Archive for January, 2010

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Cool Apps: Go “Real Time” With Collecta

By John Thompson | January 29th, 2010 1 Comment

Things happen fast these days. Real fast. Five minutes ago is old news.

That not always a good thing, but, alas, it’s reality.

The compression of our attention span and demand for the latest, greatest information has been driven in large part by our access to the Web – specifically, the real time Web.

Twitter is the most well known example of this phenomenon. But there are hundreds of applications that allow people to connect, share, create and distribute instantly.

Collecta, a search engine that captures the real time activity on the Web, allows you to see what’s going on right now in some place, about something, or about someone.

That’s pretty cool, right? But how’s that relevant to your real estate business?

Here’s how: earlier this week, Collecta made a free widget builder available (a widget is just a small piece of software you can quickly add to your Website or blog) that allows you to display real time web activity – Tweets, blog posts, news – about a certain place or about a certain topic, on your Website.

Think about this: consumers coming to your Website are usually looking for listings – but they are also looking to see what’s going on in the community surrounding those listings. Sure, neighborhood descriptions are good; video is great. But seeing what’s happening as it’s happening is super cool.

We have known for a long time that frequently updated information keeps Website visitors coming back. We also know that consumers will seek out any and all information they can on the Web before they ever call an agent. This new widget allows you to deliver updated content in a context you control easily.

Now that’s news!

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Tags: , , , , , , , ,      Categories: Intero Cool Apps

Thursday’s Thoughts on Leadership: Leaders Understand – Failure is a Part of Success

By Gino Blefari | January 29th, 2010 0 Comments

Most of us have heard the story of Thomas Edison failing his way to success in the invention of the light bulb.

He literally failed 10,000 times before getting it right.

If Edison had said, “I am a failure. My idea is bad, my work is misguided, my mission is lost,” the world would be a much darker place. Of course, what he did do was learn from the failures, made changes, and tried again.

Bingo.

Early in my real estate career I seriously was considering quitting the business. I struggled greatly for my first deal. Then out of the blue a friend called and said he wanted to move. I said to myself, “OK, I will get out of the real estate business after I close this one deal.” That deal led to another and another and pretty soon there was no looking back.

One year later I had closed 52 deals!

Here is what I have learned: when you have a setback – losing a big sale, being passed over for a career-making promotion, even getting fired – allow yourself a short time to grieve, then get right back up on your horse and plan your next move.

The great coach Bill Walsh, in his book “The Score Takes Care of Itself,” recounts how close he came to quitting in the second season as 49er head coach, hitting rock bottom after a crushing loss to the Miami Dolphins. He spent part of a transcontinental flight experiencing an emotional meltdown.

Sixteen months later, the San Francisco 49ers became world champions, defeating the Cincinnati Bengals 26-21 in Super Bowl XVI at the Silver Dome in Pontiac, Michigan.

A football dynasty was in the works. The 49ers won five Super Bowls over fourteen years.

Thomas Edison and Bill Walsh both understood that failure is an integral part of success. We would do well to follow their lead.

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Wednesday Wellness: Healthy Alternatives to Super Bowl Favorites

By Tammy Parkinson | January 27th, 2010 0 Comments

Do you find Super Bowl Sunday one of the most nutritionally challenging days of the year?!!

Would you love it if you could have chicken wings, pizza, fried mozzarella and ribs all day and still wake up a pound thinner?

Well, I can’t promise that, unless you are actually the running back for one of the Super Bowl teams, but here are some slight variations to those favorites!

1)      Buffalo Wings: *

Ingredients:
8 oz. raw boneless skinless lean chicken breast, cut into 10 nugget-shaped pieces
1/4 cup Fiber One bran cereal (original), ground to a breadcrumb-like consistency in a blender or food processor
1 oz. (about 14 crisps) Pringles Light Fat Free Potato Crisps, Barbecue (or another fat-free BBQ-flavored potato chip)
3 tbsp. Frank’s RedHot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce
dash onion powder
dash garlic powder
dash cayenne pepper
dash black pepper
dash salt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Crush potato crisps completely and, in a small dish, mix with cereal crumbs. Add a dash of each of the seasonings and mix well. Place chicken pieces in a separate dish, and cover and toss with Frank’s RedHot. Spray a baking pan with nonstick spray. Give each chicken piece a shake (so it’s not dripping with RedHot), and then coat it evenly with the crumb mixture. Lay the battered nuggets on the baking pan. Place in the oven, and bake for 10 minutes. Then flip the wings over, and return them to the oven for 10 more minutes, or until outsides are crispy and chicken is cooked throughout. MAKES 2 SERVINGS

Serving Size: 5 wings (half of recipe)
Calories: 175
Fat: 1.5g
Sodium: 1,153mg**
Carbs: 14g
Fiber: 4g
Sugars: <1g
Protein: 27g

2)      Pizza

Ingredients:
Whole wheat lavash bread
Low sodium tomato/ spaghetti sauce or low fat hummus
Chopped chicken breast (or similar low fat meat)
Grilled veggies (get these from most deli counters already roasted; whole foods has fabulous roasted veggies)
Shaved veggie cheese or low fat mozerella cheese

Directions:
On top of lavash bread, lightly spread tomato sauce OR hummus.  Top with shredded chicken, vegetables and cheese.  The more veggies the better.  Bake in the oven @ 350 for 10 min or until the bread is lightly crispy

3)      Ribs

Try “Gardenburger” riblets and save yourself half the calories!!

4)      Mozzarella cheese sticks *

Ingredients:
2 light mozzarella sticks (50-60 calories and 2.5g fat per stick)
1/4 cup Fiber One bran cereal (original)
2 tbsp. fat-free liquid egg substitute
salt, pepper & Italian seasonings; to taste
Optional: low-fat marinara sauce (for dipping)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a food processor or blender, grind Fiber One to a breadcrumb-like consistency. Place crumbs in a small plastic container with a lid. Season crumbs with as much salt, pepper and Italian seasonings as you like. Set aside. Cut cheese sticks in half, so that you have 4 sticks. Place sticks in a small bowl, and pour egg substitute over the top of the sticks. Swirl egg substitute around so that it thoroughly coats the sticks. One by one, transfer sticks to the container with the crumbs. Cover container, and give it a shake to coat the sticks in the crumbs. Carefully return sticks to the dish with the egg substitute, and coat them again. Next put sticks back in the crumbs container, cover, and shake once more to coat (try doing this two at a time the second time around). Place sticks on a baking dish sprayed lightly with nonstick spray. Spritz the tops of the sticks with a quick mist of the spray. Place dish in the oven, and bake for 10 minutes (or until the first sign of cheese oozing out). If desired, serve with warm marinara sauce. Best when eaten immediately, while cheese is hot and gooey!

Serving Size: 4 pieces
Calories: 155
Fat: 5.5g
Sodium: 500mg
Carbs: 13.5g
Fiber: 7g
Sugars: 0g
Protein: 19g

If making these are simply too much, go for jumbo shrimp with cocktail sauce!  That’s always a high protein low calorie snack goodie nearly everyone loves!

Have fun!

*Compliments of Hungry Girl

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Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,      Categories: Wellness by Tammy Parkinson

Monday Mojo: Masterminding Your Way to Success

By Tom Tognoli | January 25th, 2010 0 Comments

This week, I’m pleased to bring to you some “guest MOJO”, from our very own J. Shoop.

Many of you know of J. Shoop as a top-producing loan officer with LoanSource/Intero Mortgage, but you may not know that he is also a Certified LifeSuccess Consultant, licensed to teach the coaching material produced by Bob Proctor. (You may recall Bob Proctor from the highly-acclaimed movie, The Secret).

We welcome J’s insights for this week’s installment of Monday Morning MOJO!

Contributing writer – J.Shoop

Recently, I was having a conversation with one of Intero’s founders, Tom Tognoli, and we were discussing the benefits of participating in a Mastermind group. We agreed that many are missing out on the benefits of masterminding because they either lack a clear understanding of what a Mastermind group is, or they simply don’t know how to find one to join.

The common definition of masterminding is “The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony.”

But what does that really mean?

Super Bowl Sunday is coming soon. If you think about it, a football team is really a sort of Mastermind group. When all of a team’s knowledge and effort is combined in a spirit of harmony, working toward a definite purpose, their odds of winning increase significantly. A sense of magic or destiny is often created, and the team appears to be “in the zone”.

Contrast that approach with a less-successful team, say the Raiders (hey, I’m a fan so don’t hate on me!) – But let’s look at their results… For many years they have shown that having elite, talented individuals is not enough. They may all share the same goal (to win a Super bowl), but internally they suffer from their own self-created chaos.

When you are lacking in harmony, you won’t win, no matter how badly you may want to. Or if by chance you do win, the wins will be inconsistent and unsustainable.

So how can we apply this awareness in our lives and businesses?

The idea of masterminding is certainly not new, but it’s probably the most misunderstood and most under-utilized concept in business today. The primary benefit of participation is connecting with a select group of like-minded people interested in helping you succeed.

You’ve likely heard the expression before that “two heads are better than one”. This is because there is a unique energy created when two or more like-minded individuals are connected, and this synergy can be quite powerful.

Mastermind groups bring resources and connections into your world that you would have never had access to on your own. Additionally, you benefit from differing perspectives, input, and feedback, combined with accountability and inspiration, enabling you to maintain focus on the achievement of your goals.

In our lives careers, we are usually solely responsible for our results. Subsequently, we often feel that we need to do everything by ourselves. Yet intrinsically we know that no significant achievements are ever accomplished without the help of others.

And let’s face it. Business can be hard. We sometimes get so wrapped up in the details and the day-to-day “stuff” that we often miss opportunities for valuable feedback that could make an enormous positive impact in our lives and in our careers.

As a benefit to your subscription to Monday Morning Mojo, I’ve put together a Mastermind Coaching series that is available to you at NO CHARGE. (MOJO has picked up the tab.)

We’ll help you to focus on your goals while educating you on the information and principles contained in the book “You Were Born Rich” by Bob Proctor, and introduce you to other authors, lecturers, and speakers who’ve written about these subjects.

For more information on how you can participate in an upcoming Mastermind group:

Send an email today at jshoop@jshoop.com, with Mastermind Coaching in the subject line. We have several time slots available, and we’ll email you some dates for you to choose from. You can participate from anywhere, as we have both live and teleconferencing options available.

I’m looking forward to helping you to further develop your MOJO in 2010!

J. Shoop
www.coachshoop.com

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Intero Cool Apps: Are You Waving?

By John Thompson | January 22nd, 2010 0 Comments

For much of 2009, techno-geeks were all a-buzz with talk about Google WAVE, the search engine juggernaut’s collaborative tool that was supposed to shatter the Earth and change the way we all did everything.

And then … WAVE was released. Did you notice? Lots of people didn’t. The ones that did, met it with a collective, “Meh. That’s it?”

This sort of thing often happens when people set their expectations too high.

The thing about Google WAVE, though? It’s actually extremely cool. People have just been so busy dismissing it because time didn’t stand still upon its release that they failed to see that.

In many ways, it’s much like Twitter was when it was first introduced. Not many people “got” it. “Why on earth do I need people to tell me about how their cornflakes got soggy at breakfast?” people would ask. “I have real work to do,” they’d say. Now, Twitter is one of the most powerful business tools at our disposal and no longer being dismissed by anyone (well, not many, anyway). I believe that the same will hold true for Google WAVE.

So, how do I use it?

The answer is that there are lots of ways to use it. But here’s just a touch of what’s possible: Google WAVE is already being used by lots of small business groups because it has tremendous strength in combining platforms like email, document sharing, multimedia file-sharing, instant messaging, project wikis, video conferencing, and a host of others. It has the ability to eliminate all of the other disparate communications tools by combining them into one well-honed powerhouse.

For example, let’s say that you’re having a same-time, multi-location meeting between team members. Everyone invited to participate in the WAVE (the name for a particular project in the application) can contribute to the notes and see who is adding what — all in real time. At the end of the meeting, all of the notes are captured in a thread that can be viewed later on if someone wanted a recap, or if someone got invited to the WAVE late in the game. If there are team members who couldn’t participate because of differences in time zones (or other asynchronous difficulty), they can go into the WAVE, see all of the discussion, then add their own notes, as if they were present from the get-go. And anything that Google WAVE can’t do in its native state can likely be managed with any of the wide range of plug-ins that are available for it.

Right now, Google WAVE is only available by invitation. But before long, it’ll be available to everyone. It’s also important to remember that using WAVE to its potential will take time. It’ll take patience. But the power is there. Oh, yes. It’s there.

As for its ability to change the world? It hasn’t yet. But I’m betting that it will.

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Thursday Thoughts on Leadership: Recognition helps lead the way.

By Gino Blefari | January 21st, 2010 0 Comments

In previous weeks, we have discussed how effective leaders can guide their organizations to success. A key leadership trait is the ability to inspire followership. The most effective leaders cannot simply create a shared vision and direction for the organization, leaders must develop a relationship with the people they inspire to follow them and then guide them. Following an effective leader, people accomplish and achieve more than they may ever have dreamed possible. One of the tools that the most effective leaders can employ to inspire people to follow them is recognition.

Like any trailblazer, a leader must leave tangible markers to ensure that those who follow are headed down the right path. Recognizing and publicly rewarding the most successful members of an organization accomplishes this. This can take many forms, from simple “thank yous”, and small prizes or certificates of accomplishments to monthly or yearly awards. A good leader never forgets to make other people feel important and appreciated. In order to accomplish this, the leader excels at creating opportunities to provide rewards, recognition and thanks to all members of the organization.

As Jim Kouzes and Barry Pozner write in their book, “The Leadership Challenge”, “Leaders are constantly on the lookout for ways to spread the psychological benefits of making people feel like winners, because winners contribute in important ways to the success of their projects. Leaders often serve as a mirror for the team. They reflect back to others what a job well done looks like, make certain that members of the team know that they have done well, and ensure that others in the organization are aware of the group’s effort and contributions”.

I first learned how powerful this was when I served as a Manager at Contempo Realty where our Chairman, Bob Moles, served as President and CEO. I can still recall that every time we gathered to recognize and reward the achievements of our top agents, Bob took the time to publicly acknowledge his managers, including me. Despite my own drive to be the best I could be, that type of recognition inspired me to go above and beyond my own expectations.

A study of the winningest high school and college athletic coaches reveals that they pay great attention to providing real-time feedback on their players’ performance and will, as appropriate, recognize and reward outstanding contributions.

But what of those that do not achieve that success. The answer is simple, don’t reward them. You cannot minimize the achievements of the superstars by recognizing those that just do enough to get by. To do so undermines the leader’s credibility and that of the role of recognition for outstanding achievement in your organization.

Besides the many other things that we do here at Intero to recognize achievement, we send an email out every week titled “Intero’s Top Weekly.” It lists the top producers in our organization for a given week. In an organization as large as Intero, it serves to publicly acknowledge and thank those individuals who have done the most to push forward the goals and the success of the organization. I often find that the individuals who make it on those lists are not typically the kind who would boast or trumpet their own successes, but private rewards do little to set an example.

Each week, at the bottom of each email, I include the phrase, “Grow for it! This is in recognition of everyone else who has contributed to the success of the organization and a reminder that we can all strive to achieve the status of top producer.

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Wednesday Wellness: All or Nothing…

By Tammy Parkinson | January 20th, 2010 0 Comments

Have you ever felt like if you can’t do it right…then why do it at all?  Usually when we get stuck in this mindset, we tend to do nothing.

Earlier last week in the middle of the night, I got up and stubbed my toe.  I know many of you can relate to this!  It is purple, blue and red now.  In fact, I am pretty certain I broke it!  I never knew how important one’s pinkie toe is!!

Very regularly I take a Monday night heated vinyassa class…which I love.  Tonight, I waffled on whether or not to go.  Mostly I knew balancing on my left foot might be a bit embarrassing and I would struggle in most of my poses…at least to an onlooker who would be watching me.  I almost bailed.

Instead of deciding if I wanted to GO, I realized what I didn’t want…and that was to go home without trying.  I simply didn’t want to miss yoga!  I realized I could go, and leave early, or I could go and do my own poses, or I could go and just laugh at myself as I fumbled.

So, I went, realizing I don’t have to do it “right”…I just had to do it!

When we decide to try something, it rarely needs to be “all or nothing”!  Usually there’s a middle ground that can get us closer to what we want, or maybe more appropriate further away from what we don’t want!

Consider this when you are struggling with a decision.  If you can’t determine exactly what you want, maybe focus on what you don’t want and find a half way point to get away from it!  That half way point might be your step closer to a healthier body, happier spirit and clearer mind set or maybe just a nicer evening!

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Monday Mojo: Burning the Boats

By Tom Tognoli | January 18th, 2010 0 Comments

As we start the 3rd week of the New Year, now is when it really starts to get hard to keep up with those resolutions. When I went to the gym over the weekend, I was shocked by the number of cars in the parking lot. I’m not sure why, I shouldn’t have been, it was the same thing last year. There must have been 10 times the number of people there compared to last month. Over the last two weeks gyms all around the world have been flooded with millions of additional people. The unfortunate thing is, it’s the same millions of people who were in the gym the first week of January last year….and the year before that…and the year before that…and the year before that…and by February 1st it will be back to the old regulars.

So, why can’t we keep it up?

Whether it is going to the gym, spending more time with our kids and/or spouse, eating healthier, whatever it is – what can we do to keep those resolutions and make them changes for a lifetime, not just a week or a month? The answer is good old discipline and accountability. If we are truly committed to having a better life, we need to tell everyone we know about our resolutions and ask them to help hold us accountable. We have to burn the boats, so to speak, and not give ourselves a way back to the old us – the one who hits the snooze bar. Because if we don’t burn the boats, so there is no going back when the going gets tough, we are simply going to revert back to all our old bad habits.

Now, when you are too tired to keep your commitments, too tired to keep inspired, too tired to keep being disciplined and accountable, play this video and ask yourself, what would Lance say to you?

Lance Armstrong

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Thursday’s Thoughts on Leadership: What makes a person an effective leader?

By Gino Blefari | January 15th, 2010 0 Comments

In today’s world companies come and go every single day. This is caused by any number of reasons, but often you find that the ultimate demise starts with flawed leadership. It takes good strong leadership and management to guide an organization to success. While many people consider management and leadership to be synonymous, they are in reality two different concepts. A person can be a good leader, but if he does not know how to manage a company, that company will be destined to fail. Also, if a person has great management skills but lacks in leadership, no matter how good he is, if he cannot lead his employees towards the goal, then it is a failed attempt at success. Management is considered a job description whereas leadership is considered a trait.

So what makes a person a great leader? For one example, we can turn to the story of one of the most admired and respected leaders in American history, John D. Rockefeller. Among his many accomplishments, Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy.

In his decades of business, one of the key characteristics that propelled Rockefeller to success was his strong leadership abilities. It wasn’t his status, nor his age that made Rockefeller a great leader. Instead, it was his influence. People around him wanted to follow him; they were inspired by him to do more than they ever thought they were capable of. It was his ability to create a strong sense of teamwork and his own energy and passion that drove his workers and thus his company.

He was a real professional who possessed good character and above all a good sense of business. He knew his job and he understood human nature and the importance of caring for his workers. He possessed the ability to motivate his employees by setting the example and by being a good role model for the workers.

He was a great example of the fact that leadership is not a one way relationship. Because of his leadership, the people he worked with were inspired to achieve greatness too. Even his competitors joined him and achieved greater success following Rockefeller rather than competing with him! A successful New York refiner in his own right, Henry Rodgers, joined Standard Oil and became one of Rockefeller’s key men in the formation of the Standard Oil Trust.

By the time Standard Oil Trust was ordered to break up, it owned a 70% market share of the refined oil market in the U.S. It was broken up into 34 new companies. These included, among many others, Continental Oil, which became Conoco, now part of ConocoPhillips; Standard of Indiana, which became Amoco, now part of BP; Standard of California, which became Chevron; Standard of New Jersey, which became Esso (and later, Exxon), now part of ExxonMobil; Standard of New York, which became Mobil, now part of ExxonMobil; and Standard of Ohio, which became Sohio now part of BP. Pennzoil and Chevron have remained independent.

Quite the family tree and it all started with one effective leader.

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Cool Apps: AARDVARK

By John Thompson | January 15th, 2010 0 Comments

There are times when, no matter how much we think we know, we’ve gotta have a question answered. We go online, we search. Google or Wikipedia or some other search engine might have a cavalcade of “answers”, but the odds of those answers being exactly what you were looking for…well, they often come close, but rarely do they hit it right on the head.

Sometimes, the answer we want is the sort that we’d get if we simply asked a friend. Someone who’d had actual experience with something. Well, now there’s a search engine for that.

Let’s take a look at Aardvark, or ‘Vark, as they like to be called.

Available on The Web or via its own iPhone application, Aardvark is a new kind of search engine. It lets you tap into the knowledge and experience of friends, or friends of friends. Using information from your social graph (the people you know), Aardvark searches contacts for people with related topics, people to whom you’re connected, people who’re in or near your location, or people who share your tastes. When you want someone who knows the answer — the answer YOU want — Aardvark will get it for you.

Now, let’s think about how this could apply to your business. There’s a great shift in our industry toward offering services on a hyperlocal level. If you’re a real estate professional in Awesometown, USA, you’re probably looking for as many ways as possible to set yourself as THE authority for information on your area. Aardvark works there. When people go to vark.com looking for information about Awesometown, you’ll be the one with the answers. People will say, “WOW! She (or he) really knows what she’s talking about!” and will, most likely, remember that you were helpful.

This opportunity has “WIN” written all over it.

As vark.com (Aardvark) was just launched in October, you could be among its early adopters and set yourself apart as one of its go-to contacts for your area. Just think of the possibilities.

Aardvark. It’s new. It’s cutting-edge. It’s cool. Check it out!

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