I love teaching the CRS 206 technology course, which I just finished doing one in Bryan, TX. I did one the week before in Waltham, MA.  I polled attendees (30 in MA, 15 in TX) after the course, asking them to let me know the one idea they found of value to their business above all others.

You’ll hear more about these students in a future post, including who they are and where they’re from.  For now, here are some of their choices.

BTW: If it looks like you would benefit from the course, you’ll find a list of locations at CRS.com. I hope to see you in a course next year!

BTW #2: I am setting my teaching calendar for 2010. When your group (company, local or state Association, etc.) books a CRS 206 technology course for 2010, you can request a specific instructor. I would appreciate your requesting me. You can reach me by email here. Thanks!

For now, here’s the list so far:

• Snagit for screen capturing, annotating and emailing to prospects inside the email message
• Picasa for photo editing and “sexy” shows
• A workable, profitable Web strategy
• Reworking my Web site to provide complete consumer information
• Different Web site types and providers, pro and con
• Adding video to my site
• Working effectively with my assistant
• Eliminating unnecessary expenses (I’ve saved $140 p/mo so far!)
• Using technology to save time so that I can spend more time with my family
• Purchased a new Smart Phone
• Uses for Bluetooth
• How easy it is to use the Flip Video Digital camera and upload to YouTube…simple!
• The need to get my CRS designation
• Using Google Groups for agent networking and working with my clients
• Using Google Earth to market my clients
• Marketing with AtomSmasher signs and billboards
• Loaning out the “pre-loaded” GPS to buying clients
• Photo editing: using canvas paper to produce an “oil painting” of listing prospect’s home
• Available automatic lead management systems and what they can do for me
• Hiring a Virtual Assistant
• Advantages of using a real estate specific database instead of Outlook
• The idea of spending one hour a day on my technology
• Using Issuu for my CMA’s and listing presentations….cool eBook format, and easy!
• Microsoft Publisher for my presentations and TinyURL.com
• Using the right domain name…I’ve already purchased 5
• Networking ideas using technology

Again, I’ll be posting more on this, but that’s not too bad a list of ideas from one course, right?  Is it time for you to take the CRS 206?  I think so…

Hope you’ll check out my new eBook, “Digital Essentials for Today’s Agent,” here.

It’s a beautiful day here on the lake in Reston…hope it’s a beautiful day wherever you are, too!

Free Webinar…You Gotta Be There! 

If you need some specific tips, techniques, strategies and scripts to bring in business in a down market, I invite you to join me for a free Webinar at 7:30 - 9:00 p.m. Eastern, Feb. 24^th. 

How To Make Hay When The Sun DON’T Shine:

Surviving And Thriving In A Down Market

Two of my great CyberStars(r), Leigh Brown (RE/MAX Signature Properties, Concord, NC) and Dianne Dunn (Keller Williams Realty, New Bern, NC) will share specifically what they do in order to maximize business in a down market.  We were lucky enough to hear their ideas at our CyberStar® Summit last January, and I am pleased they have agreed to share with you! 

No hype…no product push…just great information designed just for you! 

To register, click here.  Join us…you’ll be glad you did!

It’s a great day here on the lake in Reston….hope it’s a great day wherever you are, too!

2009 CyberStar(r) Summit

We just concluded our CyberStar(r) Summit in Scottsdale, AZ.  110 CyberStars(r) shared real estate tips, technologies and strategies during 2 days of intense sharing.  Our CyberStar(r) Summit is a unique event in real estate conferences in that we ALL share what we know with each other in the areas of real estate technology, marketing and business practices.  The CyberStars(r) are all top agents, but they check their egos at the door and share their “best stuff” with fellow attendees openly.

We did a lot on social networking (great presentations on how Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc., can be used to grow your business!), reducing expenses while increasing income, increasing Web site and blog effectiveness, marketing w/real estate video on YouTube, marketing materials, scripts, forms, ideas to serve today’s consumer better…and so much more.

We were exposed to uses for sites and services such as SlyDial, DriveBuyTech, ShowingFeedback, HomeSteps, Snagit, TinyURL, PhoneTag and about 50 more sites that can be useful in real estate.

You might not be a CyberStar(r), but our experience points out the amazing value of networking with your real estate peers.  Most agents don’t attend conventions such as their franchise conventions, NAR annual convention, CRS Sell-A-Bration and others.  I’m always amazed when I talk to someone who does not attend such events.  How do they expect to grow, as real estate agents and as human beings, without attending these events?

So…seek out networking opportunities and get on board.  Learn and grow!

NOTE: If you are interested in CyberStar(r) membership, see our eBook on the requirements/benefits of membership here.  For a list of our members, go here.  If you think you qualify, let me know by emailing me at Allen@AFHSeminars.com.   I’ll get you an application.

I will be posting some specific techniques from our Summit in my next post…stay tuned, and let others in your networking group know about this blog!

It’s a great day here on the lake in Reston…hope it’s a great day wherever you are, too!

Allen F. Hainge, CRS

My first post of the year serves to wish all of you a happy, prosperous and joyous New Year!

 2008 was a year filled with challenges for many of us.  It is now behind us, and a new  year lies ahead.  May each of us in our own way take the coming year “One Day At A  Time,” meeting whatever challenges face us each day with courage, determination and a focus  on what is important in our lives and in the lives of those we care for.

 Today’s new year begins with a new day…today.  I hope that today is a wonderful day  for all of you, and that it is one of many, many great days for you during 2009!

I have stressed many times the value of having a networking group, composed either of agents from your area or agents nationwide.  My networking group is the CyberStars(tm), 200+ top agents from the US, Canada, the Bahamas and Australia.  Each is a market leader who uses today’s tehcnology to meet the needs of today’s consumer.

  One of our members, CyberStar(tm) Lou Plummer (Alain Pinel REALTORS, Danville/Walnut       Creek, CA) reminded us via our CyberStar(tm) Google Group of the value to be found using Hewlett Packard’s learning center.  Lots of good courses here, and many of the CyberStars(tm) have taken them.

Perhaps you need to sharpen your skills on PhotoShop, OneNote (an excellent program for organizing and keeping track of projects, closings, etc.), PowerPoint, Outlook, Vista, Dreamweaver, Web site design or other progams?  If so, check out Hewlett Packard’s Learning center here for a list of courses.

It’s a great day here on the lake in Reston…hope it’s a great day wherever you are, too!

You’ve been good this year, right?

Well, even if you haven’t, don’t forget to give yourself (and your business!) a Christmas/Hanukkah gift.  At the top of your list might be a notebook or, better yet a tablet pc.  If so, there is still time to get yourself one, especially if you don’t delay due to “analysis paralysis.”  

You know what I mean: we analyze, analyze analyze, filling our heads with so much information that we become paralyzed, delay making a decision?

No need for this to happen, now that we have the Web and sites such as NotebookReview.com.  Decide what you want to spend on your new notebook or tablet (go for a tablet!), then go to NotebookReview.com.  Check out their discussion area if you have to (they’ve even got a discussion forum for “Notebook Dummy Guide Articles”) and take a look at their top rated machines.

Another “go to” site for me whenever I’m looking for hardware is ZDNet.  Look at their notebook reviews and their Editor’s Choice selections.

Time to act, not procrastinate!  Your notebook or tablet can make you a lot of money if you have the right one, and sites such as NotebookReview.com help make your choice an informed one!

It’s a great day here on the lake in Reston…hope it’s a great day wherever you are, too!

According to the AP this morning, this is the state of foreclosures in the US:

“The number of homeowners caught in the wave of foreclosures in October grew 25 percent nationally over the same month in 2007, data released Thursday showed.  More than 279,500 U.S. homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice in October, an increase of 5 percent over September, according to RealtyTrac Inc. One in every 452 housing units received a foreclosure filing, such as a default notice, auction sale notice or bankrepossession.”

My question to you is twofold:

1. What are you doing to get up to speed on REO’s and short sales so that you can help today’s consumer?
2. What are you doing to get up to speed on REO’s and short sales so that you can help your business?

Good morning, all….I hope you make today a wonderful day!

Breaking from tradition, today’s entry doesn’t focus on technology. Rather, it attempts to make a point about interruptions, those tiny time killers.

This morning, as I do many mornings, I listened to “The Writer’s Alamanac,” Garrison Keillor’s peaceful, informative program on my local PBS station. He featured a poem, “Lessons,” by Pat Schneider, and the poem spoke to me on several levels. The third stanza compares interruptions to “tiny grain moths or mice” and goes on to speak of the consequences of allowing them into our day.

I don’t know about you, but that certainly speaks to me! I am easily distracted, and allowing interruptions has been a favorite passtime. There is one particular “mouse” (I think of it more as a moose!) that easily interrupts me: email! I love email, and I can’t imagine life without it. Unless I do something to tame it, however, it is my #1 source of interruptions, my #1 productivity slayer.

If email is a constant source of interruption for you, too, here are the two biggest tools I use to tame it:

Rules. Rules allow you to divert messages with certain subjects, messages from certain persons, etc., directly to a folder, keeping them out of your inbox until you are ready to look at them. I do this with messages from my assistant, Heather. Her messages automatically go into a certain folder, I check it twice a day, and I save time.

Check email as frequently as possible. I check email at noon and 4 p.m. This works for my business and saves me many interruptions. Set a schedule that works for you, but stop checking emails everytime one comes in. Then….then try to stick to it!

BTW: The rest of the poem is worth reading, too….hope it is meaningful to you. Remember: “moments are as precious as nutmeg.”

It’s a beautiful day here on the lake in Reston (fall is in full bloom!)…I hope it’s a beautiful day wherever you are, too!

Regards,

Allen
————————————–

Lessons,” by Pat Schneider
I have learned
that life goes on,
or doesn’t.
That days are measured out
in tiny increments
as a woman in a kitchen
measures teaspoons
of cinnamon, vanilla,
or half a cup of sugar
into a bowl.

I have learned
that moments are as precious as nutmeg,
and it has occurred to me
that busy interruptions
are like tiny grain moths,
or mice.
They nibble, pee, and poop,
or make their little worms and webs
until you have to throw out the good stuff
with the bad.

It took two deaths
and coming close myself
for me to learn
that there is not an infinite supply
of good things in the pantry.

Join me as I give a free, one hour Webinar this Thursday, October 30th, 1 PM Eastern Top = The Top Ten Money Making Tech Tools of Today’s Top Agents. Sponsored by Cyberhomes. Specific tips & strategies from my CyberStars(tm).

Here’s a testimonial from a previous attendee:
“Allen! I updated my web site, started blogging and got price reductions on two of my listings after attending your class! I can’t wait for the next one! Your ideas will save me thousands of dollars and help me increase my listing effectiveness - one of my listsings is now in escrow. Thank you!”
Dana Lisa Young
Agent Pasadena, CA

You can register at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/938348453.
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Hope you’ll join me!

Allen

I just finished teaching the CRS 206 course in Columbia, SC.  As usual, we covered a number of today’s best tech tools, tools that meet the needs of today’s consumers.  One of the tools I demonstrated was Issuu.com.  You can visit it here.

 Issuu is a free upload site…but one with a difference.  Files saved in PDF format, such as PowerPoint, Excel, Word files and more saved as PDF’s, can be shown on Issuu as ebooks, emagazines or more.  It is a simple process: create your document or presentation, save it as a PDF, go to Issuu.com and click on "Upload."  Couldn’t be easier, and the results are really amazing.

I have posted a number of presentations to Issuu and will continue to do so.  You can see the slides I did for my presentation for the Texas Assn. of REALTORS(r) here.  CyberStar(tm) James Nellis of the Nellis Group here in Northern Virginia has a number of presentations on Issuu including their listing presentation, eflyers and more.

If you use PowerPoint, use Issuu as a point of difference for showing your presentations in a very "with it" way…you’ll be glad you did!