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Keller Williams Central Oregon Realty

Cash is King...Is Your Brokerage Liquid?

Re-Posted From Theresa Bastians Excellent Blog!

An article from Bloomberg News crossed my desk this week - apparently Realogy, the parent company of such venerable real estate franchise as Century 21 and Coldwell Banker, is under fire from some of its investors over a debt swap proposal. The investor described Realogy as "Deeply Insolvent" in a court filings.

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What a contrast to this letter the leadership of my company recently shared with all of us:

In this time of banks and real estate companies failing, consolidating or taking on billions of dollars in debt, I thought it a good time to share the state of Keller Williams Realty with you.

  • Our company has not one dollar of financing debt and we remain strongly, soundly profitable.
  • We are growing, opening 25 offices in the last twelve months
  • Our model of sharing profits, which provides incentive for associates to work together for success, has allowed us to give back more than $32 million in profits to our sales associates over the last year!
  • KW Cares, our non-profit reaches out to help KW associates and their immediate families when faced with hardships due to emergencies, has awarded over 200 grants to KW associates totaling over $1,000,000 to date in 2008.
  • We are investing in education, the foundation of success in any market, by writing powerful new skill building courses, releasing our new book, SHIFT: How Top Agents Tackle Tough Times, and launching a new on-line training site, KW Connect (click on Guest Pass)
  • We are investing in research to arm our associates with high-level knowledge. An example of this is Gary Keller's recent donation of five million dollars to Baylor University to create the Keller Center for Residential Research, which has just released the second edition of the Keller Center Research Report.
  • We have recently launched a Luxury Homes Division, Commercial Division and a new Keller Williams Realty website.

Despite the market, Keller Williams Realty is experiencing the unprecedented payoff economic discipline and investment in people delivers.

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What are the dangers to real estate professionals if our brokerages are not fiscally stable?

  • Losing commission in escrow if company files bankruptcy
  • Long-term impact of not staying current with professional growth and development
  • Negative mind-set pervades the office
  • Leaders making decisions based out of financial fear rather than what it right
  • Bad image for our own client bases

BAD NEWS!!!! The Worst Thing In The World Happens Today!!!!

And tomorrow, the day after that, week after that, month after that and on and on.....at least according to the news that is. No wonder the saying "No news is good news".

We are bombarded daily with a barrage of garbage from a media that seems to spend all of their efforts in a campaign designed to turn even the most die hard optimist into a gloom and doom depression racked recluse.

I for one am opting out of it.

Let's face it.... Bad news Sells.

Last week at our offices sales meeting we were reflecting about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and what it means to us personally and what we all have to be thankful about in our individual lives. We took a moment of silence to think about it and the outcome was the realization that life is short and that we are all pretty darn fortunate.

When you find the need for an attitude adjustment, try it..... take the time to think about all of the things that are going right in your life and don't dwell on the negative outward influences that are so prevalent.

It works!

Passing Along Some Helpful Blog Promo Tips

13 Steps to Effectively Promoting Your Blog

Great idea's here.

Via John Jones:

I noticed today and over the last week that my Active Rain posts are capping out at about 100 views before the views start to trickle in. Further, I'm ranging anywhere from 40 - 50 click through's to each post I write and roughly 4 - 5 comments on average per post.

So how does one break through the glass ceiling and succeed at getting 500 views and 100 - 200 clicks to each post? Many people will want to say, "Quality & Catchy" content but I must say that some of my posts have taken a great deal of time and in some cases creativity so I am thinking that for the most part I have covered quality and occasionally catchy.

The answer comes in many different ways and several combinations of these methods. Here are just a few ideas to jump start your views, clicks and comments. I cannot possibly cover all potential ways to promote your AR blog but I'm sure that others will be able to provide other creative ways.

  1. Add a very visible link to your blog on your websites main navigation. Many major companies that have blogs make sure to announce the fact that they have a blog and so should we.
  2. With every e-mail you send out, be sure to add your blog URL to the signature line. This is what you should already be doing to promote your website so why not your blog?
  3. Take the time to submit your blogs RSS feed to feed based directories. About a week ago I wrote about 45 sites that you can submit your RSS feed tofor free. After I wrote that article and submitted some of my own RSS feeds to these directories I did see my numbers jump a little and stay fairly stable at the new range.
  4. Promote other posts you've written within new posts. If something you wrote in the past is relevant to what you are writing about now then be sure to provide a link to it. One perfect example is the link I included in item #3 on this list and in #5 below.
  5. Get in the habit of ending all of your posts with something like a "Previous Post: The Professionals I know"
  6. Take the time once a week to write a post titled something like, "End of the Week Round Up" where you briefly recap on the posts you've written during the week and maybe even some other posts you've commented on.
  7. Take #6 as the basic principle and apply it to a monthly post titled something like, "Monthly Conclusion"
  8. Get active on Twitter or Plurk and join hundreds if not thousands of other Realtors and even locals in your area. When you write a new blog post simply announce the post if you think those following your profile would appreciate the information you have to provide.
  9. Write posts that others might want to Reblog about. A link back to the original post is provided each time a post is reblogged which means you'll get some foot traffic that way.
  10. Ask other AR members that subscribe to your blog to ReBlog, Tweet, Plurk or otherwise pass on the post to others if they enjoyed the article.
  11. Building consistency in the style of your writing and with the posts you write to keep people returning to see whats new. (Contributed by Ron Moore; a Florence South Carolina Realtor)
  12. Reciprocation and participation in others blogs via commenting directly and even referencing can build up an interest base directly to your own blog but make sure your reciprocation is genuine and your contributions helpful. (Contributed by Ron Moore; a Florence Realtor)
  13. Promote your blog via your print media such as business cards. (Contributed by Diane Aurit; a Lake Norman Realtor)

What other ways can you think of that will help promote your posts and help you reach your next level with your AR blog? Share your strategies below with everyone so that we can each test different concepts out.

By the way, if you ReBlog I'd appreciate a Reblog of this article. If you are on Twitter I'd appreciate if you would share this with your other Realtor connections that might be on AR but don't catch this article and of course if you have any other strategy to promote blogs I'd appreciate your help in helping me get to my next level.