A Candid Conversation – What 2010 Success DNA Sounds Like and How To Avoid Face Plant Failure

Tim & Julie Harris Share A FREE Weekly Super Star Interview.

Tim and Julie have interviewed some heavy-weight top performers, industry icons, thought leaders and Icons.  I was flattered to be last week’s guest.

Click HERE To Listen To Our Conversational Interview.

I recommend playing it as background sound while you work on your computer.

Our conversation range all over the real estate map.  Some of what we talked about included:

Current Market Conditions and 2010 Break Out Preparation.

Embracing Social Media and Pumpkin Pie Deliveries.

Attractive Traits and Kiss of Death Pitfalls.

Facebook Ah-Ha’s, Twitter Ideas and Old School In-Person and On-Purpose Contact.

X Factors, Attractive Attitudes and Business Development DNA.

Top Of Mind Awareness, Permission Marketing, Relationship Building and Old Fashion Selling and Persuasion.

Blogging Shortcuts.

Last week I discovered SpeakWrite.com

I found out about this transcription service by reading this blog post.  I thought I’d give the service a whirl by having them transcribe  our interview.  The service was straightforward.  Sign-up, upload the MP3.  Wait about 5 hours while some hot fingered keyboard jockey banged it out…..and behold, the complete transcription arrived in my email box.

I thought I’d post the whole freaking thing here.  I don’t expect you’ll read it, it’s much easier to listen.  I’m curious to see how this L O N G copy will be indexed by Google.

I thought this would be a cool service to help we with some of my future blog posts.  Rather than sitting down and typing away, I could quickly and easily record my thoughts, upload for transcription, edit the transcription and post to my blog.  Should save time…and that’s a great thing.  We’ll see how it works.

Cheers.

Our Interview As Transcribed By SpeakWrite.com

Tim Harris:            Good morning, this is the Harris Real Estate University Super Star Interview.  Now, what is the Super Star Interview?  Simple, it’s our opportunity, all of us here at Harris Real Estate University, to give back to the real estate industry.  It’s our opportunity to share with you, the people that we feel are the true leaders in the real estate industry in this marketplace.  Now, oftentimes you’re gonna be meeting agents who are doing something exceptionally well.  It could be the number of sales.  It could be how they’re making their sales.  Really, the thrust of what we’re looking for when we select a super star is somebody who is really making a difference in the industry, somebody who is really putting it out there to help people.  Remember guys, this marketplace, this market, this time in our history, our industry right now, it’s about focusing on who you can help, who you can be of service and then, of course, getting the skills learning how to be of service and I think no one better exemplifies that than today’s super star, Mr. Ken Brand, from Texas.  Ken, welcome to the call.

Ken Brand: Thank you very much.  I’m very flattered to be here.  Thanks, good morning.

Tim Harris:            Well you shouldn’t be flattered Ken, you – I think you will find that you have and I’m sure all of our listeners will find that you have a ton to offer.  Now, let me – it’s kind of interesting how I know Ken, I think.  Ken and I are on a – I don’t know if you want to call it a radio show but we’ll call it a radio show called T Wire, This Week in Real Estate, and Ken and I, along with a guy named Brian Wilson from Woodlands, Texas and that’s where Ken is as well, are the three hosts and we talk about various topics and, you know, sometimes the conversations get a little combative and it’s, it’s always a lot of fun but one of the things I’ve learned from being on that show with Ken is that he tells it like it is, he, he shoots you right between the eyes, you know, being that he’s from Texas and all, and the other thing is he, he always has some – something helpful to pass along and I, and I have been actually trying to get him on the Super Star Interview for quite a while so I am please that I was able to grab you, Ken, so tell them who you are, your background in real estate, tell them what you do, all that good stuff.

Ken Brand: Okay, great.  Hey, good morning everybody.  My name is Ken Brand.  I’m a sales manager for Prudential Gary Green Realtors in The Woodlands, which is just outside of Houston.  It’s a suburb of Houston.  I’ve been in the business since 1978 so it’s about 30 years.  I think I’m always gonna say 30 years.  I’m not gonna go 31, 32, 33, just 30 years sounds good.  I began my real estate career in San Diego, which is where I grew up, and I’ve practiced there, in Austin, in Aspen and then I’ve been here in The Woodlands for about 20 years.  I’m – of those 30 years, I’d say maybe 10 years in sales and the other 20 in management and most of what I’m going to share is what I’ve learned myself but most of it is what I’ve gleamed from working with and watching and observing and studying, you know, the rocket ship top performer real estate agents, like you out in the field, and so that’s kind of what I’ll be sharing here now.  I have a blog, it’s BrandCandid.com.  I’ve had a blog for about four or five years.  I am a guest writer for Agent Genius.  I post on Mondays and I’m on Twitter at Ken Brand.  I’m on Facebook, at, at Facebook.com/KenBrand and I try to use my name for most of those log ins, same thing with You Tube and Vimeo or you know, .com/KenBrand, you can find me there as well.

Tim Harris:            So on Facebook or whatever it would just be Facebook.com/Ken Brand?

Ken Brand:            Correct.

Tim Harris: So you’re in The Woodlands, Texas, tell us a little bit about that market, give us an idea where it relate – where it is in Texas and what’s going on as a result of this real estate insurrection.

Ken Brand: Right.  Well, let’s see, Texas in general has been fortunate economically relative to all of the other states and I do want to just stop and say hey, if you’re listening in, right, and we’re here, you know, we’ve made it this far, congratulations.

Tim Harris:            That’s right.

Ken Brand: Things should be better for sure next year and so that’s kind of exciting.  Now, The Woodlands is a master planned community about 90,000 people just outside of Houston and the market here, in The Woodlands particularly, our average sales price here is about $320,000, which doesn’t sound real high relative to the nation,  but in Houston, it’s one of the higher sales prices and what we’ve seen in our market, even with all of the meltdown on Wall Street and all of the foreclosures and, and so on going across the country.  In our market here, prices – well, let me back up a little bit.  When things were, you know, screaming in other areas in terms of appreciation and sales, we were very depressed because we weren’t participating in that and we were watching it happening all around us, all around the country, but it never really happened here.  So what happened is when the meltdown occurred because our prices hasn’t – hadn’t really appreciated in a radical way, they haven’t fallen either, so our sales in terms of average sales price and what and home values hasn’t really changed.  It’s been very steady over the past 18 months, but what has changed is we’ve had fewer sales, probably about 20 percent, I would say, in terms of units and a lot that we are, we are kind of a – as a bedroom community.  There is a lot trans free corporation relocation going on so we have a lot of people – our rentals are up about 20 percent, maybe 25 percent in terms of units ‘cause we have people who live here that would buy and will buy, but they can’t sell their properties in other states, so we’ve been really blessed in that regard and I would say in our MLS right now, yesterday there was 799 listings available in The Woodlands in our market area, much supply of inventory about 5.6 months, 6 months is considered a balance by real estate economists, so we’re in a real, you know, healthy market relative to others and so we’re real fortunate but that’s kind of the market that we are working out of.

Tim Harris:            So you said something interesting at the top of the call and I’m sort of curious where you’re basing this on.  You said you think next year –

Ken Brand: Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:   – will be a better year.  I don’t know –

Ken Brand: Yes.

Tim Harris:   – I don’t know, you know, what better means but tell us what you think about that ‘cause again guys, remember Ken, his intro.  He has sold real estate in a bunch of different markets.  He has obviously sold in a bunch of different economies and now he is responsible for how many different agents as a –

Ken Brand: There are 82 Realtors Icons on our Woodlands Office Team.

Tim Harris: 82 agents, okay so I’m sure they’re all basically listening in on what you have to say, as well as agents across the country listening now on live and obviously in replay, so you mentioned you think then the market is getting better next year, why?

Ken Brand:       Yeah.  There is a couple of reasons for that, one – now, we’ll see if it actually happens and I think is barring any really big unforeseen event that we don’t know about but what’s being reported is that, you know, the economy is getting better.  I think the, the consumer confidence seems to be improving, which is gonna fast forward things.  Now, I’m not sure if they’re gonna get a handle on the jobs thing and that will start to go down or not and, and that will help things but basically, I think that the consumer confidence is getting better.  I think that rates, you know, the fed is saying that rates are gonna stay low for a while, probably at least for the next six months.  You also have people out there saying – this is on the news, like if you watch the financial news and all that – that rates are gonna go to 15, 18 percent and I think there will be – once it’s determined that rates will start to spike up a little bit that there will be people that will jump into the market and try to take advantage of lower rates.  If the economy does improve, I think that there is a lot of pent-up demand.  I think there are people out there who can buy and want to buy, right, they have a desire to buy whether they’re moving up or moving down but they’re just not doing it because they’re uncertain, so I think there’s some pent-up demand and I think as sales pick up and the inventory begins to shrink and, you know, and then, and then prices are, you know, aren’t bottoming, you know, they’re bottom then more people will, you know, will act.  So you know, I think that’s what’s going to happen or that’s what I hope will happen.  Now, you had sent me an article and we also here – there’s all these different, it seems to be currents out there about, you know, there’s a lot of inventory that the banks own they haven’t put on the market.  There is still a rise in, I guess, people behind in their payments and so on, so we’ll have to see how it all works out but I would say this, I am hoping for the best.  I am planning as if it’s not going to get better and then I’m running as fast as I can, all right.

Tim Harris:            Either way.

Ken Brand:            Right, so –

Tim Harris:            **** –

Ken Brand:            – I think that’s great, you know, in the African jungle, right, the, the antelope gets up every morning and the antelope knows he’s got to run for his life, all right, ‘cause the lion is gonna chase him and the lion wakes up every morning and says he has got to run for his life ‘cause he’s got to catch the antelope if he want’s eat, so –

Tim Harris:            Yeah.

Ken Brand:            – everybody is running for their life and that’s how I’m kind of looking at my business.

Tim Harris:            Well your – what you just said there is something, you know, it’s, it’s very  – simple, very clear and, and very, very true.  You hope for the best but you prepare for the worst.  You know, you –

Ken Brand:            Right.

Tim Harris:            – it’s the question that Julie and I posed in a big national blowout post that got a lot of comments with regards to, you know, if you knew for sure –

Ken Brand:            Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:            – if you knew for sure in the next say 6 months, next 180 days, that things were gonna get significantly worse, don’t hope for it, obviously.  You know, hope things get better but if you knew for sure, if somehow you had a time machine or somehow you had a premonition, it doesn’t really matter, but if you knew for sure things were gonna get 100 percent worse, higher unemployment, higher interest rates, more foreclosures, more just everything, what would you be doing differently now?  All right, and –

Ken Brand:            Right.

Tim Harris:            – and just maybe break it down to three times or five things that you would be doing differently now.  Actually, you know what Ken, I wasn’t gonna use this question.  I’ve got seven questions written down for you but I’m gonna use that one.

Ken Brand:            Okay.

Tim Harris:            Okay, so with you – okay, well ‘cause you –

Ken Brand:            Right.

Tim Harris:            – I can – I am 100 percent confident that I can throw out anything at you and you won’t shy away from any of these questions.

Ken Brand:            Right, I’ll just make it up –

Tim Harris:            So –

Ken Brand:            – if I don’t know it.

Tim Harris:            Well I know but you see the thing is you’re good at it.  You see, I’ve been doing that radio show with –

Ken Brand:            Yeah.

Tim Harris:            – you long enough to know that you can –

Ken Brand:            Right.

Tim Harris:            – adlib really good, so.

Ken Brand:            Oh, thanks.

Tim Harris:            So if you knew for sure that things were gonna get 100 percent worse, all right, higher unemployment and right now, it’s, you know, basically 9.8 percent, let’s not call it 10 percent, we forgot how to round now that we’re talking about unemployment, whatever.

Ken Brand:            Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:            If we knew the interest rates were gonna go up, just all the, you know, usual things that people fear.  It’s, it’s the 1970s just worse.  What would you be doing differently now, if you knew that, as an agent.  What should an agent be doing differently now?

Ken Brand:            Yeah, yep.  I think – okay, let’s talk – the first thing that pops into my mind is that I would be reevaluating all of my personal finances, all right, so that I have some staying power and that I’m not squandering my capital and my money and that would be a reevaluation of what I do personally but also, every penny that I’m spending in my business and what is the real return versus my perception of what I think it’s really doing.  So I would reevaluate that in terms of finances.  The next thing that I would do is I think that in a shrinking market like that, all right, I’m gonna do things to try to attract new clients but what I know and what I believe is that the majority of my business and this is proven through studies that our board has done and I was listening to one of your Super Star Interviews with –

Tim Harris:            Mm hmm.

Ken Brand:            – Russell Shaw and he said the same thing and I think this is what we see from our agents who we try to track where their business is coming from but the majority of their business comes from someone they know, a past customer or client, or a referral from a friend or someone they find out is gonna be moving, some – someone that they know.  So that being the case, I am going to do everything I can to make sure that I have top mind awareness in, in the – my, in my sphere, everybody that I know; in their sphere as a person that they might call if they have a real estate need or if someone asks them at work – hey, you know –

Tim Harris:            Mm hmm.

Ken Brand:            – we’re gonna have to sell our house, who do you know.  So I would be ramping up everything I can to make sure I am the first or second person they think of when someone says, you know, give me the name of a real estate agent.  I want to be that, be that person and then I think those would be the primary things that I would do.  And then another one would be attitude ‘cause I know what happens in a market that becomes difficult to deal in.  Some people want to throw a pity party or –

Tim Harris:            Mm hmm
Ken Brand:    – they want to talk about how difficult it is or, you know, you won’t believe or we’re barely getting by and, you know, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, all this stuff, and that is not attractive.  All right, you’re gonna repel business by – I’m not saying you need to be Polly Anna, all right, but you have to – people are looking for leaders and they’re looking for hope and someone who’s in charge and so you have to act like it, walk like it, market like it, talk like it and do all of those things so that there’s no doubt that you are the person for the job in a difficult market that’s what ****.

Tim Harris:    Well the thing, the other – the, so and if you look at the complete opposite, all right, like what are the positives.  What are – if you’re an agent out there right now and, and every time I have a conversation like this, either on the blog or with anybody else publicly, I always get criticized for it ‘cause there’s some many people that believe there’s only money to be made when the market is going in one direction, right?  They –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – only believe that okay, the market – the house has, houses have to appreciate, you know, it has to be a seller’s market and that’s the only way I’m gonna be able to make any money and the agents who think that and, and you know, I – honestly, I think it’s the majority of them, think that just because they don’t have the skills to make money when the market is going the other direction –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – but there are lots of agents who have become, I don’t know what label you want to use but essentially, very successful and oftentimes very wealthy over, you know, the past 30 years because of a market like this.  I mean so if, if things do get worse, okay and again, we’re not hoping for it but let’s be prepared for –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – it, understand that there’s gonna be lots of market share to be, to be had.  There’s gonna be lots of opportunity because of what Ken just said.  Ken just said a lot of the agents walk around, you know, and they kind of shake – wag their heads and they’re – they just have bad attitudes and they’re telling their sellers that, I mean Julie had a free coaching call and if you need a free coaching call just go to FreeCoachingCallforAgents.com, FreeCoachingCallsforAgents.com.  Julie had a free coaching call last week and she was telling me about a conversation she had with a new agent who had prospected Ken, expires for the first time, listed, sold, making money fast.  The reason was is because, you know, essentially this agent was just going in there and doing one price change and why did the last agent not do the price change?  Simply for the fact that they had bad attitudes and quote-unquote, was telling the sellers that nothing was selling.  So there’s lots of opportunity to made – to be made regardless of what direction the market is going.  You just have to take the responsibility and learn those skills.

Ken Brand:    Right, I means that’s –

Tim Harris:    It –

Ken Brand:    – so, I mean that’s so true because, you know, when, when, when things are good, all right –

Tim Harris:    Mm hmm.

Ken Brand:    – then they’re good for everybody, everybody is smiling and skipping and hugging each other and, you know, anybody can do it, everybody wants to take your money, you know, and you, you know, you’re making too much as a real estate agent and so on, but in tough times, you know, it’s easier if you decide to do it.  It’s easier to outwork and outshine and outhustle all of those people, right.  I mean that’s – ‘cause that’s just a –

Tim Harris:    Really.

Ken Brand:    – mind set, that’s just a mind set.  You know, that’s all, no big deal.

Tim Harris:    But, you know, that –

Ken Brand:    You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, just go do it.

Tim Harris:    – but that’s really the bottom line.  I mean there is – again, for all of the agents out there listening now and on replay, and there is typically thousands that will end up listening to these interviews, understand that truly this is a fantastic market to be an agent in because there’s so many other agents that are running for the, the, the doors and if they’re not running for the doors, they’re just – they’re hiding underneath their desks 1950s style waiting for the bomb to drop.  They are –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – absolutely paralyzed not doing anything just hoping and praying that the clouds clear and somehow it’s an easy seller’s market again and then –

Ken Brand:    Okay.

Tim Harris:    – there’s other agents and, and Ken, I kind of want to talk about the qualities of the top producers but –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.
Tim Harris:    – there’s other agents out there that are absolutely making a fortune and you know the interesting thing is and you can look at – go to your local board, all right, go to your MLS stats and check out the agents right now who become the top producers that are selling the 100, 200, 300 houses per year, their names, who they are, totally different than during the bubble market –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – because these agents and, and you know Ken, a lot of times these are agents that in, in and before when the market was, you know, hot and everything was selling itself, these were just mediocre agents but now, because of this market, because they were, you know, smart to take action and learning how to do short sales and REOs and, you know, how to get price changes and all of these other types of things that other agents won’t learn or can’t learn or don’t realize they can learn –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – you know, they’re cleaning up so what do –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – you see amongst the 70 agents you talk with but also the thousands of agents that you influence through your Agent Genius blog?

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.  I think – well I would say this to kind of tag onto our previous conversation is this is the time of year, if you’ve been in the business, where, you know, we’re in the holiday season so we know that seasonality is gonna slow things down because there are just fewer people that decide to move during the holidays and it’s when the average agent will stop to smell the pinecones, have some eggnog, I’m gonna really hit it in January, all right, and the time to begin you’re – begin really connecting with people is right now while everybody is kind of nodding off and, you know, and taking a nap over the holidays and then when January comes, I mean you’ll, you’ll run into some opportunity between now and the end of the year, you know, more than you would than if you were to just, you know, taking a nap but when January comes, you won’t be – have to crank it up, you know, after the New Year to get going, you’ll be running full speed and you’ll be able to take advantage of it.  Now, to answer your question, **** –

Tim Harris:    We call that realtor hibernate –

Ken Brand:    – **** feet –

Tim Harris:    – we call that –

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    – realtor hibernation, by the way.

Ken Brand:    Right, yeah, exactly.  You know and it’s a classic, right?  That’s what we would normally do in a –

Tim Harris:    Yeah.

Ken Brand:    – normal market but it was a good market.  Oh man, I worked really hard this summer, I’ll take some time off, you know.  Well –

Tim Harris:    Well Ken, look **** –

Ken Brand:    – **** worked really hard to **** –

Tim Harris:    – I’m gonna let – say what you’re about to say and I’m sorry for interrupting you.  You know me well enough to know that I **** –

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    – a lot.

Ken Brand:    – well yeah, I expect it.  I would think you disconnected if you don’t.

Tim Harris:    No, that’s right.  But the comment you made, man, it is so important and it’s so worth repeating and it’s so true.  I mean I, I instant messaged or emailed you asking you to do this recently and you sent me a comment back that Julie and I laughed at for like ten minutes that we should talk about on this call how to stay awake for the last quarter of the year.  You said something –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – like that.

Ken Brand:    Yeah, if there was –

Tim Harris:    And it’s so true.

Ken Brand:    – ever a time to be on, you know, a, asleep at the wheel, now is not it, you know.

Tim Harris:    Well it’s be, it’s –

Ken Brand:    Well then if –

Tim Harris:    – because top, top producers know this, you know this, that this is the time of year where you actually have to buckle down where you have to take listings.  Guys, you have to be the contrarian.  When all of the other agents are talking about there’s no buyers out there and how everyone is, you know, getting ready for the Halloween party and the Christmas party and the Thanksgiving party and how there is, you know, only 17 days left this year at work and all this other Mickey Mouse, you got to be thinking to yourself as a business owner, this is perfect, this –

Ken Brand:    Sweet.

Tim Harris:    – is my market.

Ken Brand:    Right, right –

Tim Harris:    Yeah, I mean –

Ken Brand:    – because they’re all sleeping, yeah.

Tim Harris:    – guys, this is the sweet spot in the market that the top producers know it comes one time a year, this last quarter of the year, and this is the absolute easiest time to double in listings, to take listing.  If you prospect, if you’re a **** and expired hunter, and we have lots of agents that are, you know darn well that your competition to set appointments has dropped off dramatically.  The other agents just have gone poof, so I mean Ken, that’s such an important point.  If this is – if that guys is all you take away from this interview that in the last quarter of the year is the best quarter of the year to be working.  If that’s all you take away, this has been a great use of your time so Ken, I apologize for interrupting but I’ll do it again.

Ken Brand:    Yeah, no problem.  That’s good, that’s good.  So, so your question was what are the, what are the traits or what was –

Tim Harris:    Qualities.

Ken Brand:    – it?  The qualities?

Tim Harris:    Yeah.

Ken Brand:    Okay, I’ll probably break it down in a couple of different ways.  What I see is that if you’re standing around, right, and now, I’ve been in the business, like I said, 30 years and I interview a lot of agents.  We bring them on, you know, to join our company and so I’ve had a change and our turnover rate with new people – it’s probably the same all over but, you know, it’s probably 60, 70 percent where they get in and then they end up getting out, you know, and why is that, which is kind of the question I ask, what do I see, why do I see that and it’s like if you stand around and you’re waiting for someone to tell you what to do, all right, to tell you what to do then you’re, you’re going to fail.  That doesn’t mean that you’re not gonna go seek it out, all right, and the people that succeed, the first they have is, you know, they have the ability to say I’m gonna, you know, if I don’t know what to do, I’m gonna find out what to do.  I’m gonna go get some coaching.  I’m gonna read up on this.  I’m going to practice.  I’m going to engage.  I’m going to do something, not – it’s kind of like in corporate America it’s the equal to well that’s not my job, all right.  In real estate, everything is your job and your raise is, is a, affected as soon as you are, so, you know, you got to get out there and either find out what you need to do or just engage.  All right, fail fast or succeed sooner.  You know, you know you’re gonna get teeth chipped.  You know, you’re gonna get a bloody elbow and dirty, you know, your knees are gonna get scuffed up.  You know, you just have to fail as quickestly as you, as quickly, as quickly as you can, you know, and get out there and I think that’s the No. 1 quality and it’s kind of like a mind set, all right.  So the mind set is, is kind of what should I do and why should I be doing it and those people that think that way are gonna generate some business.  Now, the problem is if you’re over weighted with mind set is that you will be – you might burn out or your business is gonna be kind of choppy because you don’t have any systems in place to handle everything that you’re doing, which is kind of the skill set, which is how do I do it and when do I do it, so if you’re someone who is heavy on mind set, you need to hire or stop yourself, pause and have the discipline to put some systems into place so you can replicate what you’re doing and save your time and energy and manager your clients so that you get repeat business and if you’re someone top heavy in skill set, and we see this a lot where the agents, all their contracts are skin tight, they like order, a, a lot of structure but they don’t have any business, then they either need to partner with somebody as a showing agent on a team or they might do a lot of relo business or they have to grown a mind set and begin to take actions that they need to take, but action orientation without being told or asked is, I think, what separates the, the winners from the medium and the, you know, and the bottom too.

Tim Harris:    Well that’s really the bottom line.  You know, basically, you can have all the skills in the world.  You can write the most beautiful precise, you know, intricate contract.  You can, you know, be the best technical realtor in the world but if you don’t actually know what actions to take and guess what guys, regardless of how analytical you are or how beautiful your contracts are or all these other types of things and I think I kind of know why Ken is touching on this, you got to learn how to sell and that’s something that’s interesting.  Ken, I see a lot of agents entering in the real estate business kind of through the Web 2.0 world, right, and we’re –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – and you talked about making contacts and I think we can kind of jump over to social media a little bit ‘cause I know that’s something you talk a lot about where you at least engage people through, quite frequently, through social media but here is the thing guys, the missing link, all right, they’ve been looking for the missing link, you know, to knowledge –

Ken Brand:    ****.

Tim Harris:    – to, to, to evolution.  Well, I mean so let’s just, let’s just try to make ourselves, you and I, sound a little bit more intelligent than we are, all right.

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    So they’ve been looking for the missing link between a, you know, the apes and humans to try to validate evolution, right, and so now, they’re starting to find fossilized – I don’t know what the exact terminology would be, but they’re starting to find fossils in various parts of the world that are showing there is sort of an evolution – the evolutionary stage between humans and apes.  Again, they’re trying to validate the, the theory of evolution but here is, here is an interesting through with all this guys, where do you evolve, how do you evolve from being somebody who is great with the technicalities, great on Facebook, great on Linked In, great on, you know, all these types of technical things but you don’t have any business, all right.  We’re looking for the missing link and the missing link is sales skills.  The missing link is knowing how to ask questions.  The missing link is, is –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – feeling confident that you can have a great – we interviewed Brian Brady and, you know, Brian Brady is somebody who has become, I think, quite famous in the world – Real Estate 2.0 world because of the fact that he has been able to build a very well – a, a fantastic blog and he gets a lot of business from his blog.  There is a lot of realtors are starting to get leads but if you don’t know how to follow up on those leads and you don’t know what questions to ask, if you don’t know how to set an appointment, you’re just essentially spinning your wheels.  It does not –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – take that much effort to learn the things that you have to learn in order to actually make money in this business and that seems to be a bit of a missing link.  Can you add anything or subtract anything from that?

Ken Brand:    Yeah, I mean I, you know, it boils down to hey, if you don’t – I mean you have to go pursue, right, you have to pursue whatever it is that you need in order to be successful.  If you need, you know, if you need knowledge or technique or style or, you know, what should I say, when should I say it and you know, there is a bazillion places to get it, right?  You’ll and that’s what you guys do professionally and there is plenty of places you can go to read it as well and then the next thing is you have to engage in it, right, so it’s like someone who, who reads all about how to play a certain sport, all right, but then they never go play the sport.

Tim Harris:    Right.

Ken Brand:    You have to engage in, in the activity and what I, what I tell people, you know, to really simplify it is hey, there is only three reasons why you’re not doing any business, ‘cause people buy and sell every single day.  Right, look in your MLS every day.  No matter what anyone is telling you is going on in the marketplace, look at your MLS, they are listings and sales taken in your market every day.  Why aren’t – why don’t I get them.  One reason is they didn’t – they were selling and they didn’t think of me and didn’t know I was in the real estate business and the second reason is I am in the real estate business and I didn’t know they were thinking of selling and the third one is, I went but I didn’t get it but one and two, I didn’t know they were selling and they didn’t know me.  I can solve those.  I need to have more, you know, well but I call that in person on purpose contact with people so that they will – I’ll create top of mind awareness and they will think top of mind awareness and they will think of me or, and because I have – I’m engaging in conversation that, that it’ll come up and people will ask me questions and then I’ll discover that they’re thinking of buying or selling and then I can fill that need but I mean engagement is gonna solve all of your problems, all right.

Tim Harris:    So you were talking earlier Ken about the fact that it’s so, so important that generally speaking, even top producers, the greatest portion of their business is, the best business, comes from repeat and referral clients.  So I – I’ll kind of cover the old school ways that, again guys, still work and we’re getting a lot of questions in and I’m gonna use all of your questions in a second.  I can – John from Denver; Mary Ann from Seattle; Marna Lapaz, I believe, from California; we’re gonna use all of your guys’ questions in a second and if you have any questions for Ken or for me, go ahead and enter them into the web, the webinar now and I will use those questions.  We’re getting a lot of interesting diverse questions, which I kind of appreciate.  So here is, here is the thought for everyone.  So if you are – stay in contact with your centers of influence, past clients, via – I don’t know – you’re mailing them Christmas cards or maybe you’re following sort of an old school technique and you’re dropping off pumpkins and all these types of things.  A lot of trainers make –

Ken Brand:    I’m, I’m gonna –

Tim Harris:    – fun of those types of things –

Ken Brand:    – you say that with a little, you know –

Tim Harris:    Well, you know what, I –

Ken Brand:    – there’s a little tone in –

Tim Harris:    – I do that and I think that –

Ken Brand:    – your voice there.

Tim Harris:    Well I do and I don’t because I was – I – every time I talk about this stuff and I’m just gonna be –

Ken Brand:    Uh huh.

Tim Harris:    – 100 percent transparent.  Julie and I were at a real estate conference.  It was a closed-door invitation only thing and we all broke up into these little groups.  I’ve never said this on an interview before and I’m not gonna use any names ‘cause I certainly don’t want to be a, you know, hung up by my toes –

Ken Brand:    Shot at.

Tim Harris:    – for talking about this publicly, all right.  So, in order to be at this meeting you had to essentially be a top producers, you had to sell, I’m sure it was like 100 or 200 homes per year, so Julie and I are, as realtors, are at this meeting and we broke up in these little subgroups and I think there was, I don’t know, 75 or 100 people in the room and we were given different topics to talk about, and the group – the table I was at was talking about how to stay in contact with your centers of influence and past clients and these –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – other fellow realtors who are – a lot of them are, are, are friends – you know, they started talking about the things that they do and in the conversation Ken, after about five minutes, started talking about and I’m not making this up, the best kind of pie to drop off at Thanksgiving and what flavor pie works best with your – I mean is it blueberry, is it pumpkin, is it – well what kind of pie should you drop off in November and I just sat back and I thought to myself, you guys are out there trying to shop wholesale at, you know, for pies and the – they, of course, knew of, you know, different places you could buy, you know, pies.com or whatever and then –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – and I spoke up and I said well here is a thought, why don’t you just call and wish them a happy Thanksgiving and ask them if they know of anyone that wants to buy or sell real estate –

Ken Brand:    Gosh.

Tim Harris:    – and the table went quiet and they all sort of stared at me and then they went back to talking about pies.

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    They didn’t – I mean I thought that was an interesting experience though –

Next Speaker:    It’s called –

Tim Harris:    – it was very –

Julie Harris:    – call reluctance, that’s why we have the prospecting class.

Ken Brand:    Yeah, people look for ways to, to disengage but feel busy, you know, and I, I’ll, I’ll, you know, it’s human nature but someone will – let’s say, it’s the same thing – a just listed, just sold card, you’re gonna mail it out and you know, you can do that on an online mailing house.  Go on – if you’re gonna do that type of approach and you’re done in ten minutes if you know how the system works and once you know how to do it, but I, you know, and I’ll, I’ll just tell you, I’ve got agents in my office and I’ll, I’ll see them in the office at 10:00 working on the computer doing something and I’ll come by at 12:00 and they’re still doing something and what are you doing?  Well I’m making a – I’m making my own magic bullet just listed card that’s gonna rock the world.  It’s like nobody cares, right, it just has to have your picture on it and, and, and send it out, get it out and then go talk to somebody but just like what you’re saying, right, go talk to somebody and that’s how you’re gonna find, you know, the collision principle, you’ve got to get out there and talk to people not ****.

Tim Harris:    That’s right.  Well I mean real estate is the best business in the world.  It really is.  It’s, it’s such a beautiful way to make money because you can control millions of dollars of inventory with no cost to you and make a margin on everything you sell.  It’s a beautiful thing and all you really have to do is get in the middle of someone who wants to sell and someone who wants to buy.

Ken Brand:    Right, mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    So, let’s talk about some of the, the new ways that are effective for staying in front of folks, as far as the Web 2.0 type things.

Ken Brand:    Okay.

Tim Harris:    What are you seeing that’s working?  What are, what are you personally doing that’s working?  What are your agents doing that’s working?

Ken Brand:    Okay.  Good question, so let me say this first to kind of set up –

Tim Harris:    Mm hmm.

Ken Brand:    – where I’m going for this, so if you go to the very core DNA of what this real estate thing is about, is – so we’re talking about how you engage with, with some of the new free tools in order to create top mind awareness.  I’m gonna, I’m gonna relate it all to top mind awareness with – so that you’re the person that they think of when they have a need or when someone says, you know, we’re – okay, we’re thinking of selling, who do you know, all right, and so top mind awareness requires three things, three R’s, all right; it’s got to be relevant, you need repetition and it’s got to be remarkable; and so the best tool for that, I think, today is going to be Facebook and there’s lots of talk about blogging and Twitter and that kind of stuff but Facebook, in terms of social media, just take the media out and just say social, all right, and so there isn’t a better tool.  Well let me back up just a bit.  In today’s society, we’re all so busy doing the things we do either professionally or personally with our families or our friends and the things that we’re involved in.  It’s very hard to stay in front of, as a real estate agent, of people or stay in touch and know what they’re doing and what’s going on in their lives, all right.  You – we – you can do it through direct mail.  You can do it through phone calls but you can call a lot of people and they won’t be, be home, all right?  Well if you’re using Facebook it allows you – ‘cause people post on Facebook a lot of personal information about trips they’re taking, what their kids are doing, who’s getting married and you know, so on.  I mean all of the things you see on Facebook, and everybody that posts on Facebook, there isn’t anybody that posts something personal about their life that they’ve posted on Facebook and they say man, I hope that nobody sees this and knows what I’m doing and I really would like it if no one would comment or acknowledge me, all right.  So we know that one of greatest human needs is a, is the desire for a sense of significance.  So if I’m active in Facebook and when I say active, as an agent, I want to be adding people all the time and you only need to spend 30 minutes a day on Facebook, 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes at night.  What you’re gonna do is go on and I’m gonna look and see what all of my friends are doing and I’m not gonna lurk and just look and go oh, that’s fun, that’s cute, whatever.  I’m gonna comment.  I’m gonna write a comment like oh, you know, that looks like fun or what precious kids and if I’m not gonna comment, I’m going to click on the little like button and what this does, it’s **** and we talk about top mind aware – awareness, it’s completely relevant because I’m interacting with them about their personal life and if I’m doing and my, and most people know more than one realtor, right, and if the other realtors aren’t doing it but I’m making that, that relevant connection with them, I’m gonna create some top mind awareness.  I’m gonna be a little more sticky, repetition.  If there’s someone who’s using Facebook on a regular basis and I’m commenting frequently, not every single time but, you know, with some repetition, that’s also gonna, you know, fire off some brain, brain waves there and I will be remembered and then remarkable – the part of being remarkable is that, that I’m doing it and others aren’t doing it and I talk to agents in my office all the time.  Well I don’t have time for that, as if it takes all day, but I want to, you know, my question is well what do you mean, how many listings do you have, how many sales do you have, how many escrows, what are doing all day, why can’t you spend 30 minutes – I’m ranting right – why can’t you spend 30 minutes on Facebook to see what your, what your clients and customers are doing, where 75 percent of your business is coming from just to say hi and see what’s going on.  I mean that is an awesome tool and it’s only gonna get bigger and more powerful.  I mean more people use Facebook to communicate than they do email now.  I mean that’s huge, that’s gigantic, so –

Tim Harris:    Well yeah –

Ken Brand:    – that would be my No. 1 –

Tim Harris:    – exactly.

Ken Brand:    – tool.

Tim Harris:    Well, you see Facebook is kind of like a confusing thing if you’ve never really engaged in this and you know, as well as I do, that the –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – average 54 year-old realtor out there is probably just sort of – they’re thinking about social media, they’ve tried to do social media, they set up a Facebook account or they sort of – they’ve dipped their toes into this whole social media thing but they’re not really doing what you just said, which is engaging ‘cause they think it’s harder than it is.

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    If it –

Ken Brand:    But see the –

Tim Harris:    – is, you know –

Ken Brand:    – this is, this is – this goes right to the core of what we were talking about earlier you, you know, you hit right on it.  They’re dipping their toe in, all right.  Well what’s the characteristic of a productive, top performing agent?  They don’t dip their toe in, right.  They say well I dipped my toe into expired listings.  I dipped my toe into showings.  I dipped my toe into whatever.  No, you can’t dip a toe in, you got to – if you dip a toe in then you got to – have to dive in, you have to pursue it.  All right, you have to pursue it.

Tim Harris:    What is – no, absolutely and, and what, what Facebook really is, is exactly what Ken said and the thing you guys have got to understand is a lot of people literally have – I don’t have the statistics in front of me but the, the numbers are just absolutely incredible, the number of people that are Facebook every day, the amount of time that the average person is spending on Facebook.  What happens is, guys, is when people are at work on their computers and it does not matter whether you’re a lawyer or a doctor or whether you’re somebody working in the presidential administration, what happens is people have Facebook open on their computers the entire day and most of us, present company included, for at least part of the day are sort of electronically attached to our computers so what happened is our – the – somewhere on your computer desktop is Facebook and every time someone updates a status of sends you a whatever –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – then essentially you are then engaging with those people.  That’s how people use Facebook, for the most part, so if you become part of somebody’s community, that’s what Facebook is, you’re essentially making your own community.  When you become part of their community and you start engaging by commenting on their, their posts and you start commenting on their pictures and like Ken said, just start, you know, communicating with people in very small innocuous ways.  Occasionally, you’ll get a conversation going.  That is going to give you that top of mind awareness.  That is so much more effective than the pumpkin.  That’s so much more effective than virtually anything else that sort of came from the old school way of doing business and that’s the beautiful thing about Facebook.

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    So Ken, if I were a realtor out there –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – what would be the, I think, Web 2.0 things that I should engage in ‘cause there’s obviously, I don’t know, 16 bazillion different social networking places on, online.  What would be the one or two things that I definitely should be doing right out of the gates, make it top of my, my list of things to do for the next 90 days?  What would you –

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    – suggest?

Ken Brand:    I would say the top, top, top, top is Facebook.

Tim Harris:    Yep.

Ken Brand:    And if you did nothing else but Facebook, you would be light years ahead of the average person, so Facebook is an absolute must.  The other thing I would add on to that and then I’ll tell you the other couple things but I heard this and I don’t remember who it was but they said you can either buy a community, right, which is advertising – I’m, I’m trying to a community, people who are gonna interact with me, or you can grow your own for free, which is what Facebook is, so that’s the way to go.  The other thing that Facebook does is when I comment – all right, so if I’m at a party and, or, or let’s say you and I are at a party Tim and well I’ll, I’ll probably talk to Julie ‘cause I kind of like the way she sounds, so I’m talking to Julie and we’re talking about a, a subject and, and, and so our conversation just stays between the two of us.  No one else gets to hear it, right, ‘cause we’re just – it’s just the two of us in the corner or maybe at, you know, around by the dinner table or whatever, but on Facebook when I talk to Julie, all of Julie’s friends can hear what I’m saying, right, because that’s how – that’s the nature of Facebook.  So when I make a comment about what Julie – a vacation she took or the, the, the things that you guys are doing, everybody who knows Julie will see what I’ve talked about on Julie’s wall so I’m getting exponential exposure that’s not just one to one, it’s one to however many people, you know, are out there.  So back to the original thing, Facebook is No. 1 absolute priority and then I would say the next thing would be probably the next most powerful and it’s probably one of the hardest things to do, but the most powerful thing you could do would be to create a blog.

Tim Harris:    Yeah, absolutely.

Ken Brand:    And to, to contribute to a blog on a regular basis because that allows you to share information and be discovered over time and, and that is also a – huge.  Those would be the two –

Tim Harris:    I’m gonna do it –

Ken Brand:    – things ****.

Tim Harris:    – I’m gonna do it in slightly a different reverse order.  I’m gonna do it in terms of ease of use –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – and I’ll – I 100 percent agree with the blog but I’m gonna suggest the next thing they should do is Twitter because Twitter is easy to set up, Twitter is easy to get traction with and you can tie Twitter in with Facebook so that essentially you only have to do a – you update your status on –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – Twitter and then what happens is Twitter will then update it to Facebook, so I’m and again, I don’t want to get too deep into this stuff ‘cause I think we’re gonna make a lot of people have their minds sort of start to buzz.  Guys, here is what you’ve got to do.  If you’re interested in learning about this, I have put a link right there on the webinar.  It’s a video that our tech coach, Chris, and I created, mostly Chris, where it’s – it walks you through exactly how to get started on Twitter, how to make money from Twitter.  If you’re interested in learning more about all of the social networking stuff, what you’ve got to understand and again, I’m not bringing any of my fancy statistics or sort of the, the mental charts to prove this point but here is the bottom line.  Oh well I’ll give you an example.  Gap was in the new a couple of weeks ago because Gap, you know, the clothing manufacturer, retailer, they have essentially stopped all of their offline marketing, so ads, radio, TV.  Remember how the Gap ads always used to feature celebrities wearing, you know, jeans and a T shirt?  Well, you’re not seeing those anymore.  What happened is Gap has moved virtually all of their marketing and advertising online to the social media, to the places where they know their clients are and the cool, the amazing thing, ‘cause Julie and I do advertising on Facebook, as an example, is that when you’re – as a realtor, let’s say you take a new listing, just as a for example, and let’s say it’s in Woodlands, Texas.  You can actually through various tools – again guys, don’t be intimidated by this, if I can learn it, as Chris says, it’s Tim simple; in other words, if I can figure out how to do it, you can do it too.

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    So you take a listing –

Ken Brand:    There is **** springing up all over the place and you’ve got links on your site as well, you know –

Tim Harris:    Yeah, we do.

Ken Brand:    – it’s just a matter of pursue the information.

Tim Harris:    It is.  Well it – what people – when I’m trying to do my best without intimidating people, Ken, is –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – I’m trying to get people to understand that this stuff is not difficult and honestly, it’s mandatory and the problem is, is if you go into a listing presentation or if you’re trying to, you know, work with buyers, I would say now, not even in the future, I would say now, and you’re not engaging people using these platforms, it – I’m not gonna say you’re not gonna get the listing or you won’t get the buyer but it is going to make you look a little bit like a fossil and, and that’s really perception is so important in any business, especially the real estate business.  When you walk into that seller’s house and you’re telling them that, you know, as soon as you take the listing you’re gonna start tweeting about and you’re gonna – we, we teach you all about this on the Agent Tech Secrets class guys, watch the free Twitter video if you want to learn about this, just hit that button but it – you have to understand this, your customers, your real estate folks, they expect you to understand this so that quality, Ken, of a top producer, somebody who is embracing new technology, is that a quality, you know, getting back to the earlier question?

Ken Brand:    Yeah, that kind of goes along with that mind set thing, you know, what, what should I do and why should I do it and you have to be forward, you know, you have to look at like what are the trends, what are the consumers doing, what is the buzz that I hear about incessantly on TV, on the radio, on the computer, and you know, everywhere I go I’m hearing about this, not from other agents ‘cause other agents tell each other oh, I don’t ****, I don’t know, I don’t have time for that and so on, but what is the public doing, right?  I mean and it’s huge and so you – that’s exactly right.  It’s like I see this coming, this is gonna be the future, I see the benefits, how can I use this and I think the other thing if you just sit and instead of having the mind set of oh gosh, that’s another thing I’ve got to learn, you know, because let’s face it, you’re gonna – forever more – right, learning is the advantage.  Learning is the advantage in, in, in our world today is, so instead of, you know, lamenting the fact of, you know, geez, I, I, I wish we – I remember when we didn’t have cell phones – I wish it was like that now – is that you need to look at these things and say how can I point this; how can I use this to help my business; how can I use this to stay engaged with, close to my customers and clients and friends; how can I use this, which is huge today; how do I, how can I use this instead of bragging about how great I am, how can I use it to share information that people are interested in to help them live a better life whether it be things to do socially; things to do with their families; things to do, you know, with finances; things to do culturally.  You know, just be a sharer, all right, and these tools allow you to do it and they’re free, all right.  Free, unbelievable.

Tim Harris:    They are free and you know the things is, is that every – again, it’s a, it’s just such an awesome way.  You take a new listing or if you want to share – well Ken, I saw you were on Facebook last night and you were sharing with your group the – I think you had like 4 or 5,000 follow or friends on Facebook and you are only able to have 5,000 so I think you’re about maxed out there but, so I was, I, I saw you were sharing information about today’s call and I’m sure that we have a lot of your friends from Facebook that are listening because of that so, you know, if Ken were a listing agent and he just listed some great house that he knew was gonna sell and he had 5,000 folks inside Woodlands, Texas that were his friends from Facebook and he shared with them this new listing, there’s a really good chance that someone on – one of his friends are gonna be interested in that house or knows somebody that is –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – and that, that’s really what folks – agents, you guys –

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    – got to embrace this.  It’s not –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – difficult.  Please don’t be intimidated by, intimidated by it, please don’t just see it as another thing to learn.  The fact is, is this will replace a lot of the things that you’re doing now that don’t work as well as they used to.

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    You know and everyone is –

Ken Brand:    And, and you can –

Tim Harris:    – going to sell – go ahead, I’m sorry.

Ken Brand:    Yeah, no, no, I, I, I’m – now I’m interrupting you.

Tim Harris:    That’s okay.

Ken Brand:    Which you have come to expect as well.  But what I was gonna say is the other thing is keep in mind, this is, you know, in the old days, right, a lot of what we did and a lot of what is still done is kind of a muscled monologue.  I’m gonna shout out, shout out, shout out, you know, and try to get somebody’s attention.  Keep in mind that this type of marketing is and, and connection and interaction is permission based, right, because someone has to –

Tim Harris:    Right.

Ken Brand:    – friend you, they have to agree to be your friend.  They have to agree to follow you on Twitter, all right.  So, so you have permission to engage with these people.  It’s not like you’re shouting, you know, you’re spending your money marketing to people you don’t know, all right, and about people who don’t care about you or don’t even know that you exist and when I talk to agents, you know, when we go over our goal setting and things, and I’m sure you have the same experience, and you breakdown where did your business come from and they would tell you well, these are my friends and this was a referral and these people I got off a newspaper ad and these people I – well, when you start getting into the, the sources that are not connected to them in a personal way and then you talk about the transactions; generally, those transactions are more difficult because there isn’t the loyalty, there isn’t the, the same level of respect.  Those kind of people demand more in terms of time and they want more money rebated back and so on and so forth, you know, so that your, your business is easier and more enjoyable when you’re dealing with people that you have some connection with and all of this stuff is permission based.

Tim Harris:    Well I and I’m hoping that something that you and I have said in the last 15 minutes has clicked a spark in even the most resolute, I’m never gonna learn this stuff agent, so that they just feel that they can, they can do it, that they can embrace it and here is – I’ll just – I can give countless examples from students that are in the Agent Tech Secrets.com course.  You know, these have been agents that – a lot of agents that are new or newish, never in essence, like I said earlier, that weren’t top producers, that never really learned this – you – just all the usual, you know, differences –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – that an – that most realtors have, so this – these were agents that were selling 8 to 12 houses but the, you know, per year, but now because of the fact that they have learned how to engage people, make more contacts using social networking.  Over time, this is not often gonna happen very, you know, instantly but over time –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – they have built a peerless reputation online and as a result of that they get lots of referrals.  They’re starting to – now guys, here is the thing that I want to make really, really clear to all of you, as Ken said, engage, right?  You have to be engaging with folks.  You have to be picking up the phone.  When you have a conversation with someone on Facebook and they ask a question about your new listing or they ask a question about the first time buyer rates or they ask a question going back again what Ken said, you’ve got to know your market and Russell Shaw said this, you’ve got to know your market like the back of your hand.  You know, you have to be that source for information so let’s say you’re talking about the sales statistics.  Ken said in Woodlands there is, you know, a six month supply or whatever, so you’re talking about it on Facebook, you do a little blurb about it, people comment, ask questions, you have to take the next step and pick up the phone, all right?

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    You can –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – comment –

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    – and you can interact with them online, but you’ve got to take it to the next level and say, you know, hey, this is Tim Harris, you and I are friends on Facebook.  I saw you were asking a question about what you should do to prepare your house for sale.  Don’t expect any business from this if you don’t actually take it to the next level and put yourself out there to try to help folks.  A lot of agents are missing that and that is the missing link that I was referring to earlier, actually –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – picking up the phone, you know, that thing that’s, you know, it still works, the telephone still works and engaging with these people and when you call them, just like Ken said, it’s not a cold call.  They’ll welcome the call.  They feel like they’re friends with you.  I’m 40 years old –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – people younger than me don’t differentiate virtual friends from real friends.  They actually see them as the same, so at – I know that sounds totally – it even sounds a little bizarre to me, to be honest, but they do –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – they see their Facebook friends because they interact with them all day long in various direct and indirect ways as real honest to God contacts and there is no barrier there when they actually meet them in real life or call them, so it’s a, it’s a different mind set, it’s a different way to think.

Ken Brand:    Yeah and now earlier, you were talking about we wanted to sound like we were real smart and, and the reason that people don’t discern between offline and online is, and this actual, actually true, it’s mirror neuro, mirror neurons in our brain where, you know, we – your, your brain, your subconscious doesn’t know the difference between interaction online and offline, it just knows I have interaction.  All right and so it’s just, it’s valuable.  Now, the other point to this is, as well, but first let me say this.  This is one of the biggest dangers of social media is that all the crowd who wants to spend all their time making property fliers and feeling really busy and postcards and feeling really busy and like man, I’m going all this stuff but I’m not talking to anybody.  This is like okay, now I’m gonna migrate online and start talking to everybody online, but and I feel really busy, but the key is this is just the set up, all right.  This is creating top of mind awareness and then it’s a personal engagement that makes things happen for you.  You know, and this is where people will share things with you when you’re talking to them in person, all right, not a, so, so the social media is super important but not –it’s not it, it’s just a new set up to deepening top mind awareness so that you can position yourself when you’re calling and engaging, you know, good things are gonna happen.  The other facet here that’s taking place more and more is that human behavior now, we go to Google to search things out and if I’m gonna pick between one and two, and Russell Shaw on his program said at, which is true in our market too is that maybe 60 to 80 percent are only gonna talk to two people.  Well, so if you get invited that’s great but they’re still gonna do a little research.  Let’s go online and see who this Ken Brand guy is and let’s go see who Tim Harris is and let’s go see who you are and they just type in the name and see what pops up.  Well, nothing comes up for you, all right, or let’s say they type it in and a bunch of things pop up on Google for you; ooh, you’re on Facebook, you’re on Linked In, you have a Twitter account, you know, you’re, you’re on Flicker or you’re on You Tube, you’ve done a couple videos and so on; and I’m, I’m not trying to intimidate that you do all of this stuff but I’m saying the person that has that kind of report card or if they go into Facebook and say well I have two of these agents that are Facebook friends, let me see.  Oh, this person has even bothered to put their picture online.  They don’t have their –

Tim Harris:    Well you’re, you’re –

Ken Brand:    – profile filled in.

Tim Harris:    – well look but you’re, you’re –

Ken Brand:    They never engage, but out –

Tim Harris:    – let me just, let me just crystallize what you’re saying ‘cause it’s so important and I, I and you’re making a point that you and I talked about this offline, we’ve talked about this on T Wire but I really want to sort of slow it down and repeat what you just said.  All right, so there’s several different scenarios that can happen if you, if you don’t do this correctly.  One, you’re just not there.  Now, understand that if you’re not there when they Google you, if you don’t come up anywhere.  If, if – a lot of times, they’re just gonna discount you and say well you must not, not be a serious realtor.  I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, I’m just stating a fact, No. 1.  Number 2 is they can Google your name or use Bing.com and I, and you know, I think personally Bing is actually doing a really great job, but Bing.com and you – they then pull up a bunch of incomplete information on you.  You started your Active Rain page or you started your Facebook page and they see –

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    – that you basically started something, you never loaded your picture up, your profile isn’t done, what message are you sending to people and guys, you’ve got to understand exactly what Ken said, folks are going to the Internet and it first and sometimes let’s say, for example, they will meet you at a party or someone will mention hey, Ken Brand, you know, he’s a great guy.  Well, who doesn’t go home and do their own research anymore?  Everybody does, so –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – guys, the thing is, is how do you look online?  If you take your names right now and you enter them into Bing or you enter them into Google, what are people finding, what message is that sending?

Ken Brand:    Right and the thing is too, going along with that is, so you may go there and panic, right, and say oh my gosh, I’m not on here, what am I gonna do.  Don’t worry about that, just get started, all right, because it takes time to build a presence, just like it takes time to build a presence in your community, in your network, you know, but the key is you have to get started today sot that you’re ahead of the people who are gonna start in January and in June and next August –

Tim Harris:    Never.

Ken Brand:    – not from in a year from now when it’s –

Tim Harris:    Right.

Ken Brand:    – too late, right?

Tim Harris:    Right.  Well, I mean so there really is a window here.  I hate saying that because people – I always have in the back of my head the skeptic that’s out there ‘cause I think by nature I’m a bit of a skeptic and whenever I hear somebody putting a sort of time limit or pressure on me, my red flag, my skeptic flag goes up –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – but the fact is guys, is you definitely have an advantage if you’re an early mover in this space.  Ken and I aren’t gonna go into the – I don’t think Ken and I really understand it to talk about it with any authority, but the search engines will give you your older posts, the older comments, the older – if, if you get on there now and your competitor and your marketplace gets on Facebook or gets – starts their own blog a year from now; well, if you are on there first, in a lot of cases, depending on your posts and a couple of other tiny details, that Google will actually give more preference, more weight to your posts, to your what you put out there and so someone searches Woodlands, Woodlands, Texas homes, for example, if you’ve put a blog post out there today, well guess what, it’s going to stay out there forever.  That is a beautiful thing.  Julie and I talk a lot about the accumulation effect, you know, essentially, your efforts in and the effort you put in and how it builds and that, and that there is different cycles and there is different faces of essentially building a success.  Here’s the thought of this, social networking is one of the best ways to literally do work today that will pay you not just tomorrow but forever ‘cause that stuff stays out there forever, so –

Ken Brand:    Forever, right.

Tim Harris:    – how do you look online?  That’s a really important question and understand that is the new storefront for you, your Facebook page, your blog.  You know, that’s how you look online.  I’m gonna throw this out there too.

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    So for those of you who have, have been sitting on the fence not knowing how to start a blog or, you know, all of those types of things, we just, a week ago and haven’t really talked about this much at Harris Real Estate University but we just created a free blog site, and no strings attached, for agents that are members of Harris Real Estate University and not – you can just jump on there and start your own blog, a little instructional video.  We show you literally how to get your blog going in less than 60 seconds and the web address for that, just put in – you can do it a Google search or just put it right in the address bar, is http://wwwethicalrealestatepro.com, ethicalrealestatepro.com –

Ken Brand:    That’s good.

Tim Harris:    You – we’ll pay for the hosting, you – we will do everything for you, you have absolutely no expense associated with this and you can have a working blog and there’s some instructional videos on there.  Again, all this is free.  We just, you know, I think we just got this going a couple of weeks ago but there it is.

Ken Brand:    Cool.

Tim Harris:    So –

Ken Brand:    That’s awesome.

Tim Harris:    – Ken, a couple questions popped up.  You’ve been great –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – I knew you would be.  By the way, I’m gonna say this publicly, Ken, we are gonna hire you as a coach whether you like it or not.  You can –

Ken Brand:    Well I like helping, right?

Tim Harris:    Okay good.

Ken Brand:    You know I enjoy it, that’s the fun part of the business.

Tim Harris:    I’m gonna ask some questions here.  Okay, I, I haven’t read all these.  Julie, have you had any questions pop into your email during this interview that you want to use?

Next Speaker:    I am actually scanning those right now, so give me just one second here.

Tim Harris:    Okay, I – this is from Marcia Moody from Santa Rosa, California, and I believe she’s a student.  I really need to start very basic with Facebook, Twitter, etc.  It’s overwhelming and I guess I just do not understand.  It almost seems like an invasion of my privacy.  Where do I start in a simple way?  Do you want to answer that one Ken?  We have talked about that on T –

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    – WIRE before.

Ken Brand:    Sure.

Tim Harris:    Good question.

Ken Brand:    I have – I would start with Facebook and I, and what I would say is that, that feeling, all right, of an invasion of privacy or, you know, am I imposing and who really cares is common, all right.  We all have that because this is a new medium for us and I’ll have people say well, I, you know, I don’t want to put pictures of my kids or my vacation.  I’m trying to keep everything separate and so on, and I would say to that, what I would want to – what I would say is you have to reframe it and think, if I’m at a party and everybody brings their pictures, would I bring my pictures?  Would – if people are talking about their vacation, would I talk about my vacation?  If people are talking about the, you know, the sports that their kids play in, would I talk about my children?  It’s exactly like that.  The only difference is, is that it’s online, so it’s not an intrusion, all right, and you have to decide for yourself what you’re going to share and what you’re not going to share and, and, and, and you know, that’s a personal issue but, but Facebook is social, that’s the whole idea of it and people and human beings, all right, are, are – human beings create social interaction and connection with people, and that’s really all you’re doing on Facebook is you’re just – it’s just like going to a party only it’s online and you share stuff and you have conversations and people do business with people that they like and trust and they’re kind of like them and that they know.

Tim Harris:    Well you don’t have to share personal stuff too, that’s the other thing and, and matter of fact, for the sake of –

Ken Brand:    Yeah, you don’t have to, yeah.

Tim Harris:    Right, you can have – as far as Facebook goes, for example, and Ken, I want you to say your Facebook address so that they can friend you up, but ours is –

Ken Brand:    Okay.

Tim Harris:    – Facebook.com/TimandJulieHarris, that’s it, Facebook.com/TimandJulieHarris and yours is /KenBrand, right?

Ken Brand:    Yeah and let me also say – well, ‘cause my Ken Brand deal is about full, so Facebook.com/BrandCandid, B R-A-N D C A N D I D, Brand Candid, Facebook.com/BrandCandid but I would say this, you don’t have to be personal.  You know, you’re – like you were saying, you don’t have to put your personal stuff on there but also keep in mind, you know, when you go on a, when you go on a listing appointment and the seller is showing you through the property and you see pictures on the wall and you talk about where they have been and maybe you have been to the same vacation place or you notice that, you know, they have a picture of a – maybe their family skiing.  Oh, I ski and you talk about those kind of things.  The – what do, what do we call that?  Building rapport ‘cause people like –

Tim Harris:    Right.

Ken Brand:    – to do business with people like them, so you don’t have to put your – all of your personal stuff on Facebook but keep in mind that building rapport, right, and creating a connection is personal and so –

Tim Harris:    Right.

Ken Brand:    – again, you don’t have to put, you know, everything on there but you have to be like you would be at a party, not –

Tim Harris:    But –

Ken Brand:    – a crazy –

Tim Harris:    – and again –

Ken Brand:    – palooza party but a dinner party.

Tim Harris:    Exactly and, and, and just and we haven’t said this, hopefully it’s obvious but it might not be, but you’ve got to be real careful what you say online and there are comments out there that realtors have made on Active Rain where they’re just being a little bit snarky or snotty.

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    You’ve got to be real careful on stuff like that –

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    – ‘cause guys, that follows you.  So getting back to the earlier point –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – if you put some stuff out there or just stuff out there about you that you don’t like, you can make that stuff disappear.  I mean if you know how to do it.  There, there are ways to go back and sort of prepare or protect your online reputation.  If you haven’t done so after this call, go ahead and click that button and watch the free Twitter video and then you’ll learn a little bit about how to get started on Twitter, which by the way, is also a great way to build that reputation management.  More questions not necessarily related to 2.0 stuff, but I think –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – valid nonetheless.  Where did that question go?  Where did that question – okay, so someone from Denver.  Here it is.  John from Denver; I’m considering moving – this is a Ken question for sure – I’m considering moving my license from a multinational franchise to a local regional franchise that seems to have a larger market share –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – does where you work make a difference?

Ken Brand:    Yes.  The answer is yes.  I would say this.  Forget about large local franchises, small brokers, you know, take all of the labels off and then you’re going to evaluate where the best opportunity for you is and market share is one way – is, you know, one criteria that you might use in evaluating where, you know, where and who you might want to affiliate with, but you want to surround yourself or be around people who are likeminded.  It – whatever your mind set is gonna be, all right, and there is a big difference in leadership styles, cultural styles in offices, even within the same brand.  You know, we have in our – in, in Houston here, Prudential Gary Green, we have 17 offices and we all have some – lots of similarities but each job is gonna be different based on how it’s run by that person so yes, who you are with and the culture and the leadership of that particular tribe is gonna have a direct impact on your business.  You want to make sure you’re in alignment with your tribe.

Tim Harris:    Absolutely, absolutely and you know, as far as – again, and, and you can find – well if you’re in Ken’s office, as an example, and you’re with Prudential Gary Green, obviously, Prudential is, I think, you know, one of the largest international brands and everywhere in the world, you ask somebody to name a real estate brand and they are probably gonna think of Prudential.  In certain demographics, age groups, they put a ton of value on that type of thing, on the brand.  They see that you being associated with the big brand does make a difference but to his point, if you’re – you have to know your marketplace.  You have to look at their market share.  None of that matters if you walk in the door and you don’t click with folks, if you don’t like the energy in the office, if you don’t like the direction that the office manager is taking the office or the broker or the what – the team leader, that’s the real bottom line to your success when you’re choosing an office but ultimately, it comes back on your shoulders.

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    You –

Ken Brand:    It’s just easier.

Tim Harris:    – the office is –

Ken Brand:    You know, it’s easier to swim with the current that is in alignment with how you want to conduct your business than to swim against the current.  You can do it –

Tim Harris:    Yeah ‘cause the –

Ken Brand:    – **** the water –

Tim Harris:    – current will help carry you.  That’s a really great analogy.  All right, Mary Ann from Seattle, real estate top of mind, center of influence, center of influence, how do I accomplish that.  My breaker – broker recommends – I’ll just say it – the Feeny program that goes around giving away trinkets.  I feel that’s ingratiating to me and not very professional/ comment.

Ken Brand:    Okay.

Tim Harris:    I’m gonna throw it at you Ken.

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    ****.

Ken Brand:    Okay, well I don’t really live in The Woodlands.  I have – am really on the road all of the time, so I would say this.  I, I kind of – I, I’m in that camp, right.  I think, I think I can – I understand magnets maybe ‘cause, you know, you see it.  My agents are always – when they take listings tell me about whose magnet was on somebody’s refrigerator and –

Tim Harris:    Well but you know what –

Ken Brand:    – you got the listing –

Tim Harris:    – you’re sitting and trying – you, you’re – but that’s so true though, Ken.  I mean when Julie and I were selling real estate, you walk to the fridge, to the kitchen and you’d see all of these other realtors’ magnets and I, and I mean Julie can tell more stories than me but, and –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – you’d start – you’re still while you’re gonna interview the, you know, the realtors who sent you –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – these big gorgeous, you know, 14 –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – color magnets and calendars?  Oh no, no, no, we’re not interviewing them.  Well why don’t you interview them?  They, you know, they sent you all of the – well, it’s because, you know, so and so referred you or we saw you sold the neighbor’s house.  I mean it gets back to what we were talking about earlier, so just to tell you – tell –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – let people know why Ken is saying that.

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    Sorry.

Ken Brand:    So, so I would say, you know, you have to take everything into, into total context, so just trinkets alone and so on, no one is gonna make a difference, in my opinion, right.

Tim Harris:    ****.

Ken Brand:    Oh, thanks for the bottle opener, you know, you’re my agent.  No, it’s a way to create top mind awareness, which as I said earlier, and you know, now I’ll repeat it ‘cause this is kind of my mantra, is it has to be relevant, all right.  It has to – you need repetition and it has to be remarkable.  The – so the trinket thing, I don’t know if it’s remarkable or not, you – but you have to be doing lots of other things along, you know, that alone is not gonna do it, the once a year pumpkin or the pie is never gonna swing it, it’s about a relevance and so for me that would be, if I have a core group, what I’m, what I, what I tell people is you – well as you in all of your interactions that are in person, right, so whether you’re at church or I’m playing racquetball or maybe I’m out at my kid’s soccer game or we have a, a dinner club, or I’m taking a cooking class or I’m at the chamber, all right, I’m always listening to what people have going on in their lives and then what makes me remarkable and relevant is that if someone – let’s use this as an example, but it’s a prime example.  In our area, a lot of people go to Destin, Florida because it’s within driving distance for a vacation.  Well, if I’m around a, a group and people are talking about Destin and someone will say yeah, we went there blah, blah, blah; what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna send them a link, all right, to something in Destin that I’ve done that I want them, that I want to recommend to them.  Hey, go get your jet skis over here.  Make sure you go to the Crab Shack for the crab claws or whatever, and I’m gonna send them information and it’s wrapped in my email wrapper, all right, real estate wrapper.  It’s got my real estate picture on that and I’m not really gonna talk about real estate necessarily ‘cause I’m – what I’m doing is I’m branding, creating top of mind awareness and so you have to have repetition and if I’m sending out a direct mail, I think that’s still important to do, I’m gonna send out a – either a e newsletter or an e card on a regular basis and then I’m gonna be calling, as Tim talked about, and interacting in those ways.  I’m gonna have my blog.  I’m gonna be interacting in Facebook and I will get the top of mind awareness over an agent who has infrequent contact and happens to drop off a bottle opener or, you know, a notepad or whatever, all right, that, but people, you know, that’s just not gonna cut it unless you’re doing all of the other things, that’s fine, but I wouldn’t personally do it.

Tim Harris:    Well the same – neither and neither would we or did we.  I mean we – the – yeah, absolutely it’s, so the social media aspects of what he’s talking about, it all kind of comes back to that.  It’s free.  You know, it’s easy –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – to do.  It’s easy to learn.  It’s easy to set up.  The thing it takes is your mind set to shift to embrace it and once you do, you’re gonna be really excited about it.  The first time you see your friends’ list go from 1 person to 100 people to 1,000 people to 5,000 people, and then you are able to put information out there about you just went to, you know, something goofy on the weekends.  Last weekend, Julie and I were commenting about the new Michael Moore movie and I just put a couple comments up there and I had really nice conversations going with people that I only know through Facebook.  Well, if I was still selling real estate and I was selling real estate in Las Vegas or wherever and I wanted to build a really nice center of influence list and I knew nobody, I would start definitely doing Facebook.  Guys, you can go to Facebook, you can go to Twitter and you can start searching for folks that are in your geographic area, as it were, so if I were in Woodlands, Texas and I was starting my Twitter account, you can actually go to search.twitter.com, we’ve talked about this countless times before, and you can just do a nice geographic search to everyone else that’s on Twitter within your geographic area and guess what, add all of them, add all of them as people –

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    – you’re going –

Ken Brand:    Exactly.

Tim Harris:    – to follow it.

Ken Brand:    Yeah, that’s –

Tim Harris:    Yeah.

Ken Brand:    – exactly right, right.

Tim Harris:    Yeah and, and again **** –

Ken Brand:    The, the thing about –

Tim Harris:    – **** fun.

Ken Brand:    – these – yeah.  The thing about these too and, you know, what you’re looking for as an agent, right, you want to – you say, I want to put some thing into play that are working for me, why I’m sleeping, why I’m having dinner with my family, why I’m playing racquetball, why I’m working out, why, you know, and, and see Face – Facebook does that ‘cause you’re posting comments.  Well people will stumble on that or they’ll review that at their convenience, all right, which could be at midnight, it would be three days from now, it could be a week from now but there it is, all right, or someone can go and we talked about this earlier, the idea to go and research somebody.  If I’m trying to pick two people as a seller or a buyer and, and then search Facebook.  Facebook is like a lake of information, all right.  That’s what your page is like, a lake, and so the question is, is it a puddle, all right, do you have lots of things on there or a little, little bit but you’ll get a call out of the blue.  I, you know, real world situation; Brad Carlson, our office, our – one of our top individual producer is and you will say gosh, does he have time to do Facebook and he’s not on there all the time but he’s on there a little bit, frequently, all right, to see what’s going on.  Well he just took a listing at – for our market it’s a high end but double the average sales price, because the person said I saw that you showed my home and I went onto Facebook; now Facebook, for him, he has his account totally opened up so anybody could see anything, and they said I noticed you’re from Lawrence, Kansas.  They called, all right, and is, you know, and he said, so they called him and he said yeah, I am.  They got to talking and they had – his baseball coach was someone that this family knew from Lawrence, Kansas, blah, blah, blah, blah.  Anyway, he gets the listing on a totally bizarre out of left field but really, it’s not ‘cause that’s how real estate and personal interaction works.  Now, if he hadn’t don’t that, well there goes $18,000.00.

Tim Harris:    Well and they **** –

Ken Brand:    And that’s just one –

Tim Harris:    – **** –

Ken Brand:    – one time.

Tim Harris:    Yeah just, just to tie this back in, maybe in the old sort of way of thinking you would have been at a party and you somehow magically came across that connection and that’s how you connected with people.

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    Whereas on, online using Facebook, for example, it just happens, I mean, almost by accident instantaneously, it’s just –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – **** –

Ken Brand:    It’s just, it’s just kind of an accelerating six degrees of separation is what it’s doing.

Tim Harris:    Absolutely is, it is, so you know, some more – do you have time for two more questions Ken?

Ken Brand:    Yeah, I’m, I’m good, yeah.

Tim Harris:    Okay.  I appreciate –

Ken Brand:    ****

Tim Harris:    – **** a little bit over time but I have to tell you, this is one of the calls where I’ve added people throughout the call.  Julie and I see a number of people that are in the webinar and we’ve been adding people throughout the call, so I really appreciate this.  Two more questions guys.  If you have any other questions, drop them in the webinar so Terry from California:  Setting up a blog is easy but writing it is hard.  Where is everyone getting their info and the time to keep it going?  Do you have any comments on that?

Ken Brand:    Yes, I do and it – I would say yes.  Yes, it’s not easy, right because if it was easy, everybody could do it, right, so it’s gonna take some commitment and some time.  I think the things that you would want to blog about are the things that you get asked about all of the time as an agent and you know what those are, because those are the questions that you get asked frequently, that we get asked where, where inside we roll our eyes and go oh gosh, do I have to answer this one more time and so what happens is, is if you go on a blog and if you create your blog and you write about those things then what happens is down the road you’ll be able to just to refer people to that particular link, all right, so now you’re doing work that’s gonna pay off down the road by sending people links.  I would write about what you know.  The other thing that you can write about is that in your communities there are festivals, there are community events that you know are happening because you read about them.  Most every local paper now will have a, an online presence.  You can go read up on it and then include that link in your blog and talk about that particular event.  Oh, you know in The Woodlands at Market Street, they’re now having music on Thursday nights and these are the bands and here is the link to who is gonna be playing and, you know, while you’re there, why don’t you go to Tommy Bahamas and get that, you know, crop top beer or whatever.  It can be – it’s that impersonal with your blog but those are the kinds of things that people really, really respond to and are looking for in a blog.  Now, how much time should you spend?  A blog post may take you 30 or 40 minutes to write and that’s just how it is.  How often should you post?  Once a week, more often if you’re a writer and you kind of want to do that but you should be on there once a week and be mindful of – what Tim said is you don’t want to have a blog where you kind of got hot and heavy on, on your blog and then there is nothing for a month, and then there’s one –

Tim Harris:    Well I’ll tell you what I –

Ken Brand:    – thing –

Tim Harris:    – do –

Ken Brand:    – and then nothing for a month.

Tim Harris:    – and, and this guys, this is just to say if – a lot of you read TimandJulieHarris.com and in Tim and Julie Harris, here is – in October, I think we’re gonna have like, I don’t know, it looks like we’re gonna have some like 15,000 uniques this month, which is, you know, I’m – that’s pretty good, right?  That means –

Ken Brand:    **** a killer.

Tim Harris:    – 15 – yeah, 15,000, you know, unique people have come to the blog and what I do is I’ll often take an article that I have found, like I’ve got three or four articles that I found prior to this call that I thought were really interesting and what I do is I’ll take that article and then I’ll drop it, cut and paste it into our blog and then I will definitely say where the information is from, I won’t use the exact – whole – 100 percent of the article, ‘cause that’s is copyright infringement most of the time and I’ll comment on what the article was about.  If you guys go to –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – TimandJulieHarris.com, you’ll see I do that all the time, so you literally can go to Ken’s blog today and let’s say Ken is talking about something that’s of interest to you, you can cut and paste it, everyone knows how to do that – if not, it’s pretty easy, just go to AgentTechSecrets.com and we show you those, probably one of the basic parts of the class, drop that into your blog, don’t use the whole thing.  Let’s say Ken is talking for four paragraphs, two of the paragraphs you thought were in – really interesting, drop, you know, drop those aspects of it, those paragraphs into your blog and then comment on his comments and –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – a lot of blogs that’s all they are, they’re just –

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    – essentially bloggers that are giving their little critiques or, or edits or whatever you want to call it –

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    – about other –

Ken Brand:    And there’s nothing –

Tim Harris:    – blogger’s stuff.

Ken Brand:    Yeah, there, there’s nothing new under the sun, right?  So, so I think when people get caught up in this mind set of I have to create this content, you know, where do I come up with these ideas.  What you really want to be is that I think that simplifies it is you just be an amplifier, all right –

Tim Harris:    That’s –

Ken Brand:    – you’re an amplifier.

Tim Harris:    – an awesome way of saying.

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    Yep.

Ken Brand:    That’s all, you take what you find interesting and unique and what’s going on around you, things and questions that people ask and just amplify it, you know, and the one way to do that is just the way Tim is describing.  Hey, I read this and that’s really cool, I’m gonna put some of this into my blog and then I’m gonna comment and here is my take on this, all right, and you’re just sharing.  You’re being an amplifier.

Tim Harris:    And, and don’t, you know, don’t have – I see a lot of vultures that are going down this path, they’re becoming a little bit too opinionated, they’re becoming a little bit too negative.  There is people that are, you know, realtors out there – you guys got to remember, you are there to serve others.  You’re there – if you want to start a, a, a, you know, a, essentially a blog that is going to evolve into something where your opinion becomes a national opinion and, you know, CNBC is interviewing you and you become the next – I don’t know – Paris, Paris.com or whatever it is, ParisHilton.com or whatever it is, that’s fine but for 99.9 percent of the other realtors out there, be real careful about what you’re saying because again, that stuff follows you forever.

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    Do you – if you are gonna – if you are thinking about putting something in negative about anything, you better be thinking and asking yourself, am I gonna feel the same way about this, you know, a month from now, two months from now, because that’s gonna be out there forever, that comment is gonna follow me forever.  Just, you guys got to –

Ken Brand:    Yeah.

Tim Harris:    – think like business people and understand that you’re not anonymous online, especially when it comes to your blog.  Evie from Santa Maria asked a question; can we connect some of your articles to our blog site?  Absolutely, I – students, nonstudents, you guys can do that, I have no problem.  I do insist that you put a, a link back to TimandJulieHarris.com, so saying you got the article from TimandJulieHarris.com.  I intentionally put articles up on the blog with the idea that students are going to grab our article post and then comment on them but do it the way I suggested where you put in your two cents, even if it’s just like three or four lines and then say, you know, this is what’s going on with the first time home buyer credit and duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, and I found this, you know, great article from TimandJulieHarris.com, and the reason that it’s important that you leave other links in there is ‘cause oftentimes, I’m getting my article from another source and I want to make sure that I’m giving credit to the original source of that article.  That – this is the way you –

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    – build a really good online reputation.  You don’t steal, you liberate, expand and give credit to.

Ken Brand:    Right.  Now, let me add this too about this link idea that you’re talking about.  You see on Facebook, if you’re not real familiar with it and you’re gonna get familiar with it, this is awesome, but on Facebook where you do, where you type in your little status update, just below that there is these little boxes, one says photo, one says link, one says video.  If you click on that little link button and paste the link to a blog article or a news article or anything that you have read online into the box, you can comment in Facebook like hey, I thought this was really interesting information on the $8,000.00 home tax credit.  All right, put that link in there and then you’re sharing that information with everybody in your Facebook community, all right, and so you’re not blogging in that case but what you’re doing is you’re amplifying and you’re sharing and you’re benefiting from the halo effect of what someone else has created or provided and, and like Tim was saying, they appreciate it, right, ‘cause every writer, right, including you as a blogger and a Facebook person is hoping that whatever they have created will get forwarded and shared with the masses, right, that’s, that’s, you know, that, that need we all have to feel like a, a sense of significance so that’s one way to – it’s really easy to add Facebook content without doing anything other than just pasting that link in there and making a little comment.

Tim Harris:    That’s right and it’s, if, if you guys are – if, if anything, hopefully you’ve taken away optimism and excitement, the fact that this marketplace is certainly nothing to fear.  This marketplace is certainly nothing to loathe, you know, stop sitting around and waiting for the market to quote-unquote return to normal.  We’ve been saying this now going on three years.  The simple fact is guys, is this is the new normal.  This marketplace where you’re dealing with, you know, in your marketplace where you’re dealing with foreclosures and short sales and you’re dealing with a lot of market uncertainty and you’re dealing with a lot of negativity, this is the new normal, this is the market.  You have to now make your decision.  Are you gonna stay in real estate long terms, 6 months, 12 months, that’s not long term.  Are you planning on staying in this business for 5 or 10 years?  If you are, get into action.  If you for some reason been hoping and praying that, you know, the market was gonna miraculously get better next year, it might but it probably won’t.  It probably won’t be dramatically different.  Embrace the things that Ken and I have been talking about on this call.  Understand that this marketplace is about agents that have the mind set to be of service and the skill set to serve, meaning you are putting the other person first.  You start every conversation, every engagement with the question, how can I be of service to this person and then you are confident that you can be of service ‘cause you’ve taken the time to learn the skills necessary.  So Ken, I’ll let you wrap up the call.

Ken Brand:    Okay.  Well that was a pretty good wrap up right there.  I, I, I would say this is that really for the right person and you are the right person because you’re listening, listening here trying to learn and grow.  The real estate business is the greatest business to be in and when I say, and I’ll, and I’ll leave it like this, which kind of ties onto what Tim was saying is that, you know, we say we’re in the real estate business and at the end of everything we do there is real estate transactions that take place but our business is really about everything else that happens before the closing, all right.  It’s about, it’s about sharing, solving problems, you know, providing people with the information that they need to get what they want and then if you do all of those things correctly, you at the end will be a sale and social media is definitely not a fad.  It’s here to stay and what you want to do, what you’re looking for, basically, is ways to create top line winners.  How are you gonna connect and engage and find out about what your people need and social media will help you do that and personal contact will help you do that, postcards, advertising, you know, you do it but it’s really not the future.  This other stuff is and the –

Tim Harris:    ****.

Ken Brand:    – and the last thing I’ll say is ‘cause I hear this all the time, the request for what is the magic bullet, I’m looking for the magic bullet and the magic bullet is you, you’re the magic bullet, all right, and you just have to embrace these tools and pull the trigger.

Tim Harris:    That’s right, take the actions guys, embrace, you know, it’s not difficult.  If you are having challenges or uncertainties about what to do next, what to do now, a – it was a week or so ago, Julie and I put a great 90 day business plan on the blog, TimandJulieHarris.com.  Now, this 90 day business plan can work in any 90 days, for any 90 days, the last quarter or the first quarter of the year, it doesn’t really matter and it breaks it down very simplistically as far as what you should be doing and the order in which you should be doing it.  I have a feeling, Ken, that thousands of realtors and you know you and I have been talking about the fact that things online kind of have a life of their own and live forever.

Ken Brand:    Mm hmm.

Tim Harris:    I sincerely hope that this interview, the time that you have been so generous to spend with us today, I hope that this radiates with realtors for now and for, for, you know, far into the future so they can understand that this market is nothing to fear, that this market – once you’ve, again, have the mind set of service and the skill sets to serve that this really is an incredible market and incredible opportunity to be a profound help to folks in your community, your friends, your family, folks out there that are experiencing more hardship than they ever though they would in their lives, you have the opportunity to be one of the most significant people in their lives because you have helped them solve a problem that they maybe thought was unsolvable.

Ken Brand:    It makes sense.

Tim Harris:    You have the opportunity now to be of service at a higher level than you ever would have dreamed and you know what, that is exciting and oh, by the way, you can earn a whole bunch of money as a result of that.

Ken Brand:    Right.

Tim Harris:    So Ken, on behalf of Julie and myself and all of the faculty and staff or Harris Real Estate University, thank you very much for being our super star today.  You were – you rocked, as I knew you would –

Ken Brand:    I appreciate –

Tim Harris:    – so thank you.

Ken Brand:    – the invitation and I enjoyed myself and I appreciate what you’re doing too and all of you realtors out there, bless you.  Go do, go do good work.

Tim Harris:    That’s absolutely right, so on behalf of Julie and myself and all the faculty and staff of Harris Real Estate University, thank you for attending today and if you want to listen to past Super Star Interviews, go to SuperStarInterview.com and of course, you can go to TimandJulieHarris.com to read our blog, that’s the blog that’s attached to Harris Real Estate University.  To connect with Ken, go to Facebook.com/KenBrand and if that gets filled up, he’ll tell you about his other page as well or you can go to Twitter.com/TimandJulie or Twitter.com/KenBrand, so on behalf of Julie and myself and all of the faculty and staff of Harris Real Estate University, thank you for joining us for today’s Super Star Interview.

Tagged as: Tim Harris Interview