and I will send it out right away.

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Customer Service - What NOT to do

Anyways, anyone who is around me a lot hears how much I like VistaPrint. I like the quality of their products, I like the ease of ordering and I tell EVERYONE about it. Yesterday I found out that for some reason one of my orders was delayed (I could never get the customer service person to talk fast enough to tell me the reason) and I requested an expedited order. The customer service person hung up on me. I called back and requested a supervisor and another rep promised one would call me back by COB, no one did.

I will probably not stop using them as generally their printing service is impeccable, BUT their customer service department leaves A LOT to be desired. The person who answered the phone did not understand how to talk to someone like me - I want to get to the point and get a solution. I am not concerned with what went wrong or her evaluation that a week late delivery is FINE. It is NOT fine. Offering to cancel the order is not a good suggestion either as that defeats the ENTIRE purpose of wanting to get the item faster.

My listing partner and I are Robert LeFever groupies. He is an FBO profiler who uses the DISC profile to tell how to talk with your clients the way that THEY are most comfortable with. The rep yesterday missed the boat badly. Staying calm, talking in a low tone, droning on and on about why the order was late only made me mad, although it might have made another customer feel better because they need to know all the facts, or could have helped someone else because she was nice and they like nice people. I constantly have to remind myself to try and communicate with my clients in the way that makes them feel the best, not in the abrupt, get to the point way that I like, but which sometimes makes other people feel like they have been sideswiped by a bus.

How do you interact with your customers? Do they end the conversation with a smile or do they feel like you have missed the boat like the VistaPrint rep?

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Market Like A Maniac!

My market like a maniac class is a week away and I have to say that I am super excited. I used to teach the entry level website class which was nice but pretty basic. I intend this to be VERY specific and very interactive so agents can get right in there and start marketing right away!

With all that marketing buzz going on, I would like to talk about making things beautiful. At our market center they just hung a bulletin board up that agents are able to post their properties on and pay $3 for an 8X11 area. When that board is covered with flyers and agent printouts, I hope that mine will stand out because I intend to spend just a couple of extra minutes to make it look different from all the white pieces of paper up there.

Many times it just takes a couple of extra minutes to make something look great or different or on a different color of paper and IT DOESN'T COST ANYTHING!!!! Setting your work apart with good design is a cheap and easy way to make your marketing stand out!

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Internet Marketing - A Tipping Point

I watch where my website visitors come from very closely, I monitor my AdWords campaigns to make sure I am not spending too little or too much, AND I do this several times a day FOR FUN!

It is exciting to see where your visitors come from because it tells you what you are doing right and where you should spend your money. I get visitors from many different places including my ILS Castles and Estates Listings, my Ezine articles, my other websites, press releases, search engines and paid placements on Google Adwords. Whenever I can think of some way to drive more visitors to my site I do it (like blogging for example!).

Something wonderful has been happening lately though.... More people are coming from other sources than are coming from Google Adwords! Don't get me wrong, I think if you are going to pay for placement that Adwords beat SEO all day long, BUT it is nice to know that the other things are starting to have an effect. It has taken about 6 months of concerted effort, but it was definitely worth it. For about the last month the paid and the other visitors have been about equal, but this week the others have definitely overtaken the paid!

I am keeping my fingers crossed that this trend continues.

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Get out and vote!

Last week I sat down with my handi-dandi voter checklist they send me and decided who I was voting for today. My husband knows how much I like voting and so he recommended that I go camp out at the polling place so that I could be the first one there.

I have loved to vote since I was 20ish and worked on a campaign for "my congressman Tom Ridge" in Meadville Pennsylvania. Over the years I have been more or less militant about it, but throughout I have felt that whether you are voting for my party/representative or against who I would like to see in office, that it is our responsibility to make ourselves heard with our one vote.

Voting is a privilege of being an American citizen. Get out and vote.

Lead Generation Mondays - The Best Day of the Week!

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.” Henry Ford

I think that today is the day that I will generate all the good things that will happen to me later this week. I will be sending out thank-you notes from this weekend's open houses, mailing my dinky postcards, sending out brochures and also designing a new neighborhood newsletter that I will be working on with my favorite Title Company (Somers Title - Joyce and Diana are the absolute best!).

I will be ordering new materials for some marketing clients, getting more neat notepads from VistaPrint (ridiculously expensive but discounted to try) and also sitting down with my partner to go over our "Hot Prospects" and todos for the week.

As I sit and sticky-sticky the stamps and labels, I think about all the good things that will come from doing the activities to bring in clients (and advertise my listings at the same time!!!). Even if you hate doing lead generation, do it today like it will bring in business later this week and see if it isn't a little easier and more fun!

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Adwords - Max Out Your Money

I was talking with an agent in the office this week about how to get her adwords cost per click down and thought that you all might like to hear it!

As you know from previous posts www.TampaBayUnder200K.com had a great click through rate. I was getting 2-3 clicks per day at an average cost of $.41/click. BUT I got nothing from that money - no leads at all AND I was mad that I was spending $1/day for no leads. Now I know that other people have much higher budgets and that wasting $1/day is not the end of the world, but it matters to me!

I set out to make a difference in that expense. First I changed the content of the site so that when they came to the site there were lots of good links to my other sites and other listings. Then I started trying to get that cost per click down. You do this by watching the CTR. This tells you how many times your ad is viewed compared to how often it is clicked. The higher that number the less you will pay per click.

You can effect this by making sure your ad says EXACTLY what they will get and that it is a compelling enough to make them click through. Changing just "Affordable Housing" to "Affordable Housing in FL" increased the CTR. Then I made sure that the keywords that made the ad show up were VERY tightly controlled*. If you have wishy-washy keywords like real estate, realtor, new home sales, you will spend a lot of money and have a lot of impressions but not a lot of clicks because they are too broad. Use tampa bay real estate, clearwater realtor, trinity new home sales and other more specific keywords to tighten up that CTR.

Perry Marshall has a great (and FREE!) Google Adwords training course that I can highly recommend!

So how did it come out? Am I spending less for more clicks? I now cap my daily spending for that campaign at $0.50/day, last month I got 70 clicks at an average cost per click of $0.22, my CTR is 0.15% and I spent a total of $15.66!

Real Estate Marketing Pro

*If you email me at taradactyl@gmail.com I will be happy to send you what I am using now. Please remember that you need to modify them to fit your campaign or area.

Motivation - Opportunity Magnet

A shorty today since I have to be out of the house by 6:30 (early even for me!).

My Broker (Nikki Ubaldini) has an affirmation that she has passed onto me like a good virus. I AM an opportunity magnet. With that in mind this week I have had 3+ listing opportunities, at least one buyer opportunity and also some marketing options. I have intiated a campaign that I think will result in a steady stream of fantastic and unique properties to market AND my business partner and I are starting to really get up and running!

Go out there and be an Opportunity Magnet today!

Lead Generation - Do it! ***Update***

So I was leaving a listing appointment last night and I got a call from a FSBO who said he would like me to come and preview his property. Not a listing appointment but definitely the next best thing. AND it this opportunity came from dinky postcards that I sent out on Monday during lead generation - I love when this stuff works!!!!...:) Tara

Articles - Get Published!

So I was talking with my office mate yesterday and she said on her list of 100 things to do before she dies is to be a published author. Well today that dream is easier than ever!

I got the notification today that ezines had accepted another one of my articles. They said that it was worthy of expert status and also said "Your article has also been sent to our exclusive EzineArticles RSS Feed and to our proprietary EzineArticles Email Alert Members." That means that I am getting a BUNCH of exposure for my articles AND my website. I include at the bottom of each "Visit realestatemarketingpro.blogspot.com for free daily real estate marketing ideas. See these tips and tricks in action at www.ComeToClearwater.com" which accomplishes a bunch of cool things:

1. People read my article (79 views)
1. People read and sign up for my blog (Unknown #)
2. People read my article and visit my website (as much as 20% of my traffic some days)
3. There are now more links in the internet universe to both my blog and my main site

I may do some more articles that feature my affordable housing site or my high end site or even my FSBO sites. Whatever I do it will be a great way to get more people coming to my sites, for free!

RealEstateMarketingPro

Halloween - Dress Up Your Marketing

Happy Halloween! I love Halloween because everything is not as it seems. My husband becomes a social creature who has fun dressing up at work and making a huge spectacle of himself (usually he is a mild mannered IT Manager who doesn't say too much and dresses the same every day). Children get to pretend to be fairy princesses, Spider man or even their "favorite" politician!

You can dress yourself up professionally also. I have very slick, very professionally designed marketing materials that scream this agent has a track record. If you are new to the business, spend a few bucks and get a professional brochure done OR go to Vistaprint and they will help you design one for free if you order your brochures through them OR use one of the MS Publisher templates and buy some high quality paper to print them on.

This may take some time, but it eliminates A LOT of questions during the listing presentation. Because your materials look professional the client projects that on you also.

If you are a seasoned agent, look at your materials with a critical eye. Have any of them gone out of date? Could you change out some pictures and show a higher end clientele than what is on you materials now? How does your current look translate - have you stepped up into luxury while your listing presentation still says bargain basement?

Make your materials match what you are (or want to be!)

RealEstateMarketingPro

Lead Generation - Do it!

So this weekend I got a lead on a buyer from an article I wrote and a lead on a seller from www.tampa4salebyowner.com I will not be working either of these BUT will refer them out and and MAY make some money from them. That is much better than not having those opportunities.

I think that it is easy to forget that there is a direct correlation between how much prospecting and lead generating we do and HOW MANY LEADS WE GET! As anyone who has ever taken one of my classes knows - you have 100% more chance of getting a lead if you do ANYTHING instead of doing nothing.

Mondays are typically slow days for me (not many appointments) - so I spend them following up on leads from the weekend, adding to and mailing out to my FSBO and Expired lists, and in general contacting people who might like to buy or sell real estate from me.

I like to lead generate so this is one of my favorite days of the week - (sick I know) but I just feel like each thing I do COULD return me a new client!

RealEstateMarketingPro

Sincerity - Elections and Seth Godin

So I spent the last hour filling out my voting ballot for the election. Luckily there was only one race where I was UN-happy with both candidates and had to choose the lesser of two evils. Then I read Seth's blog about manipulators and I was reminded that there ARE people in the world who are out to do harm or manipulate the system, BUT I think in general the realtors that I know are just trying to do a good job and work hard for their clients.

When I read Freakonomics and the author spent a good part of the book comparing realtors to the KKK, I thought how far that was from what I see day to day in the office. I see agents agonizing over the fact that a client will lose their dream home - NOT pining over the lost commissions. I see agent who go ahead and price homes high and still market the heck out them in order to help a client who has gotten in a bad situation. AND I see agents working their tails off to sell houses in a market where a lot is stacked against us.

So today I have to apologize because there is not a lot of marketing in this post, but I just want to commend my collegues in the real estate community for going out there each day and working from a really sincere place to do the best for their clients. Keep up the good work!

Real Estat Marketing Pro

Slogans and Logos - Oh What A Relief It Is

Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, Oh What a Relief It Is, Tough On Hands - Soft On Dishes, I'd Like To Build the World A Home And Furnish It With Hope

Anyone who is over 38 years old has heard these and is probably mad at me for getting them stuck in you head for the day, BUT.... Logos and slogans can make or break a product or an agent. Make sure you have a good one!

Marsee Wilhelms from the Millionaire Mondays series has the slogan "And get packing" - how cool! I have a more convoluted slogan A New Market, A New Approach | Market Your Home To A Local, National and International Market, BUT my Come To Clearwater Logo and the Little Waves are easily recognized on everything I do.

I was talking with a fellow this week and he does the beaches, that made me think of "He sells sea shores" or "Let's make some waves". Whatever you speciality, make sure you have something memorable and then run with it!

Real Estate Marketing Pro

------ Shameless Listing Promotion To Follow! -----

1040 Wideview Ave - Historical Tarpon Bayou, This home is an Auto Enthusiast’s Dream the 5 bay Garage opens into a show room. 4 Bed/3.5 Baths/5+ Gar Find out more!

Public Relations - Blatant Self Promotion

So today is all about me - I can hear the groans now. You guys don't want to hear all about me and my accomplishments. You don't want to know what I have been doing (writing articles, press releases and adding info to my websites) and which societies I have been joining (ILS - International Luxury Homes) , or which marketing campaigns I have launched. But you might want to know the hows and the whys of what I am doing it to keep my name and websites out there!

Today I am writing press releases about my blog. I will set that to release Saturday or Sunday as I do not consider that "news" and I do not think that any news outlet would like to pick it up. I DO however know that if I send out a press release and it is well written and thoughtful then realtors who are searching will be able to find out about my blog and then read it. I like that.

Today I am also writing a press release about becoming a founding member of the ILS. I DO think that that is news so I will submit it for release on Tuesday or Wednesday. Why Tuesday or Wednesday? Well Monday is when all the news junkies come back from the weekend and they will be innundated with things that are much more interesting than my press release. Tuesday or Wednesday I will be more interesting.

I am also adding the "Expert Article Writer" logo to my website with a link to my articles that have been published on www.ezines.com. I get some hits from my website through the links on the articles.

In addition I am going to add the ILS logo to my homepage with a link to my internal page that lists the properties I have available at that price range, a link to CastlesandEstates.com and I am uploading my listings there also.

What have you been doing that is noteworthy lately? Can you write a press release about joining a civic club, volunteering at a hosiptal, receiving an award, sponsoring a classroom, changing companies, launching a marketing campaign (I know news about news!) or ANYTHING else that is interesting or pertinent to promoting you. Do it today and tell me about it - I like that too!

Networking - Talking to Humans Face to Face

I am not a huge fan of networking. It is something that I am sometimes dragged kicking and screaming to do, but once I am there I usually have a great time!

Today I attended a Realtor.com event where my listing partner and I got to have a giggle over the FBI profiler, who told us all about our personality types and why we get along so well or get frustrated with each other sometimes. While there I handed out about 25 property cards to realtors from the tampa bay area AND met some nice agents who I might be able to recruit or use as referral partners in the future.

I then went to a brokers open house held by one of our office agents and then one held by an agent from another office. It was great to get to talk to the 8 or so agents I saw at them and in the process got to preview two great properties.

Yesterday I went to Rotary and got a lead on a listing and also talked to a banker about vender opportunities.

You other agents might say - that is a normal week for me. Well I tend to like to do the things that more solitary like designing marketing campaigns, working on adwords placements, doing website tweaks, or writing blogs! I guess today's post is to remind me as much as anybody that real estate IS a contact sport and sometimes you have to make contact.

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Print - Why you need a brochure

Having a 4 color trifold brochure gives you credibility. It gives all of your most important information to your prospect in gorgeous 4 color glossy splendor. It gives you an air of having been in business for a long time and having professionally done marketing materials. It makes you seem a step above the competition who does not have such a marketing piece. And now it is actually affordable enough that you will not buy 5000 of them and then never give them to anyone because they cost so much!

Some things that ARE important to include when designing your brochure:

1. What do you do for the client
2. What are your qualifications as they relate to the client (how does your background help them?)
3. Interesting facts about you, your business or your clients' business
4. Contact Infomation
5. Usability - I like to make my brochures as mailing pieces so that I can drop one in the mail when people request more info
6. Testimonials
7. Past client lists
8. Your designations (and how having them will help the client)

Some things that ARE NOT important to include when designing your brochure:

1. Going on about your history, your education or anything else IF it is not of value to the client
2. Pictures of the building where your business is housed
3. Infomation abou the team, group, agent to the exclusion of all else
4. Large pictures of you (a small picture by your bio is fine, a large picture of you on the front of the brochure is not!)
   

Overall just consider that they are buying your services, experience and knowledge and the more that you can tell them about how it will serve them the better!

Warning - Commercial Coming

People ask me all the time where I get my business cards, postcards and brochures - VistaPrint. It is cheap, easy to use and did I say cheap? The quality is stupendous and they have a superb interface that works much like MS Word so anyone can use it. If you are thinking about ordering some materials check out their templates and pricing BEFORE you spend a fortune.

End of Commercial

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Branding - I am NOT a criminal!

So this morning I did something fun and productive - I picked up trash by the road with members of my Rotary group. While it fast and easy, we were unsafe and risked being hit by a car because of branding. Everyone but one brave soul refused to wear the bright orange vest that would have provided more visibility. We risked life and limb because the work release program in Clearwater allows criminals to leave the jail to pick up trash and do landscaping IN ORANGE VESTS!

This reminded me of a great branding opportunity - when you go out of your area for Turning Points or Mardi Gras or Family Reunion get togethers, brand yourself. Have your website stitched onto the back of your shirt or have "ask me about clearwater" silk screened on a jacket. Let people know your affiliation and they WILL send you referrals when they have clients move to the area.

RealEstateMarketingPro

Internet - Flash and Music

Please be prepared for a rant! If you have a fancy Flash site with a landing page that people have to "click here to skip into" or if your site has music that plays as soon as you open it and people have to "click here to turn off music" this post is for you.

In 1999-2001 I worked for a company called Digital Chainsaw (I swear that was the name) and we were bought by a rather forward thinking broadband company because they liked the edgy nature of our work and our internet background. They were primarily concerned with selling Voice Over IP which still hasn't caught on with the general poplulation 5 years later - hence the forward thinking part. Well I sat in a meeting with them where they were telling me about this "great new stuff Flash" that would revolutionize how people viewed them and how we needed to spend tens of thousands of dollars developing a great Intro.

I told them what I am telling you now (5 years later) - EVERYBODY skips the intro. People do not have time to sit for even a minute to watch a mini advertisement about your company. If you are a realtor, I guarentee people want to see what services you offer OR view listings - NOT a mini movie. If you have music (and I know some of you do) - DISABLE IT. If people are looking at your listings or checking out your services they are not sitting in a totally silent room, they are watching TV or listening to their Ipod or doing something else and YOUR MUSIC IS DISTRACTING and could cause them to leave your site.

That having been said there are some great flash features that do add to the users experience - keep those and ditch the rest.

End of Rant

RealEstateMarketingPro

Public Relations - PRWeb

So today I am going to practice what I preach!

Almost every day I get a hit or two on my TampaBayUnder200K website from PR Web. That does not seem like a lot but considering that there have been 94,722 views of the article through PRWeb and that it was published on May 22, 2006 -- that adds up to about 225 (1.5X150 days) hits.

Today I am going use the $10 service which allows me to see stats but does not put the press release out to all the news agencies to advertise my blog. If the content of my release is good some nice things might happen:

1. I may be quoted as a knowledgable source
2. News feeds may pick it up and put it on their website for distribution
3. People may read about my blog and sign up
4. People may read about my services and decide that they want to be represented by someone with my expertise

Whatever happens today it will be more that what would happen if I did not send out a press release -- and isn't that the whole point?

RealEstateMarketingPro

Direct Response Mag - Marketing Addict

My name is Tara and I am a marketing addict. I know this because I spent this morning reading Direct Response Magazine which is the only publication for infomercial producers. I got excited because Andrea Boticelli beat out Girls Gone Wild on general principles because I think that GGW is exploitative and classical music needs a win. But overall it was a magazine about a marketing medium that I have very little chance of using BUT I still liked it!!!!

I talked with one of our agents in the office who has a jones on for Investing. He REALLY likes it and all the opportunities it provides to make money, network, travel and just in general enrich his life and other people's lives. This bears watching to see how far and how fast he can go - I will update you when he has the kinks worked out.

And last but not least is my closing coordinator - this woman gets the chills when she consumates a closing for us and has all the I's dotted and the T's crossed. Her face lights up when all her files are in order and when she has had a really great weekend of organizing them.

What do you like to do? Helping people buy or sell houses is a little vague. Figure out what you like to do anyways and then incorporate it into your real estate business. If you golf become familiar with all the golfing communities (maybe you can get a free round out of it!), if you are into art develop a list of homes that have galleries or great natural lighting, or if you like helping people become an expert on 1031 exchanges and help them keep their money!

Just because you pick an expertise does not mean you can't sell to everyone BUT it can make your career more enjoyable to you!

Tara

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Branding - Tell Them EXACTLY What You Mean!

My husband and I were driving through Dunedin today and we passed a small business that had just opened. It was in a small strip mall and was called "This and Thats" or Betty's "These and Those" or SOMETHING like that. The problem is that there is no indication of what the store does. Does it sell home furnishings or clothing or crafts, do they provide services or products? AND how is anyone going to remember that name? It is SO innocuous as to be harmful to the business.

I worked this week with a realtor who knew EXACTLY what she wanted to name her business and also what image she wanted to project. Her name is Minnie, and so she named her business/website Minnie Mighty Realtor. We developed a neat logo that featured those exact words. It was black and white and VERY tailored, just like the image she wanted to project.

I designed a look with another realtor who chose the icon of a sanddollar and who wanted a very polished look. She has carried that theme through her car signs, business cards and also sanddollar candies and handouts for her open houses and home flyers. This continuous look even helped to break the ice with an open house visitor who noticed that everything had a sanddollar on it! Her website also will carry out the theme.

Both these realtors will benefit greatly from their focus and how they have branded their businesses. It is easy to "picture" their logo/branding and so clients will be able to associate them with their businesses simply and quickly.

Real Estate Marketing Pro Blog

October - Holy Cow Is There A Lot To Do

I love October because it is the month of my birth and I make my family crazy by reminding them of that fact and making them celebrate over the course of 2-3 weeks! But I also noticed this year that there are A LOT of happenings that I could be involved with and I want to make sure I balance all of those things with the primary goal of selling houses (becasue as Arthur Motley so aptly stated Nothing happens until somebody sells something.)

One thing that goes on the caledar for sure is the Homebanc speaker. He is talking about busines planning and goal setting BUT that is not why I will attend. I will attend because I want to support my friends and associates Brian and Kelly (mortgage bankers). They support us by sponsoring events in our office, attending our brokers opens and working with us on various programs throughout the year. The least I can do is come to their speaker event.

I also may attend the Realtor.com seminar which features a former FBI profiler. I don't really need to know about Realtor.com BUT the information that he gives about how to profile your clients and the other realtor in the transaction is invaluable.

That having been said, there are numerous other events that I can attend during the working day that I will choose not to go to. I am focusing on time management and making sure that the things that will bring in business, make my clients happy, strengthen vendor relationships or increase the likelyhood that one of my listings will sell come first and everything else MUST be a distant second. I am not totally succeeding yet but I feel like I have a better chance of that happening if it is my first priority.

Does anyone else struggle with time manangement, and if so, do you have any nifty coping mechanisms? Real Estate Marketing Pro Blog

Friday the 13th Has Great PR

Friday the 13th is here and I must say that I am very impressed with the universal nature of people's fear of the number 13 and all associated with it. The fact that no one REALLY knows how this started would make me think that it would have died out by now - but it is going strong.

PR is much like that to me. Many people misunderstand the power of PR if it is used consistenly and aggressively. If you say that you are "Tampa Bay's Premier Realtor For Corporate Executives" in your marketing materials, in your website and on your signs, AND THEN send out press releases confirming that fact, human resource directors in the area will come looking for you when they are tasked with finding a home for the new CEO the board hired.

I love this concept (and may use it sometime so Tampa Bay Realtors you better hurry up and declare yourself soon so I don't beat you to it). Some things that you have to do to qualify include marketing early and often to the top 100 local companies' human resource directors, know the inventory for homes in prestigious areas ALL OVER Tampa Bay (you cannot just know the ones near your home or office for this gig), have affiliate relationships with interior decorators and other support staff AND then tell the world this is your niche.

www.PRweb.com allows you to send out press releases FOR FREE. I would utilize this service for at least monthly notices about your Corporate Executive Relocation superiority and then pay the extra fee (approx $80) only when you have milestone that you want to make sure everyone knows about - "Jane Doe, Tampa Bay's Premier Realtor For Corporate Executives Announces That Company X Has Successfully Completed Their Bid to Recruit Corporate Raider Jones Thanks In Part to Her Ability to Find A Suitable Mansion In Tampa".

This doesn't sound so hard to do - BUT tooting our own horns sometimes feels a little weird - get over it, pick a speciality and start talking about yourself to anyone who will listen!!!

PS - Make sure you put links to each of your "news stories" on your website to reinforce your position.

Print - Sharing The Load

I have to say that I am pretty pumped up about the print advertising that I have been doing lately! I am in a local free paper with an article plus an ad, the Pinellas Home Search and also the Real Estate Book....I can hear the groan from you all now - I can't afford that, print advertising doesn't work, there are no buyers right now so why spend the money, yada yada yada.

Well let's go over this step by step and see what all this print is costing. Timez Out (small local paper) The article is free and allows me show that I am a "real estate expert" in area. Small local papers are often looking for good, reliable submitters and you might just fit the bill. Here is this month's article. As you can see I was able to quote other industry sources like my Homebanc partner, Brian P. Forrester and also another agent from the office in the article, spreading the love around. I also paired up for the ad with my high end listing partner Sheila Santini so the cost was cut in half. $100 total (you also get a discount on the cost of the ad because of your article submissions!)

Pinellas Home Book This seemed somewhat cost prohibitive when I checked it out orginally, $500 a page per month. But what I did was buy two pages and sell the other ads to agents in my office who got the benefit of the lower price and "all" it took was my time (I had to commit to 6 inserts per year and have to do the individual agent billing myself). I figure I have about 10 hours in designing the ad and laying out the first spread. This month we added pages 3 and 4 which added another 6 or 7 hours to the process, BUT as they always say, when you are a newer agent what you have is time rather than money so I consider it time well spent!!! $38/ad

The Real Estate Book I went in with 2 other agents (Lori Crawford and Bill Sullivan) for this one. There is a year's commitment, but we all vowed to stay the full year or to find someone to buy us out if we were unable to do it. I got it in from the printer yesterday and it is GREAT!!! This one features 3 properties for each of us and is a month long publication (I just noticed that they all are month long - even better! Cha-ching). They also have an extensive online presence that comes for free with the listings. $136/month - 12 month committment.

So my monthly costs are about $312 to get in three separate publications. Considering I was spending well over that to be in one high end print magazine, I am VERY pleased that I have gotten my advertising costs under control and I am achieving a pretty high visibility.

Let's talk about print not working - I have heard from three separate agents in our office that they have gotten calls already from the Home Search magazine. I just started the Real Estate Book so I don't have any data on that one and the Timez Out is more for visibility and to show my listing clients I am advertising for them than to make the phone ring. Would I like more calls? YES! But....I also find it much easier to sell my services at a listing appointment when I am able to show them all the places they will be featured.

As for there being no buyers - I always am reminded of Henry Ford's quote "Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right." If you are sure that there are no opportunities and that doing nothing is the safe bet, the results you get should be commensurate with your effort!

Print - Flyers, I Have Heard It A 1000 Times...

I have heard it 4 or 5 times (I know I exaggerated in the headline - get used to it!) that you should put other properties of your current inventory on the back sides of the flyers you hand out, well today I am going to do it!!!

It seems so simplistic, but I am doing a brokers open today and I think it would be nice if other agents got to see ALL of my listings and not just the one I am sitting at. Also, I was at a pitch session the other day and I handed out a flyer for different property and did not let the 20 or so other agents there know I had OTHER properties that are equally as wonderful.

I think that I may be missing a chance to "pick the low hanging fruit" as Mark Stevens in Your Marketing Sucks talks about.

Internet - Two For One On Google

So about a month ago I read an article on how to save money on Google Adwords, implemented the suggestions and totally broke my campaigns, going from a pretty good response to almost nothing overnight. If you are new to internet marketing I am sure this will sound strange to you, but if you have been doing it for a while I am sure you have done this before too.

Well last week I took a morning and fixed my AdWords campaigns and made some changes to my websites to try and get more leads, not just traffic. IT WORKED!

I have one site that gets A LOT of hits for very low click through costs on google (www.tampabayunder200k.com) but which is not a great lead generator for me. Knowing this I changed the format of the sidebar on the site to show pictures of my properties with compelling prices AND changed the link to my main site instead of linking to a subpage of the TBU200K site.

Traffic at TBU200K has increased (which is nice but not all that productive) BUT click-throughs to www.cometoclearwater.com and www.clearwater4salebyowner.com have ALSO INCREASED! Basically I am using my low click through cost on google to help drive additional traffic to my "real" websites - Two For One On Google!

Marketing Ideas and Anxiety

Trying something new is always hard - even when you are adventuresome - which I am. Starting a blog was somewhat intimidating for me - will I have something to write every day? will ANYONE ever read it? will I give all my ideas away to people who are wildly successful?

I hope to answer yes to all of these???s in the coming months. I have at least one "great" marketing idea each day and I agree with Seth Godin who says that ideas that are hidden die. I will be posting my ideas here each day and if you use any of them please let me know so I know that they went out into the world and GREW LEGS!

T