Spring-tastic Tips For Your Clients

April 25, 2013 by · Comments
Gardening and its Benefits - Infographic

The Benefits of Gardening

Ahh, spring, when a renter’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of home ownership!

Some green is already peeking through after this week’s snow which means your days are about to get longer, right? Now is the perfect time to capture the attention of clients who are looking to move before winter returns again. I’ve got just the thing – an infographic!

This infographic (click on it to go to the full version) talks about the benefits of gardening, specifically detailing statistics on what the benefits are to your real estate value and how it improves your appraisal value. Of course it goes beyond that to talk about health statistics (another seasonal concern as people are looking for ways to get moving again and work off their winter weight), benefits to the environment (you can still tap into the Earth Day zeitgeist), and of course how it will affect their bottom line.

Filed Under: Marketing Tips, Technology ·

May & June Webinars Announced!

April 23, 2013 by · Comments

WebinarI am pleased to announce that we have scheduled our May and June webinars (not currently available in the calendar, but you can register for them by clicking on the topics below).

Many of the webinars will be run by J. Ryan Ayers who you had a chance to meet during the January and March Tech Tours as I focus on getting out to the offices for live trainings. We know that these are the days when you get very busy, so the content has been developed for 30-40 minutes of content with the option to stick around and ask questions for the remainder of the hour, with the exception of 30 Minute Apps: Evernote which will be targeted at 20 minutes of content to see whether or not you find shorter webinars valuable.

The Q2 Tech Forum will focus on Listing Presentations. If you have a presentation or specific element that you have found to be useful in the listing presentation process, please feel free to e-mail me and I will add it to the content we will be discussing (complete with attribution to your peers).

You’ve asked for more Site Builder content and we’ve heard you loud and clear. J will be spending three Thursday mornings in a row covering aspects of Site Builder from Site Design, to Site Content, and of course Search. If you haven’t developed your agent site yet or you think it could use a facelift, you don’t want to miss these sessions.

If you haven’t attended one of our webinars before, I highly suggest that you plan to log in about 5-10 minutes before so that you can download any drivers you need because we try to respect everyone’s schedules by starting on time.

*All Start Times are 9:30 AM Central Time – 10:30 Eastern Time*

May Class Dates/Topics:

9th – Design Center

14th – LeadStreet: Listings Tab

16th – 30 Minute Apps: Evernote

29th – Design Center

30th – LeadStreet: Clients Tab

June Class Dates/Topics:

6th – Tech Forum: Listing Presentations

13th – Site Builder: Site Design

20th – Site Builder: Site Content

27th – Site Builder: My Searches

Photo: Theis Kofoed Hjorth via Compfight

Filed Under: RE/MAX In The News · Tagged:

[VIDEO] Agent Forum – Design Center

April 18, 2013 by · Comments

On Tuesday we brought rock star turned real estate agent Dennis Libby in to chat with us about how he has successfully used Design Center to market his business and his clients’ properties.

Dennis has been using Design Center for over 10 years, before it became a RE/MAX value add. During the webinar he discussed numerous best practices he has developed for working with the system including which marketing pieces he utilizes most often.

During this webinar we also looked at some of the changes that have taken place in Design Center since the revamp that came out in late February. Among the features Dennis liked was that the long list is now gone and has been replaced by a series of drop downs that allow you to dial into a specific project type and look and feel very quickly.

If you would like to check out the new version of Design Center, you can always get to it from the “RE/MAX Links” section of this blog.

Filed Under: RE/MAX Videos, Technology · Tagged: , ,

Watch Hot Air for March 2013

March 8, 2013 by · Comments

In this month’s video, Michele Roy talks about:
RE/MAX Awards Celebration press releases, how to get your CMN honor cards, the Q1 Tech Forum, Minnesota Tech Tour, the Hot Air Balloon Program & More!

 March Hot Air

Links to Explore

Filed Under: RE/MAX In The News, RE/MAX News, RE/MAX Videos · Tagged: , , , ,

Awards Celebration 2013 – Photos

February 19, 2013 by · Comments

The RE/MAX North Central Awards Celebration, held February 12 & 13 at The Depot in Minneapolis, MN, was a complete success.  With nearly 500 RE/MAX associates in attendance we were pleased to honor all of our Minnesota and Wisconsin RE/MAX associates’ 2012 achievements. 

» View full gallery
» View full list of RE/MAX 2012 award recipients

[smugmug url="http://chumasphotography.smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=28059288_fLX4TK&format=rss200" imagecount="30" start="1" num="30" thumbsize="Th" link="smugmug" captions="false" sort="true" window="true" smugmug="true" size="M"]

Filed Under: RE/MAX In The News · Tagged: , ,

Video – A Week out from Awards…

February 6, 2013 by · Comments

Keri and I put together this video today to remind you that we’re only a week out from the 2013 Awards Celebration, so it’s probably time to line up your carpool buddies if you’re driving over or make sure you have reserved space on one of the Wisconsin buses if you’re taking that route. You can still register if you haven’t!

Pack Your Business Cards…

Talking with agents and brokers in Wisconsin on the January Tech Tour, I heard about their excitement for the opportunity to network with fellow RE/MAX associates from Minnesota and Wisconsin to generate some referral business this year. Make sure to bring your business cards to the cocktail reception on the 12th after the continuing education classes get out.

Your Keynote Speaker – On YouTube

Also, you should check out Josh Sundquist’s YouTube Channel. Some of you may be thinking of skipping Awards for some extra time on the slopes, but then you’ll miss out on learning about his passion for skiing as a paralympian.

Filed Under: RE/MAX In The News · Tagged:

Tech Trends – Social Search

January 16, 2013 by · Comments

One of the big tech trends this week is social search – specifically the release of Facebook’s Graph Search. Facebook has partnered with Microsoft’s Bing team to put together a search engine that mines all of the data available to you in your Facebook feed and what your friends have shared with you.

If you are curious what that means to real estate agents – Want to know which of your friends are talking about real estate? Ask Facebook Graph. Want to know which of your Facebook friends, and their friends for that matter, live in your service area? Ask Facebook Graph. Want to know which real estate agent your friends recommend the most?
I think you get the picture, but if you need a little more perspective, check out the video below.

Curaytor

Facebook isn’t the only one that is releasing social search this week. Jimmy Mackin and Chris Smith are releasing Curaytor this week targeted at helping you sift through your social data. They’ll be talking it up at Real Estate Connect, but if you couldn’t get away to NYC this week, check out the cool video they released.

I just got my beta invite for Curaytor today so I’ll probably add it to the Tech Tour curriculum for next week. If you’re in Wisconsin, show up if you want to find out. For those of you in Minnesota, I’ll post something in our RE/MAX Tech Talk group on Facebook, so search for us and join the club of tech-savvy agents/staff (those who are trying to become more tech-savvy welcome too).

Filed Under: RE/MAX North Central's Tuesday Tips, Technology · Tagged: ,

Tech Trends – Content is King Edition

November 20, 2012 by · Comments

Tech TrendsLast week we looked at paths to success for search engine optimization (SEO) that didn’t involve content, but I want to come back to that as it is the cornerstone of what Google values. When people are searching online, they want content they can use whether it’s a how-to video or a property listing in their area.

Beyond Keywords

Google maintains its relevance by linking people to the content they are looking for rather than the content with the most keywords stuffed into a page. One way they have figured out to get around people who are gaming the system is to reference what other people say about the site in question. In this video, SEOMoz will discuss how that affects search engine ranking.

How to Get More Business From the Web

Realtor.com reveals how to convert more leads on the web (hint: it involves content):
“Your online efforts should all point toward a single aim: generating leads. Here are four ways to get more business from your Web presence, recommended by user-experience experts at the Real Estate Connect conference hosted by ­Inman News in San Francisco in August.”

12 Most Awesome Content Strategies for Your Blog

If you’re looking to bolster the content of your agent website or you’re working on your own blog, you need great content. 12Most has some great content strategies you can adopt to increase your success.

Creating a WOW Customer Experience Every Time

Differentiating yourself and humanizing yourself are keys to developing that WOW customer experience. RISMedia looks at some strategies to achieve that.

BONUS LINK – Taking Your Video Viral

In this Social Media Examiner podcast, they interview a guy who visited all 171 Starbucks in Manhattan in one day and actually got people to carry him across the length of Manhattan. Pretty interesting stuff and some good insights if you’re looking for creative ways to increase your video viewership.

Filed Under: RE/MAX In The News, RE/MAX North Central's Tuesday Tips, Technology · Tagged: , ,

Tech Trends – The Training Edition

November 13, 2012 by · Comments

I’m titling this edition of Tech Trends “The Training Edition” because we’ve got some great new content for you to develop your business system/tech skills this week and then next week, myRU launches to take you to the next level! If your year has started to slow down, this is a great time to prep for success in 2013.

Training Resources Page Update

If you’ve advanced beyond Intro to LeadStreet and are looking for some resources to move you further, we just revamped our training resources page to offer you a wealth of videos on LeadStreet, productivity tools, and social media. Thanks goes out to RE/MAX of Indiana and RE/MAX of Michigan who are old pros at LeadStreet and have developed video libraries for their agents to use.

Training Calendar

I’d like to take a moment to draw your attention to some of the great training opportunities we have planned for the coming week:

  • Certified Investor Agent Specialist (CIAS) Designation Course: 9am-5pm 11/15-16, Milwuakee – If you want to get your foot in the door of the investor market, take advantage of the industry’s best deal we’re offering on this training.
  • The Paperless Agent – iPad for Real Estate: 2pm on Thursday – Verl Workman will be interviewing Garry Wise, iPad expert at GoodLife Team, in this exclusive webinar on how to use iPad for Real Estate.
  • Whys and How of Video Email: 9:30am on Friday – RE/MAX of Texas has graciously offered to allow you to listen in on their upcoming webinars (no registration required!) on utilizing video email in your business model.
  • Facebook for Busy Realtors: 9:30am on Monday – Learn how to use Facebook more productively, create better engagement with your leads/clients, and capture the attention of more than 6% of your followers (estimated per post average).

MyRU is Almost Here!

So we’ve rolled out more training resources at the regional level and you’ve hopefully been enjoying The Download and all it has to offer – but are you ready for even more great training opportunities? MyRU (short for My RE/MAX University) is being released next week. It’s not just a new repository of training videos – it offers interactive learning modules to better develop your skills.

Search Engine Optimization: Paths to Success

We spend a lot of time in training and on this blog discussing with you how if you want to improve your search engine traffic, you need to build or curate content. SEOMoz, an industry leader, discusses in this video the other options that are available to you if you find content is not your passion.

Tech Savvy Agent Reviews ThingLink

ThingLink allows you to map hot links on an image to different images and videos – you can imagine how this could be useful in say a picture of a home? Tech Savvy Agent goes through the process and has a great demo of it up on their blog.

BONUS!: Dreamworks iPhone App Ptch Turns Realtors into Mobile Storytellers

I like to throw in something fun with each Tech Trends post, but this one is both fun and useful. Inman just minutes ago released this article – check it out!

Filed Under: RE/MAX North Central's Tuesday Tips, Technology · Tagged: , , , , , ,

Tech Trends – 11/6/2012 Edition

November 6, 2012 by · Comments

Tech TrendsRE/MAX Launches a New Tool: rem.ax

[Uniform Resource Locator (URL) = online address like www.remax.com or www.remax.net]
Beginning today, a new URL shortening tool (similar to bit.ly and goo.gl) is available to RE/MAX Associates through RE/MAX Mainstreet. This new tool creates shortened URLs that are unique to the users and allows Associates to track clicks and view reports on Mainstreet.

For example, I can now point you to http://www.soldsignblog.com/category/technology/ with just  http://rem.ax/RRSzV3

The reporting feature allows you to differentiate traffic from multiple sources. If you send out a mass mail to clients, you can shorten the URL and then definitively check how many times people clicked through from that email. It can even generate a QR code for you!

Show Passion in Your Next Video

I’ve brought this up a lot over the last few months – video is becoming more standard in real estate so you should embrace it. Geek Estate Blog has some solid tips in this article about how to produce a killer video that encapsulates your passion for real estate.

NAR Launches Realtors Property Resource

Here’s what NAR has to say about the launch:
“The Realtors Property Resource® (RPR) is now officially open to all of the 1 million members of the National Association of REALTORS®. If you’re a REALTOR®, that means you can now access extensive data on nearly 150 million properties across the country — including comprehensive records of past sales, property taxes, school districts, and even local voting patterns — all for free.”

REignite your business in 2013

InmanNext is running a new series to help you re-invigorate yourself for 2013.  Here’s what they have to say about the project:

“From online marketing ideas, social media, new technology to implement, and some fresh perspective, sometimes all it takes are some actionable STEPS, and some resources to read…a library of sorts.”

LinkedIn Marketing: New Features to Enhance Your LinkedIn Results

When I chatted with Verl Workman between Fall Forum appearances a couple weeks back, he told me all about his love for LinkedIn and how he views it as more important than Facebook and Twitter. If you’ve jumped into LinkedIn and are looking for some thing to push you a little further, considering listening to this podcast.

mbiebusch via Compfight

Filed Under: Technology · Tagged: , , , ,
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