The CREATIVE AGENT Club

We as real estate agents wear many hats in this business. We have to be salespeople, we have to be marketers, we have to be managers, and we have to be photographers. Yes. Photographers.

Well, the new tutorial CD called Photoshop For Real Estate will help any of you who have some trouble wearing that last hat. Being a photographer.

If you're looking for a place to host your real estate videos, then you'll want to check out www.Wellcomemat.com. This cool site gives you your own local video channel to store your videos similar to Youtube, but it's marketed specifically for real estate agents.

I'm almost an exclusive Verizon product user. All of our cell phones are on the Verizon network and I also have Verizon FIOS at home for our internet and HD Television service. The only thing I don't use Verizon for is our home phone, but even then, I'm using Verizon since I'm set up with Vonage.....a phone service that uses broadband internet.

I'm on the board of directors at our broker's office and we recently had a meeting about open houses. Our office usually has between 60 and 70 open houses sat each month. However, last month we only had 37 sat. There were a couple of reasons for this.

One of the best (and least expensive) ways to increase your sales and your business is to have a stream of leads coming in through referrals. There are various types of referrals out there. The most common being from friends and family as well as past clients. But if you want to get serious about referrals, get a constant stream of referrals, you should create a referral network.

Well, the bridal show is now behind us and I must say it was a success. At first I thought our booth placement wasn’t going to be good (we were on the end near an exit route), but it ended up being a blessing.

I knew some of the other vendors in the show and asked them how it was going for them (most were in the middle of all the activity). They said it was busy, but people just pushed themselves along like cattle and they weren’t able to actually talk to anyone.

Today I received a call from our mortgage rep and she confirmed that she’s going to help pay for and participate in the upcoming Bridal Show…in two weeks.We’ve done a few in the past with some success, but at this one, I’m going to pull out all the stops. I hope to have our Homebuyer Seminar DVD finished and copies made by the day of the show. I will also be giving away more reports, flyers, gifts (for signing up for our Free email listing service) and of course, the Newlywed Homebuyer Survival Guides.

A few nights ago my wife was working so I decided to take the kids out for pizza. About 30 minutes away is a place called CiCis Pizza. They are a national chain so there may be one in your area.If you’ve never heard of them, it’s an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet where they have salads, soups, pasta, and at least 10 pizzas ready at all times. The cost is around six bucks per adult (including a drink) and around four bucks for kids.

If you’ve ever watched the news or read the newspaper, I’m sure you know of stories how the big retail chains are taking over the smaller mom and pop stores. While this may be true in some cases, there’s a small auto parts store in my area that knows how to compete and even beat the big boys.

And they can do it with two words. “CUSTOMER SERVICE”.