Friday, March 21, 2008

Do You Inspire?

I love reading books. One of the many I'm currently reading is Fire Them Up! 7 Simple Secrets to: Inspire Colleagues, Customers, and Clients * Sell Yourself, Your Vision, and Your Values * Communicate with Charisma and Confidence by Carmine Gallo.

I found the first couple of sentences in the introduction to be quite powerful as well as inspirational. They are as follows:

You have the power to inspire anyone, anywhere, anytime. You may not have a leadership
title, but you exert influence over someone every day. Whether you are a Fortune 500
chief executive or the head of a household, you are in the motivational business.
Regardless of your role, you play the part of chief inspiration officer for someone at
work, at home, or in your community.

I hope this inspires you take to that extra minute to answer a question for a new colleague,
tell your family members to have a great day before they leave for the day.

What are some the ways you inspire the people around you?

All the best,
Julie


Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Have you followed up?

Are you one of those that fail to follow up with your prospects and clients because you either don’t have the time or you feel like your “bugging” the person?

Do you know how much business you’re losing out on?

I am speaking from experience when I say I hated to follow up with my prospects and new contacts. Now I know as a small business owner that if I want to grow my business then this had to change.

So I took a marketing / networking class and read many books on the subject. From my research here is what I found out:

· It usually takes a minimum of 7 contacts with a prospect to turn that prospect into a customer.

When I am following up with my target market I just tell myself that they have to market themselves and their business as well. It just doesn’t fall into their lap either. So this is how I get over the limiting belief that “I’m bugging” the person.

I then came up with a 7-Step Marketing Plan to use in marketing Let’s Coordinate, LLC:

1. Send a follow-up email within 24-48 hours.

2. Send a handwritten Thank You note to the people you think you made a good connection with.

3. Send them a free report

4. Send a postcard to present your business with a call to action.

5. Send a card for the holidays, etc.

6. Send them your newsletter

7. Make a phone call

Here are a couple of books that I recommend to help in your follow-up process:

· Get Clients Now

by C.J. Hayden

· Power of Networking Secrets

by Biba F. Pedron

All the best,

Julie

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Keeping Current

Part of being a professional real estate assistant and small business owner is keeping current

on software training. This allows me to offer more services to my clients. In 2007 I completed the following software training:

Visual Tours – Virtual Tours Settlement Room - Listing and Transaction Management

Rainmaker – Lead Management / Marketing

Point 2 NLS - Marketing and Advertising Platform

Lead to Close – Lead Capture System

Top Producer - Real Estate Sales and Marketing Software

Power Point 2007 - Full-featured presentations

Single Property Sites - Websites, listing web sites and virtual flyers

For January 2008 I have the following training scheduled:

Aweber – Email Marketing Software, Auto Responders, Newsletters (Completed)

SharePoint - Web-based collaboration and document management platform from Microsoft (Completed)

House Values - Homes market value online

IMPREV - Marketing solutions for the real estate industry

File Works - Online file storage

I am always looking for pointers on what to add to my training schedule. If there is a program that you utilize in your business that I should know about please send me an email with the information to julie@letscoordinate.com.

All the best,

Julie Barnes

Let’s Coordinate, LLC