Category Archives: commitment

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, organizing, planning, Team work

Is your goal a goal or just a dream?

1 Comment

dream“I see you at the top”, is one of my favorite lines from Zig Zigglar and I look at it every time I feel I am stuck or think I don’t get anywhere

Where is the “top”? What defines the “top”? Will it be the vacation of a lifetime, the large house with ocean view or a trip around the world? Only you can define what “I see you at the top”, means to you.

After you defined your personal “top” you need to plan on how to get to your personal ”top”. Without a plan your personal “top” is just a dream and not a goal.

Most of just don’t pack the bags on Friday morning and go on a vacation on Friday afternoon. We need to plan a little before we do that. This goes the same for our business. We have a business goal, write down the goal and separate the goal into smaller action steps we are going to take for us to be able to reach our goal.

Plan the plan, work the plan and reach your personal “top” or goal. When you don’t plan for your goal your goal will be just a dream and not a goal you are going to reach.

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, planning, Team work

Are you staying true to yourself and your goals?

2 Comments

Something Richard Branson said in one of his postings about the Entrepreneurs’ he admires stood out to me and gave me a quick aha moment ” It’s never a bad idea to have a role model or to seek advice from someone you respect — just don’t let it stop you from being yourself. Originality is key.”

You can always looks for others for Ideas and inspiration.  Don’t let past failures take you off course and make certain you stay true to yourself and your personal vision on where you would like to go.

Don’t try to become someone else.

One example I can think of is a Billiard/Pool Player I know. For many years this good player who could easily be a great player has been trying to copy the playing style of a great Billiard/Pool Player for many years. This pool player practiced for years the style of this other player and he never saw the success and result he was hoping for. Only as he came back to himself and found his true self playing style again he always had and practiced and refined it he started to see the success he had been hoping for.

Who do you admire and look up too?

Watch them, follow them, read what they have to say but don’t try to become them.

buying, commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, organizing, planning, Team work, tips

Demand of rental units are still at an all-time high

Leave a comment

apartmentI had a blog coming over my desk that reminded me about a phone call I had this week alone with several housing authority agents who are working with section 8 and low income housing clients.

Most of the housing agents are scrambling to find enough affordable housing for families who need them and anytime there is an available unit they have more than enough applicants to fill them within less than a few days. During the conversation I mentioned that investors I was working with are looking to make homes available to the low income sector and asking them what and where their greatest need is. Most of them did not even let me not even finish my question. Each and every one of them told me they can fill housing with 1 bedroom as easily as homes with 4 or more bedrooms within a few days.

The other wall the housing authority runs into is the availability of fund for the families who need them. Many areas now have a lottery for the money the families need and the families need to count on the luck of the draw to receive money to help them. Now with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHA) pledging to decrease the flow of money into multifamily housing by 10 percent this year, it will put a huge damper on the multifamily housing market in a very short period of time.

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, organizing, planning, Team work, tips

Things a seller does to turn off buyers

1 Comment

I hear it over and over again “I have tons of interested people looking at my home” and when you ask if they had an offer the answer is most of the time “no”.

Sure we are currently having a sellers’ market but that does not mean that every house will sell as soon it becomes available. There are many reasons why or why not a home will sell quickly or sit for a while longer and many sellers will find out sooner or later that selling a home is not all fun and game, especially when you have to deal with a buyer.

Price

Every seller would like to get as much out of their home as possible and some will price their home based on feeling and not true value for the area. Experience has thought me when a home is priced to high from the beginning it usually will for less than a similar sized home.

Value

Some sellers have refinanced their home in the past and that is what they are using to set their price they would like to sell the home for. This is not a good idea. Call an appraiser or the Real Estate Broker to get a current up-to-date evaluation.

Stage Ready

When a house is not “stage ready” you might not see an offer no matter how good the price is of the home. When a home show poor maintenance, is stuffed full with stuff and unorganized you truly will turn off buyers and later end up needing to lower your price or pull the home off the market.

Car sales mentality

Many sellers might hold and open house and trying to sell the home during the open house. Open houses are not a good time to “force” a buyer to sign at the bottom line. Open house is there to showcase and to have your home shine.

Remember the time you bought your home. You fell in love with the home and not the deal.

Be prepared that you have “lookie looks” coming in and most of the time they are only interested in what the neighbor’s home looks like from the inside.

Know the rules and laws

When you finally sit down with a buyer make sure that you know the rules, your rights and responsibilities from the inside and out.  Some of the transaction can get complex and confusing at times and when you overlook even a small detail it could cost.

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, organizing, planning, Team work, tips

Lack of willingness to learn, might cost you

Leave a comment

booksJust ran across a blog post from Mark Graban called No Time for Improvement? Bah! Make Time for Improvement! That reminded me of an interview I did just recently with a REALTOR that I wanted to hire for REO’s and Short sales referrals in her home state.

As a real estate professional I am always looking for other professionals in other parts of the country to make connections with to be able send personal referrals too.

I always ask anyone who I plan to work with about continues education, and self-improvement.

This conversation stuck out and I never will forget this one for sure. It was with a new REALTOR. She had, at the time, her license less than 12 months and during the conversation she point blank told me that she does not have to learn anything else within her profession and everything she needed to know about real estate was thought to her in real estate school and she did pass her real estate license.

We all need to make time for continue education, and self-improvement and we need to make time and see that it is as important as making money. We never should stop or not be willing to learn for self-improvement or for business.

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, planning, Team work, tips

Are you holding back your own and your company grows?

1 Comment

Hands touching a globeAll of us who are employed or entrepreneurs want to be successful in what we are doing and sometimes we are our worst enemy.

Contemplating where I want to go and what I want to do when I grow up I ran across an active on the Small Business Center w/ Fox Business “10 Ways You Hold Yourself Back” by Steve Tobak. The column originally appeared on Inc.com that made me think.

Looking at his thoughts he put together what could hold me back I found several the items mentioned that he might be right on.

Living online was one of them and no, I don’t live online. I don’t have time to be online 24/7 even so it appears that way. I laugh at the FB or other game “virtual money” you can buy at every grocery store checkout lane.

Another one was looking for the golden goose or silver bullet. I personal call this putting all eggs in one basket to pigeon whole you and not looking outside of the box. It might be good for a while but it does not prepare you for changes in the business. The same goes for making yourself into a personal brand unless you are a self-help guru you are what you sell and you should focus on your clients and customers and not yourself.

Are you reaching far enough into the future and have set a big enough goal for you or your company and have you put your goal in writing with a step by step plan?  Are you focusing on one step at the time, jump all in, and get it done? When you are not you are not reaching your goals and for sure not an entrepreneur.

A servant leader has is down. They will ask others how they can help them. They don’t not run the 60 second elevator speech at them and ask them for business. The servant leader is looking and giving inspiration and positive reinforcement in others and is not in the market and hunt of Twitter followers.

Still the “old fashion” F2F networking strategy is the way to build long term and lasting relationships. When you have tons of online connections the key is to connect with them on a personal level. When some of the random online connections are not willing to connect on a personal level they might have to go.

One of the biggest driving forces of a successful person is that they have a goal or want stuff. Maybe like a new house on a secluded island or a 1000 acre farm in Montana. This will keep them on task and focused.

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, organizing, planning, Team work, tips

Being a Servant Leader

Leave a comment

Being a servant leader is not a new concept it has been around and goes back to 33 A.D.(thank you Linda Fitzgerald, for correcting me) The phrase “servant leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in “The Servant as Leader”, an essay that he first published in 1970.

Organizations as well as individuals can be servant-leaders. When you are a servant-leader you focus mainly on the growth and well-being of others and the communities to which they belong too. Traditional leaders generally involve the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top”.

As a servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as to their best abilities.

For Butler University, Robert K. Greenleaf put the Ten Principles of Servant Leadership together.

Some of the qualities a servant leader holds are:team

  • Listening to others and values diverse opinions
  • Regularly seeks out opinions of others
  • Has Empathy for others and willing to help others with life issues not only work
  • Commitment to the Growth of People into leadership rolls
  • Build’s a community of trust
  • Encourages others
  • Has selfless qualities

 

Compare to principals of a traditional leader whose principals are guided by the accumulation of power and money servant leader is guided by the need and opinions of others and the community the servant leader serves.

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, organizing, planning, Team work

The responsibility of Leadership

Leave a comment

meeting roomCalling yourself a Leader comes with a barrow of responsibilities. Many of us leaders are going to be tapped to run for many external positions for non-for-profits and other leadership type of organizations.

I ran across a post from 2009 on the STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS website called  “Leadership Is Responsibility, Not Power” Even so it was written in 2009 is still holds true.

Many Leaders still think their role to be position of power. The time that a leader ruled with an iron fist is over and a leader needs to be more someone of trust, who can strategize, show a clear goal and willing to take criticism.

A leader also should be looked at as a responsible, and need to be accountable for their actions or their teams action they are leading.

No matter if the Team is now their work team, volunteer team, board team….

Especially when a leader takes a position on a board or volunteers for a function they need to specially responsible and make sure all the T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted.

When you think you are ready to take a leadership position outside of your work make sure that you truly have the time and the energy to perform for the external leadership position. Missing the beat could not only reflect badly on you personally it also could reflect badly on your work and you might put others in a negative position, and you might be asked to step down from the external leadership position or not asked to run a second therm.

commitment, Communication, organizing, planning, tips

Tame the inbox clutter beast

Leave a comment

inboxCommunication and how we interact on a daily bases has changed. Mostly gone are the days we send lengthy letters or communications vial mail. We are in a society of connected individuals and our inboxes are paying the price.

Sometimes it seems impossible to look, and read every email that comes into our inbox and being able to tackle the overwhelming inbox daemon we are facing.

While I was tackling my inbox daemons I came across a blog John Battelle, Founder, Chair, CEO, Federated Media Publishing posted called “The Secret to “Cracking” The Inbox “.

I have found creating inbox rules for certain messages will keep my inbox clean.  For instance any article that comes in that is maybe just a great article to read and can be read at a later time/date goes into one file and a meeting request into another and will be responded to in the evening before I close out my inbox.

Unwanted emails, SPAM or Junk Mail go into another folder and are going to be blocked at the end of the week.

Emails without a subject line are automatically deleted and no one even gets to see them.

Every night make the point to clean out the inbox. It might take an hour the first time you do it. After a while it should be faster because you have created your personal inbox rules for your email.

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, organizing, planning, Team work, tips

Don’t be afraid to network

1 Comment

We all do it !!!  Networking!

Some of us better than others and some of us don’t realize we are doing it every day.

Just having lunch with friends or family is a form of networking. You are getting the word out about what you do and who you are looking for. It always comes up during casual conversation.

Watching the kids at a sporting event is a form of networking. You usually make connections on a personal level with the other individuals who are at the event. Going shopping can be easily an event for networking.

Some of us are connected through social media and that is also a form of networking.

OK…now what we do with all of our connections we have accumulated?

When you speak with active networkers they will most likely throw the Givers Gain tagline at you. It is much more than that and I found a good example in an article I have read on the website “Addicted 2 Success” called “13 ways to unlock the hidden power of your Network to increase your net worth”

  • Assess the barriers that are holding you back
  • Define your core passions and purpose with the Funnel Test
  • Create a mind-set of positive productivity
  • Develop a Give Give Get attitude…..yes givers gain is also part of the mix …..
  • Commit to shaking it up. Get out of your daily routine.
  • Accelerate your connections with technology
  • Cultivate relationships that support your purpose. Keep your core circle of networkers close and your secondary cycle close on hand.
  • Visit power pockets to accelerate networking
  • Hone your connecting skills and learn from hub players
  • Create content, products, or services to share your purpose
  • Develop partnerships to extend your reach
  • Learn to make successful asks.
  • Decide what brings you happiness and success: head, heart, or wallet?

 

Networking is a team sport and Jack Welsh put it best:

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. —Jack Welch