Posts Tagged ‘realtors’

Cool Apps: Share My Map!

By John Thompson | June 25th, 2010 0 Comments

In real estate, the most important three words are LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! This is true for your clients and where they find their homes and it’s true in the way that you do your business — how many times have you heard the word “hyperlocal” in the past couple of years?

In the realm of social/mobile media, location is the name of the game, as well. FourSquare. GoWalla. Yelp! Google Latitude … each of these applications is taking advantage of the hottest trend on the social media block.

Well, now there’s a new player, and this one could have some pretty nifty uses for REALTORS, not to mention lots of other folks.

People, I invite you to Share My Map.

ShareMyMap is a social network paired with a geo-location service. It allows you to create communities based on whatever geographic information is of interest to you. Do you want to make a map of the best restaurants in San Diego? Places where you’ve been on your World Cup trip to South Africa? Or even new home communities in your local market area? See where I’m going with this?

You can make a map of anything you like. Be as broad in scope or pinpointed as you want.

More than just that, though, the service is interactive, so members who are looking for the information you’ve posted can rate or review places they’ve been, and add other feedback, as well.

Whatever sort of local expertise you’d like to promote, you can enhance with an interactive map on ShareMyMap. If you use your creative noodle just a little bit, you’ll see that there are some strong possibilities here.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to seek out the best running trails in my town. What will you look for?

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Have You Landed On An iPad?

By John Thompson | May 14th, 2010 3 Comments

Love it or hate it, the iPad, Apple’s latest shiny technogadget, has taken the world not just by storm, but by virtual F5 tornado.

For most of the folks snatching them off shelves like they were loaves of bread in Russia, circa-1980, they’re just awesome, hyper-beautiful, super-slick … toys. But for REALTORS? The iPad holds a wealth of creative new ideas and opportunities to provide new services for customers and clients.

For starters, the iPad’s display is absolutely gorgeous. Really. It’s second-to-none. Imagine taking your clients on showing appointments and presenting them with splashy, hi-res, full-color photos on it. If you’re out and about and they suddenly decide that there are other properties they’d like to see, you can show them right on the iPad. No more carting around that heavy, cumbersome laptop. With it, you’ve also got a terrific way to take notes as you go with them from house-to-house, or with which to give a listing presentation the likes of which they’ve never seen.

And it’s a pretty cool tool outside of client interaction, too!

Some of the great tools that are available to enhance your business are:

  1. Evernote. We’ve talked about this fantastic app before, but the version that’s available for the iPad is fantastic. The app itself is free, and basic memberships to Evernote are free, with upgrade options that, at their most expensive, are a minimal $45 annually.
  2. iWork. Apple’s answer to MSOffice, iWork is a suite of tools — Pages, Keynote, and Numbers — that is incredibly easy, incredibly intuitive. Pages (iWork’s word processor) is a breeze to use, and the iPad version is really slick. Keynote simply blows PowerPoint out of the water in terms of the quality of presentation it produces. Numbers, which is similar to Excel, doesn’t have quite the juice as its Microsoft counterpart, but it’s still off to a pretty good start.
  3. Things. Hands-down, this is the best organizational software out there. It’s a little pricey in terms of apps (most people are still used to paying $1 for things from the AppStore) at $19.99, but it’s worth every penny. If you’re a Mac user, this is a must-have.

There are tons of new apps being added each and every day, so be sure to check back for your favorites.

The iPad isn’t for everyone, but for us? For REALTORS? The iPad’s going to provide a very happy landing.

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Thursday Thoughts: Want to lead? Be prepared to take the bad with the good

By Gino Blefari | May 6th, 2010 0 Comments

That sounds obvious, doesn’t it? And, theoretically, it is. But in the real world of real estate management things don’t always work out that way.

Have you ever worked for a manger that couldn’t make a decision? Or, when presented with a failure, sought to deflect responsibility?

There is nothing more unsettling to agents and employees than being under the command of a manager who shows a lack of commitment in his or her responsibility as a leader. Someone who wants the perks of leadership without the challenges.

These failed leaders don’t understand that it is better to make a bad decision than no decision; more admirable to accept responsibility than to avoid it.

In accepting responsibility for the Bay of Pigs fiasco – a military disaster of massive proportions – President Kennedy said, “Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan.”

It’s true. But leaders accept the good with the bad.

Bob Moles has always said, “Show me a great leader and I will show you a successful office.” Realtors will choose to follow only those managers who demonstrate a desire to lead.

Such leaders may be as different from one another as agents are different from one another. They will not have every human virtue, nor will they possess a flawless character.

But they will be distinguished by their good judgment, sincerity, compassion, authority and courage. They have a human quality, a strong commitment to their cause – and to those they serve.

In the next issue of Thursday Thoughts on Leadership, we will examine the question: “How do you know if you Possess Sufficient Desire to be a Leader?”

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Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,      Categories: Thursday's Thoughts On Leadership, leaders