Eric Kodner, Wayzata Lakes Realty - Twin Cities, Madeline Island Real Estate

Some listing presentations go better than others. I happen to believe that preparation is key to success.

Yesterday, I spent much of the afternoon assembling material for a presentation to a couple of sellers. Both of the sellers are either current or former real estate licensees in another state, so I knew that I was going to have to get this one right the first time.

I started by pulling up the "Comparative Market Analysis" template from our NorthstarMLS website. The template isn't heavily branded, even when customized, but it's clean-looking and it's easy to make it suit your needs. There's room for a property photo or company logo, agent information and personalized client info.

After generating the cover sheet, I add comparables generated off NorthstarMLS. I use a "Customer Short" format, rather than running the full-page "Customer Full" report. I like to stress pending and recent sales, which can be a challenge in the particular area where this listing is located, in this case Madeline Island (rural Wisconsin, in a recreational community).

I keep my listing presentation light on the Company self-promotion. Keeping things simple is a virtue, especially when you're presenting to colleagues in the real estate industry, who aren't interested in reading a lot of "rah-rah" hype about your company.

Where I do promote what our company can offer a seller, I add items like the great "Ultimate TOUR" presentation from TourFactory. It's nine pages, but you can whittle that down and select the pages that are most pertinent to any particular listing. The best part of this TourFactory marketing piece is that it stresses the benefits of syndication on the Web, as well as the look and feel of their real estate Virtual Tours.

When I actually present the CMA packet in person, I open my laptop to a selection of virtual tours of my current listings. I also prepare a slideshow of photos of the seller's property, where that's feasible. My goal is to give them a vivid idea of what I will do to market their home and where it will be syndicated on the Web. We discuss the differences between how our firm markets property and what our competitors do. I show them our print materials, our photography, our brochures and flyers, as well as our descriptive copy. I want to give them a total picture of how their property will appear and how it will compare in the same market niche with other properties.

This listing presentation went particularly well. The sellers were impressed and we agreed to move forward with their listing. Again, sometimes the process of arriving at a price and agreeing on marketing can be complicated, but with preparation and a little extra care, it can go quite smoothly.

One week from tomorrow, I'll be teaching a couple of mini-courses on "Blog Marketing" and "Generating Leads With Your Blog" at the Wisconsin Realtors Association Annual Convention in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

This year's WRA Convention will take place at the Kalahari Resort and Convention Center in the Wisconsin Dells. The Convention starts on Sunday the 26th and runs through Tuesday the 28th.

Both mini-seminars will be in the Wi-Fi Lounge. The morning seminar (with instructor Eric Kodner) begins at 10:30 a.m. and will run just over a half-hour. The afternoon session will begin at 2:30 p.m.

I'll be back in southeastern Wisconsin again on October 21, teaching the NAR "At Home With Diversity" course at the Comfort Inn & Suites Madison, located at 4822 East Washington Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin 53704. The At Home With Diversity course runs from 9 am to 5 pm on Thursday, October 21.

I just took a peek at my statistics for my two blogs on ActiveRain. It's funny that I didn't notice the landmark, but I just passed the 500 post mark.

I've put up 278 ActiveRain posts on my Madeline Island Real Estate Blog in Wisconsin to date. And I've also posted 228 times on my Lake Minnetoka and Twin Cities Luxury Real Estate Blog.

Other than a hiatus that lasted maybe four or five months, I've stuck with it pretty consistently when it comes to blogging. I've blogged in my car, on a boat on Lake Superior and from the NAR Midyear in Washington D.C. I've blogged about real estate, music, art, diversity and technology. I've put hundreds of photos on this site and probably a thousand links.

[Author aboard the ferry "Bayfield", on the way to Madeline Island]

The ActiveRain folks have been good enough to make all this possible. I'm delighted with the presence that ActiveRain offers my business on the Web.

I'm still amazed that more real estate industry people haven't figured out the value of participating on ActiveRain. For my own part, I just want to say thanks to the people who make this site possible.

MAAR friends Linda Stoechicht (Director of International Programming & Broker Services) and Mark Allen (Chief Executive Officer at the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors) recently sent me congratulations on the recent article that appeared in Realtor Magazine which mentioned my work on the Wisconsin and NAR Equal Opportunity committees toward the proposed Amendment to Article Ten of the Realtor Code of Ethics. I blogged about this in my Madeline Island Real Estate Blog a few weeks ago.

Linda wrote,

"This is so cool how instrumental you were with getting this issue moving in the right direction. It is good to see that grassroots still has a place and influence in monumental decisions and actions. In case no one has said it....... Thank You, nice job!!!"

I also received a very nice email letter of congratulations from Nina Cottrell, Chief Executive Officer for the Council of Residential Specialists. Nina wrote,

"Congratulations. I was at the board meeting and wondered what were the chain of events that prompted the (Article 10 Amendment) vote. It was long overdue. I'm proud that you are one of my members."

The Realtor Magazine article (written by Editor-in-Chief Stacey Moncrieff) appears in the July - August 2010 online edition of that publication:

http://www.realtor.org/rmonews_and_commentary/articles/2010/1008_news_equalrights

The origin of the work described in the Realtor Magazine article actually began here on ActiveRain. You'll find the details below:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/296743/tell-nar-it-s-time-to-rewrite-article-10-of-the-code-of-ethics-

http://activerain.com/blogsview/1742597/nar-addresses-an-important-issue-thanks-to-a-blogger-on-active-rain

http://activerain.com/blogsview/1659239/closing-the-sexual-orientation-loophole-nar-board-approves-proposal-to-amend-article-ten-of-the-code-of-ethics

http://activerain.com/blogsview/1745359/if-you-ever-doubted-the-power-of-active-rain-you-won-t-want-to-miss-this

I'm delighted that this effort caught the attention of the people at MAAR and the folks at the Council of Residential Specialists.

Back in late October of 2009, I got a phone call from Regina Ludes, a staff writer with The Residential Specialist magazine. Regina told me she was putting together an article on the different ways that some agents promote the CRS Designation to the public and to others in the real estate industry. Regina requested an interview and a couple days later, we spent about forty-five minutes chatting over the phone.

Regina's article appears in the newly-released January - February 2010 issue of the Residential Specialist magazine. Please click on the photo below to read the full article.

The article is entitled "Letter Perfect - CRSs Find Unique Ways to Promote the Designation to Clients and Agents". Among the quotes from our interview that Regina included in her article was a comment I made about how we promote the CRS Designation in our Wayzata Lakes Realty company newsletter. She wrote,

"The response from clients has been "gratifying," Kodner says. "I expect clients to see the newsletter, but clients have written back to me and said things like, ‘It's great to see that you're doing something that other agents aren't doing".

[I especially want to thank Council of Residential Specialists Communications Editor Regina Ludes and her Managing Editor for approving my link to Regina's article]