Anniversary Musings Or What I Learned Last Year

April 15 was a big day for me for a reason beyond filing my annual extension to postpone paying my income tax. It marked the one year anniversary of my business. So what does that have to do with you? Read on.

Like a lot of you, I am working for myself. I thought it would be… In reality, it has been far richer, far more challenging, and I guess far more rewarding than I anticipated.

My original thought: RE Coach. I started all primed and prepared to coach clients, but quickly had to change course to meet the far bigger demand of website design and redesign. Moral: Play to the demands of the public (sometimes the public will tell you where they need you)

My original thought: I will be a one man band. Kind of by chance, I realized if I teamed up with my wife, that the presentations went better, websites reflected two heads are better than one, and she had talents and skills that complemented mine. I always tell her that she gives me credibility! Moral: Form partnerships, which can take many forms….obviously there are successful RE teams (even wives and husbands!) but there can be partnerships with other Realtors in the form of networking or in-office groups to bounce off ideas, mentors/managers/clients/friends who look at your marketing materials and website and make suggestions, vendors whom you promote and in turn promote you…..

My original thought: I could work wherever. For the most part, this proved true. We can work away from the masses on beautiful Beaver Island (when we are not fogged in or there is snow on the satellite dish and everything stops working) but we do need to return to reality and make contact with potential clients in person in order to sustain our business. Moral: Make sure you remember to reach out to people in person

My original thought: I would like working in my pajamas. True. Moral: Call first before stopping by the world headquarters

My original thought: I would spend 80% of my day on work product and 20% on recruiting clients/administrivia. Wrong!!! Boy do you have to get out there and shake the … to get clients. Does this sound familiar? BUT, amazingly, my clients are now becoming a source for new clients Moral: Prospect and find new ways to prospect

My original thought: I know who my customers will be. Well, I’ll be darn…the most unexpected people have signed on with me. We’ve even branched beyond RE to do some small business sites including a "starving artist" (dodybedfordartist.com if you want to consider putting a steak on her table! And get a great Beaver Island painting) Moral: Keep an eye out for new sources of business not always in traditional places

My original thought: I would always follow my motto, "it’s not about me, it’s about you." To the point of my wife mocking me, I have said countless times this year that your websites need to be about listings first as that is what clients want. Once they begin to get the info they want (listings), they can learn to really like "Me". This translates into making the search MLS button a lot more prominent and reducing your picture and trophies to a corner of the page. Really! Moral: Next month I promise to not mention Beaver Island and my wife…more than once…and to deal more directly with your needs.

My original thought: I know a lot about Real Estate and the Web and I am prepared to launch Next Level Solutions for RE. Except, I had to learn more. In fact, today I just learned how to make one more little tweak by changing the HTML code on "Mr Evanston’s" website as we continue with his Oprah style makeover" OK – maybe not something you want to learn but I was so pleased. Moral: Keep learning, by reading, attending seminars, surfing the web, talking to coworkers….even spouses!

My original thought: I will love this new adventure. TRUE but it does involve relearning old lessons, working hard (after seeing Pursuit of Happyness and realizing how hard the Will Smith character worked for success, I now sleep one hour less and even my wife, a sleep aficionado, causes me to spill some coffee when she gets up early excited to work on a new project), and being a Geek. Fortunately, I like this. Moral: Fit your work to your strengths and it will be easy to work.

My original thought: Our fourth bedroom, my office for years, is a great work space. I can see when the mailman comes, lay my papers out on the floor, and stay upstairs away from it all. NOW, my coworker, walks on the piles, complains about the heat that three computers are producing but does enjoy keeping track of all neighbors (the fighting divorcees was a highpoint yesterday). For now, she’s two feet away, knocking my computer table every time she swivels to use the third computer, and, for some reason, I am happy as a clam (or, this works for us).Moral: Go figure!

THANKS for reading my newsletters and, to some of you, for being my (or should I say OUR) clients. We are working on our imperfections and yours and enjoying the process. Our wish for your TAX DAY-to-TAX DAY year is that you keep learning, doing what you like to do, and can put up with the things that aren’t quite right for the sake of the big picture. Oh, and we actually now have a tax day type of client, a married couple, who have worked together as CPAs for over thirty years….we have learned to love April 15.

Monthly Tech Tip

How often have you found a web site or page and not been able to find it again? An easy way to make sure you can get back to a page is to create a shortcut to the site on your desk top. When you are on a page that you want to be able to find again, simply click on File on the top left of your screen, click Send on the list that drops down, click send Shortcut to Desktop. Whenever you need to go back to the site or page, just click on the shortcut on your desktop.