Adjusting to the NEW Craigslists

As many of you may have noticed, Craigslist has been making some BIG changes over the last few weeks. First it was that a zip code was required. Inconvenient, yet not earth shattering. Then, it was HTML photos not allowed. Followed by anchor text. None of this was a big deal, and was easily remedied. Now however, we are taking a big hit on ads not allowing any type of link in them. Even the long and dirty ones.

Craiglsist ads change. Real estate must change with it

This ad in todays CL world no longer will exist. The photo will disappear, the anchor text (hyperlinked) words will not be linked, and the long URL will not be clickable.

So the big question is, what do we do?

FIRST. STOP FREAKING OUT. Myself, as well as many of the other tech folks out there have been overloaded by emails, texts, FB messages and more with people all worked up over a simple thing. We understand that Craigslist has been a big part of your business. We also have been teaching for years to focus on other pillars of business in case CL ever did something like this. That day is here, I hope you’ve prepared.

SECOND. FIND A WORK AROUND. Now, there have been some work arounds suggested. Myself as well as some others are working on the problem as well. I can tell you, that we will not find a solution that will result in as much traffic as before! EXPECT your CL traffic to drop, significantly. We’re currently testing some solutions to see what type of traffic results they get.

THIRD. HANG TIGHT. If you find yourself breathing into a paper bag to stop the hyperventilating, just calm down and hang tight for a little bit. Craigslist has continued to make these changes over the last two weeks. We need to wait for the storm to pass to make sure we aren’t coming up with a solution that will be outdated in 4 days.

FOUR. PICK UP THE PHONE AND PROSPECT. Take this as a great time to pick up the phone and call all of the other leads that you have, and your sphere of influence.

Long story short, don’t let this stop business for you. Focus on your other pillars of lead generation and when the dust settles in a week or so we will give you the best solution we’ve found along with some solid results analysis from it. Til then, I love you all. BUT PLEASE STOP PANICKING AND FILLING UP MY INBOX 🙂

Teach Your Staff to Leave You

     Every time I hear Gary Keller talk he talks about talent. EVERY TIME. And it never fails, someone in the room raises their hand and says something like “I’m having trouble with my buyers agent.” or assistant, or whatever. Who the person is doesn’t matter. What matters is that people are always the problem! Yes. People. People are our problem!

Why are people our problem? It’s usually a combination of things in the beginning. Rookie mistakes that we make hiring. First, we may have hired the wrong person. Well if we hired the wrong person we simply need to “de-hire” said person and hire the right one. Initial problem solved.

Now we’ve done it! We’ve got the right person! Happy day! We’ve got our amazing buyers agent, assistant, marketer, etc. We couldn’t be happier. Business is running smooth and we starting thinking that people are the solution and not the problem. Yes, if people are the problem then people are also the solution. Enter problem number two: We notice that performance begins to slip, our people seem unhappy or discontent with their job with which they once thrived? Well, it goes back to people being the problem. EXCEPT this time the person that is the problem is generally US, not THEM.

Yes. We are now the problem. What happens is when we hire capacity talent (people who can grow in their role and ultimately into a new one) instead of cul-de-sac talent (people who lack growth capability) they want to be developed. Capacity talent wants to thrive at their job. They want to be the best they can be. They want to learn more. They want the opportunity for advancement even if they choose not to take it. Capacity talent will rarely rest until they are the absolute best at their job (and possibly even better than you at yours). And this is where we lose them. Because our leadership skills are lacking. We fear that if we develop our staff to be “too talented” that they will leave us! And then our perfect business where we were once so happy will be shattered. I can tell you this is not the case.

In my early leadership days I had the same fear. That if I taught my people enough to leave me that they would. Reality is that if I taught them how to thrive on their own and go it alone, they stayed! They stayed and were happy and more productive than ever! Enter: happy dance! This happens because you are satisfying their need to grow and develop. You are providing the leadership that they desire. And through this process they usually realize that going it alone would be harder and less rewarding for them. By less rewarding I don’t necessarily mean financially. We’ve all stayed at underpaying jobs because we’ve respected and liked the people we worked for. And if you’re anything like me I can say that you’ve probably given a boss or two the “one fingered peace sign” at a good paying job. Yes, I have actually done that. That woman was evil. But I digress…

Teach your people to leave you and they rarely will. Be the solution to their career desires and they are yours forever.

Follow the Tweeters #KWMC

As many of us are just 5 days away from touching down in Austin, TX for KW Mega Camp the twitter streams and status updates will be overflowing with #KWMC information!

To make life a little bit easier on you I’ve compiled a list of some of the most active tweeters that will be updating live from the event. Feel free to follow each of these tweeps or the public twitter list I’ve put them on!

If you are planning on following all the news during Mega Camp you should also be sure not only to follow these folks, but to follow the #KWMC hashtag. It is the official tag of the event. Don’t know how to follow a hashtag? No worries, I’ve got this handy dandy video right here to show you. 🙂

Because size does matter…

Stop your dirty thinking! I am referring to the size of your database! I know I tend to stick to the cool new things in my blogs and speaking like social media and internet; however today we are going to kick it old school. Sort of.

Do me a favor and think about your database. How many contacts do you have in it? Now ask yourself this. How many of them are likely to do business with you? Above I said we are going to kick it old school. Well the reason it is followed by a “sort of” is because in recent years our database’s tend to become more like phone books than ever before. The main problem for this is the internet. Yes, I just said the internet is causing problems. However it is not the Internets fault. It is ours. Because we are improperly managing it.

Lets look at what is happening. Our databases are supposed to be people who are likely to do business with us based on past and current relationships. With internet lead generation we tend to get a lot of looky loo’s and tire kickers who register either with limited information, or fake all together. Yes, fake. Mickey Mouse is not really interested in buying that lake front home. I promise. So what do we do? We filter, label and top grade our leads. Having a database of 8,000 people does you no good if you’ve never connected with them. Ever. We have the false belief that our large database of 8,000 people will produce us business simply because of its size. This is not accurate.  My recommendation is to use labels to differentiate who really is in your “database” and simply who’s data you are storing and mass emailing. Don’t get me wrong. I am NOT saying to delete all of those 5,000 emails you have. Yes, some of them may need to go. However its probably not costing you anything to do business with them and there are ways to pull them back in to convert them (but that is a different topic). I want you to clean up your database for tracking and conversion purposes. The size of your database (your TRUE database) will directly influence the size of your business. Manage your database well and you’ll thrive in business. Oh yeah, be sure to add your true SOI on your social platforms. It makes relationship building as easy as pie… or cake depending on your sweet tooth 🙂

LL

Waking Up In Vegas… with MAPS Technology!!

For those of you who missed our late night announcement from MAPS Agent Masterminds in Las Vegas Monday here is a recap for you!

We have exciting news! After months of preparation MAPS announces the launch of a large Technology Division! As many of you know this has been an area that has been much-needed in our industry and we plan on making waves… quickly! Program is being led and developed by none other than the amazing Ben Kinney. With your newest MAPS coaches in place powering this epic undertaking being myself, Chad Hyams, Chris McNamara and existing MAPS Coach Beth Torrence.

The quick program overview will consist of the following.

• BOLDTech – This is will be a one day traveling program designed to help you grow your real estate business with what? Technology of course!
• Mastery Coaching – For those of you who are serious about holding yourselves accountable to your business with a high tech focus.
• A la carte Consulting– For existing MAPS clients that need just a sporadic consultation on big tech decisions.
• In House Consultation – For offices and teams that are looking for a full business analysis and adding a large portion of business based around technology and internet lead generation.

We are all very excited to bring this to you… as well as I know Dianna is. Until all information is updated and released on the MAPS website you can contact myself of Chad for more info on programs! We are all very excited!

Found: Random Travel/Training Shots

Many of you follow my escapades from airport to airport, class to class, hotel to hotel via my personal FB profile. Well, honestly there is still a lot that you never get to see. I am a photo junky. That’s right. I love pictures. I visually document most of my life and rarely do you get to see the whole thing. Yesterday I was going through and cleaning up some space on my iPhone and realized that although none of you want to see ALL of the pics that I take through my trips, some of you may find it fascinating if they were all just easily located in a blog roll and NOT flooding your FB streams. So here you go…. This was April. Enjoy.

We start in Denver (actually… this was mid March, but you get the point) Then.. lets take a quick jump through a few more airports and make a stop in Cary NC and then my favorite city… Austin TX.

Moving on up! #KWFR

Sitting in the Keller Williams State of the Company address. WOW! What an amazing two hours! 

eEdge has gone live! The revolutionary all in one system that handles from lead to closing it up and running. This is a game changer for the real estate industry.

It appears that Realogy is shaking in there boots! As we all expected an announcement for being #2 in the country today we are left unsatisfied. Why, you ask? Because Realogy is refusing to release their agent count numbers until March! Not that I am a conspiracy theory person… but I smell one working up here! Check out the video below to watch Mark Willis’s speach and announcement on where we stand… the UNCONFIRMED #2 REAL ESTATE COMPANY IN THE COUNTRY!

Where’s Waldo?? Where’s Liz!! #KWFR

I will be speaking on two panels this week at KW FR 2011! Come by and see me they will both be great!

 

 

Sunday 1pm – Room 210CD

Smart Social Media Strategies (facilitated by Beth Torrence)

Panelists: Liz Landry, Sue Adler, Jay Papasan

 

Tuesday 1pm – Room 212AB

Blogging For Beginners

Panelists: Jonathan Ossman, Liz Landry

 

Come on by and see us! There won’t be much seating so get there early if you can!

10,000 Agents head to Anaheim! #KWFR

Yesterday marked the first “official” day of Keller Williams Family Reunion!! It was great to wake up in a west coast time zone after the exhausting travel from my prior day. A 3 hour difference made my day!

Lots of exciting things to usher in the KW Crowd yesterday!

The morning started off with the KW Cultural Summit where the top culture agents and offices in the company were recognized for their contributions! Thank you for all that you do! I however was not able to make it the cultural summit due to an ATC Meeting (Associate Technology Council). Exciting things happening there! We got the first LIVE view of eEdge! I can’t even begin to describe how this is going to change the game of real estate! Keller Williams continues to push the limits on standards and what should be the norm in the industry! With the roll of eEdge this week at the State of The Company address, we are expecting quite the show.

Chris Smith of TechSavvyAgent.com rocked the house at 1pm with a “What Happens on Facebook Stays on Facebook” class. Standing room only in there ladies and gents. The biggest highlight you should know about from there is a very cool video software that is CHEAP… yes… very cheap! Check out HDHat.com for video editing, stabilization, narration and more starting at just $29. Thank you Chris for your time here with us this week… our agents love you.

RainStorm (hosted by ActiveRain) took place last night at Heat Ultra Lounge! Needless to say, KW painted the town red last night and partied like only KW agents can!

I hosted the Social Media IRL Mixer at the Hilton – Thank you to everyone for the amazing turn out! You guys rock! Jason Hardy and I perused the crowd for donations to KW Cares by hosting a 50/50 raffle and we are happy to announce that you guys antied up nearly $600 in just under 30 minutes! KW Cares thanks you!

Of course in true KW fashion the party didn’t stop and the Hilton Lobby was the hopping place into the wee hours of the morning! But I wouldn’t know that because I was at home in bed early 🙂

As for now I must depart because a familiar tune of “Back in Black” just came on in the main hello… Hello Gary!

Adventures in Traveling #KWFR

3:30am – Alarm sounds to get up! Finally! Time to head to Keller Williams Family Reunion!

3:45am – Look at clock and wonder what I was thinking booking a 5:30 flight

4:00am – Wake up my ride to the airport (thanks Em)

4:05am – Calm dog who is now howling because I’m leaving.

4:06am – Get to parking lot and realize I forgot my toothbrush on the counter int he bathroom. Dog finally stopped barking. It’s a lost cause. I’ve gone too far to go back – I’ll buy a new one in the airport.

4:15am – Sit comatose in car for 30 minute drive to airport. Emily may be dozing off at the wheel. I’m too tired to tell.

4:45am – Airport!

4:46am – Check in issues at kiosk – special services desk here I come!

4:50am – Waiting impatiently in line…. wondering if I’ll get through security and catch my flight before it takes off at 5:30.

4:55am – Still waiting

5:00am – Up to the service counter “Hi. The kiosk isn’t pulling up my information for my 5:30am flight. Here is my confirmation number”

5:01am – Overwhelmed be stress and anger as the following words are uttered “I’m sorry ma’am. Your flight is booked for MARCH 18th at 5:30. It was changed last week”

5:02am – I stare at service desk representative blankly as I talk myself out of lunging across the counter and wreaking havoc in an airport. Not even I am stupid enough to get myself on a no fly list.

5:03am – It is explained to me that I called last week and switched my flight to March 18th instead of Feb 18th. Which is far from the case. I switched my flight from 6:30pm on Feb 18th to 5:30am on Feb 18th. It’s amazing how when ONE KEY is hit (likely because of someones fat fingers) that my entire day goes wrong. More so, neither me or the original rep noticed because March 18th is in fact a Friday, just like Feb 18th.

5:05am – Desk representative hands me a card with a 1-800 number and says to call. “Next please”

5:06am – Mild nervous breakdown.

5:08am – On hold due to high call volume

5:30am – Its official – I missed my flight. Still on hold

5:45am – A representative picked up, then put me back on hold.

5:50am – Representative tells me since it is a Delta error they can get me on the 11:45 flight out (better than nothing!)

5:51am – Rep says that she can’t override the $1200 fee… she needs to transfer me again and they will be able to.

5:58am – I am sitting on hold still – laptop open, typing a blog staring at the lady at the counter. I know it’s now her fault, but I must give my enemy a face. Sorry Rosa.

6:02am – Lack of caffeine is taking its toll. I should be descending into ATL by now. Still on hold.

6:07am – New rep picks up phone. No idea about the last hour of conversation I’ve had. (breathe Liz. just breathe)

6:20am – New rep gets me a flight out of Jax!! BUT – I don’t land in LA until 5:30pm 😦

6:40am – Visit Starbucks and dose on the caffeine… it’s going to be a long day ladies and gentlemen!
The thing that makes it all worth it is the face that in 12 hours I will be with my favorite people! They say being with people who understand you…. priceless.