I had a blast putting on the Future of Real Estate Marketing conference here in Steamboat. More importantly I was really lucky to meet and interact with a lot of fun, forward thinking people during the day.
I also had a great experience working with Gary & his crew in getting this video together for the conference.

Give this video a spin. Gary calls it like he sees it and gives some no-nonsense advice to those in real estate.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Special thanks to these guys who gave great presentations on the future of real estate marketing:

• Les Reaves of Smart SEM
• Paul Reinarz of Rezora
• Kerry Shea of Wildhorse Meadows

We’ve gotten some GREAT feedback and hope to do something like this again.

We all had a great time!

Speed is Power

“In this economy?” It’s a phrase I’m hearing over & over again. People and organizations are using this phrase as a blanket statement to say “no,” “stop,” “we can’t.” This phrase has become the catchall to stop the very thing that just might get them out of “this economy.”

I don’t buy it. It’s as if they’re suggesting this economy has a finish line and once we cross that line we’ll be in “that better economy” then we’ll move forward. Meanwhile their competitors are moving ahead. Their competitors are leaning into the problem, creating new value, new connections, making mistakes but learning from them.

We have entered an era where speed is power. Those who can move fast, innovate and answer the needs of the market faster, win. Those stuck in antiquated methods, compromise at every turn, and use the phrase “in this economy?” loose.

Two guys, Steve and Jon, invented the iPod. It took over 265 people to create the Zune.
Which do you want?

Tweet a TV tech question to @Twelpforce and get an answer in seconds from the helpful BestBuy employees.
Where might you buy your next TV?

Need it today? Amazon is offering same day delivery in select cities and Saturday delivery is standard on Prime accounts.
Where will you shop online?

HelloHealth allows you to interact with your doctor Facebook style and get medical answers quickly.
Better than “We’ll see you in a week.”

Speed is power. More so than ever in “this economy.”

Real estate isn’t immune. Buyers want help and information when they want it, where they want it. Companies, possibly your competitors, are rushing in to fill the huge hole left open by lumbering real estate giants stuck in yesterday’s thinking. You can too. You have all the tools, opportunity and leverage to make great things happen in “this economy.”

The internet, new communication channels, social media, print-on-demand, low-cost back office solutions and unlimited outsource opportunities have leveled the playing field for everyone. There’s very little uphill on the internet and 90%+ of your business is there, searching, learning and looking for a real connection to help them through the process.

So the next time you hear the resistance chant of “in this economy?” say “Yes, in this economy. We don’t have a choice.”
(Thanks to Brian Mann for the inspiration.)

Paul Reinarz

There are plenty of communication tools for real estate professionals to choose from but there are few that are made specifically for real estate and even fewer that are taking advantage of Web 2.0+ technology.

Rezora is just that;  a new online communications tool designed specifically for real estate that allows brokers to easily communicate with clients in a way that’s personal & relevant.

I got to speak with one of the founders of Rezora Paul Reinarz about the new service. Give it a listen.

Questions? Email Paul

(Disclaimer: I have no investment in the company nor any financial relationship with Rezora.)

Get this interview in iTunes:

Press the green button to play:

Steamboat School District

The recent theft of a laptop from the school district finance administrator really brings home how vulnerable we all are. Since my wife works for the school district we are now having to implement identity theft protection. Yeah the school is paying for it for a year but its still a pain. All they had to do was take a few simple, free measures and this could have been avoided.

So what would it mean to you if your laptop/computer were stolen? How much client data (contracts, social security#’s, financial data) would be at risk? Could you imagine the phone call to ALL your clients to tell them that their identity may be compromised because your laptop was stolen? How’d that be for your reputation?

With increased mobility we are at a much higher risk of theft  and therefore have an increased responsibility to protect the data and information of our clients, contacts & families. The good news is that it’s very easy and free. In today’s world you have to encrypt sensitive data on your computers. Period, no exceptions.

You have to encrypt sensitive data on your computers. Period, no exceptions.

The Windows login password is NOT encryption. When someone steals your laptop they simply remove the hard drive, put it in a USB enclosure, plug it into their computer and they have total access to ALL your data. So here’s a quick tutorial on how to secure data on Windows.

First you need to decide what need to be secured. Here’s a few things to think about at a minimum:

• Financial information of any kind – credit info, SSN, bank records, Quickbooks, etc
• Confidential client information
• Business plans & other sensitive proprietary information
• Email – especially if you email sensitive information (which you should not do unencrypted)

Second, you need to create a secure place on your hard drive to store all this data. This is called a “virtual drive” or “volume.” So just like you have a “C:” drive (in windows) encryption software creates and encrypted container and when given the correct password will mount as a drive that can store all your sensitive data. There are a lot of encryption programs to do this and if you’re in Windows I recommend TrueCrypt. It’s FREE, easy to use and has a strong community that keeps it up to date. Macs have built in encryption that can do the same thing (yay Mac!).

How to Install (Windows)

Ok, this may look like  lot of steps but it will take you less than 15 minutes to do. First, download and install TrueCrypt from

www.truecrypt.org.

Then you need to set up the container for the virtual drive. You’ll need to figure out how big it needs to be and that will depend on how much data you have. In this example we’ll make a 1 gig encrypted drive which is really small. You’ll probably want to make some thing on the order of 10gig or more.

So start TrueCrypt and select “Create Volume.” The volume is going to be our protected container to store the sensitive stuff.

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Next we want to create a “Standard Volume:”

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Ok, now we have to create the file name. This is kind of confusing because Truecrypt says “Select File.” Actually you just need to browse to the place on your hard drive where you want the file to be. Keep in mind you’ll need to find a place that has enough room for the file. In this example, we’ll use the c: drive.

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As you can see, I called the file “MySensitiveData” with no file extension. and it’s in the root of C:

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On the next screen you can simply accept the default encryption method. Click Next.

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Now you need to specify the size of your encrypted drive. For this example we’ll use 1gig. 1000 mb = 1gig do we’ll put in 1000 and select the mb size. If you wanted a 15gig  drive you’d need to put in 15 thousand mb or 15000. Click next.

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Carefully read the info for the password and be sure to choose a secure password. Enter the password twice then click next.

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On the next screen you’ll have to choose the file system. I’d recommend NTFS because it can hold larger files than FAT. In this example we’ll choose FAT. Then click “Format”

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Depending on how big your volume will be this will take some time to create.

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You’ll finally get the confirmation screen that your volume has been created. Click “Exit.”

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OK, now we have to mount the drive. In other words we have to get Windows to recognize the drive and give us access its contents. So we go back to the main TrueCrypt screen and select the file we just created.

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Enter the password and select a drive letter from the list. It can be any drive letter but I tend to choose a letter that’s “M” or higher. That way it’s less likely to conflict with other devices I might add later like another external drive. In this example I choose “O:”

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If you now open Windows Explorer you’ll see the drive is there and ready.

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Ok, now to make life easy, we want this drive to mount automatically every time we start windows. When windows starts the only thing we’ll need to do is enter the password. This is what keeps the bad guys out & our data safe. So, click on the volume we just created and from the “Volume” menu above click “Save Current Volume as Favorite.”

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Now select Tools-then settings and make sure you have the boxes checked just like the screenshot:

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You’re now done creating the encrypted volume. Now move your sensitive files to the drive and you’ll be set. If you want to move your email to the drive you’ll need to move the email DB and  update your email program to point to the new location. Be sure to update your backup program to include the files in the new drive. Next time you start Windows you’ll be asked to enter a password and the drive will automatically mount. One note of caution: You should give someone else you trust the password or store it in a safe place that can be found if something should happen to you. This data is locked down and can never be retrieved if something happens to you and no one else has access to the password.

There were other media outlets chanting predictions like “The end is near,” and “Will this be the next great depression?” Here’s a picture from an Apple Store I was in recently and, I promise, they were not serving soup:

Apple is doing really, really well. So well in fact that this past quarter Apple, that sells premium products, had their best non-holiday quarter in Apple history. So, I think it makes sense to look at some strong companies, especially companies who have either survived or thrived during very tough times. If you go all the way back to the Great Depression you can find some interesting companies that thrived and grew during that time. You don’t need to go very far because it turns out some interesting things happened here in Steamboat.

Steamboat & the Great Depression

When the Great Depression hit around 1929, about 50 percent of Steamboat businesses died. Even the main bank of Steamboat, First National Bank, closed its doors and most Steamboat residents who had all their money in that bank lost everything. These guys lost just about everything as well:

Clarence & Olin Light

These two guys are Clarence and Olin Light and at the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929 they had a very tough decision to make. They could continue business as usual and face an almost certain end or they could try to take advantage of some of the tools of the day, take a risk, do some things a little differently, modify their business and see what would happen. They choose the latter. Clarence & Olin leveraged the tools of the day to be able to market themselves and connect with customers and provide value in a way that had never been provided in this area. In 1929, they took F.M. Light & Sons on the road, bringing their products to the ranches and farmers and people in rural areas. They initially started with their own cars by filling them with products and taking them on the road to ranches and farm houses to show samples & take orders. Business took off and soon they expanded to several trucks to meet the demand.

Tools of the Day

So the point is, rather than sit in their retail shop clinging to outdated business methods, hoping things would work out, they used the tools of the day, trucks and mail, to generate new business. And so they traveled all over northwestern Colorado, Wyoming, and down into Eagle County. F.M. Light & Son not only made it through the Great Depression but they actually grew during the Great Depression. It turns out that between 1929 and 1930 their business increased by 30 percent because of what they were doing and it increased again between 1930 and 1931. By the time 1937 rolled around, and most of the country was out of the Great Depression their floor space was three times bigger than it was before the depression and their store had expanded twice.

You Have a Choice

Today we’re all in a similar position in that we can continue to do business as usual and continue to go down that road or we can begin to look at business in a different way and take advantage of the new tools of the day to connect and communicate with new businesses and new customers, deepen our relationships and grow our businesses.

Sure some of these new tools include social tools like Facebook & Twitter but these are just the latest & loudest tools. There are many others worth exploring; tools that can help manage relationships, projects & assets. Tools that can help you create better email news letters, manage your time and help you be a little more independent from the office. Here’s a graphic of every online service I use to communicate and manage business everyday:

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Most are free or very low-cost so what are you waiting for?

In this 20+ min presentation, Jeff Jarvis offers interesting insight into how to listen to the conversations your customers are having and benefit in the new world of Google.

(Click here if you can’t see the video.)

BRITE Conference on Vimeo.

Like it?

Get Jeff’s book here:
What Would Google Do?

Click to see a bunch more Jeff Jarvis on YouTube.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

(Click here if you can’t see the video)

It’s free so download it, read it, copy it and give it to a friend in need!

Alterations – Selling Steamboat

1. How much does a website cost?

If you get an immediate answer or a ball park answer this may not be the shop for you. The problem with this is there’s no way to know how much a site will cost without an understanding of what your needs are and what you want to accomplish with a site. If you get an answer right off the bat, you’ll probably get a templated site that looks like everyone else and does little to differentiate you to visitors. Ideally they’ll want to know a lot about your business and your clients. So look for and expect deep, probing question.

2. What’s your process?

Many small shops don’t have a process & they wing it. Process is important because it means you’re project is more likely to avoid problems and meet your expectations. If they do have a process, look for elements of “communication” as a key area of their process. Things like “review meetings” are a good sign because you’ll be in the loop upstream in time to make corrections if necessary.

3. How will I be able to update my site?

This is a big one in my mind. Most small businesses should be able to easily update their own site with timely information relevant documents and elements that keep the site fresh. All too often however business owners are at the mercy of a web shop’s schedule. The updates don’t happen fast enough, they often have mistakes and the whole process becomes a big hassle. It becomes easier to ignore the site which then quickly becomes stale.

Instead, make sure that you have a clear method of updating and adding to your site. Insist on tools and/or functionality that’s easy to use, and learn how to use them.

4. How long will it take to finish?

The correct answer here is a site is never finished. An acceptable answer might be something like “Phase 1 will be done in 6 weeks.” There’s always room for improvements, tweaks, value-add-ons and other work to consistently make your site a better experience for your visitors. If they’re a blow-n-go shop you may find you’re abandoned 6 months down the road when you’re ready to revise/add to your site.

5. Are most of your solutions CSS or straight HTML based?

This gets a little technical but a CSS based site will give you much more flexibility than an HTML based site. CSS stands for cascading style sheets. With a CSS based site, the formatting elements for the entire site are controlled within a single file. Why should you care? It makes managing and tweaking a site much easier. Say for example you decide 3 weeks after the site launches you don’t like the font color. You can make a single edit to the CSS style sheet and the whole site changes. With an HTML based site the same change requires manually editing each and every page to make the same change. This blog is CSS based and I can change the ENTIRE look by clicking a button. That’s only possible with CSS.

Tech stuff aside, a shop that’s using CSS indicates they’re committed to the best of breed solutions.

5.5 How many other real estate sites have you done?

Conventional wisdom would say “go with a pro” someone who’s done a ton of real estate sites. But I’d challenge that notion. What you want is fresh thinking not been-there-done-that-so-here’s-your-site thinking. A shop that really understands usability, design and experiences but is light on real estate development could be just the ticket for a stunning fresh site. Remember, at the end of the day it’s not about what you think is great, it’s about what your visitors think is great. Sometimes we’re so in the bottle and can’t read the label that we need this outside perspective.

Happy hunting!

Audio Interview – Oveview of Paid Search vs Organic Search

Les Reaves is the founder of one of the leading search engine marketing companies in the country, Market Square Media. In this first part of this 3-part interview, geared toward brokers, Les discusses the differences between paid search marketing and organic search marketing and why you need both for a successful search campaign.

If you’re just starting to use search engines in your marketing or you’ve been at it for years, you’ll find a lot of help in this interview.

Got an iPod??

Get this interview with iTunes