Bill Kennedy - Greenville SC Realtor

Many people remember the great book All I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, but when I started contemplating business, I realized that I have learned the most important business lessons from my son Jak.

Lesson One: We Must Be Ready To Wear Many Hats

So frequently our jobs switch from subject to subject without a moment's hesitation. We have to be ready to work in the moment and take care of our customer's needs, even if it's simply providing the phone number of someone who will have the answer for them.

Lesson Two: Be Prepared To Look At Things From A New Perspective

When problems come our way, sometimes it's best if we try to look at them from a new angle!

Lesson Three: Insulate Your Business Against Problems

You can never have enough protection for when things get tough!

Lesson Four: Don't Be Afraid To Take On Big Tasks!

When faced with a big task, just remember that the bigger the challenge, the bigger the reward!

Lesson Five: Read Plenty Of Books To Increase Your Knowledge

The average millionaire reads one non-fiction book every month.

Lesson Six: The Grass Isn't Always Greener On The Other Side Of The Fence

The same problems exist everywhere. You just have to learn to overcome them and prosper!

Lesson Seven: When Things Get Stressful, RELAX!

Life is too short to go through it without enjoying some R & R! Also, make sure you don't short yourself on sleep. That can cause a lot of problems, and the extra hour of work you get in the night before won't be worth it.

And Finally, Lesson Eight: When All Else Fails, Smile! :-)

We all want to be around happy people! A smile is the cheapest present you can give anyone. It's the cheapest beauty makeover available. Yet, being so cheap, it can sure make a big difference!

I hope these made you smile!

The agent of today has got to be a technology coordinator. There's just no way around it. Real estate has joined the internet age, though part of it did so through kicking and screaming and a lot of hair pulling. Marketing and lead generation are all strongly influenced by technology now, and any agent who wants to survive has got to pick up the techie ball and run with it.

The traditional agent who advertised in the newspapers and homes magazines is becoming extinct. Without an internet presence, an agent can't hope to find many customers, much less convert viable leads to clients.

Here are some examples of technologies that should be in use:

Social Networking: Sites such as Facebook, myspace, twitter, linked in, ning, and so forth.

Call Capture / IVR Phone Systems: Popular systems are Arch and Proquest, along with Buyer Acquire and many more.

Viral Marketing: Postlets syndicates listings to many other sites. Some systems, such as the Keller Williams Listing System, do the same thing. Point 2 Agent will syndicate as well.

Contact Management Systems: Top Producer, Agent Office, ACT!, Goldmine and others have great real estate platforms for running your business. The days of the card file are gone!

Craigslist and online classified sites: Craigslist set a new standard in online marketing, and costs NOTHING! Other sites are similar to it, such as Kijiji (I love saying that one over and over!)

Picnik, Picasa: Online picture sites provide you with opportunities for modifying your digital pictures for use in marketing or other websites.

Crowbar: This is useful in smacking around difficult clients. It's one technology that has been around for decades, but will always have a purpose. Ok, I'm kidding, but I wanted to see if you were really paying attention! :)

Google adwords and Google maps: Adwords are a great way to get business through key words in searches. Google maps allow you to get a street level view of many cities across the US (I want the job of driving the Google car to video all of these streets!)

PDAs: The Blackberry (or Crack-berry due to its addictive qualities) or a similar instrument is a must-have as far as I'm concerned, especially if you do a lot of lead generation through websites. Afterall, internet leads need to be called back within 15 minutes for the greatest conversion rates!

Blogs: Active Rain is the best! But you already knew that...

There are many more sites and technologies that are available. If I've missed a major one, please drop a comment!

I have often found agents who feared to do something. They failed in some part of their business, simply because fear overcame them. The phone is often a culprit of this - they are fearful of making lead generation calls because they think they'll "bother" someone, or get yelled at because they interrupted dinner, or a whole host of things.

Courage isn't something that comes in a bottle, a pill, a package, or through osmosis. Courage most often comes from doing - or taking ACTION. Confidence is born of the same thing.

Nike has perhaps the BEST slogan of any shoe or sports company. "Just Do It". That should be the motto for all real estate instructors and practitioners!

Think about it - when you were about to do something for the first time, you might have been nervous or scared about it. Once you did it that first time, however, it was probably not nearly as hard to do the second time.

When I learned to fly an airplane I had a great instructor. I went for my first lesson, thinking that I would basically be along for the ride, so when she instructed me on taxiing to the end of the runway and told me how to take off, I was a bit taken aback... but she didn't give me time to worry - she just told me to go for it, and off into the wild blue yonder I went!

I was NEVER nervous about taking off again, and haven't been to this day. Landings on the other hand..... well.... *grin*

My point is this - when faced with a task that makes you uncomfortable, nervous, or afraid, the best way to overcome all of those is to DO it. Make those lead calls. Knock on that door. Approach that person. The next time around won't be bad!

Albert Einstein once said "Imagination is more powerful than knowledge." What an awesome statement! If you think about it, seemingly all of the improvements and innovations we've ever had in our lives have been through the imagination of someone.

What people once thought impossible, technology has now made an every day occurrence. For instance, think about cell phones. In the 1960s, the only people with communication devices that flipped open, could be used nearly anywhere, and didn't need cords were the characters in Star Trek. Imagination gave us all of our great inventions. Things that we take for mundane were once the brainchild of a person and the far-fetched fantasy of others.

The Disney empire was created entirely on the imagination of one man and those who came to work with him! Imagination is a VERY powerful tool. We should foster our imagination and allow new ideas to cultivate.

The technology that I use in my business was brought about by someone's imagination, such as call capture phone systems and stealth websites. Keep your minds open. You never know... you might be the person who makes the next big change in our business or personal lives!

I spent the entire day running around like a chicken with my head cut off, worrying about this and that, and generally filled with a lot of stress. I drove various places, did yard work, cooked some food, cleaned up a bit, and worried that I still hadn't finished much of what I needed to accomplish.

Now, I sit here blogging, and I watch my dog Bullet over on the couch. He's sleeping. Snoring actually. Come to think of it, he's pretty much been sleeping most of the day.

When I was working in the backyard, trying vainly to clean up the onslaught of leaves, he slept in a pile of leaves. When I was banging around in the kitchen making dinner, he was sleeping on the couch (after assuring himself that there were going to be no handouts today). When I was trying to send a few dozen emails to business contacts, he was content to sleep in the recliner.

My dog has it right. Where have I gone wrong???

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!