I invented the word “Transmedia Anthropologist”.

What, you don’t believe me.  See for yourself.  Google Search For “Transmedia Anthropologist“.

I imagined the word when I was trying to come up with a description of how sales people modern experience providers must approach our morphing consumer society.  And I was trying to add some zing to the author bio for my book.

What is a Transmedia Anthropologist.

It’s best if I start by letting Wikipedia and a Dictionary explain the quasi basic meaning of the two words:

“Transmedia storytelling, also known as multi-platform storytelling, cross-platform storytelling, or transmedia narrative, is the technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies. ” – Wikipedia

Definition of ANTHROPOLOGY

1. The scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans.  - The Free Dictionary

Why do we need to be Transmedia Anthropologists?

How do we become a Transmedia anthropologist?

This is what I’m sharing with the icons at Champions School of Real Estate, Breakfast of Champions Event. Most of the ideas in this preso are from my book Less Blah Blah Mor Ah Ha. Thanks.

Here’s what I shared with my Wiz Academy Reunion pals.  Cheers.

If you’re interested in the book Less Blah Blah More Ah Ha, it’s available on Amazon.com in both eBook/Kindle and print format.  CLICK HERE to go directly to the Amazon.com book page.

If I can be helpful, let me know – Ken Brand 832-797-1779

Thanks

This is the video version of my KeyNote Slide Deck for my 20 minute presentation at the Houston Association of Realtors BigE Event on October 13th.  If you’re a real estate agent in Houston and you want to know more or register, you can do it by clicking HERE.  Of course this is missing the commentary and explanation, but if you show up, I’ll share it.

The ideas in this share were drawn from a few chapters in my book, Less Blah Blah More Ah Ha – How social savvy real estate agents become trusted, preferred, referred and rewarded.  You can find the book on Amazon.com in both eBook/Kindle and printed format.  If you click HERE you’ll be whisked directly to the book web site.

Cheers.

Thought I’d share a preview of my presentation for the Houston Association of Realtors BigE Event on October 13th.  I’ll be sharing this thing twice, each session is twenty minutes short.  I’m gonna have to talk fast like the wind.  Hopefully not like a big giant bag of hot wind.  The material is a small sample of examples I included in the book I wrote, Less Blah Blah More Ah Ha – How social savvy real estate agents become trusted, preferred, referred and rewarded.  It’s on Amazon in both printed book and Kindle/eBook format.  You can check it out HERE if you’re up for it.  Cheers.

Fire-In-The-Hole?

It started with Chris Smith’s incendiary controversial exciting blog post titled “It Is No Longer A Relationship Business – Here’s Why”.  Basically he shares that citizens in general, don’t really want a relationship with their real estate agent.  What they want, is their real estate transaction handled masterfully, and that’s it.  Fair enough.

Of course this notion goes against every stone tablet ever chiseled and every character ever written on How To Succeed In Real Estate.  Hell, I’ve even written a book on trust and social savvy relationships myself.

Unless you’re hopelessly apathetic (which of course you’re not, because you’re reading this), Chris’s story will get your attention.  (There’s almost 150 comments.”

In this blog post (keep reading) I share two other important voices in the conversation, Rob Hahn’s and Bill Lublin’s.  You can click here to read Chris’s story now, or scan the rest of this post and click-through for the juicy stuff from all three at the end. It’s up to you.

For the record, if I was in a foxhole and Chris was in with me, I’d feel sorry for the other guys.  If you told me you respected Chris more than I do, I’d chuckle. Chris is a supreme giver.  That’s how I feel about Chris.

What could be more important?

The “Relationships or Robotics” topic and conversation is awesome!  The reason I think it’s awesome is because we don’t often take the time to sit and think-real-hard.

Thinking-real-hard about what’s important to you, your value to others and the roll you will play in the real estate business of the future is something that could have a profound impact on you.  Do you agree?

And then . . .

Shortly after reading Chris’s post, one of the branniest in the RE Biz added to the conversation with a blog post titled, ”If Real Estate Is Not In The Relationship Business, What Business Is It In?”.  In it he lays out some thoughts and then among several questions, he asks this, “If “real estate used to be about relationships” because it was, at its heart, a service-business rather than a skill-business… what is it today?”.  

That’s a question we should all ask ourselves.  Rob asks some others worth answering as well.  You can click here to read Rob’s post, or skim forward, then read all of them at the end where I’ve numbered them 1, 2, 3.

For the record, If I was on the Who Wants To Be Millionaire TV show, and if I made it to the final question (I know, BIG IF, but play along), and they blew me away with a final twist, something like, to win the $1,000,000 instead of answering a question I had to solve a complicated, multidimensional problem, and I could call only one friend to help me, and the that one guy had to be a cool guy in the bargain, inside I’d be boiling with excitement, outside I’d be as cool as Steve McQueen. Wanna know why? Because if I had a quicksand problem to solve, I’d call Rob Hahn.  He’d figure it out, we’d be $1,000,000 richer, and it’d be party time.  You don’t ever want to miss one of Rob’s parties.  That’s how I feel about Rob.

But wait, there’s more. . .

The Commissioner of Real Estate (That’s how I see Bill Lublin.  In my eyes he’s the unofficial Commissioner of Real Estate, like Roger Goodel is the Commissioner of the NFL.) pours his feeling, beliefs, truths and realities all across the inter-webs in his post titled “Being Without Relationships is Being Without Business.”

Bill articulates the counter point in this Ménage à trois of blog posts on “Relationships or Robotics”.

You can click here to read Bill’s truths, or read the short rest of this blog post, and end where I share links to all three posts in order.

For the record, you already know how I feel about Bill.  He’s the Commish, man.

Now what…

At this point, if you haven’t already, I’d read everything in 1, 2, 3 order.  I’ve included the links below.  The comments are equally thought-provoking. But before you run off clicking and reading, read down to the 1, 2, 3.

After reading all three posts and their equally interesting comments, I sat quietly and thought-real-hard about what I believed and how I felt about it all. I invite you to join me, Chris, Rob, Bill and all the people who shared their comments on the subject.

Whether you believe in Robotics or Relationships isn’t the point.  To clearly understand what you believe in and why you believe it, that’s what’s most important and invaluable.

What do I think, “Relationships or Robotics?”

If you know me at all, you know what I think and how I feel.  I’m hands down a Relationship guy.  I’ve got no problem with the Robotics tribe borg, contrast is a good thing.  Especially if you’re on the right side of reality.

The 1, 2, 3 List

 1.  It Is No Longer A Relationship Business – Here’s Why

2.  If Real Estate Is Not In The Relationship Business, What Business Is It In?

3.  Being Without Relationships is Being Without Business

Cheers and thanks for reading.

Chapter Eight from the book Less Blah Blah More Ah Ha – How social savvy real estate agents become trusted, preferred, referred — and rewarded.  By Ken Brand

On-Purpose and In-Person Contact and Conversations

“You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.”  ~M. Kathleen Casey

If you somehow manage to get six hours of sleep, you’re left with eighteen mostly awake hours to do all the bajillion things you need to do in the day.  Eighteen hours sounds like a lot, but it’s not.  It’s only 1,080 minutes.  With your 1,080 minutes you have to take care of yourself, take care of others, make money, run errands, pay bills, love, laugh, cry, play, and plan.  Because your time and energy is finite, it’s important that your real estate efforts are keenly focused and highly leveraged.  You don’t have any time to spare, right?

 Your Most Important Activity Isn’t Hoping

Unfortunately, the real estate business is a hotbed of hope, and our industry is overloaded with agents who hope that they can advertise, direct mail, and e-mail their way to success. They mistake monologue broadcasting with in-person contact and bombard friends, strangers, and neighbors with postcards and e-cards, hoping for a call back.  They shoot out Just Listed and Sold announcements with no personal contact, dreaming of lucky lighting strikes.  They spend hours creating the perfect and magically-hypnotic, twelve-page “Why You Should List with Me” expired listing and FSBO seller proposal — then they drop them in the mail and wait for a stranger who doesn’t know them to call another stranger (the agent), ask for their help, and throw money at them.

If their direct and e-mail blasting campaign isn’t working (and it never does), they double down on hopeless and plunk down maxed-out credit cards to buy worthless magazine and newspaper ads, chasing new strangers…and hoping harder than ever.

Earlier we talked about how buyers and sellers choose their real estate agents – rarely is a stranger chosen.  Throughout the book we talk about strategies, tactics, and specifics on knowing what others don’t and doing what others won’t.  All of these are ideas are pointless without On-Purpose and In-Person Contact and Conversations.  Bottom line, without them you can’t be successful.

Let’s take a look a look at what happens when On-Purpose and In-Person Contact and Conversations happen.

In-Person Contact Leads to Conversations and Connection

In-person contact is the only certain path to success.  When contact does not include a conversation, it’s not In-Person Contact, it’s a monologue advertising broadcast.  To be clear — direct mail and e-mail blasts, print and electronic advertising, status updates, blog posts, and other forms of online and offline promotions that don’t include a conversation do not fall into the In-Person Contact category, they fall into the broadcast contact category.  (As an aside, there is an important place for strategic and targeted broadcast contact, but it’s a supplement to success, not primary to it.)

There are three positive and profitable forms of In-Person Contact; I’ve listed them below in the order of their effectiveness.

1.  Face-to-Face – Real Time and Online via Skype, Apple Face Time, Google Chat, etc.

Face-to-Face is best because we can use all our senses to engage, connect, and communicate.  Body language, facial gestures, and tone of voice all add weight and depth to the conversation, and meaning to our mutual understanding and connection.

2.  Voice-to-Voice – Cell/Telephone

This is second best because we’re missing all the visual cues, but we can respond to tone of voice, ask follow-up questions to improve our understanding and add context and detail to clarify and colorize our conversation.

3.  Text-to-Text (virtual) – Social media conversations. Text messaging, online chat, e-mail and other forms of typed conversations.  

We’ve all experienced the conversation-flattening effect of Text-to-Text conversations.  When we read another person’s dialogue we miss out on important body language, facial gestures, and tone of voice cues.  Because we can sometimes misinterpret or misunderstand what’s been written, Text-to-Text is at the bottom of this all-important list.  But let’s not discount the growing importance of this form of In-Person Contact by mis-considering it a teenager’s toy.   Not only are half a billion people who engaging in Text-to-Text conversations on Facebook and other online social media networks, were sending send over 4.1 billion text messages every day.  (Let’s not ignore, but embrace Text-to-Text, my friends.)

Any way you Ronco Slice & Dice it, the key to success in the real estate business hinges on correct forms of contact.  When In-Person Contact is made, conversation takes place, and like bees buzz, possibilities bloom.  Especially if one of them (you) is listening with elephant-eared interest to what the other person has to say.  This is critical because the more sincerely we listen, the better we understand where a person is coming from. The more we understand each other, the more we appreciate each other. When we appreciate each other our connection deepens, and our relationships naturally colorize and click as we uncover multiple levels of mutual interest.

Conversation and Connection Lead to Trust and Discovery

As our connection and mutual understanding grow, so does our trust.  Trust leads to sharing our dreams and desires, unmet needs and challenges, likes and dislikes with each other.  The more others share with us, the more we discover how we can best help, support, share with, or serve them.

Trust and Discovery Lead to Sharing, Solving, and Serving

This part is where the rubber meets the road, and is super important. Well, it all is, but this part especially so.

When I speak about sharing, solving, and serving, I’m not suggesting you focus exclusively on real estate-related sharing, solving, and service opportunities.  In fact, an exclusive focus on real estate things makes us one-dimensional and annoying.  The goal is to become the Go-to Girl/Giu for all things related to community, family, home, entertainment, lifestyle . . . and real estate stuff.

For example, some of my appreciated sharing has taken place on Facebook and has nothing to do with selling or listing houses.  The best conversation starters happen when I talk about everyday life things, when I share personal photos and miscellaneous web links to community information for events, festivals, concerts, and positive local news.

By engaging in one-on-one conversations (on and offline), listening intently and being curiously engaged, you will discover what to share, and how you can help and best serve others.

Aside from the personal examples I shared above, yours might include: recommendations for youth sports leagues for their kids; a housekeeping service; a great (maybe new) local restaurant; the perfect hotel in the city they will be vacationing in next month; the dry cleaner who doesn’t break buttons; the lawn maintenance crew that actually shows up when they say they will; the newly released movie you LOVED and thought they would too; an interesting blog post on something they care about. The main point is, share relevant stuff, not just real estate stuff. Your ratio of civilian stuff to real estate stuff should be about 80/20.

When sharing things non-real-estate-related, you never have to mention real estate — simply deliver the information wrapped in your real estate agent wrapper.  What do I mean by that? When you e-mail an article, link, or other suggestion, your real estate agent e-mail signature is your wrapper.  If you snail mail something, add a couple of business cards; your business stationery and the logo printed on the envelope also double as your real estate agent wrapper.  When out and about, during business hours, wear your name badge to remind the people you’re talking to what business you’re in.

Always follow-up your e-mailed or snail-mailed information with a phone call. Simply call them up, say hello, and ask if they received the information you’ve sent.

Sharing, Solving, and Serving Leads to Being Chosen and Recommended

The beautiful thing about sharing, solving problems, and serving others is that you will find that their appreciation for you, their attraction to you, and their trust and confidence in you grow naturally. Done sincerely, you will tattoo your Technicolor Top of Mind Awareness into their subconscious. When they, or their friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, or relatives need information — especially real estate information, solutions, or services — you will be the first person they think of and contact.

Now That We Understand the Importance of In-Person and On-Purpose Contact and Conversations, What Next?

 The questions you should ask yourself are:

How many In-Person and On-Purpose conversations do I typically have each day?

• Do I listen with elephant-eared attention?
• Am I asking the right questions?
• Am I discovering what others need, desire, enjoy, believe, value, and care about?
• Do my conversations make others feel significant?
• Do I share, solve problems, and serve?

If you’re not having rich, On-Purpose and In-Person conversations (with civilians, not colleagues) every day, you’re strangling your success. If your daily conversations are tainted with aimless yammering, if it’s about me-me-me, and blah-blah-yada, you’re killing your success and repelling opportunity.

Relationships, financial success, and fun begin and end with personal contact and rich conversations.  When you get to Stage III of this book you’ll discover dozens of way to create respectful, relevant, and appreciated contact and conversation. Pick a few and get started today; you’ll reap the rewards in short order.

Bonus Material

In addition to all the benefits we’ve just covered, here’s another huge bonus. In-Person Conversations position you in the direct-opportunity path of least resistance and convenience. Making these kinds of contacts provides an opportunity for someone to easily and immediately share a referral. You see, people have only 1,080 minutes to get their things done. They’re way too busy to stop what they’re doing, dial your number, and share a referral. But if you contact them, they will happily share an opportunity with you.

Your New Beginning

It’s simple. Have more conversations every day. Does this make sense?

Will you have more conversations?

How many In-Person, On-Purpose conversations will you have today?

When will you start?

Let me know how it goes.  Rock on!

 And Now…

This is the end of Stage I, the part of the book in which we covered the philosophy behind the approach that has helped me and thousands of others’ careers go from sour to sweet. So now you’re ready to apply The Golden Rule 2.0, establish all-important Top of Mind Awareness, identify and connect with compatible tribes by using that psychographic stuff I shared with you, and make In-Person, On-Purpose Contact and Conversations.

No? You’re not feeling all the King Kong confident yet? Whaddya mean, you have a few extra issues to clear up first? Well, okay…let’s deal with them next. Because to be perfectly honest with you, the biggest black-flag barrier to our success is not the economy, lack of experience, your broker…or anything else external. It’s those 101 little ways in which we tend to self-sabotage ourselves and our personal success.

Starting with that really big one—FEAR.

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Thanks for reading.  If I can be helpful, let me know:  Ken Brand 832-797-1779.  If you’d like own the book, it’s available on Amazon.com – just click HERE to get started.

From the book Less Blah Blah More Ah Ha: Chapter One - The Two True Secrets To Success

What it takes to succeed in real estate?

 My answer is what I call The True Two Secrets to Success. They are:

 Knowing What Others Don’t

and

Doing What Others Won’t

 That’s it.  It’s that simple. Or rather, it’s simple to understand. To create success takes a diligent effort. To succeed, both knowing what others don’t and doing what the average and ordinary won’t are absolute requirements.  To help internalize these two secrets, let’s look at them individually.

Knowing What Others Don’t

The more you know, the more attractive and valuable you are to other people (buyers and sellers).  Ask yourself:  “What do I know that others don’t?  What do the achievers I admire know that I don’t: about marketing, social media, building trust, problem solving, market knowledge, technical knowledge, communication, listening and presentations?”

You and I both know that the permanently successful are always learning, reinventing themselves, and continuously upgrading what they do and how they do it.  It bums me out that legions of hopeful achievers don’t understand the definition of insanity: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”  One simple key to victory and satisfaction is knowing that if you want a bigger and better result, you have to change, enhance, upgrade, or otherwise reinvent yourself. Then you have to take the new you and propel yourself into boom-goes-the-dynamite action.

Seriously, it’s illogical and frankly impossible to go from status quo to sweet new success by doing the same tired old things over and over and over again. If we want to create continual, sustained success, we have to know more about what works now than our competitors.  With this book, you’re off and running.  Keep going. . . learn, learn, learn

Doing What Others Won’t

 It’s pretty straightforward. Without action, our good intentions are nothing more than cool-sounding ideas.  To turn bright ideas and good intentions into new and tangible success, we gotta stop making getting-ready-to-get-ready excuses, lift our butts off the couch and focus on DOING smart things.  Bottom line: to succeed you have got to take dramatic, boom-goes-the-dynamite action in this area as well.  Especially when it scares you.

What Holds You Back

Ok, about now you might be thinking, it’s easy to talk about doing things others won’t do, but it’s very, very hard to actually do what scares you.  I get that, because even after thirty-two years in the business, I’m just like everyone else.  I still experience icy waves of fear and self-doubt.  And on occasion, I struggle to avoid getting sucked and suckered into feel-good, but unproductive and unprofitable, creative avoidance activities.  What I’ve learned is that fear feelings are normal in the real estate business. The difference between the perpetually successful and the perpetually struggling is their ability to take action even when their hearts and imaginations are pounding with fear. I’ve learned that while doing unfamiliar things may cause us to stumble and temporarily fail, ultimately we learn and grow.  In this book you’ll learn how to overcome self-imposed barriers and position yourself to be the most choosable agent among your peers.

Now, before we move to Chapter Two, let me ask you a question. What business do you think we are in? What’s that? The real estate business, you say?

WRONG! We are absolutely NOT in the real estate business.

For the true answer, check back next week when I share Chapter Two – Surprise!  We’re Not In The Real Estate Business.  Or you can take the fast track to becoming trusted, preferred, referred and rewarded by buying the book on Amazon.com.

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Thanks for reading.  If I can be helpful, hit me up – Ken Brand 832-797-1779

Writing, editing, rewriting, editing and writing on weekends and evenings for three years is what I’ve been doing.  It’s been an amazing journey so far.  Still  a ways to go, but the book part is done.

I was confident I’d get it done, but there were lots of peaks and valleys.  And wondering if I would really pull it off.  I wasn’t motivated to write this book by aspirations of being a Best Selling Author, rich or famous.  Mostly I was motivated by a desire to share what I’ve learned over the years and the feeling of personal significane that comes from sharing.  I’m proud of what I’m sharing, I know it works and I know it will help.  If you’d like to own a copy and get started upward, CLICK HERE and use this code J3QVJW2D at check out to save some money.

Over then next several weeks I’ll be sharing some of the chapters in this weekly eShare.

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3:17pm.  That’s when the UPS guy rolled into the cement topped lot.   He bound out of his dark brown truck, a cardboard box tucked under his right arm – book sized.  I leaned backwards grinning.  I could hear her say thank you. Then footsteps down the hall.  She walked in holding it out.  This is for you Ken.  Thanks.   I placed it on my desktop.  I smiled over it.

My printed proof copy had arrived – beyond my expectation.  I approved it for publishing and it’s available now.  If you CLICK HERE you can read more about it and find out if it’s for you or not.  If you like what your eyes see, place your order and a few days I’ll be share the best of what I’ve learned in my 32 year career: How social savvy real estate agents become trusted, preferred, referred — and rewarded.  It’ll be out in Kindle version in about 2 weeks – the Kindle version works on the iPad too.  In the mean time, if you like the feel of a book in your hands . . . place your order.

The retail price is $19.56.  Use this code J3QVJW2D and you can save some money.

Thanks and let me know if I can be helpful.  Ken Brand 832-797-1779

I was invited to share a couple of things.

I was invited to share a couple of Pro Quality tools with the Inman Agent Reboot crew in Dallas TX.  My share was part of the 3 man panel, I was joined by Gary Wise and Jack Miller of the Good Life Team in Austin, Texas.  Gary and Jack are super cool, whip smart and generous guys.  If you’re in the real estate business, I recommend you follow them.  You’ll learn plenty.

Inman Agent Reboot Dallas - Me and Gary Wise and Jack Miller of The GoodLIfe Team

Here’s a Slideshare of what I talked about.  Basically, if you use a Gmail account, you want to start using Rapportive today.  If you’re not rock’n DropBox, or something similar, run – don’t walk.  Cheers.

If I can be helpful, let me know. Ken Brand 832-797-1779