I believe there is great power in simplicity. I think we generally over complicate business. Heck, I think we generally over complicate life. But that’s a completely different blog post.

Let’s get back to keeping it simple in the real estate business. I have several people in my life who remind me almost daily that what we do is not rocket science, it’s just real estate. So then, why do we make it so darn complicated?

I was having a conversation with one of our franchisees the other day. It started with the normal exchange of pleasantries. I then complimented him on the growth he has been experiencing in his office recently. He attracted 6 experienced agents in January and another 7 in February. A great start to the year. I should also disclose his office is located in Florida- not exactly the envy of North American real estate right now. I asked him what he attributed this strong start to the year to.

He said, this year “I’m focusing on two things everyday: agents and listings.”

I work with brokers everyday analyzing financials, looking at performance indicators, developing talent attraction strategies and numerous other things. By the end of the day, it is easy to pile up the to do’s and the tasks. In fact, usually the pile is so high that we have to spend a good portion of our time reducing the pile to manageable and actionable items. We have to eliminate the “shiny” as I like to say. These are the things that don’t directly contribute to your goals. That’s what struck me as brilliant about the simplicity of focus demonstrated by Vince Laviano, Broker/Owner of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Laviano & Associates, when he said ”agents and listings.”

Agents:

• Experienced agents are looking for leadership and an environment that will support their success. Many have been disappointed and disillusioned by the lack of both of these things from their current brokerage. If you can demonstrate that your company can provide these elements, you’ll become the destination brokerage for many great agents.
• There are still people getting their real estate license in every state, every day across the country. Don’t discount the new agent to the industry right now. Those who are getting into the business now are probably the highest quality and most talented new entrants we’ve seen in years. These are business people who you should be proud to partner with in your company.
• Your existing agents need you. They need you to lead. They need you to expand your skill set and help continually expand their value proposition to today’s buyer and seller. Don’t forget about them.

Listings:

• Having saleable listings has always been and will always be the back bone of every successful real estate professionals and brokerage’s business.
• Moving up, changing neighborhoods, financial distress, death, divorce, downsizing. People move for all sorts of reasons. Good markets and bad markets aside, as real estate professionals we have to be good listing agents. If agents focused on prospecting for listings everyday and their brokerage supported this effort through various lead generation programs, we would have a win-win situation.

We are staring down the end of the first quarter of 2010.

• What are you focusing on this year to reach your goals?
• How’s that working out for you so far?
• Has it all gotten complicated or have you kept it simple?

I remember the conversation clearly. I was sitting in a hotel lobby in San Francisco right before the Christmas holiday talking on my cell phone to Joe Rand. He was telling me about an idea he and his team were working on. The more he told me, the more excited I got.

Ever since the news of the expanded and extended home buyer tax credit had been confirmed I had been encouraging any agent that would listen about the importance of getting information on this program out to their communities. The initiative Joe was explaining would do just that. I only wish I thought of this myself!

In early January, Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty launched www.HomeBuyerTaxCredit.com. A site dedicated to answering consumers’ questions about the tax credit, whether they qualify and what they need to do next.

The site features some great content including video and free downloads. But the center piece is the Eligibility Test. After answering 10 questions (which you can do is less than 2 minutes), you are then moved onto the next section which determines if you qualify for the first time home buyer tax credit or the move up tax credit. With just a couple minutes of time invested you know whether you qualify or not. For a consumer this tool is very valuable.

Many buyers will procrastinate to the last minute to take advantage of the home buyer tax credit. When they are ready they will need information quickly and will turn to the Internet to find that information. HomeBuyerTaxCredit.com is just the tool to assist buyers and real estate professionals along the way. The site is unbranded and is a valuable resource regardless of which company or brand you are associated with.

Congrats to Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Rand Realty for a great idea and powerful execution.

Last week, a few hundred industry professionals gathered to spend a day of learning, networking and debating at REBarCamp New York. There were lots of great ideas and much to be said for the caliber of people in attendance.

We are not known to be a shy breed in real estate, and certainly are not bashful in sharing our opinions.  Some hot topics from the day included:

• RPR (NAR’s Realtor Property Resource)
• The role of MLS’s
• Brokerage of the Future
• Social Media
• Market Data

One consistency that I observed in every room, regardless of the topic being discussed, is that we couldn’t seem to agree.

• Is RPR good or bad?
• Should MLS’s stay or go?
• Will brokerage of the future be big or boutique? Bricks and mortar or virtual?
• How does social media build business?
• Is data the new knowledge differentiator?

One thing I’m confident of  is that even though the answers may not be clear and consensus is fleeting, the debates are healthy and ones we must continue having.

Thanks to all the organizers of REBarCamp New York (#rebcny) and Inman Connect (#icny) for giving us all the opportunity and venue to exchange our thoughts and learn from one another. This type of collaboration is beneficial for us all and for those we serve as real estate professionals.

Here’s to 2010 and challenging the status quo.

I sure am. I hear conversations and I envision pictures and images in my mind. I remember faces, places, interactions and life in general in my mind’s eye. It turns out most of us are visual thinkers.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and been totally confused by what they are saying? Only to have them grab a piece of paper or go to a whiteboard or flip chart and say “let me show you.”? They then proceed to draw something-or-other which results in you better understanding the point they are trying to make, or the concept they are trying to explain. That’s the power of visual thinking.

Floyd Wickman, the grandfather of real estate training, was a mentor of mine early on in my career. One of the sale techniques Floyd taught he called the “talking pad”. He trained agents to always have a black note pad and write, scribble or draw your key points during a sales presentation.  Use the talking pad as  you explain an offer, present a CMA, review showings or whatever the situation is. The talking pad adds the visual element to the verbal communication and increases focus, understanding and retention. As it turns out, it’s also very persuasive.

Dan Roam recently published a great book on this topic called The Back of the Napkin. The book discusses and demonstrates the power of visual thinking to solve problems with pictures.

We are in an increasingly complicated world where we are inundated with email, texting, online tools, conference calls, video conferences and a long list of other communication tools. Cutting through the clutter to make a point is vital to our success. If you can reduce a 10 page PowerPoint full of text to 1 page of visuals and text, you’ve really done something impressive. If you can leave a meeting with the other attendees knowing your three key take a ways, that’s a productive meeting. If you can focus a seller on the key terms of an offer instead of getting lost in 4 pages of legality, that’s going to simplify the decision making process.

Whether it’s the back of a napkin, the talking pad, the whiteboard or flip chart, use these tools to evoke the visual thinker in all of us. You don’t have to be an artist. That’s the great thing about our mind’s eye, we know how to turn a stick person in a flesh and blood image and we know how to turn a square with a triangle on top of it into our dream home. Most of us turn words into pictures instinctively, why not use that to our advantage?

Photos Courtesy of  TheBackoftheNapkin.com

Now that the excitement and relief of the extended and expanded homebuyers’ tax credit has worn off, the real question becomes now what? It would be a huge lost opportunity if all of us in this industry failed to carry this hard fought government bonus to the next level. So, now what can agents do to maximize this incentive?

Awareness and education will go hand in hand on this one. Most agents we surveyed said they plan to promote the tax credit. However, few had specific examples of their future plans and other then the odd blog post I haven’t found a lot of online evidence of how agents are promoting this opportunity.

We know that almost every buyer or future buyer goes online searching for information on properties and real estate in general. Becoming the online expert on the home buyers credit will definitely result in inquiries. To do this I’d suggest:

• Including information on the tax credit on the landing page of your website and/or blog
• Update this information often with real life stories of first time and move up buyers who have used the tax credit successfully
• Use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to connect with your clients by posting  tips or informational facts about the tax credit
• Contact your local media (online and offline) and offer to write an article about the tax credit, at the very least offer your expertise for any articles they may be writing
• Find articles and blogs on the topic authored by other people and comment on them, being sure to add value to article (not just commenting “nice post”)
• Send an e-newsletter dedicated to the topic to your sphere of influence

Now to convert your online efforts into face to face, a free informational seminar is the way to go. I’d start planning and promoting one of these now for mid January. The holiday season offers lots of distractions, but come January it’s time to plan for the year ahead. If moving is in the plans the timing couldn’t be more perfect for this type of event. You’ll be the go to person for all their real estate needs. Here’s a sample of a presentation you could use at this type of event. Feel free to borrow and customize this to fit your needs.

Buying and selling a home is ultimately an emotional decision for most people. The tax credit is very logical once you understand the facts and the figures. Don’t forget to connect the emotion to the logic. In the end it’s not about the $8000 or $6500, it’s about fulfilling the dream of homeownership and the passion for the home that is ingrained in the fabric of all of us. Real estate after all is about people helping people.

The email hit my inbox Thursday night at 5:43 pm. The subject line read: EMBARGO: You’re Invited to Attend a Private HouseLogic Webinar Tomorrow. The body invited the distribution list to a 2 hour private webinar on Friday afternoon with a teaser saying that the listener would want to stay tuned for the second half when some big news would be unveiled. Let’s just say my curiosity was peaked and I listened in on Friday.

That call marked the unofficial launch of the National Association of Realtors, Realtors Property Resource or RPR. RPR is a national property database initiative with a back end Realtor component and a consumer facing website called HouseLogic. It will be officially launched this week in San Diego at the NAR conference.

Since Friday afternoon the webosphere has been buzzing with speculation, opinion and reactions to the RPR  pre announcement. If you have a few minutes to dedicate to reading here are some interesting posts on the topic that have surfaced over the weekend.

• RPR Madness! NAR Unleashes National Property Database with Cyberhomes from Brian Boero at 1000Watt Consulting
• Run Altos Run! NAR Announces RPR from Mike Simonsen at Altos Research
• The Coming Civil War in Real Estate: The RPR Saga Begins from Rob Hahn at Notorious R.O.B Blog
• Will Realtors Property Resource (RPR) Drive Up the Cost of Referrals? by Matt Stigliano on Active Rain
• Breaking News: NAR/RPR + Cyberhomes = by Jim Duncan on Agent Genius

Will RPR be a good thing for our industry? Time will tell.

Should agents and brokers know everything they can about this initiative? Absolutely.

I’ll hold my opinions and continue to share information…

Do you have an opinion on RPR you’d like to share?

You may have noticed this hashtag a lot over the weekend. It was the highest trending topic on Twitter. And that’s because a group of very clever people demonstrated the power of social media for social good.

The goal was to set a Guinness World Book record for the largest social mass media message distributed in a 24-hour period. And the goal was achieved!

The masterminds behind this mission were Tamara Knechtel from Everywhere, an Atlanta based social media company and CNN anchor Don Lemon. They came up with the idea over a casual conversation.

Don Lemon launched the concept at the Blog World/New Media Expo in Las Vegas on Friday. Attendees of the conference and people all over the Internet were asked to send Tweets, issue Facebook status updates and blog using #BeatCancer in their posts. And that’s exactly what they did.

EBay, PayPal and Miller Lite were major sponsors of the initiative and agreed to donate 1 cent for every Tweet, blog post or Facebook update during the 24-hour period. All money raised will be donated to non-profit cancer organizations. The social web jumped on board and over 208,000 mentions happened in a 24 hour period.

This is an amazing example of the power of social media. The ability to pull thousands of people together across the world with a single focus is inspiring.

There are many examples of that use the notion of 4 C’s of social media. #beatcancer demonstrates how social media can be used to :

• Connect. Every person involved felt an instant connection to one another and to the cause.
• Community. People not only at BlogWorld but literally all over the world instantly jumped on board to support.
• Conversation. The dialog extended beyond the new media realm into the traditional media sphere. With CNN featuring the event.
• Care. People engaged and cared about the outcome of this new media experiment and the positive impact it will have for those impacted by cancer.

The new media tools we all have access to can be used to make a difference. #beatcancer is a Guinness World Book record holding example of how new media has given us all an expaned playing field to use. Let’s not waste it.

As the business continues to change and consumers demand a different type of interaction between themselves and the real estate professional the techniques and responsibilities of lead generation will also continue to evolve.

Seth Godin recently predicted that by 2011, 90% of all sales would be sourced from word of mouth and online promotion.

• What does the future of online lead generation in real estate look like?
• Who should be responsible for generating online leads: the broker, the agent or both?
• Should the next generation brokerage consider directing more attention to generating online leads for their agents? After all, when you ask agents what they want from their broker isn’t leads near the top of the list?
• Should broker/owners offer and manage robust lead management and follow up systems on their agent’s behalf? It is likely that consumers will research for longer periods of time before making the buying or selling decision so offering value during that long term relationship will be important.
• Is there enough trust between broker/owners and agents to allow these types of systems to work?
• Do real estate professionals (whether broker/owner or agent) have the expertise required to execute effectively online?

We are presently seeing examples of brokerages across the country that are surviving and even thriving on broker driven online lead generation models. These companies have taken on the responsibility of generating online leads for their agents. In return, they hold their agents accountable for response time, customer service and follow up. This is a fundamental shift in how most brokerages are operating today.

You might argue that the party who has the ability to generate the most qualified leads has the biggest advantage with the gen web consumer. One thing is certain, online promotion that turns to lead generation will be a huge part of our industry in the years to come.

As for word of mouth lead generation, you’d be hard pressed to hear a real estate speaker today who doesn’t somewhere in their training or presentation throw out the term “back to basics.” These basics of prospecting, follow up, customer service and relationship building are all important components that result in that word of mouth business. The tools and methods may have changed with the introduction of the Internet, but the concepts are still the same. Make connections with people who know, like and trust you. These people will then become advocates for you.

Combining tech and touch in lead generation will prove to a winning combination. 2011 is not that far away, will Seth be right?

Generally speaking, weekly sales meetings were the norm in the archetypal 1990’s real estate office. These meetings typically consisted of some sort of information sharing and often ended with a tour of newly listed properties. Soon these meetings stretched out to biweekly. In some cases they just became new listing tours. Then biweekly became monthly. Office tours became MLS tours. Now, these meetings exist as quarterly, if not semi-annual or annual occasions. Busy independent contractors were just not interested in attending the weekly meeting.

Company leadership should take the blame for the demise of the sales meeting. Why would agents continue to show up for meetings that were typically unorganized and uninformative? The office manager was unprepared and ill equipped to offer value in exchange for the time invested by the agent to attend.

We are in a business culture over saturated with meetings, so I’m not advocating for the weekly sales meeting. But in its day, it was at the very least, an effective way for an office manager to see a good portion of their agents on a regular basis.

The demise of the meeting raises an interesting dilemma. How do you build culture and atmosphere with people integral to the company who rarely appear in the same place, at the same time for events built to cultivate culture and synergy? With everyone doing their own thing, how do you foster interaction and build rapport with your agents?

Regardless of the type of business model you choose, next generation real estate brokerages will have to face and solve this challenge. To begin, it might be helpful to understand what the agents in your company expect, want and would find most meaningful to their businesses. It will be important to focus on harnessing the strengths of every agent in your company and not trying to make your relationship with your agents fit into a one size fits all box. But lastly, it will be critical to find ways to engage your agents to contribute to your brand in new ways, using new tools born out of the social networking paradigm to create and instill a sense of placement within what might be considered your particular corporate social environment.

A mixture of online interaction utilizing social media, wikis, chat, email communication, video conferencing, WebEx, and office blogs may all serve to replace the physical get togethers that are fast becoming part of our past. Granted, in person meetings still reign supreme and should play a growing role in the sales meeting of the future. But I submit that these new ways might do wonders in helping create a culture that could inevitably look forward to the in-person meetings.

The next generation office manager will absolutely need to adopt the right mixture of communication and social interaction vehicles to extend the sense of company value back to their agents. Without this, they will not have an effective way of building culture and environment in their company. This leadership or lack thereof will separate the success stories from the failures.

You know those messages on Twitter that promise to get you 50-100 followers per day. Most of us have been ignoring them since we signed up realizing that the quality of the follower is far more appealing than the quantity. But recently I received one message that for some unknown reason peaked my interest so I clicked on it to see what it was all about.

At the onset, and in my defense, I would like the record to show that I was tired and had likely spent too many hours working that day. This stands as my excuse for the poor judgment that followed. The site made some interesting claims about finding followers that matched my profile. All I had to do, it said was enter my account info and a complete report would be provided.

A report–sounded interesting and I wondered who might be on that list. So I entered my account info, pressed enter and immediately after the form went through, the voice of reason inside my head began to nervously whisper its concern.

Next thing I know I (the site I had been on) sent Tweets on my behalf that said that I recommend their site to find 100’s of followers per day. Wait, wait, wait– I didn’t, that’s not what I wanted, I was just curious. I just wanted the report!

I immediately deleted the first Tweet. Breathed a sigh of relief and thought okay, well at least I’m the only one that knows I did that. But before I could catch my breath, Tweetdeck lit up like a Christmas tree with mentions and DM’s regarding the follow me Tweet.

There I was, sitting in my living room, innocently working away and the next thing I know I’ve made a major Twitter misstep and I now have to explain in 140 characters my honest intentions and how they have gone completely sideways.

Building a random collection of followers using services like this is not a sound Twitter strategy for anyone whether an individual or company. Twitters ultimate benefit is made through the personal connections you create with followers based on commonality– which is what drew me to learn more about the service that site promised.  And like any relationship there needs to be value for both parties in the connection.

It’s as easy to misstep on social media as it is in real life. But sometimes, with social media, these missteps can be far reaching and take considerable time to correct. The best course of action here is to fess up, admit the mistake and warn others. So, in the spirit of good Twitter etiquette, here are 3 other Twitter missteps to avoid:

1. When posting random thoughts such as “I’m so happy today” or “Getting coffee now” consider embellishing those sentiments or activities with the reason why you are happy, or where you are having coffee so that your post provides followers some added benefit or value. When you post something, ask yourself, would I leave this post on a friends’ voice mail? If not, then it’s probably not worth posting on Twitter.
2. Don’t post if you don’t have anything of value to say. If you feel the need to Tweet, consider retweeting someone else’s post. This action is always viewed kindly by others. Building influence on Twitter is not accomplished by the quantity of your posts but by the quality.
3. When posting, keep your brand values close by and measure your post against those very things you stand for. This will help prevent you from posting things that you might regret or that could harm your reputation. What you post can and will be seen by the masses. People do actually see and retain what you Tweet.

There are so many best practices regarding Twitter that briefing yourself on what they are will help you make better use of the platform. The bottom line is Twitter is not a toy. It’s a very serious and powerful marketing and communication tool. Whether you are savvy on Twitter or new to it, one mistake can lead to a great deal of time spent cleaning it up.