Published By Jay Papasan
Source KW Blog
Since Ben Kinney and I wrote SOCI@L last fall, we’ve had the opportunity to teach the material dozens of times. What’s clear is the enormous opportunity social media platforms provide to cut marketing costs and attract new business. It’s also just a bit overwhelming to think about adding Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and a blog to our brimming daily task lists!
So we debated the question: If an agent were only to do one thing on social media, what would it be?
For most agents, their sphere is vital for referrals and repeat business. So one argument would be to work Facebook aggressively to build deeper relationships with our most important advocates. On the other hand, prospecting Twitter for buyers and sellers or just using it to interact with huge audiences are strategies that scale extremely well. Another school of thought argues that blogging is a proven method for increasing your visibility on search engines and helping buyers and sellers find your business. The challenge with all of these is they require regular effort and attention to be effective.
That’s why I argue that if you’re only going to do one thing on social media, let it be LinkedIn.
Besides growing and enriching your network, nothing says “I’m a modern professional” like a well-done LinkedIn profile. Chances are many of your prospective clients search for you online before they meet with you. What they find informs their decision to work with you (or not.) LinkedIn ranks very well on search engines so it will be one of the first four or five results in any search when clients do their due diligence. By investing a few hours of your time, you can make yourself more visible online and help ensure a great first impression.
Here’s what to do:
1) Join LinkedIn.
2) Complete your professional profile. Include a current photo, your professional highlights and make sure you identify yourself as an agent with Keller Williams.
3) Customize your personal URL. From the Edit Profile page, select “Edit” on your Public Profile Link. That how you get an easy to remember LinkedIn address like www.LinkedIn.com/in/JayPapasan which you can add to your business cards, websites and email signatures.
4) Invite your sphere! Select the Contacts tab and click “Add Connections” and follow the instructions to upload your email address book. With a couple of clicks you can invite your entire network to connect.
5) Give 10 recommendations. Pick some of your top, well-positioned advocates and sing their praises to prospective employers. And remember, you can offer character references for people you know and respect that don’t happen to be past or current coworkers.
6) Get 10 recommendations (so ask for 20!) Recommendations and testimonials remain some of the most powerful marketing tools in our arsenal, so go get some. Don’t be afraid to ask for recommendations from people who are not past real estate clients. A testimonial is a powerful endorsement by itself; having real estate related one is a plus. (Tip: Ask for recommendations from individuals you would also feel comfortable recommending. You’re not expected to reciprocate, but it sure feels nice.)
“Out of all the current social media tools, LinkedIn has the best system for encouraging and accumulating testimonials.” says, top agent Michael Maher of Kansas City who averages more than 500 referrals a year. “I have received two new home community referrals as well as many individual referrals from LinkedIn. Plus, the referrals are more affluent.”
That’s it! The best part for busy professionals is that once you’ve invested a couple of hours to set it up, LinkedIn requires little to none of your time and you’ll still enjoy the benefits. If you want to go deeper, power up your referrals by joining some LinkedIn Groups like the Keller Williams National Agent Referral Network and the National Assoc of REALTORS.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
KW Commercial Roadshow coming to NTXNMM Region
KW Leadership:
Bring your KW Commercial Agents, Commercial Recruits, and anyone interested in learning more about the KW Commercial Division to learn how to………
IMPROVE YOUR GROSS COMMISSION INCOME!
· Business Development Mastermind
- Review cold calling skills
- Share networking skills
· Trends in Commercial Real Estate
- Learn how to position your business in the changing commercial real estate market
-Master commercial markets of the moment!
KW Commercial Roadshow Mastermind with KWRI’s Buddy Norman
September 22, 2010
SMU @ Legacy, Bldg 4 Room 100,
5236 Tennyson Parkway, Plano, TX 75024
9:00 – 12:00 p.m.
Cost: $25.00 with Light Lunch Included
Open to KW OP’s, TL’s, KW Commercial Agents, and KW Commercial Recruits
Register with your Market Center Administrator by September 17, 2010
Recruiting appointments available with Buddy – email dwatchous@kw.com to get on the schedule either Sept 21st (evening) or Sept. 22nd (afternoon) time frames…
Thank you,
Donna Watchous
Keller Williams Regional Ops Mgr.
18383 Preston Rd., Ste 205
Dallas, TX 75252
Phone: 214-393-7016 ext.27
Fax: 214-239-8130
Bring your KW Commercial Agents, Commercial Recruits, and anyone interested in learning more about the KW Commercial Division to learn how to………
IMPROVE YOUR GROSS COMMISSION INCOME!
· Business Development Mastermind
- Review cold calling skills
- Share networking skills
· Trends in Commercial Real Estate
- Learn how to position your business in the changing commercial real estate market
-Master commercial markets of the moment!
KW Commercial Roadshow Mastermind with KWRI’s Buddy Norman
September 22, 2010
SMU @ Legacy, Bldg 4 Room 100,
5236 Tennyson Parkway, Plano, TX 75024
9:00 – 12:00 p.m.
Cost: $25.00 with Light Lunch Included
Open to KW OP’s, TL’s, KW Commercial Agents, and KW Commercial Recruits
Register with your Market Center Administrator by September 17, 2010
Recruiting appointments available with Buddy – email dwatchous@kw.com to get on the schedule either Sept 21st (evening) or Sept. 22nd (afternoon) time frames…
Thank you,
Donna Watchous
Keller Williams Regional Ops Mgr.
18383 Preston Rd., Ste 205
Dallas, TX 75252
Phone: 214-393-7016 ext.27
Fax: 214-239-8130
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Does Your Social Media Mislead?
Provided By KW Blog
Published By Julie Lane
Are your social media marketing efforts infringing on a corporate trademark? If your marketing efforts are confusing customers—if they are misled to believe that you are affiliated with a known brand because of your URL, Twitter or Facebook name—then you could be liable. At the heart of the matter is an effort to fool customers.
Start by looking at your URL. If you have chosen a URL for your Web site or your blog that is similar to a large corporation, you could be infringing on a trademark—and you could lose your domain name.
Surprisingly, even some large corporations haven’t yet claimed their name in the social media world, including Facebook fan page names and Twitter handles. But that doesn’t mean you can cybersquat on it to win followers or traffic to your sites.
You may build a fast following, but you’ll lose it overnight if the corporation files a Uniform Domain Name Dispute with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or files a trademark complaint with the social networking site in question.
You can check on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s online database to determine if a name is trademarked. You can also do a Google search for similar domain names and check to see if there are companies with the name you want to use. Where there are trademarks, it’s wise to choose another domain name.
You can also get into trouble using a corporate trademark in your Meta Tags. The Meta Tag is a code embedded in your Web page that helps search engines identify the content. This issue is finding its way into courts because it drives consumers to your Web site when they are really looking for your competitor’s Web site.
Finally, an emerging area of trademark infringement online is in the area of keyword advertising. You can infringe on a brand’s intellectual property rights if you bid on trademark protected words in your Google ad campaigns. The safest way to avoid a trademark suit in this area is to avoid using a competing real estate company’s name in your keyword campaign, either by bidding on the term or by using it in the ad copy.
Published By Julie Lane
Are your social media marketing efforts infringing on a corporate trademark? If your marketing efforts are confusing customers—if they are misled to believe that you are affiliated with a known brand because of your URL, Twitter or Facebook name—then you could be liable. At the heart of the matter is an effort to fool customers.
Start by looking at your URL. If you have chosen a URL for your Web site or your blog that is similar to a large corporation, you could be infringing on a trademark—and you could lose your domain name.
Surprisingly, even some large corporations haven’t yet claimed their name in the social media world, including Facebook fan page names and Twitter handles. But that doesn’t mean you can cybersquat on it to win followers or traffic to your sites.
You may build a fast following, but you’ll lose it overnight if the corporation files a Uniform Domain Name Dispute with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or files a trademark complaint with the social networking site in question.
You can check on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s online database to determine if a name is trademarked. You can also do a Google search for similar domain names and check to see if there are companies with the name you want to use. Where there are trademarks, it’s wise to choose another domain name.
You can also get into trouble using a corporate trademark in your Meta Tags. The Meta Tag is a code embedded in your Web page that helps search engines identify the content. This issue is finding its way into courts because it drives consumers to your Web site when they are really looking for your competitor’s Web site.
Finally, an emerging area of trademark infringement online is in the area of keyword advertising. You can infringe on a brand’s intellectual property rights if you bid on trademark protected words in your Google ad campaigns. The safest way to avoid a trademark suit in this area is to avoid using a competing real estate company’s name in your keyword campaign, either by bidding on the term or by using it in the ad copy.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Why Some Houses Sit While Other Houses Sell
Provided By KW Blog
Published By Jay Papasan
Even in the hardest hit markets, there are still properties priced well enough and in good enough condition to interest buyers. Those houses attract offers and sell. Houses that aren’t priced and staged competitively sit. It’s not complicated. It’s really that simple.
For your house to stand out from the crowd, you’ll have to listen to what buyers are telling you and make sure your house is priced well enough and in good enough condition to stand out from the competition. Here’s a quick video explaining how it works. Good luck!
Published By Jay Papasan
Even in the hardest hit markets, there are still properties priced well enough and in good enough condition to interest buyers. Those houses attract offers and sell. Houses that aren’t priced and staged competitively sit. It’s not complicated. It’s really that simple.
For your house to stand out from the crowd, you’ll have to listen to what buyers are telling you and make sure your house is priced well enough and in good enough condition to stand out from the competition. Here’s a quick video explaining how it works. Good luck!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Are You Holding Yourself Back?
Published by Alexis MacIntyre
Provided By KW Blog
Profit share offers unlimited income potential. But it requires unlimited thinking. When I first joined Keller Williams, I had one strong limiting belief around growing my profit share tree. I was afraid to come off like I was “selling” the company. As I’ve grown within KW, I’ve internalized a deep appreciation for our family and I’ve recognized that growing my profit share tree has absolutely nothing to do with selling KW. It’s about attracting talent.
Yes, growth is important to Keller Williams. We’re proud of this! If growing our company wasn’t important to us, what kind of business stakeholders would be? By the way, profit is important to us as well. But we are, first and foremost, a talent company. We are about attracting talent to provide extraordinary service to buyers and sellers. We are also about growing talent – and, most importantly, committed and gifted leaders. A company filled with talent attracts talent. Lots of talent equals lots of customers and lots of homes bought and sold. Lots of homes bought and sold equals lots of profit. And in a company that shares almost half of its owners’ profit? Well, that means more profit share dollars given to those associates who help grow the company!
If you want to grow a profit share tree and enjoy passive income, just spend more time getting to know the people who are talent around you. There is a quote that sticks with me, by novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing.” This philosophy is our soul. We share our models, our systems, our time and our owner profits. Our associates who earn profit share internalize this at a deep level. They build relationships with talented people who they’d like to be in business with and invite them to experience KW.
So remove your limiting beliefs. When you know that Keller Williams is an amazing place to be, it’s easy to grow your tree. Simple, really. People are honored to be recognized as someone who others want to be in business with. Admittedly, it can sometimes take time, but the long-term rewards can be astonishing. If you find talent and that talent feels like Keller Williams is the right fit for them, it’s a mutual win.
By the way, I’m continuing every day to work on my limiting beliefs around profit share. One of the first steps I took was to complete the exercise on page 19 of the Wealth Building Workshop: Profit Share guide–I’ve written down all the things that I love and appreciate about KW so that when I speak to someone about an opportunity with our company, I can focus on what’s most important to my heart.
What’s your limiting belief around profit share and what are you doing to remove it?
Provided By KW Blog
Profit share offers unlimited income potential. But it requires unlimited thinking. When I first joined Keller Williams, I had one strong limiting belief around growing my profit share tree. I was afraid to come off like I was “selling” the company. As I’ve grown within KW, I’ve internalized a deep appreciation for our family and I’ve recognized that growing my profit share tree has absolutely nothing to do with selling KW. It’s about attracting talent.
Yes, growth is important to Keller Williams. We’re proud of this! If growing our company wasn’t important to us, what kind of business stakeholders would be? By the way, profit is important to us as well. But we are, first and foremost, a talent company. We are about attracting talent to provide extraordinary service to buyers and sellers. We are also about growing talent – and, most importantly, committed and gifted leaders. A company filled with talent attracts talent. Lots of talent equals lots of customers and lots of homes bought and sold. Lots of homes bought and sold equals lots of profit. And in a company that shares almost half of its owners’ profit? Well, that means more profit share dollars given to those associates who help grow the company!
If you want to grow a profit share tree and enjoy passive income, just spend more time getting to know the people who are talent around you. There is a quote that sticks with me, by novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing.” This philosophy is our soul. We share our models, our systems, our time and our owner profits. Our associates who earn profit share internalize this at a deep level. They build relationships with talented people who they’d like to be in business with and invite them to experience KW.
So remove your limiting beliefs. When you know that Keller Williams is an amazing place to be, it’s easy to grow your tree. Simple, really. People are honored to be recognized as someone who others want to be in business with. Admittedly, it can sometimes take time, but the long-term rewards can be astonishing. If you find talent and that talent feels like Keller Williams is the right fit for them, it’s a mutual win.
By the way, I’m continuing every day to work on my limiting beliefs around profit share. One of the first steps I took was to complete the exercise on page 19 of the Wealth Building Workshop: Profit Share guide–I’ve written down all the things that I love and appreciate about KW so that when I speak to someone about an opportunity with our company, I can focus on what’s most important to my heart.
What’s your limiting belief around profit share and what are you doing to remove it?
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