Life Is Like a Box Of Chocolates...

I love this phrase.  It always makes people think about the mugger holding you at gunpoint and demanding the cash out of your wallet.  But what if it's not a mugger on the street, but the story in your head that is holding you up?

What We Believe
Many of us believe that we have to work hard to make money.  And, to a certain extent, that may be true.  But the fact of the matter is that we don't have to work nearly as hard as we think we do if we can believe ourselves into success.

What We Give Up
I hear a lot of people cutting their commissions right now.  They feel bad for the sellers, they don't want the hassle of a short sale, they want to get the listing instead of the other agent.  It's still discounting, no matter what you call it.  We allow our beliefs about circumstances to dictate our choices of what our time and energy is worth.  And thus, despite the fact that most agents have already taken a hefty pay cut just because prices have dropped, I still see many of them cutting even more.

Taking Care of Ourselves for a Change
We 're so busy taking care of everyone else's needs that we forget that we have our own.  We have to put food on our tables too.  We have mortgages to pay, credit card bills, and other expenses that don't go away just because the seller made a bad investment decision - even if they made it with us.  At some point we have to put a stop to the bleeding and say "my time is worth this much - and I'm worth every penny!"  (If that phrase looks familiar, it should, I wrote an article by that title to you a couple of months ago.)

Creating Reciprocal Relationships
A few days ago, I wrote a blog post on Reciprocal Relationships.  In it, I talked about making sure that you are getting what you are giving in your relationships.  And if you're not, then getting out of them.  This goes for clients too.  If you don't want the hassle of the short sale and the client can't afford to pay you without it, then don't take the listing.  Think of it this way.  If the average short sale takes twice as long to close (and that's a conservative estimate), then you need to consider that you're actually cutting your commission in half - probably more since most banks want the agents to cut their commissions too.  If a seller asked you to work for half of your current commission rate would you do it?  I didn't think so.  Don't do this either. 

But the Seller NEEDS ME!
I often hear agents telling me this.  And I believe in doing pro bono work periodically, but you can't build a business on it.  My policy has always been that I'll do one pro bono deal a year.  I have to really like the seller and really feel like they both need and WILL APPRECIATE the work I do for them.  Ideally, I'd like them to be in a position to also refer business to me, but it's not required.  How many pro bono deals did you do last year?  (By pro bono, I mean you made less than minimum wage for your time.)  If you're having to count a lot, then you've got a problem.

Your Money AND Your Life
So often I hear agents telling me that their business isn't about the money - they just love helping people.  And I tell them that if it's not about the money, then they should close up shop, get a job to make ends meet, and go volunteer at a non-profit to help people.  You're in business and that's BY DEFINITION about making money.  What you focus on is what you create.  If you don't focus on making money, keeping the money you make and making the most of your limited time, then you're not going to have either money or a life.  

Affirmation

Even after the last two years of agents dropping like flies, in the eyes of consumers, agents are still a dime a dozen.  It's important that you be able to differentiate yourself from the competition. 

Advice on Success
I was talking with my friend Chellie Campbell the other day about what it takes to be successful.  Given that she is the author of the books The Wealthy Spirit and Zero to Zillionaire and the creator of the wildly successful Financial Stress Reduction Workshop (which I'm taking this month - I'm so excited!), I figured she was in a position to know.  Interestingly, she told me that her advice actually came from Mark Victor Hansen many years ago.  She said that the advice was simply this:  Get Rich in a Niche!

Specializing
The simple fact is that in order to not be seen as "just another Realtor", you have to be able to stand apart from the crowd in some way and this means specializing in a niche.  Now this is where people usually start arguing with me that it's hard enough to find business without limiting where it can come from.  But face it, if you are the probate specialist or the "Save My Home!" specialist or the "Home Sales for Tech Geeks" specialist, that's where the people who need those services will turn first.  It doesn't mean that you can't help other people, it just means that the people in your niche will all flock to you.

Focus to Expand 
So the next time you're wondering how to bring more business in the door, look at where the business is going.  what is the niche in your marketplace that's begging to be filled?  Who needs you the most and how can you meet their needs in ways that others can't or won't?  When you can identify a target market and customize your offerings to serve them, then you have a viable niche market business - and a lot of it.

I've spent the last five days clearing a virus off of my personal computer and off of all of my websites. 

I Got A Virus - Did You?
I can't prove how it got there, but my best guess is that it came in through a WordPress plugin and then migrated to my entire site.  If this is the case, then if you have a WordPress install on your site, you too could be infected and not even know it!

Not All Anti-Virus Software Is Created Equal
It seems that not every anti-virus program catches this.  I run a program called Avast (available at Avast.com - free 60 day trial) and it seems to be one of the few programs that catches this virus.  I've had many people tell me that they couldn't see the virus on their screen and yet it clearly showed on mine and when I looked at the web pages it was clearly there. 

Check Your Blog if You Use WordPress
You should check out your website too.  If you have been infected, then look up the virus by name in Google and there are instructions on how to remove it from your files. 

Cleaning Your System
If you got the virus on your computer and not just your server, then try Malware Antivirus - it rocks for cleaning out stuff that shouldn't be there.  It too is free for the basic version.

Backing Up
There has never been a time when I've been more grateful for my backups.  I know that if I need to wipe my system clean and start over again, all of my information will still be there. Just waiting to be reinstalled.  When was the last time you backed up YOUR computer? 

Backing Up Your Blog
Did you know that there is also a backup system for your blog database?  You can use a plugin called WP_Backup and it will backup your blog database on a regular basis, so you never need to worry about losing all of your blog articles!

Preparation is Key
The fact is that there are just some things that happen.  They suck and they are no fun, but if you're prepared with a backup and with good tools, they don't have to be catastrophic.  Make your preparations today - just in case.

Happy New Year!

This year, I thought I'd start it off right by addressing what I think is one of the most rampant problems in our world today: the lack of good boundaries and the need to hold one's personal power.

There are many aspects to this particular issue, but I believe the one that is top of mind shortly after the holidays would be the one of reciprocal relationships.  This means that you have to get out of a relationship what you put into it.  Now for different relationships, this works out in different ways.  And what you get out of something may be very different than what you put into it, but the energy exchanged must be equal or else there is a problem.

Parent-Child Relationship
Being that the holidays have just passed, I'm betting this one is top-of-mind for most of us.  As children, we have no choice but to rely on our parents for food, clothing, shelter, and comfort.  The only thing we have to offer in return is our love and adoration which is clearly enough for most parents. 

When we become teenagers, we break away from this relationship in order to establish a sense of self, our relationships with our parents become challenging and we need to pull away in order to establish a new balance as two adults in a parent/child relationship. 

Then, when our parents have aged sufficiently, we get to the place where we need to shift that relationship again so that the child takes on more of a caretaker/parental role to the parent.  This is shift can be even more challenging than the adolescent one since most adolescents are happy to be becoming adults, but most parents are not happy to be becoming more like children again.  So their upset over not being able to care for themselves adds to the stress of the shift. 

And all of this is in families with no internal dysfunction.  If you add to this any neuroses, illnesses, codependent or controlling behaviors and/or addictions, now you've got a whole other ball of wax.  You could end up with a child who was expected to care for their needy, dependent parent their entire lives who refuses to move into the parental role later in life because they feel that they've done their time.  Or, worse, a child who is done caring for their parent, but can't say "no" who goes and damages themselves or their parent in their frustration.  Parents who control their children with the threat of being cut out of the will are another type of dysfunction.  All kinds of unpredictable things happen when relationships are out of balance.

Friendship
Another relationship that needs to stay in balance is a friendship. 

Exampes of non-functioning friendships are:

• One person is always there for the other and the other is never (or rarely) there for them.  
• One roommate or business partner is constantly not keeping up their financial end of the bargain, leaving it to the other to clean up the mess.
  
• One person tries to control or bully the other.
• In a group, one person will get everyone on their side against another - often.
• One person comes to the other's house (or borrows their car or some other possession) and trashes it and doesn't help to clean up or pay to repair/replace it.
• One person treats the other without respect.

We make excuses saying "oh, they were just upset or they're under a lot of pressure, but the fact is, no matter what is going on, these things should not acceptable.  If you accept them, then you become a doormat and you invite others to step on you as well. 

How we allow ourselves to be treated is how we teach others to treat us in the future.

Business Clients
One of the hardest issues to get through people's minds is the issue of how much crap you should take from a client before you set them loose.  As entrepreneurs, we want to do business!  We often need the money. 

So when do you say "no" to a client who is disrespectful or abusive?
The Answer:  As early as possible in the relationship. 

Client #1 - The Entitled Investor
I can think of two clients in my real estate career that I had to take to task or cut loose.  The first was a referral who was coming up from over an hour away to purchase investment property.  He wanted to see a series of 8 multi-family houses over the course of a single afternoon.  This meant contacting over two dozen tenants to work out the showings and getting the agents on board since most were accompanied showings.  His first appointment was at noon.  At 11:30am when he hadn't shown up, I called him to ask where he was and let him know we were going to be late.  He told me he hadn't left yet, but would get on the road immediately.  I was taken aback, but I recovered.  I called the agents for the first three houses and apologized for wasting their time and cancelled.  Then I waited.  At half an hour before the next appointment, 15 minutes after he should have arrived had he left when he said he would, I cancelled the entire afternoon's appointments.  He showed up half an hour later (a total of 2:15 late).  I greeted him at the door and told him to go home.  He was livid.  I explained that I was a professional as were the other agents in the industry and we had better things to do than let him waste our time.  He had damaged my reputation that day.  Only in telling the other agents that I had fired him as a client did I regain their trust that when I made an appointment, I would keep it.  Then I had to call the guy who referred him to me and explain what I had done and apologize to him for any damage it might have done to his relationship with the guy.  (Quite frankly, if he hadn't been a referral, I would have fired him on the phone when he said he hadn't left yet.  But I was trying to be nice to reflect well on my friend.)

Client #2 - The Drama King
The second client was a little more complicated.  He pushed and pushed and pushed me, going after my commission, getting angry about things I had prepared him for.  I finally snapped one day when he told me that even though he had an accepted offer on the table and three agents who said the house was worth $2,000 less than he was getting for it, he was going to take his house off the market and put it back on for $20,000 more.  I told him that he could certainly do that, but that he would have to do it with another agent.  I yelled at him.  I asked him when I had lied to him.  He was taken aback.  He agreed that everything that had happened was exactly as I said it would.  He agreed that I got him the price he said he'd be thrilled with in the timeframe he asked for.  He agreed that I had bent over backwards to make him happy.  In short, he fell into line and never gave me another moment's trouble the minute I asserted my own personal power and stopped being a doormat.  I had a LOT of money riding on that deal since I had also brought the buyers to the table and I knew that losing this deal also meant losing the buyers since they had seen their second-choice house with another agent.  That's why I put up with it for so long.  If I had put my foot down earlier, I could have saved myself the $800 I had kicked in for the roof I told him he would have to replace when we listed the house.

Saying "NO!"
In short - the sooner you put your foot down, the faster you are done with the issue.  Whether it's getting rid of a problem client or getting one to toe the line and stop being unreasonable.  You have to set your boundaries.  You have to respect yourself enough to say "no" when things are not going in a way that is conducive to your mental, emotional or fiscal well-being.  You can't worry about the repercussions so much that you fail to take action.  Sure, I had to apologize to my friend who referred the investor.  Sure, I could have lost the deal with the Drama King, but I had already been losing sleep and self-respect and those are harder to replace than cash.  You have to be the person responsible for taking care of yourself - it is your responsibility.  And the respect with which you treat yourself is the respect you will receive from others.  Consider this the next time you want to cave to make it easier.  It's never easy to stand up for yourself, but it's always worthwhile.

May your firelight burn bright
And your holidays be sweet.
May your soul be well fed
And your romance have heat.

May your coffers be filled
And your burdens be few.
May happiness arrive
With morning's first dew.

May sleep come with ease
And last all night long.
May health rule your world
With laughter and song.

This and much more
Do I wish for you
And may it continue
The whole next year too.

-Kelle Sparta

My friend, Lisa Campion, recently wrote a blog post (which you should TOTALLY READ AND SHARE WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW) about recovering her Christmas spirit in challenging financial times that got me to thinking.

There was a time back when I worked at RE/MAX Realty Group in Gales Ferry, CT when the office would adopt a family from the local battered women's shelter.  Each agent would pick a family member and get the items that they requested.  These ranged from clothes for the kids to something as simple as a bottle of Oil of Olay for the mom.  And it made me remember that there are people out there right now for whom Christmas isn't about finding the right gift or dreading/looking forward to seeing family for the holidays.  For some, it's about scraping enough money together to put food on the table once a day (twice is too much to hope for) and keep the heat on just warm enough to not freeze the pipes.  For me, who is sitting in a toasty warm house looking out at a bunch of snow right now, the thought of not being able to turn up the thermostat is really sad. 

And so I wanted to offer you this thought for the day.  Before you go ou on that spending spree, consider having the conversation with your kids that Lisa had with hers.  Consider offering up some of your abundance from the year with those who didn't have such an abundant year.  Consider doing something as simple as making a big meal and bringing some of it out to serve the homeless on the street who have no place to cook and no table to eat at. 

It is when we visit with those in very different circumstances than ours that we get the perspective we need to really appreciate the holiday season.

And, if you are feeling for Lisa and her family and you enjoy such things, I can tell you that Lisa is an amazing psychic.  She's well worth your time.

It's Up Now - I Promise!
I got a slow start this morning and missed getting the sale prices up on the web page by the 9am timeframe I had promised in my One-Day Sale post.  They are up now and will be until 9:20am (ET) tomorrow morning (since I was late, they can stay up the extra time in the morning too). 

Hope everyone else is having a faster start to their day than I am.  (Where's my coffee?....)

Have you heard about BlitzTime?

If you haven't, then you're missing out on some fantastic networking.  Blitztime is a networking platform designed to bring people together on the phone for targeted conversations.  Here's how it works:

Sign Up For Free Trial
You'll get your first two events for free, so that's plenty of time to get the hang of things. 

Set-up
You sign up and fill out your profile (you will definitely want to fill out a profile because the other callers see it when they are on the phone with you). In it, you should include anything that would be a good thing to talk to people about. 

Register for an Event
Once you're all set up, it's time to register for an event.  Don't wait to do this because you'll forget you signed up and it will roll off your consciousness and you'll miss out on a great opportunity. In fact, while you're there, sign up for two events.  It doesn't matter which two, just pick something.  These first two events are about getting the hang of it.

Put Your Events in Your Calendar
Treat this like an appointment like anything else.  Once you sign up, it's not optional - you go.  You can't make new contacts if you don't attend. 

Pick Who You Want To Talk To
This is an important piece that a lot of people miss.  There are going to be people on the call you don't want to talk to.  (I'm thinking of the people trying to sell you Acai juice and whatnot here.)  There will also be people in a position to be good referral sources for you (financial planners, insurance agents, attorneys, CPAs), you will want to preferentially talk to them.  If you go into the back end of your system into the event that you're attending, you can mark people as "Prefer to Speak" to this person or "Don't Connect Me With" that person or "No Preference" which is the default if you do nothing.  The system will do its best to connect you with the right people in the time allotted.

Sign into the Call
Then you have to actually attend.  I know, this seems obvious, but you'd be surprised how often it happens, people sign up and then don't go.  Look at it this way - you could cold call some prospects, or you can get online and talk to people who want to talk to you.  Got it?  Good!

Here's the Best Part!
When you get on the call, the system will hook you up with the people you've requested who didn't say that they don't want to talk to you.  Then, you get 5-8 minutes (depending on how the person hosting the call set it up) to network with that person.  There is a timer in the corner of the screen that counts down letting you know how much time you have left.  Talk about being efficient!  No more getting stuck in long unproductive conversations!  You get to the heart of the matter quickly because there isn't time for anything else!

In Your Pajamas - No Parking Costs - No Weather Issues
OK - so I lied - THIS is actually the best part.  You're talking to people in real time about actual business and you're doing it from the comfort of your own home (or office).  You could be in jeans, or your underwear or, yes, your pajamas.  You didn't have to get in your car, drive into the city, find and pay for parking, pay $40 for the event, and hope that you meet someone useful.  You know who's going to be there before you go.  You don't have to get dressed up - you don't even have to get dressed!  And the cost, even if you subscribe, is lower than the average networking event for a SINGLE event and that's not even counting gas and parking. What could be better?

Getting Business
I talk to people on the system all the time who get TONS of business from it (and, yes, I've gotten some great connections as well).  So it works.  And you can make it work for you too - but only if you show up.  And, yes, you might even run into me in one of your events.  Who knows?  It could happen.

Try it - it's free for the first couple of events.  There's no risk except in your time and that's true for any event. 

If your New Year's Resolution is to do more prospecting,
then this is a great way to get started!

www.BlitzWithMe.com

Have you desperately wanted our products but felt that you couldn't quite afford them?  Well, then listen up!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

Thursday I'm having a ONE-DAY SALE!

Our most popular products will be on sale for $50 of the regular price.

Procedure Manual for Agents

With more than 150 pages of procedures, forms, sample letters, and more, this procedure manual is for experienced real estate agents who want to take their business to the next level by working smarter, not harder. It contains best practices for every aspect of your business - from the first meeting to the after-sale follow up. In just two minutes, you can start implementing the tools it took Kelle two years to perfect. (Note: this program was updated in October 2009 - you won't find anything newer on the market!)

Regular Price:  $209
Sale Price:  $159

First Time Home Buyer Seminar

Prospect to many buyers all at once and build a pipeline of business at the same time. This seminar makes you the expert in the eyes of first time buyers and the detailed instructions, pre-written postcards, ads, and press release make it a snap to put together and run your own seminar in no time flat! (Note: this program was updated in October 2009 - you won't find anything newer on the market!)

Regular Price:  $209
Sale Price:  $159

Home Seller Seminar

Get the jump on next year's listings with this Home Seller's Seminar Kit. Everything you need to run a successful seminar with hardly any effort on your part! Complete PowerPoint presentation, press release, sample ads, marketing materials and more! (Note: this program was updated in October 2009 - you won't find anything newer on the market!)

Regular Price:  $209
Sale Price:  $159

Want to be reminded about the sale?  Post a comment here or follow the comments.  I'll send out a reminder to everyone by updating this post!