Communication

Is your email address as professional as you are?

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You are one of the many Professionals in this country competing for the business of a few. You have spent days or weeks to create your logo. You have pondered many hours over your stationary. You took a long time to create your business cards layout.

Now how much total time did you spend as you picked your e-mail address?

As a Professional, we are relying on our email to keep us informed, such as in front of potential clients with the Blogs’ we are sending out, and to help us market our selves and services.

Our email is our doorway to the world and one of our main sources of contact to our clients, customers, vendors and others we communicate with on a daily basis.

In many cases a FREE email provider is used to set-up the email account with names that really never should be used as a professional communication tool. The email address is describing something that is not even is part of the business that is being advertised in the Blog or other communications.

When you use any of the FREE email providers, who are you advertising for, since their name is also in the address?

It is just like the car/truck Dealership sticker on the cars/trucks….how much is the dealership paying the car owner to have their advertising on the car?

There are so many great, very reasonable priced web hosts out on the internet, which you can register a professional website for very little money that will offer you email services with your new websites address.

Communication, tips

Common sense phone etiquette

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Have you ever been in a restaurant in the evening with your spouse and wanted to enjoy an evening of togetherness?

Now right next to you; you see another couple where one of the parties is on the phone the entire night. Any thoughts to that?!

Maybe I am very old fashioned, but when I am with my clients, friend or family at breakfast, lunch, dinner or in a meeting my phone is silent. Any call that comes in during that time has to wait until I am done and my FULL attention is focused on the person(s) and task in front of me and everything else will have to wait until we are done.

It is not only very inconsiderate to the person that you are with at the time, especially when you are planning on doing business with them, but also to the person you talk to on the other end of the phone.

Here are some tips on avoiding phone interruptions during meetings.

  • Turn your phone on silent
  • Let your office know that you are in a very important meeting and let them take a message as for you.
  • Have your Voice messages emailed or texted to you
  • Change your phone message to reflect that you are in a meeting and that you will get back with the person with in a set time frame.
  • Have a set time when you have meetings, answering calls back and do other work

I have more tips but my main basic tip is; Don’t take phone calls while you are in a meeting.

commitment, Inspiration, planning, tips

I call it the stinking thinking

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As soon as you open the email, or turn on the TV you hear the bad news.

Job loss here, cut back there …..and you name it.

Today alone the last months’ job numbers where posted. Nation wide now at 8.1% unemployment…..

…….91.9% of the total work force is still employed.

Things I hear on the street every day are sayings like

 …..I am not getting my raise this year.

…. I no longer get any overtime.

…. I was told I have to take an extra day off

Think of it as:

….my Company is being proactive so that I still can work in the near future.

I call it as the stinking thinking that get’s us in a bad mood and how we think about things what we are being spoon feed over the news and airwaves every day.

It does not matter what your circumstances are at the present moment. Think positively, expect only favorable results and situations, and circumstances will change accordingly. It may take some time for the changes to take place, but eventually they do.

Sure you can not turn the stinking thinking around on a dime and no one expect s you to do this. You need to practice and maybe find a positive thinking partner to help you with this.

Read about the subject; and when you can not buy the book there is always the old fashion library to go to.

Start visualizing you success, smile more even when you have to face it and use positive words when communication with yourself and others.

Last but not least…..as soon as you have one of those stinking thinking thoughts try to replace it with a positive thought. It is not easy at the beginning. We are creatures of habit and habits are sometimes hard to break, but you will get there.

Communication

Improve Your Communications and Build Your Sphere of Influence to the same time

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I kept an article about how to Improve Your Communications Strategy and Build Your Sphere of Influence. This is originally from rismedia.com about how to improve communication to increase business published the end of February of this year.

With more and more business coming from the internet and social media being a crucial part of our business, keeping up with communication has been more than ever a crucial part of our business.

One of my good friends and coach for the Fortune 500 (she is much more than that), Lalita Amos MHRM RCC , Total Team Solutions has put it in great terms in her blog post about Does the nature of our communication need to change to maximize social networking opportunities? 1.0 and 2.0

When someone will give it to you straight …..she will.

commitment, Communication, organizing, planning

Building relationship and Follow-Up

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……so you subscribed to a lead generating program and they are sending you homeowners to contact.

You make your first initial contact, left your info, and you wait….and wait ….and wait…

….I hate to tell you; just with one visit most of the owners will not call you. On the average it takes up to 5 personal visits before an owner will either open the door or call you back.

One of my great friends and Real Estate investors has made it a sport in weeding out the “fly-by-night Real Estate Agents” (his words not mine). He advertises his properties as FSBO when he is looking for an agent to sell his home in states other than mine.  He does not call any agent back unless he has heard from the agent in some form or fashion at least 5 or more times.

He gave me the following percentages from tracking the Agent’s activity over the last 10 years:

40% of the agents will not call or contact him for a second time

30% will contact him at least twice

20% will contact him at least 3 times and give up

9% will contact him 4 times and give up and

1% of the original agents who contacted him will contact him 5 or more times

 He told me that it did not matter how the market was doing. When the market was good, bad, or ugly the average numbers were the same.

 Sobering numbers? ….I think so.

 This leads me into an RISMEDIA article I found, on January 26, 2011, that focuses on how Real Estate companies recognize that relationship building and follow up service are critical components to promoting both customer retention and revenue growth.

tips

Mild Winter has it’s seperate issue…… bugs…….

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I love this unusually mild winter weather, and I know winter is not over and we might still get hit with a huge storm.

One downfall I have uncovered of this mild winter season is the bugs who normally keep out of sight and out of mind until spring. I am now in full combat mode against the little aunts who think they can invade my house. Having dogs in the house I need to be very careful what I use to combat the little pests and where I stick any bait that I choose to use.

Looking though some of the home remedies that I ran across but have not tried many of them due to short timing. I find the infested area and the source or trail where they are coming from, and use household table salt. Sprinkle around window sills, baseboards, door thresholds, anywhere where needed.

Another one would be to mix borax and sugar water to make a trap or sprinkle borax on the ant trail of ants and they take the borax bake to the nest and kill them all.

Yeast Molasses Sugar Mix; Mix together 1 part sugar, 1 part active yeast and 2 parts molasses. Drop the mixture, 1 teaspoon at the time, onto small pieces of paper.

Strategically place the pieces of paper along ant trails or where the ant problem is obvious. This is one of the safest home remedies for ants because it contains no chemicals

When a spray is preferred here is one I have found but not tried is a Garlic Onion Pepper Mix;

Take a quart of water and add 1 clove of garlic, 1 small onion and 1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper. Let that mixture set there for about 1 hour.

Next add 1 tablespoon of liquid dishwashing soap. Put the concoction in a spray bottle and spray it around the house where you have the ant problem areas. This is also one of the safer home remedies for ants.

When you have more Ideas I am gladly to post the ideas for you.

organizing, planning

Instructions are here to be ignored…..are they?

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Well another work day rolled in and made itself at home in the office.

Catching up with emails and calls from the weekend are the first things on the list, well…… after a cup of coffee. Reading the emails gives me great ideas for blog topics…….

I personally sometimes look at instructions and just throw my hands up in the air…..to long….too complicated….too much information….

For me personally I love to use my step by step check lists.

Sometimes you are dealing with clients who have specific guidelines and instructions that have to be followed to the “T” and yes they are changing constantly. Then you have clients who have not a clue what they are looking for and the check list can be a great conversation starting point.

Having my personal check list will help me personally, because most of what is needed is already on the list, maybe not in the right order but it is here….

…..but first things first……

I have made the habit to read each client instructions in FULL every time I receive a new work order work from them. No matter how long I have worked for them. When I have a question I will ask it right at the beginning and not after I have started a job.

I then use my check list and highlight only what is needed for this specific work order. I double and triple check it against the written order that was given to me.

This will ensure that I do not work on something that is not needed or wanted and I don’t waste my time with extra stuff by running around like a chick with her head cut off.

…and….. off I go to accomplish the task. Many times the work order can be accomplished by working the order only once.

Does some of this sound familiar?

Most of this comes from the 80/20 rule the Pareto’s Principle  that you can use for planning your day, week, month, year, or business growth.

 Yaro Starak has written a great blog in 2006 about the 80/20 rule and there is great info on other websites….bottom line is…..

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail”  Proverb quotes

commitment, Inspiration

Go with the change or you are being left behind…

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….that is THE thought came to mind as soon as I read a blog from Krista Franks about the Real Estate Professionals feeling the burn of the recession.

Sure Real Estate Professionals are not immune from the downturn of the market; most of them have been on the forefront of the wave and many have not survived the trend and had to find either another part time or full time job to keep up with their cost of living.

The once who looked beyond the box they had themselves in during the good and great times of real estate and adjusted quickly to the change had it a bit easier than the few who did not see the tide coming and where swept off with the tide of change.

Real estate as usually was no longer the way to do business, real east of change was what you needed to adjust too and that is what the consumers wanted from the field.

The once who did not adjust lost a huge portion of the market that is today’s norm and the once who adjusted early took over….bottom line is when you do not adjust to the changing market and educate yourself, you will be left standing at the vacated empty dock with the ship sailing without you to newer ground… or like in “Who moved my Cheese”    from Spencer Johnson you will arrive at Cheese Station C to find no cheese left.

 So…who are you….??? Sniff and Scurry or Hem and Haw.

Short sale

FHA and short sales

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In my day to day business I am taking with many Real Estate Professionals throughout the Country. Due to what I am doing the subject Short Sale is never far from the discussion.

Most of the time the agents are just frustrated with short sales!

Sitting at the other end of the table I can see why many short sales take forever to close, especially when the short sale involves a FHA loan.

Many times when a property is listed the homeowner NEVER received a written short sale approval from their servicer.  Servicer will not look at any offer we bring them when it involves a short sale with an FHA loan unless the OWNER has asked AND received IN WRITING the Short Sale approval PRIOR to listing the property.

When owners fills out the needed paperwork to request for a loan modification and or short sale I have noticed that some of the paperwork is either not filled out, filled out incorrectly, not dated, not signed or information is just plain missing without an explanation.

 …so…when you are asked to list a possible short sale that involves a FHA loan make sure all the T’s are crossed and all the I’s are dotted before you have the owner sign your listing agreement.

commitment, Communication, Team work

Communication….here is the ugly side or the lack of it….

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Sitting at my desk on a cold Winter Friday morning, looking at my referrals that were given to individual Professionals that were not acted on and wondering how some of them are still in business in today s market.

I have now called all of these professionals three times this week to find out why personal referrals are not being acted on and I am still waiting for a phone call or email back from any of them.

Where has the courtesy gone? Is it a lost art to answer phone calls and emails in a timely manner? By timely manner I mean within 24 to 48 hours. Just a simple message or email indicating you have received the voice message and you will get back with me.

Every day I run across full email and voice mail boxes and wonder how much business individual professionals are losing due to the lack of follow up and follow through. I also listen on a daily bases to voice messages that where from a week or a month ago. I just had one the other day that was from the 2nd and as I called the person it was the 27th. When I run across a full email and voice mail box, most of the time, I removed this individual from my contact list.

 Ranted enough! Here are some Ideas to make certain you are not losing out on business: (I use some of them myself)

  • Hire a virtual assistant.
  • Delegate and ask for help
  • Set time everyday to return calls and emails
  • Set the auto responder when you are not available for a longer period of time. Just change the message later.
  • Make a work schedule. Will it be perfect? No. Use it as a guide
  • Make a daily to-do list. Will you be able to complete it all that day? Maybe yes, maybe no…none of us are perfect.

 Plan you day and work the plan. Don’t forget time for family, devotion, friends and fun.

 I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.  ~John D. Rockefeller, Jr.