Smart Phone Overload!

Posted on 16. Aug, 2010 by Paulette Costa.

I’m on Smart Phone Overload!  Here’s my dilemma: Do I stay with what I have, my current smart phone, which I like and serves my purpose, has useful applications for my needs and functions in nearly any area I travel, or do I switch based on hype? There is so much to choose from, so [...]

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3 Real Estate Website Tips That Will Dramatically Increase Your Leads

Posted on 04. Aug, 2010 by Josh Ferris.

Are you leaving money on the table? Agents and brokers around the world spend days and thousands of dollars per year on their websites and don’t reap the full benefits because they overlook these three real estate website tips: 1. Quick search on your homepage – When you visit both Google and Yahoo! what is [...]

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The Week Before Inman

Posted on 07. Jul, 2010 by Wendy Forsythe.

This is the third ‘week before’ Inman Connect that the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate team has prepared for.The 2008 week before Inman was also the week before the official launch of the brand, and the week before welcoming our first franchisee to the network. That was a week I will never forget. I don’t [...]

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Operational and Compensational Implications of Reducing Office Size

Posted on 22. Jun, 2010 by Robert Albanese.

As is true with everything in business, the issue of reducing office size cannot be viewed in a vacuum. If you decide that reducing office size is an important initiative for your company, first consider all operational attributes that are impacted by changes to the physical plant. Keep in mind that both business and culture [...]

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What’s in Your Toolbox?

Posted on 15. Jun, 2010 by Paulette Costa.

Several years ago I was asked to participate in a Habitat for Humanity project. It was a day when only women were to work on a home that was being built for a single mother in Hartford, CT, and I was proud to participate.

I participated with several agents from my office and upon arrival we were met by the local builder who provided each of us with a carpenter’s apron, a hammer, nails, a tape measure and our assignments. Mine was to hammer floor boards. The builder barked out instructions, demonstrated with a few swings of his hammer and left me to my work which I took on with feverish excitement.

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The REport

Posted on 15. Jun, 2010 by Sherry Chris.

If tweets actually chirped the global din would be as pervasive as vuvuzela horns at the World Cup. Twitter just announced there are 65 million tweets sent daily!  In such a crowded field, I truly believe faithful practitioners of elegance and etiquette will be rewarded. Speaking of rewarding, most marketers will tell you that word [...]

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Attributes of Great Real Estate Firms

Posted on 12. May, 2010 by Wendy Forsythe.

Last week, Steve Murray and Nicolai Kolding closed out the REAL Trends Gathering of Eagles conference in Dallas, TX with a presentation highlighting, in their opinions, the key attributes of great real estate firms. The audience, which consisted mainly of some of the largest and most productive brokerages in the country, listened intently. At the [...]

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The REport

Posted on 11. May, 2010 by Sherry Chris.

I am happy to report that our industry can now (sort of) claim that Google is following our lead, as it adds visual search results to its site.  This is something we in the real estate industry have been doing for years. It will be interesting to see how this search will succeed in the [...]

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Agent Segmenting as a Coaching Tool

Posted on 19. Apr, 2010 by Robert Albanese.

Companies that “Segment” agents by production levels, typically group agents in ‘quartiles’ by arranging them in descending order according to some specific unit of measure. For example, Adjusted Gross Commission Income (AGCI) is a commonly used metric in the segmenting of sales agents.   Although beneficial to a degree, I find this traditional concept of ‘quartiling’ to [...]

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Week in Review: Things We Liked from the Week That Was

Posted on 29. Jan, 2010 by Sherry Chris.

Although President Obama said in his State of the Union Address that the worst is over, we know—at least for the housing market—that we still have a steep hill ahead of us to climb. That’s because everyone loves a good deal, and shoppers in the housing market are no exception. People looking to buy are [...]

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HomeBuyerTaxCredit.com

Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by Wendy Forsythe.

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 [...]

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