ActiveRain Community

 Avoiding Negative Thoughts And People.  Fight Through Or Join The Crowd Before you read another word of this post take a second and look at the picture above.  Take yourself back to the moment in your life where it was you you standing at the beginning of your journey.  Now think about all of the obstacles that you had in front of you that either seemed overwhelming and made you want to quit or instead motivated you to bust through, work harder and become the successful person you are today. When I saw this picture it hit home and I knew I wanted to use it for my next post.  It spoke to me because I'm still working and manuvering my way up that path to reach all of my goals.  As you guys know, being in the real estate world is not easy at all.  It takes knowledge, patience, relationshi... 07/21/2020

 Mental Recess Time: Active Rain Acronym Challenge From Me To You!Another Monday filled with the challenges of being productive and finding a way to be a source of help to someone needing our services.  My business brain needed a break so I decided to switch over to the creative side and login to ol active rain and come up with something to blog about.  I'm a competitive person so I decided to issue an Active Rain Acronym Challenge.  When you get some down time and you feel froggy I want to see if anyone can jump and beat my acronym for Active Rain.  Simple and plain as that.  We all are serious probably 90% of the day so let's take that final 10% and have some creative fun. AlwaysCommitToImprovingValueEducationReputationAndIntellectualNeeds Until next time.............I'm Out......Drop... 07/27/2020

Hi Everybody!Tomorrow at 2 pm EST, it's time for our weekly Zoom call.We are going to have a mystery guest from the Rain that is going to be our speaker.  You're going to want to be on this call!I can't tell you who it's going to be, it's going to be for you though.  Be there.  You can find the link HERE.This meeting is for about an hour and is hosted by Debe Maxwell, CRS.  07/27/2020

Some posts I write are suitable for lining a birdcage within a few days of publishing.  They were meant to be disposable.Other posts I write to (hopefully) stick around for a LONG time.This weekend I got a call from a subdivision post written in 2012.  Now it wasn't to buy or sell a home (this time), but it was clearly from my ActiveRain blog and NOT the Wordpress search page I have using much of the same content for that subdivision.How do I know it was ActiveRain?  Because the caller mistook our Ambassador badge as being an "ambassador of the subdivision".I've got an assortment of old posts that work well for me.  I get a fair number of leads from a post about a Landen Lake community called Sailboat Pointe.  A mix of condos and patio homes, that 2013 post has generated over 12,000 vie... 07/28/2020

Last Saturday my friend and neighbor called to tell me he’d gotten a call from Publisher’s Clearing House. He’d won $2 million plus a new Mercedes. He was convinced the call was real because they didn’t ask him for any information – such as a bank account of Social Security number.He knew I’d gotten a call a couple of months ago from “PHC” telling me they needed my bank account number so they could deposit the funds I'd won, so when they didn't ask, he felt reassured. His first clue that this was a scam should have been that he hadn’t entered their contests for perhaps 20 years, but the caller had an answer for that too.A couple of hours later he called back. He’d done some research and learned that they don’t notify winners by phone. Now he was sure it was fake.By the time they called ... 07/28/2020

 Today I took the challenge I made a call. I have been reading some wonderful posts by a few members and thought I would see if I could write a post on Active Rain. I picked up the phone and called Endre Barath, Jr. no one answered I left a message . Quite frankly I have been so impressed by some of the members posts and disappointed by the lack of posts I decided to jump in myself. I do understand that Active Rain has been down quite a bit lately and points and posts have disappeared but I do still love my friends in the Rain and refused to give up.My phone rang and there was a return call from Endre .We chatted about COVID 19 and how our business was. We talked about cooking something we both love to do  . Endre lives on one side of the country and me on the other yet both cities expe... 07/28/2020

Debe Maxwell, CRS hosted an exciting Zoom meeting today with special guest speaker Ben Kinney! Ben was very transparent and talked us through the beginning days in Active Rain to the present. AR has been purchased several times and while changing hands has undergone its share of glitches with an outdated system. Ben is committed to our community and has some excellent thoughts on the direction the site needs to take to become a major player in providing opportunities to capture public attention and interaction. Ben has agreed to come to our Tuesday Zoom meeting once a month to communicate with us. Make time to attend the Zoom meeting, it will be well worth your while and answer many questions you might have. TThank you Debe for making this interactive meeting possible. We enjoy a caring... 07/28/2020

Love this first video for several reasons, primarily for the coat he is wearing, here are The Kinks singing Lola, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame benefit. Love how they wind the crowd up. A good way to start the week.  And then this seems so right from Starland Vocal Band from 1976 Afternoon Delight  And 1976 seemed to have some good music, here is England Dan, great name, and John Ford Coley, also a great name with I'd really love to see you tonight. Have a great week. 07/28/2020

 There Is No ShortageOf Things Where We Can B!tch But... Given the recent use of the word as a noun, I would like to address the subject as a verb.  You may prefer to call it complain, gripe or whine.  One need not travel far to find grumblings and groanings taking place all around us.  You know, there are many, likely far too many, things where we have no control but we can control our attitude and approach to situations.   Beth Atalay wrote a featured post Saturday that made it evident that ActiveRain and social media of all sorts is not immune.  Pause.  Reflect.  It’s important.  I admit I can go too far on occasion so I am not placing myself as an example of decorum.  I remain a work-in-progress.   The image in this post is from canstockphoto.com    07/25/2020

  How Often Should We Update Our Real Estate Website?Is my profile pic dated? Do I have the correct keywords in my H1 heading? Does our message on our website still fit our targeted market?  These questions along with wondering how often should we update our company website can lead to some anxiety filled moments. When you look at large company websites like CNN or Apple the content on their websites are always being updated daily.  That's understandable though with the content being news and technology which are always changing.  But what about the small businesses that have an online presence also.  What should be our schedule for creating and updating content on our websites?  I really don't have the be all, end all answer to that question but I can give my two cents on the subject. ... 07/25/2020

Anyone Can Hold the Helm When the Sea is Calm  If your business is anything like mine, COVID is presently dishing out challenge after challenge to the way you (used to) work.  If it hasn't already driven many nails into the coffin of the way things were, then I'm willing to bet you're within earshot of the hammer.  If you've had time to collect your thoughts and countenance reality, you may have even begun to think about how biz will look in 2021, 2022 or beyond. Many of us, in real estate careers we have built over years or decades, have assumed a form of de facto leadership.  We likely have staff that report to us and certainly we have clients to manage and lead through the complexities that even an ordinary real estate transaction can impose.  People referred or returning to us have ... 07/28/2020

Staying in the same period of time the 70's and early 80's today I am starting with Jethro Tull, the only rock group that use a flute in their music, playing Witch's Promise  There were so  many bands during this period, here was T. Rex playing Get it on, which you might remember.  And what about Status Quo playing Down Down from 1974, this brought back some memories.   07/27/2020

Every day I get to do what I do best. Are you able to answer that question with yes?  When an associate of your is asked that question how will they answer it? You will be much more successful if you know your own strengths as well as your team and your assistants.  When you know everyone's strengths you will give them an opportunity to use those strenghts every day. From an employee engagement standpoint people will burnout and leave if they are constantly in stress trying to improve their weaknesses.  If you are not happy and under stress doing your job you will not be successful.  Why do we force ourselves to do things we can't do well? Consider this.  When your child comes home from school with his or her report card and it shows, for example, an A in math, B’s in history and scienc... 07/19/2020

I was surprised this week that you had not heard of Suzie Quattro, so think this is another group you might not be familiar with from the 70's Slade, here playing Run Runaway  Here they were on Top of the Pops playing Cum on Fell the Noize     Here they are in Germany playing Hear me Calling, as I put this together I realize I had not understood how many hits they had and how popular they were.   07/27/2020

As i am looking for new tunes I am noticing that there seems to be a real revival of music from the earlier times. Love this expression here by The Hot Sardines, love the music, the outfits, the sound, the rythm, pretty much everything about it.  Here is another British Group The Speakeasy Three, who usually sing in acapella, here playing with The Swing Ninjas, again love the quality of the video and it looks like everyone is enjoying themselves.   Here is Swing Republic playing Fall an electroswing version, seems this music is making a comeback, we are going to have dust of some of our dance moves.   Have a swinging day! 07/24/2020

 What Does SEO, Backlinks & Domain Authority Mean? Two years ago if you would have asked me what was SEO, Backlinks or Domain Authority I would have had the following look on my face It's funny now as I think back because I had no idea how important those items were for getting your business found by customers.  I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with these terms.  For those of you who may not, give me a few minutes to share what I've learned. SEO(Search Engine Optimization) is the process of building and wording your website content in a way that people searching for your services on sites such as Google or Bing can find you on the first landing page.  A landing page on Google would be the first results you see if you were searching for a specific topic.  So for instance, if someone wa... 07/17/2020

Creating marketing videos is one thing. Getting exposure to them is quite another. Uploading your videos to one channel will limit that exposure. Here are the channels you’ll get the greatest benefit from as well as “how-to” instructions”. YouTube – The Obvious ChoiceYouTube is the second most visited website on the planet. It also doubles as a search engine because all videos are indexed by Google. To get started: Log on to your YouTube account and click the “upload video” tab. It’s located as a dropdown menu under the movie camera icon at the top-right of your screen. Click on the “select file” button, locate your marketing video, and double-click on it to start uploading it. You can start customizing your video while it uploads. First, enter the video title, and then the video descri... 07/16/2020

Have You Listened to Yourself Lately? How About Reading What You Wrote on Social Media? Do You Even Care?When we’re having an in-person conversation, words often flow, we are probably more natural than what share online. When we are honest, we speak our minds freely with the other person. The setting is private, it is just two people, no other ears or eyes are in the midst.However, when we are in an “attack mode” and put the other person down every chance we get, I don’t think they will just sit there waiting for the next punch. Below is from Merriam-Webster Dictionary; Pput down verbSynonyms & Antonyms of put down (Entry 2 of 2)1to express scornfully one's low opinion ofhe has the annoying habit of putting down others under the guise of offering constructive criticismSee, these individ... 07/25/2020

One of the things you learn working in corporate America is you never know where what you write will end up.  Emails get forwarded, then forwarded again, and again, and again.  The domino push has started.Suddenly your "private" audience of one is now an entire department and subject to a Reply All cloudburst, and there's no walking it back!Things written as a joke or in confidence can easily wind up as Exhibit A in a lawsuit against the company.So needless to say, that mindset transfers over to me in real estate.I've seen agents forward things to their clients that kick the proverbial beehive.An agent provides showing feedback that the "master bathroom is WEIRD!".  That's NOT the kind of stuff I want going straight to my seller.Is the master bathroom unusual in that it has a door from ... 07/25/2020

Posts Just For You- This Week at ActiveRain-July 19 to July 25, 2020 Just as everything in life changes, I’ve decided to make some changes to my weekly post. While I hope to continue to highlight posts that give me that lightbulb moment during the week, I’m not going to commit myself to one post per day.  I learn something new every day at ActiveRain! With this series, I try to highlight posts that gave me that lightbulb moment. It could be something techie, something about Real Estate or the other professions that I never knew, about a place, or about a person. Or, it could be a post that made me sit up and take notice! July 19: Grant Schneider    Do What You Do BestAlways good advice from Grant. Recognize and develop your strengths. Works for your team as well. July 20: Barry Owen   N... 07/26/2020