Real Estate and the Race to Succeed

October 13, 2008
Volume 3 Issue #2

In the last month, a couple of things happened to us only for the Second time. We didn’t send out our monthly newsletter and we both ran in the annual Beaver Island 5-K race. On reflecting back on why we didn’t send out the newsletter, it may have been that the energy we usually put into the newsletter was spent on the gravel roads of our island.

What did we get out of our experience, or more importantly, what can we share about our experience? First, the bad news -- Sarah, my current wife of 29 years, business partner and our graphic arts department, is no longer the fastest woman on Beaver Island. This year there were 4 more entrants in her age range and she finished 3rd out of 5. Still a pretty good accomplishment, especially since she is near the high end of her range, but there was just something fun about saying she was the fastest woman on the island.

I also finished 3rd, same as 2 years ago and no one has ever accused me of being fast moving as a runner, in fact I’m more like a “slogger” (slow jogger). Enough about us… what does this sad tale of athletic feats have to do with real estate?

What we figured out was that to get the same results or even close, we had to work much harder than 2 years ago. Things just did not come quite as easily. Sounds like the current real estate climate. We didn’t really do everything we could to get the results we wanted.

Last race, we both had the latest and greatest shoes. This race, we ran in good shoes but they were probably a little too old and outdated. This (upon reflection and trying to get a subtle reference to our business), reminded me of how many agents deal with technology. With better shoes or use of technology, results may be different.

One more thing we learned from our running in the Beaver Island Boodle was that we really enjoyed running in the race. We aren’t quitting. We are just going to stick with it and use every resource we can to do better. This is a choice that successful real estate agents have to make.

I almost forgot to mention not publishing last month’s newsletter. We are back on schedule but we lost some business because besides being (hopefully) educational and fun to read, it is our top method of prospecting. The message-- no matter what you are doing, don’t forget to prospect and consistency pays over the long run.

That’s all for now. We have to go out running. We never know what is down the road on Beautiful Beaver Island.

Monthly Tech Tip
Do you ever have a list, such as towns or names that you would like to put in alphabetical order? You can do it easily using Microsoft Word. This tip is for Word 2003 but should work in most versions. Here is how you do it—Make sure that the items you want to sort are on individual lines (the items can be multiple words) Select the whole list. On the Table menu, choose Sort. Click Options, then click Other, then press the spacebar and click OK. Choose Sort by Word 1 or Word 2 etc, then click OK.