Are you ready to unleash your power?

?????Question?????

Do you need to be energized?

Are you stuck in rut?

Are you doing good in your career but you want to do even more?

Do you want to impliment systems in your business but you don't know how?

Have you ever wanted to be in the presence of greatness?

If you answered yes to any of those, Mega Camp is the answer. Some of the best of the best in the business are there and I learn so much from them. At no point in my career have I said, "No, I don't want to know how you sold 136 homes last year." I always want to learn at every stage from those that have been there before me. This is what Mega Camp is all about.

Mega Camp 2010: Unleash Your Power – KW MAPS Coaching

Gary Keller brings you “The BEST”

At Mega Agent Camp While the agenda is still being finalized, we’re thrilled to share some just-released information about Mega Camp 2010! Gary’s goal is to create a highly instructive and visual program featuring the best in the business sharing (and SHOWING) you the systems they are using to generate massive success.

Check out a sneak peak of just a few of the interviews and panels on the Mega Agent Camp lineup* thus far!

■The BEST Internet site
■The BEST Craigslist Approach
■The BEST Social Media Approach
■The BEST Farming
■The BEST Open Houses
■The BEST FSBO/Expireds Approach
■The BEST Referral Approach
■The BEST Seminar Approach
■The BEST Pre-list Package
■The BEST Leverage
■The BEST Organization Approach
■The BEST Approach for Working with Buyers
■The BEST Short Sales Approach
■The BEST Wealth Building Through Profit Share

Are you in the Pursuit of Happiness?
Chris Gardner speaks at Mega Leadership Camp

Will Smith’s inspiring performance in the 2006 movie The Pursuit of Happiness tells the story of Chris Gardner, a single father struggling to provide for his five-year-old son. Drawing upon every resource he can muster, he lands an unpaid internship at a prestigious stock brokerage firm. In the meantime, he finds himself evicted from his apartment and sleeping with his son in shelters or on the streets – leveraging the trust his son has placed in him as motivation to land a lucrative job, eventually launching his own investment firm.


Now among North America’s most moving speakers, Chris Gardner will address Mega Leadership attendees on Tuesday, Sept. 14!

Mega Camp is not just for KW associates. Every year, we have thousands that attend from other companies. Call me today to find out how you can be a part of this AWESOME event!

It's time to take control of your career and UNLEASH YOUR POWER!

Amber Boyd
972-772-7000
amberboyd@kw.com

Seven Steps to Success

Written By Dirk Zeller
Provided By Realty Times

Success is an elusive concept to many people. It has as many different definitions as there are people on earth. To truly achieve success, one has to create their own vision of exactly what it is they want and desire. Too often, we buy into someone else's success plan. We look at someone who has the outward appearance of success, but the truth is, we never know the real facts. We see the money, power, big house, and fancy car without looking at the path they travel. We do not look at the other areas of their life to really determine their true level of success. The vision of the perceived monetary success clouds our evaluation process. Their monetary success may be built on sinking sand rather than bedrock. The sinking sand could be a great lack in any of these areas of their life: mental, physical, spiritual, and family.

In the Bible, in Matthew 7:26, it clearly states: "But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat up against that house, and it fell with a great crash." The truth is, the wind, rain, and rising rivers in life will come. You cannot prevent their coming. You can only be prepared for their coming. A successful person understands this clearly. They work diligently to create a successful life in all areas. You will not be able to avoid life's tragedies. You will lose a loved one, friend, child, or parent. You will have financial struggles. You will experience health problems of some kind. It is not how you avoid them; it is how you prepare for them and deal with the curve balls of life.

Is success achieved by trading your family for money? Is success achieved by trading your health for dollars? True and lasting success is accomplished by creating balance in all areas of life and adding wealth to all these accounts on a daily basis. You must add wealth to each and every area of life daily. Do not transfer success to some far off goal in the future when you get to a particular place in your life or acquire something. The truth is, when you get to that particular place, or acquire that item, success will have moved on. Success is living today with all the zeal, gusto, and zest that you can pack into a 24-hour period of life. Success is clearly not a destination, but a daily journey we undertake every day. Success is found through focusing on the value of each day we are blessed with and soaking up all that life has to offer today.

"If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,000, that carried over no balance from day to day, allowed you to keep no cash in your account, and every evening cancelled whatever part of the amount you failed to use during the day what would you do? Draw out every cent, of course! Well, you do have such a bank; its name is 'time.' Every morning it credits you with 86,000 seconds … every night it rules off as lost whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purposes. It carries over no balance … it allows no overdrafts. Each day it opens a new account for you. If you fail to use the day's deposit, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against tomorrow. You must live in the present - on today's deposit."

Using up your whole day will lead you to success in life. Wringing every moment of passion, happiness, sadness, success, failure, and love out of your every day will create a beautiful tapestry of life. Do not waste today for anyone, or anything. The truth is, we do not really know if we will be here tomorrow. If you had only six months to live, how would you live today? The truth is you or I may only have that long to live and we just do not know it yet.

Let me share with you the seven steps to success.

Step one: You must first decide what you want. The truth is, we can have anything we desire in life. Earl Nightingale said that if man only knew that he could have anything he wanted, he would set more goals. The truth is, if we set more goals, we would achieve more things in life. If your vision is clear, you are assured that you will get there. The problem is, we do not have a clear vision or set enough goals. We do not take the time to create the vision.

Step two: Your goals must be written. Success begins when you grab the pen and paper and think and work to craft your ideal life. Successful people think on paper before they act. You must take the time to write your success plan on paper and your goals down on paper. Only 3% of our population does so. Guess what those 3% have, live in, drive, wear, and eat? It is not by accident what they achieve. It is by design.

If you cannot write your vision with clarity on paper, you certainly will not be clear mentally to achieve it. By writing your vision clearly you will pull your mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional powers in alignment to achieve your vision and goals. Your mind, your body, and your subconscious mind will all work like a tug-o-war team, pulling on the rope of life. With those three powerful forces pulling in concert, it does not matter how many or how strong the opponent is on the other end of the rope. They will most assuredly be pulled across the centerline for your victory.

Step three: Create a time frame for your goal or vision. Set a target for when you will accomplish it. You have to get your mind in motion to achieve it by a certain time. Without a timeline, you have no goal you only have a wish. Wishes will only cause frustration. You cannot control or exert force on a wish to transform it into reality. If you do not achieve the goal or vision in the time frame, just set another one to shoot for. There are no unrealistic goals; there are only unrealistic time frames.

Step four: Achieving your vision, or goal, will take a series of activities. Create a list of the series of activities you must do for you to achieve your vision or your goal. As your motivation increases, the better you can clearly write out this series of activities. People will often not take the time to create the list. This can dramatically reduce the speed at which you achieve your vision or goal. Planning a vision or goal completely through, to create small bite size pieces, makes it easier to digest. If you cooked a 20-pound turkey dinner with potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, rolls, and gravy, you could not eat it whole or at one time. You could eat it over time by breaking it up into bite size pieces. Now if you invited a "team of friends" to help you, you could polish off the whole turkey dinner in one sitting by each of you taking bite size pieces. Successful people evaluate the situation and elicit help and create a plan to lighten the load on all. They then have everyone dive in and begin accomplishing things in bite size pieces.

Step five: Re-check the series of activities to ensure they are in the proper order. Organize this into a comprehensive step-by-step plan to achieve the vision or the goal. You need to start with the most important and move to the least important. Do not delay; begin the most important item today. Do not move on to another item until you complete the most important item first. There is an order to all activities and tasks. Spend the time planning to create it.

Step six: Do not allow procrastination to set in. You can always make an excuse to put it off until later. Do not fall to that temptation. The key is to start the momentum today. A primary law of physics is; a body in motion will tend to stay in motion. Do not delay getting your body in motion.

Step seven: Keep the body in motion daily. Do not neglect to do something daily that moves you closer to your vision or your goal. Constantly ask yourself, is this activity I am doing now moving me closer to, or further away from, my goal?

Once you are moving forward, your vision or goal can stay in motion with a smaller amount of effort. The greatest exertion of force comes in the beginning when you are trying to get the vision or goal moving. Do not stop and start. Keep constant pressure applied to your direction.

If you apply these seven steps to your real estate business you can accomplish any amount of sales you choose to do. The truth in life is you are the one who does the choosing. The market, competition, and interest rates do not affect your choice or outcome. You are the one that does the choosing, so choose wisely.

Caution: Cutting and Pasting Could Get You Sued

Published By Julie Lane, VP of Legal and Compliance
Provided By KW Blog

Google may have emerged victorious in Viacom’s landmark $1 billion copyright case over infringing YouTube videos, but don’t misinterpret the ruling. YouTube was under a Safe Harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FACT: Cutting and pasting articles for use in your real estate marketing efforts don’t fall under that Safe Harbor—and it could get you sued. Recently, there had been an onslaught of lawsuits filed against individual bloggers and companies with websites that copy material from newspapers.

To protect yourself and your company from liability, never display, reproduce or distribute copyright protected works. This rule applies as equally to blogs, website articles, and social media postings, as it does to good, old-fashioned written and printed material.

In a nutshell, state and federal copyright laws protect original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression. So, the copyright owner has the exclusive rights to reproduce the work, create derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and display the work publicly. The creator of the work owns the copyright whether or not the copyright is registered or whether a copyright notice is included in the work.

The proliferation of electronic media has made the transfer of information from one person to another easier and more efficient than ever. This does not mean that because we have the physical ability to copy and paste news articles, that we can do so legally.

Do not think that by giving the particular newspaper credit for copied materials that you are protected from being sued in a copyright infringement case. Any copying of work, whether it be from a news source or otherwise, is prohibited without express written permission from the creator of the work. Keep these rules in mind as you continue to build your business online!

Preparing Your Sellers for Home Showings

Published By About.com

Introduce sellers to the realities of showing their home

You've already talked with your sellers about the physical work involved to get a home ready to show, but have you mentioned other events that may take place while the house is on the market? Giving home sellers a basic education in Buyers 101 will help prepare them for the realities of showing their house.

Be Ready to Show at All Times

Sellers should be aware that same-day and even last-minute requests for showings are common, so a seller with a '24 hour notice to show' stipulation often cuts himself out of a good chunk of the buying market. The only standard hefty lag time that should be necessary is when you must give ample notice to a tenant.

Once a house gets tagged difficult to show by agents, you won't receive as many calls to show it. If sellers choose to make showings difficult, be sure to tell them now that it will cut down on showings--and fewer showings equals fewer potential buyers.

Keep it Flexible

Explain to your home sellers that most agents do try to arrive within the scheduled showing time, but sometimes it isn't possible. They may get stuck in traffic, or the house they saw prior to your showing took longer than expected. It happens, and sometimes it happens too late to be fixed by a phone call.

Encourage sellers to stay away from home a little longer than they think is necessary, just to make sure they don't interrupt a showing.

Sellers Who Want to Be Present

This is nearly always a bad idea. Sellers think agents and buyers won't be able to find everything, that they must be there to point out important features. Truthfully, most just want to be present to see buyer reaction firsthand.

Sellers should be aware that at the very least buyers feel uncomfortable when they are present, and that it can actually kill a sale. Buyers often won't even open closet or cabinet doors when the seller is home, and when they cannot view a house comfortably, they'll hurry up and move on to the next one.

Sellers want to talk, and not just about the house. You never know when a buyer will be turned off by the mood of the seller, or by a statement the seller makes. Buyers are there to look at the house, not chit chat about hobbies or the weather or worse--politics and other controversial topics.

If sellers must be home during a showing, counsel them to go outside or stay put in one location, not wander around with the agent and buyers.

Sellers Who Want YOU To Be Present for All Showings

If you're selling a large estate or complicated property, it might be the norm to plan on being present for all showings, but it's not necessary or smart for the typical house.

Explain that other agents generally feel uncomfortable with the selling agent hanging around, listening to and participating in conversations with potential buyers. If the other agent is representing the buyers as a buyer's agent, she won't be free to have open discussions about the house in front of you.

There's another negative that may be more important: busy agents don't have time to work around your schedule. Requiring the listing agent to be present for all showings is another way to give the house that difficult to show reputation.

If your sellers are worried about theft of small items, they should store them away. Packing up collections and small personal items is part of the process they should have already gone through to prepare the house for showings.

Pets Must Be Controlled

Pets should be out of the house during showings, especially large dogs, since many people are afraid of them. A gruff bark coming from inside the house is enough to make some home buyers turn around at the front door.

If there are pet odors, talking with your seller about the subject can be tricky, because most people are not aware of odors in their own home. You may need to conjure up your best be-tactful mode to deal with that subject, but it must be dealt with. Your sellers don't want buyers to remember the home as the house that smells.

Gaining Seller Cooperation

Share showing information in a 'did you know this about buyers' tone, rather than simply telling a seller what he must do. Explaining why these steps are important helps sellers realize that it's in their best interests to comply.

1. Consider putting showing advice on paper in an easy-to-read format. Give the seller a day or so to digest the information, then ask if he has any questions about the information.

2. Show that you respect the seller's opinions by asking what he thinks are the home's best features, then spotlight those features in a flyer or brochure that can be left on a table for prospective buyers.

Sellers usually just want to help. It's up to you to figure out a way to give them a role in the sales process, one that is truly helpful and that won't have a negative impact on showings.

Attracting Business to You Every Time You Leave the House

Provided By Realty Times
Written By Jennifer Allan

Most real estate prospecting strategies focus on the pursuit of business, or going out there and actively looking for targets to prospect. Fair enough.

But you can also generate a significant amount of business for yourself using attraction-based strategies that don't require you to pursue anyone. Imagine, a business where good prospects come to you looking for help. Doesn't that sound like fun?

If you love being a real estate agent and you know your market, you can attract business left and right, as long as you're out there in the world with your antenna up and a smile on your face. You don't need to shove your business card at everyone you meet, or dazzle them with a fantastic elevator speech. If your enthusiasm and expertise shine through in your casual conversations, the people you know and the people you meet will want to do business with you, if they have business to do.

The trick to an attraction-based real estate business is to always be doing a couple of things.

First, always be mastering your market. The more intelligently you can speak about the local real estate market, the more magnetic you'll be when you're talking to people. For example, when you're invited to a party, try to check out the market in the area of the party ahead of time. That way when you're mingling at the party and real estate comes up, you can talk about "that house down the block that's been on the market for 9 months," and you'll know why it hasn't sold. You'll also know about the one around the corner that just came on the market last week. Even if you don't use the knowledge you obtained during your pre-party previewing, karma seems to work with you and will put you in a position to use it soon.

Seriously, a real estate agent who knows his market exudes a confidence that will draw people to him.

Second, you should always be looking for opportunities to put your smiling face and your market expertise in front of other people. Now when I say this, I don't mean that you should make a nuisance out of yourself in public on a regular basis. Do that and you might find yourself avoided. Instead, open up room in your calendar for casual socializing. Accept invitations you might normally decline. Make a concerted effort to go to lunch with friends two or three times a week. Pick up the phone to ask a friend a question instead of shooting off an email. Go into the bank instead of through the drive-thru lane.

Every single person you meet every single day has the potential to bring you a paycheck. And you have no idea who that person will be. It could be your mailman, your hairdresser, or your dog-sitter. It could be the lady you sat next to at the nail salon. Every time you venture out into the world with your antenna up and a smile on your face, you could meet your next biggest client.

But, that probably won't happen if when you venture out into the world you don't come across to people as someone who loves and is good at their job. And that's not the impression you leave when you're always in sales-pitch mode. So, leave the sales pitch at home, focus on being a great real estate agent who loves her job and knows her market and stays in touch with the people she knows without ever pestering them for business and referrals. I think you'll find that you'll attract far more business than you have in the past, and have a heck of a lot more fun doing it.